NYPD Red 4 (22 page)

As soon as
Max realized that the Ryders were there for his confession and not for the money, he reached behind his back for his gun, held it inches from Annie's head, and put his index finger to his lips.

Slow-witted as he was, Teddy got the message. He froze.

Max carefully lifted the bottom of Annie's sweatshirt.
No wonder the old crone didn't want to be patted down. She was wired.

He turned the gun on Teddy and whispered in Annie's ear, “How many cops in the van?”

She held up two fingers.

Maxwell Bassett was a doomsday prepper—a lifelong survivalist. For decades he'd been prepared for that apocalyptic day when he would have to run from life as he knew it. In all his Armageddon scenarios, he pictured a foreign invasion, a catastrophic natural disaster, or a total societal collapse. Never in his wildest fantasies could he have imagined that he'd be taken down by a conniving old hag and her idiot son.

It didn't matter. He was ready. With the gun trained on them, he went to a closet and pulled out a timeworn, well-traveled Rufiji Safari bag. It was filled with everything he'd need to escape to the fortress he'd built thirty years ago in the middle of the British Columbian wilderness.

He'd have liked to put a bullet through Teddy's empty skull, but the need for silence trumped the desire for payback.

“Now you just sit here and be a good boy,” he whispered in Teddy's ear. “If you're not, you know what's going to happen to your mother, don't you?”

Teddy nodded, and then sat stone-faced as Bassett led Annie out of the room and closed the door behind them.

As soon as they were outside, Bassett manipulated the old lady's microphone just enough to convince the two cops that she was on her way to the van. Then he yanked it out of the transmitter and tossed it in the snow.

“Get in,” he said, opening the driver's-side door of the LR4 and shoving her over to the passenger seat.

“Buckle up,” he said, starting the car. It was a noisy beast, but the odds were that the cops would have their headsets pressed to their ears, trying to pick up a signal from their informant. They'd never know what hit them. The 340-horse supercharged V-6 engine roared to life.

The aging van was sitting a hundred feet away, its side panel a perfect target for the Rover.

Annie held her hands up to shield herself.

“What are you afraid of, Grandma?” Bassett said. “You're the hammer, not the nail.”

“What do you think I'm afraid of, asshole? You T-bone that van, and we're both going to get a face full of air bag.”

“How dumb do you think I am?” Bassett said, turning the Rover so that it was facing away from the Chevy.

Then he threw it into reverse and hit the gas, and the two-and-a-half-ton all-terrain vehicle lurched backward, barreled down the driveway, and plowed into the sweet spot of the soccer-mom sedan.

The side caved in, the van skittered across the ice, and even at thirty miles an hour, the Rover's air bags didn't deploy.

“One more should do it,” Bassett said as he jammed the car into low and pulled forward so he could get up another head of steam. Once again he shifted into reverse, stepped on the accelerator, and plowed backward into the wounded cop car.

This time the Rover's powerful six-foot rear end did the job. The van rolled onto its roof, flipped onto its side, and wavered at the top of an embankment. Then gravity took over, and Bassett listened to the music of tearing metal and breaking glass as the van careened down the hill.

He didn't take the time to examine his handiwork. Even if the cops inside weren't dead, they were in no condition to follow him.

He was 3,152 miles from the sanctuary where he'd spend the next few years hunting, fishing, and reengineering his life.

He looked over at the old lady in the passenger seat next to him. She wasn't going for the entire ride. He was sure he'd find a permanent home for her in less than fifty miles.

Kylie's blond hair
was streaked with red, and there was a four-inch gash across her scalp. “Son of a bitch blindsided us,” she said, wiping the blood from her face with her shirtsleeve. “Don't let him get away. Call it in. Fast.”

I was about to reach for my radio when I heard someone at the back door. The van was on its side, so whoever was trying to get in had to pull the right rear door straight up. Daylight flooded in, and Kylie and I drew our guns and yelled “Freeze” in unison.

“Don't shoot, don't shoot, it's me.” It was Teddy. “Are you guys okay? Because Bassett's getting away. You gotta catch him.” His hands were flying in all directions as he jabbered wildly.

“Hold your hands in the air where I can see them,” I said. “Where's your mother?”

He flung his arms high, annoyed that we suddenly didn't trust him. “Bassett pulled a gun on us and took her hostage. Then he got in his car and smashed into your van. Twice. Knocked you right down a hill,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Do you know where they're going?”

“How the hell would
I
know where they're going? He found the wire, and now he's mad at Ma. The guy is crazy. You said you had backup. Where are all the other cops?”

He was frantic, bordering on hysterical, tears streaming down his cheeks. I put my gun away. “All right, calm down. We're doing all we can,” I said. “You can help us. What kind of car was he driving?”

“A Land Rover. Silver. But don't shoot at him. He's got Ma in the car.”

I got on the radio and called in a ten thirteen—officer needs assistance. And in our case, we needed lots of it.

I gave the dispatcher a quick rundown of the situation, along with a description of the fugitive, the car, and the hostage. It all went smoothly till I gave him my location.

“And you want NYPD to respond to an incident up in the sticks?” he said.

“An incident?” I screamed. “A maniac just tried to kill two NYPD detectives. Jurisdiction be damned. I don't care who you send. There's a killer on the loose, and he's got a hostage. I want local backup, state troopers, air support—anyone and everyone who can help us cut off his escape route and close in on him.”

Teddy stared at me from the back door, his hands still over his head. “They coming?” he said.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Now put your hands down and help us out of this van.”

Teddy held the door up high, and we crawled out. After we'd spent so many hours in the van, the cold air felt good. I stood up and put as much weight as I could on my right knee. It was sore, but it held me up.

Kylie sat on a log, picked up a handful of snow, and pressed it to the gash on her skull.

My radio crackled, and I took a call from dispatch. It was a different voice this time—older, calmer. “We're on it, Detective,” this one said. “The staties are sending up a bird, and the county sheriff is setting up roadblocks at the entrances to the Taconic for fifteen miles on either side.”

“That's not going to help,” I said. “This guy is on the one road out of here, and it's slow going. The best way to stop him is to cut him off now. How soon can you get a unit to where Lakeshore Drive intersects with Mohegan Avenue?”

A long pause, and then, “I can divert some of the county cops and probably have them in place in twelve minutes.”

“He'll be in the wind by then, and he's not going to be getting on the Taconic,” I said. “He knows every back road, off road, and rabbit trail for miles. Tell state we need that bird in the air now, or we'll lose him.”

I put my radio down and shattered the serenity of the woodlands with a loud string of four-letter words.

“What's going on?” Teddy asked.

I was in no mood for Teddy's constant questions. “We're trying to get some goddamn backup over to the other side of the lake before Bassett gets there,” I said, “but in the entire state of New York, not one cop is close enough. That's what's going on.”

“So why don't you two guys go? I promise, I won't try to escape. I'll wait for you right here.”

“We can't go, Teddy,” I said. “As you may have noticed, we don't have a car.”

“Right.” He thought about it for a few seconds. “I have an idea,” he said.

“What?” I snapped, my patience out the window.

“If you want to get to the far side of the lake,” Teddy said, “why don't you just take Mr. Bassett's boat?”

“How were we
supposed to know he had a boat?” Kylie grunted as we clambered up the steep embankment. “We were working blind inside that van.”

“Right,” I said. “Millionaire outdoorsman. House on a lake. It's not like we're trained detectives.”

Teddy helped pull us up over the ridge and onto the driveway. “It's over there,” he said, pointing to a covered boathouse attached to the garage.

We were both operating on high-octane adrenaline, and we sprinted to the dock, where a sleek red Skeeter bass boat was waiting, keys still in the ignition. We jumped in. Kylie cranked up the engine and leaned on the throttle.

“Bassett's got a good head start,” she yelled, “but he's got to navigate three miles of bad road.”

Skimming across the lake at seventy miles an hour, we closed in on the northern tip fast, and Kylie, who pilots watercraft as recklessly as she drives, waited until the last possible second to kill the engine. The Skeeter coasted into a patch of frozen wild ricegrass and came to rest against a guardrail that separated the lake from Mohegan Avenue.

“We're in luck,” she yelled as she hopped the rail and ran toward a dark green Ford pickup that was parked on the shoulder. The gold lettering across the side said
New York State Environmental Conservation Police.

EnCon cops, who started out over a century ago as game and fish protectors, still focus on environmental crime, but the modern day ECO is armed and empowered to enforce all the laws of the state.

The cop who got out of the truck was beanpole high and thin, with a longer than average neck, a smaller than average chin, and the standard wraparound Oakley shades.

Kylie and I flashed our shields and identified ourselves.

“John Woodruff,” he said. “What's NYPD looking for up here in the sticks?”

“Did you see a silver Land Rover come out of Lakeshore Drive?” I asked.

“That'd be Mr. Bassett,” the cop said. “He rolled by maybe five minutes ago. He had a passenger in the front seat. What's going on?”

“The passenger is a hostage, and Bassett is wanted for murder,” I said.

“There's a couple of countries in Africa that would like to prosecute him for killing endangered species,” Woodruff said, “but I'm guessing you're talking about murdering another person.”

“Several,” I said. “We're going to need to take your truck.”

“It's all yours, Detective, but unless you know what you're doing, you're not going to catch him.”

“Why's that?” Kylie said, climbing into the front seat of the pickup. “Because we're city cops?”

“No, ma'am,” Woodruff said. “I know some damn smart city cops. But it's hard to catch someone if he ain't running.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kylie said.

“Bassett's crazy, but he ain't stupid. He's got hidey-holes from here to Saskatchewan. He'll hunker down in one, bide his time till he can jack a car from some drunk fisherman, then move from one bunker to the next until he finally gets to the big prepper palace he's built in the middle of God knows where.”

“He can't hide,” Kylie said. “We've got air support, we'll call in K-9—”

“Choppers? Dogs? Lady, now you sound like a city cop—and not one of the smart ones.”

“What do you suggest?” I said.

“Me?” he said, taking off his shades. His eyes were a deep blue, calming and commanding at the same time. Hands down, they were his best feature. “Stop wasting time and hunt him down before he can settle in. And since you don't know where to hunt, I'd suggest you take along some good ole boy who's lived here the past thirty-four years, is a trained law enforcement officer, and can shoot the winky off a chipmunk at a hundred yards.”

“Get in,” Kylie said, nodding her head toward the passenger seat.

Woodruff opened the driver's side door. “All due respect, ma'am, how about you slide over?”

She did, and the two city cops and the good ole boy headed toward the woods to track down the millionaire version of Rambo.

Woodruff drove with
one hand and dialed his cell phone with the other.

“Andy,” he said, “I got two NYPD detectives in the truck, and they're looking for the butcher.” Pause. “No—murder and kidnapping. He's got a female hostage in his Rover. He rolled by me on Mohegan six minutes ago. If he can make it to the caves on California Hill, we'll never dig him out. Get on the radio and shut down Peekskill Hollow at Tompkins Corners.”

Another pause. “No. Put it on the air. Loud and proud. He's got a scanner, and we want him to know he's cut off—force him to go to ground sooner rather than later. If there's anything you don't want him to hear, use your cell.”

He hung up.

“The butcher?” Kylie said.

“What else would you call a man who paid thirty thousand dollars to slaughter a giraffe who had been nursing her calf, then posed for a trophy photo standing over her with a .458 Winchester Magnum?”

“Do you hunt?” she asked.

“Since I was a kid. I shoot what the law allows, and I eat what I kill. But people like Bassett are thrill seekers. The rarer the breed, the more protected the species, the greater his bloodlust.” He shook his head in disgust. “Do you fish?” he said.

Kylie looked at him like he'd asked if she crocheted. “No.”

“Trout season just opened. You ever want to unwind from the stress of the big city, come up here, and I'll take you out on the lake,” he said. “Both of you,” he added quickly, lest anyone think he was hitting on a fellow police officer in the middle of a manhunt.

The radio was tuned to the universal police frequency, and we picked up bits and pieces of the dragnet as it came together. The chopper was airborne, the Taconic was covered, and the roadblock at Tompkins Corners was in place. Woodruff drove with purpose, making turns without hesitation.

“You know where he's going, don't you?” I said.

“I've got a pretty good idea. I'm a fourth-generation ECO, Detective. My great-grandfather was murdered by a poacher in 1919. I've had my sights on the butcher for years. I know his habits and his habitats. Bringing him down would be an honor and a privilege.”

We drove along a two-lane that cut through a thick forest caught up in the confusion of seasonal change. Broad patches of snow-covered ground proclaimed that winter was not ready to move on, while tiny green buds and dots of purple and white crocuses declared otherwise.

Woodruff slowed the truck down to thirty. Three times he brought it to a full stop, got out, surveyed the area, and moved on. At the fourth stop, he walked to the shoulder, picked something up off the ground, and came back.

“There's an old logging trail through here,” he said. “We keep it dozed as a firebreak, and campers or hunters who know about it will use it to go a couple of miles off-road. There are fresh tire tracks, and I found this.”

There was a small ball of red cotton in his hand.

“It looks like fabric pilling, and it's the same color as the sweatshirt the hostage is wearing,” Kylie said. “She could have picked it off and flicked it out the window.”

“I'm going to go in and find out,” Woodruff said.

“We're going with you,” Kylie said.

“I'm wearing body armor,” he said.

“What do you think this is?” she said, slapping the vest on her chest.

“Kevlar. It holds up pretty good against a low- or medium-velocity pistol round, but Bassett is going to be carrying a high-velocity rifle. I'm wearing ceramic. I can take the hit. You can't.”

“And if he aims for the head, none of us can take the hit,” Kylie said. “This is our show, and we're not going to sit by the side of the road and watch it play out without us. Now let's move out and take this bastard down.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Woodruff said, an expression of newfound appreciation in his eyes. The look only lasted a split second, but I recognized it. I'd seen it from other men in the past when they realized that Detective Kylie MacDonald is as ballsy as she is beautiful.

I had the feeling that the subject of a fishing trip was going to come up again. And this time, my name wouldn't be on the guest list.