Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  When Conner spotted Thomas McIntyre talking to a sheik and what looked to be the CEO of a large petroleum company, the CIA man turned and stared back at him with an incredulous expression. McIntyre excused himself, then marched through the guarded barriers and came right up to Conner and Nahla. “What the hell are you two doing here?”

  “You called us!” Nahla’s frown was impertinent. “You wanted to meet us here!”

  “I did no such thing. You can’t be here!”

  While they argued, Conner scanned the immediate vicinity. An aspect of this gathering he couldn’t articulate made him feel uncomfortable. The tingling on the back of his neck was telling him this was another set up, and that something awful was about to go down.

  Then he saw the threat, a line of five gray vans, one lined up after the other approaching faster than they should be in a built-up zone with lots of people moving about.

  “—I knew I shouldn’t have met with you—”

  “Hey, guys…”

  “—Yeah, well, we weren’t wasting your time—”

  The vans drew nearer. They would be upon the crowds in less than a minute. Words painted on the side of each suggested they belonged to a business. They were driving too fast.

  “—Do you know what kind of risk you put—”

  “Hey! Hey? Guys!” Conner raised his voice to get their attention. When they stopped talking and looked to where he pointed, he said, “Who are these people?”

  “Catering,” Nahla answered as she read the Arabic signs.

  McIntyre expression suggested he sensed the same unease Conner felt. The CIA man’s hand rested on the pistol in the holster under his jacket. “You!” he called to the guard who had accosted Conner earlier. “What are these vans?”

  The guard took a moment to lay eyes upon the approaching convoy. His stares grew large. He yelled in fast, clipped Arabic into his radio.

  The windows on the first van slid down.

  Conner spied an AK-47 appear in the window, pointed towards the guards.

  He jumped, tackled Nahla before a volley of bullets ripped through the air above them.

  The tap-tap of machine gun fire was loud, disorientating like a rock concert playing inside his eardrums. He smelled cordite. He heard several guns firing.

  Conner scrambled off a surprised Nahla and looked around to assess what had happened.

  The security guard was dead, his bloody and mangled corpse only a meter from him.

  The vans sped past, drew closer to the congregation of Gulf state leaders.

  McIntyre it seemed had avoided taking a bullet. He was upon the dead guard, prying the Heckler and Koch from the man’s rigid, clenched fingers. Once the weapon was in his hands, he used it to spray bullets into the lead van.

  The assailants returned fire.

  Soon there was shooting everywhere.

  More guards mobilized, and they too fired their weapons.

  The vans kept advancing, crashed through the temporary fencing and drove over guests who couldn’t scramble away fast enough. The screaming was the worst, many of the cries cut off, replaced by crunching, wet noises. Surviving members of the crowd degenerated into a maddened panic. People fled both into the building and as far from the carnage as they could. Conner stared disbelieving at the injured bystanders whose legs and arms had been crushed as the vehicles plowed over them, but not quite killed by the brutal onslaught.

  A tiny voice in the back of Conner’s mind told him to react, that it was more dangerous to do nothing. He took a deep breath and commanded Nahla to keep her head down, then ducked low and shimmed across the ground until he reached McIntyre. The man remained cool and collected, barely breaking a sweat amidst the carnage. He took his time to line up a target then unleashed controlled bursts at the invading vans. When he emptied the clip, he clasped another from the dead guard, reloaded the weapon and fired again.

  The vans kept pushing forward towards the foyer, slowed now by the multiple bodies they had crushed under-wheel, and the geometric concrete edges of the designer gardens. The windows were down on all five vans, with men shooting in every direction with AK-47s. People everywhere were taking bullets then falling dead or maimed onto the hot bitumen and concrete pavers. Hundreds of bullets ripped through clothes, skin and flesh. Red splashed everywhere.

  Conner almost gagged at the brutality he was witnessing, but in the last moment, contained himself. He’d seen similar massacres in Mali, the Congo and recently in Colombia. He told himself experience had seasoned him to this kind of violence, but nothing had prepared him for killing on this scale.

  “You proficient with a semi-automatic?” McIntyre yelled as he again reloaded his submachine gun.

  Conner nodded. “Picked up a trick or two from warlords in Central Africa.”

  “A ‘yes’ would have been sufficient.” McIntyre threw Conner his Glock 19 9mm. Conner caught it, chambered the first round then fired. The recoil surprised him. He had forgotten the kick that even a 9mm pistol presented, but soon found his stride. He aimed at the closest van and its tires. “They have explosives inside!” Conner yelled over the escalating screams of bullets, people and the insane war cries of the terrorists. “Why else would they be trying to reach those foundations.”

  McIntyre nodded, threw Conner a spare clip for the Glock. “Cover me.”

  “No problem,” he replied as he fired into the windows of the nearest van, its front wheels caught on a concrete plinth. Despite all the reversing, rear wheel spinning and angry yelling from inside, it wasn’t going anywhere. When the bullets ripped through the panels, the men inside ducked back allowing McIntyre to sprint up behind the vehicle.

  Conner reloaded, fired again. The distraction was sufficient and McIntyre soon reached where he needed to be. He pried open the rear door and sprayed the interior with machinegun fire.

  Conner sprinted to catch up, peered over McIntyre’s shoulder to discover five terrorists bleeding out. Like the others he had seen, the men wore black garb and concealing headscarves, the stereotypical quasi-uniform of an Islamist terrorist. What was more terrifying were the heavy blocks of plastic explosives: several hundred kilograms wired to numerous detonators.

  McIntyre liberated two AK-47s and threw one to Conner. “You know how to use these?”

  Conner snatched the weapon, checked the magazine to see it was full, and pulled back on the slide chambering the first round. “Point and shoot right?”

  “Good. We’ve got to stop this.”

  “Agreed.”

  More gunfire. More screaming. More bodies piling up one of top of each other and blood spilled everywhere. Conner looked for the four remaining vans. No one had stopped the three that now congregated near the foyer. Beaten up, scratched, riddled with bullet holes and the bodies of the terrorists hanging limp from the windows, and yet enough of them remained alive to return fire.

  The terrorists chanted, louder and louder with a shrilling sound, “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allalu Akbar!”

  One driver held a dead man’s switch in his left hand. He was ready to let go.

  Without conscious thought, Conner tackled McIntyre to the ground and pulled them behind the meter-high concrete barriers.

  The dazzling flash came first, followed by the concussion wave and the roaring death cries of a terrifying detonation.

  CHAPTER 20

  Flame consumed the air above Conner and McIntyre. The noise was deafening. Debris in the blast tore through the steel and the glass of the Burj Lanihaya. Conner flattened his body and pressed his face into the pavement, feeling heat rippling over his back. He choked on the acrid fumes of black smoke that pushed away the oxygen. He listened for screams or wails, but none came. The detonation had come too fast, too sudden. Those that were dead would not have seen it coming.

  Then just as suddenly, the blast ended.

  An eerie silence followed, except for the ringing in his ears. Smoke plumed around him. Burned ash flittered earthwards.

  He cli
mbed onto his hands and knees, looked over at the concrete barrier that had saved his life. There had been palm trees there seconds ago.

  “Conner?” McIntyre yelled has he clambered to his feet. The CIA officer broke into a sudden, uncontrolled coughing fit.

  “I’m over here,” Conner cried back. He stood, surprised at the volumes of soot and dust shedding off him like rivers of black sand. McIntyre was similarly blackened and dirtied. They seemed to be the only people who could stand.

  He heard moans, wails against agonizing wounds, and the sobs of shock and loss. Those sounds were coming from further out, away from the epicenter. Conner looked for the vans, but apart from a few smeared wheel shafts and engine blocks the van had disintegrated, and the terrorists with them.

  “Thanks buddy,” McIntyre said dusting himself off. “I owe you one.” He picked up his fallen AK, shook off the ash then checked that it functioned. He showed that Conner should do the same. “This isn’t over yet. Terrorist attacks come in twos — or threes, or more.”

  Numb, Conner didn’t feel like it was him who leaned down and picked up his own AK, or it was he who controlled his motions as checked that the weapon was operational.

  He looked around him. No one else was moving. Almost no one had survived the blast, or if they had, their injuries were too horrific to allow them to get up and walk away. If he hadn’t ducked behind the concrete barrier pulling McIntyre down when he did… He didn’t want to think about that.

  Looking upwards, he noticed they were near one of the three bases of the Burj Lanihaya. The explosion had blown out all the glass for at least ten stories up. A woman in a housekeeping uniform hung limp half out of one window, half her clothes blown away from the blast. Shards of glass impaled her body, dripping blood like a leaky tap. Smoke billowed from several of the shattered windows and flames flickered high and bright in many of the decimated rooms. At ground level, uninjured men and women emerged from the many exits and ran terrified in all directions.

  A groan like thunder erupted in the air, a loud and long screech, like an elephant’s roar played in slow motion.

  But this was no animal.

  Conner knew what the noise was.

  The Burj Lanihaya was buckling.

  Conner watched in stunned silence as a support beam snapped and flew through the air like a huge spear ten meters across the flattened epicenter.

  Another groan.

  People screamed and panicked.

  McIntyre gripped Conner hard on the shoulder, “Buddy, time to go!”

  Conner grabbed the hand, held it there. “What about Nahla?”

  “No time. We’ve got seconds, if that, before this whole monstrosity comes down.” He pried Conner’s fingers away and sprinted with the rest of the crowds.

  “Nahla?” Conner screamed. He ran towards where he thought he had left her, but the topography had changed since the blast and he couldn’t orientate himself. “Nahla!” he screamed again.

  He ran, seeing a woman dressed in slacks, a shirt and a hijab who might have been his friend, but even has he got close he couldn’t be sure. Soot covered her. Her face was black like a photographic negative. Once close enough to touch her, he saw it was Nahla. She had been much further from the blast when it had detonated. Cuts bled in many places across her face and hands, and elsewhere. She sat against the wheel of a car that looked like it had skidded several meters outwards when the blast hit. Her legs were curled up and her arms wrapped around her waist. She trembled. Lying at her feet was the dismembered corpse of a man flung from the blast. It had no legs and his guts spread across the concrete floor, laid out like prime cut pickings in a butcher’s shopfront.

  There came another groan, louder than the last, followed by the rasp of steel scraping against steel.

  “Nahla!”

  She wouldn’t look at him. She didn’t move.

  He grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. “Nahla, we need to run, NOW!”

  He forced her to sprint with him.

  AK-47 in one hand, Nahla’s wrist in the other, Conner never slowed for a second.

  He wasn’t the only one. Many people fled for their lives.

  He saw McIntyre up ahead, so he followed him.

  A thunderous crash roared behind them. Conner turned his head just enough to see one tower fall, the base disintegrating first, then the massive weight of everything above tumble down like a stack of cards collapsing on itself.

  Conner ran harder. Nahla slipped several times, but he refused to let her fall, and dragged her forward.

  How far had they run? A hundred meters? Two hundred? Not nearly enough.

  The skies became orange then sandy. Dust from the explosion and now the disintegrating structure filled the air like a cloud.

  Another terrifying, shearing noise caused Conner to turn again. One tower had collapsed. That left two towers unsupported.

  One seemed to grow large in the sky.

  That was because it was falling towards them.

  Something resembling a war cry bellowed from his mouth. He pulled Nahla again, sprinted harder, begged to survive this.

  The ground rumbled underfoot.

  The people he could see, some were faster than him, but some were too slow, or tripped at the wrong moment.

  He heard a noise like a tidal wave behind him. Not of water, but pulverizing concrete, glass and steel.

  He discovered a surge of unexpected energy, pushed himself to sprint faster. Nahla felt like an anchor, but he refused to give up on her. His other hand was empty. The AK-47 had fallen from his grip and he hadn’t noticed.

  They were on a road now. Cars were stopping, reversing, screaming backwards colliding with each other. Many fled from their vehicles and ran with Conner and Nahla, away from the mounting destruction.

  The ground seamed to pulse like a heartbeat, throwing Conner and Nahla off their feet. A huge cloud of dust and soot covered them in seconds. He couldn’t see more than a few meters in any direction. Then a rumbling noise, like a groan coming up from the deep earth smothered all other sounds.

  Conner lay still, hands over his head, waiting for the oblivion that would follow when the Burj Lanihaya buried him, but it never came.

  He had run far enough, fast enough.

  “Conner?”

  He sat up. His ears kept ringing, a high-pitched noise muffling everything else.

  “Conner?”

  He saw a woman stumbling in the thick cloud of dust.

  “Nahla?”

  “Conner?”

  He ran to her, pulled her close and hugged her tight. She sobbed into him.

  “You’re okay,” he said stroking the back of her head. “You’re okay.”

  She held him close and trembled. He didn’t blame her, and while they stood there, all Conner could think about was that the NSA had sent them to this place, knowing that the terrorist attack was about to go down. This was their second attempt on his life.

  He heard distant gunfire, the unmistakable rapid tap-tap noise of automatic fire. Then came a long, wavering and high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl with a trilling quality. The ululation calls of the victor.

  A silhouette of a man materialized in the dust. He held an assault rifle up in front as he marched towards them.

  Conner was about to run when he recognized the man as Tom McIntyre. “You survived?”

  McIntyre nodded. “We need to get out of here. Islamic State has just overrun Abu Dhabi.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Dharavi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  Simon woke to an intense headache. Rain pelted his face. The ground underneath his sprawled body was damp and rough. He opened his eyes, and the world spun. The missile strike must have knocked him unconscious. Remembering he was being hunted, Simon clambered to his feet. Standing made his headache worse and the world spin faster, but he had no choice but to move. His enemies would find him if he remained where he was.

  Keser’s body lay next to where he had fallen. Muck soa
ked her clothes and her mouth hung open, raindrops splashing on her lips. Her face was slack and unresponsive.

  Crouching, he checked for a pulse and breath. Both seemed normal. Simon patted her down searching for bleeding or other serious wounds. He found nothing except that her skin was hot to touch, suggesting a fever. He couldn’t do anything about that.

  Simon tried lifting her when a sharp pain in his left forearm caused him to wince with agony. A gash opened his muscle, more than a centimeter deep and about eight centimeters across. Why he hadn’t yet noticed the wound was a mystery to him. He could only presume adrenaline had kept the pain at bay until now. The lack of significant blood was the only relief, so no major arteries had been severed.

  He checked Keser again. With his injury, there was no chance he could carry the unconscious woman to use her as a hostage to exchange for Casey. He searched her instead using his good arm until he found her cell phone, which he pocketed after first removing the battery and SIM card. He discovered spare clips for her sidearm, so he searched until he spotted the P228 .357 caliber handgun lying close to her. He added it to his growing collection of small arms.

  Feeling he could do no more, Simon slung his backpack and stumbled from the scene. He did not understand how long he had been unconscious, and every second he delayed was another second his foes drew closer. If more of the CIA hit squad didn’t come for him soon, he suspected another Hellfire missile would. He guessed the missile had originated from a Predator drone still in the skies, still watching him.

  Men, women and children soon appeared, to gawk at the destruction. Some spoke to Simon in harsh words he didn’t understand. He ignored their accusations and pushed through the throngs of abusive people.

  It had been years since Simon had taken a serious injury in the field. He had forgotten what intense pain was like, how it clouded everything, and made his situation more complicated and perilous. Casey remained his number one priority, but to achieve his goal he had to first heal himself.