Triple Cross

The assassins turned and ran east on Forty-Second toward Lexington and the van they’d come in, which was still rolling. Bree and Salazar, both with years of training, took off after the assailants.

Bree had a federal firearms license and a permit to carry, and as she ran, she dug the Ruger from her purse. Salazar pulled up her gown as she half ran, half waddled, found her backup weapon in a thigh holster, and drew it.

The van crossed Lexington just as the yellow light turned red, the gunmen in close pursuit. The detective shouted, “NYPD! Stop!”

They didn’t slow. A New York taxi headed south on Lexington took off on the green light, streaked across the intersection, and intentionally hit the slowest gunman in the leg. He stumbled, hit the curb, rolled on the sidewalk, and came up shooting. Salazar and Bree fired from the middle of Lexington and hit him square in the chest.

As she ran, Salazar screamed at the pedestrians, the taxi, and the other cars stopped in the intersection, “NYPD! Call 911! NYPD!”

The other two gunmen were still on Forty-Second, heading east toward Third Avenue and the van, which had slowed.

“Don’t let them get in it!” Salazar yelled.

Bree felt stitches in her dress burst as she lengthened her stride, trying to catch up to the two gunmen. A woman came out of a Foot Locker store and almost knocked her over.

Bree lost sight of the assassins as she struggled to keep her balance. A second later, she spotted one of them not thirty yards from the van, which moved at a crawl as it approached Third.

Where’s the other shooter? Where is he?

Bree cut diagonally off the sidewalk onto Forty-Second, looking for a clear shot at the gunman who was almost to the van, when the other shooter appeared from behind a sidewalk planter about thirty feet ahead of her. He fired and hit her in the left arm; she spun around and fell on her side in the gutter.

Shocked, disoriented, she raised her gun and searched for the shooter. She saw him just as he took three steps forward and aimed his weapon at her. A gun went off.

Part of the gunman’s head erupted and he died on the spot.

Bree tried to push herself up, but it was too painful; she saw Salazar passing in that odd waddle, her gun up as she stepped over the dead man. The last shooter was at the rear bumper of the rolling van.

“NYPD!” she shouted. “Drop your weapon!”

He half turned, swinging his pistol toward her.

The detective pulled the trigger.

There was an audible click.

The gunman’s pistol was almost on Salazar when Bree, ignoring the fire in her left arm, pushed herself up, pointed her pistol, got a sight picture, and shot.

The shooter doubled over like he’d been kicked by a mule, but he did not fall and he did not drop his weapon.

Bree shot him again and again, and finally he spun around, fell, and lay sprawled out in the street.

The van accelerated away.

She was aware of being dizzy, of Salazar coming toward her, and of sirens screaming far and wide.

CHAPTER 91

THE DETECTIVE SQUATTED NEXT to her, panting. “You just saved my life, Chief.”

“You saved mine first, Rosella,” Bree said, becoming less confused but also more acutely aware of the agony in her arm.

“You’re bleeding good,” Salazar said, helping her to her feet.

Bree’s vision went blurry for a moment but then cleared enough for her to see the crowd gathered and the third attacker, the one she’d shot, lying on the street, gun a few feet away. His leg moved.

“He’s alive!” Bree said.

Salazar left her, did a fast waddle over, and pushed the gun away with the side of her sneaker. Bree took a few tentative steps toward the detective and heard her say, “He’s wearing body armor, but you caught him good with that last shot.”

The shooter moaned.

Salazar grabbed the top of his hood and yanked it off. There was blood all over the side of his face from a deep gash on the side of his head.

“I’ll be damned,” the detective said.

Bree felt a little nauseated. “What? You know him?”

“It’s the wolf your husband was asking about,” the detective said, a sudden pained expression on her face. “Dusan Volkov.”

“The Russian? Tull’s Russian?”

Patrol cars and ambulances were arriving on the scene. Salazar did something on her phone and got an EMT to look at Bree. Two other medics worked on Volkov in the street.

Salazar’s boss, Lieutenant Ellen Larkin, arrived, saw Bree, recognized her from the massacre at Paula Watkins’s home, and became furious.

“Are you telling me a civilian was blazing away with her gun in the streets of New York and you let it happen, Salazar?”

The EMTs lifted the Russian onto a gurney and moved it toward the ambulance.

The detective pointed at him. “If I hadn’t, I’d be dead, and that guy? Dusan Volkov? He would have gotten away.”

Larkin’s attitude changed. “That’s Volkov?”

“He killed Frances Duchaine,” Bree said. “Right in front of us. The bodyguards too.”

Salazar said, “They’re back there on the sidewalk outside Cipriani.”