Page 57

Chapter One

“ Chicago Russian Crime Boss Semyon Novikov Dies in Prison ” was the headline that caught Kyle’s eye as he walked past the New York Times dispenser outside the deli.

Since he’d been the agent responsible for Novikov’s internment in Club Fed , the Bureau of Prisons had given him courtesy notification last night of the old mob boss’s death. But seeing it in print for the first time was a kick to the gut, triggering unwanted emotions that ate at him like acid.

Anger . Loss . Regret . Not for Semyon Novikov . It was for her. Always , for her.

Vicki Solonik .

“ Hell ,” he muttered as hot coffee dripped onto his hands from the two Styrofoam cups he’d half crushed.

He didn’t know what had happened to Vicki after he’d left Chicago , yet somehow she managed to be just as distracting now to his sanity as she’d been ten years ago.

Has it really been that long? Yeah , it had. And he’d never stopped thinking about her.

Technically nothing had happened between them.

At least not in the sexual sense. But there was no denying it had been there, glowing but never igniting into the passionate fireball he knew it would have if circumstances had been different.

Those thoughts haunted him like nothing else could.

She still haunted him. One of many ghosts hovering in his past.

His polo shirt and cotton outer shirt quickly dampened with sweat from the hot, humid early autumn air funneling down Broadway , making him feel like a wet rat. And the day had only just begun.

He’d gotten no more than twenty feet from the deli when he froze, pinning his gaze on the beat-up sedan parked at the curb in front of a bank across the street.

The driver kept looking over one shoulder, then the other.

Considering it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, the knit cap the guy wore was a tad excessive.

From this distance he couldn’t be sure, but the driver looked a lot like Ilya Sorofkin , a notorious wheelman for the local Russian Bratva .

Kyle cursed himself for nearly missing it. Now that his mind wasn’t cluttered with useless emotions it was as obvious as a fifty-caliber machine gun staring him in the face.

The bank was being robbed. He knew it as surely as if the silent alarm was hardwired directly to his brain.

He hurled the two coffee cups into a nearby garbage can and charged to the blue Ford Expedition .

“ Hey !” Jim growled from the open window of the SUV . “ Why’d you dump the coffee?”

Kyle leaned inside the truck, never taking his eyes off the car across the street. “ Grab your cell. See the brown sedan parked outside that bank?” He jutted his chin in the direction of the bank.

Jim turned to look. “ What about it?”

“ The engine’s running and the driver’s real fidgety.”

“ So ?” Jim shrugged and held out his arms. “ Maybe he’s gotta take a leak.”

“ He doesn’t.” Kyle clenched his jaw. “ I think it’s Ilya Sorofkin , and he’s waiting for his buddies inside.”

“ Shit .” Jim yanked out his cell phone and punched in 911. “ Boss , I don’t know how you pick up on this so fast.”

Kyle nodded calmly, but inside his guts were churning like an Iraqi sandstorm. “ Warn them this may be the same crew that tried to rob the Manhattan Bank two months ago. We never nailed those bastards. Different car, but could be the same guys.”

Jim held the phone to his ear, waiting to be connected. “ Didn’t they shoot one of the tellers?”

“ Yeah .” Kyle clenched his fist. “ And left three children without a mother.”

As Jim spoke with the dispatcher, Kyle kept his eyes pinned on the bank. History would not repeat itself. Not on his watch. “ I’m going inside.”

Jim grabbed his arm. “ Not without backup.”

Kyle gave him one of his infamous icy looks that said he wasn’t about to be countermanded, making Jim immediately release his grip. “ No time,” he shot back. “ This could all go down before the troops get here, and these guys have killed before.”

“ Yeah , and Morrison’s gonna kill you if you don’t wait for backup again. Then he’ll have my ass in a sling for letting you do it.”

Kyle compressed his lips. If he waited, the body count could double or triple in a heartbeat. With that overriding fear burning a hole in his insides, he pushed from the SUV .

“ Kyle , wait––”

“ Dammit ,” he snapped. “ Don’t argue with me.” He pivoted and made for the back of the Expedition . Behind him, Jim got out and slammed the door shut.

Kyle lifted the tailgate and reached inside for his Kevlar vest. “ Wait here for NYPD and fill them in. Call the rest of the team.”

He peeled off his sweat-soaked outer shirt. Using the Expedition as cover, he strapped the Kevlar vest around his chest, then redonned his sweaty shirt and buttoned it to conceal the vest.

Jim ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “ Boss , don’t do this.”

“ Call the team.” Kyle put an edge to his voice. “ Do it now––that’s an order!”

Grumbling under his breath, Jim began placing the call.

As Kyle grabbed other gear from the truck, he recalled the TV footage of a young man consoling three small children who had just lost their mother. The raw pain on their faces etched deeply into Kyle’s memory. It was the kind of pain that comes from losing the person you love most in the world.

It was a pain he knew all too well. One he would never forget.

With no small effort, he shoved the ugly images deep down into the emotional pit where he kept them stowed. “ If everything goes to shit inside and you hear shots, take down the driver.” He didn’t wait for a reply, and stepped off the curb.

Charging into the bank hadn’t been on the morning agenda.

Kyle and the rest of his team had just come off a long night of surveillance in Little Odessa , the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn , home to the largest population of Russian immigrants in the western hemisphere.

But Ilya Sorofkin was at the top of the FBI Strike Force Team’s list of suspected bank robbers in New York City .

The man was as violent as they came. Waiting around, sitting on his ass, was something Kyle could never do.

Trying to act casual, he maneuvered across three busy lanes of traffic, barely avoiding several aggressive yellow taxicabs hurtling south toward Lower Manhattan . A number of other cabs and limo drivers pounded on their horns. One flipped him off, yelling a string of obscenities out the window.

On the other side of the street, and without pausing, he touched the trunk of the suspect sedan, tagging the hot metal with his fingerprints. If things went south, at least there’d be evidence on the trunk.

With a sweep of his trained eye, he took in a multitude of details.

The nervous dirtbag at the wheel was indeed the Russian Bratva driver he’d suspected.

Smoke spiraled from a cigarette held out of the car window.

Kyle caught a whiff of smoke as he walked past. Both passenger doors facing the bank were cracked open, allowing for quick entry and an even quicker escape.

It also meant there were at least two more perps in the bank.

Kyle pushed open the bank’s heavy glass door, and a blast of frigid air-conditioned air hit him full in the face.

Dark wood tables dotted the cavernous lobby.

Half a dozen columns stretched from the marble tiled floor to the ceiling.

The columns would provide good cover if they were solid. He couldn’t count on that.

He walked to a table located in the center of the bank. Blank withdrawal and deposit slips were stacked neatly in individual wooden boxes. He wiped the cooling sweat from his forehead and pretended to fill out a withdrawal slip. Glancing up now and then, he searched for Sorofkin’s accomplices.

The robbery hadn’t gone down yet. The only question, was why.

From his strategic position, he took everything––and everyone––in.

Three other people filled out slips at other tables. Half a dozen others waited on lines. Two bank tellers serviced customers from behind a tall, wood counter with barred windows. The only talking was the occasional brief, subdued conversation at the counter.

With another sweeping glance, Kyle noted the bank’s security guard—an elderly man in a wrinkled uniform slouched on a stool near the main door. Kyle wanted to shake him. The guard could have been asleep, for all his attentiveness to what was happening around him.

He continued his scan of the lobby. Somewhere lurked at least two people who didn’t belong there, and it was his job to find them before they hurt innocent people again.

Seconds later, he spotted the lookout standing at the table nearest to the security guard. That meant the old guard would be taken out first.

The lookout wore baggy khaki slacks and an oversized camouflage coat, easily big enough to hide a rifle or shotgun.

Also a tad warm for this time of year, something that incompetent guard should have picked up on.

The lookout glanced around the lobby, his chest rising and falling like an accordion.

The guy was nervous. It didn’t surprise him that during the previous robbery they’d gotten spooked and killed a teller.

He’d seen the bank’s videotapes, assisted in their review, looking for a motive for the killing, but he’d found nothing. Other than the teller’s lack of speed emptying the cash drawer. She’d paid for that with her life.

Kyle’s gut still clenched at the senseless killing.

It shouldn’t have gone down that way. All the perp had to do was wait for the teller to give him the cash, and she would have.

That told him something else about this crew––they liked to kill.

And after the first kill, it only got easier.

He knew that from personal experience, but that had been for God and Country .