Jack Be Nimble: The Crystal Falcon Book 3

by Ben English

  He emptied an entire clip into the onrushing bus and its driver, then dashed across the opposing lanes of traffic. Didn’t need to look back at the magnificent crash of tearing metal and flesh. Heat touched his back. A flaming tire bounced past him, melting, leaving streaks of oily flame every time it touched the ground.

  A construction site lay immediately beyond the roadway, lit by bright lights on mounted racks. He ran past the first few groups of workers, men and women mixing cement and driving small skip loaders. Miklos’ intelligence had confirmed the building crew was using a number of Scania bullnose construction vehicles.

  He found one, engine running. Enough cue to trigger the explosives in the Lada.

  *

  Jack picked a spoon. There was a fine art to it, he was sure. A finesse. Not that he’d ever discovered it. He usually bought whatever spoon “sang” to him, and his god-daughter was deliriously happy with it. Hard for him to pick the wrong spoon. It was yet another of those simple graces in his life that had no practical application. The right spoon. In this one thing, his instincts never failed him.

  Waiting in line at the register put him in just the right position to see Mercedes. His jacket, draped around her shoulders, was just a shade too big. She listened seriously to Mahmoud, eyes moving quickly about his face. She was reading the other man, observing his microexpressions. She’s got the right set of basic skills, he thought, and the fitting physicality besides. He wondered if she knew how to fire a gun—and immediately felt the pit drop out from under his stomach.

  Let her go, he thought.

  Mercedes had her own life. She didn’t need him, didn’t need anything he could give her. The past few hours were an adrenaline-stoked adventure, a boy’s adventure tale, and yes: a completely random fluke.

  What would his little voice tell him? It would say, Let her go, Jack. Pulling her into your life is the single most selfish thing you can do. Don’t complicate her. Your heart won’t take it again.

  Jack expected the little voice to chime in at any moment.

  He would keep his promise to her. He’d see that she got back to L.A., tell her some version of his life story that would satisfy her curiosity and slake whatever interest she might have in him. Then he’d vanish. He would honor her marriage. Pull a fast fade, and she’d never see him again. The world was big enough. This was the kind of advice the little voice would give, he was sure of it. Any moment now.

  He waited.

  Mercedes glanced through the window and saw him. Her expression changed. Her face made a series of tiny, easy movements, and he watched them progress until finally, in their sum, Mercedes smiled at him, simply, with her lips closed. Her eyes stayed on him, and he was close enough to see a hint of their deep green.

  Jack felt his throat constrict.

  At that moment, every pane of glass in the long, sweeping wall facing the terminal entrance shivered, creaked, popped, and exploded violently inward, raining glass and bits of steel frame onto the people below.

  *

  Miklos didn’t need the tiny voice in his ear to tell him to move. Marduk could make computers do marvelous things. Issue false tickets, spoof the ID scanners at the baggage claim, rewrite security logs, control the digital feed from the video cameras.

  But the human factor, as always, was best overcome by distraction. Give the idiots something bright and shiny to look at. Divert their attention for an instant, and do what you like with them. Raines’ plan had proven as much last night.

  Miklos felt his blood pulse at the sound of the high-order detonation from the roadway, almost an echo of the pressure wave that passed over the crowd. He was ready for it, eagerly expected it, and he still nearly lost his footing.

  Glass from the curbside windows and doors made it as far as his position, clear past the security gate and onto the concourse.

  In an instant he stepped out of his coat, and dropped the baseball cap. The electric tram was a short distance away and there were no locked doors, thanks to Marduk. It was time to play.

  *

  The first pair of men from the Lada had the easiest task, and the heaviest equipment. Bolt cutters provided them a path through the dual layers of hurricane fencing, and by the time they reached a sandy berm near the air traffic control tower they had their earplugs in.

  Unmanned security pods, essentially enclosures housing a remote-controlled camera, stood at even distances along the perimeter. Each pod was silent, which didn’t surprise them in the least. They’d worked with Marduk before, and had a healthy respect for his ability to penetrate and control computer-operated defenses.

  They actually used one of the security pods to stay out of sight of the control tower, hunkering down long enough to insert earplugs and prep their long, bulky weapon. One of them removed the transportation locking pin by pulling gently on its lanyard, while the other thumbed the tube release button and pulled the rear tube by its end cap, extending the inner tube until a yellow band peeked out at its base, near the body of the launcher. Then he rotated the inner tube clockwise until it locked with a tight click.

  All this took perhaps three seconds. They’d done this sort of thing before.

  The first man raised the rocket launcher to his shoulder, adjusted the rear sight for correct range, and placed his fingertips on the safety button, on top of the main tube. The thumb of his right hand fit snugly over the red trigger button.

  His companion checked his watch and trained a pair of nightvision binoculars on the hangar and cluster of buildings at the far edge of the main airstrip. That was the military section, ostensibly better protected than the air traffic control tower.

  The airfield was well lighted. Landing beacons marched away in unmoving rows.

  The second pair of Miklos’ men should be in position by now, near the doors to the military parking area.

  In case of calamity, fast moving ground transport would issue forth and physically block each end of the airstrips. If anything happened to the civilian control tower, the military maintained a second facility to direct air traffic.

  Heaven forbid anything happen to the main control tower.

  The first man lit a cigarette and handed it to his companion, who shifted slightly under the weight of the M141 Bunker Buster, but did not remove it from his shoulder. They smelled the rain. Watched it march in even, symmetrical lines toward them across the tarmac.

  The cigarette was a long white curl of ash when the ground shook slightly. Both men saw a flash of light, dull and flat against the deadened night sky, from the other side of the airport. It was immediately followed by a second sharp flash of light from the military hangar, which seemed to burst into splinters and collapse on itself. The blunt roar from both explosions rolled over them at about the same time.

  Without a word, the first man stood, faced the concrete base of the control tower squarely, and triggered his weapon.

  *

  Mercedes pushed up from the floor with her elbows. Glass fell from her hair, but no blood. She didn’t even feel hurt. The wool layer of Jack’s coat took some damage, but it had some sort of interlocking mesh inside, light as plastic, that stopped the shrapnel.

  Lights swung loosely from the ceiling.

  A gust of wind cast a sheet of rain in through the open wall, then another. Around them, people began to call for help. Most just sat, dazed. Mercedes ran to the nearest person, an older man who’d also managed to gain his feet, though he cradled his arm as if it were porcelain or something more fragile.

  Mahmoud did the same, bleeding from a dozen tiny points on his face and neck. He’d been facing the wall of glass when it erupted. Mercedes grasped his shoulders and forced him to look squarely at her. No bleeding from the eyes; good. A few shiny spindles were caught in his beard, otherwise he merely looked pissed off.

  A phone rang. She wasn’t sure how long it had been ringing. Then she recognized the ringtone—the Dr. Who theme, by Ron Grainer—coming from an inner pocket of the jacket. She fished Jack’s ph
one out, one of those overly complicated phones, a featureless black pebble really, like a smooth, dark river stone. Where the hell was the front? It rang again, and one side lit up.

  The voice on the other end didn’t wait for her. “Jack! Miklos Nasim is in the airport. I don’t know how he got past security, but he’s in the main terminal area, about two hundred yards from the electric train. Facial recognition picked him up. Just popped up on the grid, in the middle of the airport.” It was the voice of Jack’s computer specialist, Stan—no, that wasn’t right.

  “Steve, this is Mercedes.” Her voice sounded odd, and Mercedes realized she had to concentrate to speak properly. “Jack’s here, but he’s giving first aid.”

  The glass fronting the knickknack shop was gone. On the other side, Jack was administering CPR. He looked fine. Shirt torn, but he looked fine, thank God.

  A short pause on the other line, then a series of soft curses. “I’m getting all kinds of reports of explosions from the airport. Are you guys okay?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “There’s no emergency comms, nothing on the military band. What the hell?”

  “I don’t understand what you are saying.” Someone in uniform dashed by her, then another. Airport security?

  “Nobody’s dialing 911!” Steve shouted back. “Nobody at the airport is calling for help on the official channels.” A moment later, he added, “The airport computer systems were hacked. Whoever’s doing it is still on the system.”

  What would Jack say? “Can you send out the emergency response info yourself?”

  “I’d rather use Jack’s phone as a wireless access point. Leapfrog into the airport’s network, pop this carpetbagger off their system.”

  “Call 911 first!” Her first command decision, she thought, not that she felt in command of anything. The crowd milled near the ticketing counter. Clearly no one wanted to go near the front doors. Security personnel began waving people towards the front of the building.

  “Take cover outside, on the far curb,” one of them shouted. She held a large, official-looking book, and continued to repeat her directions as if she was reading, “Move in an orderly fashion and exit the terminal now. Do not attempt to take your luggage.” Blood ran into her eye from a gash near her hairline. Mercedes watched as she blinked it away, irritably. She suddenly felt a burst of admiration for the woman.

  Near the security gate, Cuban soldiers and security personnel formed a loose funnel, directing the flow of traffic from the gates down into the ticketing area and towards the outer doors. They were collecting themselves with alacrity, obviously falling back on emergency training of one kind or another.

  Beyond them, in the terminal, someone was fighting the guards. A lanky man, quick, with long grayish-white hair. The guards were having the worst of it. She watched as he physically lifted an airport security guard off the floor and kicked him backwards. The guard’s uniform shredded in his attacker’s hands.

  Mahmoud finished tying a makeshift bandage. He cupped one hand over an ear, leaning down. Mercedes feared he’d been injured, then realized he had a radio device of some kind in his ear. “My people say a known international terrorist is here, probably behind all of this. Miklos Nasim. He’s here in the airport. We must go.”

  “There’s someone fighting over there.” She pointed past the security gate. Jack raced past her, in the direction she indicated. He jumped sideways, and vanished into the crowd.

  No Epiphany Required

  The concourse windows provided a wide view of the runway area, enough to see his teams’ efforts. They were marvelous. Miklos watched in appreciation as the air traffic control tower collapsed inward on itself, billowing smoke and gouts of flame which couldn’t quite obscure the smaller fires already springing up at its base. The tower had been full of security personnel, first-responders.

  On another side of the airfield, fine fingers of smoke burned behind four rocket-propelled grenades, each trailing bright lines against the clouded horizon before arcing down into a military car or van. The roaring explosions were barely audible through the glass, but shadows in the concourse jumped with each explosion. A second volley cleared the military motor pool completely.

  That rocket team was the farthest from the terminal. They’d have to sprint across the two airstrips to reach the extraction point, but Miklos didn’t worry about them. His blood sang.

  Two guards charged him, swinging batons. They were well trained, but he’d read the training manual. He darted quickly forward and to his left, flanking the guards and forcing the farthest man to step around his companion. The nearest guard reassessed his attack and struck again, but his hesitation cost him the game.

  Miklos stepped inside the radius of his swing, striking the man’s fingers just below the knuckle. The force of the guard’s own swing, coupled with his momentum and all the strength his massive frame could bring to bear, broke three of his own fingers.

  The eyes were the most entertaining. Miklos watched them as he spun past the man. Lost in the passion of the fight the guard registered no pain, only disbelief at first as Miklos ducked underneath the baton, then dismay as Miklos seized his arm with both hands. In one seamless wave Miklos drove his wrist back until it snapped, broke his elbow at the joint, and dislocated his shoulder. Miklos brushed close by him, their clothing whispering, and as he passed, he saw the moment in the guard’s eyes when the world melted away into the white, white wall of pain.

  The second guard hesitated at his companion’s screams, as if listening. Miklos didn’t need the extra moment, but he never walked away from an advantage. He broke the guard’s jaw and kicked his knee in a direction it was never intended to bend.

  Three more guards approached, in riot helmets. Good. They were taking him seriously.

  Now he had two batons. He threw one, full strength, into a guard’s throat, then whirled to strike at the nearest civilian.

  There was a good crowd of them now, in full stampede. The grass between the two main airstrips was on fire now, despite the rain. The crowd was reacting to the flames. Moving civilians were as much a hindrance to the guards as they were to each other, and Miklos danced through them, lashing with the baton. He kicked the legs out from underneath as many as he could, and the mass of humans roiled for it.

  An alarm sounded, then shut off. Then started again. Beautiful bedlam.

  *

  Jack dodged through the mass of fleeing people, past men and women carrying children and each other. A woman with a baby, a kid in a shirt which read, “Pave the World!” and a pair of elderly, aristocratic Cuban men who moved in tandem, clearing the way for each other and the woman with the infant.

  The flow of humans followed patterns, jostling systems that constantly broke up and reformed, and he dealt with them. He couldn’t quite run at top speed, naturally. The main flow came right through the security checkpoint, which the guards had opened wide to accommodate the rush of civilians moving to the exit. The other side of the checkpoint, the ID check and metal detectors, was mostly free. Only a few guards stood between him and Nasim. Most had already joined the fight. Some held heavier weapons, but hung back, looking for a shot. It was obvious that no one wanted to gas the crowd.

  A second path stood open to the crowd, visible through an internal glass wall. In addition to the main terminal and ticketing area, the concourse also emptied out onto the train platform; arriving passengers without baggage could step directly onto the tram from the arriving gate, through customs. A large number of people stood there, wall-to-wall, anxious. The space was limited, and until the train arrived again, they were effectively trapped. Jack doubted any of them dared to cross the electrified track.

  What was Nasim doing? He couldn’t hold consequences off indefinitely. A distraction, then. Probably. That fit the style. With practically every native Cuban pissed off at the idea of their existence, it was obvious that Nasim’s crew would exfil out of the country. The US Navy controlled most of the open water around the island, and the priv
ate airfields were locked down. The cities didn’t offer that many places to hide. Nasim’s avenues of escape were limited.

  Jack’s team would have to ground all the planes somehow. He reached for his phone, and remembered where he’d left it.

  *

  “Mercedes, this is Alonzo. I’m nearest the airport and am heading back to you guys. Where are you? Are you at the plane?”

  Mercedes stepped up on a bench and flattened her back against the wall. The fleeing tourists were nearly a solid mass of interlocking arms, legs, and carry-on baggage. “We’re in the main terminal. Jack is going toward the source of the trouble, I guess.”

  She’d found him again, it wasn’t difficult. Jack almost literally swam against the current. Almost unconsciously Mercedes prepped her camera and framed him in the viewfinder. He was headed for a particularly burly security guard, who had spotted him as well.

  The squeal of car tires filled the earpiece of the phone. “Damn rain,” Alonzo said, then began to swear in earnest. “The whole road is closed! They blew an overpass, collapsed the roadway!”

  She remembered that particular section of road, near a construction site. “Are we on our own?”

  Alonzo yelled something in Spanish she didn’t catch, and shouted back, “Stay with Jack. Close to him as you can. I’m going to have to get creative here.”

  *

  The driver of the Lada found his new vehicle, an eighteen ton dump truck, a decidedly less nimble conveyance. He pushed it through its gears as quickly as possible. The approach road to the airport was clear—everyone was still trying to head in the opposite direction—and he didn’t have far to go.