He scooted into the windowsill, turned around and grabbed the ledge to lower his feet as far as he could. No time. He let go, pushed off and spun around in mid-air to prepare for landing. He tucked and rolled as his shoes made contact. Upon impact, he rolled to the right and came back to his feet with minimal pain. Cool move.
He ran to the 5th Avenue side of the building and looked down. Nothing. He ran to the corner of the structure and watched and waited. Fifteen seconds later, Anwar emerged from a different entrance than he had entered earlier. The bomber stepped into 34th Street and had to step back to avoid a taxi that didn't care if he was the world's most wanted terrorist. The streets were busier than 15 minutes ago.
The terrorist ran into and across the street, down to the corner of 34th and 5th. Lance shot up to about 500 feet. They looked in the direction Anwar had come from half an hour earlier and knew exactly where he was going. The top floor of the building on the corner of 35th and 5th that Anwar had stepped out of was a perfect location to see the Empire State Building. The 8-story building was also just far enough away to avoid the debris field from the explosion and falling, collapsing, cascading steel and concrete from 102 stories above. The top floor of the building had a clear view of most of the tower and the 5th Avenue side of the Empire State building's base. Lance could see Anwar from up there. He was near the end of the block crossing 35th Street. He did indeed step into the building.
Preacher looked for his next step. Looking down, he saw a permanent awning was built over the sidewalk on the 5th Avenue side. It was about 30 feet down. Great. No time. He swung his legs over the edge and saw he could drop down to the windowsill about eight feet down. From there he could maybe do the same with the one below.
He lowered his feet to the ledge below and then leaned down to grab hold of the sill, no go. He fell off the edge and couldn’t grab to stop his fall so he turned to see if he could control the remaining 20 or so feet of the freefall. Like the minute prior, he hit the surface and rolled. His landing made a hell of a noise, even in obnoxiously loud New York.
Back on his feet, he limped to the end of the awning, swung his legs over and dropped to the sidewalk below, landing next to a surprised group of tourists. He smiled at them. He had another decision. If he ran back into the security desk, he could tell them there was a bomb in the building. In five minutes, they could maybe get a couple of hundred people out while causing real panic. Preacher realized right then that Anwar had not planned to detonate his bombs this early in the morning. He most likely planned to blow the thing closer to lunchtime when it would be full of tenants and tourists. There would likely be five, maybe ten thousand people inside. And all the pedestrians around the structure would be pulverized. There was no time. Anwar was already to his building. He could blow it in minutes.
Preacher burst across the street in the direction Anwar had jogged. He sprinted across 34th and then jaywalked, ran really, across 5th. He was about a minute behind Anwar. But he was moving much faster.
He reached the 8-story building at 5th and 35th half a minute later. A catchy tune by the Cure had started up there on the awning. It was now into its second chorus. Inside the building, a doorman sat behind his desk reading the paper. “Sir, may I help you?” He put the paper down.
“I have no time. The man who just came in, Arizzati...” Preacher pulled out his gun and badge.
“Jesus. What do you want?”
“FBI. Arizzati, top floor I know. Which suite? Now.” Preacher had moved past the man to the elevators where he pushed the button. “Now.”
“807. Do I call the police?” The doorman moved out from behind his desk.
“Call them now. For what it’s worth, call in a bomb threat at the Empire State Building. This is real.” The door started to open, slowly. “If I can’t stop him, the whole thing is coming down in minutes.”
A woman stood in the elevator as the door opened. She saw Preacher’s gun and screamed. He pulled her out and pushed the button for 8. The door closed slower than a snail in molasses. He shut his eyes and rotated his head like Fuchs does. He wished Marta were here. Another gun and set of eyes, especially hers, would be helpful. He opened his eyes and looked at Lance sitting cross-legged up in the corner. Life and death shit here and he was up there joking around, doing meditation.
“Funny.” Preacher whispered.
“Just getting centered.” Lance smiled and moved his head in all directions. Like a ghost needed to be flexible. The elevator moved past 7. Preacher took in a deep breath and prepared to explode.
A bell dinged and the doors snailed open. Preacher burst through them with a spinning roll. He knew from the elevator’s position in the building that Anwar’s suite would be to the left, at the corner of the building. No one was in the hall. But a video camera was mounted above the door with a quaint little 807 plaque beside it. He was on camera, so he waved.
The camera could not see the ghostly character shooting through the halls, bouncing off walls and taking in every detail as Preacher glanced around during the next half second. The wood grain of the walls, the doors, doorknobs and hinges, the door casings. Lance saw right away the door to 807 was no good. It was more solid than those in the Empire State Building. Lance focused on the wall two feet from the door. Preacher saw what he was seeing and fired 8 shots into the wall in a square pattern 16 and 32 inches away from the door casing. If they were right, this space would be between two studs in the wall. He backed up then he threw himself from the wall across the narrow hall and kicked the wall where he had placed the shots. The drywall within the square pattern he shot exploded with his kick. He did it again, and there was a hole in the wall into suite 807. He shoved his head and torso through the hole, gun first.
Preacher getting his head, his eyes, through the hole allowed Lance to enter the room. Preacher's eyes supplied the data. Lance moved around the room in a whirlwind as time slowed, froze really. Anwar was over in the corner of the unit next to the windows. He did not look up at Preacher’s loud entrance. His attention was totally focused on the table full of remotes he was working over. Lance saw right away that he and Preacher had caught the world's premier terrorist bomber off guard. His plans, his procedures were not complete. The bombs weren't ready.
Precious seconds, microscopic moments in the span of lives, were now available for the world's most dangerous terrorist to take action. Not Anwar, Preacher.
Lance Priest, also known as Preacher, wanted to kill right now. He was trained and talented and deadly. And more than that, he needed to kill. This was not desire. It was necessity.
Preacher, with his body halfway into the apartment, took aim dead center at Anwar’s back. It was 24 feet. He hit him with all three shots. The terrorist fell forward onto the table, but incredibly, kept working. The Pakistani bomber was in somewhat of a trance, focused on completing his mission, his years of planning.
Preacher broke out more drywall and shimmied through into the apartment. He rolled onto his back and up to his feet with the gun pointed again at the bomber. Anwar rose and turned to face him. He held a remote unit in his hands. And he smiled. He was ready.
So, how much life and death and anything in-between can someone experience in a second, a moment? Lance had lived a lifetime two years earlier when he looked into Marta’s eyes for the first time. It was life-changing. He had something, someone, to live for now.
In this moment, looking into Anwar’s evil-genius, terrorist bomber’s eyes, Preacher had the added advantage of another set of eyes. He and Lance looked at Anwar from two perspectives. They, the two of them, body and spirit, conscious and insanity, Lance and Preacher, could see past the man’s dyed hair, the makeup on his skin, the contacts lightening the dark brown of his eyes. Lance saw the burns on Anwar's fingers as he moved his forefinger to the trigger button of the unit in his hand. How many times had this man burnt his fingers assembling bombs?
Lance saw in the wrinkle, the twitch in Anwar’s left eye that indicated he was not qui
te all there. He was obviously in great pain with three bullets in him. Anwar was brilliant in his methods, his planning, his attention to details. But he was missing something. He was lacking that connection that makes someone decent, makes them human. Preacher recognized it immediately, because hell, he lacked the same thing.
While Preacher kept eye contact with Anwar, Lance examined everything else around the guy. On the table, an elaborate network of six remotes was wired together with a large set of batteries on the floor underneath. On the left side of the table was a monitor showing four separate views of the Empire State Building. Anwar had set up video cameras to capture the cataclysmic event. One of the cameras stood on a tripod to the right of Anwar. It’s positioning was obvious. He planned to step in front of the camera with the building collapsing over his shoulder to claim the act, to proclaim it for Allah and freedom and Islam and vengeance for the injustice perpetrated around the globe by the great Satan — America.
Lance moved in-between microseconds and came back to the unit Anwar held in his hand. It was wired to the rest. He followed the line to a central unit that was then connected to six others. That likely meant six detonation devices just over 350 yards away inside the Empire State Building. No time. Anwar’s finger was moving toward the button. He was not much of a talker and didn’t look like the kind who’d planned a long glorious speech. A second and a half had passed.
Options were limited. A shot to the forehead would not prevent a finger from pressing a button. He could shoot the unit, but again, Anwar would likely constrict his grip and press the button. Not much to work with here. It was Lance who came up with another option. He moved down and stood next to Anwar and returned to the network of boxes and remotes on the table. The secret was the main hub. It was a box that measured eight inches by eight and stood about five inches high. It would receive the signal from the wired remote Anwar held in his shaking hand and send it to all the remotes.
Lance turned back to Preacher and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. He moved it directly in front of what appeared to be the main processor on the simple hub unit. “Hit the bull’s eye, Preacher. Don’t miss.”
Preacher adjusted his aim from Anwar’s forehead to the unit on the table. Anwar saw the gun’s aim shift and followed it to the table as well. The time it took Anwar to process this change made the difference between one person, himself mainly, and thousands of casualties. When his eyes reached the hub unit, recognition flashed inside his brain and sent a signal to his right forefinger to press the button.
Problem was, this recognition came just as Preacher fired two shots right through the target Lance made for him. The central unit exploded as the first and then second bullet struck it. Anwar’s pressure on the button sent an electronic signal down through the wire, but it too was too late. The speed of the bullets had won. The message to the other remotes did not make it through. Nothing happened.
So that was that. Except for the troubling fact that the other individual remotes were all still live. They just weren’t centrally connected. Anwar knew this and began to reach for the closest one. Lance saw this a microsecond before Preacher did and brought his other hand up to make another bull’s eye for Preacher to hit. This time, it was right at the terrorist’s temple, which led to his brain, and his body’s central processing unit.
The particular gun Preacher was holding, a Smith and Wesson 9-millimeter, holds 17 rounds. He had fired 16. Three in the Empire State Building, eight shot into the wall allowed him to enter the apartment. Three more were in Anwar’s back. The previous two had just destroyed the central remote hub. The last one really had to count.
This was quite a bit of pressure on a guy who failed on the range time after time. Thinking about that now, he recalled feeling that there was just too much time back in basic training and time after time at Harvey Point. He had too much time before, in-between and after each shot. Too much time to think. But he could think about that later. Right now he needed to put a precisely placed nine-millimeter round through the brain of a terrorist bomber standing 17 feet in front of him.
He liked that time was tight. He preferred the pressure. It left no time to think, to over-think. He brought his aim up to the target a smiling Lance was holding next to Anwar’s head and fired. The bullet was an inch off target. Not bad at all. It hit Anwar in the head, passed through bone and brain matter and more skull and out the other side where it continued through a pane of window glass out into Manhattan.
Anwar’s head tilted left with the blow and his whole body followed, collapsing to the floor against the wall. He was literally dead before he hit the floor. Everything looked good, except that Anwar’s outstretched left arm caught one of the remotes on the table. It skidded and then fell off the edge of the table headed for the floor with the trigger button facing down.
From 17 feet away, Preacher simply could not get there in time. Physics wouldn't allow it. It would take him at least a second and a half to get there. Damn. All this work, excellent execution and incredibly accurate shooting for naught. The remote continued its plunge to the floor in super slow-motion. People were going to die; innocent people who never did anything to Anwar. Inside the Empire State Building were thousands of freedom-loving Americans, and visitors from around the world who came to New York to see what all this freedom and capitalism and craziness was about. But again, no time to think about all that, he needed to move. But it was hopeless. There simply wasn’t enough time.
Chapter 46
Lance Priest had been born with several quirks. Lying, noticing details, unnatural physical fitness; call them quirks or god-given abilities or even phenomena. He had them. But his main quirk was this little out-of-body view of the world. His near-death experience on the microscopically small island of Tapul in the Philippines morphed his unique quirk into something more. The result was Lance hovering around all the time above Preacher.
A few seconds ago, Preacher realized that Lance came down to the floor for the first time. He stood right next to Anwar and made those handy targets for Preacher to aim at.
But what happened next was more than a quirk. It was definitely phenomenon.
As the remote neared the polished wood floor, where the button would be depressed sending a signal to a detonator a few hundred yards away, it stopped just inches off the floor. It did not send the detonation signal. The Empire State Building remained intact and thousands of people were not killed.
Now, Lance, and Preacher for that matter, never much believed in magic. But this was just that. Because, what had stopped the remote from hitting the floor was Lance.
Yes. Lance, standing there as a transparent ghost one moment, dove to catch the remote four inches before it hit the ground in the next. It was impossible. A ghost could not grasp something real, something tangible, right? Yet here he was.
But here's the thing, Lance wasn’t a ghost anymore. It was him in flesh and bone. It was Lance, not Preacher lying outstretched on the floor holding the remote and breathing a huge sigh of relief. He furrowed his brow and then looked over at Preacher in the middle of the room.
But he wasn’t there. He was gone.
Lance was confused and rolled over on his back to look around to see if Lance was floating overhead. Then it hit him – he was Lance, is Lance. He wasn’t Preacher.
Damn. He set the remote on his chest and lowered his head to the floor. Turning to his left, he saw the blood spreading from the holes in Anwar’s head and back. But he was still confused, disoriented.
He’d been Preacher for a year and a half and didn’t know how to think as Lance. How did this happen? How did he get across the room in literally no time and stop the remote’s fall?
Lance had to face it. He’d gone from one physical location to another without time elapsing. “Man, that’s freaky.” He said it out loud and expected Lance to answer. But Lance was gone, well not gone really. Just back inside him. But where was Preacher?
Below, on the street, he heard the si
rens and tires screeching as the first police cars arrived on scene. The doorman had made the 911 call and the cavalry had arrived. Lance got up gently and placed the remote on the floor beside him. He didn’t want to bump anything and kill a bunch of people. He stood up and looked north at the Empire State Building still standing. Huge relief cascaded over him.
He stepped back from the window and looked around the room. On the kitchen counter sat Anwar’s cell phone. He picked it up and dialed Seibel.
His boss picked it up on the second ring. “Seibel.”
“Anwar is gone.”
“What? How, where are you?” he spat it all out as one word.
“Anwar’s cozy little Manhattan apartment. Two blocks from Empire State.”
“He’s dead? You got him?” Seibel was anxious, and then some.
“Yes. Dead. He has the whole damn building wired to blow. We need everyone out and the surrounding blocks cleared in case I missed something.”
“Jesus. Let me get people moving.”
“Okay.” Lance exhaled again. “Have you heard from Marta?” He rubbed his knee where he’d kicked the sheetrock with it.
“Yes. I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes. Is this the number to call?”
“Yeah. It’s his cell phone.”
“Wish we had that a while ago.” Seibel hung up.
Lance hung up. He dialed the phone message service he and Marta shared. There were none. He set the phone back on the counter. The police would be up here in a couple of minutes. He needed to see what he could find before they arrived. He was disoriented looking around the room. The disorientation came from the fact that he only saw what his own eyes could see. He didn’t have the second set of eyes looking around the room with him. It kind of sucked.
The apartment was classy, with modern urban furnishings. Nothing much in the drawers. Nothing in the cabinets that gave any hints. Aside from the array of remotes on the table, Anwar left nothing of his plans in this apartment. This was his office, not where he lived. Lance stepped into the center of the main room again and relaxed his mind and eyes. He took it all in. He heard the elevator bell ring through the hole he’d shot and kicked through the wall. He had just a few seconds alone.
The Perfect Weapon Page 31