Act of Terror jq-2

by Marc Cameron

  “Do you have someone on the ground out there you can trust?” he asked. With an unknown number of moles infiltrating the government, sending out an open message could have deadly consequences.

  “I trust all my guys,” Smedley said. “Without a doubt.”

  “Okay then.” Quinn paused. “Think for a minute. Do you know Tara Doyle?”

  “Sure,” the pilot shot back. “I’d heard of her.”

  “Did you trust her before today?”

  There was silence on the line. “Roger that.” Smedley gave a long sigh. “From now on I don’t trust anyone.”

  “I hear you,” Quinn said, twirling his open hand in the air above his head as he spoke, signaling Thibodaux to get ready to go. “I need you to get your bird over here as quick as you can.”

  “The ball field where I dropped you off?”

  “No time for that.” Quinn threw a leg over the Ducati. “It may already be too late. We’re just around the corner from Canal and Bowery. What do you need for clearance?”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Smedley almost shouted into the phone.

  “Aren’t you the one that said you’d set her down in Times Square if I asked?” Quinn said.

  “That’s cocky pilot bullshit and you know it,” Smedley said. “I can’t be held accountable for stuff like that.”

  “Come on, Smeds. You know you’re itching for a reason to do this. What’s your wingspan?”

  “I need thirty yards, give our take, just to have a few inches on either side. Fifty would be better.”

  “Canal and Bowery should work then,” Quinn said, giving at best, an educated guess.

  “Traffic in Chinatown is murder any time of the day.”

  “Just bring her in,” Quinn said, starting the Ducati. “When the taxis see your giant gray pterodactyl swooping down on them, they’ll scoot out of the way like a bunch of canaries.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Quinn rode up over the curb with a healthy bounce and stopped beside one of the gray lion statues in front of the HSBC bank building when the tilt-rotor Osprey thumped in from the south.

  “This is gonna be a tight fit, beb,” Thibodaux said, pulling in beside him and flipping up the visor of his helmet.

  Quinn clenched his teeth, willing the Osprey in. There was no room for error, but Smedley was as good a pilot as there was-and though he talked a tentative game, he was fearless. “He can do it.”

  The major brought his bird in fast and low, screaming in at well over a hundred knots just above the brick fortress of tenements known as Knickerbocker Village. Keeping the Manhattan Bridge on his right, he didn’t flare until he reached Confucius Plaza.

  Two helmeted crewmen in green Nomex flight suits craned swiveling heads out each side of the aircraft, guiding the pilots down through the maze of light poles, neon signs, and electric wires. Trash, dust, and road grit whirled under the cyclonic effect of the two thirty-eight-foot rotors. Metal trash cans toppled and rolled down the street. The blue and yellow cloth umbrella on a hotdog cart vanished in the whirling gray cloud.

  Deafening vibration and flying debris activated car alarms up and down the street for two blocks. Taxis and delivery trucks crashed and squealed attempting to back out of the path of the descending aircraft. A traffic cop in a bright yellow vest stood in tight-lipped awe. He squinted, leaning into the wind with his hand holding down his hat.

  The Osprey’s rear ramp yawned open as Smedley settled her expertly in the middle of the intersection, now deserted as if it had been swept clean. The crewmen waved Quinn forward and the two men gunned their bikes into the darkness and relative quiet of the cabin.

  Quinn ripped off his helmet, still straddling the Ducati. One of the crewmen handed him a headset that was attached to a wire on the wall.

  “Now that’s what I call some slick flying.” Smedley craned his head around in the cockpit, grinning at the adventure of it all. “Don’t I even get a thank-you?”

  “You should thank me for giving you the opportunity.” Quinn said. “When else would you get to make good on your pilot bullshit?”

  CHAPTER S EVENTY — SIX

  Governors Island

  A manda Deatherage waited less than ten feet behind the receiving line beside the fat iron cannon where she’d tied the bow earlier. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip.

  So far, the president had been trapped on the far side of the lawn talking to an endless parade of foreign dignitaries who wanted a piece of his time. Mrs. Hughes and the vice president stood to the right of their daughter. The groom, the secretary of state, and the national security advisor stood beside them, shaking hands and chatting brightly with well-wishers as they came through the line.

  They were all so handsome and arrogant-and doomed.

  Amanda knew full well Mrs. Hughes thought her odd and erratic at best, but she’d gained the hag’s trust and that’s what was important. She hoped her quirky behavior would mask any last-minute jitters.

  Shadan was somewhere in the crowd watching her, making certain she followed through with her assignment. She’d never met the man-she’d heard his name for the first time when Dr. Badeeb explained her mission. It would be her honor to kill the president and vice president. Shadan, he explained, would be there to assist if needed. He would have a second detonator if anything were to happen to her.

  Deatherage knew the man was really there in the event she changed her mind-but that was something that would not happen. She’d come too far, seen too much, to back out now. She owed it to her parents to seek vengeance against the lie that was America. Death was not something to fear. It would be welcome. She had tasted gall for so much of her young life; her martyrdom would come as a sweet reward.

  Since taking the job as personal assistant, Deatherage had made it her norm to wear baggy, ill-fitting clothes. Mrs. Hughes expected her to look disheveled. The canvas vest now strapped to her chest held nine thin blocks of plastic explosive and a full ten pounds of evenly placed BBs and sheet-metal screws-all soaked in rat poison to hinder wounds from clotting. Dr. Badeeb had assured her the device would obliterate anyone standing within fifteen feet and maim dozens more who stood within the blast radius. Her loose dress and frumpy jacket hid everything better than she could have imagined.

  Security was everywhere-Secret Service, Diplomatic Security, Foreign protective agents, NYPD, and some Amanda couldn’t name. But none of them would be able to stop her now.

  All that remained was for the president to walk across the lawn and pay his respects to the bride and groom. At that point he would be close enough to the vice president. Then Deatherage would take two steps forward and the face of America would change forever.

  The service itself hadn’t taken nearly long enough in Nancy Hughes’s estimation. A matter of such importance should linger awhile before being over. She consoled herself with the fact that they could stand in line and gloat for a good while, showing off their now-married little girl.

  Helicopters whumped above the trees and fighter jets roared overhead, higher now so as not to deafen the guests, but still too low for Nancy’s taste. She shook hands with the foreign minister of Japan, a guest of Melissa Ryan’s, and apologized for the racket.

  Secret Service agents milled among the throng of guests and myriad waiters and waitresses moving in to work the crowd with silver trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres

  President Clark and his entourage stood in a loose gaggle at the far end of the front yard, opposite the cannon. Toby Braithwaite, the playboy British prime minister, bloviated like the parliamentarian he was, hogging the president’s attention as if it were his day instead of Jolene’s. Nancy wanted a photo of the bride and her new husband with the president. And now the stupid Brit wouldn’t turn loose of him.

  Special Agent Jack Blackmore with the Secret Service loitered directly behind his protectee, head on a swivel, looking for any abnormality in a sea of guests. Other agents on the POTUS detail, all in dark tuxedos to fit in with t
he crowd, took various positions around the yard. Some faced inbound, keeping an eye on the guests. Two dozen more faced outward, watching for oncoming threats.

  Sonny Vindetti stood directly behind the vice president with Jimmy Doyle. Six more agents assigned to the VP detail stood in front of the receiving line. Each wore the regulation skin-tone earpiece for the radio at their belt. Their eyes scanned each guest on the way down the line.

  Melissa Ryan looked ravishing, Nancy thought, in her dark blue Burberry wool suit. Even at her son’s wedding, the top two buttons on her white silk blouse remained alluringly open. Winfield Palmer stood beside her, looking dapper but uncomfortably cramped in his tux.

  “Heads-up,” Nancy heard Sonny Vindetti’s voice behind her as he spoke to his team of agents.

  President Clark had, at long last, disengaged himself from his conversation with Braithwaite and now strode quickly across the lawn, his team of agents in tow.

  “Longbow is on the move,” Vindetti said into the microphone at his lapel, using the president’s code name.

  POTUS was finally on his way and Nancy would be able to get her photo.

  “Amanda, dear,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s time. Would you be so kind as to bring the photographer around?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY — SEVEN

  “How do you know who you’re looking for?” Smedley said as he brought the Osprey from Battery Park over the south tip of Governors Island. He’d received clearance to land in the center of the island, in an area the Secret Service and the NYPD had set up as a joint receiving point. He deviated from his flight path to fly directly over the wedding party.

  “I’m hoping I know when I see them,” Quinn said. “You have a FLIR onboard?”

  “Sure,” the pilot tapped the console. “But what good will thermal imaging do with that crowd?”

  Quinn went forward to look at the color screen. People, generally warmer than the surrounding air temperature of late evening, showed up in various shades of yellow and red on the forward-looking infrared system. The cooler ground and foliage ranged from light blue to purple. Quinn concentrated his search in the area around the vice president and his wife and it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

  Behind the reception line was the form of a young woman. Her arms and head glowed red, but her chest was baby blue as if she wore something heavy under her clothing that didn’t let her body heat escape.

  “That would be Mrs. Hughes’s assistant.” He tapped the screen with his finger. “I’m willing to bet she’s wearing a suicide vest!” Quinn looked up to get a clear view out the front window. “And the president is walking straight for her.”

  Quinn racked his brain. “Fly straight at them, Smeds-and if you have a spotlight, see if you can light up the girl. We need them to see who we’re focusing on-and hopefully get the president to cover.”

  The pilot looked up, nodding grimly. “You know they’ll probably shoot us down?”

  “Not this low, beb,” Thibodaux offered. “They’ll be afraid our flaming wreckage would land on the big boss.”

  “You have about ten seconds before the president makes it across the lawn,” Quinn said.

  “Roger that,” Smedley said throwing the Osprey into a dive. “What are you going to do?”

  Quinn had punched the button to open the rear ramp and was already running back toward the strapped Ducati. “I don’t know,” he yelled over his shoulder. “I’m making this up as I go along.”

  Nancy Hughes looked up as a thunderous roar filled the evening sky. She glared at the vice president. “Bobby,” she hissed. “I thought we agreed to kee-”

  Her voice was drowned out by an approaching aircraft that looked like a plane with upturned propellers. It swooped in over the wedding party to hover just over treetop level-lower than the roof of the mansion. It was close enough she could make out the strained looks on the pilots’ faces.

  Trays of food and drinks flew from the hands of the staff. Folding chairs, caught in the mini tornado, were tossed around like rag dolls. The aircraft began to work its way even lower, settling between the trees as if to land on the front lawn and crush half the guests. The tremendous force of whirling wind blew open suit jackets, exposing agents’ weapons. The women who wore more skimpy gowns had them literally ripped from their bodies.

  A blinding beam of light burned from the nose of the aircraft, cutting the dusky evening haze to point directly at the bride and groom.

  “Mr. Vice President!” It was Sonny Vindetti’s voice. The Secret Service agent grabbed Bob Hughes’s shoulder and tugged him backward toward the mansion. “Sir! I need you to come with me! Now!”

  “Nancy!” Hughes spun away from his would-be protector, reaching out with both arms in an attempt to shield his wife from unseen dangers.

  President Clark ran amid a tightly packed mob of his agents, bent at the waist, to a waiting armored limousine that had been rolling silently over the grassy lawn, following his every move.

  Hand over her hair against the horrific wind, Nancy turned just in time to see Jimmy Doyle running to intercept Amanda Deatherage. The girl’s ridiculously long jacket had blown up around her face. Her loose dress was pressed to her body by the downdraft, exposing what looked like a bulky life vest underneath.

  Blinded by the tangle of cloth, Deatherage screamed with rage, clawed at her face to clear her vision.

  “BOMB RIGHT! BOMB RIGHT!” Jimmy Doyle screamed above the melee. He hit the girl with the full force of his body, knocking her behind the huge iron cannon.

  A split second later, Nancy Hughes was knocked off her feet. Every molecule of air seemed inexplicably drawn away, vanished. She felt a tremendous heat, then pressure, as if someone had hit her in the chest with a baseball bat. She was vaguely aware that her daughter lay on top of her-and the world was eerily silent.

  Quinn and Thibodaux rode off the back ramp moments after the explosion. Smedley was able to bring the Osprey within five feet off the ground-still a tall order for the sporty Ducati’s suspension.

  The wedding party looked as though a huge bowling ball had come through and knocked everyone to the grass. Quinn knew the Secret Service would be in reactive mode, bent on egress with their charges more than stopping to face an unknown enemy. The countersnipers, on the other hand, would be back to their scopes in no time, scanning from their rooftop perches to stop all signs of threat.

  Two crazy men deploying from a V-22 Osprey, dressed in black on screaming motorcycles, would certainly qualify.

  After an explosion people generally do one of two things-lie still to protect themselves or try and get away. It is a rare hero who moves toward the blast zone while debris is still falling-or someone with something more sinister in mind.

  Quinn saw the waiter in the white waistcoat at the same moment the Ducati gained traction. The sight of him sent a chill of cold recognition coursing through Quinn’s body, renewing the ever-present throbbing pain in his foot.

  Picking his way through the mass of dazed and injured toward where the vice president lay unconscious beside his wife, was the unmistakable bald head and black eyes of Military Interrogator First Sergeant Sean Bundy.

  Quinn planted his right foot and gassed the throttle. A rooster tail of grass and dirt spewed into the air as the little 848’s Testastretta engine spun the back tire. Deafened by the previous blast, Bundy continued on a direct path for the vice president, his right hand behind his thigh as if he carried something.

  Quinn bore down on him, ignoring the shouts of Secret Service agents as he sped past. They threatened to shoot, but the bike was fast and there were too many innocents in the way.

  Bundy’s face snapped up as the Ducati loomed at him, missing by inches. Quinn, oblivious to the pain it would cause him later, bailed off the motorcycle at speed, catching Bundy’s head in the pocket of his chest and shoulder as he flew by.

  Quinn ducked and rolled, relatively protected by his helmet and armored Transit Leathers, taking B
undy with him. He used the other man’s body to break his fall.

  All the pent-up rage from the previous interrogation rushed back into Quinn’s veins. The humiliation, the threats to his wife and daughter, the bone-crushing pain of the amputation-he’d never wanted to kill anyone as badly as he wanted to kill this man.

  The pistol that Bundy had been hiding flew out in front of them as they tumbled, landing three feet from the Echo’s outstretched hand. His left arm was twisted grotesquely backward, making it look as if it had two elbows. Facedown in the dirt, he crawled forward, lunging for the gun with his right hand. Black eyes seethed, intent on violence.

  And violence was just what Quinn gave him.

  Rather than shooting, Quinn drew Yawaraka-Te, the Japanese dirk he wore in a scabbard along his spine. Rolling forward, he planted the chisel tip of the blade square in the back of Bundy’s hand, driving it down with a satisfying crunch through muscle and bone, pinning him to the ground.

  Bundy screamed in agony as he flopped and thrashed like a trapped fish. The more he moved, the more he injured his trapped hand on Yawaraka-Te’s gleaming blade.

  Panting, Quinn raised both hands high over his head. He prayed that would be enough to stop the approaching Secret Service agents from shooting him in the back.

  Thibodaux rode up with Palmer on the rear seat of his BMW about the time the agents got Quinn into a full prone position. The national security advisor shooed the agents back and told them to see to the screaming bald man with the Japanese sword pegged through his hand.

  “You okay, l’ami?” Thibodaux said, whistling under his breath as he helped Quinn to his feet. “I ain’t gonna be the one to tell Mrs. Miyagi about her bike…” He leaned in closer. “Let me pass you some advice. I don’t know if you know this, but you can’t fly.”