Page 143 of Witness 8

The leader sprang forward.

I slid all four fingers of both hands into the knuckles and pulled them out of my jacket.

The leader was fast, powerful, but not skilled.

I dropped into a boxing stance, punched from the hip with my right.

I hit him on the left side of his nose. Felt the bones break. He dropped, instantly.

The other three took a second. Stood there.

I can take my chances one on one. Not three on one. Not when two of them have knives.

This was it. Stabbed to death in a dirty garage in northern Queens.

I couldn’t win. But I could hurt a couple of them while they took me down.

Two figures rolled underneath the shutter doors.

And I dropped to the floor and covered my head.

Gunfire. One weapon had quick, cracking shots. The other boomed like a goddamn cannon. I could smell the gun smoke, but I dared not look up. I covered my head and lay flat until I heard the last body drop.

I looked up.

Bloch and Lake, their weapons drawn, were checking the bodies. Making sure the 88s were down and that they stayed down.

I got to my feet, saw the leader rolling on the floor, his hands over his face, blood gushing through his fingers.

Lake stood over him, pointed the weapon and fired once.

The man without much of a nose became the man without a face.

I put away the ceramic knuckles.

‘How did you know I was here?’

Bloch said, ‘When I checked your car for explosives, I put a GPS tracker under the wheel arch. Somebody has to look after you. We need to get out of here.’

I thanked them both, and we hustled out of the garage. I stopped outside, ran back in and picked up the TV guide and my phone.

On the street, I switched my phone back on.

One missed call. One voicemail message.

I hit play.

‘Mr. Flynn, this is Chantelle at Mount Sinai. I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but I see you are the next-of-kin contact for Harry Ford. I’m so sorry . . . You need to get to the hospital as soon as you can . . .’

70

Eddie

I can drive. I mean, I canreallydrive.

But I had nothing compared to Bloch.

She tore through Queens, onto the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge over the East River and onto Randalls and Wards Islands and hit one hundred miles an hour over the Harlem River. I could see Lake holding on to the handle above the passenger door, his body being thrown around as Bloch cornered coming off the bridge and onto FDR Drive.