Enemy In the Room

by Parker Hudson

  Callie had a window seat on the right side of the plane, and Kristen was seated next to her. Given the holiday, the plane was carrying a lot of passengers, but was not full. They were reading magazines when the captain made an announcement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain, Kathryn Morgan. I’m assisted this morning by First Officer Drew Roberts. Along with our Los Angeles based flight crew, we hope to make this Fourth of July flight as uneventful as possible. The baggage is almost loaded and the paperwork is on the way. We may be a few minutes late for departure, but we should make that up in route and arrive on schedule. We’ll be taking off to the west, over the ocean, so you should have a great view of the coast. Now please settle back and enjoy your flight. Thanks for flying with us on this beautiful holiday morning.”

  Yusef finished his tasks and tested his three radios. One was the news, one was tuned to the control tower frequency, and one was the police band. They were all working. With fifteen minutes left before the shot, and maybe thirty minutes left to live, he closed his eyes and prayed to Allah.

  As the airliner pushed back from the gate, Kristen said to Callie, “What a difference a few weeks can make. It’s incredible how God can work in our lives, whether we know it or not. Your Dad fired me six weeks ago, and disowned you. Now we’re flying home, probably to big hugs.” She smiled.

  Callie took Kristen’s hand. “You’re right. I never could have imagined it. Thank you.”

  “Thank God, not me.”

  By the sheer force of her will and the fact that she was at that moment in a high speed motorcade to a confidential U.S. State Department dacha outside Moscow with the President of the United States, Tanya Prescott was finally talking to Adam Oglesby, who was heading up the holiday skeleton crew at the Northeast Air Traffic Control Center.

  “Who are you again?” he asked.

  Tanya repeated her credentials and her demand that Mr. Oglesby immediately shut down flight operations at all of the airports in the New York and Los Angeles areas.

  “And you’re telling me this because you got a call from a civilian in Russia who overheard someone talking about a missile shot at both airports? Do you realize what a shut-down like that would do to air traffic in this country?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we’re number three for take-off. That should put us wheels up at just about ten local time. The weather in route looks very good.”

  Yusef said a final prayer and got out of the van. He pulled the missile case out and placed it on the ground, then closed the van’s rear doors. He put the three portable radios on the ground, and switched on the tower frequency, with the volume loud enough so that he could listen as he stood next to the van. As he had expected, the holiday morning and the hedges meant that he was all alone—at least for now. He smiled as he opened the case and placed the missile launcher on his shoulder. He depressed the Ready button, which made the missile armed and operable.

  At the field in New York, Perviz had accomplished the same steps, following his mentor’s precise orders.

  “Mr. Oglesby, I can’t argue with you any more. Do you want me to stop the motorcade and have the President give you a direct order?”

  “Los Angeles Tower, PacAir 511,” Captain Morgan called on the radio.

  “PacAir 511, Los Angeles Tower. Taxi into position and hold, Runway 24 Left.”

  “24 Left. PacAir 511” She then switched to the cockpit intercom. “Checklist complete?”

  “Checklist complete,” the first officer replied.

  “OK. I’ve got the controls, you call the numbers.”

  Yusef had listened to the Tower’s exchange and could picture the PacAir jet turning onto the east end of the long runway, even though he couldn’t see it. A woman pilot. Even better.

  “PacAir 511, cleared for take-off, 24 Left.”

  Captain Morgan advanced the throttles and began the take-off roll.

  Yusef could hear the sound as the huge airliner picked up speed on the runway. He turned to face south, his finger touching the smooth metal of the trigger.

  “V1,” the First Officer reported, meaning that they were going too fast to stop in the remaining length of the runway.

  “PacAir 511, abort take-off ! I say again, abort take-off,” came the command from the Tower.

  “Past V1. We’re going.”

  “Possible missile threat. All flight operations cancelled.”

  “Damn.” She lifted the nose and the plane pulled off the runway. “Pull the wheels up.” “What is it?”

  “High probability missile threat.”

  Kathryn Morgan, petite, with a wisp of gray hair and a no-nonsense approach to the cockpit, had flown C-141 Starlifter heavy cargo planes in the Air Force for six years before joining PacAir ten years ago, and she still flew every month with the Air National Guard. She had more take-offs and landings in Afghanistan and Iraq than she could remember. They had always been concerned about missiles, but on her Air Force planes they had flares and counter measures. On PacAir 511 she had only her wits.

  She moved the trim tab button forward and pushed the nose over. Immediately a horn went off in the cockpit and a recorded voice said, “Pull up. Pull up.” The voice could be heard in the passenger compartment.

  “No way,” she said almost to herself. “Hold on” she told the first officer.

  With the warning horns blaring, Kathryn Morgan accelerated a few feet off the ground, just like she had done so many times in her C-141s, hoping that the ocean would come fast.

  Yusef heard the command from the tower and cursed. He followed the noise of the jet’s engines below the hedges, but the plane never climbed, preventing him from tracking and locking on.

  As the airliner neared the end of the runway and the ocean, he caught a glimpse through a break in the hedges, and, knowing that there would be no more planes that day, he led the plane’s position and fired the missile, hoping that it would find its target.

  When they were almost to the beach separating the airport from the ocean, Morgan climbed a few feet and started a careful turn to the right, the long wing just above the light poles and guy wires.

  “Confirmed launch!” came the cry from the tower. “Right quarter.”

  She increased her turn as much as she dared. Kristen and Callie, along with the other passengers, were pushed back by the G-force, and a child toward the rear screamed.

  Then she leveled out, descended, and hugged the deck, flying right up the line where the sand met the water, and where there were no poles and no wires to get in the way.

  The Stinger never had a chance to acquire or lock on to the airliner. It flew out over the ocean, and after a pre-programmed time, it self-destructed.

  Steve Toller had hit the beach early that morning, hoping to get a good spot before the crowds arrived. He was sitting in his beach chair, facing slightly north so that the sunlight would illuminate the book he was reading, his feet touching the water. Earphones provided soft background music when he felt, more than heard, what seemed like a fast-moving diesel locomotive coming up behind him. He turned his head in time to see the Rolls Royce logo on the starboard engine of a huge jet airliner, just before the noise and the blast hit him full tilt. It was a long minute of cursing before he could hear well enough again to call the police and complain.

  Yusef threw the launcher down in disgust and walked around the van, determined to make the infidels pay a high price for this treachery.

  “Los Angeles Tower, where do you want us?” Captain Morgan asked. “I imagine we’ve got some messed up and maybe banged up folks in the back.”

  “Great flying, mam. We’re closed. Suggest John Wayne Airport at Orange County. Fly heading one-five-zero and climb to five thousand.”

  “Seems an appropriate spot, but we prefer to stay low,” Morgan answered. And she finally smiled. Then she turned on the intercom to the passenger cabin. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re OK now. Let me tell you what just happened, and why, as we t
ake a short bird’s eye flight to the south.”

  Perviz was waiting next to his own van at the housing site in the Inwood area, across a small bay from the end of runway 13 Right at JFK. Unfortunately for him, when the order came across the Tower frequency to cease operations, no airliner was rolling. He knew that there would be no more take-offs. Frustrated, he looked northwest, to the other end of the runway, and noticed a large airliner descending rapidly on final approach. He immediately turned the launcher in that direction, realizing that the distance was at the far end of the acquisition parameters.

  He tracked the plane and thought he heard the lock-on tone. Instantly he fired the missile.

  Brannon Ward was standing by the grill in his backyard in Inwood, preparing hamburgers and hot dogs for three families who had joined them to celebrate the Fourth. Like Brannon and his wife, the other couples had young children. All of the men worked with Brannon in the local police department, and so the talk was mostly about bad guys of all types. Without even thinking about it, each one of them wore a pistol on his belt.

  “Wow!” Brannon’s six year old son exclaimed, when the Stinger went off about two blocks to the west. “Fireworks!”

  Before joining the police, Brannon had been a Marine in Afghanistan, and he knew exactly what a Stinger missile sounded like. And, living near JFK, he knew what it could mean.

  Handing the spatula to his wife, he motioned to his buddies, whose conversations had also stopped, “Come on.” They ran toward their cars at the front of the house.

  The Stinger did its best to follow the line of site to the heat from the descending target. But because of the angle, the plane’s course took it behind a hangar, just as it was touching down. The Stinger lost the target for a crucial two seconds, and was unable to recover. It hit the edge of the hangar, doing considerable damage, but it did not explode.

  Perviz dropped the launch tube and waited by his van in the middle of the field, expecting sirens to start any second, and the police to arrive a few minutes later. Instead, four men in shorts and casual shirts materialized from cars on the street. They fanned out as they yelled, each one pointing a gun at him.

  Remember that I tried, he prayed. He held the cell phone open in his right hand, and slowly raised both hands in surrender.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Brannon yelled, as he and the other men surrounded him. “Get down on the ground.” Sirens could be heard approaching,

  Perviz smiled. “Killing you.” Then he pressed the Send button on his phone. A huge fireball erupted from the van, laced with nails and metal shards. All five men were instantly torn to shreds.

  At Vnukovo Airport, David had been escorted at gun point to a nearby hangar, where he sat by himself in an office, again handcuffed to a chair. Mustafin had started to come around as the police arrived, and now he was in the adjoining office. David could hear him screaming in Russian at the guards outside. He had tried in his best English to explain to the Russians that they could not let Mustafin go. David had asked to use his phone again, but they would not let him.

  Yusef had no idea who would come for him in the middle of the parking lot. LAPD? Airport security? FBI? But he knew, especially after missing the aircraft, that he had to kill as many as he could with the bomb in the van. That was why he was dressed so minimally. He wanted no one to have the idea that he was wearing a suicide vest. They should feel safe in approaching him. He stood outside the front door of the van, the empty rocket launcher ten feet away on the asphalt.

  His location was, of course, obvious to those in the control tower and around the airport, because of the white contrail left by the missile. The launch had also been seen by Officer Clark Perry, a young African-American who had only been on the force for a year. On this holiday morning he had drawn the “short straw” to patrol both his own area and an adjoining one. Which was why he was driving through the neighborhood north of LAX when the missile went off and, a few seconds later, his police radio erupted.

  Perry radioed that he was responding and turned his patrol car in the direction of the contrail’s origin, only a few blocks away. Even without his siren, he turned into the high school parking lot in less than a minute.

  There he saw the van, a single man standing next to the open driver’s door, and what could well be the launch tube near his feet.

  Perry stopped just inside the entrance gate, a hundred yards from the van. He was new to the force, but he had seen similar scenes like this before. Six years earlier, before attending college, Perry had been in the Army, stationed in Iraq, training the local police. And he had seen first hand what a single man and a van full of explosives could do to his best friends.

  He immediately radioed his position and asked for back-up, including the SWAT and Ordnance Teams.

  From the other side of the parking lot two young boys, apparently playing in the area, were attracted by the noise of the rocket and had just seen the police car. They came running across the lot toward the van.

  Perry opened his door and pulled out his loudhailer. He yelled to the boys to get back and go home, but they either did not hear him or decided to investigate anyway. They walked up to inspect the launch tube and then went over to the vehicle.

  The man next to the van leveled a gun at the pair. A discussion ensued. The smaller of the two boys got in and moved over to the passenger side. Once he was inside, the man shot the other boy in the head at point blank range, his body collapsing on the pavement.

  As the killer got in the van and closed the door, Perry heard the smaller boy’s scream, along with the wail of multiple sirens rapidly approaching from several directions.

  David was not sure of the time. He was still alone, and once Mustafin had stopped yelling, he had decided to pray, particularly for the people on two airliners.

  Suddenly there was a commotion outside and a lot of voices. He instantly recognized Tanya Prescott’s commands.

  The door to the office flew open and a tall Russian in a suit entered, all the time berating the police officer who had taken David prisoner. Tanya was right behind them, smiling broadly. “Where have you been all day?” she asked.

  David stood as the officer unlocked his cuffs. Then he hugged her. “I’m so glad to see you. Don’t let them give the man next door any leeway. They should watch him every minute. He knows everything about all that has happened, and he might try to kill himself. What about the planes in the States?”

  “Two missiles fired, just as you said, but two misses.”

  “Thank God.”

  “There were casualties in New York, though, and they’ve got the guy in LA surrounded. Thank you. Here’s all your stuff, by the way.” She handed him a bag that she had retrieved from the officer. “My Russian counterpart is telling the other police how you saved the Presidents and the Kremlin, and that the guy next door planned it all.”

  A moment later, all the Russian police in the building came to shake David’s hand.

  When the first responding cars arrived, Perry directed them to take up positions around the perimeter, to keep other curious residents from entering the lot. Ten minutes later Captain Eric Dean of the SWAT team arrived. He interviewed Perry, agreed that he had done the right thing not to approach the van, and asked him to stay close. Dean then took command of the scene, as the first SWAT vehicles arrived.

  Word was just arriving about a similar incident at JFK Airport only thirty minutes earlier, including the explosion of the van.

  Dean, standing behind the SWAT truck just inside the hedges, radioed downtown. “See if they have anybody that I can talk to who saw what happened with that van.”

  Compounding his problems, the Chief called to tell Dean that Homeland Security and the FBI wanted him to try to capture the perpetrator alive, if at all possible, so that they could interrogate him. “Yes sir, we’ll try. He’s got a hostage in the van.” he replied.

  Yusef could not believe how gracious Allah had been in providing the two young boys. Even if the one
in the passenger seat would not stop whimpering.

  “Shut up!” he yelled, raising the gun to the boy’s head.

  The boy swallowed and tried to be quiet.

  “They should be coming to us,” he said out loud. “To rescue you. But if they don’t come soon, we’ll drive over to them.” He smiled.

  Another twenty minutes passed. The perimeter was now heavily defended. Two snipers with Barrett M-107 Caliber .50 rifles were positioned at the ends of the parking lot. Dean’s phone rang. It was a senior officer with the New York team that was investigating the missile and van explosion at JFK. She was standing near the site and had a witness to the explosion with her.

  “Put her on,” Dean said.

  The nearly hysterical woman described how she had been walking her dog, had seen the smoke and heard the noise, and so she walked one block further west than her usual route. She had seen the two cars pull up to the vacant lot, and the four men get out with guns. She then described what happened, and noted that a piece of the shrapnel had hit her arm.

  “So the man was standing outside the van when the men approached him?”

  “Yes. He was outside. He had his hands raised, as if he were surrendering. Then, my God…”