NYPD Red(69)

Kylie came back carrying a twenty-pound dumbbell. “Best I can do,” she said. “Hold the door open.”

I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than Kylie, but I wasn’t about to debate which one of us should be wielding the dumbbell. We had only thirty-seven seconds, and I figured whatever she lacked in brute strength, she would make up for with pure adrenaline.

I set the toaster oven on the floor, pulled down the chute door as far as the hinge would go, then grabbed the handle to hold the door in place.

“I’m hoping you’re as accurate with a dumbbell as you are with a Glock,” I said. “Try not to hit me. We’ve got thirty seconds. When we get down to ten, we should run like hell for your apartment.”

So we can die in there with Spence, because as sure as shit, when this blows, the blast radius is going to go a lot farther than your living room.

Kylie brought the dumbbell down hard. The force reverberated up my arm, but the door didn’t budge.

“Twenty-five seconds,” I said.

She swung it again.

The door hung on tight.

“Hit it again,” I said. “Third time’s the charm.”

I was right. The door gave. Not a lot, but it gave.

“It’s loose,” I yelled. “Again.”

She lowered the boom, and this time chunks of cinder block fell to the floor.

“One more time. Eighteen seconds.”

Kylie raised the dumbbell high and brought it down with a loud grunt worthy of Serena Williams.

The steel door hit the floor with a clatter.

I picked up the toaster oven as Kylie lashed out at the cinder block wall again and again.

It crumbled, leaving a gaping hole where the door had been. I could see the garbage chute. It was round. And wide.

“Out of the way!” I yelled.

I took one last look at the clock and dropped Kylie and Spence’s ultrachic, stainless-steel, countertop toaster-bomb into the abyss.

The window of time for us to get out of the incinerator room had passed.

“Seven seconds!” I yelled. “Hit the dirt.”

She dropped to the floor.

“Six.”

The irony of it all hit me in an instant. If Kylie and I had been able to run back to her apartment, we probably would have had a chance. But here in the incinerator room, we were directly above ground zero.

“Five.”

The bomb would explode in the basement, a fireball would travel up the chute like a cannon shot, and we would both be engulfed in flames. But maybe it didn’t have to be both of us.

“Four.”

We all die sooner or later. I always figured I had till much later, but if it had to be today, there was no place else I’d rather be, and no one else I’d rather be with.

I threw myself on top of her and covered her body with mine.

“Three. Two. One.”





Chapter 80



“KABOOM!” GABRIEL SCREAMED at the top of his lungs.

The semi-comatose man on the engine room floor snapped alert.

“Did you hear that, Charlie?” Gabriel said. “That was the kaboom of justice.”

Connor gave him a quizzical look.

“As of three seconds ago, the bitch cop who killed my girlfriend, and her asshole husband, who stole my identity, just got blown to hell. I wish I could have watched them go up in smoke, but I have bigger fish to fry. Namely your cronies on the top deck.”

Connor tried to talk through the duct tape, but all that came out was a shrill whine.

“You want a speaking part?” Gabriel said. “Okay, but you raise your voice, and I will stick this stun baton down your pants and fry your junk like a Jimmy Dean sausage. Understood?”

The man nodded, and Gabriel yanked the duct tape from his mouth.

Connor gulped air. “Thank you,” he wheezed.

“Don’t thank me, Charlie. I’m going to kill you in about half an hour.”

“Why me?”

“Don’t take it personally. I’m blowing up an entire boat. You just happen to be on it.”

“I don’t have to be on it,” Connor said. “Cut the tape and let me jump ship. I’ll take my chances in the river. Come on, man, give a brother a break.”

“Bad news, brother. This is just makeup. Underneath, I’m as white as Vanilla Ice.”

“Even so, you said we had a lot in common. You’re right. Those guys upstairs are not my cronies. I’m just a working stiff busting his balls for the man. Don’t let me die down here, too.”

“No can do, but kudos on presenting a noble argument. And thank you for not trotting out the old ‘I got a wife and six kids’ routine. It’s so overdone.”

“I don’t have kids, and my ex won’t even notice I’m gone,” Connor said. “The only ones who are going to miss me are the Alley Cats.”