Heat Rises (16 page)

There was movement at the
SUV
when she looked back. A glint—probably reflection off a scope—shimmered briefly in the open window of the driver’s door. Heat made an isosceles brace, pressed the butt of her gun on the ground, and squeezed. The sound was deafening as her shot reverberated under the chassis. Nikki didn’t wait to see if she hit him. She was still smelling cordite as she duckwalked away, keeping the Crown Vic between herself and the
SUV
.

After twenty yards, the road curved and she was able to jog upright. The same high wall that trapped her down in canyon of the Transverse was serving as cover. Behind her she could hear the growl of the
SUV
engine and then a brief squeak of brakes. Her abandoned car was diagonally across the lane and would have to be moved unless the shooter wanted to chance coming on foot.

Nikki stepped up her pace, wishing to hell she had located her cell phone. She arrived at a point where the curve that had concealed her began to straighten out. She slowed to a walk and then stopped before rounding the bend and risking exposure. Lying down in the slush and pressing herself against the icy rocks of the wall, she crawled forward until she had a view of the straightaway.

What Heat saw chilled her more than the ice she was lying in. A hundred yards out, three men in ski masks and hooded rain gear were slowly walking a line across the road toward her. They all held rifles.

For Nikki Heat everything became about calculations. Panic had no place except to get her killed. As odds go, they sucked, but keeping her head would make the most of them. The TOs at every combat survival course she had ever taken had all drilled the same message. Put fear in your back pocket and train yourself to rely on your training. Assess, calculate, seek opportunity, act.

Her rapid assessment was simple: She was in the worst possible tactical position, trapped on a walled subterranean road midpoint between one shooter in a vehicle coming up behind her and three riflemen advancing on foot ahead of her. Heat’s next appraisal was bleaker. There was an experienced air about the three men she was watching come toward her. They walked at an unhurried pace, with a military demeanor, weapons at the ready—alert but not tense. These were professionals who would not be fooled or spooked.

As they advanced three abreast, spanning the width of the road, she calculated her chances of putting a shot in each, left to right, from a distance of a hundred yards.
Pop
,
pop
, and
pop
. But while Heat weighed the riskiness of pulling off three successive kill shots with a handgun, they adjusted, as if reading her mind, to form a single file close to the wall and that opportunity evaporated. Nikki crawled backward before they could see her.

Around the curve behind her, she heard a revving engine and metal on metal as the
SUV
pushed her abandoned car out of the way. The sound was terrorizing in its implications. So she fought her fear and assessed. It meant that the shooter would come in the
SUV
, not on foot. What else? That he was probably alone. If he wasn’t, his partner would have just driven her car out of the way for him.

Calculations: At pace, the three on foot would be there in twenty seconds. Sooner for the
SUV
.

Nikki looked upward, her eyes stinging from the sleet fall. The wall was about ten feet high, about the same as an average home ceiling. Leafless branches from park shrubs drooped down about two feet. She holstered her Sig, pulled her gloves out of her coat pockets, and started to climb.

The spaces between the rocks were barely wide enough for her to get a toehold, but she managed to find enough bite to boost herself up on her right foot and finger claw the rock above her head with her left hand. She reached up with her right for a jutting edge above, and in the transfer of weight, her shoe lost its grip on the icy rock and she landed on all fours on the frozen, soupy roadway.

Ten seconds lost.

Ten seconds until the three shooters rounded the bend and saw her.

The engine of the
SUV
stopped revving and purred. It was coming her way. Nikki was caught in a classic pincer movement.

Even if she were able to climb the ice-glazed rocks, there was no way to do it in ten seconds. With no opportunity to act upon, she made her own. In a split second of computing odds and physics, Detective Heat created what her training officers called a
SWAG
plan—acronym for Scientific Wild Ass Guess. She drew her weapon and started running toward the
SUV
.

The driver would be looking for her, so she had to come at him unexpectedly enough to startle and quick enough not to be a target. The midday overcast was so gloomy that she could see his headlight beams stabbing through the falling sleet and snow. Charging fast around the bend, Nikki dropped and rolled out right into the SUV’s path, putting two rounds into the windshield and then stretching lengthwise between the front wheels, letting it drive right over her. By the time he braked, her head was under its rear bumper. She scrambled out from underneath and started running back toward Fifth Avenue.

Heat knew there was no room for the
SUV
to turn around, which was the core of her
SWAG
plan, to charge past instead of run from it. What she hadn’t expected was for the driver to jam it in reverse and floor it to pursue her. The engine banshee whined and wheels threw slush as the rear end closed in on her. Losing a step of critical speed, Nikki turned and fired on the run at a rear tire. The shot missed and punctured the fender. She got off one more and the tire burst. The vehicle swayed wildly. The driver overcorrected, sending himself into a skid. His tires whirled uselessly in the slush and he smacked the rear end into the wall. Nikki kept moving, but when she heard the door unlatch, she turned, braced, and pumped four bullets into the driver’s side window, shattering it. A head in a ski mask slumped against the windowsill, motionless.

Around the bend came the sound of feet slapping the wet road on the double. Heat would be a sitting duck if she made a run toward the entrance on Fifth. Once again she reversed field, moving toward her attackers, but stopped at the
SUV
. Nikki holstered, grabbed the roof rack, and climbed up on top of it. From that height, she was able to take hold of the bare branch of a shrub sagging down from the park. She pulled herself up the wall, hoisting the upper half of her body over it, the rocky ledge digging into her waist as her legs dangled.

A bullet hit the rock beside her left foot and sent out a spray of jagged chips. Nikki almost lost her grip on the shrub but held on, hooking her knee on the ledge. When she hauled herself up and over, she heard something hard strike the roof of the
SUV
with a resonant
bong
. She reached for her holster. It was empty.

Below, a protest of air wheezed from a shock absorber, and Nikki heard the thump of multiple boot soles on sheet metal. They were climbing up after her.

She got up and ran full speed. Her legs fought through waist-high shrubbery turned leafless and sharp by winter. The branches stung her thighs and whipped behind her as she plowed east paralleling the Transverse. A panic swell rose when she reflected on the sound back there. Boots on metal. They hadn’t even paused to talk or check the driver, they just came. Fifth Avenue, if she could just get to Fifth Avenue.

At a break in the trees just before she reached the park’s East Drive, Heat paused. This was an organized hunting party, and if she were organizing one, she would cover the target’s escape route in case something went awry. Much as Nikki hated to give back her narrow head start, she crouched, panting in the thicket, to survey the tree line on the far side of the clearing. When she determined the best vantage point, she saw him. Through the visual clutter of sleet and snowflakes, a dark form huddled against a rock on high ground. She didn’t need to see the rifle to know it was there.

Time to rethink. Blocked to the east, the other three would be closing in soon from the west. The Transverse cut her off to the south. But seven blocks north, near the reservoir, sat the
NYPD
Central Park Precinct house. It might as well be seven miles. What else was there? Heat envisioned a map of the park, and one word popped into her mind:

Castle.

There was a police call box near Belvedere Castle.

Detective Heat, wet, cold, and unarmed, reversed direction, bending her route slightly north as she moved parallel to the course of her three oncoming pursuers who, hopefully, would not expect her to backtrack their way.

She broke out of the woods on the footpath leading to the castle. Taking that trail presented a risk she accepted, trading exposure for the speed it would give her. There were no other footprints than hers as she sprinted in the new snowfall. Unfortunately, the weather had limited the population of runners and walkers that day—and darkened her hopes of getting help or access to a random cell phone.

The flakes had picked up intensity but not enough to cover her footprints. It wouldn’t matter. These men would be able to hunt her anyway. The thought made her increase speed and cast a look over her shoulder. As she did, Nikki slid on a patch of ice. The hard landing knocked the breath out of her. Her kneecap radiated pain like it had been smacked with a hammer. While she collected herself, a frozen twig snapped deep in the woods she had just left. They were coming. She hauled herself up. Lungs searing, Heat raced onward.

Belvedere Castle was built in the 1860s as an observation tower overlooking Central Park’s old reservoir. Its ornate turrets, arches, and main tower, masoned of granite and native schist, replicated the feel of Sleeping Beauty Castle right in Manhattan. Heat barely looked at it. Her focus was on a lamppost holding the police box on the far side. Nikki slowed to a jog, taking care not to fall on the ice that had formed on the brickwork of the courtyard. That’s when the .50-caliber slug blew the police box clean off the post.

The crack of the rifle echoed off the face of the castle, sending waves rippling through the woods. Heat didn’t wait for the follow-up shot. She hurled herself over the low stone wall rimming the courtyard. The next bullet ricocheted off the granite trim above her head as she crouched pressing her back against the stones. Nikki had to dig in her heels in the ice to avoid sliding four stories down the sheer rock cliff she was perched on. One slip would guarantee her a broken skull on the tumble down.

They would divide up to get her. She knew her hunters were disciplined and tactical, so two would fan out to flank her. The third would wait for them to reach their positions then come over the top for her. That bought Nikki time but little else. Even if she could survive a descent down Vista Rock, running across the white ground below in her dark clothes would be suicidal. The only difference between her and a target silhouette would be that she was flesh and not paper. No, she had to play the odds again; she had to take the fight to them.

But not all of them. That was her slim chance. If they had split up as she anticipated, one of them would be alone, nearby and waiting. Nikki inched on her butt laterally along the wall, careful to keep her footing. A fall would be the end of it. She reached a cluster of Chinese wintersweet and used the bare shrubs as cover when she periscoped up for a careful peek over the wall.

He stood alone presenting his side to her ten yards away, cradling his rifle, eyes fixed through his ski mask on the point where she had bailed over the wall. Heart pounding, she lowered herself and closed her eyes, summoning details of the image she had just seen. His position was in an open expanse of courtyard, no cover for her. To her left—and most appealing, behind him—was the pavilion . . . a roofed open-air patio bordered by low walls on three sides, with the fourth side open to the courtyard. Mindful that his partners could have her in their sights any second, she pulled herself farther along the rock ledge toward the back side of the pavilion. Along the way, she selected the largest loose rock she could find. It was about the size and heft of a shot put. Heat slid it in her side coat pocket.

Getting up and over the wall into the pavilion would be tricky. Huge icicles rimmed the entire roof, and their drips had frozen on the wall beneath them. She looked down. A slip now would be fatal. So would waiting.

Nikki stretched into a yoga pose, unfolding herself lengthwise along the top of the wall. Then, trying to avoid excess movement or noise, she slowly poured herself over the top and down to a rest in the patio area. Heat drew one long breath to quiet her pulse rate, then took off her coat.

She crawled to the wall closest to the courtyard and peered over. Her hunter was still there, but at this angle his back was to her. With the rock weighing heavily in the pocket, she tossed her coat over the cliff and screamed while she ducked.

Footsteps. Running her way.

But they stopped short of the pavilion. When they did, Nikki vaulted over the patio wall and caught him looking down the cliff at her falling coat. He heard her coming, spun, and tried to level the rifle at her. But she was already inside the muzzle with her left hand grasping the forestock, using it to pull him toward her as she brought her right fist up to his Adam’s apple. He was trained in close combat, though, and he dropped his chin to shield his windpipe. Her fist struck his ski mask instead. He countered instantly, twisting his body in a hard pivot, using his hip and her grip on the rifle to twirl her off him.

Heat landed on the icy bricks, but still clutched the forestock. She yanked backward. His forefinger was stuck in the trigger guard, and she heard bone snapping as she pulled. A round fired as he fell backward beside her. The bullet struck the pavilion roof, knocking a sheet of ice and a row of icicles onto the courtyard around them. She got up, trying to take the weapon from him, but he scissored her legs at the knees, knocking her back down.

He got up on one knee, moaning as he shook his broken finger clear of the guard. Heat lunged for the rifle. She should have gone for him instead; he simply raised the weapon and, as her momentum carried her by, slammed her with his forearm, sending her skidding in the ice debris. With his right forefinger dangling loose inside his glove, he transferred the rifle to his left side and went for the trigger with his good hand. But just as he pivoted to aim at Nikki, she came at him, thrusting the sharp end of an umbrella-sized icicle deep into his gut. The weapon dropped from his hand and he clutched his wound, eyes flashing disbelief through the holes of his mask. Heat took the rifle in both hands and hammered the butt hard into his windpipe. He fell backward, fumbling at his neck, gurgling and bleeding out of his stomach on the snow.