Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (42 page)

“There are your warriors of Islam,” he shouted at Stupenagel, pointing to his men.

“Yeah, just like any other scumbags waiting in a dark alley,” she sneered. “And I don’t see you out there, risking your ass. Just a bunch of poor ignorant slobs who’ve been sold a bill of goods.”

Enraged, Abdullah decided it was time to kill the woman.
Why should I have to go through this hell before I get to Paradise?
he thought, and started to reach for his gun. But just then the captain shouted.

“Tugboats!”

“Tugboats?” Abdullah forgot about Stupenagel for the moment and looked toward where the captain was pointing up the East River. Two big tugboats had passed under the Brooklyn Bridge and were bearing down on the
Ibn Jubair
. He grabbed a pair of binoculars and trained them on the new arrivals.

Immediately, he saw these weren’t just any old tugboats. They were both carrying many armed men. One of them, a very tall man with a black eye patch, stood on the bow. The man turned and waved to someone on the bridge.

Abdullah followed the man’s gaze to where a knot of four or five men stood at the center of the bridge. He did a double take. One of the men on the bridge and the man in the tugboat at first looked to be the same man, except for the eye patch.

Twins?
he wondered, then shook his head.
It doesn’t matter. They’re both going to die.

A
S HE PASSED UNDER THE
B
ROOKLYN
B
RIDGE AND OUT INTO
the harbor, Ivgeny Karchovski turned and looked up at his cousin Butch Karp. He lifted a hand and saw Butch wave back. Then he turned and faced the ship to assess the situation.

He’d just been informed about the bombings by one of his men when Butch called and asked for a “favor.” It surprised him because his cousin maintained an arm’s-length relationship with the Karchovski family, understandable given their divergent career paths. There’d been a few quiet dinners with Butch and Marlene, or visits from the twin boys to their “uncle Vladimir,” since circumstances had reunited the two sides of the family a few years back. But it was always understood—and Ivgeny’s father and head of the Karchovski mob, Vladimir, had insisted—that they respect Butch’s position as district attorney and not jeopardize that.

However, he understood within the first few words from Butch that this was a special occasion. The attack he knew about, but his cousin said he was worried that a bigger attack was on the way and it would come over the water from the harbor.

Karchovski also knew immediately why Butch had called him. His cousin knew that one of the Karchovskis’ legitimate enterprises was their ship repair facilities in Brooklyn. The twins, Zak and
Giancarlo, along with their mother, Marlene, had once toured the facility with him and Vladimir. The boys had been sent home with replicas of the tractor tugboats
Natasha
and
Natalie
, used in real life to maneuver large ships from the harbor into the dockyards.

“If the attack comes from some big ship, I don’t think the police have anything big enough to deal with it on the scene,”
Butch had said.

Fifteen minutes after Butch’s first call, Karchovski and a small army of his “soldiers” were armed and gathered at the docks where
Natasha
and the
Natalie
were tied up. He’d gathered them and the crews of the tugboats and explained the situation and what he intended to do.

“This will be extremely dangerous,”
he’d said.
“I expect that some, maybe all, could die. But if we do nothing, many innocent lives will be lost.”
He’d looked from one man’s face to the next. Many of the men, or their fathers, had served with him in the Soviet army in Afghanistan, others he’d smuggled into the United States and given jobs.
“But I am not ordering anyone to risk his life. Many of you, like me, are not even citizens of this country. To most, we are criminals and have no chance of ever becoming citizens. But I know you…I know you are good men…many of you have families of your own and this is not your fight, so I will understand if you stay. No one will lose his job, or my affection, if he chooses to stay behind. However, if you wish to fight with me, then we must leave now. There is not a moment more to waste.”

Never in all his years of military service had Karchovski been prouder than when every man filed aboard the tugboats. They had already pulled away from the docks and were approaching the Manhattan Bridge when he received the second call from his cousin. The threat was real…a cargo ship called the
Ibn Jubair
; its crew was armed with automatic weapons and handheld missiles, and there was reason to believe that it might be filled with liquefied natural gas.

“Is that all?”
Karchovski teased his cousin. He laughed.
“I thought you might want to arm them with some nuclear warheads and give them a few helicopters as well.”

Up ahead in the growing darkness, Karchovski saw helicopters,
but they belonged to the NYPD and were shining spotlights on the cargo ship. One flew around the port side of the ship and narrowly avoided a missile that continued on into the city, where a moment later a thin pillar of smoke rose. After that the helicopters remained on the starboard side of the
Ibn Jubair
—firing at the ship while dodging return fire, obviously no more capable of stopping the ship than the small police craft that darted back and forth.

Karchovski looked around. His men were piling large hawser ropes and whatever other material they could find into bunkers. On the stern of each boat, he’d left his lieutenants—both men who had served with him in Soviet special forces—to prepare boarding parties.

A radio he held in his hand crackled on. “The ship is turning toward Manhattan,” the tug captain said. “It may be trying to run aground.”

“Then we must do whatever it takes to prevent that,” Karchovski said.

“We need to get there in time to turn her from the Manhattan side,” the captain replied. “Even then she’s going to have momentum and mass on her side. It will be a tough fight.”

“I’m sure you will win it,” Karchovski said.

“We can try. But you might want to come inside the wheelhouse, where it will be a little safer…that is, if you’re not too busy standing on the bow of my ship playing Admiral Negobatov at the Battle of Tsushima.”

“Didn’t we lose that one?” Karchovski asked with a laugh.

“
Da
. It was a disaster. The Japanese kicked our asses.”

Karchovski smiled. Russian humor was always so deliciously dark.

Kane cackled as he watched the
Ibn Jubair
begin a long, slow turn toward Manhattan Island as the police helicopters and patrol boats skittered about, unable to do much more than shine their spotlights on the ship. Red tracers arced through the air from the police boats and were returned in even greater numbers from the enemy. Occasionally, there’d be the sudden bright streak of a
rocket-propelled grenade or a missile followed by the flash of an explosion.

Kane had laughed uproariously when a missile went past the helicopter and struck one of the buildings across from Battery Park. A small fuel fire on the water marked where a helicopter had gone down in the initial clash, and two police boats burned merrily. “This is even more fun than I thought,” he said, standing up and clapping his hands.

He leaned over again to look through the telescope, but the smirk on his face disappeared when he swung the telescope back toward the Brooklyn Bridge and saw the tugboats. And more important, the armed men on board the boats.

“What the hell!” he exclaimed. He thought he’d planned for every contingency.
Where did Karp come up with those boats on such short notice?
Reaching into his pants pocket, he tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for Lucy’s cell phone to turn on. When it did, he called…
his nemesis
. The unbidden word made him shudder.

“What’s the matter, Kane? Didn’t expect the cavalry to arrive so soon?” Karp said grimly.

“Fuck you, Karp!” Kane snarled. “You call off those tugboats, or I’m going to rape and kill your daughter while you listen. Here, I’m going to put her cell on speakerphone so I can use both hands.”

The cell phone was quiet and Kane began to smile again until Karp spoke. “Lucy, if you can hear me, I love you.”

“I love you, too, Dad, do the right thing! I’ll be okay!”

“No, she won’t, Karp,” Kane screamed. “She’s going to suffer. Now, fucking tell those tugboats to turn around!”

“Can’t do it, Kane,” Karp said. “But I swear to you that when this is over, if you’re still alive, I am going to spend every moment of the rest of my life coming after you. I will hunt you down, and I will choke the life out of you with my own hands.”

“A little vigilante, isn’t that, Mr. Law and Order? What about my Miranda warnings, and all my other constitutional rights?” Kane mocked.

Kane looked at the
Ibn Jubair
, lit up in the spotlights of the helicopters, and then back at the tugboats. “You’re too late, anyway,
Karp,” he snarled. “But I’m still going to rape and kill this bitch, just so that her suffering is the last thing you’ll hear before you die.”

Setting the cell phone down on a desk, Kane walked over to Lucy, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her to the floor. She struggled, but with her wrists and ankles bound there wasn’t much she could do as he began to undo the belt of his pants.

“I feel sorry for you, Kane,” Lucy said. “It’s really a demon that’s making you do this.”

Kane stopped for a moment, then laughed and undid his zipper. “Well, too bad there’s no swine around. Then you could perform an exorcism and the demon would jump into the body of a pig and go drown in the East River.”

“I’m afraid it’s not going to go that easy on you,” Lucy replied. “St. Teresa says the Avenging Angel is on his way.”

Kane laughed. “What avenging angel? Your dad’s about to be turned into a crispy critter. Isn’t that right, Karp!”

“I mean David Grale,” Lucy replied.

At the mention of the name, Kane’s smile faltered. His eyes blazed as he dropped his pants. “I don’t believe in angels.” He stepped toward Lucy, but suddenly she rolled onto her back and kicked up with her feet, catching him in the testicles.

The blow dropped Kane to his hands and knees. Gasping, with spittle flying from his mouth, he stood slowly back on his feet and pulled his knife from its sheath. “I’ll fuck you when you’re dead, bitch!” he bellowed as his eyes rolled insanely.

“Andy! Help me!” Lucy screamed.

“That little son of a bitch isn’t helping anyone….” Kane couldn’t finish his sentence as he doubled over, as though he’d been struck again, and dropped the knife. “Nooooo!” he screamed.

“Andy. He’s going to hurt me,” Lucy yelled.

“I won’t let him,” Andy replied. “He wasn’t in charge of me. I still warned your dad.”

“Yes, you did, and you were a good boy. Now it’s your turn to be the strong one, Andy.”

Kane’s hideous face twisted again. Blood surged wildly through the veins in his ruined skin as his eyes bugged out of their ruined sockets. He turned to Abu and snarled. “Shoot, you fucking idiot!”

“Stop it,” Abu yelled, stepping between them and pointing the gun down at Lucy.

“Don’t shoot her,” Andy yelled. “Shoot me!”

Fear contorting his face, Abu pointed the gun back at Kane.

“For God’s sake, you moron, shoot the fucking witch,” Kane yelled.

Abu stared at Kane and nodded. He turned toward Lucy and raised the gun. A grunt escaped his lips and his mouth made little motions like a fish’s. He dropped to his knees, the gun clattering away, and then fell forward onto his face, Kane’s knife buried in one of his kidneys.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” Andy apologized.

“It’s okay, Andy,” Lucy said. “You did it to protect a friend. Now untie me, please.”

Andy leaned over the twitching body of Abu and pulled the knife out. Abu suddenly shook his head violently and made a noise like a man stepping into a cold shower.

Lucy had managed to sit up and saw that the man with the knife in front of her no longer acted like a ten-year-old boy. Instead, he was a middle-aged, and very angry, sociopath. “Now you’re going to die, bitch.”

Kane paused as he heard Karp’s voice on the speakerphone. “Got it, Espey?”

Stalking over to the phone, Kane sneered. “Got what, Karp? I’m about to gut your daughter like a pig. So what have you got?”

“You, Kane, just you.”

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion from the front of the house followed by the sound of gunshots and shouts of “Federal agents, drop your weapons.” More gunfire erupted.

Howling with rage, Kane turned to kill Lucy only to see that she had almost reached Abu’s gun. The hunter was about to become the hunted. He dodged out of the room just as a bullet crashed into the wall behind his head.

When it became clear to Abdullah that the tugs would intercept him before he could get as far as the Brooklyn Bridge, he’d changed
plans to run aground as far up the island as he could get. Looking at the map, he thought maybe as far as the South Street Seaport Museum and Circle Line boat tour docks.

Now he was willing to settle for the Battery Maritime Building in front of One New York Plaza. The captain had swung the
Ibn Jubair
in a wide turn and had the ship running straight for the land, where Abdullah could see the lights from the cars on the FDR Drive, while off to his right the Brooklyn Bridge still smoldered. He imagined thousands of people in the glass towers in front of him watching the approaching ship, not knowing the horror they faced.
It will still be a glorious end!

Two police helicopters still buzzed around like hornets while the police patrol boats kept making valiant but ineffectual runs at the ship as his men continued to drive them off. The only real obstacles now were breaking away from the path they’d taken along the shoreline and running at an angle toward the
Ibn Jubair
.

Already tracers were flying between the tugboats and the ship. His men seemed to be running out of rocket grenades and missiles as they fired them more judiciously to keep the helicopters and boats at bay.

“They’re going to reach us before we hit land,” the captain said.

“Go as fast as you can and turn into them,” Abdullah said. “Run them over.”

“I’ll try, but they’re more maneuverable and probably will avoid a direct blow.”

Abdullah turned to one of his men. “Go tell the others to concentrate their fire on the tugboats. They must buy us more time.”

As he watched, a rocket grenade screamed away from the ship’s bow and struck one of the tugboats. But it hit the upturned prow a glancing blow and exploded without seeming to cause any damage.

In the meantime, the men on the tugboats were pouring a withering fire at the ship. Being higher out of the water, especially in the wheelhouses, the shooters in the tugboats were much more effective than those of the Harbor Patrol. His men were taking more casualties and having to keep their heads down between shooting a few rounds themselves. He ducked as a stream of bullets crashed through the window of the bridge.

Abdullah heard a strange sound and turned to see the captain sitting on the floor holding his throat. Then the man’s hands dropped; half of his throat had been shot away.

As God wills,
Abdullah thought.
We don’t need a captain anymore.