The whine of the G-650’s engines filled his eardrums. Damn earplugs don’t help much. Not when the jet is just ten feet away. Nose wheel rolling by. Now the two main landing wheels. Brad felt the coolness of a shadow pass over him. Just the jet’s wing. Next, the wash of warm exhaust from the starboard engine swept over him. The plane, with its green and red nav lights, continued rolling over the taxiway toward the hangar.
He didn’t take his eye from the scope. Hmmm, activity inside the hangar. Brad watched as one of the men dressed as a mechanic grabbed two orange-lighted wands and stood in the center waving the nose of the jet inside. The white and orange-checkered truck broke off its escort and moved to the side out of the way. Smart. The truck’s doors faced the taxiway, not the hangar. Five black-clad and body armored agents jumped out and deployed. Perfect. No one in the hangar suspects a thing.
The jet came to a stop inside Panda’s hangar. The engine noise wound down. The plane’s cabin door opened and the airstairs unfolded. So far so good. The sniper pressed his eye deeper into the scope. Oh, oh. Don’t close those hangar doors.
“Execute, execute, execute,” Brad calmly said into his com link. The doors hadn’t moved more than two feet before the agents behind the van swarmed them, one agent on each mechanic. The sniper heard shouts of, “FBI! Throw down your weapons and get down on the ground!”
Instead, the mechanics drew their guns and began firing. The FBI returned fire. Geeze, thought Brad, I hope they don’t hit the jet’s fuel tanks. From his sniper nest, he glassed the interior of the hangar, looking for a target. Then one of the mechanics dived behind a red rolling cart of tools. Let’s just guess where your center mass is located. Brad applied 4.2 pounds of pressure to the Winchester’s trigger. The tool cart exploded from the supersonic round. The mechanic fell from behind the cart, dead. Maybe from shrapnel more than from the actual bullet hitting him. “One tango down.”
He continued glassing the hangar for more targets. The mechanics fell back toward the office. That was the last he saw of them. Seconds later, he heard the squeal of tires and saw the silhouette of a black SUV tearing across the very end of the runway then through a chain link fence. “Coming in.”
“Come on, Brad. The chopper will keep an eye on our escapees. Airport PD and the State Troopers will get them.”
Brad stood at the foot of the airstairs. He watched as the agents cleared the interior of the plane. Then they escorted two elderly people, a man and a woman out of the plane. What’s this? The man has his hands on top of his head? Fingers interlaced like a prisoner of war? Who are these people?
“We tell you nothing,” the elderly man said, walking with a proud, erect, and military bearing.
The woman said, “Our only concern is for Xi BigBig. May he be serenely happy and at peace.”
“Drop the cooler,” Brad ordered her.
“No way Jose!”
“What’s in it?”
“Chimichangas—chicken and beef. It is a care package from Sergeant Diego. He worried you might starve us. We have enough to share. But we must keep one for Xi BigBig when he comes to rescue us.”
“Where’s Li Yong?” Brad called into the plane.
The Special Agent in Charge stood in the open door, “That’s it, Brad. Just these two. Come on up. Check out this plane.”
Brad slung the Winchester over his shoulder and mounted the stairs. Looks like a gunsmith’s workshop, he thought, looking over the workbenches and harsh fluorescent lights in the ceiling. He smelled cooking over the pungent odor of gun oil. What’s going on here?
“Coming out,” said a voice from behind the flight deck door. Brad unslung his rifle. The flight deck door slowly opened. Out stepped the pilot and co-pilot. Both had their hands raised. Each carried CIA credentials.
“Can you two tell us just what in the Sam hell went on here?” Brad asked. “We were expecting three prisoners—Li Yong and his parents. So far, I just see the two parents.”
“Sorry guys,” the pilot said, “Special Activities Division. This op is classified above everybody’s level. No longer your problem, gentlemen. Thanks for your support, but we’ll take it from here.”
* * *
Chapter 40
Jack’s seat belt pulled tight against his chest. Here? He looked down from the helicopter. This is the famous NYPD Intelligence Division & Counter-Terrorism Bureau? In a run-down outer borough neighborhood? Miles from Manhattan? The helo made a right turn. A junkyard on one corner. Auto-body shops with torn apart cars cluttering the other side of the street. This is it? It’s just an unmarked red brick building beneath an elevated highway. This is what Li Yong spent an entire year trying to hack? But even as the helo came out of its turn Jack saw the rooftop helicopter landing pad atop a building that apparently had no business ever needing one.
The pilot hovered for a quick look down at the landing zone. “Looks can deceive,” Crypto said. “It is the most highly automated and computer controlled facility of any intelligence or law enforcement agency in the world. Everything inside is controlled by a single computer system—lighting, water, air conditioning, door access, all communications, and of course, all security measures. There are a ton of those, believe me.”
There goes the stomach into the throat, Jack thought. Bump! Bump! So much for gentle landings. Beside Jack sat Li Yong. He keyed commands into his iPad throughout the flight from Republic Airport to the red brick building with no name.
Hoffman and his four-man team poured out of the helo soon as the door opened.
“Let’s go!” Jack ordered Li Yong. “You’re the star of the show. Come on.”
“One second, please,” Li Yong said. “You do not want to run into a wall of gunfire, do you? Wait…wait. Okay. I think I have it. Go now.”
“Hey Jack,” called Hoffman, “door’s locked. And it’s one bitch of high-grade steel. We’ll have to use a breaching charge.”
“I did not unlock the door?” Li Yong asked. “Wait. I’ll try again.”
Jack watched as he furiously punched at the Pad’s screen. “Make it fast. We’re exposed up here on the roof. The FBI and Homeland have helos too, you know.
“Try now.”
Hoffman grabbed the doorknob and looked back at his men stacked behind him, M4-A1 assault rifles leveled and ready. One nod of his head for the others, and he yanked open the outer door, then slid to the side. The assault team streamed in, with Hoffman now taking the rear.
Jack was the next man into the gray, concrete stairway that led down from the roof. “Clear,” he called up. Crypto, Helen, Gallagher, and Li Yong ran in then closed the door.
Li Yong stopped for a second to punch one command into the Pad. “Locking outer door after us.”
“Good thinking,” Helen said. “I’m going up to check and make sure you got it this time.” Helen ran up the single flight of steps the way they came. She tried the steel door. It opened. “Hey, Li Yong. Try again.”
Li Yong slammed a palm into his forehead. “Must be the surrounding concrete.” He reentered the command. “Now try.”
“Door’s secure,” Helen said. “Let’s not fall behind Jack and the others. Move.”
Gong! Gong! came an emergency alarm. Red strobe lights came on all around the facility. Workers—some dressed in business suits, others in navy polo shirts bearing NYPD and the Counter-terrorism Center logo, and a few in police uniforms—sprinted down the halls. Only seconds elapsed then the sliding polycarbonate doors to the various centers within the building automatically slammed shut.
“Nicely done, Li Yong,” Jack said as he looked down the glass safety corridor made of polycarbonate and ballistic sheetrock. “What just happened, Li Yong?”
“I put the building on lockdown. Its function is designed to protect the various computer centers from forced entry through this central corridor. Only, in this case, I reversed that. The safety corridor we are in now is actually protected from entry through the centers. I control all access throughout the building.
”
Jack knew his James Bond. But even if Q himself came charging out with some sort of laser blaster it wouldn’t have prepared him. This place…this is amazing. To think it lay behind that old rusty single door. Everything was gleaming and futuristic. There. Through a glass wall, digital news tickers streamed the latest intelligence across multi-colored displays.
“NYPD, FBI, and Homeland certainly have security officers on their way to the building now,” Crypto said. “And at least two of the NYPD’s Hercules teams—elite, heavily armed special forces—in route as well.”
Short bursts of automatic weapons fire exploded into the corridor. Then, calls of “Clear!” Jack ran forward to see what happened. He rounded a corner and saw it. “Aw. I was afraid of this.” On the concrete floor lay two NYPD officers and a man wearing a Kevlar vest with FBI stenciled in white. They gasped for breath.
“Hang on guys. Just hang on.” Then Jack saw the rounds sticking in the vest. His pulse slowed right down and he smiled. Hoffman’s one smart agent. “Your lucky day, gentlemen. We’re using hollow point rounds. They didn’t penetrate your Level III vests. Bruised ribs are all. I know it hurts like hell. Oh, how I know. But Crypto here will put you in restraints just the same. You’ll be witnesses to a small band of anti-terrorist operators saving the US from the worst attack in history.” Jack grabbed the three men’s weapons and handed them to Crypto, Helen, and Gallagher. He checked them for additional weaponry. Found what he was looking for in both cop’s ankle holsters. He stuffed the small pistols in his pockets. Lastly, Jack pulled a water bottle from his vest and made sure each of the three injured men got a cool drink.
“Oh, no,” Li Yong said. Then the fire alarm went off and with it, the sprinklers began dousing the entire building.
“What’d you do now?” Jack asked.
“I tried to turn off the power. Somehow, the fire suppression system activated instead. One second to turn it off—”
“No. Don’t. Can you make the sprinklers spare the Cyber Terrorism Center?”
“Let me see…yes. I figured it out. I created a dry corridor to the Cyber Center and inside the center itself. Everything else gets a good soaking.”
“That won’t last long. Just until they can get the Water Department to shut off the water.” The sprinklers in the corridor stopped. Now water just dripped onto the wet concrete floor. “Keep the fire alarm blaring too. May as well make them a little more uncomfortable.” Jack looked through the polycarbonate that protected them from the angry looking men and women lining the glass wall. Several banged their fists against it. “Now would be a good time to put them in the dark. Can you do that without shutting down the power to the Cyber Terrorism Center?”
“Let’s see,” Li Yong said. He punched some more keys on his Pad. The entire building went dark. Except further down the corridor where faint light seeped around several corners leading to their destination.
“Okay,” Jack said. “You got that one right. Follow Hoffman. We have just three hours to go.”
The building was a maze of clear, polycarbonate glass walls. Jack walked past a room full of wall-to-wall displays of electronic maps, constantly on the lookout for aggressors that might have breached their safe corridor. They were powered by stand-by batteries. But the overhead lighting was dark. A bank of digital clocks for Moscow, London, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Islamabad, Manila, Sydney, Baghdad, Tokyo, and Beijing lined the walls of one room. People wearing headsets sat in front of computer consoles. Each looked up and glared at the group of armed men who had taken over their facility.
Another glassed-in room. Jack looked at twelve giant flat screen TVs. All hanging in different areas. Each showing some foreign broadcast. He recognized Al-Jazeera. Beneath each screen ran a crawl in various languages—Arabic, some Pashto, a smattering of Urdu, Fujianese, rapid-fire Korean, for sure. And Chinese. Of course.
“These are the audio posts,” Crypto said. “They can load NSA feeds, record, and piece together snatches of cellular traffic that would have been lost otherwise. This center has access to a host of super databases. It has the world’s most extensive computer library of intelligence reports and briefing books for all of the known terrorist organizations. Updated in real time.”
“Oh, geeze,” Jack said as he rounded the corner that intersected with the security lobby of the Cyber Terrorism Center. “Hoffman, you couldn’t stop them?”
Jack watched, in total frustration as three NYPD officers looked at them from inside the Cyber Terrorism Center. Then the officer and both of his two men raised their M4 assault rifles and fired a few rounds at the glass wall.
“Just a demonstration,” Jack said. “They want us to know that all these layered polycarbonate glass walls are laminated. Makes them bullet resistant—”
“So the message is don’t even try blasting your way in here,” Helen said.
“It’s probably standard operating procedure when the building goes on lockdown,” Jack said. “Armed officers immediately muster to the most critical areas. The Cyber Center tops the list. Time is on their side. They think we and Li Yong are their enemies. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Now, we have three armed men barricaded in the Cyber Terrorism Center,” Smitty said. “No way to neutralize them so Li Yong can use the computers to stop the next attacks?”
“Probably not,” Crypto said. “The Cyber Center is the smallest of the five centers in this building, but the one with the most far-reaching effect. Doesn’t look much like a hacker’s paradise, does it? Just fifteen computer workstations. Still, its security is second to none. Biometric scanners control access. In this case, it’s a retina scanner for the outer doors.”
“Li Yong, can you override this guy’s commands and open these doors?” Jack asked.
“Of course. But why ask for gunfight?”
“You have a better idea, don’t you,” Helen said.
“Maybe. The building’s security system has a fast-acting aerosol sedative incorporated in the air conditioning system. Probably added for just such a situation—”
“So your plan is to knock these guys out, then override their door lock command and we walk right in?” Jack asked. “What are you waiting for?”
Jack watched as Li Yong began pressing keys on the iPad. This had better work. Now just two hours to go before the next attacks. “Those NYPD officers are still moving around in there.”
“It is not so easy,” sputtered Li Yong. “Wi-Fi is erratic inside all this concrete and steel.”
Finally, Li Yong looked up from his Pad. He raised a single finger and pressed the screen. Wisps of faint orange smoke issued from the ceiling ducts.
“Nothing’s happening,” Jack said.
“Aerosol is fast acting, not instant. Wait.”
Jack watched as the three men’s eyelids began drooping. Ah, there they go. They will just collapse right onto the floor. When they wake up, they won’t know what happened. “Okay, they’re out cold. Now reverse the AC and get rid of the gas.”
Li Yong pressed some buttons on his Pad. It didn’t take long. The red light on the iPad’s screen map of the Cyber Terror Center turned green. “Now it is safe to go in,” he said.
“Open the inner door,” Jack ordered. “And make damn sure it’s the inner door.” A bolt of cold tension ran up his spine. A heap of trouble if he accidentally opens the outer door and lets in the police.
The group looked over Li Yong’s shoulder as he focused on the schematic of all the doors the computer system controlled. Crypto pointed a finger at the screen, “That’s it, right there. See the map intersection? I’m almost sure of it.”
Li Yong hesitated. “Inner and outer doors very close together. Difficult to tell which is which. I do not know the correct door to tap open.”
“Look at them,” Jack said, pointing beyond the outer door. Two-dozen FBI, Homeland, and NYPD shooters stood, weapons raised and ready to assault. “They know exactly what we’re doing.” Probably also know Li Yon
g’s dilemma.
Helen spoke up, “If the map is too small, why don’t you enlarge it? Just take your thumb and first finger and spread the image out on the screen.”
Li Yong looked for a second at Helen then did exactly that. “Ah, much better. Thank you. So this is the inner door. No question.” He raised a finger and pressed the screen. They waited for just a second as the instruction wound its way through the software. Then it sent the door control command out to the servo-motors. The inner door slid silently open.
Jack blew out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Let’s go,” he said. “Drag the three sleeping officers into the outer lobby so they can get medical attention.”
After another minute, Jack said, “Okay, now close the inner door and lock us in, then open the outer door to let the good guys come take charge of their people.”
This time, Li Yong didn’t hesitate over which door to tap open. The agents flooded into the Cyber Center’s outer lobby like raging bulls running through the streets of Pamplona.
* * *
Chapter 41
“You,” Jack said pointing to Li Yong, “get to work. You now have less than two hours to insert your disarming instructions before the next attacks launch.”
Li Yong did not move. “Where is my family?”
Helen stepped into the confrontation. “In The FBI’S custody. I’m establishing a com link with them right now.”
Crypto jumped in, “If the attacks launch, the Department of Justice will put your parents on trial for terrorism.”
“They’ll never see the light of day again,” Jack said. “But that’s just our criminal justice system. I don’t have the restriction of law. So let me be clear. If you don’t stop these attacks that you created I will put a bullet in your brain. Understood?”
Man of Honor Page 19