Enemy In the Room (53 page)

He said the only Russian word he knew.
“Nyet! Nyet!”

With his right hand he pointed to Mustafin.
“Mustafin OK. Mustafin OK!” Then, before the Russian could react,
he pointed to the airplane, and made the universal hand picture and
sound for an explosion. “Boom!” Then he pointed at his watch and
raised one finger.

While the Russian thought about that, David
pointed at him, Mustafin, and himself. “We GO!” pointing toward the
woods, and just for effect, he repeated the “Boom!” even
louder.

Without waiting for a response, David nodded
his head toward the trees and started dragging Mustafin.

The Russian looked at Sawyer, Mustafin and
the airplane, and made his decision. He slung the rifle over his
shoulder and grabbed Mustafin’s feet. “OK,” he said to a thankful
David, as they picked up speed, almost running toward the tree
line.

As they were nearing the drainage ditch
separating the tarmac from the trees, David heard loud honking and
looked back to see a black Mercedes with a blue light racing toward
the aircraft.

The police? How? I need to warn them
!
“Here, get down in this ditch!” he said to the Russian, as they
placed Mustafin in the depression, which was about four feet deep,
and the Russian crouched down.

From in the car Knox and Kamali saw the
plane’s open door, no guard, and two figures running toward the
trees, carrying something. “That’s Sawyer!” Kamali exclaimed.

“Where’s Victor? Stop here by the plane.
Let’s see what they’ve done inside!” Knox yelled.

As the car screeched to a halt, Knox leaped
out of the left side and bounded up the stairs. Kamali came out the
right side and saw Sawyer standing and waving. He pulled out his
pistol and fired three shots at him. Sawyer quickly dropped down
into the ditch. Then Kamali headed for the stairs.

Inside, it took a second for Knox’s eyes to
adjust to the lower light. He ran up to the control console. There
was a wallet open on it. He picked it up, saw Sawyer’s ID, then
looked at the screen, which showed the view from the nose of the
missile. For a moment he couldn’t make it out, since he expected to
see downtown Moscow and the Kremlin. Instead there were
fields…trees…an airport. A corporate jet parked alone. He
turned.

Kamali had followed him into the cabin and
had never seen such terror on a man’s face. “Get out!” Knox
screamed, pushing Kamali aside and running for the open
doorway.

From the edge of the ditch David and the
Russian looked out. A fast moving object came hurtling out of the
east, diving directly for the parked aircraft. David pushed the
Russian down and covered his own ears just as a huge explosion
ripped the air and shook the earth all around them. The heat from
the fireball passed over them and singed the trees on the other
side.

Half a minute later they crawled up again
and looked. Where the plane had been there was now just a
tremendously hot fire. Through the ringing in his ears, David
thought he heard sirens. The Russian guard hugged him and gave him
the universal thumbs-up sign. Suddenly very tired, David nodded,
looked down at Mustafin, who was still unconscious, and lay back
against the slope of the ditch, looking skyward.

“Thank you.”

But he only rested for a moment. Without
looking at the Russian guard, who was now standing and surveying
the destruction, David rolled Mustafin over and retrieved his own
cell phone. For good measure he took Mustafin’s as well, and put it
in his pocket.

Please work
. As sirens started to
blare from the main part of the airport, he clicked Tanya
Prescott’s number from the Recent list and pushed the green button.
It took a few moments, but he got her voicemail. He swore and
dialed again. Voicemail again.
Please
! He dialed again. This
time she answered.

“David? Is that you? Where are you?”

“Tanya, I’m at some airport. Vnukovo, I
think. Knox and his team sent a missile to kill President Harper
and President Temirov.” The sirens grew louder, and the Russian
guard started to yell. David covered his ear. “But the missile
exploded into Knox’s plane, and he’s dead.. A big fireball.”

“David, wait a minute. I’m parked outside
the Kremlin, and the two Presidents just went inside. I can barely
hear you. What did you just say about a missile? And what are those
sirens?”

“Tanya,” David raised his voice. “You’ve got
to listen carefully. I may be arrested any second. Knox tried to
kill the Presidents. Move them to somewhere safe. Then come to
Vnukovo Airport, and I’ll explain everything. But first call
whoever is in charge of commercial flights in America and tell them
that terrorists are about to shoot down an airliner at JFK Airport,
and another at LAX in Los Angeles. Using missiles. He called the
terrorists ‘martyrs’, so it may also involve suicide bombs. I’m not
sure, but I am sure about the two airliners and the missiles.
People are in great danger.”

“David, how do you know that?”

“One of the men who planned it is lying next
to me, and you can ask him. But there’s no time. You’ve got to warn
the two airports. It could happen any minute. I…”

Just then a Russian policeman grabbed the
phone from David’s hand and pushed him face down into the oily
ground, a gun to his head.

Kristen and Callie had watched the last part
of the President’s visit to the USNet factory on the television in
the lounge. Now, as they were standing in line to board their
plane, they watched a reporter on a live feed from just outside the
Kremlin wall reporting that the state dinner was just beginning,
and that there had been an explosion and fire at an airport on the
outskirts of Moscow, but it was many miles distant and was of no
concern to the President’s visit. Just as the segment was ending,
the reporter turned back toward the red brick walls of the Kremlin
as a massive gate opened and the President’s limousine could
clearly be seen to be leaving, several hours ahead of schedule. The
reporter look flustered.

As Callie handed her boarding pass to the
attendant for swiping, she said to Kristen, “I wonder what that’s
all about.”

Yusef pulled in and parked in the middle of
the large, deserted parking lot at the high school. He had picked
this location for several reasons, the main ones being its
proximity to the ocean end of the runway, and the tall hedges
around the parking lot which would hide his actions from the
street, until the missile was fired. From this location it would be
easy to pick up an airliner when it was at maximum thrust and
climbing quickly, as one was doing at just that moment. The angle
would allow for a perfect shot at the engines, as the plane headed
out over the ocean. He just had to track the plane, listen for the
lock-on tone, and then pull the trigger.

He worked quickly, even though he had about
thirty minutes. He had to prepare and arm the missile, which he
could do inside the van. Then he would insert the detonator into
the explosives in the bomb, and carefully turn on and put one of
the cell phone pairs in his pocket.

Callie had a window seat on the right side
of the plane, and Kristen was seated next to her. Given the
holiday, the plane was carrying a lot of passengers, but was not
full. They were reading magazines when the captain made an
announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain,
Kathryn Morgan. I’m assisted this morning by First Officer Drew
Roberts. Along with our Los Angeles based flight crew, we hope to
make this Fourth of July flight as uneventful as possible. The
baggage is almost loaded and the paperwork is on the way. We may be
a few minutes late for departure, but we should make that up in
route and arrive on schedule. We’ll be taking off to the west, over
the ocean, so you should have a great view of the coast. Now please
settle back and enjoy your flight. Thanks for flying with us on
this beautiful holiday morning.”

Yusef finished his tasks and tested his
three radios. One was the news, one was tuned to the control tower
frequency, and one was the police band. They were all working. With
fifteen minutes left before the shot, and maybe thirty minutes left
to live, he closed his eyes and prayed to Allah.

As the airliner pushed back from the gate,
Kristen said to Callie, “What a difference a few weeks can make.
It’s incredible how God can work in our lives, whether we know it
or not. Your Dad fired me six weeks ago, and disowned you. Now
we’re flying home, probably to big hugs.” She smiled.

Callie took Kristen’s hand. “You’re right. I
never could have imagined it. Thank you.”

“Thank God, not me.”

By the sheer force of her will and the fact
that she was at that moment in a high speed motorcade to a
confidential U.S. State Department dacha outside Moscow with the
President of the United States, Tanya Prescott was finally talking
to Adam Oglesby, who was heading up the holiday skeleton crew at
the Northeast Air Traffic Control Center.

“Who are you again?” he asked.

Tanya repeated her credentials and her
demand that Mr. Oglesby immediately shut down flight operations at
all of the airports in the New York and Los Angeles areas.

“And you’re telling me this because you got
a call from a civilian in Russia who overheard someone talking
about a missile shot at both airports? Do you realize what a
shut-down like that would do to air traffic in this country?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we’re
number three for take-off. That should put us wheels up at just
about ten local time. The weather in route looks very good.”

Yusef said a final prayer and got out of the
van. He pulled the missile case out and placed it on the ground,
then closed the van’s rear doors. He put the three portable radios
on the ground, and switched on the tower frequency, with the volume
loud enough so that he could listen as he stood next to the van. As
he had expected, the holiday morning and the hedges meant that he
was all alone—at least for now. He smiled as he opened the case and
placed the missile launcher on his shoulder. He depressed the Ready
button, which made the missile armed and operable.

At the field in New York, Perviz had
accomplished the same steps, following his mentor’s precise
orders.

“Mr. Oglesby, I can’t argue with you any
more. Do you want me to stop the motorcade and have the President
give you a direct order?”

“Los Angeles Tower, PacAir 511,” Captain
Morgan called on the radio.

“PacAir 511, Los Angeles Tower. Taxi into
position and hold, Runway 24 Left.”

“24 Left. PacAir 511” She then switched to
the cockpit intercom.
“Checklist complete?”

“
Checklist complete,”
the first
officer replied.

“
OK. I’ve got the controls, you call the
numbers.”

Yusef had listened to the Tower’s exchange
and could picture the PacAir jet turning onto the east end of the
long runway, even though he couldn’t see it.
A woman pilot. Even
better
.

“PacAir 511, cleared for take-off, 24
Left.”

Captain Morgan advanced the throttles and
began the take-off roll.

Yusef could hear the sound as the huge
airliner picked up speed on the runway. He turned to face south,
his finger touching the smooth metal of the trigger.

“
V1,”
the First Officer reported,
meaning that they were going too fast to stop in the remaining
length of the runway.

“PacAir 511, abort take-off ! I say again,
abort take-off,” came the command from the Tower.

“Past V1. We’re going.”

“Possible missile threat. All flight
operations cancelled.”

“
Damn.”
She lifted the nose and the
plane pulled off the runway.
“Pull the wheels up.”
“What is
it?”

“High probability missile threat.”

Kathryn Morgan, petite, with a wisp of gray
hair and a no-nonsense approach to the cockpit, had flown C-141
Starlifter heavy cargo planes in the Air Force for six years before
joining PacAir ten years ago, and she still flew every month with
the Air National Guard. She had more take-offs and landings in
Afghanistan and Iraq than she could remember. They had always been
concerned about missiles, but on her Air Force planes they had
flares and counter measures. On PacAir 511 she had only her
wits.

She moved the trim tab button forward and
pushed the nose over. Immediately a horn went off in the cockpit
and a recorded voice said, “Pull up. Pull up.” The voice could be
heard in the passenger compartment.

“
No way,”
she said almost to herself.
“Hold on”
she told the first officer.

With the warning horns blaring, Kathryn
Morgan accelerated a few feet off the ground, just like she had
done so many times in her C-141s, hoping that the ocean would come
fast.

Yusef heard the command from the tower and
cursed. He followed the noise of the jet’s engines below the
hedges, but the plane never climbed, preventing him from tracking
and locking on.

As the airliner neared the end of the runway
and the ocean, he caught a glimpse through a break in the hedges,
and, knowing that there would be no more planes that day, he led
the plane’s position and fired the missile, hoping that it would
find its target.

When they were almost to the beach
separating the airport from the ocean, Morgan climbed a few feet
and started a careful turn to the right, the long wing just above
the light poles and guy wires.

“Confirmed launch!” came the cry from the
tower. “Right quarter.”

She increased her turn as much as she dared.
Kristen and Callie, along with the other passengers, were pushed
back by the G-force, and a child toward the rear screamed.