“Not sure.” Nikki’s mind raced, running maps and odds through her head. “Pier Eleven’s down the block. He might be making a run for the river. Let’s go, let’s go.”
Rook tore off after the outboard, whose churn they could by then make out like a pale apparition in their headlights. The tide had reached its peak, and the water grew deeper as they got closer to the East River. The truck, which had performed like a champ, began to labor. “Come on, baby, come on,” said Rook. “How close?”
“Almost to South Street, almost there.” But then the machine lost its match with Nature. The engine died. Heat opened her door and stood on the running board, shielding her eyes from the storm, trying to follow the beam into the swirling night.
The outboard had reached Pier Eleven, and was slowing to a stop. That bastard was less than a hundred yards away. She indicated the dead officer to Rook and said, “Use his radio to call another ten-thirteen.” And then Heat grabbed something from the floor of the truck and left.
Spindrift pelted Nikki’s face, filling her mouth with a brackish taste. The howl of Sandy’s fury isolated her from any sound other than the wind and spray lashing violently at her ears. Though she ran as hard as she could, the tide measured thigh-deep in that neighborhood. Still lower than it had been farther downtown, but fighting the ferocious wave chop coming right off the East River made Heat feel like the trailing contestant on Wipeout. Underneath the FDR, she caught five seconds of shelter, adjusted the sling of the backpack, and sloshed on.
A tiny, shallow-draft Boston Whaler was not engineered for super-storms. Ahead of her on Pier Eleven, Heat saw its bow lift in a gust, turning its flat bottom into a wing that caught air and pointed the craft skyward before it flipped back upside down and then pinwheeled directly at her. She ducked behind the metal generator unit at the head of the pier and watched it sail overhead and crash into a concrete support of the highway overpass behind her.
When she came out from behind the machinery, Nikki spotted Zarek Braun recovering from his capsize. He saw her, too, as he hauled himself up from the churning water that covered the pier. Just when Heat thought she had him bottlenecked on that wharf, he turned and kicked a massive wake of his own, running to her left. Was he foolish enough to try to swim for it?
No. He was heading for the gangplank to Slip A, one of the docks where the water taxis come and go. No taxi tonight. But she did see a boat tied to the heaving berth—a twenty-four-foot Zodiac military pro Responder. A man on board caught a glimpse of Zarek Braun waving a circle in the air and fired up the twin Mercury 150s on its transom.
The floating dock took a swell, and Braun toppled facedown on his first step off the gangplank onto the lurching platform. Nikki reached the top of the gangplank, braced on the metal railing and called a freeze that got carried away unheard in the whirlwind. Zarek Braun rebounded from his fall and pivoted toward her with his assault rifle. She fired one round that went astray when the dock pitched, moving him sideways and down. He got on one knee and replied with a flaming burst from the G36 that sent Heat diving behind a soda vending machine.
His aim was off, too. All his rounds went high.