Security jack randall 4, p.32
Security: Jack Randall #4, page 32
They appeared over the rooftops like giant black bugs and landed in the middle of the street, their rotors barely clearing the buildings. Bug-eyed crewmen seated behind mini-guns swept the streets through night vision helmets before one of them waved the SEALs aboard.
“Go!”
Kelly was once again yanked to his feet. The SEALs ran for the helicopters’ open ramps. He twisted away and ran the last few steps himself, jumping aboard and falling to the steel floor. The abrasive stickers on the floor assaulted his face but he was beyond caring. He pulled himself into a red canvas seat next to the door and counted his men again. They were all here. He looked out the ramp to see Parker doing the same thing as the last of the SEALs boarded.
“Three o’clock!”
Both the gunner and the SEALs swung as one to point their weapons in the shouted direction.
“Hold fire!”
“Who is it?”
A SEAL appeared from an adjoining street, jogging up to the bird with a prominent limp. Parker ran to meet him. Hoisting him up he carried the man the last twenty yards and threw him on the floor in the helicopter.
It was Garrett.
“You son of a bitch!”
“Sorry I’m late.”
The helicopters rose as one and thundered over the city. Rifle fire reached up for them, met by a torrent of fire from the gunship overhead. Within minutes they were over the ocean, but to Kelly it seemed like hours. Seeing the dark water below him released the dam and he began to cry. He tried his best to stop but it was beyond his control. Several of his crew were doing the same. SEALs walked among them, speaking quietly. Others tended to wounds and checked for injuries.
“Fifteen minutes to the Bush. You made it, Captain. You’re going home.”
Parker spoke with a calm voice and a concerned look. Kelly attempted a smile, trying to think of words to express his gratitude, but they wouldn’t come. Parker seemed to take his silence in stride and sat next to him, offering comfort without engaging. He talked of sports and things that had happened in the world while Kelly and his men had been held, not expecting an answer, just filling the silence with news from the real world. A minute later he pointed out the ramp at a ship passing below them. It was lit from stem to stern and steaming north, followed by the black shape of a warship.
“The Colorado.”
Kelly squinted at the ship. His ship had made it as well. He watched until it disappeared from sight. A smile formed on his face, inspiring one from the lieutenant sitting next to him. They grinned at each other like a couple of fools before Kelly’s attention was torn away by a large flash from the city.
Two large fireballs clembed into the sky over the city and then disappeared. The rumble of the shock wave reached them a few seconds later. Kelly looked at Parker for an explanation.
He shrugged. “Parting gift from the Bush. Maybe they’ll think twice about trying this again.”
A flash from inside the cabin made them turn. A SEAL was taking a picture of the man they had brought out with them. Parker took a good look at the man and noted the gold watch and rings. The scar on his face rang a bell in his memory but he couldn’t place a name to it. He had seen the face before. The man glared at the photographer with hatred but the gag in his mouth kept him quiet. Parker smiled. The picture would be in the Situation Room soon after they landed. He had rescued the hostages unharmed, his men had all made it out, and on top of that they had a prize for the intelligence guys.
He asked Kelly, “I may just have a beer tonight, how about you?”
Nothing had ever sounded so good. It served to wake up his clouded brain.
He held up two fingers. “Two.”
Parker laughed before tearing a patch off his sleeve. He handed it to Kelly.
“Here, it’s tradition.”
Kelly accepted it before offering a hand. Parker shook it without hesitation.
“Thank you.”
Parker left Kelly alone with his thoughts. He gazed out the ramp and tried to put together a plan for when they landed.
Out the ramp he saw another explosion, to the north and far out to sea. He didn’t have an explanation for it.
RAID IN SOMALIA: U.S. NAVY SEALS FREE HOSTAGES HELD SINCE OCTOBER
—The Associated Press
—FORTY-FOUR—
THE TUNNELS
Jack’s lungs screamed. The roar of water in his ears dulled while his body ached for air. Jason pushed on the cage bottom in a desperate attempt to escape. Survival instinct took over and Jack searched the steel floor as well. He felt Jason weaken, his struggles grow less frantic.
No! He had won. They had defeated the bastards. He would not die like this! His hands pushed again, but the steel would not budge. He felt himself start to black out.
And then there was air. His body sucked in lungfuls and his mind thought of nothing else. Eventually he opened his eyes. The cage was still there, but retreating.
“Jason!”
The young man was unconscious and pale. Jack shook him as the raft bounced off the wall. Jack slapped him hard. The engineer woke and started coughing.
“Jason! Get with it! We’re falling!”
“What?”
“Grab on to something! We’re falling!”
Jason opened his eyes and grabbed the rope on the side of the raft.
“Hold on.”
The raft fell faster and faster. The cage disappeared above them. They hit the bottom and were flushed out of the shaft and out into the maintenance tunnel. They had time for one quick look before they were sucked into the main tunnel and were again in complete darkness.
“Keep your head down!”
“What?”
“Get your head in the boat before we hit something!”
As if the tunnel had heard the raft struck something and flipped over. Jack clung to the rope and kicked his feet against the violent current. His head popped up and he had time for one quick breath before being swept under again. His legs struck hard objects and his hand scraped the concrete wall. He struggled to stay with the raft. Another impact flipped him and the raft over and he found himself inside it and alone. He braced himself with his feet while feeling for Jason. He found a hand clutching the rope and yanked hard. Jason slid over the side just as they struck the wall.
The flow seemed to slow for a moment before they felt themselves being driven uphill.
“Duck!” Jason spit.
Jason grabbed him and shoved his head into the raft’s bottom just as it hit the ceiling and scraped across it. They flipped again and then once more before being blinded by a sudden burst of sunlight. They bounced twice off of a submerged cement truck before floating out into the reservoir.
The raft slowed to a mild drift and they collapsed inside it, too exhausted to move. Debris of all shapes and sizes floated around them.
“Hey, Jason?”
“What?”
“Could you maybe move off my leg? I think I might have a bullet in it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Jason rolled enough for Jack to pull his leg out. It looked worse than it was.
“What the hell is that?”
Jack looked at the helicopter overhead.
“That is an Apache Longbow attack helicopter.”
“Good to know.”
THE INDIAN OCEAN
“Be careful, you fool!”
The mullah scowled as the lifeboat bounced against the ship. The others had clembed down the rope ladder into the smaller fishing vessel. He was too old for such things and had to be lowered using the container ship’s lifeboat. The Somalis jabbered among themselves. The two boats rocked in the swells. Distant thunder reached them. Flashes of light on the horizon suggested a coming storm and the men hurried in order to beat it.
Was it a storm? The lightning was strange. Heat lightening perhaps? But that produced no thunder, correct? The boat rocked again. The mullah held on to the seat and waited while the boat creaked down the side of the ship on noisy pulleys.
He could smell the desert. Even at sea the smell had come to him. It had been too long. His people needed a leader and it was past time for him to join them. The others would find their way to him, of that he was sure. They had dealt the Americans a blow worthy of Osama and for that he would become the new leader. A new king. One such as the world had not seen for a long time. He would rule an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas.
If he could just get off of this damn boat first.
Ignoring the men working around him, he gazed out over the ocean. The engines had sat at idle for some time and the boats had lost their trails of phosphorescent plankton. The sea now rose and fell beneath them like a black carpet, constantly moving but remaining opaque.
Except there. To the north. He followed a faint glow drawing closer. A fish? He did not understand.
A shout went up from the men on the ship. They too had seen it. The captain shouted orders into the radio. Men scrambled away from the rail.
The mullah rose on shaky legs and stared at the approaching glow with all of his hate. It passed directly under them and disappeared from their view.
• • •
The Mark-48 torpedo went beyond what was commonly referred to as a smart weapon. Most had taken to calling it brilliant. The targeting computer on the Jimmy Carter had fed the data on the container ship into its brain hours ago. The weapon had then digested the information and upon launch from its tube midship it had immediately accelerated to its top speed of 55 knots. Its built-in sonar had detected the sound of the ships idling engines and steered it on a circular course to its location. Triangulating its position from sonar it adjusted course to target the ship’s middle. Powering on its own active sonar it pinged its target for the last two hundred meters to establish the ship’s course and speed before making one last and very minor correction.
At a depth of five meters and directly below the keel amidships the torpedo detonated its 650 pound warhead, creating a shock wave that punched the ship in the belly and raised it several meters out of the water. The ship’s steel skeleton, having never been designed for such stresses, failed and the ship broke into two pieces amid a shower of steel shipping containers and salt water. Within twenty seconds both halves had vanished from the surface taking the fishing boat and all of its crew with it.
• • •
“Target destroyed, Captain.”
“Indeed.” Captain Jones watched the remains of the two ships sink to the bottom on his 3-D representation before deleting the image.
“Footage?”
“We caught it all, sir,” his first officer reported.
“Very well. Helm, come right fifteen degrees rudder, come to course one-eight-zero, all ahead two-thirds, and maintain depth until we get off the shelf.”
His crew echoed the order and carried it out. He caught them sharing a few looks as they did so. He took the mic and dialed in the ship’s intercom.
“Attention, crew, this is your captain speaking. We will now be returning to our original mission in the southern Indian ocean to assist with the search for the missing airliner. I would highly recommend that between now and the time we get on station you forget everything you’ve seen or heard over the last three days. That is all.”
The captain hung the mic back in place and the crew quickly found reasons to became overly engrossed in their duties. He shared a nod with his chief: Father had spoken, it was up to the boat’s Mother to see that the crew got the message. Either way, they would have over a month to think about it before the hatch opened to let them out and onto dry land.
TOP AL-SHABAB LEADER KILLED IN AIRSTRIKE, PENTAGON CONFIRMS
—ABC News
—FORTY FIVE-
THE ROBERT MOSES POWER PLANT
“So what now?” Jason asked.
Jack looked around. A boat was coming toward them at a rapid rate. The flashing lights and red paintjob identified it as a fire boat. A crew of cops dressed in SWAT gear lined the rail. Jack looked up at the control tower. He saw movement in the windows but couldn’t make out anything else.
“Now I find my wife.”
The fire boat pulled alongside and the two men were lifted out and onto the deck.
“Did they take the tower back?” Jack asked.
“Sir, my orders are to get you to the medics. Once they check you out—”
“Answer my question!”
“Uh . . . yes. The SEALs took the tower a few minutes ago.”
“And?”
“The terrorists are all dead, sir. The hostages are being moved.”
“Did they all make it?”
“I don’t—”
“Take us there. Now.”
The fireman knew a command voice when he heard one. Jack pushed away the offered lifejacket and stripped off the coveralls. The FBI badge clipped to Jack’s belt was all the fireman needed. He turned to the man at the con.
“To the dock.”
The boat roared toward the north end of the dam. Jack searched the tower for anyone he recognized. Nothing. He willed the boat to move faster.
PORT COLBORNE
Pat leaned on his chief as they walked to the edge of the roof of the YMCA and looked out over their town. The smoke from the burning buildings mingled with that from the lock to rise up and pass over them. The fire from the gas station burned to the north and numerous trucks surrounded it. Streams of water from the Coast Guard boats worked on the burning coal in the lock, but it would be hours, if not days, before the fire was out. The crumpled bridge with the mangled cars locked in its steel embrace sat frozen just downstream of the tower of smoke. The lights from fire and police units reflected off the cloud which mocked their efforts to defeat it.
Mike said, “It’s okay, we got the people out. We can rebuild the rest.”
“It won’t be the same,” Pat said.
“Maybe not.”
Another fire crew, from Buffalo, roared down the street to join the fray. Pat stumbled and grabbed his chief’s burned arm to keep from falling. Mike grit his teeth and said nothing. The scars would be bad, both on his arm and on the town. Pat was probably right.
“Maybe not,” he said again.
ODENTON, MARYLAND
“What just happened?” Larry asked.
Patrick stared at the screen through the fingers of both hands. He had seen the terrorist’s chest explode and shower the room in a red mist before the leader had spun around. The woman had produced a gun out of nowhere and aimed it at his head. Then the whole room went white. The cameras were overloaded and by the time they came back he saw nothing but dead terrorists and men who looked as if they had stepped out of a game of HALO walking around the room.
“I don’t know. Are those SEALs?”
“Yeah.”
He saw Eric helped to his feet from the chair at the console. How did he get into the chair? Medics appeared and they loaded Eric onto a stretcher. He clutched the tablet in his arms. He gave a thumb’s up at the camera. Patrick smiled. Another man, a civilian, appeared and sat down at the console. Patrick recognized him as one of the hostages.
“Larry, it’s time for me to go.”
“Wait? What do I tell—”
“I’d talk to Eric before I talked to anybody else.”
“So you’re just going to disappear now?”
“Sorry, Larry. That’s kind of how we work. Eric will fill you in.”
“Okay. Not like I have a choice. Thanks, Florey.”
“Anytime.”
Patrick severed the link to the FBI computers and then the one to the power plant before sitting back with a sigh. The cat jumped into his lap and he rubbed his head while he watched a pretty blonde on TV silently deliver the story. She wasn’t even close. Checking the time he saw that he was due to be back at work in a few hours. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
He disconnected the phone and carried the cat to the bed with him. Five minutes later he was snoring.
• • •
“Hold still for me, ma’am.”
Gonzales knelt in front of the senator and examined the device they had taped to her. He traced the wires and located the ground and then reversed his way all the way to the detonator before checking it all again. He disconnected one wire before snipping another in half. He yanked out the batteries and tossed them aside.
“We’re clear.”
Carson pulled a knife from his vest and sliced the senator free of the duct tape. She fell into Debra’s arms and sobbed. After a moment the woman collected herself and Debra passed her off to an aide.
She whispered in Debra’s ear, “Thank you. I was so stupid. Thank you for not letting me go.”
Debra smiled through her own tears. She just nodded acknowledgement before the aide helped the woman to her feet. A team of medics entered the room and two of them led the senator out the door while the others examined Eric. A stretcher was called for and the SEALs helped load him up and carry him out. Sydney pressed the tablet into his hands before they rolled him away.
“I’ll be right there,” she told him. He smiled at her and hugged the tablet tighter, giving the camera a thumb’s up as they carried him out. Sydney tried her best to return the grin but her composure failed as soon as she lost sight of him.
Hugging herself, Debra walked onto the balcony. Sydney joined her and they gazed at the reservoir in silence. The water had receded and the bridge was once again visible. Debris floated everywhere. Boats crisscrossed the water with cops hanging from the rails searching the surface for threats. The blades of the Apache echoed across the water.
Debra turned away and the tears came. Sydney hugged her and fought back her own.
“Debra!”
Debra flinched and Sydney turned.
“Jack?” she whispered.
“Debra!”
“Jack!”
She tore herself away from an amazed Sydney and ran inside in time to see Jack bounce off the entrance and stumble into the room. Then she was in his arms, laughing and crying. Everyone stopped to witness the reunion, including Sydney, who was crying now herself.
Debra finally pushed her husband away long enough to examine him.
