Terror Machine

by Denison Hatch

  “Shit,” Tony said.

  Mr. White put his arm around Tony’s shoulders.

  “No, no, Tony . . . This is good. But the man from Dubai isn’t our biggest problem right now.”

  “The bomb.”

  “The bomb.”

  Tony looked down at his phone. “Building security just texted. They pulled surveillance footage from their garage. The doctor and Murad Amin load up an old van with a bunch of electronics. Then what looks like the bomb was loaded into a box truck down there. The doctor leaves first, in the van. Then the truck, with Murad driving, exits the garage about forty-five minutes ago.” Tony paused. “But we don’t know where he’s going. Hanafi gave you nothing?”

  Mr. White shook his head.

  “We got spotters everywhere. I mean, the whole city is crawling with blue,” Tony said.

  “No one will find him,” Mr. White said. “The man from Dubai is too smart. Even if Hanafi gives us something, they had to know he was compromised. That’s why they got out of here so fast. Must have changed their whole plan.”

  “Then what do we do?” Tony asked Mr. White.

  “Hell if I know, Tony,” Mr. White said. He looked around. “Where’s Rivett?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE WILLIAMSBURG STREET ECHOED WITH the rocking engine noise of Jake’s Ducati. Rivett ripped directly over the curb in front of his apartment and parked on the sidewalk. When Jake’s eyes caught the front door’s broken lock, panic ensued. He ricocheted off the bike and into the apartment.

  ▪

  Jake tore down the hallway screaming Mona’s name. The first thing he saw was the blood and the crumpled body of a man on the ground in the living room.

  And then he saw her.

  Mona lay on the couch in the center of the living room. Blood spilled from two gunshot wounds in her chest. Jake ran to Mona and cradled her in his arms. The devastation was utter. He began to scream and cry at the same time, while checking for her vitals. She was still alive. She was trying to say something, opening her mouth and closing it. Jake put his ears as close as he could.

  “I . . . love . . .” she murmured.

  “I know, I know . . . Don’t talk, darling,” he replied.

  Jake pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1, identifying himself as law enforcement. He began CPR.

  “Stay with me, Mona. Stay . . .” he begged between breaths.

  She couldn’t stay with him. She stopped responding as he pumped her chest and tried to force oxygen into her lungs. He kept pumping. He kept giving breaths. But she kept growing colder.

  It wasn’t working and Jake knew it. Mona was leaving and she wasn’t coming back.

  She was gone.

  He knew that meant he was gone, too.

  ▪

  Jake could barely feel the phone buzzing in his hand. Two paramedics attempted to console him while police officers streamed into the apartment. No one was sure of the correct protocol. No one knew how to approach Rivett. The cops normally would have taken over control of the crime scene, but Rivett was technically their superior.

  His cell phone. It was ringing. He stared down at Mona’s lifeless body covered by a plastic sheet and then back at the phone again. It was Tony. Jake picked up.

  “Mona’s dead,” Jake said.

  There was a long pause. “What?”

  “These fuckers . . . They came here, killed her . . . It was that kid. ShyScreamo… uh, Omer. He’s here. Also dead.”

  “Where are you? At your apartment? I’m coming over right now. Are paramedics there?”

  “Okay,” Jake replied. “Everyone’s here.”

  “Stay put, Jake. Do not move. I’m coming,” Tony answered.

  “Tony . . .” Rivett said. “What happened with the raid?”

  “Doesn’t matter . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “Empty. They got a bomb in the back of a white box truck somewhere in the city,” Tony said.

  “Right now?”

  “Yes,” Tony answered.

  “Where are they going?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  “It’s not your problem,” Tony said. “I’m coming. I promise. I’ll be there soon.”

  Jake was completely numb. He mindlessly watched the flurry of activity around him, from Mona to the cops assembled around Omer’s gun to the paramedics sitting nearby. Finally, Jake looked down at Omer. No one had tended to the kid at all. He was their last priority. But Jake stared. Omer had a huge gash in his stomach. Maybe Mona had done that. He hoped so. The kid’s stomach and arms were drenched in blood. It had spilled out all around him, and his hands had wiped it around . . .

  Omer’s hands. Jake blinked and stared at Omer’s hands again. He realized Omer had drawn a message in his own blood on the floor.

  Jake jumped off the couch.

  He stood above Omer and looked down at the wood floor.

  “You still there, Tony?” Jake asked, pulling his phone back to his ear.

  “I’m not hanging up until I see you, Jake.”

  “I know the target,” Jake announced. He turned towards the apartment’s window. “I’m looking right at it.” Framed through the apartment’s large bay window, Jake stared at the Brooklyn Bridge.

  And below Jake, Omer Amin had written two words in blood on the floorboards:

  Brooklyn Bridge.

  ▪

  Rivett was no longer just a detective. He was fury incarnate.

  The Ducati spit a plume of ice behind Jake as he ripped towards the Brooklyn Bridge. He was only a mile away from it, and on a motorcycle he would be able to get there quicker than anyone in a car. As Jake ripped past the Eastern District courthouse and Whitman Park, he noticed that traffic was already backed up. He navigated between jammed cars and began to traverse the iconic bridge that connected Brooklyn to Manhattan.

  After another minute, Jake realized there were no cars on the opposite side of the bridge. No vehicles were emerging from Manhattan at all. Not good. Jake proceeded for another hundred yards until he saw a large white box truck stopped on the eastbound side of the bridge. The truck was parked diagonally, blocking all the lanes of eastbound traffic. Although the sides of the Brooklyn Bridge were encased in steel latticework, Jake could make out Murad Amin in the driver’s seat of the truck.

  Jake slowed his bike and maneuvered from the center lane to the inside margin. An angry motorist honked at him when he stopped his bike and hopped off. Jake jumped a barrier onto a utility walkway that connected the two sides of the bridge. The interior passageways of the bridge were not intended for public use. Suspended over a hundred feet over the water below, the panels were rickety with loose joints and rusted metal. Jake gingerly worked his way across the walkway and onto the eastbound side of the bridge.

  Murad ran directly towards Jake, having simultaneously eyed the same passageway. But when he noticed Jake emerging from underneath the bridge, he turned heel and sprinted back past the front of his truck. Jake watched Murad head down the open road ahead of him. He was seemingly attempting to sprint down the full length of the bridge to freedom. Jake raged out of the utility passageway and pursued Murad at top speed. It didn’t take long for Jake to reach him. He tackled Murad from behind, the two men rolling onto the snowy pavement. Jake held on to Murad, ripping both the side of Murad’s face as well as his own forearm against the wet concrete. Murad scrambled, pushing up with both legs in an attempt to buck Jake. While they scraped and scratched for control, Jake thought one thing.

  Why hadn’t the bomb gone off yet?

  “Where’s the trigger?” Jake screamed at Murad as they wrestled. Murad was finally able to jerk Jake off his shoulders. Jake flew into the air and landed flat on his back. He watched as Murad pushed off the ground and prepared to take off. Jake used all his energy to sweep his legs around and trip Murad just before he stood. Murad careened back onto the pavement, and Jake clawed on top of him, sitting on Murad’s stomach.
He finally had time to pull his sidearm from a holster. He trained his weapon on Murad.

  “Why isn’t it going off?” Jake screamed again.

  Murad didn’t answer. He was too busy fighting.

  “I’m calling the police!” Jake heard someone yell from behind him. Jake’s head rotated around. Behind him, some of the drivers whose cars were stuck on the bridge had gotten out of their vehicles and were approaching Murad and Jake on foot. In addition, a large group of onlookers stared down at Jake from the elevated passenger walkway above, which ran the entire length of the bridge.

  “Get back! There’s a bomb!” Jake screamed.

  The bystanders weren’t sure what to do, frozen for a moment.

  “I’m a police officer! Get back!” Jake screamed again.

  Murad took the opportunity to slam Jake’s gun from his hand with all his strength. The gun skittered across the side of the bridge, fell between two cables, and then dropped off the side of the bridge. Jake drove his elbow into Murad’s neck, but Murad jolted to the side just in time. Murad rolled quickly away from Jake and stood.

  Murad began stumbling, this time towards the outside edge of the bridge. While he did, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Jake raced towards him. He watched as Murad attempted to type into his phone while running. Murad tapped diligently on the phone for a few more seconds before stopping. It was almost as if he was trying to catch his breath. But then he looked up and smiled at Jake, who was rapidly shortening the distance between the two of them.

  “It’s done!” Murad yelled.

  Jake shortened the distance between them to ten feet. Finally, he stood in front of Murad in a ready position.

  “Coward. You weren’t even going to go down with the truck,” Rivett screamed. “Stop it! Stop the bomb!”

  “Why?” Murad said quietly. A strange calm seemed to come over him. “What’ll you do? Kill me? Not a problem . . .”

  “How long’s the timer?” Jake yelled.

  Murad only shrugged in response. He held out his phone in front of Jake, tempting him to act. “This is what you want?”

  “How long’s the fucking timer?” Jake screamed again, looking over his shoulder at the white box truck that had yet to ignite.

  With a flourish, Murad tossed the phone over the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “Not long. I don’t know. I didn’t design it,” Murad said. “Seconds . . . A minute, maybe . . . It’s done for.” Murad smiled with evil intent at Jake. He didn’t seem inclined to keep running or fighting. “Thank you, Detective Rivett.”

  “For what?”

  “You inspired me to be better. You’re wrong. I’m not a coward. Would a coward do this?” Murad began to slowly walk back towards the truck. Jake followed him. Once Murad was about ten feet from the truck, he sat down cross-legged on the pavement of the Brooklyn Bridge. He closed his eyes and began to pray.

  Jake sprinted towards the box truck.

  When he reached the truck, he passed by the bystanders from the cars that were backed up.

  “Run the other way! Run!” Jake screamed. He pulled himself into the truck’s cab. Jake could see the timer assembly leading into the back of the truck. He wasn’t an explosives expert—far from it. Defusing the bomb was impossible. There was only one option.

  Luckily, Murad had left the keys to the truck in the ignition. Rivett slammed the accelerator and jolted the truck forward. He sped ahead on the bridge, aiming directly at Murad. As the truck raced towards Murad, Jake saw the terrorist stumble to get up. Murad had heard the truck approaching, and he tried to sidestep it. But Jake made sure to twist the wheel at the last moment and collide the truck’s grille directly into Murad. The truck smashed into him, crunching his body underneath it before progressing forward. Jake rumbled over Murad and kept going, watching his lifeless body roll to a stop on the pavement in the side view mirror.

  A minute had definitely passed, but the truck had not exploded . . . yet.

  Jake wasn’t sure where he was going, exactly, but he knew he was going to get the truck away from as many innocent people as possible. He jacked the accelerator and sped up, roaring down the empty eastbound side of the Brooklyn Bridge. A few hundred yards from the bridge terminus, Jake saw a police cruiser coming his way with lights flashing and sirens ringing. The car was headed his direction, against traffic. It was followed by an utter horde of police vehicles. There were cruisers, unmarked SUVs, and a number of patrol cars from the nearby courthouse gunning for him. He hadn’t counted on them. The police slowed to form a barricade ahead, and Rivett barreled towards it at about ninety miles per hour.

  Then the first bullets hit the windshield.

  Crack. Crack. Crack. The glass splintered in front of Jake.

  The cops didn’t know who was driving. Jake ducked down as low as he could, but he didn’t slow. Instead, he drilled the accelerator. The snow was picking up. The icy condensation had turned into large fluffy snowflakes, which danced through the air as they fell. Jake guided the truck through the winter wonderland, backlit by the police barricade ahead.

  When the first cruiser was just fifty feet away, Jake finally reached the point on the Brooklyn Bridge where the steel latticework on each side disappeared. All that separated the bridge from whatever was below was a three-foot-high rail.

  Jake ripped the truck’s steering wheel to the right and into the rail. The truck collided with the rail at one hundred miles per hour, and the guardrail did almost everything it was supposed to. The truck gnashed through almost all of the barrier, but the steel still held. The truck had momentum, however, causing its back wheels to fishtail and slide towards the edge. Jake held on for dear life as the truck pivoted. The back side of it impacted again with the guardrail, and this time there was enough leverage for the truck to flip completely over the barrier. Jake felt his body go weightless for a moment while the truck flew over the side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Jake realized that this portion of the bridge—where the guardrail began—was not positioned over the water. Instead, the truck fell about twenty-five feet through the air and landed on a massive concrete bulwark that was built against the edge of the East River. As the truck landed, Jake felt his head smash into the side of the cab’s door. The truck rolled over two times before all movement stopped.

  Jake was dazed but not unconscious. With all that was left in his body, he reached for the broken window of the truck. He pulled himself painstakingly out of the cab. He attempted to stand up but couldn’t put enough weight on his legs.

  All of a sudden, Jake heard a shrieking noise emitting from inside the truck. He looked back and caught a small flash of light in his peripheral vision.

  The truck exploded in a supernova of chemical explosive and metal, splintering everything within a two-hundred-foot radius with lethal energy.

  Jake didn’t even have time to roll into the river. Instead, he was blasted. He flew in the air over the concrete bulwark and careened into the East River.

  The bridge shuddered at its foundation, but the truck had rolled just far enough to not critically damage the bridge’s infrastructure.

  Within seconds, Jake Rivett was underwater.

  The police watched from the bridge above as Jake began to sink.

  At first, he was motionless.

  But then . . . Jake’s arms began to sweep horizontally.

  He started to rise through the water.

  He broke above the surface, and he breathed a huge breath of oxygen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ONE WEEK LATER

  Mona’s funeral was an outpouring of love, but Jake couldn’t feel anything. He hadn’t yet entered the grief stage. No, instead, with every passing moment he felt more and more anger. Everything around him was foreboding. The priest speaking was the thunder, Adriana and her daughters’ crying the lightning, and hundreds of Jake’s police comrades the grey-blue clouds. It was clear a storm was coming. The storm was Jake Rivett.

  He
tried his best to keep it together. He did this by staying tunnel-vision focused on the love of his life—Mona. Visions of her kept running through his head. Good memories. She was always smiling—more than he. She was always happy—a contrast to him. She was always smart—and teaching him. The images kept Jake from completely falling apart in public. He knew he would spend plenty of time in the future on the floor, crying his eyes out. But he wasn’t there yet. The adrenaline hadn’t fully worn off. Instead, it was growing.

  He had no interest in niceties. He hated the formalities flung his way. If he had more perspective, he might have noticed the piles of flowers gracing every surface of the church. He would have seen the entire senior leadership of the NYPD, including Susan Herlihy in her finest blacks, sitting across from him. He could have noticed his band standing solemnly in the back row. He would have felt Adriana’s hand gripping his own for dear life. He might even have stopped to realize that his mother and his father were sitting a row behind him. He would have listened to the wonderful anecdotes the bishop, Mona’s priest since childhood, was telling about Mona. He may even have noticed that Mr. White’s eyes were glued to Jake the entire funeral and never veered away.

  In some ways, he did register all of those things. But mostly he didn’t. Because none of it was happening with him. It was happening around him, despite him, to him. He was the least willing participant in a cavern of unwilling participants.

  In that moment, Jake Rivett permanently changed. He was no longer a fiancé and he knew he could no longer be a cop. He dreaded what was next, but it was the only path for him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  TONY VILLALON’S SPARE BEDROOM HAD become Jake’s sanctuary for the past week and a half, which included Christmas. Jake wasn’t officially on leave—not yet. And Susan wasn’t pushing, but Jake knew he would eventually have to go on disability or get back to work. For now, she was letting it ride and allowing him to do whatever he wanted. That was often the best strategy with Jake. Meanwhile, Tony and his partner had always been there for Jake, and this time was no different. Their spare bedroom had been designed with delightful prints on the bedspread and trendy interior decorating. After a few days of Jake inhabiting it, however, the room had turned into a disaster zone. It was messy, but the mess had meaning. Jake Rivett had his purpose, and it was very simple: