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Faith frowned and called, “Sir! FBI. I need to talk to you.”
The man looked up and met Faith’s eyes for a brief moment. Then he sprinted away.
Turk looked at Faith, and Faith nodded. “Get him, boy! Stop him!”
Turk chased the man, passing a surprised-looking janitor pushing a cart of cleaning supplies. Faith followed him, recalling the last time Turk reacted to a random stranger. That stranger turned out to be a serial killer who nearly killed another victim because Faith prevented Turk from stopping him when he recognized his scent in a public park.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Faith knew a thing or two about strength under duress. She had experienced it many times herself in the Marine Corps and the FBI. So, it wasn’t particularly surprising that the man Turk chased somehow gained almost superhuman speed and agility despite being a solid twenty pounds overweight and at least ten years older than Faith herself.
But God, it was annoying. Three times Turk closed enough to leap at the man and three times, the man pivoted like a dancer, avoiding Turk’s snapping jaws and gaining distance from his pursuers.
“Stop!” Faith cried, drawing her weapon. “FBI!”
She didn’t chamber a round yet. She couldn’t fire the weapon in a crowded train terminal like this. Even if she were a crack shot, the risk of hitting an innocent person was too high.
She could only hope that the suspect didn’t know that.
Either he did know that, or he didn’t, but he was willing to risk his life because he looked back at Faith and saw the gun but didn’t so much as slow down. He leapt over a short retaining wall into a narrow maintenance corridor that ran alongside the tracks.
Her bluff called, Faith holstered her weapon and sprinted after the guy. Turk leapt easily down the corridor, and Faith followed. Above her, she heard Michael call, “I’m going to head to the next platform and try to cut him off! Watch out for trains!”
“Gee, thanks for the advice,” Faith muttered.
Turk leapt once more at the guy, and this time, he managed to sink his teeth into the man’s arm. “Yes!” Faith cried. “Bring him down, boy!”
The man screamed in pain and terror and, with yet another display of superhuman strength, flung Turk off of him.
Instead of continuing to run, he stopped, and after glancing at Faith to make sure she was too far away to reach him, he planted a solid kick into Turk’s ribs. Turk yelped and tumbled onto the tracks.
“No!” Faith cried. “Turk, be careful!”
The subway was powered by a high-voltage central rail in between the two track rails. If Turk touched that rail, he would be instantly shocked to death.
Faith grabbed the handrail of the maintenance corridor and prepared to vault over the side to rescue her dog, but Turk’s intuition once more proved flawless. He leapt over the central rail and then bounded up onto the maintenance walkway and charged after the man.
“Good boy!” Faith called. “Get that bastard!”
She was angry now. It was one thing to run from Turk, but to try to kill him? That was a mistake Faith would make sure he paid for.
The suspect had done an incredible job so far of outrunning his pursuers, but his luck was running out. Underneath the tunnel with nothing but the deadly electricity of the tracks to his left, there was nowhere for him to go but straight ahead, and his initial burst of adrenaline faded fast, leaving him huffing and slowing rapidly. Still, he managed to fend off another leap from Turk, kicking backwards and catching the dog midleap. The blow only glanced Turk and didn’t do any damage, but it was enough to throw him off balance, so he landed heavily on the ground and tumbled end over end.
Faith drew her weapon, once more not intending to use it but hoping that in this confined space and in his state of exhaustion, he would decide that surrender was more prudent than fighting.
“Stop!” she cried. “FBI!”
The suspect didn’t stop, but Faith holstered her weapon anyway. He had finally run out of gas. He reached the open air of the next platform and tried weakly to climb the rail to the passenger waiting area but couldn’t lift himself up. Turk leapt onto him, grabbing his arm and wrestling him to the ground.
“Help!” he cried out, his voice breathy and almost squeaky. “Help me! Please!”
Faith jogged toward them, and when she saw Michael skid to a stop in front of them and train his handgun on the suspect, she called Turk off of him.
“Help!” the man called again. Faith could detect a faint trace of accent, though it was hard to tell how much of that was terror and how much was an actual difference in language.
“Stay still!” Faith said, pulling her cuffs from her pocket.
