Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller (26 page)

Then Storm looked up, just as Volkov scrambled to the top of the fire escape of a five-story brick building. Storm squeezed off a shot, but Volkov had already disappeared over the edge.

Storm instantly assessed the situation. Beyond the brick building, there was a skyscraper the lower levels of which were an open-sided parking garage. Volkov might be bold enough—or desperate enough—to make the leap across the alley separating the two structures and clamber through one of the openings. It would be his only way out.

If Storm tried to run out of the alley and around, he’d be too late. If only he could alert Xi Bang that Volkov would be coming out of the parking garage, she could intercept him.

Then Storm looked down at the small chunk of plastic strapped to his left arm. He felt slightly ridiculous doing it, but he pressed the talk button on his EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicator.

“He’s hit the roof of the building just south of the deli,” Storm said as he raced toward the fire escape. “He’s going to jump to the parking garage on the building next door. Can you…?”

“I’m on it,” Xi Bang’s voice crackled.

“I’ll be adding pressure from behind,” Storm said, leaping up and grabbing the bottom of the fire escape.

He pulled himself up onto the ancient iron structure, then
galloped up the steps three at a time, hoping that he might have a shot when he reached the roof. He reached the top just in time to see Volkov slithering over one of the concrete half walls of the parking deck.

Storm didn’t take the time to measure the alley to see if he could handle the jump. He just stuffed the gun back in its holster and hurtled himself forward. The roof was perhaps twenty-five yards wide, enough to allow Storm to reach full speed—or at least as fast as he could go in what his father would deride as “faggy Italian shoes.” At the edge of the building he leaped.

The gap was wider than he thought. And for one sickening moment, he thought he might not have enough momentum to carry him to the other side.

He made it by an arm’s length, slamming into the concrete hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Ignoring the pain, he rolled over the wall and hunched down long enough to pull his gun back out. He stood and aimed it at the nearest human target. But it wasn’t Volkov. It was a distraught-looking middle-aged man.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he yelled, holding his hands in the air.

“Where did he go?” Storm demanded.

“I don’t know. He stole my car!” the man said.

“What do you drive?”

“A Toyota Camry.”

“Color?”

“It’s silver. Are you with the…”

But Storm was already running past him. He pressed the talk button on his toy wristwatch. “Silver Toyota Camry, coming out any second now.”

“I’ll be there,” he heard in return.

Several stories below, Storm could hear the shrieking of tires as Volkov took the tight turns of the parking garage at high speed. Storm sprinted toward the stairs in the center of the garage. Volkov was now motor-propelled, but he would have to wind his way down. At least Storm could go straight down.

As he reached the second-to-last story, he heard shots ring out. They sounded like they were coming from a 9mm. He could only hope they were finding their mark. Screams now joined with the bleeping of car alarms to create a soundtrack fit for a disaster movie.

Storm reached the first floor and ran toward the street. When he got there, Xi Bang was approaching the left rear of the Camry slowly, in a low crouch, still clutching her gun, her shoes crunching on a layer of broken glass. The street was strewn with the detritus of the explosion. Several fires had been ignited and the wailing of approaching fire trucks bounced off the concrete canyons. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air. Wounded pedestrians moaned, cowering in whatever shelter they could find.

Xi Bang ignored it all. Her entire focus was on the Camry, stopped dead in the middle of the street. It had stalled out at an odd angle. Its left front tire had been shredded. It had three bullet holes in its side and its windows had been shot out.

Storm brought his gun up, ready to pull the trigger if he saw any sign of movement coming from the inert car. He circled around so he was advancing on the left front of the car.

“Did you hit him?” Storm called, closing in quickly.

“I think so,” Xi Bang said. “I don’t know how I could have missed.”

“This is Volkov we’re talking about. It’s like trying to shoot a shadow.”

They reached the car simultaneously. It was empty. There was no sign of blood. The passenger side door was open.

“Where the hell did he go?” Xi Bang demanded.

“How should I know? I was in the garage.”

On the other side of the car, they got their answer. A subway grate had been moved aside.

“He’s gone underground,” Storm said, spying the Wall Street subway stop three blocks away. “This is the two-three line. If he tries to go east, he’d have to go under the entire East River before he got to another stop. He’ll go north, toward midtown.”

Storm holstered his gun. He pointed toward the subway stop in the distance and said, “That means he’ll try to resurface there. You come from above. I’ll come from below. We’ll squeeze him till he pops.”

The shaft that led into the ground had a ladder on its side, and Storm clambered down into the darkness as fast as he could without losing his grip. The subway was not as deep under Wall Street as it was in some parts of the system. But it was far enough down that a fall would likely be deadly.

Somewhere below him, a train was coming. Storm could feel the warm air rushing up the shaft toward him as he continued down, one rung at a time.

Finally, he reached the end of the shaft, some sixty feet down. There was still a faint light coming from the street. The tunnel itself was not lit. Storm peered down. In the dimness, he could only barely make out the track, perhaps fifteen feet below. He saw that the ladder continued down the side of the tunnel. So he could keep descending the slow way. Or he could just make the drop.

He chose the drop. He pulled his gun, then let go of the ladder.

Storm hit the ground and rolled, as he had been trained to do. He immediately swung his weapon up, ready to fire at anything larger than a rat, at any small glint of light, at anything that so much as trickled. But he had the tunnel to himself. Behind him was only blackness. Ahead, there was a faint light as the tunnel bent around to the right.

Storm started running along the tracks toward the light. If Volkov was lying in wait for him around the next turn, so be it. Thanks to his suit, he was a mostly black target against a mostly black background. He’d take his chances with being ambushed.

More than likely, he knew, Volkov was trying to scramble away like the cockroach he was. Storm quickened his pace, keeping his knees high so he’d be less likely to stumble.

He rounded the next corner. Still no Volkov.

But there was something else. The number 2 train was coming from behind him.

Storm was unconcerned. He had noted that the tunnel had cutouts, places where workers could dive in and wait out the passing of a train. He passed by one, confident he’d be able to reach the next in time, wanting to gain as much ground on Volkov as possible.

The train was bearing down on him. He had veered over to the right side of the track. He saw a cutout on the left side but was already past it before he could react. He could feel the rush of air from the train getting closer. There was still no cutout on the right.

He was already sprinting, but he willed himself to go faster. Storm had once been timed in the 100-meter dash at 10.2 seconds, just off world-class pace. But it still wasn’t a match for a hard-charging subway train.

The train’s lights illuminated Storm from behind, casting a shadow in front of him that was growing shorter in a hurry. The engineer must have spotted Storm, because the train’s horn blared. Storm pumped his arms and legs. He could imagine few more ignominious endings: steamrolled by the number 2.

At the last nanosecond, a cutout emerged on the right side. He flattened himself into it, digging his feet into the gravel along the tracks to avoid being sucked inward. The engine ripped past with inches to spare, its passengers unaware of the man panting just off their starboard side.

The moment the train passed, Storm resumed his dash. He heard the train slowing as it approached the station, applying its brakes with a squeal. Then another sound overwhelmed it.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Gunfire. The large-caliber kind.

Storm willed himself to go faster. There were screams coming from the subway platform. Then more gunfire. Storm lost count of the number of shots. He prayed some of the reverberations were Ling Xi Bang answering. And hitting. But he wasn’t hearing her gun.

He reached the back of the train, which had stopped at the
station. There was no room on either side for him to vault up to the platform. Storm swore but did not break stride. He leaped up onto the last car and opened the back door.

Inside the subway car, there were riders lying on the floor, huddled under the benches. Seeing a man with a gun made them only shrink back further. There was no blood that he could see. No one here had been hit. Storm passed quickly through the car’s open side doors, gun raised.

Out on the platform, it was bedlam. The gunfire had stopped, but the screaming had not. There were commuters splayed in every direction, hiding behind every bench, sign, and bit of shelter they could find. Some of them were groaning and clutching at parts of their bodies. At least three were prone and either dead or dying.

Storm’s eyes were just starting to make sense of it when Volkov tackled him from the side.

Storm’s legs automatically braced against the hit. Volkov had tried to take him too high. Storm dipped slightly, then straightened, sending Volkov flying to the side. Storm whirled, ready to put a bullet in his attacker and end this thing.

Then he saw it wasn’t Volkov. It was some bald, middle-aged white man in a suit, trying to play hero. The man flinched even as Storm lowered his gun.

“Stay down, damn it,” Storm snarled. “And get off me. I’m the good guy.”

Storm advanced farther onto the platform, bringing Dirty Harry back up and swiveling it across a landscape of bleeding, dying, and dead New Yorkers. There were more than a dozen of them, in varying states of distress.

Then he saw one who looked achingly familiar.

It was Ling Xi Bang. She was down on one knee, clutching her stomach, trying to raise herself. Storm rushed to her side.

“Are you hit?” Storm asked. But he already knew the answer. He could see the slick stain of wetness on her black dress.

“It’s nothing,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Lie down. Don’t fight it.”

“Just help me stand,” she said. “He went up the steps. We can still catch him.”

Storm had been around enough gunshot wounds to know Xi Bang’s was serious. He had been shot in the gut himself. The pain was like nothing he could describe. He could see the agony on Xi Bang’s face.

“Actually, forget about me. I’ll only slow you down. Just get Volkov,” she said, still struggling to get her other leg under her. She attempted to push him away, but there was no strength in her.

Storm knew that if he abandoned Xi Bang and gave chase there was a chance he could catch up to Volkov. The bastard had perhaps a minute lead, but he was on an island with only so many means of escape. Storm could hunt him down, then put him down.

That’s when he saw that Xi Bang’s leg had been hit, too. It was why she couldn’t get back on her feet. There was a pool of red underneath her, and it was spreading fast.

“You’re losing too much blood,” Storm said, keeping his tone measured, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

“Just leave me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Storm said. He had already put one arm around her shoulder. He slid his other arm under her legs, cradled her for a moment, then gently laid her flat.

Moving quickly, he removed his jacket, then his shirt, tearing off a strip with one powerful jerk. He located the wound on Xi Bang’s leg. It was just above the knee, on the inner part of the thigh. That explained all the blood. The femoral artery ran along that side. The bullet must have hit it. Storm tied a tourniquet midway up the thigh, tying it as tight as his considerable strength would allow.

“I couldn’t take the shot,” she was saying, half in a whisper, half in a moan. “There was a woman behind him. She had a child. I would have hit…”

“Shhh,” he said. “I know.”

“He grabbed this old lady and—” She interrupted the sentence with a small howl of pain. “He was using her as a shield.”

Storm tore off another strip of his shirt, then folded the remainder into a makeshift pad. He secured the pad with the strip. It was the best he could do until professionals arrived.

Then he moved on to the stomach wound. The bullet had left a neat hole in the dress. He needed to assess what was underneath. Working as gingerly as he could, he began tearing the dress from the hem up.

“Hey,” she said, weakly.

“Stop being fresh.”

“Some guys will do anything for a little peep show,” he said.

When he finally reached her abdomen, he was glad that she was looking up at the ceiling and not at his face. Otherwise, she would have seen the grim expression that came over him. Her stomach was bad. Worse than he’d thought. The bullet had torn into her and expanded on impact. The wound was a gaping hole that revealed her shredded insides. Storm could barely even identify the organs whose mangled remains he was seeing. Even if she were on the operating table in the most state-of-the-art hospital room in the world, with a team of the best surgeons ready to dive in, Storm wasn’t sure if she could be saved.

On the floor of the Wall Street subway stop, it was hopeless. The only question was how many minutes of suffering she had left. Maybe ten. If she was unlucky.

“I’m cold,” she said.

“I know,” Storm said, grabbing his suit jacket and wrapping it around her as a blanket.