Juggernaut

by Rick Jones

  “Copy that . . . Proceed.”

  They tried the gate. It was locked. After shouldering their weapons, both men climbed the six-foot wall. Neither made a sound as they scaled the top of the fence and lowered themselves to the lawn. The back of the residence, as was the front, was now secured.

  The apartment, a two-story townhouse, had a panoramic window on the second level, which was the master bedroom as indicated by the blueprints, and the target site. Nagi pointed to the window and then balled his fist, causing the second man, Ibaad Tawfeek, to interpret the action. The high-end asset was on the second level. Fanning out across the yard that was steeped in shadows, Nagi went left while Tawfeek went right. Each man took his time to assure a catlike quality to their movements, slow and stealth-like, their prey coming close to striking distance. Nagi stayed within the shadows along the fence line on the left, whereas Tawfeek continued his course on the right.

  Tawfeek, a skilled fighter who had been trained with a keen sense to his surroundings, never saw the ghostly-white hands that reached out to him from a deeper shade of darkness with one hand cupping his chin and the other stabilizing the back of his skull, then rotated his head with a powerful and vicious twist. The bones in Tawfeek’s neck snapped like dry kindling, the noise carrying across the yard, a crunch. But before Nagi could get a fix on his partner, Tawfeek was gone.

  * * *

  Hamdi Nagi heard an odd crunching sound, something like a stalk of celery being split, then noted that his partner was missing. Whispering into his lip mic, Nagi said, “Tawfeek.”

  Silence.

  Then once again, the measure louder: “Tawfeek.”

  No response.

  “Problem, Team Two?” it was Aarib Qadir.

  “Tawfeek isn’t responding.”

  Then from Qadir’s end: “Tawfeek, do you read?”

  Silence.

  Then from Qadir to Nagi, he said, “Approach with caution.”

  “Copy that.”

  Hamdi Nagi, breaking from the shadows, went to investigate the darkness across the yard with the point of his weapon leading the way.

  * * *

  “Approach with caution,” Qadir said into his lip mic. Then he slapped the stem of the lip mic down in anger.

  “Problems?” Rukham El-Hashem asked him.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” was Qadir’s reply. And then he said to El-Hashem,

  “Take care of the door.”

  Rukham El-Hashem removed a snap gun lock pick from his vest pocket and inserted a steel rod into the cylinder lock. After pulling the trigger, the gun fired the rod against the lock pins simultaneously to free the cylinder enough to be turned with the use of a tension wrench, which unlocked the door.

  Inside of ten seconds they entered the apartment.

  * * *

  Hamdi Nagi moved toward the shadows across the yard with the point of his weapon steady. Then into his lip mic and barely above a whisper, he said.

  “Tawfeek.”

  No response.

  Nagi raised his weapon to eye level. “Tawfeek.”

  To his left, brush moved as if rattled by a slight breeze.

  He turned and redirected his aim at the source. “Tawfeek?”

  And then from behind, an arm as thick as a python wrapped around Nagi’s throat and lifted him off the ground. Nagi responded by lifting the point of his suppressed weapon skyward and set off a muted burst of gunfire. The area flashed briefly in strobe-like fashion before he was tossed to the ground, and hard, causing Nagi to see a rotation of internal stars as the fog quickly began to fade from his mind.

  Above him stood a shadow that appeared impossibly tall and broad, a looming figure that was silhouetted against the backdrop of a streetlight whose illumination surrounded the attacker with an all-encompassing halo.

  Nagi could not make out the face, however, the shape blacker than black. And then it moved against him with unnatural speed, its arms reaching and grabbing and hoisting the man high after knocking aside the man’s weapon, an MP7, which landed on the grass beyond Nagi’s reach. The terrorist was then lifted to a loftier height above his attacker, the man unbelievably powerful. As the light of a distant streetlamp eventually highlighted the face of his attacker, Nagi saw the embers that twisted within the man’s eyes, the sparks of simian and primal anger. Then the lips of his attacker peeled back to skin his teeth to reveal a grimace of rage. It was the face of a demon, something so hideous that it drove an ice-cold finger down along Nagi’s spine. But what Nagi found most disconcerting was the show of white around the man’s throat, something he realized was a Roman Catholic collar.

  When Hamdi Nagi attempted to withdraw his knife from its sheath, his attacker body-slammed him to the turf, stole away his knife with a practiced move, then slammed the butt end of the knife’s hilt against the cap of Nagi’s skull—once, twice, three times—to render him unconscious.

  Sliding back into the shadows, the attacker made his way toward the rear entry with his weapon of choice: a combat knife.

  * * *

  Aarib Qadir and Rukham El-Hashem were canvassing the lower level of the apartment when Qadir took the stairway that led to the second level. El-Hashem, after interpreting Qadir’s hand signals to continue his investigation to the rear of the first level to clear it, did so. El-Hashem moved from room to room, the area quite small. But when he looked through the kitchen window that overlooked the backyard, he cocked his head in bemusement. Where was Nagi and Tawfeek? Immediately a red flag went up, the banner waving crazily in his mind’s eye. Nagi and Tawfeek had been expunged from the equation. The only question was: by whom? As El-Hashem was about to contact Qadir through his lip mic, a shape shifting mass emerged from the shadows, the entity swift and wraithlike in its movements. It came at him with force and speed while its eyes shined with the color of mercurochrome, silver and red. And then it pounced on El-Hashem with unmerciful strength as it grabbed the assassin by the throat and forced him hard into the cupboards, smashing glass. Plates and cups fell to the floor and broke into porcelain shards. Then as El-Hashem tried to raise his weapon and pull the trigger, his assailant grabbed the barrel and held the point to the side. As the gun went off, rounds stitched across the wall and refrigerator, nothing but loud spits until the rifle sounded off with dry clicks, the magazine running empty. Then as ElHashem brought a knee up, the shape deflected the blow and brought his knife up to penetrate the area below the line of the Kevlar vest, then drove the weapon deep. El-Hashem’s eyes suddenly detonated with surprise at the sudden onrush of pain. Then as he fell forward into the arms of his attacker, the last thing he saw was the white band of a priest’s collar.

  As El-Hashem slid slowly along the length of the Shape and to the floor, he finally ended up amongst the broken chips of glass and porcelain with his eyes at half-mast.

  His assassin, like the phantom he was, slid out of sight.

  * * *

  The sound of breaking glass was unmistakable. As Aarib Qadir made his way down the corridor towards the master bedroom on the second floor, he heard a commotion on the lower level, which was brief. Whatever element of surprise they had going into the residence, it was now gone.

  Then into his lip mic: “Rukham.”

  Nothing.

  Qadir looked over the railing of the landing to survey the living area underneath.

  Nothing below moved.

  Then at the far end of the corridor, the door to the master bedroom started to open on protesting hinges, the whine causing Qadir to pivot on his feet and redirect his aim. A shape was standing in the doorway, that of a woman. With bloodlust coursing through his veins, Aarib Qadir leveled his weapon and pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  Shari Cohen was wide awake in bed and staring ceilingwards, though the ceiling was masked by darkness. She was thinking about the state of the country’s affairs and her job, her thoughts somehow gravitating to the memories when she had tracked down Mohammad’s Allawi’s brother in a raid,
and how he was shot dead in the aftermath. And it was in this moment of imagining Mohammad Allawi’s brother that she heard the cacophony of shattering glass. Grabbing her Glock from the nightstand, Shari went to the door while gripping the gun in her right hand, and slowly began to turn the doorknob with her left. When the hinges protested, her face had twisted miserably with objection.

  In the hallway was a man dressed in black who was surveying the room below from his vantage point of the second-story landing. But when the hinges of the bedroom door whined, he quickly redirected his weapon on her and pulled the trigger.

  Shari slammed the door and dove to the side as rounds smashed and splintered the wood. Bullets peppered the wall behind her and demolished the panoramic window, the noise incredible as vases smashed against the impacts, as well as the LED clock on the nightstand. And then the headboard erupted into shards of broken wood, as if denotated by an explosion.

  Shari crawled to the opposite side of the room for cover on her elbows and knees. And then the door, already compromised and weakened, smashed inward with pieces of wood flying everywhere. The operative, a big man, had smashed his way through and was now trying to locate Shari through the sight of his weapon. Shari raised her Glock and pulled the trigger in quick succession. The bullets found their marks, three shots to center mass. But her assassin merely blew off the shots after they were deflected by his vest, though she could tell that they stung by the way he grunted in pain.

  And then there was the awful and terrifying sound of a gun jam. Shari’s mouth dropped. Three shots with the fourth getting jammed inside the barrel. The procedure now was to eject the magazine, rack the weapon to free the bullet, and then reseat the magazine to rack another bullet into the chamber. She had done it hundreds of times on the range when qualifying and did so expertly. But under real conditions she didn’t have the allotted time. As she ejected the jammed bullet from the weapon and attempted to slam the magazine home, the assassin responded by advancing against her with his weapon pointed at her forehead.

  “Don’t,” he told her. “You’ll never make it, believe me.”

  She sat against the wall in her pajamas with the gun in one hand and the magazine in the other. Just one second more, she thought That was all I needed.

  “I assume you’re one of Allawi’s pets?” she asked him.

  Aarib Qadir started to squeeze the trigger. “The thought of you dying tonight was never a part of the plan,” he told her. “But I have no other choice.” The moment he brought his weapon to eye level, Shari raised her hands to ward off the impacts.

  But a shape appeared behind Qadir that seemed to grow impossibly tall behind him. To Shari it was always growing and developing, while continuing to morph into something that was overly massive and looming, rising taller and taller, perhaps a trick of the eye that was caused by the streaming of light that was being cast from a streetlamp.

  And then it grabbed the assassin and forced him backward on his feet, the man losing his balance just as the gun went off. Bullets pounded the walls next to Shari, who pulled herself into a tight bundle as the waspy hums of the errant rounds zipped by her ears.

  When the assassin regained himself and turned to confront his assailant, he was surprised to see the man wearing the collar of a priest. Here was the man that Mohammad Allawi had talked about, this savior who was deemed to be an angel by some and a demon to others. Tonight, however, as he stared into the priest’s eyes, he saw no absolution or forgiveness, only primal savagery.

  Here was Qadir’s demon who had come to collect his soul.

  As Qadir tried to lift his weapon, the priest came across with the blade of his hand and struck the bridge of the assassin’s nose, breaking bone and cartilage. Then with a thrust of his palm in an upward swing, the priest jammed the broken bone deep into Qadir’s brain, killing him. In immediate response to the action, Qadir immediately fell to the floor and landed at the priest’s feet in a contorted heap.

  Shari, after reseating the magazine and getting to her feet, directed her aim on the Shadowman. “Freeze! Do not move! I will shoot you!”

  But the shape moved towards her with a hand extended. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “You’re safe now.”

  The voice—so masculine and kind, yet from someone who was capable of great violence—caused Shari to reconsider her stance. She had heard the measure and tone so many times before, and one that she recognized.

  “Set the gun down, Shari. You’re safe.”

  The inflection of the words and the level of the baritone voice left her feeling a sting of tears. After Shari lowered her weapon she started to weep, though not quite a sob, and headed towards the man who was more shadow than light. When she stood before this behemoth of a man, when she saw the white collar in the dark, she fell into Kimball Hayden’s embrace and openly wept. Holding her close against him, he could feel a wonderful sensation of togetherness. And as she continued to sob against him, he rested his chin on the crown of her head and stroked her back gently. You’re safe.

  * * *

  The entire block surrounding Shari’s apartment had been cordoned off by local police. Four agents were dead, all gunned down in their vehicles. And because of this the area was being thoroughly combed by law enforcement officials and roving helicopters.

  FBI Director Larry Johnston, though never officially one to link himself to a crime scene, stood in Shari’s bedroom wearing his navy-blue FBI windbreaker and carried what appeared to be a scroll of some type.

  A man was lying dead on the floor as a result of hand-technique combat, with the blade of his nose having been shoved deep into his brain like a shiv. Another was below on the first level, the victim of a stabbing. And two more were in the backyard—though one was lying on his belly but looking skyward due to his head completely turned from a broken neck, whereas the second man was alive with a possible fracture to his skull.

  Shari was sitting on the edge of her bed with her gun and badge sitting on the nightstand beside her, while Johnston sized the scene of her bedroom with absorption.

  “I understand the need to protect yourself,” he began, “especially when four of my agents were gunned down in order to get to you. But this.” He pointed to the corpse who was having his fingerprints scanned digitally into a monitor by a crime scene investigator. “This wasn’t done by you, Shari. This isn’t your work.”

  Then he walked around the body to study the man’s face, an African American, who was most likely a skilled practitioner in military techniques by the weapon he carried.

  He then walked over to Shari and looked at her. She had been rattled, that much could be seen, and something expected under the circumstances. After all, the surprise engagement of four against one while being outgunned and outmanned, and then to come out on top after four of their own agents had been executed, usually brought encouragements. But the scene dictated something different, something uncommon. They had come fully armed and prepared and all she had was her Glock, a peashooter by comparison. While appraising her, he finally asked, “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who I’m talking about.”

  Shari remained quiet.

  Then he started to walk around the corpse whose face had been misshapen by a reconfiguration of bones. And then: “Oh, yeah,” he said. “This all makes sense now. This guy”—He pointed to the body— “and the one downstairs who happened to take a knife that we can’t find, by the way, while one lies in the yard with his head turned all the way around from a busted neck, and another who had his head nearly caved was not done by you. No way could you have created this mess.”

  “Seriously, Larry? A mess? Four men with military sophistication took out four agents and then they tried to take me out. And you look at this as a mess?” “You know what I mean, Shari. So, don’t get all bent out of shape. This crime scene is not of your doing. That much I know. But it’s a mess, nevertheless. Questions will be brought up by the White House—the who,
the what, the when, the where and the how. They’re going to want answers, especially when we tie these people to Allawi’s group.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “We do know that. People with military sophistication don’t come out of the shadows for the sake of killing. There are reasons behind what they do. And they had a good one. Allawi is gunning for you as we predicted.”

  Shari could not deny this, though she had tried. It was hard to believe that someone like Mohammad Allawi continued to be fueled by an anger that had never quelled or diminished but thrived. Not only was he orchestrating the attacks on the iconic symbols of American freedom, but he was also multitasking other fronts, as well. And to assassinate her was obviously a needed event to help appease his appetite for destruction.

  Still, Shari was not about to give in to Allawi’s pressures or his pleasures. He was a terrorist who did not demand anything other than her undivided attention, which she was more than happy to deliver. The line had been drawn long ago when Allawi murdered her family, and tonight he had crossed over it.

  You threw your punch, Allawi, and missed . . . Now it’s time for me to throw mine. And you won’t like who I have with me at ringside.

  Then to Johnston, she said, “This is my home, Larry. I will not bend.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he told her. “This is now a crime scene. Three people are dead, and one is badly injured. This won’t be an overnight cleanup, Shari. You know that. The area needs to be secured for the gathering of evidence.”

  She did understand since it was protocol to secure a crime scene, something she had done many times as a special agent.