* * *
BACK AT THE terminal, near the chemical tanker, stood a toolshed.
Inside, a dozen acetylene gas tanks were turned on, open full, with gas filling the shed, leaking out the seams and cracks, enveloping the area.
Chapter Ninety-Six
THE EOD DIVERS listened to Merk as they viewed the dorsalcam images the dolphins had captured of both devices. They shook their heads as Merk crawled into another dive team RHIB that would ferry him and the dolphins out of harm’s way over to Governors Island.
As the RHIB drove Merk away from the disposal operation, the backup team of EOD divers steered their craft around the bow of the chemical tanker. From the photos and videos they analyzed, there didn’t appear to be any timing device that would trigger the bomb. So they tied off the boat to the pier, away from the first planted bomb, in order not to disturb it.
One EOD diver put on an air tank, swim fins, and dive mask. He slipped into the river and reached back into the boat, lifting a waterproof sack filled with tools, and slung it over his shoulder.
He dove underwater, swimming first under the keel to make sure that bottom hull and port side were clear of remora bombs. Once confirmed they were safe, he made his way under the bow to the starboard side, and flippered along the hull to the bomb.
The diver opened the sack, twisted a chemlight on, inserted it in a slot on his wet suit vest, and pulled out a magnifying lens to study granular detail of the device, from how it was attached to the hull—metal clamps with some type of waterproof adhesive—to what the bomb was packed with, Semtex-H with titanium microfiber accelerator, he figured. He noted the device didn’t have a det cord, timer, or an obvious way to trigger the bomb remotely.
Why? the diver wondered. He took out a wand and ran it over the bomb, confirming it was non-radioactive, but still appeared lethal.
There were two of them positioned near the bow, adjacent to the cargo hold where the last eight chlorine gas tanks remained, fully laden.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
BROOKLYN POLICE OFFICERS shutdown Third Avenue, Brooklyn, under the BQE Expressway.
At 62nd Street, the NYPD’s Hercules team and SWAT unit cordoned off the far end of the broad roadway, which ran three lanes wide in each direction with a broad parking area that divided the center median. A cell of four armed Navy SEALs snipers stood at 50th Street. A group of FBI agents took tactical positions behind the steel columns on the center island, while on both sidewalks more agents and police officers aimed guns and rifles from behind vehicles, light poles, parking lots, and storefronts.
At the first light of dawn, CIA agent and gun enthusiast Jenny King couldn’t believe all of the firepower and show of force for one cornered terrorist, Bahdoon, who weighed a little more than she did. The Yemeni psychiatrist stood in the middle of the roadway, donning a gas mask, just as he did when he traded hostages for cash at the Somali-Djibouti border with Dante Dawson and Christian Fuller of the Azure Shell hostage negotiation team backed by US Marines.
Jenny saw the photos. This time, Bahdoon stood alone with no hostages. But still he felt he was in charge, in a position of strength and power. He had leverage. In his right hand he held a remote stem, a transmitter to detonate a bomb. And the bomb appeared to be in the black metal box resting on the pavement. He put his foot on the box, mimicking a pirate, then took it off and gently kicked the device. What kind of explosive was stuffed in the box was another question that no one seemed to know.
Restrained by a burly sergeant, a bomb-sniffing canine barked and yelped, pointing at the box. Jenny watched the German shepherd and figured the bomb was real by the dog’s reaction. Was it packed with explosives, such as dynamite? Or did it contain a chemical or nerve agent? Or was it a hybrid of both gas and a C-4 type explosive spiked with shrapnel?
Bahdoon looked around, surrounded by agents, police, and a wall of firepower. The reason no one had fired at him yet was the remote he gripped in his hand. If it was a pressure detonator, then if someone shot or killed him, he would release the grip on the pressed-down button, drop the remote, setting off the black box bomb.
For the first time she could remember, Jenny witnessed a terrorist negotiate over an unexploded ordnance. That gave Bahdoon leverage in keeping the police and agents at bay, and from shooting him. And that didn’t sit well with Jenny at all.
Understanding the implications, Jenny stepped out of the car, carrying an assault rifle. She showed her CIA credentials to police officers, told them and an FBI special agent-in-charge that she would talk to the terrorist Bahdoon. “You see that bastard. He’s the propaganda czar of the new terrorist group Black Mass,” she said to the FBI SAC. “He’s the evil man who lied about the school in Yemen being destroyed by a CIA drone last month. He staged the scene with bodies of children flown in from Syria. And I took down his terrorist operation in Syria.”
“He’s the one on the Yemen school drone strike?” the SAC asked, lifting a shotgun.
“No school. Terrorist safe house. His name is Bahdoon. He’s a psycho psychiatrist. A murderer. A terrorist. An enemy of the world. Like ISIS, he’s the ultimate propaganda machine,” she said, staring at Bahdoon wearing the gas mask.
“A bad MF,” he said.
“Not for long. The drone strike lie ends today, here and now.”
Jenny stepped past a pack of armed officers, moving furtively out into the open, closing on the Pratique Occulte leader, less than a block away. She felt her heart race. Step by step, marching forward. She aimed the assault rifle at Bahdoon’s gas mask, shouting, “We found your bombs on the hull of the chemical tanker. They are being disarmed.”
With a smartphone in his hand, the terrorist spoke through a mobile app to Jenny, and said in a machined voice, “Are you sure you have found them all?” He glanced behind him, eyeing the armed agents training weapons on him.
“We stopped the torpedo, too,” she said, stepping closer.
“That’s close enough,” he said via the smartphone, motioning her to stop.
“Sorry, I love close-quarter combat. Up close and personal,” she said, ignoring his gesture to stop. “I should have taken your ass down inside the UN when I grabbed Korfa.”
“That was you?” he said, a bit surprised by the revelation.
She sighted the scope at his scalp above the gas mask. “You see, when I was in Syria and Iran, I stood a lot closer to the enemy than where you are right now. I killed one Iranian Quds soldier by smashing a rock against his head. You should have seen all the brain tissue ooze out.”
“That’s enough,” he shouted into the mobile app. “Put down your weapon or I will blow us up.” He put his foot on the box again.
“I trained rebels in Syria to overthrow that government that failed to fight the ISIS pussies,” she said. “I trained the Free Syria Army on how to shoot, how to sabotage, how to avoid sarin gas attacks and Assad’s chlorine barrel bombs. Now I’m going to take down Pratique Occulte.”
“Try and I will kill all of us,” he said, unzipping his wet suit top, revealing that he also wore an explosive vest underneath.
“Two bombs. What’s with the vest, al Qaeda amateur hour?”
“I swear, I’ll blow us up,” he warned, waving the remote detonator in his hand.
Jenny sighted Bahdoon’s neck, as if she saw through the gas mask breathing hose and canisters. She scoped the crosshairs on his neck right above the plastic explosives vest. And in a blink of an eye, she fired a shot that tore through his collarbone, shattering it in half. The blast toppled Bahdoon to the ground, wounding him.
The law enforcement officials behind Bahdoon jumped back, others retreated many steps, yet still others dove and hit the ground. Bahdoon was still alive. He was still holding the remote detonator, but writhing on the pavement. Neither bomb had gone off.
With a trembling hand, Bahdoon held up the remote. Jenny fired the next salvo, blowing the device and several digits off his hand, chasing the agents to the rear, scrambling farthe
r away as the remote bound and bounced across the asphalt, coming apart at cowering SWAT team members, who flinched and ducked for cover in anticipation of an explosion that didn’t go off.
Disarmed, badly wounded, and now impotent by failing to detonate the black box, Bahdoon rolled over, pulling the gas mask off his face, screaming in agony. With his good hand, he reached down to the bottom of the vest, feeling for a ripcord, which Jenny couldn’t allow him to pull. So she took aim and fired a third volley into the back of the terrorist, severing his spine. His hand fell limp to the pavement; his legs slackened.
Jenny held up a fist, holding the government agents and police officers back as she strode to the psychiatrist. She stepped on Bahdoon’s ankle, digging her heel into his foot, but there was no reaction. She knew he was paralyzed, fading fast. Bahdoon’s breaths were labored … soon hissing like a trapped snake … a gasp of expiring air, to which she remarked, “Karma.”
A pool of blood spread around him.
While he was still alive, Jenny placed the hot barrel of the assault rifle against his face. “I’m going to go to your hometown in Yemen and hunt the rest of your dogs and pigs down. Bleed them. Kill them one by one.” She added with salt, “You’re not forgiven, you’re destroyed.”
Chapter Ninety-Eight
IN THE WATER off Governors Island, Merk sat in the RHIB as the lead EOD diver peeled off the top of Merk’s shredded wet suit. He cut away and pulled off strips of rubber, exposing the grains and shrapnel of plastic, metal, and rubber that had been sandblasted against his skin, on his side, head, forearm, and back when the snipers opened fire on him.
In disrobing, Merk revealed the burn scar he suffered from the mission that went south off the coast of mainland China. Without that hellish nightmare, without Merk healing for a year from the burn wounds, bedridden, sitting idle as a log, recovering from numerous skin grafts, he wouldn’t have become a pacifist; he wouldn’t have learned how to communicate with dolphins.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to Dolphin One?” the lead diver asked, pointing to the blackened grain terminal. “You’ll get better treatment there.”
“I’m good,” Merk said, peering at the chemical tanker and the ongoing EOD operation to disarm and dispose of the bombs attached to the hull.
The other EOD diver offered Merk a gas mask. He shook his head, saying, “The wind.”
“What about it?”
“It blows in the opposite direction than it did on 9/11. Today it blows toward Manhattan.” Merk looked over at the morning light shining on the army trucks that lined the FDR Drive. Troops, donning gas masks, turned away cars, ordered citizens to go inside buildings or seek shelter in the tunnel that connected the FDR Drive with West Street around the tip of Manhattan. He held up a rag, dipped it in water, and said, “This is all I need if the chlorine leaks.”
The lead EOD diver nodded, using tweezers to pull out fragments from Merk’s flesh.
* * *
AT THE CHEMICAL tanker, the EOD scuba diver surfaced with an inflatable bladder and the first bomb. Another pair of EOD divers carefully received and handled the device. They put it inside a lead-lined bag, lowered that into a steel gangbox, and slowly steered the RHIB toward Governors Island, where they would take the bomb into an underground bunker—turned into a disposal lab—and disarm it with robots and bomb technicians, wearing full Demon W Class-2 Suits with face shields and aerators, manufactured by Radiation Shield Technologies, in case the nuclear-detecting probe that Tasi used to scan the device malfunctioned.
In the other boat, Merk put on a navy-blue tee shirt as he watched the first bomb, stowed in the gangbox, be lifted on land, put on a cart, and driven to the center of the island to the freight elevator that would take the device underground for disposal. When Merk saw the cart disappear behind a bend of trees, he radioed the second cell of EOD scuba divers to remove the last remora bomb from the hull of the chemical tanker.
Underwater. The divers examined the surface area, seams, and canister—light metal wrapped in a plastic sheath—to see how the device was attached to the hull.
The second bomb was attached differently than the first. A single screw had been inserted through a metal lip on the canister and drilled into the ship’s steel hull. No waterproof adhesive was used. It looked like a rush job to attach. One diver aimed a flashlight, while the other one took out a screwdriver. He tried to turn the screw, but the head just spun around. He felt the screw threads were stripped. The EOD diver checked the lip and signaled to cut the screw-head so the bomb could be removed off the hull.
The diver took out a mini rotary-saw and began to carefully grind the metal screw below the head. He then used a small crowbar and pulled on the screw, trying to free the bomb, when—a massive explosion caved in the hull in a concussion blast. The energy wave crushed the divers against the pier in a massive shock wave, blowing the steel hull open, slicing a huge gouge in the storage well that held the eight liquid chlorine tanks, ripping them apart in secondary explosions.
The blast was so powerful that it lifted the entire laden ship up a meter, before rocking it up and down in huge hull waves. Mooring lines snapped, tearing the vessel free. A klick away, Merk felt the shock wave vibrate in his chest and sternum.
The waves rippled out of the blast zone, pushing the ship out, before it listed on its side, taking on water as tons of liquid chlorine no longer under compression spilled out and reacted to the water, turning into a gas. Plumes of yellowish-green chlorine gas began to drift around the ship and envelope the pier. The broken tanks of compressed liquid chlorine poured out, mixing with the water and, in the evaporating process, expanding, becoming a huge gaseous vapor.
On the pier, the blast blew shrapnel and big chunks of steel through the chlorine transfer station, setting off a fiery explosion that blew open the pressurized mixture of chlorine in the tanks, railcars, and scrubber in an immense gas cloud spreading across the concrete deck. The shed where the acetylene tanks were stored blew apart in a massive ascending fireball.
* * *
IN THE GRAIN terminal, the veterinary clinic team, the SEALs, along with Jenny and the digital engineer, who had just arrived, heard the loud explosion around the bend of the Red Hook Marine Terminal.
Shaken by the force of the blast, Jenny ran upstairs to get a better view.
On the third floor, Korfa drank a cup of tea when the explosion rocked the building. He stumbled out of the chair, knowing the bombs had just detonated. The Somali warlord clutched his chest to feign a heart attack. One of the shaken SEAL guards came over to Korfa to see if he needed medical attention, when the pirate tossed hot tea in the guard’s face, swatting the firearm out of his hand. He pushed the guard aside and dashed toward the grain elevator entrance in the front of the building, with the elevator shaft running down to the river.
Knowing Bahdoon’s bombs had detonated, Korfa had nothing left to live for. He didn’t want to be tied to the blast and be branded a terrorist. And he didn’t want to be blamed for one of the worst acts of terror in modern history, when he considered himself a liberator.
Korfa threw a chair behind him to block the other SEAL from giving chase. The SEAL took out a pistol and fired a shot at the fleeing warlord but missed, with the bullet ricocheting off the concrete wall. Korfa ran into the hallway leading to the boarded grain elevator shaft. The other SEAL fired a second shot that missed Korfa, who now sprinted and crashed through the plywood protection, which snapped in half. His body hurled over the cracked plywood board. Korfa plunged three stories below, smashing his head and shoulders on a pile of rubble in the elevator pit that broke his neck, instantly killing him, his body impaled by rebar.
At the rear stairwell, Jenny heard the gunshots and ran through the third floor to the SEALs standing by the elevator shaft. She stepped between them and saw Korfa sprawled at the bottom of the pit. The Somali pirate had committed suicide. He was now dead like his brother, Samatar.
Jenny nodded to the S
EALs and dashed back through the third floor and raced up nine more flights of stairs to the roof.
On the roof, Jenny joined the SEAL snipers and engineers, who were watching the toxic cloud waft across the East River.
“Oh my god,” she mouthed, staring at the unusual sight. She called Merk’s Satcom and smartphone, but there was no reply. She feared the worst. But then the lieutenant commander pointed to the RHIB boat drifting in front of Governors Island. Jenny took his binoculars and zoomed on the boat. Jenny saw Merk and the EOD divers watching the chlorine cloud form around the crippled, listing ship.
* * *
SHOCKED, MERK AND the EOD divers waved police and Coast Guard boats to evacuate the East River by the South Street Seaport and those agents on the helipad by Whitehall Station. The wind blew the lethal cloud to float across the East River.
Angered by the bomb going off, Merk Toten had had enough. He was no longer conflicted. His navy dolphins were in the water and he had no clue whether they had cleared the chemical tanker before the bomb exploded and the chlorine spilled out. He knew they would die if they surfaced and breathed the chlorine gas instead of air.
With EOD divers fixated on the gas clouds, Merk dipped the sonar-whistle in the water, calling Tasi and Inapo to swim over to his location. Within half a minute, both dolphins surfaced behind the RHIB, out of view of the EOD divers. Merk flashed a sign for Tasi and Inapo to dive below. He pulled off the tee shirt, slipped on swim fins, grabbed a dive mask, snorkel, and a pair of needle-nose pliers and rolled overboard without the EOD divers knowing he left them.
Merk dove down to the bottom of the harbor, expelling breaths now and then through the snorkel. He greeted both dolphins, pulling Tasi toward him, and with the needle-nose pliers he removed the dorsalcam and GPS chip from her dorsal fin. He hugged the dolphin, then removed the same items off Inapo’s dorsal fin. When he finished, he dropped the pliers to the riverbed, flashed a hand-sign of a dorsal fin over his heart, signaling they were free.
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