NYPD Red

Chapter 76



MICKEY HAD BEEN right—rigging the explosives was not complicated. But it sure as hell wasn’t easy peasy. Sweat poured off The Chameleon’s face, and the white shirt under his waiter’s uniform was soaked through as he inserted the remote detonator into the C4 on the starboard side of the yacht.

“One down, two to go,” he said to the semiconscious seaman who was trussed, gagged, and secured to a six-inch-wide stainless-steel pipe. “According to my friend Mickey, all it takes is three perfectly placed charges, and you can sink this tub without a ripple. Let’s hope he was right, God rest his soul.”

The man pulled hard at his bonds, straining the veins on his neck and forehead.

“Don’t do that,” Gabriel said. “You’ll give yourself a stroke or some kind of a brain hemorrhage. Relax. Stick around for the fireworks.”

Connor stopped squirming.

“Good,” The Chameleon said. “You know, if you and I had met under different circumstances—I don’t know, like in a bar or something—I bet we’d have hit it off great. We’ve got a lot in common. You’re down here in the goddamn boiler room and all the stars are up on deck. That’s the kind of shit I have to put up with. I’m either a guy reading a newspaper in the back of a bus, or a businessman getting out of an elevator, or a dead soldier on a battlefield. Never the hero. Never the big star. You know what I’m talking about?”

The man’s only response was the tear that streamed silently over his duct-taped mouth and onto the floor.

“I know,” The Chameleon said. “It’s a crying shame the way they treat us. But that’s all going to change. Tomorrow morning’s newspaper, you and me—we’re going to be headliners.”