by A P Bateman
“I still don’t see why it should be me,” Rashid protested.
“We’re not being racist, but you should be able to do the accent better than anybody else. The FBI would see through Ramsay in a second as he stammered and hesitated his way through and probably ended up finishing with Cheerio! at the end of the conversation.” She handed him the pre-paid, cash-bought cell phone with the pre-set number already entered. What crime shows called a ‘burner’.
Rashid shrugged and pressed the number. It rang for just two rings.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation, how may I direct your call?” a woman’s voice, curt and business-like.
“We are going to remotely detonate explosive devices planted in the Willis Tower, Chicago…”
“One moment, please…”
Rashid dropped the phone down beside his leg and looked at Caroline. “I don’t believe this, she cut me off and is directing my call!” He put it back to his ear. “Must be taking it seriously.”
“Chicago office, Counter Terrorism…”
“We shall avenge our fallen brothers. The Great Satan shall feel the wrath of the Islamic State!”
“I understand you are calling in a bomb threat to the Willis Tower?”
Rashid ignored him. “We will strike at America’s heart, we will take down the Willis Tower, Sears’ monument to greed and decadence, as our Al Qaeda brothers took down The Twin Towers on that glorious day of Nine-Eleven.”
“Sir…”
“Do not interrupt me!” Rashid snapped, his accent thick and he rounded the R’s and put emphasis on the M. He had been practising and was pleased he was sounding more Arab than Goodness gracious me. He was from Pakistani extraction, brought up in Birmingham. He had been annoyed that Ramsay had asked him to do it, and surprised that Caroline had agreed. But still, he was nailing this call. “Our fallen brothers will look down from Paradise and our bravery on this day will assure us worthiness to join them. We strike today, the first of three attacks that will thwart your efforts. Our last target will martyr us and open the gates to paradise. Glory will be Allah’s! Allahu Akbar!” Rashid hung up and dropped the phone over the edge of the bridge and into the river. He watched it tumble and splash. He could see the boat carrying Marnie and Adams turn the corner near Trump Towers on its way to Navy Pier. “Now what?” he asked.
“We wait,” Caroline said. “We’re okay here. Let’s see how seriously the FBI took you. We might have to up the ante.”
In the distance sirens were already audible. The exits to the Willis Tower seemed to swell, more and more people spilled out onto the street. A couple of homeless men started milling around the crowd, experts on the day to day running of the landmark. No doubt they were saying they’d seen it all before, but they hadn’t. A security guard started to wave the crowd out onto the street and urged them to get clear of the building, rather than simply congregate and become spectators.
The police department arrived first, and officers abandoned their Chevy SUVs and Dodge sedans and waved the people away from the building. A black SWAT van pulled to the kerb, and heavily armed and well-equipped officers took up positions, rifles aimed at nothing and everything. They had no idea what the threat would amount to, but better to be ready to shoot something.
Three black Escalades pulled in and the Feds had made it to the show. It was a good response time and no doubt more would be on the way. The FBI’s own SWAT team followed, and the operators took up similar positions to their police counterparts. The circus was in town. The fire department sent everything it had, too. And then ambulance crews filled the streets and had to back up as a police officer attempted to affix a cordon. The windy city was living to its namesake and the tape wafted and bowed in the wind, the officer struggling to get it run out.
“This looks fun,” Rashid said. He checked his phone. The clock was as accurate as it was possible to be, and all the phones were iPhones and synced perfectly. “I’ve got one minute.”
Caroline looked at her phone. “Same.”
“Shall we move?”
“No,” Caroline replied. “I’ll scream, you hug me, and we’ll run like everybody else. Then we just keep running back to the car.”
Rashid watched the FBI talk with the police and fire crews. They were getting a briefing from the tower’s security chief when the first explosion blew out a window over fourteen-hundred feet above their heads. Six further explosions detonated in unison a second later, pouring vast quantities of acrid smoke out of the broken windows. The glass shattered and fell, smashing into dust on the ground below. The crowds that had failed to disperse had changed their minds and it was a mass scramble amid screams and shouts. Caroline had forgotten to scream, but plenty more people had, and Rashid put an arm around her shoulders, and they crossed the road and ran down the street towards the multi-storey car park, leaving a world of chaos behind them.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ramsay had had the foresight to drive the SUV out of the multi-storey car park, ahead of a mad exodus. He parked it across the street, facing West, where they would pick up the freeway. He studied his rear-view mirror and had signalled Rashid and Caroline as they had drawn near. They each opened a door and slid in, Ramsay pulling away before their doors closed.
“Christ, I hope nobody was on that floor…” he trailed off, threading the vehicle through the traffic.
“Slow down, Neil,” Caroline said beside him. “Nice and casual, stay under the limit.”
“The first cannister to detonate was a sonic pulse. A lot of noise and directed towards the glass on the East-facing side. Enough to blow it out completely. The other six canisters were white phosphorus.” Rashid settled back in his seat as a convoy of emergency vehicles came towards them, sirens blaring and lights flashing. “A hell of a lot of smoke and some big bangs as they initiated.”
“But no smoke without fire,” Ramsay said quietly. “God, I hope nobody was near.”
“We all do, Neil,” Rashid agreed. “But we called it in. We allowed enough time for security to be on the street, so I would assume that the public were nowhere near. We gave it every chance.”
Caroline was scrolling through her phone. “CNN,” she said. “Willis Tower hit by Islamic extremists claiming to be ISIS. Early reports are no casualties and a safe evacuation thanks to the rapid response and vigilant work of the Chicago FBI…”
“Love that!” Rashid jeered.
“Securing their future funding right there,” Ramsay commented, a little cheerier than just moments before.
“… Extensive fire and smoke damage,” she continued. “The building is yet to be searched by FBI and Chicago Police Department bomb disposal teams, as they are still planning the best course of action. It’s thought that the IEDs failed to detonate properly, or that the terrorists planned to start a catastrophic fire, which has been contained by the building’s state of the art sprinkler system.”
“Well, that’s something,” said Ramsay.
“Let’s get back to the hotel and regroup,” Caroline said. “All that adrenalin has made me hungry.”
Rashid pulled a card out of his pocket and reached it forward to her. “This is Chicago’s best pizza place. Giordano’s. They deliver to the hotel,” he said. “The manager gave me their card when I checked in.”
“What’s so good about them?” Ramsay asked incredulously.
“It’s more of a pie and they make it in reverse, so cheese then filling then tomato. It’s unique to Chicago and meant to be amazing.”
“I can’t believe you two are hungry,” Ramsay said flatly. “All that back there has made me feel sick to my stomach.”
“It’s the adrenalin rush,” said Rashid. “It affects people in different ways.”
Caroline looked at Rashid in her vanity mirror. “Call Marnie,” she said. “She can get set up in her hotel room. That is, if she hasn’t yet seen anything on her mobile phone.”
Rashid nodded and took out his phone. Timing was everything, and th
e most difficult part of the operation was yet to come.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The door buzzed open and three guards bustled into the room and fanned out. Two aimed shotguns at him, the other held a pair of handcuffs and a baton. They had intended to shock him, and it had worked. King recognised the middle guard as the one who had inducted him and beaten him with the baton. He looked at the other two, concerned just how tight their fingers wrapped around the triggers of the Remington pump-action shotguns. Their entrance had been dramatic. Normal procedure was gone, but once King realised that they weren’t going to shoot him there and then, he relaxed and went with it. As he suspected, the guard waited for him to be cuffed from behind, then dug the baton into his right kidney. King fell onto his knees and let out a gasp. The guard hit him again, but he was no real expert in administering pain. He struck the same spot, which was already numb, the pain receptors flooding the area with endorphins that were as good as anaesthetics. The repeated blow could cause damage for sure, but it only hurt about a third as much. King wondered how this would play out, but he made a point of remembering the guard’s face. He would teach him about pain if he got the chance. The guard jabbed him again as they entered the interrogation room and Johnson looked up. King had dispelled with the Tommy-Lee moniker. He knew all he wanted to about Johnson, and what the man had been prepared to allow to happen. And not just to break King, but to teach him a lesson. Humiliate and degrade him. Johnson would not go unpunished for that.
“There’s been a terrorist attack.”
“So?”
The guard smashed his baton down on King’s shoulder, forcing him to yell and sag in the chair. His cuffs stopped him from sliding onto the floor.
Johnson looked up at the guard. “Thank you, Brett. I’ll take it from here.”
King pushed himself back upright, still wincing from the blow. “See you, Brett.” he said.
“What?” Brett lunged back into the room and came around on King, grabbing him by his collar.
“You heard, Brett.” King grinned, his eyes unwavering and cold. Glacier cold, like an alpha wolf. “Take care now, Brett.”
“You think I’m bothered you know my name?”
“Enough!” Johnson stood up, his fists splayed on the table. “Stand down!”
Brett looked at Johnson, then back at King. He released his grip, pushing King backwards. He shook his head as he left the cell.
“See ya, Brett!” King shouted, just before the cell door slammed closed.
“Finished?” Johnson asked.
“Not even getting started.”
“The Russian is in a coma.”
King shrugged. “I don’t know any Russian.”
“Word is you pile drove him into the concrete.”
“You mean the one who slipped and fell on a spillage? Yeah, he took quite a tumble,” King paused. “I doubt he’ll be able to sue, though. What with no access to a lawyer and all.”
“The other man’s sight will probably be okay, though. In one eye, at least. The one you whipped with the towel isn’t coming back anytime soon. It looks like the eye of a steamed sockeye trout.”
King shrugged again like he wasn’t bothered. And he wasn’t. If you wanted to dance, you had to pay the band. He could have done far worse to him, considering.
“The other two guys lost some teeth. One has a fractured skull and the other has cracked cheek bones, but they’re otherwise okay.”
“With what they had planned for me, I could be sitting here having severed their cocks and choked them on them and I couldn’t care any less.” He smiled. “But tell me about the terrorist attack. Chicago, right. The Willis Tower? I must be clairvoyant, right? Jesus, I should do the lottery.”
“What else do you know?”
“I know they are a bunch of fanatics. Your man missed them in New Jersey. Maybe they were lucky, but I know they’ll get more proficient as they go along. Ultimately, they have their eyes on the President, and they’ll get their man. I’m sure of that. They will sacrifice themselves, and that changes everything you know about security.”
“Where or what is next?”
“Just like that?”
“I could torture you.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll have someone else do it for you. Tell me, Johnson, do you even manage to do your own fucking? Or does someone do that for, too?” King laughed. “No, I bet you sit in the corner getting off on someone ploughing Mrs Johnson while you watch…”
“I’m going to break you,” said Johnson. “I’ll do it myself, and you’ll regret that smart mouth of yours.”
“And I’ll tell you nothing,” replied King. “I’ll shut down and take the long, dark ride and I’ll accept whatever awaits me at the end. The only way you’re getting information about the other two attacks is to keep me alive and get me the hell out of here.”
“Really?”
“Really. I want a comfortable cell, something to read and some decent food. A cup of tea, as well. What you insist on calling English breakfast tea. Like we just drink it at breakfast, for fuck’s sake… And some biscuits, which you call cookies for some reason, and not those dry old scones at breakfast.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then no dice.”
“We’ll see.”
“Just think about this, Johnson. Your pal Brett wants to teach me a lesson. What if he goes too far? That’s anything I know which you can use to further, or perhaps even protect your career gone. I’ve made a few enemies in here as well. What if they get to me? The Russians, the white supremacists. Wave goodbye to your chances of keeping your employment if you could have halted major terrorist attacks from what information you could have easily obtained. Now, imagine if you obtained information that saved the President from an assassination plot? Imagine your career trajectory if that became a reality. No more low-rent version of Men in Black. No more being a part of a shit-pit, illegal operation like this. And what if this place ever became common knowledge? Hell, you’d be caught up in a shitstorm and all the brainless Bretts and Billy-Bobs in here will be pointing a finger at you like the foot soldiers did in Nazi Germany. So, take me back to my cell yourself, call off your dogs and get me a comfortable room before the day is out. Then we’ll talk. Then I’ll tell you what I know.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“That can’t have been it!” Yates snapped. “We didn’t train for that, so what the fuck was going on back there?”
Macintosh shook his head, kept his eyes on the receiver. Essentially a monitor with a pre-programmed map and an amber dot indicating the car in which Rashid, Ramsay and Caroline were travelling in. The other two vehicles they had planted tracking devices on were not in range. “I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth. “Speed up or we’re going to lose them as well.”
“They’ll be heading back to Indian Lakes, I’m not worried about losing them. I want to know what the hell they were doing at The Willis Tower, and why the place was attacked with IEDs.”
“It’ll be a diversion. Something for the heist. God knows what.” He tossed the receiver into the footwell, amid family-sized packets of potato and corn chips and savoury snacks. The vehicle was a mass of kit and charging wires and sleeping gear. They were living in it. It smelled of damp, cigarettes and of body odour. “But I don’t get why they would do it and not strike at something nearby.” Macintosh picked up the receiver again and checked the screen. “I saw Big Dave going inside and I saw Adams leaving with that MI5 bird with the big tits. Looked like they were together, sticking it to the Paki with any luck.”
“It’ll be a play,” Yates corrected him. “They’re not shagging each other, you can bet they all played parts. My bet is they came in on different modes of transport, so that they could disperse and disappear. The beer festival and rock concert would be a good place to disappear and take another vehicle or taxi elsewhere. You can bet your arse they’ll all meet up again at the hotel in Indian Lakes.”
“Yeah, l
ooks like they’re heading that way.”
“So, we head back there, park up and wait?”
“I don’t see what else we can do,” Macintosh paused, studying the screen. “But when they move again, we’ll be ready.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The room was still only an eight by eight, but it contained a single bed with a mattress and sheets instead of the heavy woollen blanket. It had a toilet and a sink, a polished metal sheet above the sink instead of a mirror, in which he stared in shock at the gaunt, hollow face staring back at him. On the sink was a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste and a safety razor. There was even a hand towel hanging from a loop and toilet paper on a holder. It was probably more in line with a regular prison cell and by no means was it to be thought of as luxury. There was a hell of a long way to go before it came up to a particularly tired Motel 6. A stack of paperbacks rested at the foot of the bed. They weren’t King’s first choice, but he couldn’t afford to be choosy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had read, let alone painted. He had had less and less time for his usual creative outlets lately. But he vowed if he ever got out of here he would take a well-earned break.
Johnson had escorted him straight here. King was glad he had secreted the screws into his shoes. Having stripped and taken a full-body stand-up flannel wash at the sink, he had shaved and brushed his teeth twice. Unlike in his former cell, he had running water and had practically drank the tap dry over the next hour, but this was as much to mask the finetuning he did to the screw on the rough concrete wall, as to slake his thirst under the tap. After another hour a guard King hadn’t seen before showed up and placed a tray on the floor. He said nothing as he closed the door and left King alone. The tray had contained a burger wrapped in greaseproof paper and a cardboard cup of fries. A home-cooked imitation of a drive-thru meal. There was a cup with a lid and some cookies, too. King ripped off the lid and took a sip of his first cup of tea in over two-weeks. It was strong and tepid, and he savoured every mouthful. Afterwards, he devoured the burger and fries, the grease feeling good on his tongue and the tangy sauce giving him a mild sugar rush. He washed his hands in the sink and took another swig from the tap. He reckoned he was about there with the screw. He hoped it would work and that he hadn’t worn too much away, but he had the spare screw in his other shoe. After that, he would be out of options. But by then, he would be out of time as well. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He pictured Caroline, but curiously, his mind flicked to images of his first wife, Jane. He could see her on their wedding day. Long brunette hair, the warmest brown eyes he had ever known, and her smile. Pearl white and ever-so-slightly crooked. Just enough imperfection to make her perfect in his mind. They had a summer wedding and a tan had shown up her freckles. He felt a pang of delight, as he no longer found himself able to picture her when he tried. And then his mind, cruel and relentless, pictured her on the bed. Frail and thin, but peaceful after such a savage illness. The note in his hand, he fell to his knees beside her, sobbing and knowing that life would never have joy in it for him again. But he had been wrong, and he pictured Caroline again. Dirty-blonde hair simply pulled back in a ponytail and sporty-looking. Her eyes were clear and full of energy and he pictured her on a Cornish beach in winter, wrapped in a coat and scarf and pulling him towards the surging shore break as she laughed. She had brought him peace after five-years of hurt. He opened his eyes and stared at the floor. He wasn’t sure he could do this. He had never had self-doubt before. He needed to know there would be a chance of seeing her again. And if he stuck to the plan, there was always the chance he wouldn’t.