by Rachel Brune
Alan stepped out of the restroom in time to see Mabry flash his badge at the gate attendant. He couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but the attendant stepped aside and let the detective pass onto the gangway.
Mabry made his way down the cramped aisle. The passengers had already boarded the flight, and he gingerly stepped around elbows and knees, ducking at the open overhead bins.
Scott sensed someone in his peripheral vision and half-turned. A sharp, piercing pain in his side buckled his knees and caused his throat to swell in sudden panic.
Far from following his quarry onto the plane, Alan had proved to be a strategic step behind him. Scott grabbed behind him, his hand fastening on Alan’s wrist, which gripped a short, ceramic blade. It was only a few inches long, but enough to paralyze him with a deep, bloody pain.
“Quiet,” said Alan, in his ear.
Mabry couldn’t move. The terrorist put his arm around the detective, as if greeting him. Gently, he lowered Mabry to an empty seat. With luck, no one had seen the exchange yet. Mabry looked up at him, the edges of his vision going dark.
“Sir? Is everything all right?” The lone flight attendant came down the aisle. Alan stood up.
“He’ll be fine,” said Alan. “I’m going to need to see the pilot.”
“Excuse me?” asked the attendant, confused.
“The pilot,” said Alan. “I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, the captain is preparing for takeoff,” said the attendant.
“I know,” said Alan. He showed her the knife.
Mabry slowed his breathing. He watched as Alan guided the stunned attendant down the aisle to the cockpit. His vision began to gray as the plane rumbled to life and rolled ever so slowly away from the gate.
The lights of Times Square had given rise to the image of New York as the city that never sleeps. The neon daylight rendered even more brilliant with the glare of the harsh spotlights accented by the flashing red and blue of the police cordon around the truck.
“Are we sure that’s the truck from the picture?” asked Nina.
“We’ve got a positive confirmation on the MTV sign and where you can see the writing on the door,” said Sergeant Wright. “We didn’t get a good look at the plates, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s the truck that’s been clogging up communications traffic.”
“Any sign of occupants?” asked Nina.
“Nothing,” said Wright. “We’ve got teams canvassing a ten-block radius. Somebody’s got to have been sending those stinking pictures. We’ll find them if they’re out there.”
Nina’s phone vibrated with another incoming message. “Hang on one second.”
She flipped the phone open. “Yes, this is Morris. What have we heard from Newark?” Her face hardened. “Then wake him the hell up! I don’t what time it is or however many people you have to piss off, we’re dealing with an actual threat not some damn exercise.”
At the third closed café in a row, Marcus threw the folder with his obsolete itinerary in a pile of garbage. If Alan wanted him to deliver messages instead of packages, that was fine, but he was going to do it somewhere warm. The sky finally cleared, but the temperature dropped in the crisp early morning air.
There was one guaranteed location where he could sit for a while, unnoticed by the traffic. He ducked through the automatic doors leading into the Port Authority Bus Terminal, searching for an empty table at one of the cafés inside. With his dreadlocks tucked under a cap, bus schedule and a newspaper spread across a table, he looked like a slightly scruffy commuter waiting for the first bus to Jersey.
The phone vibrated. Marcus sipped a large cup of coffee. Opening it, he checked the message. This time, there was no picture. The message attachment showed a dense gray bunch of words. Marcus sent the message forward without reading it.
Mark wondered where his cameraman was. He had assured Taggert that the man had driven straight to the station, but they had been unable to link up. He was having a hell of a time getting cell signal. Taggert blew his top, but settled down when he realized that the van and camera were among the last tangible assets of his network.
By this time, other news crews were on scene. Through the additional spotlights, cables and talking heads, Mark glimpsed his cameraman fighting through to his position.
“My camera’s here,” said Mark.
“Where’s the van?” asked Taggert.
The cameraman stumbled up in time to hear Taggert’s question. “Parked around the corner.”
“All right,” said Taggert. “I’m going to get this from the van. Mark, you do what you do best.”
“I’ve got the picture,” said Mark, tapping on the phone keyboard, bringing up a PDF file. “Here—take this.” He handed his phone to Taggert.
“What’s this?”
“That document’s got all the messages we’ve been receiving,” said Mark. “Plus all the messages I’ve been receiving for the last six months.”
Taggert stared, jaw dropping. “I love you.”
Mark drew back.
“All right, I’m on the van,” said Taggert. “You get the footage, I’ll get it on our Web site. We’re not going down without a fight!”
“You ready?” asked the cameraman.
“Ready to go,” said Mark.
“Rolling.” The red light blinked and steadied on the top of the camera. “You’re good to go.”
“This is Mark Granger, reporting from midtown where a previously unknown terrorist group, Jeysh Muqadissi fi Amrik, has just obliterated the headquarters of the New York Central News,” Mark began.
Taggert sighed happily and stood to the side to watch his star reporter do his thing. They were going to sell tons and tons of toilet paper—once they got new computers and cameras.
Inside the plane, the passengers remained hushed. Most of the lights were off. If anyone found the lack of pre-flight safety brief worrisome, no one spoke up.
Mabry slumped in the seat. From his window, he watched northern New Jersey silently pass below him. He guessed the commuter hop was heading toward the chaos already engulfing midtown.
He gasped, feeling the wet trickling down his back, his fingers sticking to the slightly tacky dampness. He tried to move, willing his body to respond.
Mabry staggered up, pulling himself out of his seat. The motion caused him to pull back on the seat in front of him, stimulating an angry response from the rudely-awakened passenger.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mabry whispered. “Slipped.”
The elderly woman settled herself back in the chair, closing her eyes again.
Using the seatbacks to support himself, Mabry considered his options as he stumbled toward the cockpit. He was armed with his service weapon, which would be completely useless. He couldn’t be sure that the .45-caliber bullet wouldn’t pierce the skin of the plane, or the body of an innocent passenger. He closed his eyes and spent a moment wishing for some high-octane pepper spray.
He stumbled near the galley area and looked down to see what he tripped over. The flight attendant sat on the floor, legs extended, eyes staring wide. In the gloom of the cabin, Scott saw the telltale stains on her blouse. She pressed a hand to the wound just under her ribs.
Scott balled up a towel from the service station, and bent down to press it against the wound, putting her hand back on it to pressure-stop the bleeding.
“Is there a way you can call back to the terminal?” whispered Scott.
The attendant nodded, eyes fixed on some distant point.
Scott took her chin in his hand, directing her gaze at him. “I need you to call back right now and report the situation.” Scott smoothed her hair away from her eyes. “Can you do that for me?”
The woman nodded.
“Okay,” said Scott. “Can I get into the cockpit from the outside?”
The woman shook her head. “He’s locked it from the inside. You can’t get in.”
“Did he say anything about killing the pilot?” asked S
cott.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That’s okay, then,” said Scott. “I’m going to check on it. You go ahead and make that call.”
The attendant nodded again, but her eyes were glassy and as he watched they slowly rolled back in her head.
Scott cursed and stood up. The effort cost him. He looked at the cockpit door. After 9-11, most airlines had installed reinforced doors that were impervious. There was not going to be a way through the door using force.
Mabry lifted his fist and pounded on the door.
Inside the cockpit, Alan jumped. The knife he held at the pilot’s throat jerked, tapping a small amount of blood along the tip. The pounding came again.
“NYPD,” said Mabry. “Open this door, asshole.”
Alan did not answer. He replaced the knife at the pilot’s throat.
Mabry pounded on the door again. “Listen up, chicken shit, I just called DHS. They’re scrambling jets already. They will shoot us down before you get close to your target.”
His voice penetrated through the cabin. He looked back down the aisle to see rows of shocked faces staring at him.
“Don’t worry, folks,” said Mabry. “We’re just having a little situation. Everything here is under control.”
Mabry stumbled forward. In turning to reassure the passengers, he missed Alan opening the door. The terrorist planted a kick exactly in the same spot he had stabbed him earlier.
“Shit.” Mabry fell to his knees. He barely got his hands up to intercept Alan’s knife hand.
The terrorist held the blade lengthwise along his forearm. He slashed out with his hand, the blade narrowly missing Mabry’s face.
Mabry trapped Alan’s arm, fighting desperately to get his feet under him, to keep the knife away from him. Alan swung with his free hand, nailing Mabry with a hammer of a left hook.
Scott ducked his chin, refusing to turn away and leave the knife hand in his blind spot. Using both hands, he exerted pressure up on Alan’s wrist.
Alan snaked his leg around Scott’s thigh and pushed him off balance. The big detective fell backward, landing in the aisle. Passengers on either side climbed as far away as possible, which wasn’t very far in the cramped cabin.
Alan fell with Scott, landing on top of him. He continued to hammer blows down. Scott kept hold of Alan’s knife hand, ducking his face into his outstretched arms, trying to protect it from the blows.
The plane banked suddenly. Alan looked up. Taking advantage of his opponent’s momentary distraction, Scott attempted to roll Alan off him.
The move was stopped by the close quarters. Alan’s body stopped against the seats. Unable to generate enough momentum, Scott attempted an arm bar, still trying to get Alan to drop the knife.
Alan and Scott strained against each other. To the observers on the plane, it didn’t look like any fight they had ever seen on television. Instead of two men trading wild blows, they seemed almost like statues as they pushed against one another, attempting to gain domination.
With a cry, Alan dropped the knife. Scott drew back and pushed it away, then flinched. Alan drove his fist into Scott’s kidney, then into the wound on his back, now bleeding profusely.
Involuntarily, Scott curled into a ball. Alan scrambled for the knife.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Daylight was not expected for several hours yet, but already commuter traffic was backed up, a long cordon into the heart of the New Jersey highway system. Once they had arrived on scene, Nina Morris had immediately issued a directorate shutting down all traffic in and out of Manhattan. A phone call to the Department of Homeland Security grounded air traffic at all airports from Bangor, Maine, to Raleigh, North Carolina. Someone finally got through the tangle of bureaucracy at Newark International.
Task Force teams, working with the local precinct, spread out in a widening perimeter from the white truck parked in front of the MTV studios. The buildings evacuated of all personnel, any early morning viewer of the channel would be treated to the live feeds of a phalanx of news cameras streaming the image of the organized chaos lighting the skies of Times Square.
MacAllister looked around for Mark, found him framed expertly against the image of the truck and the MTV logo. He thought about warning the reporter to get back, but shook his head. The reporter was the least of his worries.
Squad cars blocked the perimeter of the street for two blocks in each direction. Men and women dressed in bomb tech gear directed one team, led by Sergeant Wright, as they emplaced barricades and began enforcing crowd control.
“Can you estimate how much explosive that truck could be carrying?” Wright asked one of the techs.
The woman looked up at him from her instruments. She shrugged. “The back of the truck doesn’t seem abnormally low. But then again, that’s a big truck, built to carry a heavy load. It could be packed to the gills with enough explosive to blow a crater the size of Connecticut. We just don’t know.”
“Shit.” Wright didn’t know what to say. “Any sign of movement?”
“Nothing,” said the tech. “Nobody’s seen anything.”
Said and Abdel, inside the box of the truck, ignored the commotion outside.
“Do you think we have given him enough time?” asked Abdel.
“Perhaps,” said Said. His face, like Abdel’s, seemed more shadowed than illumined by the light of a small battery-operated camp lantern.
“There are enough people outside,” said Abdel. “We should set both explosions now. Take as many out as we can.”
“We’ll stick to the plan,” Said answered. “
“There’s enough of a crowd,” said Abdel. “It is time.”
“I will decide when it is time.”
“I am ready,” said Abdel.
“I know you are,” his partner answered, “as am I. But we must wait until we know Alan is ready.”
“What if he can’t call us?” asked Abdel.
Said sighed. He looked at his watch. He didn’t know why they hadn’t heard from Alan, but the minute was fast approaching that the leader had given him as the failsafe detonation time.
“All right.” Said picked up the control panel. “But we stick to the plan.”
Mark’s throat was sore. The fatigue of the night crept up on him, even as adrenaline struggled to keep him on the wave he’d been riding since last afternoon. He faltered, running out of things to say. He hoped Taggert was piecing something together in the van.
The reporter paused. He turned back toward the truck, extending a hand to gesture at the scene.
On cue, an explosive blast of air and flame darted out from under the truck.
Mark turned around. “Did you get that?”
The cameraman nodded. He kept taping.
Attention up and down the perimeter delayed. The sound, similar to a backfire, caught almost no one’s attention.
In a freak parody of the wave, camera by camera, the crews began focusing on the truck. The explosion in the undercarriage blew out all four tires. The truck settled lower on the ground.
“What the hell was that?” asked Nina.
“Eden TOC, this is Alpha Team.” Wright’s voice crackled through the radio.
“What the hell is going on?” Nina asked.
“Bottom of the truck blew out.”
“Can you see a trigger?”
“Could be someone inside the truck.”
“Can you see anyone?”
“No. Request permission to fire on target.”
“Fire at what?” Nina asked. “You see anyone?”
“Negative,” answered Wright. “But if there’s anyone in the box, we need to stop them.”
Nina considered. She was reluctant to put her people near the truck until someone could tell her what was inside.
“Sergeant Wright, do not fire on target unless you have a clear shot at a human being. The last thing we need is for you to shoot at something that's going to explode and take us all with it.”
In the command center vehicle, Nina's attention centered on her phone. She listened, cursing bureaucratic inefficiency, as the head of security at Newark International shared the news that one last plane had taken off before the air ban went into effect.
With a gesture, she beckoned MacAllister. “Yes, yes, I understand. Hold one minute.” She put the phone receiver against the lapel of her jacket. “Mac, I need you to call immediately and get the status of my jets. We’ve got one plane that took off from Newark in the past half hour, and then went off the grid. Should be landing at Albany right about now, but it never arrived.”
“I still can’t get in touch with Mabry,” said MacAllister. “He’s either dead or on that plane.”
“If he’s on that plane, he’s already dead,” said Morris. “When the jets get here, they have orders to shoot down anything crossing into the airspace over the city.”
She put the phone back to her ear.
MacAllister dialed the number, and spoke shortly with the commander of the Air National Guard unit. He wrote “10 minutes” on a sticky note and handed it to Nina, who nodded in acknowledgement. Then, finding himself with no immediate task, he went outside in the cold to watch with the rest of the witnesses to the next major terrorist attack on American soil.
Mark finished up his spot and held up a palm up at the cameraman, who focused his lens on the burning debris.
Inside the van, Taggert kept an eye on coverage from the other networks as he edited the story for immediate streaming on the Web and to the wires. Each of them, now with plenty of B-roll to cut from, somehow managed to find talking heads, a different one for each station, depending on its style of reporting and political leanings. However, the message delivered contained the same basic consensus.
This was an attack not just on Americans, but also on the decadence of western culture and values. The MTV/NYCN angle ensured that every news source would cover the attacks on their fellow media outlets, and give a meaty twist to the scenes of destruction and chaos.
Chapter Twenty-Seven