Killer Instinct - James Patterson Page 0,70

said Pritchard.

“Yeah,” I shot back, “just like you caught them before Times Square.”

Me and my big mouth …

CHAPTER 86

I KNEW the moment I said it I’d gone too far. So did Foxx and my father. Before Pritchard had even raised his arm to clock me, they’d stepped in between us. They had to hold him back, and it was definitely a two-man job.

“I apologize,” I said. “That was the wrong thing to say.”

“You’re damn right it was,” said Pritchard.

“He has a point, though,” said Foxx. “You know this is our best chance. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t deny it.”

“You’re the ones in denial,” said Pritchard. “You’re trying to rationalize the risk. How do you know this station doesn’t already have a half dozen other backpacks planted?”

“The same way I know there isn’t a bomb in the one in that trash bin,” I said.

“We’ll see about that,” said Pritchard.

“You’re right, we will. In the meantime, do you see a sitting dog anywhere?” I asked.

The handlers were working the far side of the concourse, where we were now standing. They’d yet to find anything.

“Even if you’re right about the backpack and the station is clean, you’re forgetting one thing,” said Pritchard.

“What’s that?”

“Outside,” he said. “The press. All they’ll be talking about later today is the bomb scare at Penn Station.”

“No, they won’t,” I said.

“Of course they will. And as soon as that happens, this station will be the safest place in the city. They’ll be choosing another target, just as you said.”

“Only they won’t. Because they’re not going to know about the bomb scare,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot,” said Pritchard, rolling his eyes. “Terrorists don’t watch the news.”

“I told you. It won’t be on the news. Or in the papers or anywhere else.” I turned to Elizabeth. “Isn’t that right?”

It took her a moment. At first she was clearly wondering why the hell I was dragging her into the argument. She looked mortified. She was on thin ice with Pritchard as it was.

Then, as if logging into my brain, her eyes suddenly lit up. She and I weren’t partners for nothing.

“That’s right,” said Elizabeth. “Who knows what really happened in here tonight?”

CHAPTER 87

PRITCHARD WAS listening. He wasn’t sold on anything yet, not by a long shot. But he was listening.

All the more so when I was interrupted even before I could fully pitch the plan. Renner from the bomb squad had called out to us from across the concourse. He was standing in front of the trash bin, holding up the backpack. They were done x-raying it.

“You got lucky,” he yelled out. “Some cans of soda and a few magazines. Nothing more.”

“Yep, that’s what it was. Dumb luck,” I muttered under my breath, albeit loud enough for Pritchard to hear me.

He gave me a slight nod. It was as close to an acknowledgment as I was going to get from him. “As you were saying, Reinhart?”

It suddenly occurred to me to let Elizabeth tell him the idea. She’d be the one making the phone call, after all. This was originally her connection, not mine.

“Actually, go ahead,” I told her. “You tell him.”

Pritchard still wasn’t sold on anything when she was done. But he was still listening. You want to change someone’s mind? Start with their ears.

“Are you sure he’d even go along with it?” he asked.

“Go along with it? Hell, he’ll thank us for it,” said Elizabeth.

Pritchard thought for a moment. There was still time to decide on whether to close the station, perhaps as much as an hour, and he knew there was no harm in seeing if we could pull this off.

“All right,” he said. “Wake the guy up and sneak him in here as fast as you can.”

Elizabeth made the call, although she and I both knew it was highly doubtful we needed to wake the guy up. When people say Manhattan is the city that never sleeps, Allen Grimes and his crime column for the New York Gazette is one of the reasons why. The only real question was whether or not he’d be sober when he arrived.

Minutes later, by way of his being picked up and then being told to lie flat in the back of a speeding patrol car, Allen Grimes came walking toward us in the station. As soon as he saw me he shook his head.

“I should’ve known,” he said, wagging a finger.

Elizabeth wisely hadn’t mentioned my name when she called him. The last time Grimes and I