I went sprawling, and Chukov grabbed for the gun in my hand. He dug his fingers into my face with one hand and yanked at the weapon with the other.
The pain was blinding. I almost lost consciousness. I did lose the gun.
“You stupid piece of shit,” he screamed, pointing the muzzle at my face.
I was out of strength. And I knew that as soon as Chukov finished me off, he would shoot Katherine. I had to get her to run. I looked up at the platform.
And there she was, hoisting a New York City Transit Authority trash can high over her head with a strength that must have been born of fear and red-hot anger. She hurled it at Chukov.
It hit him square in the face and knocked him off balance. The wire mesh left a bloody grid on his cheek.
Totally enraged, he pressed his palm into my shoulder, pushing himself up and once again sending waves of agony through my body.
And then I heard it. The number 6 train.
Chukov heard it, too. After a darting glance between me and the platform, he decided to save his own ass and let the train take care of me.
With my gun still in his hand, he leaped toward the platform like an overweight mountain lion.
Katherine screamed.
Chukov threw his right leg onto the platform and screamed back at her. “I’ll kill you, you goddamn bitch.”
I lunged and clawed at his left foot. I jerked hard, and we both toppled backward onto the tracks. I rolled as we fell, so that by the time we got our bearings, I was straddling his chest.
I grabbed his head and whacked it against the rail. I leaned forward to pry the gun from his grasp, but Chukov slammed his oversize forehead into my face. I felt my nose break.
Down the track, the headlights of the Bronx-bound subway were bearing down on us fast. The whistle screamed.
I bet the motorman screamed, too. He of all people would know that no matter how hard he applied his brakes, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time.
I heard the squeal of metal on metal as the train’s wheels skidded along the track.
Chukov and I had been engaged in a battle to the death. In a matter of seconds, the battle would be over.
Chapter 93
Chukov and I had our hands wrapped around the gun. The way we were going, there could only be one winner: the number 6 train.
I knew I was out of time. So I let go of the gun. I threw my good shoulder back and drove my right elbow into his left eye. I think I heard bone crack as I drilled down into the socket. Then I jumped up. Kicked the gun out of his hand. Planted the other foot on his throat.
Katherine leaned over the platform. She peered down the tunnel at the oncoming train. “Matthew,” she yelled, “get off the tracks now!”
I looked into the darkness. The train’s headlights, which had been pin dots only seconds ago, were brighter and looming larger.
Chukov struggled to get up, but I had weight and leverage on my side.
“Matthew, please—he’s not worth it,” she begged. “Please, please run.”
I couldn’t. If I took my foot off Chukov’s throat, he’d still have enough time to vault the platform. I had to finish this.
And then I remembered. I pictured Chukov sitting in the steam room with the bronchodilator on his lap. Chukov the asthmatic.
I lifted my foot off his throat and slammed it down on his chest. The compression was more than his lungs could take. He began gasping for air.
I reached down and scooped up a fistful of the black dirt and subway soot that lay between the ties. And just as Chukov inhaled deeply, struggling to breathe, I flung it in his face.
He sucked it all in.
I grabbed another handful of the powdery filth and threw it at his nose and mouth. He was now in a full-blown asthma attack—choking, spitting, screaming half-gurgled Russian. His eyes bulged with fear.
I leaned in close to his face. “What’s the matter, Vadim? You look like you’ve seen a Ghost.”
Chukov’s eyes grew even wider as the truth sank in and he realized whom he had been up against all along.
I took one final look into the face of evil and drove both fists into his failing lungs.
“Do svidaniya, modderfocker,” I said.
I started to run. Chukov didn’t follow.
“Matthew, hurry!” Katherine yelled. “The train is coming.”
As if I needed a reminder.
The whistle screamed and screamed and screamed. I turned as best as I could. I could see sparks flying off the wheels as they scraped the metal rails. I could even make out the outline of the motorman in the front cab. I could only imagine the sheer horror in his eyes.
The front of the station was maybe five hundred feet away. I’d never make it. I couldn’t get out of this. I was going to die.
Chapter 94
I ran for my life anyway.
Katherine ran right alongside me on the platform.
“Take my hand,” she screamed down. “I’ll pull you up, Matthew.”
“No,” I shouted. “I’d pull you down.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
Her words rushed over me, and if they were the last ones I’d ever hear, I’d die happy.
Well, maybe not happy, but a little more at peace with the world.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I yelled, hoping she could still hear me over the roar of the number 6 train. “I love you.” And then I broke into a sprint—or as much of a sprint as I could muster with multiple fractures and heavy blood loss.
Grand Central is a four-track subway station. Two single tracks on each side and a double set of tracks in the middle. If I had been on the center set of tracks, I could have stood between them and let the train pass me. But the outer track is a death trap—a platform on one side and a wall on the other. The only possible escape was a service door set in the wall.
I could see one twenty feet ahead.
I looked back. The train had just entered the station—sparks flying, whistle blowing—and now I could see the motorman’s face: absolute panic when he saw one man lying on the tracks and another running toward the tunnel.
And then I heard the thump.
If Chukov had any air left in his lungs, he might have screamed when the train hit him. But he didn’t. All I heard was a flat, dull whoomp, like a tennis racket slapping a mattress. It was unmistakable. Chukov was dead.
I reached the service door that was tucked into the wall below the platform. I pulled the handle. Locked!
Another hundred feet still lay between me and safety.
The train was slowing down. Maybe I could outrun it after all.
And then my foot caught a railroad tie, and I fell face-first into the bed of debris and muck between the tracks.
It was over. I took comfort in knowing that the most evil son of a bitch in the world was dead and the most wonderful woman in the world was alive and safe, which was what I had set out to do.
Mission accomplished.
The squeal of the brakes was deafening now. Even an art student knows a little physics.
The train couldn’t stop in time.
Inertia wins.
I lose and die on the train tracks.
Chapter 95
Zach heard the crying before he reached the platform. He raced down the stairs. It was Katherine. She had her face buried in Ty’s shoulder and was sobbing uncontrollably.
“Ty, am I glad you found Katherine,” Zach said. “Matt would kick my ass if I let anything happen to her. Let’s round everybody up and get the hell out of here.”
“Zach…” Ty hesitated.
“What?” Zach snapped back. “What’s going on?”
“Matt’s dead,” Katherine said.
“Matt and Chukov went head-to-head down on the tracks,” Ty said. “The train took them both out.”
The last three cars of the number 6 train were still inside the tunnel. The doors to the train remained closed. A handful of passengers were pressed against the front window wondering
why the motorman was on the ground, his back against a steel column, his legs stretched out in front of him. A transit cop was kneeling beside him.
“Oh, God,” the motorman said, breathing hard. “Oh, God, I can’t believe it.”
“Try to stay calm, Mr. Perez,” the cop said, putting her hand on his arm. “The paramedics are on the way.”
“Paramedics?” he said. “For what? They’re both dead.”
“For you,” she said. “They’ll be here for you. Try to calm down.”
“I had green lights all the way from Thirty-fourth,” Perez said, “so we were moving. But legal. A hundred percent legal.”
Katherine let out a mournful wail.
The cop turned sharply and looked at her. “I’m trying to get a statement here. Can somebody please—”
“Hey!” Ty snapped at the cop.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said, “but we got a situation here.”
She turned back to the motorman. “Did they fall, did they jump, what happened?”
“I don’t know. They were already there when I saw them. One guy was on the track and couldn’t get up. It looked like maybe the other guy was helping him. I hit the brakes as soon as I saw them, but the man on the tracks was too close to the rear of the station. He never had a chance.”
He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands.
“And the second guy?” the cop said.
“He started running. The train had slowed down to four miles an hour. He could have made it, but he fell. It wasn’t my fault.”
Five cops came bounding down the stairs. One was a sergeant.
“Sarge,” the cop said. “We have two civilians under the train. The motorman is in shock. I told the conductor to keep the doors closed until I can get someone here for crowd control.”
“Any witnesses?” the sergeant said.
“That woman,” she said, pointing at Katherine.
By now a dozen passengers had moved forward to the front car. One started pounding on the window and yelling, “Let us off. Let us off.” The others immediately picked it up.
“Keep her on ice,” the sergeant said. “Let me deal with the passengers first.”
“I’ll wait with her,” Adam said and put his arm around Katherine.
“We have to get you out of here,” he said in a whisper. “Now. While the cops are still busy.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered. “Matthew’s still down there. His body’s there.”
“Katherine, you don’t want to see him,” Zach said.
“He’s gone,” Adam said. “We can’t do anything for the captain. He wanted us to keep you safe. That’s what we’re going to do.”
He tried to move Katherine toward the stairs.
But she dropped to her knees. “Matthew. I love you so much. I love you,” she said, sobbing. “And I forgive you.”
A faint voice came from under the train. “If you can find someone who can get this train off me, you can tell me in person. I love you, too.”
Chapter 96
I was lying right under the second car, maybe twenty feet from Katherine. I had managed to fall flat into the track bed. Forty-odd tons of the 6 train had passed over me before it finally came to a stop.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Between losing blood and whacking my head when I fell, I was out of it for a while probably. But when I came to and heard Katherine saying she loved me and forgave me, I had another reason to get out of there.
Up on the platform, I could hear Katherine crying and my guys laughing and screaming and then orders from someone in charge.
“Don’t move,” the voice said.
“Don’t worry,” I responded. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Matt!” It was Adam. “You okay?”
“No,” I said. “You know how disgusting it is on these tracks? I’ll probably die from being facedown in subway grunge.”
I heard Ty next. “At least we know his sense of humor is still awful.”
It took half an hour before the power to the third rail was turned off so the fire department guys could pull me out. EMTs laid me on a stretcher on the platform. I looked up, and the next person I saw was Katherine. “Nice shot with that trash can,” I said.
She knelt down and pressed against my filthy, foul-smelling, bloody body. She kissed my face a dozen times before the EMT guys pried her off.
“Ma’am, we’ve got to get him to the hospital. You can ride with us.”
Four firefighters and two EMTs lifted the stretcher, and we headed for the stairs.
“Wait. I have to talk to him. That guy there.”
It was the motorman. He came forward and stood over me. His face was ashen; he was crying. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you till it was too late. I’m so sorry.”
I was the one who should have apologized. It was I who had left Chukov gasping for air on the tracks and made this poor man feel like an executioner.
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “That guy on the tracks—he was evil. He tried to kill this beautiful woman, Katherine. He was on the tracks trying to kill me. You saved both of us. Thank you.”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change, and I knew his life would never be the same.
He was a killer now, too.
Chapter 97
They took me to Bellevue Hospital, where the ER docs removed the bullet from my shoulder, gave me a blood transfusion, and told me that my broken nose and three cracked ribs would heal on their own in about six weeks.
Then they pumped me full of painkillers and let me sleep. Katherine slept in the chair in my room, and my three buddies spent the night in the hospital, taking turns standing guard at the door.
At four in the afternoon, I had my first visitors. Detectives Steve Garber and Nathan Watt, NYPD.
“We’re trying to piece together what happened last night,” Watt said. “Do you mind if I ask you both a few questions?”
“It’s all a blur,” I said. “This crazy man attacked me and my girlfriend. I tried to fend him off, but the New York subway finished the fight.”
Katherine nodded in total agreement.
“Did either of you know this guy?” Watt said.
“No.”
Watt smiled. “Vadim Chukov. He had a record on two continents. Smuggling, arson, robbery, murder—the list goes on—but this is the first time he ever tried to pick a fight with an innocent young couple waiting for the subway. Are you sure you didn’t know him?”
“I don’t know anyone like that,” I said. “I’m just a struggling art student.”
“A struggling art student and a war-hero Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Garber said.
“My Marine days are over,” I said.
“Were you aware that Chukov and five of his men launched some kind of terrorist attack in Grand Central Terminal earlier last night?” Garber asked.
“It was in the paper this morning,” Katherine said.
“Was anybody hurt?” I asked.
“Counting Chukov, there are six dead. All bad guys. It seems like somebody knew they were coming and cleaned up the mess without any help from the cops.”
“Good Samaritans, I guess,” I said.
“But you weren’t there,” Watt said.
“No,” I said.
“It’s easy enough to check,” Watt said. “They have the whole incident on video.”
Katherine’s eyes opened wide, and she squeezed my hand.
“Oh, crap, I just remembered,” Garber said. “The terminal is not our jurisdiction. That’s MTA—the state cops.”
“Then I guess there’s no sense in looking at the tapes,” Watt said. “We’re just here to ask questions about the incident down in the subway. Does either of you have anything else to add?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Then I think we’ve got it all,” Watt said. “Detective Garber, why don’t we let this young war hero and his girlfriend get some rest.”
They
headed to the door. Watt stopped and turned around.
“Mr. Bannon, I have to take issue with just one thing you told us.”
“What’s that?”
“You said your Marine days were over,” Watt said.
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re never over. My partner and I both served in Desert Storm.” He grinned. “Semper fi, bro.”
He threw me a wink and a salute, and the two of them walked out the door and never came back.
Chapter 98
We flew to Paris and rented a funky studio on the fourth floor of an art deco building in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The mattress was too soft and the toilet was temperamental, but the northern light that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows made it an artist’s dream. My broken nose healed. My cracked ribs healed. And three months after that night in the subway tunnel, my relationship with Katherine was also mending rather nicely. She had told me she loved me in the heat of the moment, but I wanted to make sure that she could forgive me for the life I had led and for dragging her into it.
It was a Sunday morning in September. I woke to the aroma of fresh-brewed french roast, the sounds of Coldplay on the stereo, and the sight of Katherine in jeans and a paint-spattered tank top, sitting on the sofa. There was sunlight on her bare shoulders, and my cat, Hopper, was curled on her lap, purring gratefully.
“Hold that pose,” I said. “I’ll get some coffee and a paintbrush.”
“You don’t do portraits,” she said.
“I do nudes,” I said with a smile. “You know where I can find one?”
“I just happen to have one under here,” she said. Then she peeled off the tank top. She scrambled out of her jeans. Lord, she was good at undressing.
“The coffee can wait,” I said.
Morning sex for us was usually fast, urgent—kind of like an asteroid is heading for the planet and we only have a few minutes left fast.
That morning we took the better part of an hour.
“I hate to be practical, especially at a time like this, but we should shower and get dressed,” Katherine finally said.