Final Vector (16 page)

Would another terrorist with an automatic weapon be standing sentry, ready to cut him down in a hail of bullets? Nick had no idea how many men with guns had actually entered the TRACON. Maybe the three he glimpsed were just one group of many; there was simply no way of knowing.

One thing he did know, however, was that standing here in the dark going back and forth in his head was accomplishing nothing, other than to make him more afraid and less sure of his ability to survive the next few minutes. Already a strong sense of impending doom threatened to reduce him to mindless panic. It was an almost physical presence, something Nick felt he could practically reach out and touch. It was big. And it was growing.

Nick took a deep breath, surprised by how loud the roaring in his ears sounded, and opened the break room door just a crack.

He leaned forward and peeked out through the tiny opening. No one was there.

He breathed a short prayer to whoever might be listening, then stepped through the doorway and started down the corridor.

Dimitrios and Joe-Bob stood in the marshy wetlands of the Hull Peninsula, frozen in the glare of the Jeep's bright headlights, their shadows stretching in the opposite direction, fuzzy and indistinct on the muddy ground. They waited calmly to see what would happen next. The situation felt oddly similar to the one last week when the Tucson cop had stumbled onto them as they loaded the Stingers from the Army transport vehicle into their unmarked panel truck.

This time, Tony was not stationed somewhere in the darkness with an automatic weapon, ready to cut these people in half.

But on the bright side, the Jeep obviously contained stupid kids looking for a little privacy so they could finish getting drunk and stoned. The chances that they were armed were slim, and even if they were, it appeared highly unlikely they were sober enough to hit anything they were aiming at anyway, at least not on purpose.

Dimitrios and Joe-Bob could clearly hear babbling coming from the Jeep. It was one of the old CJ models, with the removable canvas top that was nowhere to be seen, so the interior was open to the elements. Staring straight into the headlights, the two terrorists were effectively blinded and thus could not tell how many people the vehicle held. It sounded like there might be three separate voices.

Finally it became clear that the kids sitting inside the Jeep had no idea what to do. They had Dimitrios and Joe-Bob pinned in the glare of their headlights, but they had not spoken a word to them or shut the lights off or done anything at all for close to two minutes.

Fuck it
, thought Joe-Bob.
We don't have time for this
. He arranged his face into what he hoped was his most disarming smile and affected his strongest Forrest Gump good ol' boy Southern drawl. "Hey there, fellas, y'all mind turning down them headlights? All that brightness is givin' me a headache, you know?"

"What the hell are you doing out here?" came the shouted reply from the Jeep. It sounded aggressive and much too loud.

"Same as you, I would imagine. Relaxin'." Joe-Bob kept his voice nice and soft, placating and nonconfrontational.

After a moment the Jeep's headlights were extinguished. All Joe-Bob could see now was a slowly fading blue image burned onto his retinas. Not good, but certainly better than before.

"You're in our spot." The tension seemed to have drained from the kid's voice, and the statement was spoken softly rather than shouted. The kids inside the Jeep seemed to have decided that they had the situation well in hand and that it was no big deal, which was just the way Joe-Bob wanted it.

"Well, I'm sorry about that, boys," Joe-Bob replied. "We'll just be on our way, then. Find us another spot. We didn't mean to step on any toes or nuthin'." He exaggerated his drawl.

There was no reply from the Jeep, so Joe-Bob continued. "As a peace offerin', how 'bout we leave a couple beers with you fellas?

No harm, no foul, right?"

"Works for us."

Joe-Bob sloshed over to the cab of their Dakota, reaching in through the door and grabbing two water bottles. He held them against his chest, using one big arm to shield them from view, so that the occupants of the Jeep would not be able to see that they weren't actually beer bottles until it was much too late. As he splashed past on his way to the Jeep, Joe-Bob growled softly to Dimitrios, "Grab the duct tape."

By the time he reached the Jeep, Joe-Bob's vision had returned more or less to normal. He could see now that the vehicle held three young men in their late teens, two in front and one in back.

He reached over the Jeep's passenger side door, and as he did, he flung the two half-full water bottles hard into the face of the kid unfortunate enough to be sitting in there. He pulled a thirteen-inch tactical combat knife out of its nylon sheath at his waist and in one smooth motion gutted the kid, plunging the razor-sharp CTV2 stainless blade into his ample belly and pulling up, using its serrated upper edge to slice him jaggedly open between his ribs.

Joe-Bob heard a sharp, surprised intake of breath followed immediately by a weak, watery "Ahhhhhh." The kid's voice sounded bubbly and far away, and he was dying with unbelievable sudden-ness.

Blood dripped from the black titanium carbonitride blade, looking almost as inky as the blade itself in the near-total darkness. Joe-Bob lifted his hand to shoulder height, using his massive bulk and the unexpectedly terrifying sight of the knife to intimidate both of the vehicle's other stunned occupants. The attack had occurred with such savage swiftness that it seemed neither kid had a chance to grasp what had just happened to their friend. Their reflexes dulled by alcohol and drugs, both young men stared stupidly at Joe-Bob, mouths hanging open in identical displays of shock.

"So, who wants to be next?" Joe-Bob asked quietly with a half grin.

No one answered, so he motioned Dimitrios forward with the knife, still held shoulder high in plain sight of both kids.

By now the critically injured young man was panting as if he had just sprinted a great distance, his breathing rapid and shallow.

Each outward expulsion of breath sounded bubbly and wet, accompanied by a low moan, and he had his arms wrapped tightly around the front of his body as if trying to keep his entrails from spilling out of the gaping wound in his belly and chest. He was mostly failing in that regard. He was also fading fast and would be dead within minutes.

Dimitrios wrapped the duct tape around the driver's head twice and slapping it on the seam. He taped the man's hands to the steering wheel, then shut off the Jeep's engine and pocketed the key. He repeated the drill with the backseat occupant, taping that man's hands to the driver's side headrest since there was no steering wheel back there.

The wounded man in the front passenger seat slumped sideways against the door, his head lolling out the open window. He was still breathing shallowly but had slipped into unconsciousness.

Joe-Bob used the kid's denim jacket to wipe some of the blood and gore off his knife, which he then slid back into his scabbard. He told Dimitrios matter-of-factly, "Luckily this little misadventure didn't cost us too much time, but we really need to start getting set up. Let's move our asses." Without looking back, he trudged back to the Dakota. The Forrest Gump good ol' boy accent was almost completely gone.

Larry looked at his watch again and sighed. Where the hell was Futz, and what was taking him so long to get his goddamned snack? He should have been back ten minutes ago. It wasn't like Larry minded sitting and staring at a mostly empty radar scope, especially since the federal government was paying him a 10 percent premium on top of an already handsome salary for working in the middle of the night, but he could feel his reflexes slowing and his eyes beginning to droop. He knew he needed a break; even just a few minutes to take a walk and stretch his legs would be enough.

He thought about what had happened to Lisa and wondered how he would react if he had been in Nick's position. Wife brutally murdered and now buried in the ground, without the opportunity to even say good-bye.
Life sucks; then you die
.

Larry had married Sharon a few years before Nick and Lisa tied the knot, and although he and Sharon certainly didn't have the perfect marriage--at least not when you compared it to Nick and Lisa's--Larry knew he would be lost without his wife. He couldn't imagine how Nick was going to cope. He had tried talking to his friend about it a few times, just to get him to open up a little, and Nick had politely but firmly rebuffed him every time. He said he wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Larry supposed he could understand that.

As he was deciding whether it was worth making another attempt to raise the subject with Nick, he heard the loud click of the main TRACON door opening behind him. Larry was a little surprised that Nick would enter from the door at the other end of the Ops Room rather than the side door he had used when he left, but maybe he had gone to his cubicle in the ready room to grab a book to read while he sat at the scope doing nothing. At least he was finally back, and Larry could get started on his own break.

He sat resting his chin on his hand with his elbow propped on the console in front of the scope, watching the lone target representing ChekPro Air flight 112 move slowly but steadily toward Logan Airport. In the old days, airplanes running checks for the banking industry were a staple of overnight traffic at facilities all over the country, but with the advent of electronic banking, the check runners were becoming a dying breed. Larry figured within a few years they would be gone entirely. He wondered what the pilot of ChekPro 112 would do then.

Larry felt rather than heard the presence of a person standing behind him. Without turning around, he started a position relief briefing. "Okay, here's what's going on--" He stopped in midsen-tence as he felt the cold, insistent pressure of a gun barrel being jammed into his neck.

"No,
here
is what is going on," came a deep, unfamiliar voice.

His diction carried no trace of an accent that Larry could discern.

Then whoever was holding the gun pushed harder until it was all he could feel. It was right beneath his ear. It defined his existence.

"You will be quiet. You will do exactly as you're told. If you cooper-ate, you will live. If you do not, you will die an extremely unpleasant and painfully messy death. Do we understand each other?"

Larry swallowed heavily and gave an almost imperceptible nod, afraid that if he moved, the gun would go off and blow his head all over the front of the radar scope.

"Good," came the voice, cold and hard. "Now, where is the other controller?"

Lifting his hand slowly, still staring straight ahead, Larry pointed behind himto the Manchester Area, where their midnight controller was sitting.

"I'm not talking about him. He is already being taken care of.

See for yourself."

Larry swiveled his head, still moving slowly, aware of the constant pressure of the gun barrel on his neck. He looked across the big, dark room to the Manchester Area and saw a man dressed all in black, with black greasepaint covering his face, duct taping Ron Johnson to his chair. Ron's mouth was invisible under a slash of silver tape, and he looked petrified, his wide, panicked eyes staring back at Larry. He wondered if he looked as frightened as Ron and figured he probably did.

"Now, back to my original question, and please bear in mind I am a man blessed with many good qualities, but patience is not one of them. Where is the other controller? I know the Boston Area employs two controllers on the midnight shift. Where is your partner?"

These guys hadn't seen Nick yet. Larry hesitated, not sure how to answer the question, knowing his life was probably hanging in the balance. They were aware that the Boston Area used two controllers to cover the midnight shift, so they were obviously pretty knowledgeable about the operation, but if Nick hadn't been captured, there was always the possibility he could somehow escape and bring help.

"Answer the question!"

Larry closed his eyes and thought hard before answering.

"There is no other controller in my area tonight. He called in sick before the shift started, and the government refuses to pay overtime for a controller just to sit around on the midnight shift, so tonight I'm here alone." He licked his lips nervously and winced, half expecting to see a split second of bright light and hear the beginning of the gunshot roar that would end his life, but nothing happened.

One second went by and then two. Larry assumed the guy was digesting the information and trying to decide whether to believe him.

"So it is just you and this other man tonight?" The man gestured with the gun barrel at Ron, now completely immobilized in his chair across the room, before returning it to its now customary spot just under Larry's ear.

"That's right," he answered. It seemed like the man was going to believe him, but who the hell knew what these guys were thinking? Why were they here? What did they want? And where
was
Nick?

A terrifying thought occurred to Larry. If Nick were to walk through the door, the men dressed in black would know he had been lying, and all three of them--Nick, Ron, and Larry--would probably be dead within a matter of seconds. He realized he was holding his breath and tried to force some air out of his lungs. It came out reluctantly and shakier than he would have expected.

Oh, well. There was nothing he could do about it now. He had chosen what seemed like the only viable path with his answer and would now just have to hope that Nick had seen the men and was calling for help from his cell phone or perhaps had escaped and was on his way to alert the police.

Larry took another breath, this one marginally less panicked than the last. "Why are you here? What do you guys want?"

"Shut up. You'll find out when I'm ready to tell you."