by Arno Joubert
Neil swerved around a large truck, thanking his lucky stars that Interpol had the German Sedan available in the car pool and not the 1100cc Korean model that he usually had to be satisfied with.
He touched the brakes as a truck swerved in front of him, forcing Neil back into the center lane. He checked his mirrors as two trucks closed in on his left and right. Then Yumi shrieked as the back window exploded.
"What the hell?" he shouted, looking back. Yumi's hair and lap were covered in shards of glass.
"Yumi, unfasten your belt and get down behind my seat."
She did as he said. "What's happening, daddy?"
"I don't know my baby, stay down there, okay?"
He slammed into the truck on his right, creating some space. He jammed the brake, passing the truck in the yellow lane. He glanced in his rearview as a black super bike screamed towards them. Neil ducked as he heard a pistol bark and the front window exploded. When he looked back up, the front windscreen was shattered into millions of tiny cracks, hampering his visibility.
He removed his Glock from its holster, fired half-a-dozen shots through the window and proceeded to slam out it with the muzzle of the pistol. He managed to clear a large enough section to see through before slipping on his dark glasses to protect his eyes from the wind.
Another shot fizzed and shattered his left-hand mirror.
"Screw this," Neil said and braked hard, swinging the steering wheel to his left. He pulled up the handbrake and accelerated hard, the tires screeching in protest as Neil fought to get the car's rear-end back into line. The bikers swung out of the way, missing him by inches.
He checked his rearview mirror. Through the smoke of his tires, he could see the bikes spinning around and accelerate his way. He looked up as he heard a loud hoot and swerved out of the way of an oncoming bus, sloughing over the island in the center of the highway and crashing through a hedge. The car bounced and careened from side-to-side as he pulled branches out of the steering wheel and tossed them through his window.
He accelerated onto the shoulder of the road, spinning up large chunks of neatly manicured lawn and flower beds, plunged through several pink rose bushes and swung back into the oncoming traffic.
He could see the silhouettes of the motorcycles through the green hedge to his left, racing ahead and slowing down, searching for an opening. Neil pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster and took aim. He fired three shots, and one of the bikes crashed through the hedge behind him and careened over the blacktop, sparks flying as it spun. It slammed into an oncoming car.
He looked back as the other biker used the opening in the hedge to join Neil's side of the highway, its engine protesting as the driver opened the throttle full blast. The bike was gaining fast, zipping between the cars, using its smaller size and maneuverability to its advantage. Within a couple of seconds, it pulled up next to him and Neil noticed that there was a passenger on the bike doing the shooting. They were dressed in black leather and black helmets with gold-tinted visors. The bike was a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14, there was no way he was going to outrun that.
He swerved towards the bike, but it merely swerved out of the way as well. The passenger lifted his arm and took aim. Neil shifted the gears down and accelerated past a slower moving truck on his left. He pushed into an opening and another shot barked, exploding into the plush leather upholstery of the back seat.
"Yumi, you okay?"
"I'm fine, Daddy. Shoot them!"
He swerved into the middle lane and the bike zipped in beside him again. He emptied his clip on the bike, held the steering wheel straight with his knees and slammed another magazine into the Glock.
Yumi came up from her seat. "Get down, Yumi," he shouted, pushing her head down. He swerved into an opening and gunned the car through a clearing in the traffic. They were driving out of town, heading towards the suburbs.
"Don't worry, Daddy. You got them," Yumi said, standing on her knees and peering out the back window.
He checked his rearview. Traffic had stopped behind them, two bodies lay sprawled on the ground, the bike was on its side, burning on the edge of the road.
He breathed deeply and took an overhead bridge. It merged back onto the highway, leading back towards the city.
He craned his neck as he slowed down and drove past the accident scene. One guy was struggling to his feet, but the other lay motionless, a pool of blood beneath him.
"Okay, buckle up." He breathed a sigh of relief as he slammed his foot into the throttle and headed for the Presidential Palace, the safest place he could think of taking Yumi.
Sergeant Leo Conrad tossed his hand luggage into the overhead storage compartment and headed to the toilet at the back of the plane. Both restrooms were occupied, and another guy was waiting in front of him. Shit, he shouldn't have had those damn beers before boarding.
He stood around for a couple of minutes, and when he felt about ready to burst he slammed the door with his fist. "Hey, you going to be much longer?"
He heard the door unlock and a young guy slid it open. "Yes?"
"I need the toilet, man."
The guy nodded. "I'll be another minute," he said and closed the door after Leo briefly glimpsed a blue duffle bag on the floor. He had spoken with a strong Arabian accent.
A while later, the door opened and the man exited, smiling. The next guy went in and took what felt like forever. The other toilet opened an another Arabian guy came out carrying another duffle bag. Hmmm.
Leo waited another minute. The toilet door opened, and the guy that had been in front of him came out as well, carrying the blue duffle bag he had seen. A bag he hadn't gone in with.
Leo grabbed his arm. "Hey, Frank, how are you?" Leo said, holding out his hand.
The man looked at him in bewilderment. "No, my name is not that," he said with a thick accent. He shifted the bag to the other hand, it must have been heavy.
Leo shrugged. "Sorry man, I'm rubbish with faces."
The man nodded, hurried away, his eyes averted to the ground.
After Leo had used the restroom, he ambled towards the cockpit. He passed the three Arabian guys four aisles from the cockpit; the duffle bags were tucked between their feet.
He couldn't put his finger on it. They looked out of place. One of the men saw him, unzipping his bag between his feet.
Leo automatically went for the gun at his side and realized he had left it back at the station; he was supposed to be on vacation.
The man removed a newspaper and folded it open and began reading. Leo shrugged. He was on leave for a glorious two weeks, he better start relaxing. Doing the beats on the street took it out of a cop. He needed to chill.
Neil sat back in his seat, double-checking the couplings and rip-cords on his parachute.
"Five minutes to target," the Captain announced over the low drone of the A330's jet engines.
Neil stood up, slipped into the parachute and tightened the buckles. He walked forward and took position at the door. They weren't going to waste time with a landing. "All right men, get ready." The rescue team lined up behind him.
They had flown from the Paris military base at Valdahon and were going to dip in at JFK unseen during the night. The Control Tower had formed a light pattern grid on their landing area.
"Ready?" Neil asked, glancing over his shoulder.
"Yes, sir, ready sir," they shouted in unison.
He had personally selected the agents, three men he knew and trusted, all of them Mossad. They had a wealth of experience in plane hijackings. They would provide backup to the SWAT team that were going to handle the extraction. Neil pulled open the emergency exit and pushed it up.
"Go, go, go," the Captain shouted and Neil dove out of the plane, followed by his troopers.
They navigated and landed safely, then folded their chutes and jogged towards the designated Hangar. Neil strode in. The large airplane hangar contained an Airbus A330, the exact model of the plane that had been hijacked. A dozen men wearing bl
ack army fatigues were positioned around the plane, practicing the extraction.
A large man with a muscular neck stood waiting at the entrance. "Sergeant Allen?"
Neil nodded and shook the man's hand. It felt like he was being manhandled by a torque wrench. "Colonel Ben Lagan, SWAT commander."
"When do you extract?" Neil asked.
The man looked at the watch on his thick pulse. "Oh three hundred hours."
Neil checked his watch. That was in two hours' time. "You ready?"
The Colonel nodded. "As ready as we'll ever be, We've practiced two dozen times." He turned around. "Once more," he shouted.
Three men pushed airplane passenger stairs towards the door of the Airbus. Two men were stationed at the top of the staircase. They slammed the staircase into the aircraft and the men at the top ripped open the door. They tossed in a smoke canister. Within ten seconds, more than a dozen men were inside the plane.
Colonel Lagan checked his watch. "Good. Twenty-five seconds." He turned to Neil. "We're going to do that on both sides. What do you think?"
Neil glanced over his shoulder to his men. "Looks good to me."
Ruben Barak shook his head. "I wouldn't do it that way. First of all, the weight of the plane--"
"All right men, get some rest," Lagan shouted as he waved a dismissive hand. "Sergeant Allen, follow me."
Neil and his men followed Lagan up a stairwell and into a small room rigged with a faucet and cups. He poured himself a cup and turned to Neil. "Help yourself."
They poured coffees and sat at a metal table with foldout metal legs. Lagan cleared his throat and turned to Neil. "Okay, Sergeant, let's get one thing straight. You're backup right? Under no circumstances will you deploy your men except to clean up the bodies."
Neil looked at his men and they chuckled. He turned to Lagan. "So what are we doing here?"
"As I said, you're the mop-up crew."
"Colonel, have you ever done anything like this before?"
"No, we've drilled it hundreds of times though."
"Look Colonel. The men I have with me have done twenty extractions combined. I've personally handled six."
The Colonel held up his hand. "You're on American soil now, boys. What I say goes and that's final." He drained his cup and stood up. "Mop-up, that's all. Understood?"
Neil pursed his lips and nodded, turned in his seat. "What do you think?"
"He looks confident," Dani Liberman said, chewing a toothpick.
Neil shook his head. "Okay, but there's no way we mop up. We rush the plane with them."
"But that would be disobeying orders," Barak said, a faint smile on his lips.
Neil shrugged. "I have a bad feeling about this. You ever infiltrate from the doors?"
Yael Lotner nodded slowly. "We did once."
"And how did that go?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Absolute disaster. Afghanistan, 2004, remember?"
Neil nodded. "Twenty six passengers killed. But you got the rest out all right."
Ruben Barak chuckled. "To us, that's a disaster."
"Okay, any suggestions?"
"We enter through the luggage compartment."
"Where?"
Barak opened his backpack and removed a tablet pc. He pulled up a diagram of the Airbus A330 and pointed to an area behind the wing. "We go in here. We'll work our way to the back of the plane, enter it in front of the tail, here, at the food prep compartment."
Neil nodded, glancing around at the other men. "What do you think?"
"It's not standard procedure, I'd rather try get in front of the plane to protect the Captain," Barak suggested.
Neil understood what the man meant. Securing the flight crew was critical. If the terrorists didn't have a flight crew, the plane was a sitting duck.
"But that's what they would expect," Lotner said. "I like Rubie's plan. Start at the back and work our way forward."
Neil nodded. "I've seen the news coverage, the crew's been compromised. So be it, then. Let's get ready."
Wayne Rowley smashed the magazine into the M-4, flexing his neck muscles. He was getting too old for this. The armored troop vehicle skidded around a corner and the driver gunned it straight towards the entry boom. They smashed through the boom as the soldier in the guardhouse fired a salvo of bullets at their vehicle, but it ricocheted harmlessly off the reinforced steel.
They skidded to a halt in front of the elevator and piled out of the vehicle. He held his hand in a fist, pointing three fingers in the air and made a circling motion. Secure the area.
He scanned the basement parking area, he knew it well, having worked for Interpol's counter-intelligence unit for a little over five years. This used to be his home.
Two men shuffled towards the guard house and the rest of the contractors forced open the lifts. They fired two shots, killing a man in army fatigues that was about to exit the escalator. He heard the stutter of gunfire, and his men came jogging back, giving the all clear signal.
He nodded, checked his watch. Forty-five seconds, they had less than two minutes before shutdown would be initiated. Not that it bothered him, he always found it strange that the headquarters of the most influential security agency in the world was so poorly protected.
He jogged into the lift and slammed out the wire mesh that led to the top. One of his men gave him a hand up and he pulled himself through the opening, struggling a bit. These old bones.
Three men followed. He attached a roller pulley on the cable of the lift and activated it. Two rubber wheels clamped down on the cable and the engine started whirring, pulling him up the cable. It stopped on the third floor as it was programmed to do and he jumped to the side of the lift shaft. He secured himself with a harness and forced a wrench rod in between the elevator doors. He activated it, and the doors creaked as the mouth started forcing the doors apart. He reversed the roller pulley and sent it back down.
When the second man arrived, the wrench had forced the elevator door all the way open. He slipped into the passageway and waited for his men to assemble behind him.
Thirty-seconds later, four of the men stood beside him. He checked his watch as the alarm sounded and red lights started strobing in the passageway. Right on time. They jogged down the passageway in single file, rifles held ready. The secret to these infiltrations were to never stop moving, ever.
They rounded a corner and Rowley ducked as a Military Cop fired at them. Wayne took him out with a shot to the gut. They jogged past and King, the contractor behind him, finished the cop off with a bullet to the head.
They headed towards the control room. It had been secured, thick sheets of steel having slid down in front of the room. Patrick sprayed the C4 foam in a wide arc over the metal sheet. It expanded into a thick, grey coil. It reminded Rowley of highly explosive shaving cream. Patrick connected the wireless terminal and they took cover beneath the windows. He pressed the detonating device and a large chunk of metal was blown out of the window and slammed against the wall.
Rowley stood up, examining the entrance. The glass behind the metal sheet had shattered. He ducked as a security officer with blood splatters on his face fired at him through the opening.
King tossed a grenade into the opening and they ducked again. Pieces of concrete and glass exploded out of the room and Rowley slipped through, not waiting for the dust to settle. He headed to the control deck. The switches had been smashed by the explosion. He ripped the damaged button off of one of the switches, shorted out the wires by touching them together.
The alarms stopped and the sheets of metal pulled up into recesses in the ceiling.
He slipped over the counter and jogged down the passageway. Patrick removed an RPG and aimed it at a metal door. The missile struck and slammed the door, exploding into the room. Rowley jogged through the door, scanning the room. There was a lot of smoke, some injured admin personnel moaning. He heard King's gun bark as he eliminated the injured men.
He opened the door to the cell and aimed it a
round the room. There was a bunk and basin and toilet, but it was empty. They were probably interrogating him.
He held up a hand, opened and closed it, and they backed off and jogged out of the room. They took position at opposite ends of a door in the passageway, then tried the handle. It was locked.
Patrick sprayed some explosives on the hinges and inserted the terminals. There was a puff of smoke, and Wayne kicked the door off its hinges, tossed in a stun grenade and took cover to side of the entrance.
A large explosion rocked the room, and he went inside, swinging his gun from side to side. The table had been overturned and a hand came up, firing a salvo of shots from a pistol. Wayne shot at the hand and fired four shots through the table.
The woman stood up and fired two shots and ducked back down before he could retaliate. King and Patrick went down beside him. He ducked and aimed at the table, waiting for her to appear again.
O' Malley and Parnell, the backup team, entered the room.
A shot rang out from beside the table, and Parnell returned fire. O' Malley shuffled toward the table and tossed in a stun grenade behind it. A moment later, it was tossed back and they ran out of the room and took cover to the sides of the doorway, kneeling, fingers in their ears.
The explosion shook the walls. Parnell peered inside and entered the room. A shot rung and he fell back through the entrance, a bullet between his eyes.
Wayne ducked and rolled into the room, firing at the woman as he did so. He took a hit in the arm, but managed to find his target, one shot in the gut and another in the upper leg. She went down and he rushed over and stepped on her gun before she could retrieve it.
O' Malley peered over the edge of the table and pushed it away. The other targets were there, injured or dead. He glanced at O' Malley who checked for a pulse. He nodded, and cuffed them.
Collingwood was sitting in a corner, his arms resting on his knees, smiling.
"Let's go," he told the dreadlocked man.
Wayne talked into his wrist. "Two men."
A minute later, two men arrived and helped them drag the targets towards the stairs. The female kicked and screamed. Wayne shut her up with a jab to the chin.