“Is that faster than your Blackhawk?”
“Oh yeah, by about 100 miles per hour. And they’re pricey. I’ve seen them for sale online for around three-quarters of a million and up.”
“What’s the range?”
“Maybe 1,200 miles, four times as far as I could go.”
“All right, they have an airplane. So, what the hell’s it for?” Ace asked.
“Three former members of the Republican Guard and the Eight of Clubs, part of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle who’s working with a guy the FBI thinks has joined ISIS and behind all these murders and bombings — that’s the question, isn’t it?” Bob answered.
“Yeah,” Ace agreed. “But all of the answers I come up with spell big trouble.”
“Especially that airplane. The Khans are pilots, all three of them, and I’m getting a sick feeling that maybe this whole thing might be about them, not that jerk Henry Shaw.”
“That little Cessna’s not a 737, Ghost, and there’s no World Trade Center anywhere close to Fort Bragg.”
“No, but Charlotte and Atlanta aren’t too far away, and there are all sorts of targets up in Hampton Roads, not to mention Fort Bragg itself. Does Dorothy still know any people at the Tactical Air Command in Hampton?” he asked.
“Langley Air Force Base? Sure, she flew F-15s out of there a year and a half ago and I think that’s her new Reserve unit hits there too, so she must.”
“They provide the air cap over the Middle Atlantic states,” Bob added. “Do you think they really could be trying another 9/11?”
“That Cessna isn’t big enough to bring a building down,” Carmody offered. “No way.”
“It could be if you pack it full of explosives,” Ace countered. “Like more of that C-4?”
“At 270 mph, they could be over DC in an hour,” Carmody said.
“No question that DC is always a huge political target, but Hampton Roads is much closer,” Bob told them. “Think of all the aircraft carriers sitting at the Norfolk Navy Base.”
“You said you thought Shaw was acting a little too crazy back at Fort Bragg,” Ace reminded him. “Like he was drawing attention to himself and away from something.”
“Maybe were all crazy, but why don’t you get on the phone and call Dorothy,” Bob told him. “I know that we don’t have a damned thing to go on, but he’s got that airplane for something and the Tactical Air Command needs to be aware of what might be going on down here. They have F-15s on patrol all the time anyway. Maybe they can keep an eye out and run a few sorties down this way.”
“Like have them buzz that hangar?”
Bob shrugged. “That might not be a bad idea, just to let them know who’s boss.”
“And keep that Cessna on the ground,” Carmody told him. “I’ll tell you, as a pilot, the Cessna really bothers me. I’m too slow to catch it; but on the other hand, the F-15s are too fast. A small, fast plane like the TTX is damned maneuverable. If the pilot bobs and weaves and stays down at tree-top level, or gets over one of the cities, he’d be damned hard to find and even harder to shoot down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sherwood Forest
The old maroon Pontiac threw up a cloud of dust and gravel as Henry Shaw reached the end of the Sherwood Forest driveway, took a sharp right onto Cedar Creek Road, and raced away into the night. He had no doubt that Burke’s people would be running for their own cars but he’d have at least a two- or three-minute head start on them, and that was all he needed. He was sorely tempted to turn off the Pontiac’s lights, but neither he nor George Enderby’s old Pontiac was accustomed to high-speed chases on dark, bumpy, twisting Carolina backroads. It needed a tune-up and front-end alignment in the worst way. When he topped 60 mph, the car began to cough, rattle, and sputter, and the steering wheel began to shake. When he topped 70 mph, he had to hold onto the steering wheel with both hands to keep the Pontiac on the road. Fortunately, the I-95 interchange was only two and a half miles to the south and he reached the cloverleaf in minutes, hit the brakes, and swung up the entrance ramp heading southwest before his pursuers could have gotten out to Cedar Creek Road.
Other than a steady stream of long-haul big rigs, the traffic on the Interstate was sparse. He eased up on the accelerator and dropped the speed down to 60 mph so he could control the car with just one hand and pull his cell phone out with the other. He quickly checked the rear-view mirror to see what the Burke woman and her daughter were doing. She continued to glare back at him, but apparently had the good sense not to try anything. That was encouraging, because he would have hated to kill them this soon.
He dropped his eyes to the cell phone, quickly scanned his list of speed dial numbers, and pressed the number for the telephone in the lobby of the Muslim Student Center back on campus. Initially, he had agreed to install a telephone in the side lounge of the first floor for the convenience of his students. Despite the polite sign that he placed on the wall above the phone that it was for local calls only, those morons took the opportunity to charge thousands of dollars in long-distance calls to family, friends, girlfriends, and mistresses in a dozen countries across the Middle East, forcing Shaw to have it replaced with a telephone that only allowed local calls, and finally with a phone that only accepted local incoming calls. Naturally, once his more restrictive policy was in place, none of them would lower themselves to answer the phone when it rang. A demeaning task such as that was performed by the Filipino, African, or Bulgarian housemaids back home.
With no expectation that his students would actually answer the phone at this hour, Shaw pressed the speed-dial number anyway, to see what would happen. All things considered, after the shootout at the Fort Bragg commissary, he anticipated it would be the Fayetteville Police, the FBI, the CID, the CIA, half of the 82nd Airborne Division, or maybe the local dog catcher who would answer, and he wasn’t disappointed.
Someone picked up the handset and Shaw heard men’s voices and laughter in the background as an older man asked, “Yeah… Who is this?”
“King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Is my son there?” Shaw replied.
“King…? Uh, well, maybe… I don’t know.”
“All right, officer, what about Detectives Van Zandt or Greenfield?”
“Yeah, they’re around. Let me go look.”
In less than a minute, he heard that smartass voice of Harry Van Zandt at the other end. “King Salman? Nice touch. Who the hell is this?”
“Royce Patterson, president of the ACLU. You’re going to be spending the rest of your career in court, Detective. Persecuting all those poor foreign students like this…”
“Shaw? You got balls, I’ll give you that much, Per-fesser, but why don’t you come back here. Your boys have been asking for you, and we can discuss it.”
“I’d love to. I don’t suppose our friend Burke is there too, is he?”
“No, just me and Greenfield. Won’t we do?”
“No. I think his wife would rather talk to him.”
Van Zandt was silent for a moment. “If you really have his wife, Shaw, you’ve got no idea how much trouble you’re in.”
“You know, Detective, you aren’t the first to tell me that tonight. I guess we’re just going to have to see, aren’t we? Tell Burke I said hello,” Shaw replied as he hung up and turned his attention back to the road.
Other than a handful of tall, sodium-vapor pole lamps at the interchanges, the interstate highway was as dark as the surrounding rural countryside. That was fine, he thought. There was a cold quarter-moon riding high in the sky, and that was fine, too. It provided just enough light to see, without making the car overly visible. Five minutes later, he came to the Route 87 interchange. To the north, it ran back to Fayetteville and became the busy route 401 Bypass. Down here to the south, it was the beginning of ninety miles of dark country road through the open farmland until it reached Wilmington on the Atlantic coast.
Shaw wasn’t going that far. After a mile, he turned east on Butler Nursery Road. This
was the route he remembered Batir and Mergen had driven when they took him down to the airplane hangar. He passed the first sign to Gray’s Creek Aviation and then the second, and turned in the entrance to the small airstrip. Continuing to the far end, he saw the red, white, and blue Caspian Aviation Services hangar. He also saw the Khans’ dark blue Mercedes parked near the rear door. That was good, he thought, as he pulled in and parked next to it. That meant that the Khan brothers were inside, probably snuggled up in their sleeping bags in the back corner. If they weren’t, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get inside other than shooting the lock off.
Shaw got out and looked around for a moment before he opened the back door and motioned with the barrel of the Beretta automatic for Linda and Ellie to get out too. He could see a thin ribbon of bright light spilling out beneath the rear door, so that meant the Khans weren’t sleeping after all. He tried the doorknob, pulling and shaking on it, but that got him nowhere. The door was made of heavy steel plate with thick hinges and it was locked from the inside. There was no doorbell. Rather than banging his bare knuckles on the hard steel, he used the butt of the Beretta to pound on the door. He waited for twenty seconds, but when he heard nothing inside, he banged on it a second time, even harder, and continued to wait. Becoming exasperated with the situation, he pounded on it a third time, even louder. He was about to shoot the lock off when an angry voice called to him from the corner of the building to his left.
“Shaw! Why are you here?” Mergen Khan bellowed angrily.
The professor turned and saw the muscular wrestler walking briskly toward him with an ultra-compact Israeli Gilboa assault rifle aimed at his chest. Even after Mergen knew it was Shaw, the big man continued looking left and right around the dark airstrip, but he did not lower his gun.
“Put that pistol down,” Mergen ordered. “And who are they?” he asked as he saw two people sitting in the Pontiac.
“I’ll explain everything as soon I get them inside,” Shaw answered as he lowered the Beretta and pointed it toward the ground.
“When you get them inside?” Mergen’s eyes flared as he stopped a foot or two away. “You fool! You are lucky I don’t shoot all of you right here. You have no business bringing people here to begin with, and certainly not now. Are you insane?”
“Just do what I ask, Mergen,” Shaw answered as he dragged the woman and her daughter out of the car. “We can’t stay out here.”
The big Turkmeni stared at him for a moment and finally reached over and slapped the palm of his hand twice on the steel-clad door. Shaw heard heavy steel bolts click open on the inside of the door, and then it opened. Inside, he found Batir Khan staring out at him with another short-barreled submachine gun in his hands, looking no happier than his brother to see Shaw, much less a blonde woman and a young child holding a cat.
“All right, get inside,” Mergen growled, pushing them inside the hangar.
As Shaw’s eyes adjusted to the bright light he saw many things had changed since his last trip. Scrap metal parts and gas cylinders were strewn around the floor. The acetylene torch and its tank were now sitting between the two airplanes. And to his surprise, he saw Sameer al-Karman dressed in a white lab coat and large plexiglass visor standing behind two large, crudely-built tables which had been nailed together from plywood and two-by-fours. On top of the table Shaw saw chemical apparatus, a half-dozen large Pyrex beakers, a row of hot plates, Bunsen burners, various kitchen pots and pans, and a variety of bottles and bags of dry chemicals. Al-Karman looked over at him and seemed relieved to see Shaw. But if he thought the professor was his salvation, he was sadly mistaken.
“Ghost, Koz. Your maroon Pontiac just pulled up behind the hangar. Batman and I are up at the entry road and have eyes on. A blond guy got out of the car and beat on the rear door.”
“Copy,” Bob replied. “Hold your position. At least we know where they are now.”
“Ghost, Illegal. I am on the other side of the hangar in the weeds across the runway. One of the roller doors just got pushed open a few feet. That hangar’s lit up inside like a Christmas tree. A big guy just came runnin’ out and went around to the front. He looks like he’s carryin’ an Uzi or somethin’ small like that. What do you want us to do?”
“Can you see anything inside?”
There was silence for a moment as Illegal scanned the building again. “Something. He didn’t open the door very far, but I guess it’s an airplane wing.”
“Ghost, Koz. That second guy came around back, and the blond guy ordered Linda and Ellie to get out. It’s them, all right.”
“Copy. Continue to observe and report, but keep your scopes on those doors, front and back. We’ll be overhead in a minute or two.”
“Then let the games begin,” Ace added as he slammed a magazine in the receiver of his Barrett and pointed out the door.
Mergen Khan was furious with Henry Shaw. He closed the rear door and motioned for his brother to roll the big door on the other side closed, before he turned to face the professor. “You are a moron! Bringing this woman and child in here? Are you intentionally trying to sabotage our mission?”
“No!” Shaw shot back. “I’m trying to carry mine out.”
“Your ‘mission’?” Mergen sneered at him. “By now you must realize that your little sideshow was intended to be nothing more than a distraction to keep them away from what we are doing down here at the airport. Are you too stupid to see that… Professor?”
Shaw turned and looked around the hangar, at the two airplanes, the scrap metal, acetylene torch, and finally at his chemist who was pouring a large beaker of thick brown liquid into the first of two cut-down gas cylinders. Finally, Shaw understood. “You called me stupid?” Shaw screamed back at Mergen. “Me? This isn’t 2001. As I told you before, what do you think you can accomplish with a small airplane? They’ll blow you out of the sky!”
Mergen Khan stepped forward, snatched the Beretta from Shaw’s hand. He grabbed him by the throat, raised him off the ground, and squeezed. Shaw was taller and no small man himself, but the angry Olympic wrestler handled him as if he were a rag doll. “I asked you before. Why are you here, and who are they? Who is she?” He held Shaw up in the air for a long moment, watching his face turn white. Shaw grabbed Mergen Khan’s arm and kicked out at him, but it soon became obvious even to him that it was a very lopsided match.
Finally, as Shaw’s face turned deep red, Mergen released his grip on Shaw’s throat and let him drop to the floor. “Who is she?” he screamed. “And why did you bring them here? I am not going to ask you again.”
“She is Burke’s wife,” Shaw gasped.
“Burke? Who is this ‘Burke’?” Batir Khan asked dismissively.
“One of their best Special Operations officers, a legend.”
Mergen glared at him. “And you brought them here so he will follow you?” Mergen Khan raised his submachine gun and would have shot Shaw on the spot if the professor hadn’t quickly spoken up.
“No! Burke is already on your trail and mine, and it is only a matter of time before he finds both of us. But he won’t dare attack us here, not while we are holding his wife and his daughter.”
“You really are nuts,” Linda laughed. “You don’t know him at all.”
Mergen turned and looked at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Now there will be no stopping him. He’ll tear the roof off this hangar and kill all three of you with his bare hands when he finds you. Your only hope is to drop those guns and run out that door as far and fast as you can. Then he might stop chasing you. Might.”
Mergen Khan looked down at her and sneered. “Really?” he said as he turned toward his brother and they both had a good laugh.
Linda smiled confidently at them and shrugged. “Have it your way,” she said.
Shaw laughed along with the Khans and looked over at al-Karman who chose to ignore all of them as he picked up another large pot and slowly poured a thick, viscous liquid into two five-foot
-tall gas cylinders that were standing upright in front of him. Both were painted green and had the upper six inches cut off. He would pour some into the one on the left and then pour some into the one to the right.
“He’s supposed to be working for me,” Shaw chafed. “You had no right to take him like that, without at least asking, Mergen.”
“You may have him back after he is done, Professor,” Batir sneered. “Not before.”
Shaw turned away and took a second look at the two airplanes. The one on the right already had two of the green cylinders mounted under its wings. The tops had been welded back on, and there appeared to be a detonator of some type attached to the nose of each.
“You must excuse our crude metalwork, Professor,” Mergen smiled. “My brother and I are hardly experts at welding and sheet metal work, but Aslan made sure we had competent training in the subject.”
Shaw suddenly spun back, looked at him, and grinned. “I get it now. Very clever! You’ve used the C-4 to convert the gas canisters into bombs, haven’t you?” he asked. “You’re going to crash them into something, like a building. Yes, I can see it now. Maybe the Operations Center up at Fort Bragg. That’s what you’re doing, aren’t you? Marvelous! You’re going to crash the airplanes into the Operations Center.”
Mergen Khan turned, looked at Batir, and they both began laughing. “Professor, do my brother and I look like Shahid to you? Do you really think we are on an Istishhad, a suicide mission? If that’s what you think this is, you are indeed a fool.”
Shaw frowned. “But the airplanes? 9/11? I thought you…”
“You thought? You brought this woman and her daughter here to lure her husband, and you want me to believe you actually had a ‘thought’? I should shoot you right now.”
“Take me with you. I want to attack them with you, Mergen.”
“No!” the muscular Turkmeni answered as he walked back to the rear door and picked up an AK-47 that was propped between the wall studs next to the door frame. “Batir and I will be taking off shortly; and we have neither the weight nor the inclination to bring you with us. But if you want to prove your devotion to the cause? Here,” Mergen said as he tossed the AK-47 to Shaw. “When this man Burke arrives, you may have the honor of killing him. You wanted to be the big revolutionary, the big freedom fighter, didn’t you?” he asked sarcastically. “After you kill Burke, you may put your foot on his chest and hold the Kalashnikov over your head as if it is the sword of the Great Sal-a-din,” Mergen Khan laughed at him. “You can pull out your cell phone, take a ‘selfie’ and post it on your Facebook page! Wouldn’t that be nice?” he sneered. “Make yourself useful. Go help al-Karman finish the cylinders and carry them over to the other plane. We have no further time for this foolishness.”
Burke's Revenge: Bob Burke Suspense Thriller #3 (Bob Burke Action Adventure Novels) Page 39