NYPD Red

Chapter 75

We found the halfway point of the co-ax cable and wrapped it four times around the terrace railing. Kylie took one end, I took the other, and we braided them together.

I found a pair of work gloves in Dino’s studio and put them on. Then the two of us grabbed the end of the cable, backed up into the living room, and pulled as hard as we could.

It held.

“Ready?” she said.

I threw one leg over the railing.

“Eleven minutes. Go,” she said.

I swung my other leg over, jammed my toes into the narrow space under the bottom rail, and lowered the cable. It dropped at least five feet past Kylie’s terrace. I grabbed on for dear life, wrapped my left foot around the cable for stability, looked up to the sky, and whispered the last few words of the Policeman’s Prayer.

Please, Lord, through it all, be at my side.

There was no time for the rest. I lifted my right foot and stepped off into space.

The cable snapped taut. Once again, it held. And there I was, dangling eight stories above lower Manhattan, my life depending on all the skills I had learned in Coach Coviello’s gym class twenty years ago.

I relaxed my death grip and began to walk monkey-style, keeping my knees bent and my hands down, using my legs to keep me from sliding.

I heard screams from the street below. Then another one from above: “Zach, don’t look down! Focus.”

I focused. I looked straight ahead. All I could see was red brick. I moved slowly, hand over hand, inch by inch, brick by brick.

And then I saw a glimmer of glass-the top of Kylie’s terrace door. Another few feet and I was looking into her living room. Finally, my left foot connected with something solid. I lowered my right foot. Contact.

I looked down. I was standing on the seventh floor terrace railing.

I inhaled deeply, blew out hard, and with both legs on the safe side of the rail, I lowered myself to the terrace floor.

“I made it,” I said, looking up.

“I’m coming down,” Kylie said. “Nine and a half minutes.”

The glass door was unlocked. I took off my gloves, slid it open, and stepped carefully into the living room.

The Skype image I had seen on Kylie’s cell phone had been horrendous enough. But being in the same room with Spence-naked, bleeding, and taped to a chair-was that much worse. I’m not sure Kylie could have handled it on her own, which is why I lied to her about taking a demo course at Quantico.

“Spence, it’s Zach,” I said. “Don’t even turn around.”

He let out a long moan.

I stood behind him and stared at the front door. I had been right about the booby trap. Five feet to the right of the doorjamb, a block of C4 was molded to a table leg. There was a wire running from the doorknob to the charge.

Like a lot of cops, I had a few hours of basic post-9/11 bomb training under my belt. I didn’t know a lot, but I knew that if Kylie had opened the front door, it would have triggered the detonator, and the three of us would have been blown apart in an instant.

Spence couldn’t get out of the apartment until someone disarmed it. I sure as hell hoped I was that someone, because right now I was the only option he had left.