I began closing the distance as Mike chased Victor east for two blocks. At the end of the third intersection, they went under an el and in through the gate of a junkyard. Would Ordonez get away? I guess I hoped so. If it were up to me, he could keep running until he got back to Santo Domingo.

Unfortunately, Mike kept up his pursuit, rushing hell-bent for glory around an obstacle course of crushed boxes and piled metal. All Ordonez had to do was wait and fire, and Mike would be toast. But it didn't happen that way.

Approaching a rusted tin wall at the rear of the junkyard, I heard a loud metal screech. Then a metal-on-metal boom. What the hell was that?

Half a block away in the farthest corner of the yard, I spotted Ordonez scrambling off the forklift he'd just crashed into the fence.

He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled out of sight through a crack that he'd made in the fence.

A second or two later, Mike appeared from a wall of pipes and dove through the same hole in the fence, still chasing Ordonez.

When I finally got there, huffing and puffing, I could see trains. Lots of trains. Ordonez had fled from a junkyard into a subway rail yard.

And I forgot to fill my MetroCard, I thought as I crawled through the fence, keeping my eyes peeled for the deadly third rail.

I WAS RUNNING through a narrow space between two parked number 4 trains, searching frantically for Mike and Ordonez, when I heard a sharp crack. Shit! The window above my head shattered. "Hey, white girl! Catch!"

I turned in time to watch Victor Ordonez, who was leaning out the conductor's window two cars away, fire again. I felt something zip past my ear and then heard a sound like thin ice breaking.

I started emptying my Glock in Victor's direction.

I ejected the empty clip before I realized something warm was running down my neck. My legs dematerialized suddenly, and I found myself lying on gravel. There was something wrong with the side of my face.

God, I'd been hit! I felt dizzy. Like I was sliding out of myself, watching myself from a distance.

Don't go into shock, Lauren. Move! Do something! Right now! I scrambled upright and began retreating as fast as my shaky legs would carry me. I pressed the sleeve of my jacket to my head where it was bleeding.

I fell to my knees one more time and had to pick myself up again before I reached the end of the train.

I spotted an open door at the end of the last car. I climbed up, pulled myself inside on my stomach, and rolled under some seats.

That's when the shooting really got started! Two or three cars away, a shotgun blasted three times in quick succession. Then it went off again almost on top of me, and the window glass of the car I was in shattered.

I was lying there, curled up on the filthy floor, bleeding and shivering, when I suddenly heard Ordonez scream in the next car. I couldn't see him from where I lay, but I could hear him as clearly as if he were in the same room.

"Okay! Okay! I give up!" Victor Ordonez yelled at somebody.

There was the sound of something heavy dropping against the floor. Scott's gun?

"I want my lawyer," Ordonez said.

For a second, everything was quiet. Too quiet. What was happening now?

Then a shotgun was jacked.

Click-clack.

"Only thing you're going to need, you cop-killing piece of shit," I heard Mike say, "is an undertaker."

No! I remember thinking. Dear God, Mike. What are you doing? No!

I spun onto my stomach, struggled to stand, my mouth gaping to shout at Mike.

"Cop killer?" I heard Ordonez say with confusion in his voice.

Then the shotgun exploded one last time.

I MUST HAVE PASSED OUT for a little while, because the next thing I heard were the cries of somebody asking, "Where the fuck are you?" The words were coming out of Mike's radio, which lay beside my head. Mike was on the subway car floor, cradling me in his lap.

"You're going to be all right, Lauren," Mike said. He had a smile on his face, and there were tears in his eyes. "Your head got nicked. Flesh wound. Honest to God. You're going to be fine."

"I'm not dying?" I asked Mike.

"Nope. Not on my watch."

Through the open door between cars, I could see a hand sticking out of a sea of shattered glass. Blood was flecked on a white sleeve.

"What about Victor?" I said. "You…"

Mike put a finger to my lips.

"Fired on him after he shot at me. You remember what happened, partner?"

I winced. I couldn't believe it. Somehow I'd gotten from my normal life to here.

"That's the way it happened. He shot and then I shot," Mike repeated. "That way and no other way."

I nodded, looked away from Mike. "I hear you. I got it, Mike."

"They're here," a frantic voice called from somewhere outside the subway car. "They're in here."

"My dad was killed on a train just like this one," Mike said in a tired voice. "Just like this one."

Outside came the chop-chop of an approaching helicopter, then the sound of barking dogs.

"He used to take me and my brother fishing out on City Island," Mike went on. "My little brother was so hyper he flipped the boat on us one time. I thought my dad was going to drown him, but instead he just laughed. That's how he was. How I'll always remember him. With us hugging his big neck as he laughed like hell, swimming us ashore."

An awful sound ripped from the back of Mike's throat. Thirty, forty years' worth of grief.

"I always knew something like this would happen," he said. "Sooner or later."

I patted my partner on the elbow.

Then EMTs and cops and DEA agents all came flooding into the shot-up train car.

I DEFINITELY WASN'T DYING TODAY. It turned out I didn't need stitches, so the EMTs cleaned my wound, applied pressure to stop the bleeding from my cheek and left ear, and fixed me up with a small bandage. I sat on the edge of the ambulance, watching the fuss and thinking that I easily could have been killed in this train yard.

Trahan had finally called the Emergency Service Unit, the NYPD's SWAT guys, and a wagon circle of their diesel trucks surrounded the train yard's wheelhouse. There were K-9 units, aviation hovering, a platoon of detectives and uniforms. After Mike saw me go down, he'd called in a 10-13, "cop in dire need," and it seemed everyone on the force, except maybe the harbor patrol, had responded.

Lieutenant Keane hopped down from the train car where Victor Ordonez was still lying and came over.

"You did real good," he said. "The serial number on the gun beside our dearly departed friend in there matches. It was Scott's. Just like we thought. The Ordonezes took him out."

I shook my head and genuinely couldn't believe what had happened. In a weird way, it had actually worked out better than I could have hoped, or dreamed. Everything was going to be okay now. Despite the stalling, the omissions, the lies.

"Any sign of Mark, the pilot brother?" I asked.

"None so far," my boss said. "But don't worry, he'll turn up."

"Where's Mike?" I asked.

My boss rolled his eyes.

"IAB. Rat squad practically got here before the ESU. You'd think you getting hit might make a difference to them. Those shit-shoveling assholes think you shot yourself and dumped the gun maybe."

I kept my breathing normal, but only through intense concentration.

Meanwhile, my boss rubbed my back like a boxer's cornerman before standing him back up to fight.

"Why don't you tell this kid to get you over to Jacobi before the commissioner shows up. After the hospital, go home and unplug the phone. I'll keep the sewer rats away until you catch your breath. Give me a call sometime tomorrow. You need anything right now?"