Manhattan Takedown (Karyn Kane #2)

by Tony Bulmer

  Truman Whitaker launched into a stammering denial, but it was half-hearted and poorly though out.

  Karyn reached across, jammed her SIG hard into his ribs and snapped a ferociously painful pressure hold on Whitaker’s neck. She twisted hard. Ground the hard steel barrel deep into her victim’s ribs. “Tell me,” she ordered savagely.

  “Please don’t hurt me, I beg of you. I will drive you anywhere you want, just don’t hurt me.”

  “I’ve got no time to mess around with you Truman. I will shoot you right here and now if you don’t tell me where that bomb is.”

  “But you said you we were going to drive out of here. You said we were going in—to the Agency—to talk. I can tell you things, all sorts of things, but you have to take me to a place of safety, somewhere I can be comfortable answering your questions. It is how these things are done.”

  Karyn laughed. “What do you think this is Truman, some kind of bullshit movie? You are in the real world now and you are skiing so far off-piste, you have to know that things are going to end bad for you.”

  “But you work for the Agency—you are a government employee—we are on the same team for God’s sake.”

  “Wrong Truman. I am a ghost. I work beyond the rim, you know what that means right?”

  Truman Whitaker blanched. “I have heard stories of covert operations funded outside the usual channels of government.” He paused gave Karyn an incredulous look, then said, “Congress prohibited all activities operating outside the boundaries of United States law many years ago.”

  Karyn smiled. “Welcome to the new reality Mr. Secretary. Did you really think the guardians of true democracy would stand idle whilst you and your Humanistian friends carved up the world like some giant sponge cake?”

  Truman Whitaker blinked stupidly. He opened his mouth like a fish, but no words emerged.

  “Your meeting this morning Truman, tell me what I need to know, or things will get unpleasant and fast.”

  “He gave me a cell phone. He told me to ring a girl. She works at the Huds Helman show—he told me to set up some kind of meeting. I didn’t think anything of it, Irving has a weird sexual thing for young women who he feels are beneath him.”

  Karyn gave him a dead look. “Where was the meet?”

  “The Rockefeller Centre.” Truman Whitaker looked at his watch. “But we will never make it, the meeting was over an hour ago.”

  Karyn jabbed the SIG into his side. “You better put your foot down then hadn’t you—because I got business with your buddy King.”

  66

  Karyn made calls, as Truman Whitaker drove. The downtown traffic on 5th Avenue was running even crazier than usual, and by the time they hit 49th street the night was alive with the strobing lights of emergency vehicles—police, paramedics, fire crews, the bomb squad and a sizable contingent from the City of New York Port Authority.

  As the BMW crawled down the congested street, the cops were taping off the Plaza and ushering hordes of curious onlookers away from the towering Rockefeller Centre. Crowds spilled off the sidewalks and thronged into the street.

  “What the hell is going on?” moaned Truman Whitaker. “It is a zoo down here. I will be lucky if I can find a parking spot within ten blocks of this mess.”

  Karyn gave him a sour look. “Are you the big balls in government, or what Truman?” She reached for the steering wheel and jerked it a hard 180. The big car screeched abruptly to the right, mounted the curb, and came to rest in the middle of the pavement. Pedestrians skittered out of the way. Shouts and jeers echoed around them.

  The cops came running over right away, a gang of New York’s finest converging like flies on Sunday-school picnic.

  By the time the first cop peered in through the car window Karyn had her phony State Department ID high and ready. She twinned it with the sweetest public relations smile she held in her repertoire.

  The cop hardly looked at the ID. “What the hell are you doing? Get this vehicle off the pavement right now!”

  But Karyn was already climbing out. “We got government business Sergeant—important business.”

  “I don’t care what kind of business you got. We are locking this entire area down. We’ve got a bomb threat lady. This whole area could blow at any time.”

  The cops were gathering around the car now, assessing the spectacle. One of them peered inside and saw Truman Whitaker. He drew the Sergeant’s attention with a jerk of his thumb and a wry inflection of his head. “You might want to take a look at this Sergeant.”

  The Sergeant narrowed his eyes, then bent slowly and peered inside the car.

  “The Secretary of State and I are on a mission of national importance,” said Karyn.

  The Sergeant narrowed his eyes further, sniffed and said, “Just so as you know, this POS kraut car will be in the city pound when, and if, you ever come looking for it.” He held up his hand. “No, don’t thank me. I hate politicians almost as I hate the goddamn State Department. Now get the hell out of my sight and take your Boss with you, before I have a change of heart and write you the kind of ticket that will give you kidney failure.”

  Truman Whitaker rose out of the car, an indignant look stretched across his face. “Do you know who I am officer?”

  Karyn grabbed Whitaker by the wrist and dragged him towards the entrance to the Rock. “Do you think the NYPD give a damn who you are Truman? Just keep your mouth shut and follow me.”

  Truman Whitaker baulked in the doorway. “This could be dangerous Kane. If there is a bomb in here we could both be killed.”

  Karyn pulled a face. “You test my patience one more time Truman and I will kill you anyway, so step up the pace, before I start snapping off your limbs one at a time.”

  The lobby of the Rockefeller Centre was thronging with people, FDNY ladder men and bullshine organizers of every description. Officials hurried in every direction, as hordes of frightened office workers were guided out of the building.

  Karyn grabbed hold of Whitaker’s arm, keeping him close in case he decided to slip away into the crowds of evacuees. Her steel grip bit into his flesh. He whined and twisted, dragging after her like a sullen child. As they approached the bank of lifts, a firefighter barred their way, informing them with grim finality they could go no further.

  “We have government business to attend to, business that may well avert an impending catastrophe,” blurted Truman Whitaker in an officious voice.

  The young Fire Officer gave him a hard, nasty look. “If anything kicks off up there you got to know right now, there ain’t no one going to come looking for you. Anyone asks me, I haven’t even seen you…”

  Karyn issued a courteous thank you and reprised her public relations smile. The firefighter was even less impressed than the cops outside. She pushed Truman Whitaker very firmly inside the lift and he stumbled inside. “Press the button.” She commanded. Truman Whitaker looked at her with wet eyes, his finger rising haltingly before he jabbed 70 on the push button keypad.

  After the briefest of pauses, the lift rose up with vertiginous haste. Truman Whitaker staggered against the side of the lift and gave Karyn a bitter, fearful look. “Irving can be very unpleasant—you should prepare yourself.”

  Karyn twisted her lips very slightly and said, “I will bear that in mind.”

  “You don’t understand Kane. He is dangerous. He has people who work for him, facilitators—the kind of people who make sure his demands are carried out, no matter what the cost.”

  Karyn unholstered her SIG and held it in the twelve o’clock position. “I wouldn’t worry about a thing Truman. Between us, I am sure we will be able to make him see reason.”

  As they reached the 70th floor the lift slowed, bounced to a halt and then finally, the heavy bronze doors hissed open.

  Karyn gesticulated with the barrel of her pistol. “You first.”

  Truman Whitaker began to protest, but she guided him out with a well-aimed kick in the seat of his pants. He danced out of the lift clutch
ing his backside. He gave her an injured look, like he was about to start whining, but Karyn held a cautionary finger to her lips and motioned him forwards with her pistol. He moved slowly, reluctantly; his highly polished office shoes crunching across the rubble littered floor. He hesitated. Karyn jabbed him in the back with her pistol and he moved forwards once again, moving along the gloomy construction site corridor and out into a darkened office space.

  The lights of Manhattan spread wide to the horizon.

  Karyn moved sideways, her gun at the ready.

  “This wasn’t my idea Irving, she forced me to come here!” squawked Truman Whitaker loudly. Karyn ignored him. She moved quickly around the perimeter of the vast room, assessing every dark corner and foreboding pillar that might conceal an ambush. As she trawled along the wall she came to a master light switch. She held her pistol in one hand and flipped every switch with a fast sweep of her forearm.

  The lights snapped on. The whole room bathed in a heavy yellow glow.

  No bomb, nothing, save a man and woman gagged and handcuffed into two office chairs. The chairs were held in place by a heavy chain, looped around one of the concrete support columns.

  Karyn’s face twitched. She gesticulated to Truman Whitaker with her pistol. “Help those nice people out would you Truman?”

  Truman Whitaker blinked stupidly in the fluorescent haze. His neck switched back and forth as he figured what he should do, then after taking a final long look into the barrel of Karyn’s gun he trotted over to the captives and released the woman’s gag

  “Get the hell out of here, it’s a trap!” she shouted.

  67

  Truman Whitaker pulled the gag out of the fat man’s mouth next. “That son of a bitch is going to kill us all—he has planted some kind of bomb—the whole place is going to blow higher than the World Trade Centre.” The fat man paused, looked at Karyn and blurted, “Who in hells name are you toots? Where are the cavalry? The cops, the bomb squad, the army for Christ’s sake?”

  Karyn holstered her SIG. She took a long hard look at the fat man. “And you are? She enquired.

  Huds Helman laughed then, it wasn’t pleasant laughter—it was derisive and scornful. He jerked at his bonds, struggling impotently to rise out of his seat. “You sure sound American honey but you look South of the border foreign to me, that being the case, I wouldn’t be at all surprised that you don’t know who I am. Question is—who are you?”

  Karyn pulled her switchblade out the back of her pants and popped the blade. She held it so the fat man could get a real good look at the razor sharp steel, then moved in, cutting away the ropes that held him with fast deft strokes of the blade.

  Huds Helman rose unsteadily to his feet rubbing his wrists. “Real fancy knife work honey, but you people grow up with that kind of thing, am I right?”

  Karyn moved so fast Huds Helman landed ass first on the floor before he knew what was happening. His face throbbing purple, Helman tried in vain to fill his lungs with the air that had been punched out of him.

  “Where is the bomb?” asked Karyn.

  The girl spoke then. “He didn’t tell us where, he just said…”

  Truman Whitaker’s cell phone trilled loudly.

  Karyn moved on instinct, she was flying through the air to snatch the phone out of his hands even before the words of warning had even left her lips

  The words were irrelevant, as empty and meaningless as the as the past that was in that very instant torn free of its moorings by the power of a thunderous explosion. Every window in the room collapsed inwards and glass shards scythed the air.

  Falling down onto the hard concrete floor, Karyn marveled at the sight of Truman Whitaker’s cell phone tumbling through the air against a backdrop of molten flame. The flames surged, burning through the windows like the breath of a fiery serpent. The floor rose up, bent by the power of an unseen force—somewhere, deep within the building there had been a high explosive detonation. But the explosion was nothing like Mumbai—Karyn’s mind reeled with the implications—a subterfuge—a secondary device—the EMP device was elsewhere—

  A sudden flash, a powerful, glistening, wash of light closing down the night, enveloping everything in its dazzling glare. The sound of the second explosion reverberated in from across the Hudson. New Jersey. It had always been New Jersey, the communications capital of an entire continent. Karyn closed her eyes and listened to the explosions echoing, reverberating endlessly in the night. It was the sound of a whole world crushed under the weight of an endless tyranny.

  68

  Pakistan

  The white-gloved servants showed him in. General Faz Huq smiled and held wide his arms in welcome. Tomur did not look well, his skin hung from his face in a ghastly mask, his boyish good looks consumed by the trauma of the diseased months he had spent in the hospital of Dr. Al Zawahiri in the southern city of Quetta.

  “My dear boy, you do not know how worried I have been. I was almost beginning to think that you would never return to me.”

  Tomur’s black eyes glittered with contempt. “You should have killed the American. Instead, you conspired with the Imperialist Shaitan Truman Whitaker and his lapdogs in the Central Intelligence Agency, so that the woman could go free.”

  The general frowned. “I do not know where you heard these cruel lies, my boy. Perhaps in your sickness these ideas came upon you like a fever? It is no matter. You are back with me now and for that I am greatly thankful.”

  “My eyes have been opened by men of great piety and wisdom,” said Tomur, his voice cold and dead.

  A tight, grisly look twisted across the general’s face. He steepled his fingers together unsteadily and said, “I can assure you that I had no intention of shooting you. It was an unfortunate accident nothing more. My intention was to create a diversion from your hasty and ill considered attempt to murder our American guests.”

  “Allah in his mercy spared me, so that I might perform a greater service.”

  “What greater service to Allah can there be other than the all consuming dedication to Jihad?”

  Tomur said nothing, simply reached inside his robes and handed the general a DVD disc.

  The general looked at the disk, glittering malevolently in its green plastic case. In elegantly cursive Arabic script the label read—Al Muntaha Jumeirah Beach Dubai. The general’s eyes fluttered back to the face of his young acolyte, hoping in vain he might see some last vestige of humanity, but he saw nothing in the pale and sickly face, save the horror of pure fanaticism.

  A thousand desperate thoughts and entreaties surged into the general’s mind, at that moment, but the final futile question that rose to his lips was drowned out by the detonation of a powerful explosive charge that had been surgically planted inside the chest cavity of the young Uyghur. The destruction was savage, grotesque—instantaneous.

  69

  Shanghai, Red Light District

  In the Industrial Putuo slums, west of the Huangpu River, the pall of thick yellow smog closed in, masking the light of the sun into a dull, throbbing glow. But in the rarified world of the black Maybach limousine, Irving King breathed easily. The business in Manhattan hadn’t been executed quite as he planned, but no matter. As a guest of supreme leader Zhàn Tao, he was free and clear. The bumbling incompetents in Federal Law enforcement would never be able to reach him here in the new China. King allowed himself a wry chuckle. What he wouldn’t give to see the tearful face of Helen Fischer, chair of the Federal Reserve Bank. How clever and omnipotent that scheming bitch thought she was. But no, she had been outwitted! She had been beaten by his superior intellect, and now, the New Jersey FEDWIRE building was nothing more than a smoldering crater. Irving King was delighted; the takedown in Manhattan had been his most lucrative hedge ever—the hedge of the century! Not only that, the entire FEDWIRE system had been cast into disarray for months, maybe even years; banking payments across the world had been monkey wrenched to the tune of hundreds of trillions of dollars. The new future
of mankind was emerging at last, and what a triumphant emergence it was! By the time the world banking system had stabilized Humanistian leaders would have moved into place worldwide. The imperialistic hegemony of America and the old world powers was finally at an end!

  Of course, this great victory was tinged with a sense of unavoidable loss. The American authorities had already begun their futile efforts to seize his assets. But it would do them no good. They would be hamstrung by the very legislation they once thought made them invulnerable. The big government lawyers would be tied up for decades in their attempt to steal back control of the world financial system. But it was too late, the tide of control had turned against them—they would soon learn who their new masters were, very soon!

  Peering through the bulletproof glass into the squalid street outside, Irving King got a sudden rush of excitement. He missed the South Bronx and the hunting it offered, but the Jienu districts of Shanghai were teeming with exotic flesh. As a man of discernment, with very exacting personal needs, King had indulged himself since his arrival in the new China, adding very many exquisite experiences to his collection. Trouble was, it was almost too easy to meet his needs in this land of opportunity—the challenge, the danger and the risk of discovery all contributed to the thrill of the experience. Without those things, the enjoyment was compromised in a most unfortunate way. Switching out quality for volume hadn’t helped. He had quite literally lost count of the experiences he had collected since his arrival. It was as though his appetite was expanding to meet the supply of nubile young flesh. Luckily, the filthy yet free flowing Huangpu River had an appetite as big as his own; how readily the dark waters absorbed the meat-locker remnants of human detritus.

  Contemplations of any kind were an unneeded distraction—there was no margin in distraction, no margin at all. It was therefore, with renewed focus, that he noticed the svelte girl in the miniskirt leaning against the power pole, very close to his favorite pick-up corner. From the way she was acting, the girl was obviously drugged, but there was something more. She was taller than the other girls. King’s pulse quickened and as the limousine drew ever closer to the corner, he peered intently at this delightful prospect. Her naked legs were lubricious and much darker than the average Chinese. He felt himself getting excited. He gave the word to the chauffeur and the car slowed. Yes, this was the girl for tonight. She stood out from the pack most distinctly. King peered through the swirling smog, so he might see the face of the girl more clearly, but she was wearing a mask across her nose and mouth—they all wore those masks damn it—hoping in vain they could keep the toxic smog at bay. It was pitiful, stupid—they filled their bodies with drugs, nicotine and booze and yet they figured a flimsy paper mask could offer protection from their inevitable fate?