Liberty (44 page)

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Authors: Stephen Coonts

BOOK: Liberty
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Fahah Saqib was ready. He had lived as best he could and was ready for the eternal pleasures.
Allah Akbar!
On the outskirts of Atlanta the van stopped for a few minutes. Salaah went to another vehicle and returned a few moments later. Weapons were passed out. Fahah Saqib was given a submachine gun and several magazines of ammunition. With the weapon in his hand he felt like a warrior, a warrior for Allah, and was almost overcome by emotion. He had to turn his head to keep the others from seeing the dampness of his eyes.
Soon the van was rolling again, each man cradling his weapon in his lap.
The Wal-Mart parking lot was practically empty when they arrived. A few vehicles were parked near the employees' entrance and several abandoned or broken-down cars speckled the lot, but that was about it.
As directed, Fahah Saqib took up a post behind the Wal-Mart, near a large Dumpster. He lay down amid the weeds and trash beside the Dumpster and put his spare magazine on the ground beside him. He had already inserted one in the weapon. Now he chambered a round and put the safety on.
It had rained during the night, he noted. The asphalt was damp, with puddles here and there. The smell of garbage from the Dumpster was heavy in the moist air. Fahah Saqib had not eaten this morning, but the smell of rotting garbage made him lose his desire for food. There would be plenty in Paradise, he thought. However, after some reflection, he wondered if there were any food there at all. Pondering the question, he decided there probably was, because Allah knew men liked food.
The minutes ticked by slowly. Fahah Saqib looked repeatedly at his watch.
There were no other people in sight. Several times he heard airplanes, and once a helicopter a long way off. He didn't look for them.
“Three of the cells are in Atlanta,” Hob Tulik told his boss, Myron Emerick, over the encrypted line. Emerick was in the FBI's crisis management center in the Hoover Building in Washington, monitoring the situation. Tulik was still in Florida. “They are in a Wal-Mart parking lot, armed to the teeth, waiting for something. Perhaps waiting for a weapon to arrive.”
“Is it there now?”
“I don't think so. They parked two of the vans in the center of the parking lot in front of the store and stationed men around the building and on the edge of the lot. They have made no attempt to enter the store or parked trucks or vehicles. Looks to me as if they are waiting. There's a total of a dozen suspects, we believe, nine on guard and three by the vans.”
“All armed?”
“Yes, sir. Apparently so.”
“If the weapon is there, I want you to send the men in now.”
“I don't think it's there.”
“Why not move in now, arrest these men, then wait for the weapon?”
“Sir, I have no way of knowing what these suspects are waiting for.”
“Okay,” Emerick said. Sometimes you had to go with gut instincts because those were all you had. His brain told him Tulik was right and his gut told him the Atlanta suspects were waiting for a weapon.
He called the White House and got Sal Molina. He relayed what he knew.
“Where are the other weapons?” Molina wanted to know.
“We are not sure. We've got terrorists running around
willy-nilly right now. Got people on'em … if they get within rifle shot of a nuke, we'll bust'em.”
“Keep me advised. The president has asked me to keep him informed minute by minute.”
“Right,” said Myron Emerick, and hung up. He sat staring at the giant computer-generated map display that covered the far wall, and wondered aloud, “Where the devil are the other weapons?”
A few minutes before eight in the morning a tractor pulled onto the Wal-Mart property towing a chassis with a container on it. The driver raced his rig across the empty parking lot and only applied his brakes to slow for the turn down the narrow place beside the building. Fahah Saqib heard the vehicle coming and tightened his grip on his weapon.
The driver came into sight behind the building. With the tractor snorting diesel exhaust, it backed smartly to the loading dock. Leaving his rig running, the driver strolled inside to find someone to sign for his load.
That's when two of the militants came walking around the building. They climbed into the tractor cab and put it in gear. They drove it slowly around the building and parked it next to their vehicles in the center of the lot.
Fahah Saqib saw the rig disappear around the building with Saleem and another man in the cab. He waited where he was. Fifteen seconds later the original driver of the tractor-trailer came out of the building, saw his rig was gone, and began running after it. Fahah Saqib stood up then, leveled the submachine gun with the butt against one hip, and triggered a burst at the man.
Missed him, of course.
He triggered another burst, which went so far over the man's head that he didn't see the bullets strike.
The driver turned and ran for his life back toward the loading dock. Saqib tried two more bursts, one of which made a hail of sparks against the concrete loading dock.
The driver threw himself up on the dock with surprising agility, rose instantly to his feet, and lunged for the door.
When he disappeared, Fahah Saqib lowered his weapon and thoughtfully removed the magazine. He inspected it, then replaced it with a full one. Well, he had only fired a submachine gun once before, one magazine, about a year ago.
He was leaning against the container, watching the loading dock, when an FBI sniper shot him from three hundred yards away. He didn't hear the shot. The bullet went through both lungs and his heart. He collapsed, wondering what had happened. Ten seconds later his heart stopped.
Two helicopters swooped down across the roof, headed for the main parking lot. In less than thirty seconds five of the militants were dead, four more were wounded, and the remainder had thrown down their weapons. One ran. Local police arrested him a half mile away in the middle of an overgrown vacant lot.
The agent in charge of the operation, George Ekimov, opened the container. It was packed with light office furniture, cheap stuff made of soft wood. His men began unloading the furniture while an agent with a powerful spotlight and a video camera recorded everything.
Halfway through the load they came to beanbag chairs. The first ones that the agents unloaded seemed unremarkable, but then they tried to pick up one that was too heavy for two men to lift. It took four men to scoot the thing out of the trailer.
Ekimov used a knife on the fake leather covering. He reached into the cut and pulled out a handful of the pellets. They were made of soft metal, blown with air to give them bulk. He used his pocketknife on one of them.
Lead.
More chairs were removed, revealing a mound of canvas bags taped into position with an extraordinary amount of duct tape. Ekimov used his knife to cut away a bag. He examined it under the video camera's spotlight. The
bag contained twenty-five pounds of #8 lead birdshot.
When the bags of birdshot were completely removed, there sat the warhead, bolted to the floor of the container. It was smaller than Ekimov thought it would be. Between the warhead and the container floor was a half-inch-thick sheet of lead. Each of the four or so dozen high-explosive detonators that surrounded the round warhead was wired to a black box—a sea of yellow wires. Ekimov assumed the box was a complex capacitor designed to send electrical impulses to all the detonators at the appropriate nanosecond. There didn't appear to be a battery or source of electrical power, although there were wires protruding from the box that one might use as a connection point.
One of the agents told him there were a dozen car batteries in one of the vans. “Maybe they were going to detonate it right here,” the agent said to Ekimov.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Start questioning the survivors. Where are the other weapons? Find one that speaks English and get it out of him.”
“Miranda warnings?”
“No. This is war. They're enemy soldiers until somebody in Washington says different. Where are the other bombs? Find out, Goddammit!”
“Yes, sir.”
While the photographer circled the weapon and continued taking video from every angle, Ekimov got on the encrypted telephone to Hob Tulik. When he finished that call, he made another, to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team that was standing by at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. While he was talking he heard a rumble of thunder.
Holy … ! A lightning bolt in this vicinity might set this thing off, he thought.
“Better hurry,” he told the EOD team leader.
The parking lot shooting in Atlanta was soon on local television stations. A traffic helicopter in the vicinity got
footage of the FBI agents unloading the container. No one in law enforcement whispered the word “nuclear,” and several hinted at drugs, so that became the story—FBI and local cops had seized a container full of drugs. Soon the video from the helicopter was on the broadcast and cable networks.
Jake Grafton was in the executive terminal at the Boston airport when he got a call from Gil Pascal alerting him to the story. As it happened a television in the pilot's lounge was tuned to MSNBC, which was running the helicopter video. The container was an ominous presence. Although the voice-over commentator was rambling about drugs, Jake Grafton wasn't fooled.
His cell phone rang again. Harry Estep from the FBI this time, with news. The FBI had a nuke—it was in that shipping container that was on television.
“It was sitting on a lead plate, surrounded with lead birdshot and blown lead pellets. That's probably how it came into the country.”
Jake Grafton grunted. He had suspected something like that, but why say so?
“Emerick thinks all the weapons are in the country. He hopes to get them in the next twenty-four hours, he says.”
“By God, I hope he does,” Jake said fervently.
“We're running complex surveillances on a couple of groups that are going somewhere in a big hurry right now. Perhaps to collect bombs. I'll keep you advised.”
“Right.”
It must have been Jake's tone, because Estep continued earnestly, “Soon as I know something, I'll call you.”
“Right,” Jake said, and flipped the mouthpiece shut.
Fleet Week, he thought as he stood watching the video from the helicopter circling the Georgia Wal-Mart parking lot. If a nuke went off in New York Harbor amid a hundred warships, the public would think it had been an accidental explosion of an American weapon aboard a U.S. Navy ship. There would be no one left alive to tell a different story. The blast in New York Harbor and the subsequent
radioactive and political fallout would deal the American economy a devastating blow. U.S. Navy warships would be banned from most of the world's ports, including, probably, those in California and Puget Sound. America's ability to protect her interests around the world would be paralyzed, perhaps fatally so. Since America was the foremost defender of liberal civilization, that, too, would be in jeopardy.
One bomb … and the era of Pax Americana would end in a mushroom cloud.
The two-lane highway ran north through central Florida through scrub pine and swamps and past occasional mobile homes sitting on naked scars in the red earth. The May sky was clear and blue. The asphalt was steeply crowned with berms of crushed coquina.
Nguyen Duc Tran kept the tractor-trailer rig at sixty miles per hour. The van was still behind him, a hundred yards or so back.
The first town they came to had a bypass around it, so he took it. One stoplight, and he began slowing. The light turned green by the time he was down to forty, so he jammed on the accelerator and went on through.
He wouldn't be so lucky every time.
If the Arabs in the van decided to shoot out the rig's tires, they would have him. The fact that the rig might crash was the only thing that had kept them from doing that already, he thought.
They were committed men who would stop at nothing. They would do it before long.
Perhaps, he thought, they were using their cell phones to get another carload of terrorists into position ahead of him.
He began looking for roads leading off into the swamps to the left and right.
Akram and Mohammed Mohammed argued over the best course of action. Crashing the truck might damage the weapon—if that happened they were defeated. And yet, failure to stop the truck was certain defeat. Unless they intercepted it farther north when the driver stopped for fuel. Fortunately the road was very straight, a ribbon of asphalt running through the hinterland.
One of the men in the back of the van was on a cell phone to the leader of the third cell assigned to their group. Alas, the cell was only now leaving Broward County, two hours behind them. It would never catch up.
Akram and Mohammed were going to have to make a decision and take their chances.
They came to a decision. “We will shoot out the tires,” they agreed. “Shooting out the rear tires will slow the rig, and it will be forced to stop. Then we will kill the driver and transfer the weapon to the van.”
All they needed was a place along this road with no witnesses to telephone the authorities. Or few witnesses.
While they consulted a road map, they heard a siren, faintly at first, then growing in intensity. Then they saw the police car in the rearview mirror. It overtook them with flashing overhead lights, the headlights blinking … coming quickly at eighty or ninety miles per hour, eating up the road.
In the passenger seat Mohammed checked his submachine gun. If the policeman wanted the van to stop, he would kill him.
But the police car didn't slow. It moved into the passing lane and didn't slacken its pace. It roared by on the left and stayed in that lane, passed the tractor-trailer, and moved into the right lane and raced on toward the horizon.
Although Akram and Mohammed didn't know it, the policeman in the cruiser was being summoned by the joint antiterrorism task force to man a roadblock on an interstate highway near the Florida—Georgia state line. Washington
had issued orders for the establishment of roadblocks. Since even the police lacked the manpower to block every road, the interstates were the first priority.
Nguyen Tran suspected that he would find roadblocks on the major highways, so he had no intention of driving on one. He watched the police cruiser until it was out of sight, then checked the van in the rearview mirrors. Still back there. And time was running out.
He reached behind him and pulled the Remington from its resting place. He laid it on his lap, the barrel pointing toward the driver's door.
Ahead on the left he saw an unpaved road leading away at a ninety-degree angle into the swamp, with its tangled brush and undergrowth. That would have to do.
He pushed in the clutch and downshifted, used the engine to scrub off some speed. He couldn't get too slow in the turn or the terrorists would be out and shooting before he could do anything. He had to time this perfectly.
And he did. The truck was still going at a good clip when he braked heavily, causing the trailer to fishtail, then released the brakes and jammed the accelerator down as he cranked the wheel to the left.
The tractor turned, the trailer tilted, the left side wheels left the ground … and he just made the turn amid a spray of gravel. He spun the wheel to straighten out and kept the accelerator down. The rig stabilized and began accelerating down the narrow coquina road. The vegetation closed in on both sides.
When the rig began slowing, Mohammed leaned out the passenger window with the submachine gun. Now was the time to shoot out the rear tires!
Akram braked the van too quickly, and the range didn't close sufficiently before the tractor began turning.
Mohammed thought the trailer was going over. It went
around the turn with its left wheels off the ground, smoke pouring from the right-side tires.
The turn was so unexpected that Akram swerved to avoid the truck. He was well past the truck before he got it together and slammed on the van's brakes.
“Back up,” Mohammed urged. “Follow him. This is our chance.”
Akram slammed the transmission into reverse, squealed the tires backing up, then pulled the lever back into drive and cranked the wheel over.
The delay hadn't been long, but now the tractor-trailer was several hundred yards ahead, accelerating into the piney woods.
The van could go faster down this road than the rig could, Nguyen knew, and would catch him soon. He had little time. Now or never. He jammed the clutch to the floor and locked the brakes. The big rig slewed as it decelerated and he fought the wheel, trying to keep it on the narrow, rutted road. It came to rest in a shower of gravel and dust. The van was still a hundred yards behind. He turned off the engine and pulled the key out of the ignition switch. Grabbing the Remington and the Uzi, Nguyen bailed.
With his feet on the ground, he paused. Dropping the Remington beside him, he lifted the Uzi and aimed carefully at the oncoming van. When it reached forty yards he opened fire.
Akram had just gotten the van stopped and the transmission into park when the hailstorm of 9-mm slugs arrived. They punctured the radiator and the windshield, causing it to craze into an opaque mess. The bullets kept punching holes in it, so chunks of glass began flying out.
Akram was killed by a bullet in the head. A slug hit Mohammed in the neck, incapacitating him.
Behind him the men in back got the door open and threw themselves through it. One caught a slug in the ribs as he got up off the road, then two more in the legs and
one in the arm. He fell to the ground and didn't move again.
By this time Nguyen had fired the entire magazine, thirty rounds, in three ten-shot bursts. He stepped to his right to get a better view of the van as he jerked the empty magazine out, turned it around, and shoved home the fresh magazine that had been taped to it. He glimpsed one of the men bounding for the brush. The other man managed to get to his feet and begin shooting his Uzi from the hip at Nguyen. He should have aimed.
Nguyen fired an aimed, ten-shot burst at the shooter. Five slugs hit him, knocking him backward. Nguyen emptied his submachine gun at the van and the two bodies lying beside it. Then he dropped the weapon, grabbed the Remington, and threw himself to his right, into the waist-high brush. He began crawling away from the tractor and the road.
Mohmad Adeel hid behind a tree and listened to the silence. The shooting had stopped.
One moment they had been sitting in the van, talking about stopping the tractor-trailer, and the next moment they had been trapped in a rain of bullets. He had seen Akram's head snap back when the slug hit him and knew he was dead. He saw blood pour from Mohammed's neck. He remembered Alaeddin falling—he didn't know what had happened to Omar. Both were also dead, probably.
Mohmad Adeel's hands were shaking violently. As he pressed himself against the tree he felt the wetness in his trousers and realized he had lost control of his bladder.
That
kafir
was out there with his weapon. Mohmad Adeel's duty was to kill him to avenge Akram and Mohammed and Omar and Alaeddin.
Mohmad Adeel looked carefully around his tree, which wasn't large. He could see the container and most of the tractor. Looking the other way he could see the van, see Omar and Alaeddin lying beside it covered with blood.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. They were holy warriors on
jihad.
Allah was supposed to protect them.
He pushed that thought away as unworthy.
Where was the infidel? Close to the tractor, probably. No doubt he would try to get back in the tractor cab and drive it away. Drive away with the warhead belonging to the Sword of Islam.
Trying to make as little noise as possible, Mohmad Adeel moved toward the standing rig. He stayed in the brush, moving slowly. If he could get in a place where he could watch the tractor, he could kill the infidel when he tried to get back in it.
When he was abeam the tractor he hunched down so he could see under it.
This is good
, he thought.
I will shoot him in the legs and kill him after he falls.
He moved a little sideways, crouched behind a bush, brought his weapon to his shoulder, and thumbed off the safety.
Nguyen Tran sat in the brush listening. All he could hear were insects buzzing and, high overhead, a jet. The jet sound faded, leaving only the insects. One landed on his face. He gingerly reached and crushed it.
He didn't know if there were any more Arabs alive. He thought he had seen someone running away from the van on the other side of the road, but perhaps he hadn't. With the recoil and noise of his weapon and his fierce concerntration on the man shooting at him, he might have been mistaken. Even if someone did manage to escape, he might have stopped a bullet. He might be dead or dying.
The tractor was tempting. If he could get in it, he could leave these Arab sons of bitches here to rot.
If I were one of those Arabs
, he thought,
I would be hoping that my enemy tried to get into that cab.
Holding the Remington with both hands, he began moving, staying as low as possible. He would get in front of the tractor, where he could see across the road.
From his hiding place behind his bush Mohmad Adeel could see only the tractor. The brush was thick on both sides of him. If he raised his head a little he could see the shot-up van back along the road.
Mosquitoes landed on his face and neck and began chewing on him. He wasn't used to mosquitoes. Flies, yes, but not bloodsuckers. He tried to shoo them away.
Time passed.
He thought about Akram and Omar and Alaeddin, the men he had lived with for months. This morning they had been so alive and now they were dead. Killed by an infidel. It was horrifying, when you thought about it, the triumph of evil.
He knew why there was evil in the world, to test the faith and strength of the men of Islam. But there were so many enemies, so much evil …
Where was that cursed
kafir
?
He swatted at the mosquitoes. What a place!
What was he going to do after he killed this man? He didn't know how to drive a truck.
He would use the cell phone, he decided, call the leader of the other cell in his group, tell him where he was. With the help of the other holy warriors, they could get the warhead into a van. That is what he would do.
Mohmad Adeel was swatting mosquitoes and looking under the tractor when the bullet from the Remington sledgehammered him off his feet.
At first he didn't understand what had happened. He tried to rise, to find his weapon, then stared at that red stuff gushing from his side. The second bullet killed him instantly.
Five minutes passed before Nguyen Duc Tran came sneaking up. One look at Mohmad was enough. His mouth was open, his eyes staring fixedly at infinity.
Nguyen continued along parallel to the road, back toward the van. There might be another man out here, and if there were and he saw Nguyen first, he would get the first shot.
When he got to a position where he could see the right side of the van, he could see four bodies. Mohmad made five.
That was right. He had seen five of them in the van.
Nguyen moved over to the van, staying ready. The Arabs were quite dead.
He paused and lit a cigarette. Should he pull the bodies over in the brush out of sight, push the van off the road? He would not be able to hide the van, just get it out of the center of the road.
Whatever he did, he was going to have to get on with it. Someone would be along this road before long and he had to be gone.
After three deep drags, he flipped away the cigarette. He put the Remington on the ground out of the way, then grabbed the nearest body by the ankles. When he had it out of sight he pulled the next one over beside him. The two in the vehicle took some time to extract. They hadn't bled much because they had died so quickly. He pulled the driver off into the brush to the left, the passenger off to the right. Then he put the van in neutral, cranked the wheel slightly left, and got in front of it.

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