Page 73 of NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority

Kylie didn’t say a word. She pushed a button, and the electronic door locks opened with athunk. Rayborn bolted from the car.

I buckled my seat belt and turned to look at Kylie as she stepped down hard on the gas. She was in the zone now, her eyes filled with determination, her focus razor sharp, and for the first time since she found out we’d be sitting in a parking lot watching the action from a thousand feet away, a smug,self-satisfiedsmile spread across her face.

“You look like you’re actually enjoying this,” I shouted at Kylie over the wail of the siren as she made a hard left onto Northern Boulevard.

She yelled back, “If by ‘enjoying,’ you mean is it more fun than sitting out a takedown while someex-copwhines like a little boy who pissed his pants, then yes.Abso-fucking-lutely!”

We were closing in on him fast. By the time he turned onto Astoria Boulevard we were practically on his bumper.

I turned up the radio. It was a nonstop barrage of calls about the fugitive bloodmobile. Not only had every cop in the borough of Queens been alerted, but units were being brought in from Aviation, Harbor, and the Port Authority police.

“Sounds like McSpirit called in the entire cavalry,” I said.

“Don’t care,” she said. “All I know is that we’re at the front of the pack, and he can’t outrun us.”

“He’s driving a fucking bloodmobile,” I said. “He knows he can’t outrun us. His only shot is to create havoc so he can escape in the confusion.”

As soon as I said the words, the big green overhead sign rushed up at us:laguardia airport, nextright.

The bus barely braked as it made a wide right, hopped the median, clipped two cars and a motorcycle, and barreled upEighty-SecondStreet. We were right behind him. McSpirit, his team, and a dozen screaming cop cars were on our tail.

The cacophony helped clear a path, but seconds later he fishtailed onto Marine Terminal Road and sideswiped a taxi that was too slow getting out of the way.

“Fucking lunatic!” Kylie yelled as soon as he ran the red light at Runway Drive. “You know where he’s going, don’t you?”

I knew. But before I could answer, the big bus crashed through a guardrail and achain-linkfence and onto the grassy runway safety area. Port Authority police and Emergency Service vehicles had lined the length of the fence. One was close enough to open fire. Bullets peppered the side, but the bloodmobile was unstoppable as it lumbered onto the taxiway and headed for Terminal A.

“He’s going for the planes,” I said.

There were three occupied jetways at the terminal. All Barbara had to do was ram one of them, and all hell would break loose. As impossible as it seemed, he could escape in the madness.

“I’m a better shot,” Kylie yelled, “but I’m driving. You got this?”

I already had my gun out. “Fucking A, I got it!”

She peeled out from behind the bloodmobile and pulled up alongside. By now my window was down and I was kneeling on the front seat, with both hands gripping my gun.

I had sixteen rounds, and I put eight of them into the front tire. The rubber shredded in an instant, the rim dug into the taxiway, and as the vehicle slowed, I fired the remaining rounds into the driver’s-sidewindow.

The bloodmobile spun out of control, skittered onto the apron, flipped onto its side, and slid into a cluster of baggage carts.

Kylie and I jumped out of our car. I threw a fresh magazine into my gun, racking the slide as we ran to the front of the overturned bloodmobile.

Barbara was lying halfway out the windshield, bleeding profusely, his body riddled with bullets and glass shards.

Kylie looked at me. “Nice work, partner. Four down. One to go.”

CHAPTER 49

The aftermathof the incident that one newspaper would dubbloody hell on wheelslooked a lot like the final scene ofDie Hard. Twisted wreckage, emergency vehicles, flashing lights, a dead villain, the media clamoring to get as close to the chaos as possible.

In the movie, Bruce Willis, the cop who prevented a fictional monumental disaster, hops in the back of a limo with his wife while the soundtrack kicks in with an upbeat version of “Let It Snow.”

But in real life, Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan, the cops who prevented anactualmonumental disaster, were about to be interrogated by Internal Affairs Bureau.

I knew I’d get the brunt of it. I’d killed a man. It didn’t matter that he was about to drive atwelve-tonbus into a plane full of people and there was no other way to stop him. IAB would be on a mission to figure out what I’d done wrong and nail me for it. Everysplit-seconddecision I made would be analyzed for months. I’ve gone through it before. It sucksbig-time.

The wheels on the bloodmobile had barely stopped spinning when Kylie gave me theheads-up. “The vultures are circling.”

---