The Island--A Thriller

by Ben Coes

  Dewey went back to the steering wheel and took control, steering the speeding Hinckley along the opposite side of the East River from Manhattan, close to a wall of steel, brick, pier, and industrial construction along Brooklyn. He cruised beneath the Williamsburg Bridge, purposely not looking over at Manhattan, a horizon of smoke with distinct funnels of darker smoke.

  He tapped his earbud. He waited for voice recognition but there was nothing. He tapped it again—but all he heard was a faint metallic beeping noise. He tapped again, knowing full well something was going wrong with his comms.

  * * *

  As he sped up the Queens shoreline, Dewey scanned the area around the UN along the Manhattan shoreline, from south of the UN to the Queensboro Bridge above it. He didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious—but it was all suspicious. The waterfront offered a multitude of places where someone could easily hide out.

  He registered several gunmen along the UN Plaza that overlooked the river. It was impossible to tell if they could see him. He knew by staying with the shoreline just behind him he would blend in to a certain extent. He was at least two thousand feet away, too far for anything but a skilled marksman and a very well-made long-range rifle. He couldn’t assume they didn’t see him. In fact, for the purposes of his coming approach, he assumed they did.

  He passed a small rock jutting out of the water, then the river split on both sides of Roosevelt Island, just offshore from Manhattan’s East Side. He went to the right of the island, still moving the boat along the shoreline.

  Roosevelt Island sat between Manhattan and Queens, in the middle of the East River, a quarter mile above the UN.

  The city had become more chaotic than before. Sirens and alarms screamed from every imaginable place and people were running, some even leaping into the river itself, believing it offered a better chance for survival. But Dewey saw bodies occasionally float by. The fast-moving, turbulent currents of the river harbored no allies; it was a vicious river with a hard, unpredictable undertow.

  Dewey came to a piling at the very southern tip of Roosevelt Island, a wall of steel pilings sticking up and surrounding walls of granite rock. He tied the Hinckley off to an old steel piling support and stepped to the aft of the boat. He found the duffel bag he’d packed on Jenna’s boat, from her father’s weapons room.

  He pulled the fins on his feet as an errant wave splashed against the pilings and drenched him. He didn’t seem to notice.

  * * *

  Dewey took an optic and studied the perimeter of the United Nations from the shallows of the water near the island. There was a line of gunmen. He counted six, then saw another. As he suspected, the gunmen were indeed scanning the river in front of the UN, looking for intruders.

  The current was running rapid; he guessed it was five knots.

  He hated water.

  Dewey took a deep breath and dived beneath the surface. He fell into the tumbling current and it took all he had to stay just beneath the water, staring up at daylight from below the surface. He swam until his lungs hurt, then surfaced just barely, as quietly as he could, and only for long enough to exhale and take a breath, then he descended again, even as the current swept him quickly downstream.

  He repeated this several times, each time taking a breath only when necessary, praying he wouldn’t be seen, for as he got closer, he swam beneath the wall of gunmen looking for anything to shoot.

  Beneath the water, he kicked furiously toward shore.

  * * *

  Dewey kicked as hard as he’d ever kicked. He finally reached the bank of the river. He found a jagged edge of mortar jutting out. He pulled himself to it and held on. He coughed out water and caught his breath. He treaded water, against a hard current, but his grip on the slight notch of the wall kept him close as he breathed hard and remembered why he was there.

  A pair of black helicopters slashed low overhead. The air riffed with the wind from the rotors. Dewey watched as the two choppers moved toward Manhattan, and then up the river, splitting up at the crest of the city and moving into a vertical attack pattern, toward the United Nations. This was the recon.

  Dewey tapped his ear as he studied the flight path. This time, his comms were working.

  “I see choppers,” said Dewey. “Is that the extraction?”

  “Yes,” said Calibrisi.

  “What about manpower inside the building?” said Dewey.

  “The Iranians are close to taking over the lobby or they already have,” said the CIA director.

  “Who the hell was guarding him?”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for blame afterward. Right now, we need to get him out,” said Calibrisi.

  67

  9:16 A.M.

  EAST RIVER

  NEW YORK CITY

  Kouros was tucked in between two pallets stacked with bags of cement mix. It was a temporary dock used for maintenance and repair and was fastened to the river bank. The wood was weathered and a small crane sitting on top of the piers was rust-covered. It looked as if no work had taken place for years.

  A month before, Kouros had hidden firearms here, including three handguns and an assault rifle. He also left several candy bars on the front seat of the crane. The firearms were expendable. Kouros was trying to figure out if anyone actually used the docks anymore. He knew that if workers were there, it would be a bad location for the surface-to-air missiles. Two days before, he’d come to the docks again, in the middle of the day. It would be much easier to explain the trespassing if he was caught. No one was there when he returned. The firearms were untouched, same too with the candy bars in the cab of the crane.

  Now, Kouros was positioned between the crane and the wall of shoreline, tucked in and out of view. Strapped across his shoulder was a missile launcher. He was smoking a cigarette.

  Just a few hundred feet downriver, columns of smoke barreled out from the ground just above the waterline.

  Kouros heard the helicopters before he could see them. He’d tracked choppers already but these were ones he recognized, Sikorskys, UH-60 or some variation thereof.

  He put his eye to an infrared optic and spied the two inbound helicopters. He locked in on the first chopper, knowing that he needed to fire and reload fast. When a green light flashed in his eye, he knew the Strela had acquired the target, and he fired. His shoulder and body kicked backward, and he quickly reloaded, loading another Strela, locking the second chopper in, and he fired again.

  Kouros watched as the two Russian-made missiles pirouetted into the smoldering, smoke-crossed sky.

  68

  9:16 A.M.

  EAST RIVER

  NEW YORK CITY

  Ferrara scanned the smoke-filled sky as the Zodiac moved out from beneath the overhanging FDR, into the lee of the current-swirled river, and the attack boat arced right.

  Ferrara was patched in to the overall operation comm channel, and was listening.

  “Approaching target landing zone,” said the pilot.

  “Affirmative,” said Perry.

  Ferrara heard the sound of the inbound helicopters overhead. He put optics on and turned downstream. He saw no one, but then, when he looked farther ahead, far beyond the UN, he found a body imprint in his digital green, in his optics. Someone at water level, not moving, but definitely alive. A quarter mile below the UN, Ferrara saw the thermal imprint of a man in the shadows.…

  “Target up to the right,” said Ferrara. “He’s looking south. Let’s get over next to the bank and move in, assume enemy status.”

  A fierce-sounding noise—a hissing—followed by a boom.

  The river’s edge brightened.

  Where Ferrara had just aimed the attack, everyone on the Zodiac heard, then saw, a surface-to-air missile shoot up into the sky, followed soon after by another missile. Ferrera had a hard time breathing.

  “Air One and Two, you have incoming!” yelled Ferrara as he started firing downriver at the terrorist.

  69

  9:16 A.M.

&nbs
p; EAST RIVER

  NEW YORK CITY

  As Dewey held on to the riverbank, a sudden flash of electric white came from somewhere just down the river. There was a low but loud boom, and then a streak of fire. A missile cut into the low sky. Smoke and fire trail dissipated in a gray-white line. The missile had been fired from somewhere just down the river in front of the UN.

  He hit his ear twice.

  “CENCOM, get them out, it’s a trap!” said Dewey.

  A few seconds later, a second missile was fired from the same location.

  The missiles screeched upward in yellow-orange fire and each one pivoted and swirled as it converged in on the helicopters. The first missile acquired the lead Black Hawk as it tore across the smoky skyline. The missile slammed into the bottom of the chopper, pulverizing it. Steel and bodies dropped down from the sky in flames, a horrible, metal-filled dive to the river.

  The second chopper slashed abruptly down and sharp to the right—evasion tactics. The missile was gaining speed, trailing smoke and flames, soaring closer and closer; by this time in its attack sequence, the missile’s tracking algorithm was calibrated to potential evasion techniques. The second surface-to-air missile hit the second chopper in the fuselage, a double-shot explosion that erupted in black, gray, green, and red. Steel, glass, and smoldering bodies dropped like proverbial bricks into the swiftly moving East River and disappeared.

  Then, a few hundred feet below, Dewey saw a Zodiac emerge from a dark alcove beneath the FDR Drive. Before he could warn them away, another boom echoed up the river. Another missile had been fired. It was from the same place. Dewey watched in horror and anger as the missile moved across the surface of the water and slammed into the boat of Navy SEALs, obliterating everything.

  Dewey paused a few moments, treading water, looking south toward where the missiles had been launched from. He let go of the granite outcropping. He dived down beneath the cold water and let the current take him in the direction of the missile launcher.

  70

  9:16 A.M.

  MISSION THEATER TARGA

  NATIONAL CLANDESTINE SERVICE

  CIA HEADQUARTERS

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  The right screen at the front of the operations theater went red and white, a visual alarm, then a computerized voice hit the screen as a small object was locked in on in the middle of the screen.

  “Incoming missile,” said the male voice calmly. “Identify, Strela nine two approaching at one one five zero feet per second and accelerating. Time of impact, less than five seconds.”

  The object sharpened—a grayish-green cone at the front of the missile—plumes of heat like orange flower petals around the cone, then the screen shot black.

  The left screen, on the SEAL boat, was still active and the view—from Ferrara’s helmet—showed the choppers exploding in smoke and fire. Then Ferrara turned downriver and the screen—as with the other screen—flashed red and white, as a missile approached along the top of the water.

  “Incoming missile,” said the male voice calmly. “Identify, Strela nine two approaching at four four zero miles per hour and accelerating. Time of impact: immediate.”

  Inside the amphitheater, there were moans as the screen went black, then Perry barked into his comms.

  “Vinny!” he yelled. “Minelli!” even though everyone in the room, including Perry, understood that the frogmen and the men from SEAL Team 4 had just gone down in a pair of choppers and a Zodiac.

  71

  9:20 A.M.

  OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Adrian King’s tie was lowered and the top button of his shirt was unbuttoned. A line of empty water bottles crossed the front of his wide and long desk. The mood was tense. Everyone in the chief of staff’s office was stunned.

  King looked at the assembled group of about a dozen. He nodded at Calibrisi and Arnold. They came over behind his desk.

  “Well, Adrian?” said Arnold.

  “You’re right. We need to act,” said King. “America needs to respond. It needs to happen right now.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Chief?” said King.

  “I agree,” said Calibrisi. “We’re under attack. Suleiman is watching from his little office. They’re going after our president; I see no reason why we shouldn’t do the same.”

  “So the question is, what do we do?” said King.

  “Let me just reiterate,” said Arnold. “Either we’re nuking them or we’re dropping enough bombs to turn Tehran into a smoking pile of rubble!”

  “We’re not dropping a nuke on Iran,” said Calibrisi. “Only the president has the authority to order a nuclear strike. Not to mention, the people of Iran didn’t do this, their leaders did.”

  “They’re trying to kill our fucking president!” shouted Arnold.

  “So let’s kill theirs,” said Calibrisi calmly. “Let’s light up Suleiman today, right now. I have no problem with that.”

  “What about chain of command?” said King. “I’ve read through the laws. I was a federal prosecutor. All I can conclude is that there’s no chain of command right now.”

  “That’s right,” said Calibrisi. “If the president is dead, it would be Healey, but we don’t know if he’s dead.”

  “I’ll be damned if we’re not going to fight back,” said Arnold. “There’s no way that’s what the framers of our Constitution wanted.”

  “No, it isn’t,” agreed King. “At the moment, we are the chain of command.”

  “Even if we aren’t, I’m willing to go to jail for doing it,” said Arnold.

  “Me, too,” said King.

  Calibrisi looked at Arnold. “This counterstrike is on you. You need to handle it. Right now. I need to focus on Dellenbaugh. That’s my only priority.”

  “I got it,” said Arnold.

  “We know Suleiman’s patterns—we have for years. Suleiman will be in one of four locations,” said Calibrisi. “We just need to target all four with overwhelming force.”

  “Can you make it happen, Dale?” said King to Arnold.

  “I’ll assemble the Joint Chiefs,” said Arnold, standing. “We’ll make it happen.”

  72

  9:22 A.M.

  THE CARLYLE

  MADISON AVENUE

  MANHATTAN

  Igor stared at a large curvilinear computer screen.

  His apartment at the Carlyle was luxurious and had the feeling, usually, of a peaceful aerie high above the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His apartment was austere, with very little furniture. The windows were specialized, wrapped in a thin velum of microcopper membrane. The walls, ceilings, and floors contained custom manufactured insulation and even the electric current in the apartment went through a cipher. All of it was there to prevent electronic eavesdropping.

  Igor could hear the roar of multiple sirens from the streets.

  The table was long, rectangular, and glass. He had a perfect view of Madison Avenue. In the distance, the sky was hazy and crossed with smoke clouds, like a volcano that’s just erupted. It was detritus from the tunnels miles away to the south, spewing heat and ash into the sky. But Igor wasn’t looking at the view at this particular moment. Instead, he was focused on the curvilinear computer screen.

  The concave LCD was lit up in a maze of photos, live videos, digits, and letters. There were at least twenty separate applications running on Igor’s computer. All of it was somehow correlated to the attack on New York City.

  Igor was tapped into Langley, Quantico, and NYPD’s operating platform through the main trunk, enabling him to see what activity was taking place on the ground and behind the scenes, in real time.

  Part of the screen was taken up by a gallery of several dozen individual live video feeds, spread across the screen like a checkerboard, each feed inputted by some sort of surveillance camera, including several attached to the gear of NYPD officers, police cruisers, CCTV surveillance cameras. I
gor did not control any of these feeds; he was, in essence, eavesdropping on the real-time efforts of law enforcement.

  The individual feeds lurched between different scenes of panicked New Yorkers running through the streets, and gunfights. Several feeds displayed the four tunnels and the shorelines closest to the tunnels, where whole buildings had collapsed and fires were spreading out.

  Another section showed feeds from the air—drones, helicopters, and satellites—each a different vantage point of the chaos. Smoke and fire from above. A macro view of Manhattan in disarray and chaos.

  Other than when Igor typed, the only noise was the diffuse sound of sirens and gunfire from the streets.

  A section of the wide curvilinear screen was taken up by scrolling lines of green letters and numbers moving rapidly down. Igor had opened up a host of diagnostic applications he was now using to attempt to understand what was going on, and what was going to happen next, based on various metadata and electronic signals intelligence, or SIGINT. He was provisioned inside the NSA’s ThinThread network, poring through the original signals data from the Berlin initiation point several hours before. Taking the ThinThread discovery, Igor had isolated a string of individuated metadata—basically a marker code—and run it against a proprietary algorithm he himself had written. He had determined that the long string of random letters and numbers were from a SIM card issued by MTN Irancell, the state-owned cellular provider in Iran. He couldn’t determine who made the call, only that the card used was a one-month tourist SIM card, purchased at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport three days ago. By rank-stacking the SIM card’s issue number, sandwiching it between the card bought before and the one bought after, Igor had been able to pinpoint the card’s time of purchase within eight minutes of when it was bought. From there, it was a matter of simply pushing all purchase data from the airport MTN Irancell store against all flights that left Tehran after that, focusing, obviously, on that day and moving outward.