Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  “Cocshons!” Thibodaux pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “Don’t tell me they’re moving her by air.” He had the Marshals Service short shotgun from Bowen’s G-car between his knees, muzzle pointed toward the floor.

  Bowen shook his head. “Not until they get her to Annapolis. You were right. Joey said they couldn’t get a chopper here before General Hewn shows up, so they’re taking her out by van. He says they’re gearing up now to leave in fifteen minutes, give or take. They’re running a lead and a follow. Ross will be in the middle, in a dark blue Suburban with blackout windows.”

  “Good deal,” Thibodaux said, rolling his shoulders as he visibly relaxed a notch.

  “So,” Bowen said, “You said we have some kind of secret weapon. I get the basics of this plan, but now would be a good time to fill me in on the little details—before Joey calls back.”

  “We’re gonna keep this simple. All gross motor skill stuff—”

  A flatbed truck pulled up to park directly behind them, causing Thibodaux to stop in mid-sentence. Ronnie Garcia was behind the wheel. She jumped out as soon as she’d stopped and approached Bowen’s window. A pimply kid Bowen hadn’t seen before got out of the passenger side and came up behind her. He wore black-framed glasses the military called “Birth Control Goggles” for their propensity to chase away the opposite sex. He smiled meekly at Bowen and flinched a little when he saw Thibodaux, like a puppy afraid of being smacked.

  “Staff Sergeant Guttman’s a friendly,” Ronnie said, introducing the kid. “He’s helping us out with some of his tech.”

  Bowen couldn’t help but smile when he saw the sultry Cuban. She wore faded jeans and a loose T-shirt that presumably covered a pistol. A Washington Nationals ball cap kept her hair pulled back out of her eyes.

  “Jacques was just going over the plan again,” Bowen said. “Our guy’s going to call back with specifics of the move. We have about ten minutes.”

  Thibodaux followed a soccer mom with his good eye as she rolled by in a shiny minivan. He turned back to the others when she made the corner. “I was just telling the new guy that we’re not going to get too intricate. Things will get dicey for a minute, but that’s fine. We have to go fast for this to work. Staff Sergeant Guttman will put his bird in the air as soon as we get the call—”

  “Bird?” Bowen said.

  “Specifically a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter drone,” Guttman said, pushing up his glasses. He was obviously proud of what Garcia had called his “tech.” “She can fly over a hundred knots or hover in the trees until we need her. She’s got a small Starepod on her nose so I can see what she’s seeing on my iPad. Each of two hard points is equipped with a single LMM.”

  “‘Lightweight Multirole Missile,’” Garcia offered as if she was used to translating military geek.

  “Figured that,” Bowen said. He’d seen his share of chopper-fired missiles.

  Thibodaux took back control of the briefing. “Guttman will work the drone from the passenger seat of your Charger. He’ll take out any lead and follow cars with the LMMs. I’ll pit the Suburban with Ross inside and pinch it into the curb. We put the smack on everyone inside that isn’t Ross. You and Garcia get her the hell out of there in your G-ride.”

  “What if I get stopped?” Bowen asked.

  “I’ll be behind you in the concrete truck.” Thibodaux shrugged. “But you’re a damned United States marshal. Wave your badge and say, ‘These aren’t the droids you’re lookin’ for.’ ”

  “Sounds like you have this all worked out,” Bowen said. “Except for glossing over the part where we have a bloody firefight with the guys in the prisoner van.”

  “You forgot about our secret weapon.” Thibodaux grinned. He seemed to thrive under the tension of impending battle.

  “You said the drone only has two missiles,” Bowen said. “What’s its function with an assault on the prisoner vehicle after it’s taken out the lead and the follow?”

  Thibodaux shot a glance at Garcia. Both smiled broadly as a red Ducati motorcycle turned off the Rockville Pike and growled up next to them. A compactly built woman in jeans and a white leather jacket dropped the side stand and swung a leg off the bike.

  “That drone ain’t our secret weapon, son,” Thibodaux said. “Not by a long shot.”

  Standing alongside her Ducati, the rider removed her helmet, giving her head a shake to free jet-black hair. Bowen recognized the woman immediately as Jericho Quinn’s Japanese friend and teacher, Emiko Miyagi.

  Chapter 62

  Flight 105

  Captain Rob Szymanski weighed the risks of a possible explosive decompression at 40,000 feet versus keeping the altitude needed to make it to the only piece of rock between him and the western coast of Alaska if the bomb damaged an engine. He split the difference and set the bug on the autopilot to Flight Level 210 or 21,000 feet. Without turning into a lawn dart and frightening the passengers, a maximum rate of descent would get them there in a little over three minutes. The A380 was the quietest bird he’d ever flown, and being well in front of the engines, the cockpit was eerily silent but for the buzz of the electronics array and the occasional click of a keyboard.

  First Officer Mick Bott sat in the right seat going over emergency procedures in a three-ring binder in his lap. A machinelike focus and bottomless levels of energy had earned him the call sign McBott as an F18 Hornet jockey in the Navy. The name had stuck and followed him into civilian life.

  The captain looked out the side window, seeing miles and miles of nothing in varying shades of blue. “What’s our distance to Dutch Harbor?”

  McBott looked up from his manual to consult the navigational display on the console of screens and buttons in front of him. “Two-seven-two miles southeast,” he said. “Half an hour at this speed. Next closest is St. Paul Island at a hundred and sixty miles to our east. Neither runway is set up for heavy metal this big. I show Unalaska/Dutch Harbor at forty-one-hundred feet. St. Paul Island better at sixty-five-hundred, but still way too short.”

  Szymanski forced a grin. Over his thirty years of flying, he’d found smiling brought calm to situations that might otherwise melt into pandemonium. “I thought you Navy boys were used to carrier landings.”

  “You know I’m game, Captain,” McBott said. “But putting this bird down on one of those little strips would be like landing a carrier on a carrier.”

  “Well, alrighty then,” the captain said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Start working through the checklist—and set the transponder to squawk 7700.”

  “Not 7500?” McBott asked. A transponder code of 7500 signified a hijacking. It could not be reset or denied in the air. Once activated, they’d be forced to land at the nearest airport and would be stormed by gun-wielding law tactical teams.

  Szymanski shook his head. “Not yet. Considering the state of the world right now, I’m afraid they’d just shoot us down and be done with it.”

  “Squawking 7700. Roger that,” McBott said, punching in the code. “I’d say three murders and a bomb on board qualify as an emergency.”

  Chapter 63

  Quinn had no idea if the bomb was on a timer or would be detonated by hand. Either way, he had to get up to 12A before he could do anything about it. Since the hijackings of September 11, 2001, airline passengers had taken on a new responsibility over their own safety. Gone were the days when a lone crazy man could stand and threaten a bunch of sheep that would stay obediently in their seats. Past disturbances had demonstrated that this new passenger mentality would not hesitate to run a would-be hijacker over with the drink cart or otherwise beat him to a pulp and restrain him with belts and neckties.

  The problem for Quinn was that few people on the plane knew he was one of the good guys. They’d seen him running back and forth with Carly, but nerves were on edge and trust was at a premium. Without some form of help, there was a good chance he’d be stopped and pummeled in the aisle before he even made it to the stairs, let alone the bomb.

&nbs
p; Carly, recognizable and trusted in her red-and-white Global Airlines uniform, walked up the right-hand aisle of the aircraft, a few paces ahead of Quinn, who moved up the left toward his seat. The captain hadn’t announced an emergency but the seat belt sign was illuminated and everyone was aware of at least one murder on the plane. Now their stomachs told them the plane was diving toward the ocean. Hands reached out for Carly’s attention, wanting an explanation. She did her best to wave them off, reassuring them everything was okay, and letting them know Quinn was on their side.

  The noise of a commotion came from beyond the front bulkhead by the time Quinn neared his seat. A frenzied scream of “Fire!” sent a wave of panic up and down the plane.

  Quinn knew better. A fire on a plane could be catastrophic, but the smell of it would be apparent pretty quickly. This was a diversion. He stooped next to his assigned seat, reaching under the tray table to remove the pins holding the metal arm in place. The commotion grew louder and Quinn glanced up to see a tall Asian man pushing a drink cart down the aisle as fast as he could directly toward him. A simple T-shirt showed the powerful arms and shoulders of a young athlete. A determined frown creased his lips.

  Quinn yanked the metal tray arm, snapping off the last two inches but giving him a serviceable dogleg-shaped club nearly eighteen inches long. Not wanting to be in the aisle or crammed against the seat back in front of him, Quinn jumped up on his seat cushion with both feet, yelling for the young couple in the row ahead of him to move to the left. They complied, cramming themselves next to the window and giving Quinn room to shove the seat back forward and step around the cart as it rolled by. The Chinese man backpedaled when he saw Quinn’s weapon, smiling maniacally as he produced a weapon of his own, a foot-long bread knife from first class. It was blunt on the end, but a middle-aged Russian man tried to grab the hijacker by the sleeve and got a quick lesson on how sharp the blade was with a deep gash that removed the top half of his ear.

  Swinging the knife with his right hand, the hijacker unfurled a seat belt extender with his left, whipping the heavy buckle with great effect to strike any passengers that tried to stop him. Quinn had seen a liu xing chui or dragon’s fist used in demonstrations by Shaolin monks before. A metal weight on the end of a chain, they could burst a skull like a melon in the hands of a skilled user—which this guy apparently was.

  Another passenger tried to intervene as the hijacker went by. This one was a young African American. His bearing and the way he moved made Quinn think he might be a soldier. It didn’t matter. The hijacker flicked the heavy buckle behind him, dropping the young man like a sack of sand with a deft pop to the temple.

  Passengers fell like wheat before a sickle to the speed and precision of his weapons.

  Quinn jumped into the aisle. The brakes on the cart had activated when the hijacker let go, causing it to stop directly behind Quinn’s seat, blocking any chance of escape. Quinn shoved it backwards with his hip, giving himself a few extra feet of room to maneuver.

  Popeye’s mouth hung open. He looked like he wanted to crawl out the wall of the airplane when Quinn yanked up the seat cushion and slid it over his left arm, holding it in front of himself like a shield. The two fighters advanced on each other quickly, Quinn’s club crashing off the hijacker’s blade while the metal seat belt buckle pummeled the seat cushion shield, searching for an opening to Quinn’s skull.

  Rather than taking a defensive posture, Quinn attacked through his opponent, driving him backwards. Seemingly startled by Quinn’s ferocity, the man retreated in the aisle. The soft foam of the seat cushion disrupted his timing with the makeshift dragon’s fist. Focused on the moment of battle, he lost sight of Carly until she appeared behind the hijacker, directly in his path. Quinn kept up his assault, yelling for her to get out of the way.

  The hijacker feinted with the knife, hoping to draw out the club. Instead, Quinn countered with the seat cushion shield deflecting the weapons long enough to chop downward with the metal club, smashing the bones in the hijacker’s wrist and causing him to drop the seat belt extension. His wrist was badly injured, but he still had the blade.

  He must have sensed Carly coming up behind him because he spun, grabbing her with the injured wrist and bringing the blade up toward her throat.

  Fighting in the confined space of the aisle made any sort of strategy but direct assault nearly impossible. Over the years, Quinn had made every partner he’d ever worked with promise to come in with guns blazing if he or his family were ever taken hostage. He’d made a pact to do the same, not waiting for negotiators or SWAT teams and lengthy standoffs. Quinn had seen too many times to ignore that a lightning-fast counterattack on the heels of the first assault almost always beat prolonged peace talks. He could wait for the guy to get set with the knife to Carly’s throat and then play a little game of standoff while both men postured and Carly fought a meltdown. Or, he could go all Samson on this guy and take his metal jawbone of an ass and beat the man’s hip and thigh before he had a chance to settle.

  He chose the latter—but before he could move, the sharp clap of an explosion shook the aircraft, causing it to shudder as if they’d hit another set of turbulence.

  Quinn felt as if a sumo wrestler had jumped on his chest as the air was sucked out of his lungs. He exhaled instinctively, knowing there was a danger of an embolism if he held his breath. Books, napkins, and bits of clothing flew by on a great, sucking gust of wind that rushed forward in an explosive decompression. The air chilled in an instant. A thick vapor formed in the cabin, like the space in the top of a soda bottle when the lid is twisted half open. Plastic oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, dangling like yellow ornaments amid an immediate heavy fog.

  A half a breath later, the plane began to dive.

  Quinn’s stomach rose up with a chorus of screams from terrified passengers. He had no idea if the pilots would be able to regain control, but decided to continue fighting until they hit the ground. He didn’t know their altitude, but guessed he had less than a minute before he blacked out from lack of oxygen. He’d performed well during hypoxia drills during pilot aptitude tests at the Academy, but naming face cards was a far cry from facing an armed hijacker.

  One moment, Quinn found himself trapped in the aisle; the next he found himself in a zero-G environment, floating above the seats as his body fell at the same rate as the airplane. Kicking off the seat back beside him, he crashed into Carly, surprising the hijacker. The blade fell away as he flailed out, trying to grab something, anything to stabilize the falling sensation. Quinn peeled Carly aside and rained down blows with the tray table arm, knocking the man’s jaw out of place and breaking his other arm.

  The hijacker suddenly shoved Carly on top of a row of panicked Russians and lowered his hands to his sides. A resigned smile spread across his face. The bomb had gone off. His job was done. Quinn finished him with a blow to the temple.

  Frantic cries of passengers mixed with the scream of rushing wind as the cabin pressure equalized through the hole torn somewhere up front by the bomb. The fog began to clear almost as soon as it had formed, revealing the scenes of panic and terror among the passengers.

  The Airbus began to rumble louder, engines groaning as the pilot picked up the nose, arresting the dive. Quinn fell in the next instant as if dropped from invisible fingers, on top of a dazed Carly.

  His face against hers, Quinn pushed himself upright, searching for a free oxygen mask. With all the air flowing out of the plane there seemed to be none left to breathe. They were still extremely high where the air was thin and cold. Quinn knew he would need oxygen in a matter of seconds. No amount of physical training could keep him from passing out if he couldn’t breathe.

  Behind him, above the fray of wind and terrified passengers, he heard Mattie scream.

  Chapter 64

  Captain Rob took a long pull from his full-face oxygen mask once he regained control of the airplane. First Officer McBott did the same.

  The concussion from the bo
mb had knocked out flight control, sending the plane into a nosedive until Szymanski had been able to wrestle her back into submission. There were redundant automatic systems, but the bomb had damaged those as well.

  Every claxon, buzzer, and bell on the console had activated at once. A computerized voice, affectionately known as “Bitchin’ Betty,” warned of a pressurization failure in the hull.

  “No shit,” the captain muttered, and pushed the button to silence that little slice of noise.

  Both men had their hands on the controls. Above even checking on the safety of the passengers in the back, their first priority was to make sure they didn’t fall out of the sky. No amount of knowledge or radioing for help would do anyone any good if they stopped flying the airplane.

  Aviate, navigate—then communicate. It was a pilot’s mantra during an emergency.

  “All engines are showing good,” McBott said, running down the various systems to make certain they were functional.

  “She’s sluggish,” the captain said, “but still responding. I’m taking her on down to one zero thousand.”

  His Air Force flight instructors had drilled into him the three most useless things to a pilot: altitude above you, the runway behind you, and fuel that was still on the ground. All of that was well and good until you were hurtling through the air in an aluminum tube with a hole in it—and that altitude was trying to kill everyone on board. Ten thousand feet would give him a couple of miles over the ocean to play with, but make the ride a hair less deadly.

  “Flight level one zero thousand,” McBott repeated, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask. He shot a sideways glance at Szymanski. “St. Paul Island is still 141 miles off the nose,” he said.

  “One-four-one,” the captain repeated. “Roger that.” Both men dispensed with any of their usual banter, not wanting to clutter up what they had to do with unnecessary words. And, Szymanski thought, depending on the size of the hole in his airplane, the odds were pretty high that their entire conversation would be played back off the flight data recorder after divers recovered it from the bottom of the ocean.