Operation Sea Ghost ph-3

by Mack Maloney

  So, Shabazz just pulled the piece of metal out of his arm, jumped into the van and roared away in a cloud of exhaust.

  * * *

  At that moment, it started to rain. Suddenly there was very heavy thunder and lightning and high winds. It was so violent, and came so fast, it even surprised the people who’d just been involved in the strange gun battle.

  Fighting the sudden gale, Nolan and Batman put down the M107, jumped off the Numero Two and ran up the gangway to the street.

  Batman was in the lead. He quickly sought out the dock workers’ foreman and explained as best he could who he and Nolan were and what was going on, including their connection to the CIA. He made it clear that he and Nolan had to pursue the man who’d just stolen the van, but that everyone else on the pier should stay in place, get under cover and shield their eyes should they hear any kind of explosion.

  The boss understood eventually. He brought Nolan and Batman over to his tool truck and gave them two highly illegal AR-15 rifles. He also gave them some extra construction boots, as everyone on board the Numero Two was still barefoot.

  Now armed and shod, Nolan and Batman ran out onto Dalton Street, trying to determine which way Shabazz had gone. People were starting to drift down toward the waterfront now, alerted by the commotion. To them, Nolan and Batman, with their camos and heavy weapons, appeared to be a couple of actors about to shoot a scene for a movie. It was the only explanation that made sense.

  They were tempted to tell these people to seek cover and to shield their eyes if they heard a loud explosion, but they were sure no one would take them seriously.

  Instead, they peered up and down the long street, but had no luck spotting the van in any direction.

  Cabs were flying by, and they tried to wave one down. But none of them were about to stop two guys dressed for a costume party at 6:30 on a hot summer morning. Especially in the rain.

  Then Batman spotted something strange. It was a newspaper box for the New York Post. The headline read: “Where’s Emma? Hollywood Star missing for 4 days.”

  It was at that moment that everything just stopped. They didn’t know why, maybe it was just the absurdity of it all, but whatever energy they had left just drained out of both of them. Standing in the downpour on the dirty New York street, with borrowed guns and borrowed shoes, looking at the newspaper headline, the whole adventure suddenly seemed over.

  “We’ll never catch this guy now,” Batman said. “Even if that address you found is right around the corner, he’s got a big head start on us.”

  Nolan was devastated, but he had to agree. Even if a cab stopped for them, they had no money to pay the driver, and every second that passed just meant the terrorist was driving deeper and deeper into New York City.

  “After all this,” he said. “And we lose him here? Of all places…”

  Batman just nodded glumly. “I think it’s time, Snake,” he said.

  Nolan knew what he meant. There was no sense fighting it. It was finally time to call the authorities and report what they knew.

  “Who?” Nolan asked him wearily.

  “Call 911,” Batman suggested. “Hopefully the cops will catch him — then maybe they’ll give them the hundred million.”

  Nolan borrowed a cell phone from one of the dockworkers and dialed 911.

  An operator answered quickly and asked what the emergency was.

  Nolan wanted to keep it simple, so he just said: “There’s a bomb about to go off at 45 Park Place. I have to talk to the bomb squad.”

  The weird thing was, it almost seemed as if the operator laughed at him. “Bomb in 45 Park Place?” she said. “Right. OK — hold on.”

  Nolan explained to Batman the operator’s weird attitude.

  Batman just shook his head. “New York’s always been a weird place,” he said.

  The line clicked twice and a NYPD officer came on, announcing he was from the bomb squad.

  Nolan repeated his message — and this guy laughed for real.

  Nolan couldn’t take it. “Why the hell are you laughing at me?” he demanded to know.

  “Because,” the guy replied, “we get four or five bomb threats on that building every day. And it’s against the law to call in prank phone calls.”

  Nolan was pissed. “But why do you assume this is a prank call?”

  The cop yelled back: “Because that’s the address of the Ground Zero Mosque … that’s why.”

  Nolan immediately hung up. Again, he told Batman what had happened, then said, “Well, damn — it all makes sense now.”

  Their enthusiasm revived, they started hailing cabs again — but once more, to no good luck.

  But suddenly Emma was beside them. Wearing a pair of borrowed construction boots herself, she was disobeying Nolan’s order to stay on the boat.

  She raised her hand for no more than a half second and three cabs screeched to a halt.

  “That’s how it’s done,” she said to Nolan.

  He and Batman piled in — she started to come with them but Nolan blocked her at the door.

  “No way,” he said. “Not this time. Get back to the boat and make sure everyone covers their eyes if they hear anything go off…”

  But she knew him too well now. She waved his protest aside by saying, “They already know that.”

  Then she climbed in the backseat with him.

  The cabbie looked back at them. He first saw Emma and nearly flipped out. Then he saw the guns and said, “Shooting a movie Miss Simms?”

  “Something like that,” she replied. “Take us to forty-five Park Place and please step on it.…”

  * * *

  For Nolan, the ride from Maiden Lane to 45 Park Place seemed to take forever.

  It wasn’t even 7:00 A.M. but the traffic turned awful once they’d left the waterfront. The rainstorm wasn’t helping. It was coming down so hard, Nolan had no idea how the cabbie could even see. But even without the weather, it would have been tough going. Lots of trucks, lots of cabs, lots of pedestrians.

  Not that long ago, Nolan had been on an island paradise. Now — he was here. In the busiest city … in the United States. A place he wasn’t even supposed to be.

  He saw at least one cop on every corner, patrol cars parked everywhere. Should we tell them? he thought. Would they believe us? Or would they be arrested for riding in a New York City cab carrying illegal assault rifles?

  If he knew the team would still get the CIA reward money if they brought in outside help, what would he do then? Or was the CIA even going to pay them at all?

  Nolan just sank deeper into the cab’s backseat as the driver ran a red light.

  It’s not always easy to do the right thing.…

  The driver turned right off Maiden Lane onto Church and what Nolan saw here was a lot of chain-link fence, a lot of construction equipment, and what basically looked like a big empty space in a canyon of skyscrapers.

  This was Ground Zero.

  He turned to Emma — he wanted to make sure that, no matter what happened, she knew where they were. But he saw her looking out the window, her eyes getting watery. After what she’d been through, after what they’d both been through, no words were necessary.

  The driver took three more turns and suddenly they were on Park Place.

  The van stolen by Shabazz was out in front of number 45, parked askew, two of its wheels up on the curb, its driver’s door still open.

  The Jihad Brother had gotten out in a hurry.

  It said something about New York City that people were walking past the oddly parked truck without giving it a second look.

  The taxi pulled up and, though they had no money, Emma paid the driver by autographing his Yankees cap. Then the three of them jumped out.

  They hesitated — just for a moment — when they realized this place really didn’t look like a mosque.

  “That’s because it isn’t,” Emma said, reading their thoughts. “We were going to shoot a movie here. It’s a center for Muslim religio
us study. There’s a difference.”

  “Tomato, to-mah-to,” Batman said dryly.

  And Nolan agreed. They checked their assault weapons and then they ran inside.

  They came upon an unexpected scene in the lobby. Three people, two men and a woman, were lying on the floor. All three were wearing traditional Muslim garb; all three were shot dead. Nolan knew this could only be the work of the terrorist. He imagined the gunman had stormed into the building, shooting anyone who got in his way.

  So much for Brotherhood.

  There were at least a dozen people cowering in the lobby; they were behind chairs, hiding in corners and crouched beneath the reception desk.

  There was a collective gasp from these people when Nolan and Batman burst in, Emma trailing close behind. But it was an expression of relief. Many of those in hiding thought Nolan and Batman were a NYPD SWAT team.

  Several ventured out of their hiding places and greeted them with hand kissing and frantic gestures. Others simply ran for the door.

  “Where is he?” Nolan was asking the people as they were fighting to kiss his hand. “Where did he go?”

  All the people remaining in the lobby pointed upward.

  “The roof,” one man said as he was making a quick exit. “He went up to the roof.”

  Though there was a bank of elevators off to the right, Nolan, Batman and Emma made for the stairs. They climbed quickly but carefully. Emma was staying close to them; there was no way Nolan could tell her to stay behind now.

  They reached the second floor and found two more dead bodies — security guards, gunned down before they could take their weapons out. Nolan took their pistols and gave one to Batman and kept one for himself.

  They climbed up to the third floor. They could see people peeking out of doorways. In each case, Nolan told them to stay where they were.

  On the fourth floor, they found a seriously wounded man collapsed outside the building’s mail room.

  Batman covered the hall as Nolan and Emma hurried over to the wounded man. He’d been shot in the neck and shoulder, but could still talk.

  “He has the box,” he said weakly. “It arrived here on overnight delivery two days ago. It was being held for him. But I didn’t think he’d shoot me for it.”

  Nolan and Emma pulled the man into the mail room and closed the door.

  Then they carefully returned to the stairway and resumed their climb. Seconds later, they’d reached the top floor of the building.

  There was a long hallway in front of them, but off to the left was a fire exit door slightly ajar. The light and rain coming in told Nolan this door led to the roof.

  Just as they were about to move, the door opened wider and Fahim Shabazz walked in from the roof.

  Nolan felt his body tense up. He recognized this guy as the one he’d seen so many times through the M107’s sniper scope, if just for fractions of a second.

  The terrorist took two steps and then realized there were three people in camo clothing standing ten feet away from him, two of them carrying assault rifles.

  Shabazz wasn’t armed. He put his hands up, as if to say I’m innocent.

  But Nolan and Batman weren’t fooled.

  They cut him down in a hail of bullets before he could say a word.

  Then they ran forward; Shabazz was literally full of holes. There was no need to check if he was dead or not.

  They burst out onto the roof in the pouring rain. And there it was, in the northeast corner of the flat roof. The Z-box.

  Nolan stopped in his tracks. They all did. This thing that had consumed their lives for what seemed like years was now right here in front of them.

  All this time, Nolan had pictured it as a briefcase. A black briefcase. But of course that didn’t make sense.

  It looked more like a small footlocker. Not black and shiny like it would be if this were a movie, but painted in typical dull Army olive drab.

  And sure enough there was a ‘Z’ carved into its top.

  But more important, the key was in the lock and it had been turned.

  “It’s activated!” Batman yelled to Nolan.

  Nolan ran to it, suddenly soaked by the rain again. A clap of thunder went off over his head, then a flash of lightning.

  He slid to a stop in front of the box. It was ticking — strange that it would work after all these years.

  Murphy had told Whiskey the only way to stop the Z-box from exploding was to turn it off with the key. But this would have to be done before a minute had elapsed after the box had been turned on. After that, the box would blow up fifteen seconds later, no matter what happened.

  But how long ago had Shabazz activated it? There was no way to tell. Nolan knew he had to turn the key anyway.

  But the key wouldn’t budge. He tried it again, very aware of the ticking. But it would not move — it was stuck.

  There was another clap of thunder above him, along with the crackle of lightning. He was suddenly aware that there were also helicopters overhead. Police copters, TV news copters. He could see searchlights and TV lights cutting through the rain.

  All the while, he was trying to turn the key with all his might, but it just wouldn’t move.

  He turned back to see Batman and Emma standing right behind him, watching and feeling helpless.

  “Run!” he told them. “Get out of here!”

  “No way!” they both yelled back at once.

  “Go!” Nolan yelled at them again. “I’m half blind anyway!”

  But they did not move.

  Nolan tried the key again — but again no luck.

  Then Emma yelled, “Try taking it out and putting it back in again.”

  It didn’t make sense, but Nolan did as she suggested. He pulled the key out and then put it back in.

  Then he twisted it — and this time it moved.

  There was a click and then suddenly, the top of the box sprang open.

  And then there was a tremendous flash.…

  * * *

  Twitch, Murphy and Li had stayed back on the docks.

  Murphy was so happy that Li was still alive, he wanted to keep her out of harm’s way, no matter what the situation, no matter how much money was involved. She meant that much to him and his PSO.

  For his part, Twitch stayed behind because he wasn’t too mobile after using the sharp tip of his makeshift prosthesis to save Li’s life, something she had not stopped thanking him for.

  They waited on the pier, under a boat shelter, a coterie of mobbed-up dockworkers keeping an eye on them, keeping them safe. Savoldi and Giuseppe were there as well.

  They weren’t exactly obeying Nolan’s last order. Instead they were all just talking and waiting for the other shoe to drop, awaiting the final outcome of the strange chase.

  So everyone on the docks saw the tremendous flash of light. It came so quick, and was so bright, there really was no time to cover their eyes.

  There was also the sound of a huge explosion in those same few seconds. Yet amidst the confusion and the storm, it was impossible to tell if it had come from an incredibly loud clap of thunder, or something else entirely.

  Twitch, Murphy, Li and the two Italian crewmen had immediately put their hands to their eyes anyway, at the same time knowing if they had to think about it, then it was probably too late — if the Z-box had gone off, that is.

  But after a few moments of what seemed to be total silence throughout Manhattan, Twitch uncovered his eyes. He looked over at the beautiful Li and saw she was smiling back at him.

  “I can see?” he asked.

  They all lowered their hands and opened their eyes and it was still raining and thundering, and lightning was still crackling everywhere.

  But yes, they could all see.

  * * *

  Back on the roof of the “mosque,” Nolan regained consciousness to find a hectic, confusing scene around him.

  He had no idea what had happened. He recalled opening the Z-box, just as it appeared a lightning bolt ha
d hit the roof nearby. Either that or one of the searchlights on one of the helicopters overhead had exploded. In any case, it was a tremendous flash of light.

  He remembered seeing Emma, bathed in this light, being thrown backward and hitting her head. He remembered seeing Batman blown right through the roof exit door and back into the hallway.

  But the strangest thing was that Nolan remembered seeing all this as if both his eyes still worked, as if his eye patch had been blown away. And in that briefest of moments, while the tremendous light was still all around him, he also thought he saw his old friend Crash, standing in front of him, smiling and giving him two thumbs-up.

  Shortly after that, Nolan lost consciousness.

  Now he was awake again. It had stopped raining and the roof was crowded with NYPD SWAT team members, firefighters, EMTs and lots of spooks in bad suits.

  Nolan’s vision was still blurry, though his eye patch was back in place. But among the crowd, he recognized one person right away. It was Audette, the CIA agent who’d started the whole Z-box thing. He was with a couple of other people who Nolan was sure were government bomb disposal experts. They were carrying away the now-deactivated Z-box.

  As they were walking past him, Nolan overheard a conversation between Audette and two NYPD cops.

  One of the cops was saying to Audette, “If there was a bomb here, we need to know that for our report.”

  To which Audette replied, “There was no bomb here. Capeesh? No one ever saw a bomb here.”

  Then Audette looked down at Nolan, paused a moment, and said, “Good to see you again.”

  Then he disappeared into the crowd.

  Two EMTs were trying to keep Nolan in a horizontal position at this point, but he fought them off and got to his feet.

  He had to find the others.

  He located Batman first. He was on a stretcher, out in the hallway, an IV already plugged into his arm. Eyes closed, he was still unconscious.

  Nolan grabbed the EMT treating him. “What’s the matter with him?” he demanded to know.