Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller (Book 1)

by Jack Mars

  Behind him, Ed was sitting near the open cargo door, loading thirty-round box magazines for an M4 assault rifle. He had a little stack of them going.

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” Rachel said.

  Luke liked Rachel. She had dark auburn hair. She was brawny like the old Rosie the Riveter posters. Of course, she was. She was a mixed martial arts fighter, after all. Big arms, big legs, she must be hell inside a steel cage.

  “Ed could do what you’re doing,” Luke said. “But I’m going to need him on that M4. I mean, are you ready to fly this thing like they taught you in the United States Army? We might have to go in a little hard here.”

  “We’re ready, Luke,” Jacob said. Jacob was nearly the opposite of Rachel. He was thin and reedy. He looked nothing like your typical elite soldier. Special ops could be as hung up on looks as anybody else. Probably no one would have accepted him, not Delta, not SOAR, not the Rangers, or the SEALS. The only thing he had going for him, besides his profound sense of calm, was that he was probably one of the ten best helicopter pilots alive on Earth.

  Rachel nodded. “You know we’re ready.”

  “Good. There’s a convoy of SUVs on its way to Kennedy Airport. It’s not going to get there. That’s because we’re going to stop it.”

  “What kind of support do we have?” Jacob said.

  “Swann is operating some small drones that are spotting for us. He’ll probably have a couple of our cars as well. Other than that, you’ve got me, and you’ve got that big man with that big gun back there.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Luke smiled. “I’m the head cheerleader. Keep the intercom wide open and listen for my screams.”

  “Hey, Luke,” Rachel shouted. “When I was leaving SOAR, my C.O. asked me what I was going to do with the rest of my life. You know what I said? I told him I was gonna go work for the SRT. You know why? Because Luke Stone was there. All these years of flying choppers, and I never got the chance to die in one. I’m hoping Luke can fix that for me.”

  “You’re my kind of girl,” Luke said.

  “By the way,” Jacob said. “This is an area full of civilians.”

  Luke nodded. “And that’s why we’re going to get this done without firing a shot.”

  A moment later, Luke’s satellite phone started beeping. He answered, and held the phone tight to his ear.

  “Swann? What’s the story?”

  “We’re watching them. They left the mission about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “And?”

  “They must not know we were listening,” Swann said. “That’s as near as I can figure. They went out with one convoy. It’s two Range Rovers sandwiching a big black Lincoln Navigator. Nine out of ten Nassar’s going to be in the Lincoln. They went straight across to the Midtown Tunnel and stopped at the checkpoint there. The cops checked identification and waved them through. I picked them up with the drones on the other side. I’m watching them now. They just got on the Van Wyck, headed south to the airport. We’ve got two of our SUVs following about a mile behind them.”

  “Nobody else came out of the mission?” Luke shouted into the phone.

  “We’ve still got two agents there,” Swann said. “Nobody else has come out so far. I really think this is it. They don’t know we heard them and they don’t know we’re coming. They didn’t try to misdirect at all.”

  “Good enough,” Luke said. He scanned the roadway below them. The chopper was flying north, just west of the highway. The convoy was coming south. They should pass each other any moment. Traffic was remarkably light now, and cars were moving along at a nice clip. Everybody still on the roads was trying to speed home before the world ended.

  “What are you going to do?” Swann said.

  “We’re going to pull them over,” Luke said. “Just like the cops do to speeders. When I give the word, have our SUVS come up with the lights and sirens going. We’ll hover close and put our gun on the bad guys. I think that should do it.”

  “Okay,” Swann said. “Standing by.”

  As Luke watched, a white Range Rover went by, followed closely by a black Navigator. Another white Range Rover brought up the rear. They were moving fast. The chopper blew past them. Luke tapped Rachel on the helmet.

  “You guys see that?”

  “We saw it,” Rachel said.

  “Those are our subjects,” Luke said. “Let’s swing this thing around.”

  The chopper made a looping, banking turn and headed south.

  “Swann, give me those SUVs.”

  “Coming right up,” Swann said.

  Below them, two black SUVs about a quarter mile apart suddenly came to life. Red and blue lights began to flash in their front windshields. The drivers gunned the accelerators, and within seconds, both cars were going close to a hundred miles per hour.

  The chopper was faster.

  Luke looked at Newsam. “You ready with that gun?”

  Ed showed a ghost of a smile. He patted the barrel. “This old thing? We go way back.” He wore yellow-tinted shooting glasses. A pair of ear muffs were perched on top of his head. He slid out the cargo door until he was perched on the outboard bench. He strapped himself in.

  They watched as the SUVs caught up to the convoy. It all happened within a few miles. The Range Rovers and the big Navigator saw the dashboard lights coming up and moved over to the soft shoulder of the highway. The SRT vehicles pulled in behind them. Civilian traffic roared by three feet to their right.

  “That was easy,” Newsam shouted from outside.

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “Too easy.”

  The chopper came down. Soon, it was fifty feet in the air, hovering thirty yards ahead of the lead car.

  “Swann, we don’t want anybody but Nassar. If he’s in that Navigator, just have your guys extract him and drive away.”

  “Got it, Luke.”

  Two SRT men walked up the line of cars on either side. They moved fast with sidearms drawn. They moved to the middle car, the black Lincoln. The man on the shoulder side banged on the door. There was a delay. No one came out.

  Luke tapped Ed. “Put your weapon on that! I don’t like it. Two men aren’t enough.”

  Newsam lifted the gun and sighted. “Got it.”

  “Swann! Give me two more men on that car.”

  Without warning, the rear door of the lead Range Rover swung open. A man popped out, machine gun firing. Luke could hear the ugly blat of the Uzi from all that way. The first SRT man went down in a hail of gunfire. The second SRT agent ducked and ran back toward the agency cars.

  “Man down!” Swann shouted. “Man down! Jesus. Trudy, call 911. We need an ambulance out there. Holy shit.”

  The man from the Range Rover walked calmly toward the injured agent. He pushed his Uzi aside. It hung on his back from its shoulder strap. He pulled a handgun from inside his light jacket and pointed it at the agent’s head.

  “Ed!” Luke said. “Don’t let that happen.”

  The sudden roar of the M4 was earth shattering next to Luke’s head. He ducked away, ears ringing instantly. Newsam rode the recoil, muscles bulging, his face a blank mask.

  He was dialed in. A line of bullets strafed the Range Rover. The front left tire exploded and the windshield shattered. The man with the gun jittered for no more than a second, then collapsed to the ground next to the man he was about to kill. The agent, wounded but alive, began to crawl away downhill into a drainage ditch.

  “Your man’s moving, Swann. He’s alive. Get somebody out there to cover him.”

  The first Range Rover was disabled. It started to roll out, but a dense burst of steam blew out from its radiator. Behind it, the Navigator pulled sharply into the roadway, the second Range Rover right behind it. Both cars peeled off down the highway. They were making a run for it. One SUV pulled out and followed them.

  The Navigator zoomed by just below them. The helicopter was broadside to the road, the cargo door wide open. Ed was out on the bench. T
he Range Rover was coming. Too late, Luke saw machine gun snouts poking from both of the rear windows.

  “Watch it! Incoming fire!”

  Gunfire erupted all around them, like a swarm of angry wasps. Luke dove to the floor. Something cut a sharp path across his right shoulder. There was a slice, then stinging pain. Metal shredded. Glass shattered. Ed Newsam screamed.

  Luke crawled to him. He grabbed Ed under the shoulders, and dragged him back into the chopper.

  Ed’s teeth were gritted in pain. His eyes were wild and mad. His breathing was fast. “I got hit,” he said. “Dammit, that hurts.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. Everywhere.”

  A voice came over the intercom. It was Jacob. “Luke, we lost the right side of our windshield up here. The gunfire just about stove it in.” He sounded relaxed, like he was describing a quiet weekend at home.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Luke shouted.

  “Uh, we’ve got glass all over us, but we seem okay. The windshield’s probably not going to hold though, not if we get up to speed.”

  “Ed’s hit,” Luke said.

  “Sorry. How bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Luke pulled his knife and began to cut away Ed’s jumpsuit. There was a black padded garment beneath it. A flak vest. That was a surprise. Luke hadn’t thought to put one on. He touched it.

  “Aren’t you hot in this thing?”

  Ed shrugged. His eyes watered from the pain.

  “Stylish,” he managed to say.

  “Yeah. More like out of stylish. Probably saved your life, though.”

  Luke felt beneath the vest. Nothing had penetrated it. His hands moved along Ed’s body. Ed’s right arm and shoulder were cut to ribbons. A big chunk of his right thigh was ripped up. The right edge of his pelvis had been hit. His jumpsuit was ripped and bloody at that spot. When Luke touched there, Ed screamed again.

  “Okay,” Luke said. “Something’s broken.”

  “Did you hear me just now?” Ed said through clenched teeth. “I sounded like a girl.”

  “I know,” Luke said. “I’m embarrassed for you. Especially since you’re gonna live, and I’m going to tell people about that scream until the end of my days.”

  The chopper spun and headed south again, following the cars. Luke stood and pulled the first aid kit off the wall. He dropped down to Ed and immediately started to disinfect his wounds. Ed’s entire body clenched as the disinfectant hit his skin.

  “It hurts,” Ed said. “A lot.”

  Luke didn’t want to think about the kind of pain that would make a man like Ed Newsam say it hurt a lot. “I know it,” he said. “I’m going to give you a pill. It’s going to take the edge off that pain, but it’s also going to take you out of the game.”

  Ed shook his head.

  “Just help me get out there. I can still man the gun. I’ll strap myself at the edge of the doorway. It’ll be okay. I won’t fall out.”

  “Ed…” Luke glanced out the door. They were flying fast and low. The highway was just below them. From this vantage point on the floor, he couldn’t see where the cars were. He poked his head out the side of the doorway and looked at the road ahead.

  A man’s upper body leaned from the passenger window of the Range Rover, pointing a machine gun back at them.

  “Jesus.”

  Luke ducked back in as more bullets ripped up metal. He and Ed were eye to eye on the floor. Luke clambered back up to his knees. “I’m not going to argue with you, Ed. I don’t have time right now.”

  Ed shook his head violently. “Then don’t argue.”

  Another burst of machine gun fire hit the chopper. More glass shattered up front.

  “Luke, we’ve got instruments down. We can’t keep taking hits like this. We’re going to lose this bird in a minute.”

  “Take evasive action,” Luke shouted.

  The chopper pulled up abruptly. It made a steep climb and banked hard to the left. Luke fell over sideways. He clung to the floor, his fingers gripping metal slats. Another burst of gunfire came, but this one sounded further away.

  An alarm in the cockpit began to sound.

  BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…

  Jacob’s disembodied voice said: “Luke, we’ve got mayday. A rotor’s been hit. It’s wobbling. I’ve seen it before. It’s not going to hold. We either land or we crash, but we’re going down.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Ninety seconds. Maybe. The longer we hold out, the harder we hit.”

  Luke’s shoulders slumped. Was this really happening? The Iranians were really going to run like this? What did they think, they were just going to shoot their way to the airport, jump on the plane, and fly away?

  Luke clambered to his feet again. He looked through the cockpit. The windshield was gone. A matted blanket of glass had caved in. As he watched, Rachel grabbed it with her gloved hands, pulled it into the cockpit and shoved it aside. The cyclic control was shuddering in Jacob’s hand.

  He tapped Jacob on the helmet.

  “Drop this thing right on top of that Navigator!” he shouted. “Give me two seconds to get out, then go land somewhere.”

  BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…

  Luke propped Ed up on the outboard bench after all. He had no choice.

  “You know what you’re doing?”

  Ed nodded. Much of the color had drained from his face. He suddenly seemed very tired. “I think you’re crazy, but yeah, I know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “As soon as you land, we pull up and ahead, and I blow the windshield out.”

  “Great,” Luke said. “But don’t kill the driver.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  They were five hundred feet in the air and a quarter mile to the west, out of range of the Range Rover’s guns. The dangerous moment would be arcing back down and into range. In the distance and well below them, Luke followed the progress of the cars. As he watched, a police car entered the highway, light blazing. A mile back, two more were gaining.

  He yelled to Jacob. “Ready when you are!”

  Instantly, the chopper banked hard left and down. They got out ahead of the cars. They dropped a hundred feet in a few seconds. They were coming in fast. Three hundred feet. Two hundred. A gunman poked out of the rear window of the Range Rover. He aimed his gun at the chopper.

  “Put the smack on that bastard!” Luke shouted.

  Ed let him have it, the gun roaring again. The door to the Range Rover collapsed in, like a beer can crunched by an invisible hand. The man’s head blew up in a spray of blood. He dropped his gun, slumped, and fell back. The gun clattered along the roadway.

  “Bull’s-eye. Now put me in there.”

  The chopper dropped in fast, moving sideways along the road. It turned, the doorway facing the Navigator. Luke climbed past Ed onto the running board. The chopper came all the way down and bounced off the roof of the Navigator. It went three feet in the air, then came back down again.

  The time had come.

  Luke jumped.

  Chapter 31

  Luke fell to his hands and knees, and clung to the car’s roof rack.

  The driver must have heard Luke hit the roof. The Lincoln started veering back and forth across lanes, swaying crazily, trying to shake Luke off. Luke gripped the rack with all of his strength, his lower body rolling from side to side.

  The chopper raced out ahead and banked around to the left. It hooked sharply and zoomed directly across their path. Ed was in the doorway, broadside to them. Luke ducked his head just as the muzzle flashes erupted from Ed’s gun.

  A hail of bullets sprayed the front of the car. Luke crawled to the front. The right side of the windshield had collapsed inward. He leaned over and punched at the remnants of the glass, pushing it, forcing it down into the car. Somewhere inside, a woman screamed. A child was crying.

  Half the windshield fell into the car. Luke spun his body around, pushed his legs through, and slid into the front passenger seat. H
e landed on the lap of a dead man. The driver fumbled for his gun. He pointed it in Luke’s direction. Luke grabbed his wrist and banged it against the dashboard.

  The man dropped the gun without firing. It fell between his legs and down to the floorboards on the driver’s side. The man looked away from the road and reached around down there. Luke pulled his own gun.

  Suddenly, a shot fired from the back seat. The sound was enormous in the close confines of the car.

  BOOM.

  People screamed back there. Luke ducked and the dead man’s head exploded.

  Luke’s ears were ringing. He looked behind him, peeking between the seats. Ali Nassar was there with a woman and a little girl. They all had wide eyes, terrified, stricken. The little girl sat in the middle. Behind them, in the third row, was a big man with a gun.

  The man crouched down behind the little girl’s head. His gun poked out over her shoulder. It was right next to the girl’s face.

  This was his chance to end this. To save his life. To get Nassar.

  But Luke couldn’t bring himself to take a shot. He couldn’t risk it. Not with the girl there.

  “Ali!” Luke shouted. “Get that gun! Stop him!”

  Ali Nassar stared at Luke with dull eyes.

  BOOM. The man fired again.

  The girl screamed, shrieking now. Everyone in the back seat screamed.

  The bullet hit the center mass of the dead man. In a moment, those bullets were going to start breaking through the dead man’s seat and his body.

  The driver had found his gun.

  There was nothing left to do. Luke flipped his own gun around. He held the barrel in his hand and brandished the hand grip. He hammered the driver’s head with it.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  He ducked as another gunshot rent through the car.

  BOOM.

  The plastic dashboard shattered, shards flying everywhere. Luke felt them bite into his flesh.

  The car floated to the left, off the highway, up and over the shoulder. The driver had gone unconscious at the wheel. The car went down a grassy embankment. It leaned way over to the left, tilting, tilting… up on two wheels. Luke reached for the steering wheel.