Unlucky 13 (26 page)

But, no. Jackhammer was switching out his empty magazine.

Brady shoved Yuki away
from him. He dropped to his knee and fired the last rounds in his AK’s magazine at Jackhammer’s legs.

The terrorist-in-chief dropped his weapon and went down screaming.

BRADY SCRAMBLED TO
his feet, tossed Jackhammer’s weapon away from him, and then bent close to the man’s face.

He said, “I’d happily kill you, you son of a bitch. But you have to answer for all of this.”

Brady shouted out for help, and passengers brought belts, sashes, and strips of torn clothes. Brady rolled Jackhammer onto his belly, tied his hands and bleeding legs, cinching tourniquets
above his wounds.

Yuki stooped beside him.

“The shooting stopped,” she said.

Then she pulled up Brady’s shirt and saw where the blood was coming from.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “That was close.”

She touched his right ear, just above where the lobe had been shot away.

“Oh, Brady,” Yuki said.

He took his wife in his arms. Bottles were being cracked open. Passengers were drinking, and the stinking
sound system was shut down.

“It’s not over,” Brady said. “Counting Jackhammer, that’s thirteen men down. The other six…they could be retrenching.”

Brady heard Brett Lazaroff call out from the rail.

“Brady, Yuki. Come and look at this.”

His broken ribs were killing him, but Brady leaned on Yuki, and they joined Lazaroff at the port side of the Pool Deck.

Following the line of Lazaroff’s finger,
they saw moving specks coming from the eastern shore of the passage.

“Whales?” Yuki asked. “Is that a pod of Orcas?”

“Boats,” said Brady.

A dozen zodiacs were motoring toward the
FinStar
, and within minutes they pulled up to the hull. Grappling hooks were fired. Men in ballistic gear began climbing the ropes.

Lazaroff’s voice cracked when he said, “Those are Navy SEALs, my friends. That’s
the United States Navy.”

IT WAS EVENING
, in the thick of rush hour. Joe and I were in his Mercedes, heading out to San Francisco International Airport, as the sky turned a rich cobalt-blue. Two black SUVs with government plates and flashers bracketed us in front and behind, helping to speed our way.

After a news blackout of two full days, word had exploded over all media channels at once: The surviving passengers
of the
FinStar
were returning home.

Yuki and Brady, along with about a dozen other San Francisco residents who had been aboard, were arriving by Air Canada at a yet to be disclosed time and I definitely wanted to be there when that plane landed.

Naturally, traffic didn’t know or care what I wanted, and I swore at the vehicular knots and snarls, tried to drive
from the passenger seat, jamming
on the imaginary gas pedal whenever Joe had to take his foot off the real one.

I stared ahead at the highway and thought about the last time I saw Yuki, a pale night-blooming flower in her après-wedding dress as Brady twirled his new bride around the dance floor.

Then another memory pushed the party right out. It was the ten seconds of unfocused autumn colors on my iPhone accompanied by Yuki’s
frightened whispered voice—“Lindsay. Our ship was
attacked
”—before her phone was snatched and the lights went out.

The car swerved as we took the exit, and Joe said, “Hon. Lock up your gun.”

I stowed my Glock in the glove box as we turned up the airport access road and swooped to the curb fronting the magnificent winged entrance to the international terminal’s arrival hall.

Homeland Security
agents jumped out of their SUVs, opened our doors, and turned us over to a pair of Air Canada’s security officers. We were taken through the wide-open terminal with its soaring ceilings and oversize spaces, past gangs of press seeking a glimpse of
FinStar
passengers’ loved ones for a fresh clip or maybe a quote.

Our security escort led us through metal doors, down a corridor, and into a small
elevator, before we finally disembarked in a private buff-colored lounge. There was food and coffee, cushy upholstered furnishings, and dense carpeting. I knew that this lounge was generally used by the grieving families of passengers involved in airline fatalities.

As we waited, the lounge filled with babies and grannies and moms and pops, all red-eyed from crying, holding on to toys and blankets
and handmade signs, and to one another.

The three TVs were turned to CNN.

Wolf Blitzer was telling his viewers that some of the terrorists were in detention and others were at the Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage.

Next he showed a satellite image of little stars bursting, blooming, and winking out—the big firefight aboard the
FinStar
. Then Blitzer introduced a live guest,
a former admiral who said, “The SEALs couldn’t board until they mapped out where the shooters were. If they’d gone in too soon, there would have been many more casualties. But when the firefight started, they just went in balls to the walls and took the ship back.”

A tight-faced man who had been sitting with his large weeping family got up and switched off the television sets one after the other.

“I can’t take any more,” he said.

No one protested.

I looked around at the friends and families of
FinStar
survivors and at the pain on their faces.

I know my face was radiating the same kind of pain.

How was Yuki holding up emotionally? Was Brady more badly injured than we knew? Would the two of them want to come home with us? Or would they want to be alone? What did my friends need? What
could we do for them?

I couldn’t know a damned thing until I saw them come through the door.

IT FELT LIKE
ball bearings were rolling around inside my guts. I couldn’t sit still. I ate food that I didn’t want and paced the floor, texting friends and searching the Web for any tidbits that might be leaking out around the edges of legitimate news.

I was taking a lap around the lounge when I glimpsed the small Air Canada jet with wheels down, rolling toward the gate.

I shouted
the completely obvious “They’re here,” then pressed my hands against the windows as the plane was waved in. Joe joined me, and then everyone in the lounge found a few square inches of glass that they could claim as their own.

People bounced on their toes, shouting, and thanked God.

But then nothing happened. Time crawled on its hands and knees one slow second at a time. Cranky babies were shushed.
An elderly man in a yellow Windbreaker began repeating, “God damn it. God damn it.”

By now the passengers must be in the building, right?

What was the holdup?

Where were our people?

Joe put his arm around me as we waited, and then finally a door opened. There were a lot of people between me and the door, but I found a gap in the crowd and focused through that.

First in, an Air Canada pilot
came through to cheers and mad applause. He was pushing a young woman in a wheelchair. People screamed, “Jenny!” and raced toward the chair.

Other crew came through that narrow doorway pushing wheelchairs, and every time a chair came through, the new arrival was greeted with shouts and tears.

I was tearing up before I saw Yuki and Brady—and then slowly they came through the doorway, and I saw
some of what had been done to them.

Brady had been wounded more than once.

His left arm was in a sling, and there was a huge bandage over his left ear. He walked stiffly, and it looked to me like his ribs were taped under his shirt.

Yuki looked like a child who’d been living on the street. Her jeans and sweatshirt hung from her frame. Her face was thin and pale. I yelled her name.

She turned
toward my voice, and when she saw me, it was as if a light went on behind her eyes.

She broke away from Brady and I ran toward her, and when I got my arms around her, I hugged her bony little self half to death.

“How are you? Are you okay? Are you hungry?”

She said over my shoulder, “I’m never letting Brady plan another vacation as long as we live.”

Brady was right there and he heard her.
Grinning painfully and holding on to his rib cage, he said to Yuki, “I want another chance.”

Joe was shaking Brady’s hand when a woman in a bright red sweater appeared and grabbed Brady’s right biceps. She said, “You’re in my prayers for life, Mr. Brady. Christmas cards until the end of time. I’ll write to you soon.”

People flowed around us as Yuki said to me, “He saved us. I mean, Lindsay,
he saved us
all
. I don’t know how many passengers. Many, many. Hundreds.”

Brady said, “You have no idea what strong stuff my wife is made of. She—”

Brady stopped, putting his hand over his eyes. His shoulders shook, and that great big man, the hero who fought for the passengers of the
FinStar
, started to cry.

Yuki put her arms around him, very gently.

“Okay,” she said. “It’s okay, dear one.”

“I’m not crying,” he said. “This is…”

It hurt to hear his huge wracking sobs, but I understood that he was feeling overwhelming relief. He was alive. Yuki was alive. He was home.

“Let’s get out of here,” Yuki said.

“Car’s right outside,” said Joe.

EVERY COP IN
Homicide, all three shifts, as well as Robbery, Vice, and the brass on the fifth floor, was crowding our squad room, spilling out the gate and into the waiting room and halfway down the hall.

It was an insanely happy crowd and a very tight fit.

Cappy and Samuels were trying to hang a W
ELCOME
B
ACK
B
RADY
banner over Brady’s office door. Really. Watching those two extra-large
cops balancing on wheelie chairs, ordering each other around—well, it was hilarious.

I was putting out cookies on Brenda’s desk, telling Conklin about last night.

“So Yuki says, ‘I want barbecued spare ribs. No, make that I
neeeeed
barbecued spareribs.’ And Brady says, ‘Pasta with red sauce. Eggplant parmigiana. Osso buco.’”

Conklin laughed and popped a chocolate-walnut cookie.

“And Yuki says,
‘Egg rolls. Pork fried rice. Oh, my
God
. Lobster in black bean sauce. Anything in black bean sauce.’ And Brady tries to hold his broken ribs, and he says, ‘Please darlin’, whatever you want. Just don’t make me laugh.’”

Conklin and I both fell apart at that and then a shadow fell across my desk.

It was Jacobi. There was a bad look on his face.

“There’s been another belly bomb explosion,” he
said. “Young guy, just back from Afghanistan. Supposed to get married next week.”

Conklin said, “Not possible, Chief. Not a belly bomb.”

“Tell that to the dead soldier with his guts blown out. This time, the victim had his burger ‘to stay.’ There were assorted nonfatal casualties as well.”

Jacobi took out his phone and showed us the interior of a Chuck’s restaurant after a consumed belly bomb
went off.

“Aw, fuck,” my partner said.

Jacobi nodded, then said, “Conklin. You and I are going upstairs to question Walt Brenner. Maybe he’ll brag on planting a delayed-action bomb. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

“I’ll talk to Timko,” I said.

The women’s jail is around the corner from the Hall on 7th. Timko was incarcerated there, awaiting trial, and I hoped she was getting a good sense of
life without an office, a staff, a new Caddy, a house—nothing but a jumpsuit and a lot of time to catalog her mistakes.

I made a couple of calls as I jogged down the fire
stairs and then continued out the lobby onto Bryant. Five minutes later, I ran up the steps to the huge Sheriff’s Department Building. I passed through security with no hassle, found my way to the appropriate reception area,
and twiddled my thoughts while Timko was located.

An hour later, Officer Bubbleen Waters found me.

She’d gone blond since I’d last seen her, and she’d been working out with weights.

She said, “Lucky you, Sergeant. Ms. Timko will see you now. What a nasty piece of work.”

“And her lawyer?”

“She doesn’t want him, because she didn’t do anything and she’s not going to say anything. And that’s
a verbatim quote.”

“Huh.”

“She wants to give you the evil eye, she told me.”

“Okay. I’m wearing my invisible force field. So.”

“Oh, wow. Where can I get one of those?”

“Walmart, where else?”

Officer Waters laughed, and I followed her into an elevator. I stared up at the blinking numbers as the car rose to the seventh floor.

She escorted me past more security checkpoints and through several
gates to a gray windowless room with two plastic chairs and a yellow Formica table. This is where I waited to talk with the former head of Chuck’s product-development division.

Then I heard Bubbleen’s voice in the corridor, saying, “You got fifteen minutes to stare your eyes out, Ms. Donna Timko. Go right in.”

DONNA TIMKO SHUFFLED
into the small meeting room. She was dressed in orange, wore no makeup, and had stringy hair. She looked sallow and yet cheerful. Why? She should be hitting the bottom about now, I figured.

With shackles clanking, she edged onto the plastic chair across the table from me and was compliant as Officer Waters linked her cuffs with a chain through the hole in the
table to the chain around her waist.

“I’ll be baaack,” said Officer Waters.

The door closed and Timko and I were alone.

“I’m getting that déjà vu feeling,” she said. “Only this time, no coffee, no Baby Cakes.”

Okay, good, she wasn’t giving me the silent treatment. I said, “Donna. How’re you doing?”

“Not bad. First vacation I’ve had in years. Nice of you to ask. Why are you here?”