by Chase Austin
She watched a shooter duo move past the office doors. And then they instinctively decided to go up to the pool-facing rooms onto the next floor. The bullets in the other part of the hotel had not ceased to rain. Grenade blasts reverberated like mini earthquakes through the atrium.
She had no option other than to wait. As the shooters vanished from the floor, Olivia decided to take refuge in the room designated for the Onyx employees. She checked her pockets and found the duplicate keys to that room.
With racing heart, she crawled out from the safety of the table under which she was hiding and, in a squatted position, moved towards the door. She turned the doorknob anticlockwise, incessantly praying that her God must at least give her enough time to get to the hiding place safely.
Outside, the lobby was deserted. Emergency lights were switched on, giving the lobby a haunted feel. With her back towards the wall, she moved away from the stairs and deeper in the hallway. On her way, her eyes wandered to the blood splatters on the half-shattered glass door of the Monarch – an Onyx ballroom. From her place she could see multiple dead bodies inside the Monarch. Gasping with fear, she instinctively zoomed forward. She could do nothing for the dead.
As soon as she saw the door of the employee room at the end of the hallway a smile of relief appeared on her lips, but it didn’t last long when she heard faint footsteps coming in her direction from the opposite end of the hall. She paused for a moment, confused, wondering whether she should go and unlock the door, or retreat. The footsteps were getting closer. Unlocking the door now would mean that she wouldn’t have enough time to get in the room without getting spotted. She checked the door nearest to her and found it locked. It had to be. The hotel security system only allowed the ones with the hotel key cards. There was no time to check her luck with the other doors. ‘Monarch’, Olivia’s desperation was palpable, ‘I could hide there.’ She took out her pencil heels, held them in her hands and started to run in the opposite direction. The floor carpet subdued the noise.
As soon as the Monarch’s door appeared in sight, she accelerated. The footsteps behind her quickened too, inching closer. She just didn’t have time to open the door and in a moment of panic, she jumped inside the room from the semi-broken glass door and landed on the broken glass pieces. A shriek almost escaped her mouth. Her feet and palms started to bleed as the shards of glass cut her soft skin. With no time to feel her pain, she got up on her feet and inched towards the farthest corner. The footsteps, as if following her, had arrived too close for comfort.
But she couldn’t run anymore; her legs refused to support her body. The glass pieces had slowly carved themselves inside her flesh. In the haste and the darkness, she hobbled over one dead body and then another. Finally, losing her balance, she fell on the floor. This time she couldn’t stop her cries. Her face hit the floor and her nose started to bleed. She instinctively covered her face with her right hand and the glass pieces stuck in her palm slashed her face.
Her cries magnified but she couldn’t do anything. Someone was at the door, peering inside the room. She could not see who it was, but she dared not to move. Lying still and closing her eyes, she prayed for her life.
Chapter 41
Bellevue Hospital Center, Manhattan
Captain Luke McCarthy had waited long enough. He hadn’t received the orders he needed. Inside the hospital, the terrorists were doing whatever they wanted to without any opposition. The delay in decision-making was costing lives every minute and his city was drowning in deep despair. Except for the SWAT team and the local police force, none of the other forces were there. It was baffling. Luke checked his watch and then looked at the phone. There was no call. And then he heard as if a glass had broken somewhere. He checked around for the source of it but found nothing. Suddenly someone grabbed his hand from behind and pulled him back. He wasn’t ready for it and he fumbled on his feet trying to regain balance.
“What the…” he wanted to say a lot of things to the one who had done this to him but then the glass shards hit the ground where seconds ago Luke was standing. He looked up and involuntarily took a step back. A woman had jumped out of the broken window, freely falling to her death. Her body hit the ground and was smashed to pulp. The people around gasped. Some of them covered their mouths in shock. There wasn’t any chance to save her.
Luke looked back at the window for anyone there lurking and checking the body. There wasn’t anyone. He then looked back at the dead body and his bottled rage found a vent. In that moment, he decided to take the matter into his own hands. He was about to give orders to his boys when his phone rang.
“Luke, we have the orders to engage. Kill those bastards.”
“Yes, Sir,” Luke said with earnestness. He disconnected the call and looked at his team. “Boys, we are going in. Take positions.” He then spoke on his lip mike. “Snipers, be ready.”
He was not in a mood for mercy. These men didn’t deserve it. His law told him that any such attack was punishable by death and he and his men would give them that.
Khalid stood in silence as the footsteps approached the third floor where he and his men were holed.
“We’re about to get hit.” One of his teammates alerted him.
“I know,” Khalid spoke without looking at his man.
“What now?”
“I don’t know.”
“We should hold them off and see if we can negotiate something using the hostages. We just need one or two people.” The man didn’t even believe his own words. That what he had just said would even work. Negotiate with whom? And for what…safety? What safety?
“They are not here to negotiate with us. They are here to tell us lies until their sniper gets a clear headshot,” Khalid said it as a matter of fact.
“So, what now?”
“Slam RDX on each door. We fight and if we start losing, then start exploding the floor. Kill as many as we can before we get one ourselves. Whatever it takes to avenge our brothers.”
“Whatever it takes.” The seven of them repeated after Khalid.
Chapter 42
Bellevue Hospital Center, Manhattan
Six men in body armor were already on the second floor, checking each ward. Two of them covered the lift and four covered the stairs. More joined them soon. Snipers were stationed at the adjacent buildings.
Khalid and his men were on high ground here and had better chances in this battle. He and his men had fortified all possible entry points on the third floor.
“Let them come,” Khalid spoke to everyone in a hushed voice. His message reached in whispers to everyone, and they all nodded from their positions. In the darkness, they sat still.
A man’s head popped up to check the third floor. It looked unusually silent. He threw two smoke bombs on the floor and then reverted to his cover position. Khalid and others watched the projectile fly in the hallway and reached for their masks.
A second passed. Two seconds. Three. Four. And then they heard the footsteps on the stairs. Five men appeared on the stairs in quick succession amidst the smoke. Khalid and his men let them arrive unimpeded. He wanted them to be in full sight. As soon as the last man appeared on the floor, Khalid’s men opened fire.
The gunshots made the floorboards vibrate. One uniform hit the ground instantly. Others scrambled to find a place to hide on the third floor.
Khalid stopped firing but his men didn’t. Using the cover fire, he took out a grenade and rolled it in the direction of the men. The four uniforms saw the grenade slowly rolling and stopping five feet away from them. If they ran, the rain of bullets would catch them and if they did not, they were already dead. They decided to take their chances.
Without second thoughts, they got out of their hiding location and ran towards the stairs. Khalid had already trained his gun at their exit and his bullets caught one of the four cops on the back. He stumbled on the floor and hit the deck hard. Dying instantly.
Another cop had gotten just halfway before he was shot. Now he
was crawling towards the stairs when the grenade went off. The other two lunged over the railing and landed on the stairs below. Khalid gestured to two of his men to run to the floor above.
In the Situation Room, Hancock and everyone else watched the intense battle on a big screen. The skills of the terrorists had taken everyone by surprise. Three of their men were dead within the first thirty seconds of the battle, without even making a dent.
“Incoming through the exit stairs. Prepare to return fire,” a terrorist yelled.
“Affirmative,” someone responded in the darkness.
The uniforms took up positions behind heavy armored ballistic shields. A man popped up and raised a tear gas gun. Khalid and others watched the projectile fly in the hallway. It hit the floor and rolled forward. Another man popped up and fired another canister, and then a third. The hallway began to fill with smoke.
“Fire when ready,” Luke said as he led his men from the front.
He watched his men as they opened the door entirely and began taking their positions, while deflecting any incoming fire from the terrorists with their heavy, armored, portable ballistic shields, designed to provide protection from 7.62mm AK-47 rounds. The weapons used by Khalid and his men.
Luke’s men kept checking the area through a small window near the top of the shields while securing defensive positions.
“Let’s go,” Khalid yelled, and the gunfire started. The maelstrom was so strong that Luke’s men couldn’t even get up to shoot back from their ballistic shields. But Luke knew this would stop eventually when the guns ran out of bullets and they would have to stop for a reload. He proved to be right very soon. Despite the huge ammo at their side, Khalid had miscalculated how much he and his men could afford to use in one go. And as soon as they stopped, Luke’s men rose from behind the shields.
“Now!” Luke yelled.
His men aimed their guns and started to shoot. Khalid and others ducked for safety, but the locked wards and rooms gave them little cover. And unlike them, Luke and his men were tactically better in finding the targets and then pressing the trigger.
The two terrorists on the fourth floor walked towards the exit stairs from where they had planned to ambush the uniforms from behind. As soon as they opened the exit door, they met three gun-barrels pointing at them.
“Going somewhere?” The three men didn’t wait for them to answer before squeezing the triggers. The two terrorists did not even get the chance to lift their guns.
At the floor below, it was a massacre on both sides. The terrorists had reloaded their weapons and were now back in the battle. It was now or never for them.
“Allahu Akbar,” Khalid yelled as he blew the head of one of the cops. Luke saw his key men going down and his rage doubled.
But for Khalid the situation was much worse. His plan to ambush the team from behind had not materialized. It wasn’t even ten minutes in the battle and the end was almost near. His men were dying left and right.
“We should surrender,” Omar yelled amidst the firing. “We are the only one left.” He was right. It was only Khalid and Omar in the battle now.
In the Situation Room, the mood was changing. Watching what was happening in the dark corridors of the hospital, Hancock and others had started to feel that the battle was already in their favor. It would be a big victory for Hancock, going against the experienced General. He was already thinking of how he would be able to free Houston soon after this and maybe in two hours he could be boasting about his acumen in front of the international media. General Shelton would be the scapegoat. It was after all he who had suggested to delay the operation to the night.
Khalid wanted to tell Omar that they would keep fighting, but by the time he could say anything, Omar’s body was already riddled with bullets.
Khalid was now the only one against an army.
Soon, Luke realized the absence of opposing fire and ordered his men to stop.
“I’m ready to surrender,” Khalid yelled from his place.
“Throw your weapon,” Luke shouted, in no mood to take chances.
Khalid threw his gun and the haversack in the hallway.
“Come out slowly. Hands in the air.”
“I’m American. Don’t shoot me,” Khalid yelled.
“Come out slowly. Your hands in the air,” Luke repeated.
“I’m coming out.”
Luke and his remaining men waited patiently for the shooter to appear in the open. Everyone in the Situation Room waited too.
Khalid appeared in the hallway, his hands in the air. Multiple flashlights on him had almost blinded him. His eyes were closed. He was completely at the mercy of his enemies.
“I’m American. Do not shoot. I surrender,” he yelled again.
“On your knees. Now!” Luke yelled.
Khalid followed orders. “I’m American.” He repeated the phrase again.
“On the floor. Now.”
Khalid followed orders like an obedient student.
Luke and one other officer moved forward, keeping their shields in front, their guns trained at Khalid. Luke signaled the other officer to handcuff Khalid. The officer moved as per orders and immediately saw the detonator in Khalid’s hand.
“Shit.”
Lying on his back, Khalid smiled and pressed the detonator while Luke’s bullets razed through his body. The RDX Khalid’s men had laid out on the third floor went berserk.
In the Situation Room, the screen went blank.
“What happened?” Hancock asked.
“We lost the connection.”
They checked the news. The third floor of the Bellevue Hospital Center had a huge explosion. Huge bubbles of fire emanated out of that floor.
Hancock looked pale. He didn’t know what to do now. He had hugely underestimated the shooters and now had multiple casualties on his head. He collapsed on his chair, his eyes staring blankly at nothing at all. An almost similar reaction was happening all across the room and across the nation.
Chapter 43
Helms had received the call on his personal number from Riley, Sam Wick’s handler, half an hour ago. She apprised him of the situation with Wick and Eddie. They were already airborne and now it was Helms’ responsibility to clear the obstacles for them to help them enter the American airspace.
Sam Wick kept a watch on the first officer as he sat strapped to his seat. Eddie was in the first officer’s seat, keeping an eye on the Captain. His instructions were to reach Houston as soon as possible.
He hoped that after nine hours of journey he would get the good news that the attacks have been contained, but he knew he had a streak of facing the worst of situations whenever he hoped for anything good.
Since the time he read those news reports, he had been analyzing the modus operandi of the attack. And he had come to an understanding that these men had arrived with extensive training and planning. Hitting six cities in broad daylight showed that.
Basit was still unconscious. The medicines might have been wearing off, but his hands and legs were cuffed, and he was strapped to a seat.
“We are in the US Airspace and heading to Houston now,” the captain announced on the microphone. He had reluctantly agreed to fly the plane on the condition that his yes would save his crew.
Wick didn’t react at the announcement. His eyes kept steady on the three others. He had checked his watch for the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes. Sitting idle in the aircraft was no less than a torture but at the same time, Wick was constantly planning what he had to do once they landed, Back home, the FBI and CIA had the prerogative to handle any terrorist threats. TF-77’s role was curtailed once the message was delivered but Wick knew he might be needed.
‘Couple of hours more,’ Wick whispered to himself in a false hope to normalize his nerves.
Chapter 44
White House, DC
General Ronald Neller was staring at the door of the Situation Room with every inch of focus that he had in his body. He expected th
e door to open anytime soon, but he was surprised at the delay. He checked the time. It was nine pm. Almost eleven hours since the attack began, and still continuing. The reports from Manhattan were devastating. They had lost brave men and several innocent people in that raid. The terrorists were dead but the hospital building was completely aflame. He didn’t know how long it would take to douse the fire.
“What the fuck are they waiting for?” General Neller muttered under his breath.
Master Sergeant David Blake was pacing back and forth in the hangar. Fifteen commanders, standing in a group at a far end of the hangar, waited for his orders. These men belonged to the United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). This was a component command of the United States Special Operations Command that comprised the Marine Corps’ contribution to SOCOM. Its core capabilities were direct action, special reconnaissance and foreign internal defense along with conducting counterterrorism, and information operations.