by David DeLee
“Of course, I recognize you. I saw you die.”
He smiled. His mouth full of stained, crooked teeth. “You thought you saw me die. You should have remained to ensure you finished the job.”
“What’s going on?” the redhead asked.
“This,” he said, turning to Bridget as he ran the back of his fingers over his rough, scarred cheek. “I have her to thank for this.” He shook with barely contained anger. “And I have you to thank, Ms. Barnes, for bringing this she-devil into our mist. I sent you to complete one simple task and you return to me with one of the most dangerous, most treacherous American infidels I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.”
“What are you talking about?” Bridget asked.
Tara cut her off. “Tell me how your filthy, flesh-stripped bones aren’t laying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean? How did you survive, Aziza Faaid?” Tara demanded. “Tell me!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THREE HOURS AFTER BANNON stormed from the FBI offices and a quick drive to Hampton Beach, Bannon and McMurphy were once more back in Portsmouth. This time, under cover of the early morning darkness and dressed all in black, they walked across the rooftop of a seven-story apartment building on Congress Street, south of Daniel Street. Gravel crunched under their feet as they made their way to the middle of the roof. There they set down the large, heavy boxes they carried. They were the size of small steamer trunks.
Inside each box was a power glider.
Power gliding, an extreme sporting craze Bannon had been anxious to try, made use of a combined hang glider and a personal, twenty-five pound backpack engine and propeller system. With a diameter of three feet, it looked like an industrial grade exhaust fan. Pictured on the box was a grassy field bordered by blue sky and tall evergreen trees. In the foreground stood a smiling man wearing a white flight suit, a brown canvas harness, and a white crash helmet. Beside him sat a red power glider.
Bannon had bought the gliders months ago with the intention of trying them out on a sunny weekend afternoon on the sandy shore of Hampton Beach. This wasn’t how he envisioned his first power gliding trip, but it would have to do.
Quickly, he and McMurphy extracted the contents from the boxes, replaced the wrappings and other packing material inside, and wedged the boxes behind a ventilation shaft.
Ten minutes later, they had the engine components assembled along with the lightweight aluminum harnesses. They fit the aluminum skeletons of the gliders together then unfurled the blue and white nylon sails. Unlike traditional hang gliders, power gliders were configured so the pilot could sit in a harness with the control bar positioned in front of them, the engine and propeller system in the back.
They quickly filled up the fuel tanks with gasoline they’d brought with them. Enough fuel for two hours’ flight time, according to the manuals. They would only need a fraction of that.
They made the final connections between the backpacks and the sails, double-checked the other’s work, and then lifted the contraptions onto their shoulders. As they threaded their arms through the canvas straps and adjusted them across their chests, McMurphy said, “You’re sure about this?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Bannon said, settling the harness seat against the back of his legs and adjusting the steering arm in front of him.
“You any idea how many crimes we’re about to commit? Federal and otherwise?”
“I find it best not to think about it.”
“Or how many years we’ll spend in the hoosegow if we get caught?”
“None if we don’t get caught.”
The triangular sails snapped in the gentle night breeze coming off the nearby harbor. Bannon push-started his engine and McMurphy did the same. Giving themselves a good running start, they jogged across the roof, the sails flapping behind them.
First Bannon, then McMurphy, jumped.
They landed on the building’s parapet, pushed off, and leapt from the roof, plunging toward the ground eighty-five feet below. Wind in his hair, Bannon’s heart raced as the propeller strapped to his back sputtered, bit the night air, and then finally caught.
He shoved at the steering bar to catch the updraft. The kite-like sail billowed.
A sudden blast of wind reversed his descent and jerked him up and over the tumble of lower buildings below. The propeller roared in his ears. Beside him, McMurphy whooped like a kid riding a roller coaster for the first time. He glanced over to see his friend grinning from ear to ear. Wind whipped in his face, warm and tasting of the ocean. He shifted position and pushed the triangular control bar to the right, toward the port and Daniel Street.
Five minutes later, like eagles circling a nest, they flew over the rooftop of the lower federal building—only four stories tall—in wide, sweeping arcs. Bannon brought the power glider down in a perfect, three step landing.
McMurphy did the same three seconds later.
“Okay, so that was very cool,” McMurphy said as they unsnapped harnesses and collapsed the sails, setting the engine and disassembled frames on top to keep them from blowing away.
With the power gliders stowed, they crossed to the metal door that would gain them access to the building. As he’d hoped, the door had a glass window.
Bannon rubbed a spot clean in the soot-smeared glass. From a utility pocket he extracted a black case the size of a book e-reader, his Swiss Army knife of burglar tools. From it he selected a small, green-handled tool with a slim metal shaft. He thumbed the switch on the side and the metal tip glowed orange. He touched glass-cutting tool to the glass and quickly cut out a circle large enough to reach his hand through.
The cut circle fell inward before he could stop it. It shattered on the floor inside the stairwell.
“If they have glass break detection alarms, we’re screwed,” McMurphy whispered.
“Old building. They don’t,” Bannon assured him.
“You can’t know that.”
He didn’t. He just hoped and had faith in lady luck.
From his tool kit he extracted a magnet. He reached through the hole in the glass and placed it against the magnetic contact to maintain the circuit while McMurphy used his own set of lock picks to pick the lock. They heard a click. He pulled the door open. They held their breath and waited. No alarms went off. There was no rush of well-armed FBI agents waiting for them in the stairwell as they stepped through the doorway. Bannon pulled he door shut behind them.
“I forget how adept you are at breaking into places,” McMurphy whispered.
“Blame it on my misspent youth,” Bannon said with a grin. “Besides, you’re pretty handy with a set of lock picks yourself.”
“Because of the company I keep.” He slapped Bannon on the shoulder with a smile. “We better keep moving.”
At the base of the first set of stairs, Bannon said, “Let Kayla know we’re inside.”
Lieutenant Kayla Clarke worked for the Judge Advocate General of the Coast Guard, what other branches might call a JAG officer, though the Guard did it a little differently. She was assigned to First Division, stationed in Boston, Mass. She’d also worked with Bannon and his Deployable Operations Group back in the day. Because he trusted her, he often called upon her to help them on his escapades, as she called them since he began working for Grayson.
McMurphy shot her a text. She replied by return text. She was in the van, in position a block away.
“Good,” Bannon said.
McMurphy pocketed the phone. “Where do you suppose they hold prisoners in a building not designed to hold prisoners?”
With a shrug, Bannon guessed, “The basement?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BANNON PULLED A BLACK wool ski mask over his face. McMurphy did the same. His face began to sweat immediately. Bannon checked his watch. It was a little after three in the morning. He assumed the building—primarily an office building for various federal agencies that just also happened to be a satellite FBI office—would be empty except for those agents assigned
to guard the prisoners.
How many there were and what level of training they’d have was anybody’s guess. Bannon hoped they weren’t all SWAT-trained agents like the ones that’d accompanied them to the bungled storefront meet. Despite how that fiasco turned out, he had no desire to go head-to-head with that level of trained agent.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell. Five flights, which put them one story below the ground floor. The door was solid gray metal. No window to peek through.
Bannon had debated whether or not to bring firearms. The last thing he wanted to do was shoot a federal agent. They were men and women just doing their jobs. In the end, he and McMurphy decided to come armed with their Coast Guard Sig Sauer 9mm. They would only fire in self-defense, and hopefully do so without killing anyone.
He nodded to McMurphy who pulled the door open.
He slipped into a deserted service hallway.
Together they made their way down to an intersecting hallway. They heard voices.
At the corner, Bannon dropped to one knee and leaned out past the wall. There were two men in dark suits, without ties, and their white shirt collars unbuttoned. Behind them was a closed door. One sat in a folding metal chair, tilted back against the wall. The other stood in front of him, smoking a cigarette. Bannon saw no weapons, but assumed they were armed.
He held up two fingers to McMurphy.
“How do you want to play it?” his old friend asked.
He wanted to get in and get out, not waste time looking for ways to circle around and sneak up on them or wait for one of them to leave, which might never happen.
“Straight at ’em,” Bannon whispered back.
They had the element of surprise, and a warning shot or two would keep them from drawing on two armed men. He hoped.
“Come on.” He waved McMurphy to follow and charged down the hallway.
The standing agent snapped his head around to see the two masked men running at them. He took a step back, crouched and reached under his suit jacket, drawing his weapon. Bannon fired a shot over his head. The bullet chewed into the cinderblock wall behind the agents. “Don’t!”
The sitting agent slammed his chair down on all fours and drew something from under his jacket. Not a gun, but a walkie-talkie. He shouted into it. “Intruders! We’ve got intruders down here!”
McMurphy fired a shot so wide it pinged off the metal pipes running along the ceiling. We must look like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, Bannon figured, but that was fine. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to get hurt.
Both men raised their hands without drawing their weapons.
Bannon swung a fist and connected with the standing agent’s jaw. He spit blood and spun away from the blow, but Bannon was relentless. He backhanded the man’s face with the butt of his Sig. That raked a cut across the agent’s chin.
He hated to do it, but the stakes were too high for him to give in to his compassions. Reinforcements were on their way and time wasn’t a luxury they had.
McMurphy reached the sitting agent, but not before he dropped his raised hands and drew his weapon, a .40 caliber Glock 23. He squeezed off a shot. In the enclosed space the noise was deafening. McMurphy closed in on the man. He ducked under the gun, slapped it away, and spun the startled agent around. He snaked his big arms around the man’s throat and head, putting him into a sleeper chokehold. Softly, he said, “Relax. Go to sleep now. Nightie-night.”
The agent went limp and McMurphy gently laid him down on the floor.
Meanwhile, Bannon was still duking it out with his guy. The agent swung a punch but missed. Bannon slammed the butt of his gun down on the back of the man’s skull. With a grunt the agent collapsed to the ground.
“Sorry,” Bannon said, stepping over his prone body. He collected up the agents’ dropped firearms while McMurphy tried to open the door they’d been guarding. Locked.
Bannon heard the sound of racing footsteps coming closer. The Calvary.
McMurphy stepped back and kicked his boot through the door. The frame splintered and the door flew opening, crashing into the wall. Bannon stepped inside.
The room was a cafeteria. A chrome service counter and a roll down gate, closed, extended along the back wall. Large tables with built-in seats were folded up and lined along one wall. Carts of staked metal folding chairs were pushed up against the opposite wall. Around them were workplace posters reminding employees of safe food handling practices and to not throw utensils out in the trash when scraping plates and trays.
Fifteen cots filled the otherwise empty space.
The slumbering crew of the Naeem was startled awake. Some began to rise while others had already jumped to their feet. Thin, green Army blankets were wrapped around their shoulders or bunched up on the empty cots or piled on the floor where they’d fallen. They all stared at Bannon and McMurphy still shrouded beneath their ski masks, rubbing sleep from their eyes, trying to figure out what was going on.
Bannon scanned the room and found Safiyyah Zayd sitting on a cot with her legs still curled under a blanket. Her full dark hair was mussed from sleep. She wore a gray FBI Academy sweatshirt and unflattering baggy navy-blue sweat pants.
“We’ve got company,” McMurphy shouted.
Several agents appeared at the door McMurphy had kicked in. He fired his Sig wildly in that general direction, hitting everything but human flesh. It was enough to keep the responding agents at bay.
Bannon grabbed Zayd by the arm and pulled her off her cot.
“Unhand me.” She shook her arm loose. A crewmember made an attempt to come to her rescue. Bannon pointed his Sig at him. The would-be hero shrunk back. To Zayd, he said, “Don’t you recognize a rescue when you see one?”
To McMurphy, he said, “We need another way out.”
“Coming right up.”
McMurphy grabbed a cart full of metal folding chairs and charged across the room. He slammed the heavy cart into a set of double doors beside the service counter. It made a horrific crash. Chairs went flying and McMurphy slipped and fell to the floor but the doors burst open.
Bannon popped off a couple more shots at the agents crowding around the door they’d come through. He ran to McMurphy with Zayd in tow. She was bare footed. He didn’t care. He got McMurphy to his feet. They climbed over the spilled chairs and reached the service corridor that ran behind the kitchen.
“If you want to escape,” Bannon shouted to the Naeem crew, “Stop them.”
He waved at the agents peeking into the cafeteria.
Bannon pushed McMurphy and Zayd through the back door. “Keep going.”
In the lead, McMurphy tossed his gun to Bannon and pulled Zayd along by the hand.
“Who are you people? Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up,” Bannon said, keeping an eye out behind them for any sign of pursuit.
They went around a corner and ran to a large service elevator.
“Yes?” McMurphy asked.
They needed to get upstairs, reach the lobby level. Bannon looked around quickly for a stairwell. He didn’t see one. “We don’t have a choice.”
Bannon pushed them inside the elevator and started to pull the steel doors and gate down.
“With every agent in the building on our tails, you think locking ourselves in a steel container’s a good idea?”
“No. But we’re out of time and options.” The elevator only serviced two floors. It reeked of oil and grease. Bannon hit the up button. The elevator jerked then started its slow crawl up. Bannon’s face was sweaty and the ski mask itched, but he couldn’t risk taking it off until they made good their escape. If they made good their escape.
“You think this thing could go any slower?” McMurphy asked.
“Who are you people?” Zayd demanded again. “Where are you taking me?”
Both men ignored her, remaining silent until the elevator shuttered to a stop.
“I’ll open,” Bannon said, handing McMurphy his gun. “You cover.�
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His old friend nodded and knelt on one knee so he could see between the steel doors as Bannon threw up the inner safety gate. He waited a second, the outer steel doors still closed, but they didn’t hear anything.
McMurphy nodded.
Bannon grabbed the handle and pulled the upper steel door up while he shoved the lower half down with his foot. His breath held.
“Clear,” McMurphy announced standing up. He sounded as surprised as Bannon felt.
“Come on then.” He grinned at McMurphy. “It looks like you’ve still got a wee bit of that Irish luck in ya, after all.” His attempt at a brogue was atrocious.
“That or God looks out for fools and drunks. Either way, I’ve covered both bases.”
They raced down the corridor. This one was wider than the one downstairs. They came to what looked like a loading dock and a closed overhead bay door. The pull chain was locked off with a padlock. They didn’t have time to pick it and Bannon didn’t want to prove Hollywood was full of crap when it came to shooting off padlocks. Doing so would more than likely result in someone losing an eye from a fragmented, ricocheted bullet than the lock popping open.
“Find me something to pry it open,” Bannon said.
The two men looked around and even Zayd joined in the search. No doubt she figured the two men trying to break her out were a better option than whatever the feds had in store for her. She was wrong, but for now, Bannon figured, it worked.
She found a pair of small bolt cutters inside a rolling desk podium. “These help?”
Bannon worried they were too small for the job but took them and fit the cutting blades around the padlock shackle.
“Hurry it up,” McMurphy said. “We’ve got company coming.”
The sound of people running echoed down the corridor.
Bannon squeezed the short orange handles together, feeling the blades bite into the silver metal shackle. He grunted.
“Let me.” McMurphy pushed him out of the way. He grabbed the bolt cutters, squeezed, gritting his teeth until his face turned bright red from the strain.