Jackknife

by Johnstone, William W.

  “I know,” he said as he picked up the gun again. “They think they can overpower us and defeat us. But they have no chance. Our victory is the will of Allah!”

  She grabbed his arm. “We must find Sheikh al-Mukhari. He must be protected until he can detonate the bomb. There are preparations that must be made—”

  Hamed’s eyes widened in surprise. “The bomb is not ready to trigger?”

  “Would you have had it go off by accident before we were ready?” she snapped. “It will not take long. Five, perhaps ten minutes.”

  It had been at least five minutes since the fire alarm and the sprinklers had gone on. If the sheikh had started preparing the bomb for detonation as soon as the trouble started, he might be almost ready to set it off.

  But if he had been delayed for any reason, then the time he needed had to be bought somehow, and he had to be protected while he was readying the device. Hamed’s original idea of heading for the front of the store had been a good one.

  He took Shalla’s hand and said, “Let’s go!”

  Before they started running, though, he took one last look at her. Her black hair was wet and plastered to her head, and the strain they were all under showed on her face.

  But even though her head was uncovered and she wore immodest American clothes, Hamed realized at that moment she was beautiful, and he leaned closer to her and pressed his mouth to hers in a quick, hard kiss. She was startled at first before her lips responded.

  But it lasted only a couple of seconds, and then they were hurrying toward the front of the store as fast as they could.

  From one end of the long building to the other, the Battle of the UltraMegaMart was being fought. The wailing of the fire alarm and the drenching downpour from the sprinklers made it seem as if everyone in the store was caught in a thunderstorm in hell, with the roar of gunshots standing in for the rumble of thunder.

  Two of the men Jack McCabe had freed from the stockroom died in their first encounters with the terrorists who were spreading out to look for them, chopped down by automatic-weapons fire.

  But the terrorists began to fall, too, as men who had handled rifles for years—and other men who had never even fired a gun before—found reserves of strength and courage and icy nerve within themselves that they had never known were there before.

  At the same time, since the terrorists were unable to watch their prisoners as closely as they had before, most of the hostages made a break for freedom, surging in a human tide toward the front of the store.

  They came to an abrupt halt, though, as the prisoners who had been placed near the small bombs at the entrances screamed at them to get back. Those hostages knew what would happen if the others came stampeding through there. Scores of people would die.

  So for a moment the mob hesitated, uncertain whether or not to continue its panic-stricken flight. Then common sense began to prevail. As the fighting continued elsewhere in the store, a few brave souls hurried forward to grab the hostages near the bombs and drag them away from the explosives. Everyone held their breath, fearing that the bombs would start to go off, but the motion sensors must have been turned outward, to prevent a rescue attempt from outside the store.

  No one dared try to move the bombs themselves, though. Any jostling of them would surely set them off. That left hundreds of people crowded into the front third or so of the store, behind the long line of cash registers and checkout stands. They milled around, uncertain what to do next, cold and wet and still very, very scared.

  But it was only a matter of time now until they all got out of here. That feeling was growing. Gunshots still rang out here and there, but the crisis was nearly over.

  Soon, they would be going home.

  CHAPTER 58

  “My God, it’s a war in there,” Eileen Bastrop breathed as she clutched her boss’s arm. She and Walt Graham stood just outside the mobile command center, listening to the roar of gunshots coming from inside the UltraMegaMart. They didn’t need sophisticated listening devices to hear the sounds of battle anymore.

  There was nothing sexual in the way Bastrop leaned against Graham. She was just shaken by the knowledge that innocent Americans were dying in there, and he knew that because he felt the same way himself. Feelings of rage and impotent frustration filled him.

  “We’ve got to find a way to get in there,” he muttered.

  “We can’t,” Bastrop said. “Those bombs are still in place at the entrances. If anything comes too close to them, they’ll go off.”

  “I know that.” Graham was seething. “If there was just some other way in…”

  His eyes swept the vast expanse of asphalt surrounding the store. The MegaMart trucks that had been parked behind the building to be unloaded when the hostage situation erupted had all been moved out to the very edge of the lot—after they had been swept for explosives, of course. Now they sat there like silent behemoths, forgotten because of everything else that was going on.

  Graham stared at the trucks for a long moment and felt his heart began to slug harder in his chest. “I’ve got an idea, Eileen,” he said. “They have all the doors rigged with bombs, right?”

  “Right. As far as we know. Nobody wants to risk going in the back to see if they have bombs there, too.”

  “Well, then, it’s simple.” Graham smiled for what seemed like the first time in days. “If we can’t go in the doors that are there…we make a new door.”

  McCabe moved fast because he was going the long way around, avoiding the fighting that had erupted throughout the central area of the store between the terrorists and the men he had freed. He heard the crack of rifles and the stuttering roar of automatic weapons, even over the racket of the fire alarm, and from time to time he saw muzzle flashes from the corner of his eye.

  He hated to let someone else do the fighting like that, but his own mission was important, too. He had learned during his years in the Special Forces to never lose sight of the primary goal.

  Which in this case was to make sure that the UltraMegaMart didn’t turn into a smoking, possibly radioactive hole in the ground.

  The worry that the terrorists had some sort of pocket nuke gnawed at McCabe’s guts. The technology had become so advanced that something no larger than a briefcase could pack devastating power and also be “dirty” enough to contaminate a huge area. With the northwesterly winds at this time of year, a nuclear explosion here would send fallout all over Fort Worth and Dallas. In the long run, thousands more people would die from radiation poisoning…maybe hundreds of thousands. And the huge metropolitan region would be rendered unlivable for hundreds of years. It would be the worst attack ever on United States soil, eclipsing 9/11 by far.

  So McCabe raced past sporting goods, past house-wares, past auto supplies, sticking to the outer edge of the store’s retail floor where he was less likely to run into any of the terrorists. By pet food, he turned and found himself in the main aisle, able to look all the way past the checkout stands to the other end where the produce area of the grocery section was located.

  The aisle was thronged with people, as the hostages crowded forward looking for a way out of this store that had become their cage. McCabe bit back a curse. He would never be able to make his way through that mob in time. He darted out of the main aisle and began skirting the mob through the health-and-beauty section.

  He came to a wall of shelves blocking his way. They didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, though. Instead, they were only about eight feet high. He swept female products off the shelves and began climbing. The metal shelves bent under his weight, but supported him long enough for him to reach the top. He vaulted over and landed lithely in the open space directly in front of one of the store’s main entrances.

  He saw the motion-sensitive bomb to his right, part of the crowd of terrified hostages to his left. Straight ahead was the long, narrow clearing in front of the checkout stands, with the wall to McCabe’s left being lined with a nail salon, photo studio, bank branch, eyeglass
center, the customer-service desk, and the front restrooms.

  McCabe’s eyes searched for the leader of the terrorists, whom he had suspected would be up here somewhere, but he didn’t see anyone other than the mob of shoppers, who were staying back behind the checkout stands because of their fear of the bombs at the doors.

  Suddenly, near the far entrance to the store, there was a commotion among the hostages. They parted, and a woman strode through the opening carrying a machine pistol. McCabe’s instincts started the gun in his hand swinging up, but then he froze as his stunned eyes recognized the lean, athletic shape, the blond hair, the proud stance.

  Terry.

  McCabe’s heart leaped. His wife was alive! And not only alive, but also apparently unharmed—and armed. A second later, he got another pleasant surprise as he saw Ronnie come through the opening in the crowd, helping another young woman support a man who was evidently wounded or injured. Relief washed through McCabe at the sight of his daughter.

  “Terry!” he bellowed. “Ronnie!”

  They turned toward him, and even at this distance he saw their faces light up at the sight of him.

  At that moment, two things happened. The sprinklers and the fire alarm finally cut off, leaving a silence that seemed empty somehow.

  And McCabe’s relief turned to horror as people in the crowd screamed and frantically got out of the way as two more figures stepped out behind Terry, Ronnie, and their companions. A man and a woman, the woman the female terrorist McCabe had captured earlier, the man tall, dark, and bearded, obviously one of her fellow murderers.

  He had a gun in his hand—Hiram Stackhouse’s revolver, a part of McCabe’s brain realized—and it was swinging up to point at Terry.

  CHAPTER 59

  Terry couldn’t believe it. Not only was Jack alive and inside the UltraMegaMart, but he was also armed and obviously had been taking on the terrorists already. She was about to break into a run toward her husband when the screams behind her made her glance back over her shoulder.

  She saw Hamed emerge from the stampeding crowd. He had a woman with him, and in that split second Terry wondered if she was the female terrorist they had been looking for earlier. Shalla? Was that her name?

  Terry didn’t have time to think about it, because Hamed was lifting a gun he had gotten from somewhere, and from the crazed look in his hate-filled eyes, all he was thinking about right now was killing her.

  He didn’t get that chance because Ronnie let go of Ellis Burke and grabbed Hamed’s arm, forcing it upward even as he was pulling the trigger. The gun roared, but the bullet went harmlessly into the ceiling.

  “Ronnie, no!” Terry cried, but she was too late. Her daughter was already locked in a struggle with the terrorist, her lithe young strength a match for him, at least for a few seconds. Terry turned around, knowing there was no way she could risk a shot with Ronnie so close to Hamed.

  She didn’t get a chance to fire anyway, because in that heartbeat the woman who was with Hamed let out a yell and threw herself forward, launching a spinning kick that knocked the machine pistol out of Terry’s hand. A second later, she slammed the base of her hand into Terry’s sternum, knocking her backward.

  Reacting instinctively, Terry blocked the next blow and threw one of her own, a good old-fashioned punch to the jaw. That rocked the female terrorist, but she didn’t go down. She caught her balance and kicked again, aiming at Terry’s knee.

  Terry shifted at the last instant, bending so that she took the savage kick on her thigh. It staggered her. Knowing she was going to fall, she turned it to her advantage and lashed out with her other leg, sweeping her opponent’s legs out from under her.

  Both women crashed to the floor.

  Terry didn’t waste any time. She rolled over and flung herself on the other woman, slamming punches into the terrorist’s face and midsection.

  All the fear and anger and frustration that had built up inside Terry during the past couple of hours exploded then. She cried out incoherently as she continued the fierce attack, her pounding fists rising and falling almost too fast for the eye to follow.

  She might have beaten the woman into insensibility, might have even killed her, if her maternal instincts hadn’t kicked in and reminded her that her daughter was also engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Terry stopped punching long enough to look up and see if Ronnie was all right, and in that moment Shalla landed a stunning blow of her own, knocking Terry off and sending her into a place where the world spun crazily and she felt consciousness slipping away.

  McCabe had never run track or anything like that. He had the quickness of a man who had survived for years in an extremely hazardous profession, but he was no sprinter.

  He covered the ground along the front of the store faster than he had ever moved before in his life. His wife and daughter were in danger, and knowing that put wings on his feet that had never been there when he was just trying to save his own life.

  He saw Terry struggling with Shalla, and felt a surge of pride when he realized that his wife was battling on even terms with the terrorist. Ronnie wouldn’t last long against the man, though, and McCabe knew it. The element of surprise and her youthful vitality could only carry her so far against a mature killer.

  In fact, just as McCabe was skidding to a stop a few yards away, the man clipped Ronnie on the jaw with the barrel of the revolver he held. The blow stunned the young woman and made her knees buckle. The terrorist raised the gun, clearly intending to strike again with it and crush Ronnie’s skull.

  McCabe leveled the machine pistol, ready to blow him away.

  Before he could pull the trigger, the wounded man he had seen earlier, being helped along by Ronnie and a young blond woman McCabe didn’t know, lurched between McCabe and the terrorist. With an angry shout, he tackled the would-be killer.

  Both men went down. The revolver slipped out of the terrorist’s hand and spun away on the tile.

  The terrorist was clearly more experienced in hand-to-hand combat, and the other man was wounded to boot. The terrorist slammed the edges of his hands against his opponent’s neck, where it joined the shoulders on either side. The wounded man stiffened, momentarily paralyzed by the blows. The terrorist flung him aside, came up onto his hands and knees, and went after the gun he had lost.

  McCabe was already there. One of his work boots came down on the revolver, pinning it to the floor.

  The terrorist looked up at him, eyes full of hatred. McCabe could have squeezed the trigger at that moment and exploded the guy’s head with a burst of automatic-weapons fire. He thought about it. He came mighty close to doing it.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, his other foot lashed out. The heel of his boot caught the terrorist in the face, pulping the man’s nose and sending him rolling over a couple of times. He came to a stop in the limp sprawl that meant he was out cold.

  This was one of the bastards who was going to stand trial for the crimes he’d committed, McCabe thought.

  “Daddy!” Ronnie screamed.

  McCabe pivoted, letting his instincts do the work. He saw the woman Terry had been fighting with. She was on her feet again, and Terry was done, shaking her head groggily. Shalla had snatched up the gun Terry had been carrying earlier, and now she was bringing the machine pistol to bear on Terry.

  McCabe didn’t hesitate because the threat came from a woman. A heartless killer was a heartless killer, and that was McCabe’s wife about to come under the gun.

  He fired.

  The burst of lead tore through Shalla, throwing her sideways as her eyes widened in shock and pain. Crimson welled from the wounds as she tried to stay on her feet, skidded, and fell. Ronnie grabbed the gun and wrestled it out of her hands, just in case Shalla had enough strength left to pull the trigger.

  She didn’t. Her fingers scrabbled against the floor tile for a second, and then her life came out of her in a long, harsh sigh.

  McCabe lowered the machine pistol and hurried to Terry’s s
ide. He reached down with his free hand, caught hold of her arm, and lifted her to her feet seemingly effortlessly.

  “Jack…” she whispered as she sagged against him and looked up into his face.

  McCabe kissed her.

  With his free arm around her, he held her tightly to him. Her arms came up and went around his neck. All the fear they had felt that they would never see each other again came through in that desperate embrace and that hungry, urgent kiss. A ton of emotions was packed into that moment.

  “Very nice,” a voice said. “Husband and wife reunited, I would guess?”

  Something about the voice, some sinister quality that plunged daggers of ice into McCabe’s spine, made him break the kiss, let go of Terry, and turn. He saw a middle-aged, professorish-looking man standing just outside the restrooms, where he had probably been hiding until now. The man was balding and had a short goatee, and in his left hand he carried a leather case that was several inches thicker than a regular briefcase.

  McCabe knew what it was as soon as he saw it, and the chill along his spine suddenly filled his entire body.

  “My young friends gave me the time I needed,” the man continued. “All the preparations are made.” He lifted his right hand.

  McCabe saw a small black cylinder clutched in the man’s hand. His thumb was over the end of it.

  “Dead man’s switch,” McCabe croaked.

  The man smiled. “That’s right. If I release it, this entire store, and everything for half a mile around, will be consumed in a nuclear explosion.”

  “What do you want?” McCabe asked. His voice was a rasp now. “Safe passage out of here?”

  The man laughed. “Do you know who I am?”

  McCabe shook his head and said, “The leader of this bunch, I’d guess.”

  “I am Sheikh Mushaff al-Mukhari, infidel. I planned this holy mission. Do you think I would walk away from it before it was complete?”