by Basil Sands
Chapter 31
Delaney Park Strip
Friday, June 24th
10:22 a.m
Rage built in Farrah's chest, swelling against his ribs and threating to expel his organs. He seethed as his mind processed what was happening. Kreshnik had detonated the explosives, but someone had released the pressure, and the park had not erupted into the hell of fire they had worked so hard to create. Worse than that, the realization was materializing in his mind that someone had apparently sabotaged the mortar shells. As much as his mind wanted a different explanation, he could find none. Kharzai, a man he had trusted, a man he had known to be a loyal member of the jihad, was a traitor.
Secret Service agents shuttled the President out of sight in the blink of an eye. Whatever his reaction had been, Farrah would never know thanks to the fool and his obnoxious wife. Revenge stolen from his grasp he moved through the panicking crowd, searching for a way out, to regroup and rethink. Perhaps there was another way, a way to get a second chance. As quickly as the thought of a second attempt entered his mind, it retreated against the facts. This was it. This day had been his only opportunity. Whatever frail attempt he made today would be the only chance he got to show the U.S. president what it meant to suffer. This was his only day in court. He had to make today count.
***
Scanning the throng of people, Mike caught a glimpse of Farrah moving through the crowd of frightened civilians. Soldiers and police rushed to secure the area and medical personnel hurried to aid the injured and perhaps save the dying. Through the maddening herd Mike caught a glimpse of Marcus hard on Farrah’s trail. He caught his attention with a wave and the two moved in concert to flank their target.
***
Lonnie, watched from the second-floor observation window as they drew closer to Farrah. Farrah shot a look back and saw the men pursuing him. He quickened his pace, rudely shoving people aside, a mistake that would work in their favor she thought as that would draw attention to him. A young couple stepped out from behind the corner of a building directly into his path. He rammed into them violently knocking the pair to the pavement. He bolted over them amidst shouts and curses from the crowd and kept going. On the other side of the park, Lonnie caught a glimpse of thick black hair, bouncing as the figure moved quickly against the crowd. Kharzai steadily approached from behind them, his face a stone-cold mask without a trace of his former flirtatious grin. He looked ready to kill. She pulled out her cell phone, grunting in dismay as it beeped a warning that there was no signal. She switched the phone to the two-way radio setting that matched Marcus’s phone but got nothing but a high pitched screech from the speaker. She looked up to see her husband closing in on Farrah, but Kharzai was closing in on him with murder in his eyes.
Lonnie bolted from the room. Not waiting for the elevator, she hustled down the stairs, ignoring the pain in her lower back, the baby jostling heavily in her belly with each step. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs she flashed a look out the stairwell window. Panic fluttered in here chest as she saw Kharzai cross the street, making a beeline from 10th Avenue. Lonnie pushed her body harder, trying to glimpse her husband or Mike and Hilde and somehow let them know what was coming, to warn them of the death that waited for them.
She hit the ground floor and burst through the exit onto the sidewalk, rounding the corner of the building in three quick strides. She stopped to get her bearings and find her husband’s face in the crowd. As she scanned the sea of faces Farrah emerged into her vision, instant recognition flashing between them. A nearby police officer motioned for Farrah to keep moving with the rest of the crowd. Farrah looked into his face then with no warning chopped the officer's throat with the blade of his. The stunned man grasped his throat with both hands, his eyes as round as saucers as he struggled to breath, a high-pitched wheeze squeaked through his crushed trachea. Farrah snatched the man’s pistol from its holster.
“Farrah!” Marcus shouted, bursting from the panicking cluster of people around the dying police man.
Farrah took a step, pivoted and grabbed Lonnie by her hair forcing her to act as a human shield. He yanked her back with him to the side of the building perpendicular to the park, out of the rooftop sniper team's view. He pressed the muzzle of the gun to her distended belly. Lonnie did not scream. She forced herself to remain calm. Mike appeared a few yards from Marcus, gun raised. A dozen police officers formed a semi-circle around them as a paramedic team dragged the injured officer away, the desperate sound of his gasps for life filling the temporary silence.
“I will kill her baby!” Farrah’s voice came out harsh, hints of his rough Manchester accent percolating up as the façade of being a British gentleman completely vanished.
“Give it up, Farrah,” Hilde called out. “There is no way to escape, but you don't have to take more innocent lives.”
“Innocent?” Farrah said. “What do you know about innocent? My parents were innocent when your soldiers killed them. No Americans are innocent. You all deserve to die for what you do to small countries all over the world just to buy your precious designer clothes and feed your fat asses.”
“Put the gun down,” Marcus growled.
“Don't kill the woman, Farrah,” Mike said. “You will have her baby’s death on your conscience. Allah does not forgive those who murder the innocent. You will not be shaheed—you will be a common murderer.”
Farrah twisted his face in mental agony. He was not a murderer. Voices spoke in his head, English voices, telling him to give up. He was of a different class from those animals in al-Qaeda, from those beasts in Hamas who kill school children to make a statement. He was civilized, he was an Englishman—not a terrorist, but a footballer.
“No!” he grunted through trembling lips. He was the hand of Muslim vengeance against these who called themselves civilized but trampled everyone in their way. He had worked so hard, come so far to get the ultimate revenge, only to watch as everything fell apart in front of his eyes. He pressed the gun hard into Lonnie's belly and cocked back the hammer. She let out a scream.
“Please, no! Not my baby. Please, not my baby!”
“Shut up!” His voice cracked with confusion and distress. “Just shut up!”
Farrah yanked her hair, twisting her body so that it completely covered his own. Marcus tightened his stance, waiting for an opening. Mike did the same. Farrah kept moving, shaky, leaving them no good shot.
Radios crackled with the voices of snipers declaring they had no shot, couldn’t get repositioned quick enough. Each heartbeat lasted an eternity. Marcus watched the sight post at the end of his pistol wave in tight sideways figure eight. Farrah’s eyes squeezed shut then slowly opened, pupils so wide the brown of his irises had nearly vanished. He scanned the crowed with the manic snap of a cornered animal, confusion and terror equally balanced with tightly wound violence. He blinked a second time then his eyes stretched even larger until they seemed as if they’d pop out of their sockets.
***
Farrah’s body and all but a portion of his eye and forehead were tucked behind Lonnie. The smell of her shampoo filled his sinus, sweet and pretty. He had a sudden memory of a young woman he had once dated. Her father had forbade him from seeing the girl after learning he was a Muslim. A deep sadness crept up his throat, tightening around his Adam’s Apple like the grip of the reaper, threatening to choke off his life.
His gaze swept over the park. Columns of thick black smoke continued to rise from beneath the lawn and through a manhole that had its cover blown off during the explosion. He watched a Paramedic kneel to a screaming child half way across the park. A woman held a teen boy’s head to her chest, his arms hanging at his sides, body limp. Part of him wanted to stop the madness, to lay down the gun and surrender, to take it all back and wish away this evil he’d wrought. But then, superimposed of the destruction before him, he saw the image of his parents flaming death which in spite of not having actually seen it was nonetheless burned into his imagination as if
it were a memory.
A brown skinned man with a pistol was shouting something at him that he could not understand. A white man in civilian clothes said something as well, a word he recognized – Shaheed.
Yes, I am shaheed I will be a martyr now.
His finger tightened around the trigger, the muscles in his forearm tensing. Squeezing the trigger seemed harder than it should have, the simple mechanical parts resisting too much. He felt it start to give just as he saw a bright flash of light explode in the distance behind the rows of police and soldiers. A small gold-colored metal object grew in size like an approaching sun. He registered the oncoming bullet for what it was a fraction of a second before it hit his skull. The tiny oblong metal ball hit him, a force like a ten-ton hammer slamming his forehead. He never heard the sound of the shot before his brain ceased to know anything.
***
Mike flinched as the back of Farrah's skull disintegrated, a cloud of pink erupting behind him. Eyes wide, mouth dropping open in shock, Steven Farrah fell straight back onto the street, still grasping Lonnie. Someone in the crowd let out a high pitched scream.
Marcus rushed to his wife, pulling her off Farrah’s twitching body. She released the tight hold she’d had on her breath and started panting, quickly dissolving into sobs. She sucked in a deep breath, and her eyes darted toward the park.
“Kharzai,” she raised her arm pointing weakly to the crowd. “He's getting away. Go.”
Marcus followed the direction of her finger and caught a fleeting image of Kharzai's curls flopping above the crowd as he jogged nonchalantly across the park. Marcus jumped up and sprinted toward him, Mike close on his heels. They caught a full view of him just as he hopped into Farrah's Audi parked beside the road nearly a block away, an excited dog jumped in to the car behind him and settled on the passenger seat tail wagging. Marcus’s truck waited in a park side slot parked nearby. They rushed to it and climbed in. Marcus started the engine, glancing up and seeing Kharzai slip calmly onto 10th Avenue moving away from the scene. An officer at a police check point stopped him and an officer leaned toward the window. Whatever Kharzai said, the officer bought it and signaled for the barricade to be moved. The Audi slipped through and Kharzai sped up 10th to Gambell Road and turned left.
Marcus followed parallel on 9th Avenue. A National Guard soldier signaled them to stop. Marcus slowed and rolled down his windows. Mike leaned across the seat flashing his FBI credentials toward the soldier.
“Open the barrier! We’re in pursuit of a suspect,” Mike shouted.
“I’m sorry sir, but…”
Mike exploded with the command voice of a Marine officer, “Open the gate sergeant! Right now!”
The sergeant reacted, more out of instinct to the sound of command than to the logic of the order. The whole squad instantly snapped to and opened the barrier allowing Marcus’s truck through.
Marcus jammed the accelerator to the floor and rocketed through two blocks, pressing their bodies hard into the seats as the 5.4 liter V8 pounded into turbo. Kharzai crossed an intersection in front of them. As he came around the corner, the Persian saw Marcus, recognition sparked in his eyes. The glimmer of his trademark toothy grin stretched wide, baring his white teeth. He floored the accelerator. The high-performance sedan shot off like a bullet. Marcus floored his truck's gas pedal too, but F250 was designed with towing power in mind, not zero-to-sixty performance like the Audi.
The smaller car quickly stretched the space between them as Kharzai rocketed down the Glenn Highway toward Eagle River. Marcus followed as fast as his truck would take him. His engine was powerful truck and capable of high speeds, but the massive beast took time to get there. By the time Marcus reached eighty miles per hour, the Audi was a white speck more than a mile ahead. Marcus kept the pedal to the floor until the speedometer peaked at 110 mph. The Audi bounded out of sight around a long bend in the highway.
“Where are the cops?” Mike asked.
“Probably all busy back at the park,” Marcus said.
Marcus was surprised when he rounded a bend and saw the Audi still within sight. He knew the car was capable of nearly 200 mph, yet he remained in sight as if Kharzai wanted the chase to continue, wanted Marcus to catch up.
More than a mile ahead the Audi veered onto the ramp that turned right onto the Arctic Valley Road exit. Marcus followed and turned just in time to see the white car accelerate past the Moose Run Military Golf Course, then turn onto Ski Bowl Road.
“What’s he doing?” Marcus squinted as he watched Kharzai disappear around a bend in the road.
“What’s back here?” Mike asked.
“Nothing,” Marcus replied. “Just a ski lodge that’s closed for the summer. Beyond that, there’s a military radar site manned by about a hundred armed and highly security-conscious soldiers who don’t play nice with people who show up uninvited. There is no exit from this area other than the trails of the Chugach National Forest, which can only be taken on foot.”
The Chugach National Forest consists of thousands of square miles of trees, mountains, and lakes. Marcus was confused. Unless Kharzai had a helicopter waiting to whisk him away to some safe haven, there was nothing back here but bear infested wilderness.
Ahead, the Audi accelerated continuously up the mountain road, veering in and out of sight several hundred yards ahead, Kharzai whipping violently into hairpin turns like a Formula One racer. Marcus turned a blind bend on a steep stretch of road and his breath caught in his chest. He braked hard, skidded along the dirt and gravel and barely avoiding the Audi which sat still in the middle of the road. Once he got the truck under control Marcus pulled as close to the soft shoulder as he dared. Mike got out, Marcus right after, both with guns drawn, eyes scanning the car and the nearby brush. The Audi’s driver's side door hung open, keys on the seat. Ahead of the car, crushed and trampled foliage signaled Kharzai's entry point as plain as a sign post. Marcus moved, pistol up, pointing into the space between thickets of alder. Mike covered him, watching for shadows of movement, listening. It was too easy. Kharzai had left clear tracks in the underbrush.
“It feels like he’s baiting us,” Mike hissed.
Marcus nodded. They heard the sound of the Persian crashing through twisted tangles of willow, alder, devil's club, and ferns. In the distance, Ship Creek roared in a deep valley, echoing the power of millions of gallons of fast moving water pounding against the hard rock walls of the mountainous terrain. They followed the trail for a couple hundred yards, then Marcus stopped in his tracks. Mike dropped to one knee, weapon raised, then crouch-walked to the right, covering Marcus’s flank, getting a different angle on the target.
Kharzai stood thirty yards ahead in a wide meadow of waist-high wild flowers, facing them, a wide expanse behind him, the darkness of the spruce forest beyond that. He showed no weapons, just stood among the white cow parsnip, yellow trollius, purple geranium, red columbine, and pink wild roses, waiting. Marcus closed to within twenty yards. At that distance, he saw the dog standing next to Kharzai, tail wagging, looking up at him, the dog’s expression seemingly in expectation of something fun. The dog caught the sound or scent of the intruders and turned, letting out a warning bark.
“Close enough, Mojo,” Kharzai said. “I might have a bomb.”
Marcus hesitated. Kharzai’s hands were out of sight, hidden within the flowery burst of color around him.
“Stop there and you'll live,” Kharzai said. “Any closer, and … no guarantees.”
He looked toward Mike who was stalking up from the bushes on his right. “You too, preacher man. Don’t need your death on my conscience too—that’d probably lose me some serious score upstairs. Of course, that may be a moot point now.”
He had an odd look on his face. Marcus remembered him as being unrealistically happy all the time. Now he looked tired, worn out, like he was dying inside—maybe had already died.
“Whose side are you on, Kharzai?” Marcus asked.
“Mine,” he replied, h
is voice tinged with dark emotion. “I'm done with the whole USA vs. the world thing. We're no better than anyone else, and I'm not playing anymore.”
“Look, we know you helped us set up Farrah,” Mike said. “It was you who booby-trapped those mortars, wasn't it? I heard them explode, no mistaking what it was.”
“You won't be in trouble,” Marcus said. “Just turn yourself in.”
“You don't get it, do you, Mojo,” Kharzai said, raising his voice. “I really am finished. Done. Desisted, valmiiden, gotowy, gesz, färdigt, fini, kaput. Tell the boys at the Company that they need to forget me, forever.”
“Why?” Mike asked.
“Why?” Kharzai said, exasperation crackling around the word. He looked down at Deano, whose mouth opened with an innocently loving pant at the eye contact. “Why, he says.” He grabbed handfuls of his hair in frustration, “Why? Because they killed my wife! That's why!”
He turned toward the ravine behind him. Hands on his hips, he took a deep breath, like an Olympic diver about to take a plunge. He abruptly swiveled back around, gesticulating with his arms.
“They could have waited ten more minutes. It would not have made a difference for the target. I told them to wait, but no—they sent in the drone while my wife was in the line of fire and they blew my beautiful young Leila to pieces in front of my eyes!” His voice cracked at the last words. He wiped clumsily at tears and continued, “That's why I am done.” He pounded the air with each individual syllable.
Neither man had anything to say. Both Marcus and Mike suddenly pictured themselves in the same situation. They pictured their own wives in jeopardy because of their jobs, their life choices. Marcus felt a pang of guilt for leaving his pregnant wife on the sidewalk to chase this man who had lost his own beloved.
“She was the only good thing in my life,” Kharzai continued, his voice breaking against waves of emotion. “The only person who loved me for real, and neither feared me nor wanted to use me. She was the only thing that kept me sane, and they took her from me. They're lucky I did not let Farrah and his goons go through with everything.” He paused, his voice dropping just above a whisper. “I came close, though, I'll tell you that little tidbit of truth. It was tempting. I almost lost control there at the end.”