18. A Son for a Son #2
Brice and Conor board the train at Grand Ave, Brice in the car ahead of Fitz's. Rory is in the one behind it. Wearing a hoodie and baseball cap, Conor slouches onto the car with Fitz but doesn't look at my son.
Kara gives me a play-by-play from what she sees on the security camera feed from inside the train. Her facial recognition program hasn't found Karl Nystrom on any of the platforms.
I change my mind about the stop I'm going to when he doesn't show his face at the first stop. After that first stop, the highest risk is at 74th St and Broadway. It's a common stop for all lines and the perfect place to get Fitz onto another train.
I'm in place on the platform a full five minutes before the train pulls in. It's crowded with tourists doing the weekend thing and I scan their faces, looking for someone that resembles Nystrom.
I don't see him, but that doesn't mean he's not here and I make my way unobtrusively through the crowd, looking for anomalies.
If he's here, he's better at hiding in plain sight than his son was.
The heavy, rhythmic rumble of the approaching train vibrates the platform and I make my way toward the front. The high-pitched screech of the wheels gripping the tracks drowns out the sound of even the loudest tourist's conversation.
I catalog every person near the front of the platform. If Nystrom plans to grab Fitz off the train, he needs to be one of the first on it, but he can't afford to step onto the wrong car. There won't be time to make his move if he has to travel between cars.
So, he'll be at the front but watching through the windows of the cars as the train passes him for a sight of Fitz. It's not an elegant plan, but if Fitz hadn't let us know what was going on, it would have worked.
"There's a man moving toward Fitz in his car. Gray dreadlocks half covering a face with a bushy gray beard, wearing a tunic and cotton pants." The urgency in Kara's voice says she sees something we're not hearing.
Or she's got a feeling.
My gut is screaming at me. "Move in, Conor."
"Already moving, boss," he replies.
"Why did you stop?" Kara asks. "Fitz is talking to the man," she adds. "His face isn't giving anything away."
"His hand is in his pocket under the tunic," Conor replies, his voice steady. "There's a bulge pointed toward Fitz."
A gun? Would he risk using a gun on the subway? Does he think the mere threat of it will force Fitz to go with him?
Why the gun at all when he thinks he has Fitz under his thumb with his threats toward Sadie?
"Is it Nystrom?" I ask the only question anyone can answer.
"Too much of his face is covered by the dreadlocks for facial recognition with the beard," Kara says.
"He's the right height and build," Conor says. "But it's inconclusive."
Which means we don't know if it's Nystrom, or someone working with him, making Nystrom still a threat in play.
"Fitz is standing up," Kara's voice in my ear is nearly drowned out by the loud hiss from the compressed air braking system heralding the arrival of the train.
The crowd surges forward and I move with them.
Toward the car with Fitz and Dreadlock Guy.
The doors open.
"He has a hand on Fitz's arm and he's sticking close to him," Kara says urgently. "Conor's right behind them."
"I'm right here," I promise my beating heart. "He's not taking our son."
I make my move the second the man exits the train. Trusting my son to remember his training, I grab the elbow of the arm not holding my son and press against his ulnar nerve. Hard.
The hand crossing his body under his tunic drops and the object he was holding falls to the platform. I kick bleedin' feckin' Vanta off the platform as I execute a turning maneuver that puts me between the man and Fitz.
"I've got him," Conor says over the comms as he pulls Fitz away.
Kara gives instructions to Conor and Rory where to take Fitz. Not toward the exit.
I shove Dreadlock Guy away from them. Right into Brice, who greets him effusively with deadly friendliness, a hand on either side of his neck. I keep Dreadlock Guy in place while Brice executes a carotid artery pressure maneuver.
The would-be kidnapper sags into unconsciousness as the train pulls out of the station. Brice follows my lead toward the maintenance tunnels, our captive a dead weight between us that none of the sparse crowd left on the platform after the last train's departure notice.
Once we're inside the tunnel, we take the time to zip tie Dreadlock Guy's wrists together behind his back before he wakes up.
He's groggily staggering between us by the time we reach the secret access point to the Bunker where Fitz and my men are waiting.
The soldiers don't know about this entrance to the Bunker. It's for the boss and underboss, in the case of extreme emergencies and it's the one secret my father-in-law has managed not to expose to our allies.
Kara knows though. I told her. And now Rory, Conor, Brice and Fitz do too.
I'm not worried. I can trust them to keep their traps shut about it.
Fitz stands between his uncles, his gaze fixed on Dreadlock Guy as we march him forward. "Where's Sadie?" he demands in a fair imitation of my deadliest tone.
It's enough to make an Irish father weep with pride.
If this Irish father had ever wept before.
"Is that Fitz?" Kara asks in my ear.
"Aye," I assure her.
Before I can answer Fitz's question, Dreadlock Guy stumbles, then he shifts down and up, driving into Brice's diaphragm with his shoulder. My second staggers back a single step, but it's enough.
Dreadlock Guy turns and starts sprinting down the tunnel back the way we came.
I pull out my Vanta, aim and shoot his foot as it lifts backward on the next step. His shout is louder than the shot and I'm ragin' all over again at the thought of the Vanta we're going to have to retrieve from the Subway tracks.
No need to guess where he got the whisper gun. Kenneth bleedin' Shaughnessy.
My quarry drags himself to the wall and gets up onto his still usable foot before trying to take another step, dragging his bloody appendage behind him. He's a stubborn motherfucker, I'll give him that.
But he crumples on the next step.
He's not going anywhere.
I turn back to my son. "Sadie never left her apartment. I checked on Maureen and the girls as soon as I heard about the hit on Wraith and áine."
Fitz wilts a little. "Good. What about her parents? His text said they were dead."
My son doesn't sound like he believes that. He shouldn't.
"Wraith is getting áine checked out, but they're fine."
"I didn't think Wraith would let anyone get to them," Fitz says with conviction.
Before I can answer, Kara says, "I want to talk to our son."
The programmed signal for someone joining or leaving the group call sounds. A couple of seconds later, Fitz jolts and grabs his phone out of his pocket.
"That'll be your mam," I tell him.
He answers. "Mom? I'm sorry." He pauses and looks a me like a new recruit facing Brice across the training mat for the first time. "She's crying."
I turn and shoot Nystrom's other foot, his howl of pain music to my fucking ears.
Brice jogs over and picks him up, throwing him over his shoulder, blood from the man's wounded feet soaking the front of my top lieutenant's once pristine suit.
"Rory, I need you on cleanup. Alone. Conor, I want the surveillance footage of Fitz leaving erased."
"Right. No one knows that the heir to the throne nearly got kidnapped and killed," Brice barks. "This stays with us."
My soon-to-be-underboss understands.
So does my son, from the expression on his face as he reassures his mother that he's okay and was never in any real danger.
Debatable.
But I'm sure as bleedin' hell not going to say that to my precious wife.
I let us into the only tunnel not overhauled when we upgraded the Bunker's security. The air is stale and musty, the walls lined with century old brick, the floor still packed dirt.
Stygian darkness envelopes us after the door shuts behind us.
I turn on my phone's flashlight. Conor does the same.
"What is this place?" Fitz asks after turning on his own flashlight. "The call dropped when the door closed," he explains hanging up with his mam.
"To be expected. It's an access tunnel to the Bunker."
It takes us twenty minutes to reach the Bunker after tearing up Brice's shirt and pressure wrapping our captive's feet so he doesn't bleed out before he can tell us what we need to know.