Meltdown

by Chuck Holton

  Chief Thompson, for his part, refused to assign blame, but said, “At this point we are pulling out all the stops to find the killer or killers responsible, but we’re not calling it ‘terrorism’ just yet.”

  Whether or not the authorities are calling it terrorism, local residents say they hope the perpetrators are caught soon.

  Fifty-eight-year-old John MacElroy, a native of Anaheim, told the Los Angeles Times, “It’s like September 11 all over again. Except this is worse, because it’s not icons that are being struck, it’s the places everyone goes—freeways and the Internet. If we can’t travel, we can’t stay home either. We’ve got to put a stop to this, and fast.”

  The governor of California has been briefed on the situation and is asking the president to declare a state of emergency, which would make federal financial assistance available.

  In the meantime, state and federal legislators are calling for action to better protect our nation’s commerce from terrorist attack.

  Gustavo folded the paper with a sigh and placed it in the seat next to him. The demure waitress sidled over with his food. He smiled up at her. “Amor, could I trouble you for another mojito, por favor?

  “Claro,” the girl replied. “Buen provecho.” She retreated toward the bar.

  Edgar watched her go with a lustful grin. With the money he would make on this job, he could finally afford to have all the mojitos he wanted, and for that matter, all the young ladies too. But he did not care to spend a single day longer in the United States than absolutely necessary. The risks of discovery were just too great.

  America calls itself a free country—bah! He had much more freedom in any country in Latin America than he had here. There, it was still very simple to be anonymous. The United States was far too computerized, too littered with security cameras, and too liability conscious to afford its citizens real freedom. But from what he had seen, Americans wanted it that way. They were like cattle who mistakenly thought that the slaughterhouse corral was intended to keep them safe.

  Being the shrewd businessman that he was, and since he was being forced to work in such a restrictive environment, he had thought of a way to outsource part of the job and thereby finish it more quickly. Doing so would cut into his profits, to be sure, but every business had overhead, and this was no different. If it threw the authorities off of his trail, it would be worth every penny.

  He pulled a map from his briefcase and studied the areas circled in red. The trick would be to hit as many of the targets as possible before authorities could coordinate a response. The first targets had been easy, but once a pattern emerged, he expected security to become much more of an issue.

  There was very little difference between this and running a company, he reflected. There were logistics concerns, accounting, and human resources to manage. Edgar’s experience in his former life-running his late brother’s coffee business in Panama—had made him an expert at all of them.

  And deadlines. He smiled at that. This job would make the term much more literal.

  That’s where his contacts with MS-13 would prove invaluable. The huge Central American gang had chapters in every major city in the United States and maintained an enormous network that trafficked in everything from cocaine to bullets to bodies. They would be the perfect subcontractors to finish the job and ensure that he could minimize his risk.

  Ah, the beauty of outsourcing.

  His watch told him it was nearly midnight. His contacts were already thirty minutes late. But he wasn’t surprised. In his culture, late was a relative thing.

  He’d almost finished his meal when three men entered the cantina dressed in blue jeans and white tank tops that exposed homegrown tattoos that Edgar could read like a book. The lead man was an MS-13 lieutenant and, by the looks of his body art, had already spent considerable time in “gang finishing school”—the U.S. prison system. Edgar flashed them a grin and the ring and pinkie fingers of his right hand, extended like the horns of a bull. The three men returned the salute and strode over to his table.

  Any misgivings he’d had about recruiting such a brutal gang of thugs had disappeared with his third mojito.

  To their credit, the men were all business, and their leader, a square-jawed, bald Mexican named Cholo, listened carefully as Edgar—“Gustavo” to them—launched into his proposal. An hour later, they had agreed to terms and set a price he could live with. Edgar stood and the three followed him outside.

  As they split off to get their car, Edgar went to the forest green Ford Expedition that had become his home in the United States. He lifted the gate at the rear of the vehicle and reached into his pocket. Inside were two tiny black plastic objects, each no larger than a raisin: leftovers from his former life. He surreptitiously dropped them inside one of the cardboard boxes full of bottles, where they would easily go unnoticed.

  A businessman always needs insurance.

  A moment later a large 1959 Chrysler Imperial, painted blood red, rolled to a stop in front of his vehicle. He hefted the case of bottles and walked to the gang members’ car.

  Cholo opened the car’s trunk, which was large enough to sleep in.

  Edgar set the case inside. “You will want to secure this box somehow. I can’t stress enough that these bottles are fragile. If you take a corner too fast, hit a bump, or do anything that breaks one of these bottles, the last thing you will remember will be the hair burning off of your head before you die. Claro?”

  The gangbanger scratched himself. “Claro, caballero. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of the boom juice.”

  “Okay. Do the job just like I described it and I’ll be back to pay you the other half of your payment.” He handed over a wad of hundred-dollar bills.

  As the Imperial drove away, blasting Tejano music, Edgar wondered if he’d made a mistake.

  The scene unfolding at the foot of the high-rise was uglier than a bucket of mud. Bobby Sweeney lay on his stomach, peering over the edge of the rooftop. “Bad news, boss. Rip and Phoenix just ran right into the Ukrainians. Looks like they’re surrendering.”

  “Wonderful,” John replied. He was busy dumping out the black duffel bag that had belonged to the terrorists.

  Sweeney looked back at him. “Maybe if we had some grenades we could create a diversion down there.”

  “We’d probably just get Rip and Phoenix killed. Besides, we can’t start whacking Ukrainian soldiers. They’re not the enemy.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Sweeney looked back at the scene below him. “Work faster, Coop. I count six men coming this way.”

  “Got it! Check this out.” John held up a thick coil of black assault line. “The bad guys must have planned their own fast getaway. Help me rig up a rappel, quick.”

  Sweeney hurried over, and in sixty seconds he had secured one end of the rope to a sturdy metal cooling pipe while John had dropped the other end over the side of the building opposite the soldiers. The duffel bag left by the terrorists contained harnesses and gloves as well, but the men wore their own second-chance emergency rappel belts and assault gloves.

  “All right, boss,” Sweeney commented as he clipped a locking carabiner through his belt at the small of his back. “I’ll go Australian style so I can cover what’s below on the way down.”

  John’s face was grim as he looped the line through Sweeney’s carabiner. “When’s the last time you rappelled headfirst?”

  Sweeney’s reply was sardonic. “No worries, boss. Gravity does all the work.”

  “Okay, Spider-Man. Make for the tree line when you hit the ground. And don’t use the radio. If Rip and Mary are compromised, we don’t want the Ukrainians to know there are more of us still out here.”

  “Roger. I’m on rappel.”

  Sweeney turned away from the sun and peered at the one hundred fifty feet of air between the soles of his boots and the ground. He gripped the AK-74 in his right hand. Then he routed the rope around hi
s left hip and through his left fist, which was clamped securely against his chest.

  He sucked in a deep breath, threw his left arm out to the side, and let himself fall forward into space, ignoring the pain in his wounded shoulder.

  A second later he was running down the side of the building as if it were a vertical sidewalk. The farther he got from the top, the longer his strides became until he was bounding away from the wall with every step.

  The ground rushed up at him with frightening speed, but he refrained from braking until the end of the very last bound. When the tops of the unkempt shrubs around the building brushed against his head, he slapped his brake hand across his chest.

  The force of the maneuver jerked his body upright and slowed his descent with a force that popped his spine better than any chiropractor could. His boots impacted earth, and he continued away from the building until the end of the rope slipped through the cara-biner and he was free. John would see the rope go slack and know to follow.

  He took cover next to a large tree, where he made a grisly discovery.

  Splayed unnaturally on the ground was the body of the terrorist who had tripped over him. His torso was twisted, and unseeing eyes stared from a pallid face that registered shock and fear.

  That last step was a doozie.

  Sweeney stepped past the corpse and wondered what hell those eyes were seeing now. But there was no time to dwell on it. The Ukrainians would surely send someone to search this side of the building any second.

  Come on, Coop!

  As if on cue, the assault line jerked, and John burst through the treetops, braking hard before landing with a soft thud. He quickly ran off the end of the rope and headed for his partner. He sidestepped the body of the terrorist and ran past Sweeney with a hushed, “Let’s move.”

  They ran about a hundred yards into the woods before John paused in a slight depression.

  “What’s up?” Sweeney said, panting.

  “Give me a sec. My satphone has been buzzing for ten minutes, and I haven’t had time to answer it.” He pulled the sleek black and gray Iridium phone from a pocket on his vest and punched the button, then put it to his ear, speaking in a whisper. “Cooper here…Olenka, listen. Rip and Mary just got captured by the Ukrainians. There—What?” There was a long pause and the team sergeant’s face went pale. “God help us.”

  Sweeney poked him. “What?”

  John put a hand over the receiver and fixed him with a look that chilled the sweat on the back of Sweeney’s neck. “ITEB has made it to the States. People are dying.”

  14

  AYAD SHISHANI OPENED his eyes and wondered why they wouldn’t focus, trying to remember where he was. He’d been expecting Paradise, but this certainly wasn’t it.

  At first he thought it was his run-down flat in Grozny, judging by the chipped plaster on the ceiling above him. But why did it feel like someone was inside his head, beating his way out with a hammer? He reached up and ran a hand over his stubbly face.

  The sticky blood coming from his nose brought it all back in an instant. The apartment building in Pripyat. The rockets streaking toward the Chernobyl reactor. The explosion in the stairwell. Fighting with the ferocious soldier whose forehead had destroyed his nose.

  Ayad rolled to his side and groaned when he saw Kyr’s mangled body at the foot of the stairs. How had the soldiers responded so quickly? Had Maxim’s attack been successful? A wave of revulsion and hate swept through him. Though they’d all been ready to die, seeing the young man’s torn and bloodied corpse brought regret like a rifle butt in the stomach.

  He shook his head to try to bring his surroundings into better focus. Ayad could hear voices approaching from below. He felt around him in the dust and debris until his hands fell on his rifle. Struggling to his feet, he staggered back up the stairs to the rooftop, where he blinked painfully as he took in the empty asphalt-covered space, the discarded RPG tube, and scattered remaining rockets. Nobody was in sight.

  What happened to Omar?

  His gaze shifted to the oily black cloud rising in the distance. It was very near the reactor, but if Maxim’s truck bomb had succeeded, the reactor itself should be belching toxic smoke. From what he could see, it was still intact.

  Rage seeped into the edges of his still-fuzzy vision. They could not have failed. Allah was, after all, on their side!

  Perhaps you have been spared for this moment. It is up to you to give the final blow to the infidels.

  Yes, that had to be it. With the voices behind him getting louder by the second, there was no time to spare. Ayad dropped his rifle and hurriedly scooped up one of the remaining rockets and slammed it home in its launcher. He hefted the tube to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, lining up the reactor beyond the tip of the warhead.

  Just as his finger began to squeeze the heavy trigger, a crack sounded behind him, accompanied by a painful, hollow sensation in his gut that drained all his strength in the space of a half second.

  He could no longer hold the heavy launcher, and it slid from his grasp. In a red-tinged daze, he turned to see two green-suited soldiers, very different from the first two, emerge from the stairwell, pointing rifles at him and shouting in a language very similar to the Russian that he hated so much. Then his knees gave out, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Ayad knew what he should be saying at this moment. Allahu Akhbar. But if God was so great, how could their plan have failed so miserably?

  The darkness returned before he could think of an answer.

  “Come on, kids! Junior, get off the railing!” Monique Jordan snapped her fingers to show she meant business. “The tour is going to leave without us if you don’t get it moving!” Her other hand clutched four just-purchased Hoover Dam tour tickets like they were a week’s pay, which, unfortunately, was just about the truth.

  The day was near perfect—sunny, cool, and not a hint of wind. And it was dry. But of course, Las Vegas was always dry.

  Monique adjusted her oversized sunglasses and let her gaze sweep along the white concrete expanse of the dam and the deep blue of Lake Mead behind it. The scale of it all fascinated her, and she kicked herself for not having taken the tour sooner. After all, we’ve lived in Vegas for four years now.

  Her seven-year-old son, Junior, raced ahead of his two older sisters to catch up to Monique and grab her outstretched hand. “Momma, Keisha says we have to call it the ‘Hoover Dang.’”

  Monique laughed, and it felt good. “No, honey. You don’t have to call it that. But we better run. I don’t want you kids to miss this.” She giggled as her two daughters caught up, and she had to trot to keep up with them.

  Their lives since moving away from New Orleans had held precious little of what she would consider “family fun time.” She thought of Marvin, her husband, who had left them not long after their home was destroyed by the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina. Back then, she had wondered if they would ever be happy again. But after four years of working at the Tropicana as a keno girl during the day, then moonlighting as a waitress at Denny’s, she was finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

  She looked down at her three children—twelve-year-old Keisha was now a budding young woman who was growing up all too fast. The gangly ten-year-old, Savonne, was her pensive, introverted one. And then there was Junior, the kind of boy who could make you want a shot of whiskey one minute and make you spew milk through your nose the next. The three of them were her whole life now.

  A knot of people had formed on the sidewalk overlooking the incredible canyon that spread out below the dam. The unfinished bypass bridge yawned out into space directly in front of it. Which according to the recent papers had fallen behind schedule.

  A uniformed man with a nametag labeled “Ken” stood at the top of a staircase that led down into the bowels of the mammoth concrete structure. He held up a hand to quiet the dozen or so others who were waiting for the tour to begin. “Howdy, folks. I’m your guide for the dam tour this a
fternoon. Now for security reasons, I’m gonna ask you to put your cameras away once we go inside. Before we do that, though, here’s a little history about the dam.” Ken started spouting a list of trivia about the structure and its construction back in the 1930s.

  While he was talking, Monique sidled over to the three-foot concrete barrier that rimmed the top of the structure. She peered over the edge, then pulled back immediately when the sheer drop below made her head swim. She squeezed Junior’s arm more tightly.

  “What, Momma?” he said, looking up at her.

  “Nothing, baby. It’s just a long way down, that’s all.”

  “…seven hundred and twenty-six feet to the bottom.” Ken continued addressing the group. “And enough concrete to pave a road from San Francisco to New York City. Now you all follow me and we’ll take the elevator down to the hydroelectric plant.”

  The tour progressed for the better part of an hour, leading through the gleaming power generation facility where spinning turbines harnessed the waters of Lake Mead to generate electricity for millions on the West Coast. The kids ate it up, and Monique found something very encouraging about the fact that men could create something so big and so positive out of concrete and steel—taming a raging river and putting it to work for the good of mankind. It was just the kind of “anything is possible” attitude she hoped to instill in her children.

  Ken opened a side door, letting in sunlight and a thunderous roar. He waved for the group to follow him outside. When Monique stepped through the doorway, she saw the source of the noise. They were at the bottom of the dam. Tens of thousands of gallons of water shot out of enormous gates at the sides of the canyon. A fine mist floated in the air and raised goose flesh on her arms.

  Junior tugged at her hand and shouted, “Momma! Look!” He pointed at the sky that was visible between the canyon walls towering above them.

  Monique looked up and saw a rainbow floating on the mist. “Yes, isn’t the rainbow pretty?”