Slaughter - Lutz John (читать книги без txt) 📗

“What’s supposed to detonate the explosives?”

“Timers that will activate sequentially so the most damage can be done. A car driven a route south to north, mostly along Broadway, is supposed to send out signals the length of the island that will activate the timers as it passes. That way the right buildings will come down in the right sequences.” Renz’s voice got heavy. “This will all happen within minutes after the first timer is activated.”

“So somebody other than Ellis is supposed to drive the car and make the bombs live?”

“Nope. That’s not our problem, now that we know their plan. Ordinarily we’d simply stop all north-south traffic, at least minimize the damage.”

“Why can’t you do that now?”

“We don’t have to worry about a car or truck,” Renz said. “The killer wants a helicopter. The device used to signal all the detonator timers to start ticking is simply a bastardized cell phone. A brief helicopter flight over Manhattan with that thing broadcasting will cause approximately the same damage as a nuclear bomb.”

“Is there a way to fly the same route and neutralize the timers or detonators by broadcasting a different signal?”

“That’s what everyone here is trying to determine. We decided to talk to you about what we consider our only alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Give the helicopter pilot what he wants.”

“Which is?”

“Pearl.”

As Quinn stood in the suddenly cold silence, he was sure he could hear the distant but persistent thrashing sound of an approaching helicopter.

77

It was dusk, and they heard the helicopter before they saw it. The engine itself wasn’t that loud, but the air passing through the thrashing rotor blades as they provided lift and balance soon made conversation impossible unless it was shouted.

Downward-aimed lights illuminated the dimming landing area. The copter dropped to about twenty feet, toward the center of the circle of brilliant light. It rotated until its nose was pointed north and the craft was parallel to the building.

It settled in gradually, and the choppy, thrashing sound, the one from the Gremlin’s nightmares, lost volume as the rotors and vertical tail propeller slowed and the engine idled.

The helicopter looked much larger on the ground. It was gray with a red cross and bore the lettering of one of the hospitals in the area, St. Andrew’s. The killer had never heard of it. Didn’t care.

A plainclothes cop came to the fore of the knot of people, then edged closer to Quinn and whispered, “Renz said to tell you the guy at the controls was a former attack helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. He volunteered for this job.”

That was good to know. Confirmation. At least the Gremlin wouldn’t be at the controls when the craft tried to take off.

“That’s where they met,” the cop said. “Both those guys can fly a chopper.”

Great, Quinn thought. He could almost feel the odds shifting, and not in his favor.

With Quinn beside her, Pearl trudged toward the helicopter as if her feet were heavy.

The side door on the helicopter slid open.

Weaver stood leaning against it, the blasts of air from the rotors plastering her hair over her face. She was feigning a weakness she didn’t feel. She was actually revved and ready for action. The pilot, a stocky guy with gray hair cut so close he was almost bald, slid over where he was visible and extended his hand to help Weaver climb inside. An encouraging signal that he was ready to get away from their exposed position fast. Another figure, no doubt the Gremlin, was barely visible seated in back

Weaver made a move as if to climb into the chopper, but Quinn squeezed her shoulder and she stopped.

“Wait,” he said to her, “wait . . .”

“I’m no longer useful,” she said, her head turned toward Quinn so the others couldn’t read her lips. “He’s sweeping up after himself.”

He knew what she meant, and that she was right.

The look on the pilot’s face was fear. The figure in back fired a small, silenced handgun.

Wearing an astounded expression, the pilot slumped forward. He scrambled to get out of the helicopter, fell to the ground, and died staring up at the slowly rotating blades.

While that occupied everyone’s mind, the small nimble figure in the helicopter moved quickly to the front of the craft. He leaned forward, aiming the gun at Weaver. The helicopter’s speaker system was on. “No one else has to die,” the Gremlin said. “Quinn, give me Pearl and I spare the police lady. Disobey, and we’ll see if she can come alive yet again.”

Pearl had moved to the side of Quinn and now she edged forward and was standing beside him.

The Gremlin said, “Come forward, police lady.”

Weaver, trembling, took a step toward him. He was seated in the helicopter, leaning slightly forward. Quinn knew the snipers had no clear shot at that angle. The Gremlin also would know it.

This kill-crazy little psycho is going to do this, get what he wants. We can’t stop him.

“Police lady,” the killer said, “step forward.”

He grinned as she obeyed. “I no longer need you,” he said with a twist of false regret.

That was when Quinn understood that the Gremlin had known from the beginning that he, Quinn, would make his double switch, sending Weaver to play herself, Weaver, playing Pearl. There had never been a dead woman whose heart had resumed beating.

As the Gremlin took aim at her, Weaver bolted. He shot her in the shoulder, and she fell.

Pearl had stepped around Quinn and was moving toward the helicopter.

“Pearl!” Quinn shouted behind her.

“Keep walking or I’ll shoot him, darling.” The Gremlin wore his grin like a mask.

Pearl kept walking toward him. When she was close enough, he leaned slightly farther to grab her and pull her the rest of the way inside the helicopter, still with the gun aimed at Quinn.

Quinn stood staring.

Quinn . . .

Pearl accepted the Gremlin’s hand up. As she raised herself into the helicopter, she squared her body toward the Gremlin.

Quinn hadn’t moved, except for extending his right arm slightly toward Pearl and . . . what? Pressing a key or button on his iPhone? Signaling?

In those last seconds, the Gremlin sensed that something was very wrong. His face twisted meanly. His eyes implored. “Quinn, you don’t know—”

The blast was loud and sounded more than anything like a shotgun being fired. Its source was like something that used to be called a belly gun.

It was a shaped charge. The Gremlin would have appreciated that.

It wasn’t just Weaver who’d been wearing a bulletproof vest. Quinn had been sure that Helen the profiler was right when she said it was Pearl the killer wanted most of all. Given a choice, he would choose Pearl, who was the most important thing in the world to Quinn. Weaver had been wearing her unaltered vest. Let the killer think he was the one who’d decided on Pearl. Her vest had been altered in the front, and contained a small iron plate on which was a shaped charge aimed like a shotgun and full of nails and ball bearings. The explosive had been fitted to Pearl’s midsection, outside the vest, and aimed straight forward. Her baggy hospital gown had covered the vest. Pearl had been instructed to aim her navel at the Gremlin.

It had worked.

Pearl had trusted Quinn and he’d come through. Weaver had suffered only a slight shoulder injury. She would live. Pearl, who had been target and become weapon, would live.

Pearl was sitting stunned and bent forward, and still had a stomachache, but the vest had diffused most of the pain of the charge’s powerful kick. Her sore muscles would soon heal.

The Gremlin had taken the full force of the blast. It had been concentrated on him as planned. A shaped charge, directing its blast forward. The shrapnel of nails and ball bearings had blown him almost in half. He still looked astounded at having been killed by a woman.