Superpowers 1: Superguy

by T. Jackson King

  “Agent Richardson, how many hostages have you ID’d?” called Andrew. “And how many smartphones have been activated for us to hear whatever is being said?”

  The tall special agent had loosened his necktie. Despite the low rumble of two dozen other agents in the room, speaking into their own suit mikes or sharing news with a colleague, the man heard him. He glanced to Andrew.

  “Deputy director, we’ve identified all 22 hostages by name, city and social media presence. We’ve been able to activate 17 of the smartphones they are carrying, based on file records of their phone bills,” the man said, his bass low but firm as it traveled twenty feet to where Andrew stood. “The Fly Team jet will arrive at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport within fifteen minutes. The field office has five vans parked there ready to transport the team and its equipment to the Gateway Arch. And we have live imagery from the observation deck thanks to cameras just outside the tramway operator booths. They show both groups of hostages, though the terrorists are hard to see due to the crowd and the rising floor of the deck.”

  “Good. Any info from Tripwire on whether these two bastards fit any known or suspected sleeper cell?”

  Richardson frowned. Then he gestured down at Whitson. “Jacob says their biometrics section cannot link the faces of either terrorist to known groups or to suspected covert sleeper cells. Nor does our own Terrorism Screening Center have any info on these two, according to agent Beverly Chase, who is seated over there.” The senior agent pointed to a young black woman seated in front of a desk screen. “However, their YouTube video claims they are following the orders of Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, chief of the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria. The two give their names as Husain Muhammed and Abu Talib, though we think those are noms de guerre.”

  Andrew recognized one as the name of Muhammed’s uncle, the man who raised him as a young orphan. The other name was a combination of Muhammed himself and one of his direct descendants. Which meant these two bearded, black-suited men had some slight knowledge of the Quran and Islam. Whether they were recent converts or lifelong members of Islam he didn’t care. They had taken hostages, had fired their AK-47s to stop the flight of tourists at the top of the arch and had then placed explosive bottles at each end of the observation deck. Those actions were proof enough for him that these two meant business.

  “Any timeline statements from these two?” he asked.

  Richardson glanced down at his laptop computer, then over to Yamaguchi, who shook her head. “Nothing beyond what they announced in the YouTube video. Just the departure of our forces from the Middle East and from Israel. And the prisoner release.” The man shrugged. “Even if the White House agreed to meet their demands, it would take days to weeks to achieve those departures. These two are not allowing any food or water to be delivered by the tram elevators. Nor are they allowing either gender to pee inside the partly enclosed operator’s booth. Our Behavioral Analysis Unit concludes this means the men will likely begin killing hostages, live, on YouTube and then detonate their explosives in an effort to cause the collapse of the Gateway Arch. They may want to imitate the towers collapse of 9/11.”

  The agent was giving voice to Andrew’s own worries. The director was presently in conference with the president at the White House. The Missouri National Guard had activated a battalion of troops and had two A-10 Warthog jets ready to strafe the top of the arch, if the men began killing hostages. That option was not one he welcomed. A strafing run would cut through the steel plates of the arch and kill the two terrorists. It would also likely kill any nearby hostage. And landing agents on top of the arch by way of a stealth helicopter would be visible to the CNN copter and would be heard inside, even if his field office people forced the CNN copter to land. Which left a sudden assault by snipers who should be part of each SWAT team already in place at the top of each leg. There was a chance a sniper could fire between the legs of the hostages and take out one or both terrorists. But killing them might not prevent the detonation of the explosives, if either man triggered his cell phone actuator before dying.

  “Agent Richardson, any new problems?”

  The man looked sour. “Our people have noticed the movement of two young men in the hostage group. They are part of the north end group. The young men have been slowly moving closer to those hostages who are closest to the terrorists. Both men have been ID’d as former active duty military. Army and Marine. We are concerned they may try to jump the terrorists.”

  Andrew winced. Such a move could get those men killed, other hostages killed and one or both explosives might detonate. Buying time was what mattered now. Long experience had taught the agency that stretching out a hostage crisis situation increased the chances for a suspect to surrender or become vulnerable to countermeasures.

  “Is there a public address system in that observation room?”

  Richardson looked puzzled. “Yes, there is. It’s run by the NPS. Used to make—”

  “Can you link my smartphone into that system? So I will be heard?”

  Surprise now showed on his face. “Uh, yes, it will take a few moments to set up. We’ll have to route your signal through the wifi signal that allowed these guys to send off their YouTube broadcast. Is that your wish?”

  “It is. Do it.”

  Andrew pulled out his iPhone, tapped on its FBI app, tapped in his access code and held the device to his mouth. When Richardson pointed to him, he began.

  “Husain Mouhammed and Abu Talib, I am Andrew Steinbach, deputy director of the FBI in Washington, D. C. Will you talk with me? Your demands are being pursued.”

  The room’s wall video image of the CNN broadcast both men showed both men looking up at the ceiling speaker that conveyed his voice. They appeared surprised.

  “Infidel,” said Abu Talib loudly. “We hear you. Are you meeting our demands?”

  “We are working on those demands,” Andrew said, turning to watch the two young men vets, who had stopped their casual movement upon hearing his voice. “However, evacuating all American troops from the Middle East will take time. We have to take command of passenger jets and reroute them. Then our people have to—”

  “You delay!” Abu Talib spat loudly. He lowered his AK-47 and pointed it toward the group of south leg hostages. “Perhaps blood will motivate your infidel leader! You crusaders deserve—”

  A man dressed in a blue business suit suddenly appeared between the two terrorists, who were standing almost back to back in the center of the observation deck. The man wore a green bandana over his face. In movements too fast for Andrew to see, both men were slammed against the metal wall of the deck, the thudding sound of their impact carried over several of the smartphones in the pockets of nearby hostages.

  “Damn!” he said, realizing the Green Mask intruder had once more interfered in an agency operation.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I stood before the full length mirror in my condo’s bedroom. Looking closely, I checked out my appearance.

  Most of me was covered by the blue two button Tommy Hilfiger suit I’d bought from the Men’s Wearhouse store in Albuquerque for my college graduation. It was the suit my father had seen me in, when I’d walked up onto the stage to accept my UNM diploma. It had survived the DWI crash thanks to being in a metal suitcase. Now, I wore it with a white shirt, white-striped blue tie, black dress shoes and the green bandana stretched across my face. Since my Barringer hoodie and Salomon hiking shoes were distinctive to REI, I’d chosen to leave them here in view of the FBI snooping into REI employee records. While my black-dyed hair was clearly visible, it had been visible under my hoodie. And my bare neck and ears did not have tattoos or earrings which could be traced back to me.

  Glancing down I inspected the skin-tight green surgical gloves stretched across my hands. They blocked any fingerprints. Before putting them on I’d taken off the two turquoise rings that were usually on my left hand. No need to wear them. And there were plenty of tall young men with black hair in America, and in the Southwest
. The FBI agents who might be sniffing after the supposed Green Mask guy could not tell me apart from tens of thousands of other young men living in the states of the Four Corners. Or so I hoped. Looking like a young business executive similar to those who’d given talks at my UNM classes amused me. I never wanted to be a Wall Street stock broker or investment banker. To me, they scammed the nation’s economic system. It was an attitude not appreciated by the head of UNM’s business department. Which didn’t matter to me since I’d been taking IT classes in another department. So he had no ability to block my graduation, much as he might have wished.

  I turned away, bent down to grab the parachute pack, pulled its harness over my shoulders and touched the outline of my .45, once more stowed inside my back waistband. The bullet resistant vest was under my dress shirt. It added bulk to my chest, something I didn’t mind. It had been fun watching a few morning TV shows where some of the women gushed over how ‘manly’ I had looked during the Empire State Building rescue. Well, this time CNN would see me through the narrow windows at the top of the arch, and maybe a few hostages would snap pics of me after I took care of their captors. I didn’t care. Pictures were not a way to track my identity.

  And I’d learned from my school years in Los Alamos about the social cost of standing out as ‘different’ from other students. That had been one reason I’d dumbed down my tests and essays in high school. It didn’t matter. Let the smart ones like Gloria Chén, Abbie Spahn and Lawrence Mabry get written up in the local paper, or make the National Honor Society. I’d done as my Dad asked, and my Mom had wanted. I’d gotten a college degree. It didn’t matter to me that I could have tried for a corporate management trainee program. Fitting in with the programs of those in charge of the economy and the nation had never appealed to me. Walking through the ponderosa woods and meadows of the Jemez Falls area was more my style. And being there, away from the painful thoughts of others, let me relax my psychic shield. But that might have to change once I arrived inside the arch. Could I isolate the thoughts of the two terrorists? Maybe it wouldn’t matter, if my plan for zapping them worked out the way I hoped.

  Standing back, I recalled my memory of the curving floor of the observation deck at the very top of the Gateway Arch, the place math folks call the apex. It was an open space, just seven feet wide at foot level, wider at roof level, with narrow windows set into the western and eastern walls of the deck. At either end of the long room stood an operator booth, while next to the booth began metal stairs that led down each arch leg to the eight doors that gave access to the eight cars of each tram. Below those doors was a zigzag stairwell that led down to ground level. A random memory from the movie I’d watched in one of its two theaters said there were 1,076 emergency stairs that climbed up each leg of the arch. Perhaps there were armed cops at the top of those stairs, hunkering down to be out of sight to the two jihadist guys. Well, the explosive package that hung from each operator’s booth would slow any effort to grab me before I finished what I planned to do.

  With the image of the observation deck clear as crystal in my mind, I thought “I wish to be there”.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Janet sat on the couch in her hotel room watching the CNN coverage of the St. Louis hostage taking. The YouTube video posted by the jihadists was repeating soundlessly in one video insert, while behind Howden was the close-up image of the top of the arch. That image showed the well-lighted room that lay behind the narrow windows that faced the western side of the arch, which was the part illuminated by the spotlight from the CNN helicopter. It showed the two black-dressed men standing almost back to back, with each pointing their AK-47 at a group of hostages. One group of hostages clustered on the northern end of the arch while a second group clustered on the south end. It was hard to see but it looked as if the hostages were trying to stay as far from the explosives as possible, while still staying out of reach of the jihadists. Since the observation room was 65 feet long, that meant each cluster of hostages had to be within 15 feet of the explosive package at their end of the room. The CNN copter reporter had said the southern cluster contained 12 people while the northern cluster held 10 hostages. She looked down at her tablet.

  “Janet, can’t say much right now,” Beverly had texted her. “But the Fly Team has landed at the airport. They should be at the arch within ten minutes. They’ll join up with the SWAT teams at the top of each leg. What happens next . . . Wait! The deputy director has told Mike to connect him with the PA system in the observation room. What is he planning?”

  There was no further text from her girlfriend. She resumed looking at the CNN report. Janet had shut off the sound. But the live image from the copter was worth watching. If the jihadists were going to kill someone to ‘make a statement’ to their Islamic State handlers, she feared they would do that sooner rather than later.

  A man in a suit suddenly appeared behind the two jihadists. Before she could blink, both men had been slammed against the western wall of the room. A green bandana over the man’s face resolved her confusion.

  “Mr. Green Mask!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I arrived.

  As soon as my eyes saw the two men, facing away from me but with their shoulders in front of me, I did two things almost instantly.

  I reached out with my hands and touched the shoulders of the two jihadists.

  At the same time I thought “get away from me!”

  Mind power slammed the two men into the metal wall of the observation room with the force of being hit by a car. Their heads hit hard.

  “Rat-a-tat-tat!” came from the rifle of the man on my right, who had been lowering his AK-47 when I arrived.

  Bullets spurted out and hit the metal ceiling above the south end hostages, then ricocheted down into the stairwell beyond them.

  Red blood spurted from the nose and forehead of the man on my left as he slumped down, half lying against the wall and half crumpled on the floor. No movement came from him or his rifle. His mind had no coherent thoughts in it.

  The man on my right groaned “Ohhh!” then lay limply against the slanting wall, red blood smearing the gray metal between two windows. His rifle clattered to the floor even as he tried to turn his head my way. His thoughts were confused and filled with pain.

  I thought “come to me” at the two rifles, reaching out for them.

  They flew loose from the two men and slammed into my hands. I cradled them against my suit, then looked around. Two young men with crewcut hair were close by, standing at the edge of the south end group, their eyes wide.

  “You two!” I yelled. “You military?”

  “Yes,” called a stocky brown-haired guy. “Army Ranger.”

  “Me too,” called the other man, whose black hair showed tight sidewall trims above his ears. “Marine Recon. Why?”

  I nodded down at the two jihadists, only one of whom showed any movement.

  “Come over here and tie these guys up with your belts. I’ve got to get rid of—”

  “Time to die,” came the thought from the man on my right who had groaned. With the thought came the mental picture of a cell phone hanging from his neck on a lanyard. It was followed by the image of a finger touching a button on the phone.

  “No!” I yelled, touching that man with my mind and lifting him up off the floor in the hope he could not do what he planned.

  “Ka-booom!”

  I winced as the explosives at the south end of the room went off.

  The two vets ducked down at the sound of the blast, as did the ten women and men behind them. One person in that crowd let out a cry of pain.

  “Fuck!” I said, dropping the rifles behind me and reaching down to grab the neck of the man who had set off the explosives. I lifted his head, then slammed it against the metal wall with all the force of my body and my mind. His mind awareness vanished, though he still lived. A crunching sound told me he likely had a skull fracture. The other man was still unconscious, knocked out by the impact with the wall.<
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  I stood up and looked both ways.

  The north end hostage group had also dropped to the floor at the sound of the blast, but were now standing up slowly, looking bewildered. The south end group were holding their ears, clearly in pain from the pressure wave of the blast. That wave had pushed a strong wind against my face, but my bandana was still in place. The two vets were looking to me.

  “Get the hell over here now! Tie up these guys. I’ve got to check out that blast site.”

  As the two men, both of whom looked to be my age, headed towards me, I looked around and yelled.

  “People! You’re safe now! The two jihadists are down and have no weapons. We’ll get you out of here soon as possible. But you folks on the north side, stay away from that explosive bottle!”

  I stepped back as the two vets arrived and began pulling the hands of the unconscious men behind their backs, looping their own belts around those hands. One vet pulled both feet of a jihadist up and looped his long belt around the ankles, making it impossible for the jihadist to walk or do anything. I looked down at the two rifles, then realized there was a simple way to remove that danger. I picked both up, stepped aside to the open space between the jihadists and the south end group, and pointed one rifle’s muzzle at the seven inch high window that faced the west side. I pulled the trigger once.

  “Kablam!” came the sound of a .223 caliber bullet going through the thick glass. It fractured in a series of lines. I poked the muzzle into the hole, swept it side to side to clear the opening, then tossed that rifle out the window. The second followed. The CNN helicopter’s spotlight fixed on me. I turned back, saw the two vets were now sitting on top of the two jihadists, who were leaking red blood onto the floor’s gray carpet, and that the north end hostage group was slowly coming toward us.