Terror Machine

by Denison Hatch

  “I am so intrigued about your relationship with Ms. Akon. It’s sort of brilliant. Answers so many questions that I have—like why you don’t have a family in Queens? Very strange for a conservative religious figure. But you can sort all that out for us later. That’s just my personal question. There are more pressing issues. The main one, for you, is where we’re going to drop your wife off. See, she had a little car trouble. And a few of my guys were kind enough to pick her up and offer her a ride to the mechanic. That ride has been going on for a while now. Maybe two hours. Maybe three. It’s a long trip to the dealership sometimes. I mean . . . to a good one. I won’t beat around the bush. I’ll let you in on a little secret. They’re not going to a mechanic. At least not until you and I are done talking. ’Cause my guys . . . They have another option. In Philadelphia there’s a nice-looking office building that’s operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. You know . . . ICE. Ice cold ICE. Now, what I’m going to do is take this coffee cup here and get a rapid DNA test on it. We’ll compare that to the DNA from Ms. Akon’s car—the kids, especially. We’ve already got your wife’s immigration application pulled up. It was in the back of some warehouse in Virginia, but it’s truly amazing how quickly the feds can get things when they really, really need them. Anyway, I digress. Turns out she already had at least one child when she applied, but you’re not on her application as the father. So if you are related to Ms. Akon or her kids, and she didn’t reference you on her application, you know what that means? That means ICE has a perjury case. Then, honestly, it’s totally out of my hands. I don’t know the ICE guys. Real low-rent operation, if you ask me. I feel like maybe they used to be lazy, but, holy shit, are they now on the fucking eight ball. I mean, they have turned deportation into a machine. And they go after the kids now, too—separate them from the parents. The whole nine yards. But like I said, I don’t know them personally. No connections there. So once anyone goes into ICE, that’s it. Game over. The only people that I know are the two guys that are driving around your wife and kids right now.” Mr. White paused and took a few deep breaths. Hanafi was sweating heavily, his eyes completely focused on Mr. White. The sell was working. The hook was in. All he had to do was pull the string. “But, you know, I could also just have my men drop your family back at their house—simple as that. ‘Goodbye! Thanks for the ride! See ya never!’”

  “What do you want?”

  “First, you’ll tell me where Maximilian Borin and Murad Amin are right now. Then, you’ll tell me everything else.”

  “And if I do, you’ll drop them off?”

  “I will,” Mr. White promised. “Even at the mechanic, if that’s what they want.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “You’ll know I’m telling the truth the second I know you’re telling the truth,” Mr. White answered.

  Hanafi made his decision.

  “I know exactly where Murad and the doctor are.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “They’re at the man from Dubai’s apartment.”

  ▪

  Rivett, Schaub, and Janzen loitered at the entrance to the recording studio. Loitering used to be their jam. Back in the old days at City College, way before Jake was a cop, they had mastered the art of chilling. In those times, Jake didn’t have a care in the world except for showing up at his dishwashing job and making it to band practice—and sometimes school. Obviously, things were different now. More pressure. More responsibility. Even so, the recording session had been a cleansing experience for Jake. He was always reminded of his love for music when he made music. As usual, Mona had been right. It was worth it to go to practice. It wasn’t that Jake didn’t listen to Mona. He did. It was just that he didn’t always follow her advice. But that would change. It already was. He’d just written a love song, for God’s sake.

  And just then, there was another small blessing: snow.

  Jake stared out over the East Village street and allowed himself to take in the beauty. Of course, the case was still active. But for now, just for one moment, he allowed himself to breathe. Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He dialed Mona, but the call rang through. She didn’t answer.

  “Alrighty, boys,” Jake turned to Schaub and Janzen. “Next time . . .”

  “When’s that?” Schaub said. “Should we set something up? For next week?”

  “Make it the one after,” Rivett replied.

  “Two weeks usually means two months.”

  “I know,” Rivett said. “Not if I break the case.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Schaub replied.

  “And, anyway, now I got Mona.”

  “The song or the girl?” Schaub asked.

  “Both.”

  “In my professional opinion,” Janzen added, “you sound like a man in the depths of a deep love addiction.”

  “You got me, kid,” Jake answered. “Now I gotta get home . . .”

  Jake felt his cell phone ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out.

  “Mona?” Nope. Rivett glanced at the screen. He had answered too quickly. It was the office. “Mr. White. What’s up?”

  Jake listened intently to Mr. White on the other side.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Jake replied. He hung up. “Dammit,” he said to his bandmates but also to no one in particular.

  “What’s up?”

  “My other girlfriend.”

  “No rest for the weary . . .” Schaub said. He patted Jake on the back as he climbed onto his motorcycle.

  “YAYAYAAYAAAA!” Rivett let out his trademark scream, the same one that punctuated the end of most of Mythics songs. He started the Ducati and skidded out into the icy night.

  ▪

  While Rivett rode, he wondered what the joint task force was about to encounter. Mr. White had told him they had an address for the man from Dubai. It was a multi-million dollar apartment—very uptown, very high rent—right in the middle of the beating heart of Manhattan.

  Jake also thought about Mona. He had called her twice in the last ten minutes, but she hadn’t answered. She usually picked up. Probably because he didn’t call enough. Even if she didn’t answer, she’d always call back. Maybe she was asleep. He didn’t know. What he did know was that evil had a home address, and he was gonna knock down its door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  EVIL WAS CALLING—ON JAKE and Mona’s front door.

  At first Mona thought she was dreaming, because she had been. Soon the echoing noise couldn’t be muted and Mona woke up in their bedroom with a start. She could hear something slamming against the front door of the apartment. Without pause, Mona jumped out of bed and reached for the massive Maglite flashlight Jake insisted they keep next to their dresser. She strode out of the bedroom and past the bathroom and kitchen, looking for the noise. The banging had stopped. She paused to listen but heard nothing. Maybe it was Jake?

  “Jake?” Mona asked.

  No response. Mona reached for a light switch to illuminate the small entrance hall. She flicked the light on.

  Baammmm!

  Before Mona’s eyes could acclimate, a gun shot rang out—then a second. Mona dove to the side. The shooter seemed to be aiming at the lock, but one of the bullets made its way through the doorjamb. She could feel a burning sensation in her leg. Mona glanced down and knew she had been shot. She pulled herself up just as she caught a brief glimpse of a young man—he looked to not even be eighteen years old—opening the door and scrambling towards her. Mona raced back to the kitchen. She could hear the footsteps of the intruder chasing her. She grabbed a long knife from the knife block and pushed her body as close as she could to the refrigerator, which partly blocked the entrance to the kitchen. She waited for the man.

  “Where’s Jake Rivett?” she heard him yell from the living room.

  Mona didn’t dare say a word. She watched as a shadow paced past the kitchen. The man headed down the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom in the back. H
e hadn’t realized where she was. She felt her pocket for her cell phone. Damn it. She’d left it on the nightstand.

  She began to listen as the man rustled through their bedroom. The guy seemed to be murmuring to himself. He certainly wasn’t a random burglar. He was very clearly looking for Jake. Mona deduced that whoever he was, he wasn’t very experienced. Why hadn’t he come after her first? He looked and acted like an amateur. Maybe she could take advantage of that. She continued to listen, using her ears as sonar to figure out where he was. The man began to walk back down the hallway. This time his pace was slower, more deliberate. The second she saw his foot pass the kitchen threshold, she knew it was time to act. She lunged.

  The knife sliced through the air. She aimed her weapon directly for his lower abdomen area. Jake had taught her a few basics. Go for the stomach and push all the way through. Don’t simply aim for the target—extend towards the wall behind the target. She hit the intruder directly as intended. He screamed out in pain, a massive plume of blood pouring from his wound. The blood caused Mona to recoil the tiniest bit. The man spun away from her and into the living room.

  Mona pursued him, but this time the man was ready. He rotated towards her, pulling the trigger on his gun and shooting three times. Mona ducked and dove behind a couch. She avoided the shots, but her knife flew out of her hands, spinning across the room and out of reach.

  The man took the opportunity to jump on top of Mona. He straddled her on the floor, his blood gushing all over the two of them. He was holding his gun directly in her face.

  “You’re not the target. I need the target. Who are you?”

  “Who’s the target?” Mona asked. She was slapping at the man’s forearms in an attempt to deflect his gun, but he held strong. His finger tensed around the trigger.

  “Everyone knows that. His name is Rivett—Jake Rivett. Where’s Jake Rivett?” the man screamed.

  “I—I can find Jake Rivett for you. Get off me . . . I’ll call him . . . I’ll have him meet us here.”

  For a second, the man seemed to take Mona’s suggestion seriously.

  But she didn’t care. All she was doing was watching the barrel of the gun inches from her face. When the barrel moved two inches to her right, Mona made her move. She’d lost the knife, but she felt the Maglite under her back. She fingered the flashlight with her left hand and rotated her core with as much velocity and force to the right as she could. Mona smashed the dense flashlight against the man’s head. Her attacker fell off her and crouched on all fours. He was completely stunned. His gun lay next to him. Mona kicked it away, and the man didn’t try to stop her. He shook his head. Mona held the Maglite with two hands way up in the air, like an axe, and brought it down on the guy again.

  Improbably, he kept moving. He was crawling back towards the gun at the center of the room. Mona collapsed on top of the man, scrambling to pull his hand away from the firearm. The man was a mere two feet from the gun. She snaked one arm into a half-nelson position around his neck, slowly and excruciatingly pulling him away from the weapon. Soon, Mona was able to get her second hand, holding the flashlight, around his neck, and she got her attacker into a full-nelson submission hold—aided by the Maglite.

  “Stop . . . Stop . . .” Mona pleaded. The man slowly stopped struggling. Eventually, she realized his strength was fading. He was still losing blood from the stomach wound. All she had to do was hold on a little bit longer and she would get out of this. That’s all. Just hold on.

  Mona continued to hold her attacker in a full nelson. After another minute, the man stopped moving. Mona breathed a sigh of relief, but she continued to hold him. She wanted to make sure he was fully unconscious before she made her escape.

  After another minute, Mona let go. The man fell to the ground limp—perhaps dead. She pushed off of him and sat on the floor in shock. Finally she stood.

  That’s when she heard the noise. It was the sound of a gun cocking.

  Mona twisted around.

  Another man—with a rough face, wearing all black—stood in the living room. His gun was trained on Mona.

  He pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  WHILE JAKE RIPPED THROUGH THE city, his mind was spinning. He missed Mona. Where was she? Using his Bluetooth headset, Jake called her a third time.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  Her phone rang through to voicemail. Jake glanced at the time. It was late, but not so late. He wasn’t sure why this was bothering him. It never had before. Usually he was the one who was impossible to find. But something was nagging him.

  Jake knew Mr. White, Susan, and the rest of the joint task force were expecting him at the building by Central Park—ASAP. But the raid was going to happen whether he was there or not. SWAT wasn’t going to wait. He was just needed to mop everything up afterwards.

  And Mona, well . . . She wasn’t that far away.

  Jake tilted his body to the side and spun the Ducati into a screaming hundred-and-eighty-degree turn over the yellow lines and across the street. A car behind Jake screeched and slid to a stop in the snow to avoid crashing into him. The driver slammed his horn, but Jake didn’t even look back.

  Jake and the Ducati raced towards the Brooklyn Bridge, away from the assignment but towards Mona.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MR. WASI HUGGED THE SHADOWS as he slipped out the front door of Jake and Mona’s apartment. He padded across the street, his footsteps making slushy impressions in the snow. Mr. Wasi opened the driver’s side door of the black town car. The interior light illuminated the man from Dubai, now sitting in the back. Mr. Wasi nodded at his boss.

  “Murad? And the doctor?” Mr. Wasi asked.

  “No time . . .”

  The town car raced down the street and disappeared into the snowy night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE MONSTER THAT WAS NYPD SWAT stalked the pristine hallway. The team members were fierce as beasts but light as butterflies. Usually SWAT would go through more preparation for an operation of this magnitude. In this case, there wasn’t any time. Susan Herlihy and Mr. White had made that very clear, but in actuality, none of the operators needed more motivation. In fact, they had never been as inspired for a raid as they were for this one. This raid was for Captain Markle. It was for Pete Mack. It was for their team members in Times Square. It was for all the people of New York.

  The SWAT team—twelve operators to start and another twenty-four backing them up—stole down the hallway of the target’s luxury condo residence just south of Central Park. When they reached the door, three operators took up defensive positions to the sides. A fourth crouched in front of the threshold and pulled out a tablet-sized portable device. The machine was a heat-signature scanner, which could tell if any humans were in the immediate vicinity beyond the door. The device could even ascertain the depth of any heat-emitting objects. But no heat signatures showed up on the scanner. The SWAT operator gave a thumbs-down sign and stepped away.

  A fifth and sixth member of the team appeared behind the door, each holding a separate battering ram. The building manager hadn’t been able to produce a key to the apartment in time, so alternative entry was required. Normal procedure called for one ram—but two was ultra. The lead operator glanced at the rammers. One was left handed and the other right handed. Each of them was utterly stacked. They were the strongest two men in the squad. The rammers stood on their respective sides of the door in the ready position. Each had a shoulder rotated backwards, torqued up, and ready to accelerate their dense steel beams into the door. The second the lead gave the sign, the rammers ignited.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

  In a perfect staccato rhythm, the men aimed their battering rams for a semicircular area three inches above the door handle and directly below the lock. One ram impacted after the other, never pausing and never slowing. It took no longer than nine seconds before the lock began to implode, a quarter-inch steel splinter appearing between the locking mechanism and the fram
e. Another operator joined in, leveraging a crowbar against the door. After another four seconds, the door creaked open.

  The SWAT team blasted in the room like greyhounds released to the track. They charged into the apartment’s living room and fanned out into all of the bedrooms.

  There was nothing—no one.

  The apartment was completely empty. The place looked as clean, orderly, and downright boring as a hotel room. A secondary search of every closet, cabinet, and potential hiding place verified the SWAT team’s conclusion.

  Their targets had escaped.

  ▪

  Mr. White passed by the SWAT operators standing sentinel and entered the apartment with Tony by his side. He spent a few minutes observing the interior of the apartment, gazing at the expensive artwork on the walls and sculptures standing in the living room. He stood by the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Manhattan and stared upon the northern view. The city, and the massive park, was starting to be dusted with a light blanket of snow. It was beautiful but eerie.

  “What do you think, sir?” Tony asked.

  “Terrorists don’t have apartments like this.”

  “I know. Who are these people?”

  “Not sure—not entirely,” Mr. White said, shaking his head. “The accountants will have their hands full for a long time before we can be a hundred.”

  “You have an idea?”

  “I do.” Mr. White nodded. “Just wanted to see it with my own eyes. Whole agency has been working for years to find these people, and now we might have. Course, the guy is probably halfway across the globe by now. But at least I got some of his paintings.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh . . .” Mr. White turned back to Tony. “I don’t know his name. He’s a jihad banker—takes money from people all over the world who want to fund terror but don’t know how to and don’t want their hands dirty. Then he finds middlemen like Hanafi to do his bidding. Every time a Hanafi goes to jail, there’s another one to take his place. But there’s only one man from Dubai.”