Eves of Destruction

by Roy Berelowitz

  The policemen and their charge were now about ten feet away from the approaching patient. Vladimir looked him up and down and then noticed the intravenous bag was empty, completely drained. Vladimir tried to look at the man’s face, but his head was down almost to his chest so it was not possible to make out his features. As they were about to pass in the passageway, Vladimir noticed the man’s hand on the intravenous bag holder. All the fingers were just stubs and he was pushing the pole with the palm of his hand. Vladimir’s first reaction to seeing Al Rahman was intense anger followed almost immediately by relief. If Al Rahman was still in the hospital wandering about dressed like a patient, he must have failed to detonate the device. Vladimir was tempted to look back over his shoulder, but did not want to alarm his escort. He kept in step with them for a few more paces, until he estimated Al Rahman was about ten feet behind them, and then he acted.

  Peter Chin, the officer on his right was holding him with just one hand, so Vladimir dealt with him first. Using a short, sharp jab, Vladimir drove the side of his hand into the man’s groin, eliciting a painful grunt and momentarily immobilizing the man. The second officer responded quickly and appropriately. As Vladimir attacked his partner, Freed twisted Vladimir’s left arm up and behind his back, using his leverage to try and control his prisoner. It was a good move, one that would have worked on most people, but not the former KGB officer. Instead of trying to counter the policeman’s painful grip, Vladimir moved with him, pulling the policeman towards him and off balance. Then he turned from right to left and hit Officer Freed with two quick and hard blows directly on his temple with the point of his elbow. Freed cried out and dropped down to one knee. When Vladimir hit him again, this time on the back of the neck and Freed went down.

  Vladimir quickly turned his attention back to Peter Chin, who was recovering from the blow to his testicles. He was at once pulling himself up using the wall for support and reaching for his weapon. His hand was already on the gun’s grip when Vladimir hit him again, driving his knee into Chin’s head. Chin grunted and fell forward against the Russian, releasing his hand from his weapon. In one smooth movement, Vladimir pulled Chin’s weapon from its holster, cocked it and then turned to face his nemesis.

  Al Rahman was running as fast as he could on his lame leg. He had heard the commotion behind him and after a moment’s hesitation abandoned the intravenous stand and took off down the long corridor. The bathrobe was constricting his movement and he struggled to untie it as he ran. As he reached the end of the corridor, he turned left, placing his left hand on the wall to help him make the turn. Vladimir fired a single shot before his target disappeared down around the corner.

  * * *

  In the elevator, the sound of the single gunshot was clearly audible followed almost instantly by the bell indicating their arrival on the third floor. Casey Jennings and the two young FBI agents with her quickly drew their weapons and took up defensive positions on either side of the elevator doors. Casey braced herself against the doorway, slightly crouched, gun held in both hands, pointed down and in front of her. Across from her, the two agents had assumed the same position.

  The elevator jerked to a stop. After what felt like an eternity, the doors slid open. Weapon held out in front of her, Casey peered into the corridor just as a loud scream echoed down the hallway.

  * * *

  Vladimir wasn’t sure if he had hit him, but he heard a scream and then the sound of metal and glass crashing to the ground. Running down the corridor, he skidded around the corner, gun in front of him. A nurse was lying on the floor, a metal tray and broken glass around her. Al Rahman had disappeared.

  “Which way?” Vladimir shouted. “Which way did he go?”

  “Uh…I don’t know,” the nurse answered as she rolled onto her knees.” I didn’t see what happened. Someone just came around the corner and crashed into me. I don’t know…”

  Vladimir looked down the corridor and saw a door swing slowly back and forth on its hinge. Walking towards the room, he stopped outside. He listened for a moment and then pushed the door open and stepped in. A woman lay on the single bed occupying the center of the room, sheet pulled up to her nose, eyes wide with fright. Al Rahman was on the far side of the bed, his left arm dangling uselessly, blood running down his arm and dripping onto the floor. Vladimir’s single shot had shattered his left elbow but he still managed to hold the detonator in his hand.

  The two men stared at each other across the bed. Vladimir’s face was inscrutable, only his unblinking, cold gray eyes providing any clue to his emotions. He was even oblivious to the small trickle of blood oozing out of the wound in his head and running down his face. Al Rahman was breathing hard, trying to catch his breath and ignore the pain in the shattered arm. His eyes were closed and with lips barely moving, he muttered a prayer.

  Opening his eyes he stared at Kosnar and then tried to turn off the safety switch with his right hand, but without a thumb, he couldn’t move it. Grunting, he tried unsuccessfully to use his wounded arm and howled in pain and frustration as the activator fell to the floor. He stomped on it once and then stopped and stared at Vladimir Kosnar. He blinked once slowly. His face was gray and he was unsteady, rocking back and forth on his heels. Then he dropped his arms by his side leaned his head back and looked up as if in supplication and began to chant “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” God is great, God is great.

  Vladimir’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Al Rahman. He thought he heard his name shouted out, but he wasn’t sure. A strange memory of a cold, harsh, unforgiving place briefly entered his consciousness, and just as quickly the sensation was gone. Slowly, he raised his weapon and pointed it directly at the other man’s head. Sighting down the short barrel, he fired.

  CHAPTER 40

  ONE OF THE FBI agents started to step out of the elevator but Casey grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him back in. She looked at the two young agent’s faces. They were wide eyed and pumped full of adrenalin, just itching for their first take down. The last thing she needed was a couple of rookies charging down the corridor and getting themselves shot or shooting a patient.

  “I’ll lead,” she hissed at them both. “You follow and cover me and for Christ’s sake hold your fire. Remember, we’re in a hospital.”

  Without waiting for a response, Casey stepped cautiously out of the elevator. A few feet in front of her she could see one policeman lying prone and motionless. Next to him another policeman was slowly pulling himself into a sitting position, his back against the wall. He was obviously in a lot of pain. A couple of people had come out of their rooms into the corridor.

  “FBI. This is the FBI,” Casey shouted, her voice echoing down the corridor. “Please return to your rooms and close the doors. You Sir, yes you.” She gestured at a man peering from a nearby doorway. “Step back into your room, please. Everybody get back into your rooms.”

  After making a quick sweep of the corridor with her eyes, Casey ran over to the injured policemen. She knelt down next to the one who was sitting up and asked him if he was all right.

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “I’m OK, I’ll be OK.”

  “What happened?” Casey asked.

  “Uh…I don’t know,” the man said as he grimaced and clenched his teeth against the pain in his groin. “He… uh…just attacked us, got my weapon, uh…he took my weapon.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “I’m not sure.” The policeman grunted again. I heard a shot, but I didn’t see who he shot or where he went. I’m sorry…sorry…”

  “That’s OK. Take it easy, you’ll be OK.”

  Casey looked over at one of her young colleagues who was checking on the still prone and motionless policeman on the floor. “Man, this guy is out cold…” he started to say before Casey cut him off.

  “He’s taken this guy’s gun. He’s got his gun.”

  “Kosnar?”

  “Yes, he must have fired the shot. He must have seen Al Rahman.”

  Casey s
tood up and waved over a couple of nurses hovering nearby in a half-open doorway. “Did you see which way he went?” One of them shook her head, but the other pointed left.

  “He went that way. I saw the guy fire and run over there.”

  “OK, come over here please and take care of these guys.”

  As the nurses stepped forward, Casey and the two agents ran toward the end of the corridor then stopped, peering carefully around the corner. Casey shouted out Vladimir’s name.

  “Vladimir,” she shouted. “Vladimir Kosnar, can you hear me?”

  Just then the explosive sound of a single shot fired nearby echoed and reverberated harshly through the hospital corridor.

  “Over there,” Casey shouted, pointing with her weapon to a door three rooms down the corridor. She hesitated for a second, then kicked the door open and stepped in. The two young agents followed her in.

  Vladimir had his back towards them, his weapon still pointed out in front of him as if he was aiming at some object on the wall.

  “Secure him,” Casey ordered the agent behind her, indicating Kosnar with a flick of her head.

  One of the two agents stepped around Casey and placed the barrel of his gun firmly on the back of Vladimir’s head. “Drop your weapon, Mr. Kosnar,” he said. “Do it now, please.”

  Vladimir let out a long breath that whistled through his lips, and then slowly raised his arms over his head, gun dangling in his right hand. The agent quickly took it from him and handed it his colleague who checked the safety and then shoved the weapon into his pants.

  “Hands behind your back please, Mr. Kosnar,” the young agent said as he tapped the Russian on the shoulder with the barrel of his gun. He quickly snapped handcuffs onto Vladimir’s arms and holstered his weapon. He paused a second and then drove the heel of his foot into the back of Kosnar’s knee forcing him harshly to the ground.

  “Hey,” Casey snapped at the agent, flashing him a dirty look. “That’s not necessary.”

  She glanced at Vladimir’s head, noticed the blood oozing from the wound in his head and running down his face.

  “Stand him up and get him to a doctor right away.”

  As the agent led Kosnar away Casey looked down at the woman in the bed. She was clasping the sheet over her head, only her fingers exposed, bright red fingernails in stark contrast to her white hands and white sheet. Casey pulled the sheet away and stared down at her. “Are you all right?” Casey asked her.

  The woman said nothing but nodded vigorously. Then she grabbed the sheet from Casey’s hand and pulled it back over her head. Casey patted her briefly on the shoulder, and then leaned over the bed to look at the man on the floor. He was obviously dead. There was small hole in the center of his forehead and he was lying flat on his back, dark red blood pooling near his shoulders and neck. His arms were flung out from his body and Casey could see a long thin tube near his right hand. She holstered her weapon, quickly moved around the bed, and stepped over the body. Then she knelt down and slowly, carefully, she picked up the tube with just her forefinger and her thumb and held it up. The sound of running feet drew her attention as Gordon Lewis burst in followed by two more FBI agent all with guns drawn.

  “All clear, all clear,” Casey shouted. “It’s OK. It’s all over.”

  “Where’s Al Rahman?” Gordon Lewis asked urgently.

  Casey waived him over to the far side of the bed and Gordon Lewis stared at him for a minute.

  “Alright,” he said after a moment, “it’s over.

  Just then the door burst open again as the hospital administrator Dr. Franks came rushing in.

  “Did you stop him, did you get him?” she shouted. Casey held up the remote activator and showed it to her. “This is it,” she said. “He’s right here-he’s dead.”

  “Here, in this room,” Dr. Franks exclaimed as she looked over the bed at the body. She stepped back placing her hand over her heart. “My God, do you know where we are, where we’re standing?” She pointed up to the ceiling. “The operating theater they’re working in is just one floor above and two doors down. We’re less than fifty feet from that woman.”

  Gordon Lewis and Casey Jennings glanced at each other for a moment. Gordon raised his eyebrows and said, “Casey, let’s get that thing out of this building and away from here right now.”

  Casey nodded, quickly walked out of the room and started to run towards the elevators. Then she stopped and turned to the doorway for the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, she dashed towards the hospital entrance and handed the activator to a member of the police bomb squad. Within ten minutes it had been placed in a secure portable trailer and was a mile from the hospital.

  * * *

  Casey found a quiet room near the nurse’s station to wait until the surgery ended. After the gunfire, Dr. Franks, the hospital administrator, had declared a state of emergency at the hospital and had closed it for all new patients. Non critical emergencies were directed to other hospitals. Two surgeries had been scheduled for the evening, but she had them postponed until the next day. All visitors, except for parents and guardians in the pediatric ward, were sent home. Dr. Franks had had enough excitement for one day. The coroner had already removed Al Rahman’s body from the third floor, and the two injured policemen were resting comfortably. Casey had checked on Vladimir who had been treated by a doctor and was being held in a conference room. He asked about his sister and she told him what she knew and then he asked about the two policemen he had attacked. She smiled wryly as she responded.

  “They’re a bit bruised and battered but they’ll be alright.”

  She had wanted to sit with him but Gordon Lewis had ordered him to be held in a small conference room for a thorough debriefing on what had just occurred while his memory was still fresh. Gordon had ordered the handcuffs to be removed as FBI agents debriefed him.

  Casey was exhausted. Gordon had tried to send her off to her hotel, but she insisted on waiting until the surgery ended. She lay down on a sofa and quickly fell asleep.

  “Casey Jennings.”

  It took a few seconds for her to realize her name was being called. A nurse was shaking her shoulder.

  “Are you Casey Jennings?”

  “What? Oh yes, I’m sorry. I’m Casey.” She sat up, pushing her hair away from her eyes, blinking rapidly at the woman above her.

  “There’s a call for you from England. Gentleman says it’s urgent. He says he needs to talk to you immediately.”

  “From England? Did he say his name?”

  “Yes, I think it was a Campbell, Alex or Ian. Something like that. I told him you were resting but he insisted on speaking to you right away.”

  * * *

  Casey Jennings, Gordon Lewis, and Dr. Franks were standing inside Dr Frank’s office, all staring down at the black speaker box on her desk.

  “Ian, it’s over,” Casey was saying, her voice carrying just a hint of frustration at Ian’s insistence the call was urgent. “Al Rahman is dead. The remote has been secured. Myda Kosnar or whatever her name is being operated on as we speak. The second uh…surgery should be completed in about an hour.” Casey glanced over at Dr. Franks, who nodded once in confirmation.

  “You say they are still operating on her now?” Ian Campbell said, his accent sounding a lot thicker to Casey over the phone. “Well, if that’s the case, then I’m afraid it’s not over. Let me introduce you to Dr. Paul Thompson, Professor of Telecommunications at Sussex University. He’s the gentleman who has been studying the remains of the receiver we found. Dr. Thompson, please go ahead.”

  The sound of a man clearing his throat came over the speaker.

  “Yes, good morning or should I say good evening to you over there in California. Um..uh…the device Inspector Campbell sent to me was very interesting. It’s an old analog receiver built in 1978 or ‘79. Japanese made, quite ingenious for its time, but highly unsophisticated by today’s standards.”

  “That’s very interesting professor,” Gordon Lew
is interrupted, “but I’m afraid I don’t understand the relevance-”

  The professor continued speaking over the interruption. “This type of receiver was built long before the wide distribution of cellular phones, portable computers, or hand-held video game units. It was built when there was very little competition for radio frequency, so it does not have any kind of built-in encryption.” There was a pause as the professor stopped speaking.

  “So,” said Ian Campbell encouraging the professor to continue.

  “So,” the professor said slowly, “the receiver simply needs to receive a very basic message to be activated. The sequence of codes required to activate it is only four digits long.”

  “I still don’t understand what-.” Gordon Lewis began before Dr. Franks cut him off.

  “Professor Thompson, are you saying the code necessary to activate the receiver simply requires a sequence of four numbers to be generated, in other words, the number of possible codes is four numbers out of ten?”

  “No, it’s worse than that I’m afraid. It’s four out of six. The code is as simple as one two three four, or three five two six,” the professor responded.

  Dr. Franks’ eyes widened. Her undergraduate degree had been in mathematics. She quickly guessed where the professor was heading.

  “I still don’t get it. What does this mean?” Gordon Lewis insisted his voice agitated.

  “Well,” the professor continued, “every electronic device broadcasts electronic noise in a certain frequency range. Even devices not designed to produce a signal do so anyway. That’s why when you fly they always make passengers turn off their portable computers and video games during take off and landing. There has been some evidence electronic noise produced by portable computers and iPods and other devices can affect the plane’s navigation system.”