Kill Me If You Can (25 page)

After lunch,
I
walked to Sixth Avenue, caught the uptown F train toward Jamaica, and settled in for the forty-five-minute ride to the Union Turnpike station.

I emerged on Queens Boulevard, one of the busiest roads in the borough. And with twelve lanes of bus, car, and truck traffic, one of the deadliest.

I weaved my way through streets I’d never seen before, but I’d mapped them out and committed them to memory that morning.

I love my Fortress in lower Manhattan, but it was nice to walk the streets of New York and not be surrounded by SoHo-chic models, aging hippies, or Trump wannabes. I walked along Metropolitan Avenue past a United Nations of food options that in one block alone offered up Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Caribbean, and glatt kosher.

The only thing missing was a sign that said
REAL PEOPLE LIVE HERE.

I turned right at the Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe onto 118th Street and saw him. The person I was looking for. He was wearing cutoffs and a Mets T-shirt and raking up the few leaves that had fallen onto his tiny plot of grass.

He saw me and dropped the rake.

“Matthew Bannon,” I said. “Remember me?”

“Until the day I die,” he said, wrapping his brown arms around me. “It’s good to see you vertical. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you in the hospital. I was just too…I don’t know…I was kind of messed up for a while.”

“Hey, Mr. Perez—”

“Manny.”

“Manny, no apologies necessary,” I said. “How are you doing now?”

“I’m on disability. The union said they can’t fire me, but I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to go back to driving a subway. Maybe never.”

“You getting any help?”

“The Transit Gods sent me to a lady shrink. She’s young and cute, and she gave me some antidepression pills for the PTSD, but I never took them. How about you?”

“I decided to take my broken bones and my girlfriend to Paris for a while.”

“Sweet.”

“Manny, do you know anything about the other guy who was on the track that day?”

“‘On the track.’ I like that. You mean the guy I killed? They said he was some kind of a Russian businessman. No family—that was the good part.”

“There are no good parts to that man. He was a murderer, a thief, a smuggler, an arsonist—you name it. Vadim Chukov lived a life of crime, and the only thing you did was help put it to an end.”

“I’ll remember that when I wake in a cold sweat at two in the morning.”

“I was in the Marines,” I said. “Three combat tours, so I know what you’re going through. Middle of the night is when a guy can really get self-destructive.”

He looked away and I knew I’d hit a hot button. The good Catholic had been wrestling with thoughts of suicide.

“But you
can
get better. It won’t happen overnight. You need a good therapist—one who’s experienced and smart, not young and cute. You need to stop standing on your front lawn in the middle of September waiting for leaves that won’t fall off the tree till October.”

“You sound like my wife. She thinks I’ll feel better if we take a vacation.”

“She’s right,” I said.

“Not so easy when you’re living off disability checks.”

“Then live off this for a while.” I handed him an envelope exactly like the ones I had given Adam, Zach, and Ty.

He opened it, put one hand to his mouth, and lowered himself to the ground. I sat down next to him.

“Is this a joke?” he said.

“No, it’s real.”

“Where does a kid like you get a million dollars?”

“Chukov owed me some money. I settled with his estate. I figured you deserve a piece.”

“A ‘piece’?” He took another look at the check. “Why are you doing this?”

“You got kids?” I asked.

“Two daughters, a son, and four grandkids.”

“I’m doing it because your wife and your family need you. I’m partly responsible for taking you away from them. I want to be responsible for helping you get back.”

He waved the check at me. “If this can’t do it, I don’t know what will.” His brown eyes glistened. “Matthew, you’re changing my life.”

“It’s a two-way street, Manny,” I said, finally standing up.

He stood up next to me. “You tired of French food? Stay for dinner. My wife Nilda makes a mean arroz con pollo.”

“That would be great,” I said.

My cell phone rang.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Probably Katherine. My girlfriend.”

“She’s invited, too,” he said.

I answered the phone.

“Matthew?”

It wasn’t Katherine. It was somebody I didn’t expect.

“This is Newton. Matthew, I’m calling to tell you my employer is very impressed with your work.”

“Your employer? You mean the guy we call Copernicus?”

He laughed. “Yes. Copernicus is a big fan. Actually, he wants to hire you.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “He wants to commission a painting?”

“No,” Newton said. “He has a job for you, though. You and your three Marine buddies, Zach Stevens, Ty Warren, and Adam Benjamin. Are you interested?”

I was standing right there on the lawn, but my legs were feeling unreal. So was the rest of me. Manny Perez had moved away to give me some privacy. He was up on the front steps, waiting for me to come in. His face was radiant. I knew he couldn’t wait to go inside and tell his wife the unbelievable news.

Newton repeated the question. “Are you interested? At least just to talk about it?”

I hesitated a few more seconds. “No,” I said. “Not today.”

Alex Cross gets a Presidential Request. “Please find my kids!”

For an excerpt, turn the page.

The first unfortunate
incident involved President Coyle’s children, Ethan and Zoe, both high-profile targets.

Twelve-year-old Ethan Coyle thought he had gotten used to living under the microscope and in the public eye. So Ethan hardly noticed anymore the news cameramen camped outside the Branaff School gates, and he didn’t worry the way he used to if some kid he didn’t even know tried to snap his picture in the hall.

Sometimes Ethan even pretended he was invisible. It was kind of babyish, kind of b.s., but who cared. It helped. One of the more personable Secret Service guys had actually suggested it. He told Ethan that Chelsea Clinton used to do the same thing. Who knew if that was true?

But when Ethan saw Ryan Townsend headed his way that morning, he only
wished
he could disappear.

Ryan Townsend always had it in for him, and that wasn’t just Ethan’s paranoia talking. He had the purplish and yellowing bruises to prove it—the kind that a good hard punch can leave behind.

“Wuzzup,
Coyle the Boil?
” Townsend said, charging up on him in the hall with
that look
on his face.

Ethan knew better than to answer his tormenter and torturer. He cut toward the lockers instead—but that was his first mistake. Now there was nowhere to go, and he felt a sharp, nauseating jab to the side of his leg. He’d been kicked! Townsend barely even slowed down as he passed. He called these little incidents “drive-bys.”

The thing Ethan
didn’t
do was yell out, or stumble in pain. That was the deal he’d made with himself—
don’t let anyone see what you’re feeling inside.

Instead, he dropped his books and knelt down to pick them back up again. It was a total wuss move, but at least he could take the weight off his leg for a second without letting the whole world know he was Ryan Townsend’s punching and kicking dummy.

Except this time, someone did see—and it wasn’t the Secret Service.

Ethan was stuffing graph paper back into his math folder when he heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, Ryan! Wuzzup with
you?
”  

He looked up just in time to see his fourteen-year-old sister, Zoe, stepping right into Townsend’s path.

“I saw that,” she said. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

Townsend cocked his head to the side. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Why don’t you just mind your own—”

Out of nowhere, a heavy yellow textbook came up fast in both of Zoe’s hands.

She swung hard and clocked Townsend with it, right across the middle of his face. The bully’s nose spurted red and he stumbled backward. It was great!

That was as far as things progressed before Secret Service got to them. Agent Findlay held Zoe back, and Agent Musgrove wedged himself between Ethan and Townsend. A crowd of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders had already stopped to watch, like this was some reality TV show—
The President’s Kids.

“You total
losers!
” Townsend shouted at Ethan and Zoe, even as blood dripped down over his Branaff tie and white shirt. “What a couple of chumps. You need your bodyguards to protect you!”

“Oh, yeah? Tell that to my algebra book,” Zoe yelled back. “And stay away from my brother! You’re bigger and older than him, you jerk. You shithead!”

For his part, Ethan was still hovering by the lockers, half of his stuff scattered on the floor. And for a second or two there he found himself pretending he was part of the crowd—just some kid nobody had ever heard of, standing there, watching all of this craziness happen to someone else.

Yeah,
Ethan thought.
Maybe in my next life.

Agent Findlay hustled
Ethan and Zoe away from the gawkers and worse, the kids with their iPhones raised—
Hello, You Tube!
In a matter of seconds, he’d disappeared with them into the grand lecture hall off the main foyer.

The Branaff School had once been the Branaff Estate, until ownership had transferred to a Quaker educational trust. It was said among the kids that the grounds were haunted, not by good people who had died here, but by the disgruntled Branaff descendants who’d been evicted to make room for the private school.

Ethan didn’t buy into any of that crap, but he’d always found the main lecture hall to be supercreepy with its old-time portraits looking down on everybody who happened to pass through.

“You know, the president’s going to have to hear about this, Zoe. The fight, your language,” Agent Findlay said. “Not to mention Headmaster Skillings—”

“No doubt, so do your job,” Zoe answered with a shrug and a frown. She put a hand on top of her brother’s head. “You okay, Eth?”

“I’m fine,” he said, pushing her off. “Physically, anyway.” His dignity was another question, but that was too complicated for him to think about right now.

“In that case, let’s keep this parade moving,” Findlay told them. “You guys have assembly in five.”

“Got it,” said Zoe with a dismissive wave. “Like we were going to forget assembly, right?”

The morning’s guest speaker was Isabelle Morris, a senior fellow with the DC International Policy Institute and also an alum of the Branaff School. Unlike most of the kids he knew, Ethan was actually looking forward to Ms. Morris’s talk about her experiences in the Middle East. He hoped to work at the UN himself someday. Why not?  He had good connections, right?

“Can you give us a teeny-tiny second?” Zoe asked. “I want to talk to my brother—
alone
.”

“I said I’m fine. It’s cool,” Ethan insisted, but his sister cut him off with a glare.

“He tells me things he won’t say to you,” Zoe went on, answering Findlay’s skeptical look. “And private conversations aren’t exactly easy to come by around here, if you know what I mean. No offense meant.”

“None taken.” Findlay looked down at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes it is. We’ll be right out, I promise,” Zoe said, and closed the heavy wooden door behind him as he left.

Without a word to Ethan, she cut between the rows of old desk seats and headed to the back of the room. She hopped up on the heating register under the windows.

Then Zoe reached inside her blue-and-gray uniform jacket and took out a small black-lacquered case. Ethan recognized it right away. His sister had bought it in Beijing this past summer on a trip to China with their parents.

“I’m all about a ciggie right now,” Zoe whispered. Then she grinned wickedly. “Come with?”

Ethan looked back at the door. “I actually don’t want to miss this assembly,” he said, but Zoe just rolled her eyes.

“Oh,
please.
Blah, blah, blah, Middle East, blah, blah. You can watch it on CNN any hour of the week,” she said. “But how often do you get a chance to ditch Secret Service?
Come on!”

It was a totally no-win situation and Ethan knew it. He was either going to look like a wimp—again—or he was going to miss the assembly he’d been looking forward to all week.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he said lamely.

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t weenie out so much,” Zoe answered. “Then maybe assholes like Ryan Townsend wouldn’t be all over you all the time.”

“That’s just because Dad’s the president,” Ethan said.

“No. It’s because you’re a geek,” Zoe said. “You don’t see Spunk-Punk messing with me, do you?” She opened the window, effortlessly pulled herself through, and dropped to the ground outside. Zoe thought she was another Angelina Jolie. “If you’re not coming, at least give me a minute to get away. Okay, Grandma?”  

The next second, Zoe was gone.

Ethan looked over his shoulder one more time. Then he did the only thing he could to maintain his last shreds of dignity. He followed his sister out the lecture hall window—and into trouble he couldn’t even have begun to imagine. No one could have.