‘Roger that,’ Jason said, focused on the targeting screen and getting a feel for the control grip. He used his thumb to move the crosshairs side to side. As he tested the forward and backward functions, the camera zoomed in and out.
‘They see us coming,’ Jam said, scanning the militants through his night-vision goggles. The Arabs were scrambling to target the incoming Blackhawk.
‘Doesn’t matter. Their RPGs are only good up to a thousand metres. And their guns can only shoot half that distance. They won’t know what hit ’em,’ Meat said.
Climbing higher, Meat smoothly circled along a northerly course. ‘Get ready,’ he said to Jason.
He swung the chopper around, gained more altitude, and let the digital stabilization system assist in hovering the chopper. Luckily, there was minimal drag from the light winds moving over the plain. ‘Go for it, Jay. Give ’em hell.’
The roadway cut horizontally along the targeting display, sandwiched by the foothills on the back side, a deep ravine and dense wheat field in the front. The convoy lined up onscreen like a shooting gallery. Jason immediately knew that the Arabs’ hasty attack was about to backfire horribly on them. He decided to use the same tactic that roadside bombers had so frequently employed when assaulting US convoys – strike the lead vehicle first, then the rearmost vehicle next to immobilize everything in between.
Jason felt his stomach go into a knot as he zoomed in and panned the crosshairs over one of the trucks fanned out in the front of the convoy.
‘Remember to keep the laser on the target until the missile hits,’ Meat said.
‘Got it,’ Jason said. He squeezed the trigger control and a flashing red dot appeared on the display. He adjusted the aim, held the dot steady, and the crosshairs flashed from red to green. He slid his thumb over the red firing button and pressed down on it.
The first missile hissed out from its pod, shot out in front of the chopper along a high arc, then bobbed and weaved as its onboard guidance system synchronized with the laser’s coordinates. Jason kept his eyes nailed to the crosshairs, made slight adjustments for the side-to-side rocking caused by Meat’s less than graceful attempt to hover the Blackhawk. Onscreen the missile struck with a brilliant flash.
‘Nice!’ Meat said.
‘Now let’s hit them in the rear.’ Intensely focused, Jason panned the crosshairs to the convoy’s rear, picked his target and squeezed a laser mark. Keeping the laser dot steady over a pickup truck mounted with a crude machine gun turret, he hit the fire button. The second missile hissed out from the weapons pylon, spooled and angled sharply towards the target. Within seconds, it hit – decimating the target with flawless execution.
Jam and Camel hooted and high-fived one another.
‘Now pop ’em in the middle,’ Meat said.
‘Roger that,’ Jason said. He targeted the remaining vehicles and fired a third missile.
Another explosion rocked the convoy’s centre in a maelstrom of fire, hurling bodies and metal in every direction.
Meat pulled the cyclic to the left and the chopper banked. He spotted the Arabs charging north along the open roadway. ‘They’re on the run, heading north to the camp. Camel, you’re up. I’ll sweep in and you hit anything that moves with the mini gun.’
‘Roger,’ Camel said. He assumed a crouch position behind the six-barrel M134 Gatling gun pedestal-mounted outside the fuselage doorframe. He opened the ammunition container cover to check the supply. It was filled with 7.62 mm shells. He flipped on the mini gun’s master arm switch, then adjusted the gun scope’s night-vision display. Gripping the fire control handles, he tested the swivel mount’s action.
‘You ready, Camel?’ Meat called over the intercom.
‘Ready,’ he replied, steadying his thumbs over the trigger buttons.
Meat manoeuvred the Blackhawk on a sharp trajectory, gliding low on approach, and hooking sharply along the road.
Camel lined the runners in the scope’s crosshairs – all scrambling for cover. He opened fire at 3,000 rounds per minute, effortlessly cutting down the combatants and sending bodies tumbling off into the ravine. He even managed to strafe a trio attempting to climb over the foothill. In one sweep, he guessed that half of the fifteen surviving Arabs had been taken out.
Meat pulled up and banked out over the plain again.
‘One more pass . . . then the marines are on their own,’ Jason said.
The Blackhawk’s final sweep eliminated all but three Arabs, whose focus had turned from attack to retreat.
‘Shit, Camel,’ Meat said, impressed. ‘That was some nice shooting.’
‘He’s the goddamn Terminator!’ Jam said.
As the chopper pulled away, Jason was fixated on the roadway, which in less than five minutes had been transformed into a living nightmare of carnage and fire. His nerves were buzzing with adrenaline, fingers trembling. Though he feared the emotional swirl of satisfaction, euphoria and indifference that this perfect devastation evoked, he allowed himself to embrace the primal urge awakened deep in his core – the lust for vengeance; the driving force that pushed otherwise rational men to commit unspeakable acts to exact justice. That’s for Matthew. Burn in Hell . . . all of you.
But the vendetta was far from complete.
‘Now let’s get Al-Zahrani back,’ Jason said.
54
LAS VEGAS
If there was an economic slowdown in Las Vegas, it certainly wasn’t evident at the bustling work site of Our Savior in Christ Cathedral, Flaherty thought. An armada of construction vehicles commandeered the sprawling parking lot – cement mixers, flatbeds piled with steel framing and massive cable reels, and HVAC vans. Throughout the lot, building materials were organized into sectors: rows upon rows of tinted-glass panels; mountains of honey-coloured marble floor tiles; hundreds of porcelain restroom fixtures sorted by colour. And stacked three-high were clusters of shipping containers bearing various import seals.
Flaherty steered the rental car around dozens of pallets stacked with pale limestone blocks. The clear plastic wrappings were stamped: ‘AUTHENTIC JERUSALEM STONE, INC.’. A forklift had just removed a batch and was heading to the building’s south side where a huge glass-domed amphitheatre abutted the mountainside.
Near the cathedral’s main entrance, he parked in a designated visitors’ lot.
‘You think it’s smart to just barge in there?’ Brooke said, peering out at the building. ‘Shouldn’t the police be here or something?’
‘This place has a lot of windows. The pastor might make a break for it the second he spots a police car.’
‘So how do you propose we handle this?’
‘I propose we get married,’ he said, deadly serious.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Just follow my lead and you’ll get the idea,’ he replied coolly.
He turned off the car, pocketed the keys and opened his door. ‘Let me come around and get you.’
Baffled, Brooke waited for him to circle to her door. He opened it and proffered a hand. ‘Come, darling. I think you’ll love this church. I hear the wedding ceremony is breathtaking.’
Then she caught on to the ruse. ‘Ah, very clever. We’re posing as customers. I like it.’
‘Works in the movies,’ he said with a shrug.
When Brooke clasped his hand, he noted her gold Irish Claddagh ring – two hands clasping a heart and surmounted by a crown. It could easily pass as an engagement ring . . . If she wore it differently.
‘First, let’s fix this,’ he said. Keeping her hand out of view, he pointed at her ring, explaining: ‘This says you’re romantically available. Not good for our charade. May I?’ he said, pinching the ring with his fingers.
‘Of course.’
He pulled the ring off her finger and slid it back on with the heart facing outwards. ‘There we go. Now that says you’re engaged.’
He turned and pushed her door shut. Unexpectedly, he felt Brooke’s arm hook him around the waist.
Peer
ing at him with doting eyes, she said, ‘Let’s make it look genuine, shall we?’ She leaned in and passionately kissed him on the lips. ‘Just in case anyone’s watching. How’s that?’
For a moment, he revelled in the magic of a first kiss. ‘Good,’ he replied finally, trying like hell to pass it off as meaningless. He cleared his throat. ‘Very authentic.’
She threaded her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Shall we?’
‘Yeah. Of course.’
Flaherty locked the car, and they set off for the main entrance. ‘Is this guy Stokes for real?’ he said, trying to take in the sheer scale of the church, its opulence. ‘Look at this place. Talk about excess.’
‘This place makes the Crystal Cathedral look like a tool shed,’ she said. A massive shallow glass dome was central to the building’s architecture, and Brooke was sure it covered the building’s nave. ‘Looks to me like his architect borrowed this design from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.’
‘Isn’t Hagia Sophia a mosque?’
‘The Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the fifteenth century, added minarets and other Islamic touches. But it was originally a Christian basilica built by Emperor Justinian I in the sixth century.’
He gave her a how-in-God’s-name-do-you-know-this-stuff look. ‘The same Justinian that tried to reunite the Holy Roman Empire but was stopped by the bubonic plague, right?’
‘That’s the guy.’
They approached the bank of entrance doors, set beneath a soaring archway. Above the doors, Flaherty eyed a massive bronze placard shaped to resemble an unfurled scroll. The incised gospel excerpt read:
‘COME, FOLLOW ME,’ JESUS SAID, ‘AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN.’
– MATTHEW 4:19
Flaherty shook his head. ‘All this place is missing is the slot machines and swim-up bar.’
‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Brooke said. ‘We haven’t seen the inside yet.’
55
Randall Stokes’s mind was in a fog as he listened to Crawford’s painful account of a siege staged against the encampment by Al-Zahrani’s supporters. The death toll among the platoon was remarkable, given the fact that the militants who’d come for Al-Zahrani had only guns and RPGs. However, Crawford insisted that the squads assigned to clearing the cave were late to respond to the attack. Had the contract soldiers not commandeered the unit’s Blackhawk and staged a potent counter-attack, Crawford conceded, the entire mission might well have been jeopardized.
Stokes squeezed the phone’s receiver. ‘And where is Al-Zahrani now?’
‘I had him moved, just like you wanted. Problem is I don’t think he’ll make it.’ His next words were tinged with dissension. ‘This isn’t good, Randall. You should have waited to—’
‘Let’s not play the blame game,’ Stokes warned, his voice hoarse. A coughing fit came over him and he held the phone aside until it subsided. During the past three hours, his breathing had become progressively strained and gritty. It felt like his chest had been filled with pebbles.
‘You sound like shit,’ Crawford said.
‘Don’t worry about me. Just don’t make the same mistake as Frank. Don’t lose your backbone. Hear me? We stick to the plan.’
‘Wait . . . what about Roselli? Did he get cold feet?’
‘You could say that.’ Out the window, he noticed a silver sports sedan winding its way through the parking lot.
‘This plan of yours has gone to shit!’ Crawford blasted. ‘How am I supposed to explain this grand fuckup to the major general? I’m calling for backup.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Stokes said, his tone grave. Another coughing fit came over him, more intense this time. He snatched the square-folded handkerchief from his suit jacket’s breast pocket and held it over his mouth. When he pulled the handkerchief away, he was stunned to see that the crisp white linen was speckled with red dots. As he stared at the blood long and hard, a chilling realization hit him: this was no mere physical response to stress.
‘Randall? You there?’
He pressed the receiver to his ear. ‘Do nothing until that cave is cleared out. Understand?’
‘Let’s be sensible about this. Al-Zahrani’s been infected . . .’
Infected. The word lingered in Stokes’s mind as he stared at the handkerchief. Infected?
‘So maybe we can use that to our advantage.’
‘After all our preparation and planning, there is no way in hell that I’m going to rely on one catalyst. You heard what Frank told us: rapid transmission is critical. It’s the whole purpose for what we’ve done inside that cave. If Al-Zahrani is isolated, the whole thing fizzles out. There’ll be no back-pedalling now. We’ve come too far for that.’
‘Technically, we have no idea what the real effect might be,’ Crawford challenged indignantly. ‘Remember, none of Frank’s scientists knew how this thing would be used. We have no guarantees. These aren’t lab mice . . .’
‘Fine. We’re hunting with a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle,’ Stokes quipped. ‘So be it.’
Outside, the driver had just gotten out from the car and was making his way around to the passenger side. Stokes didn’t recognize the man’s face. ‘There’s no such thing as a perfect plan,’ Stokes said. ‘Now scrape your men together and open that tunnel. Anyone asks questions, you tell them you’ve got four more terrorists to pull out of that hole. That’s all anyone needs to know.’
As the female got out from the car, Stokes did a double take. Even from a distance she looked awfully familiar.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Crawford said, exasperated.
The connection went dead.
Growling in frustration, Stokes slammed the receiver back on its base. He glared at the handkerchief again before stuffing it back in his pocket.
When he directed his attention back outside, the couple were out of view. So he spun his chair to a flat screen monitor dedicated to the cathedral’s close circuit security cameras. To the left of the display he referenced a schematic of the first floor and used the mouse to double-click one of the embedded camera icons in the section representing the main lobby.
The camera’s live feed filled the monitor – a straight view that perfectly framed the couple. Stokes worked the zoom controls to get a close-up of the female. He froze the feed, dragged a virtual box over her face then double-clicked the frame to enlarge the image. His eyes went wide. ‘Can’t be,’ he muttered.
He went to his e-mail screen, pulled up the message he’d sent to the Boston assassin and opened its JPEG attachment.
A perfect match.
‘What in God’s name is she doing here?’ It was insult enough that the miserable prick of an assassin had botched his assignment. But this? Having her show up on the doorstep? Now?
He slid open the desk drawer, pulled out his Glock and confirmed that the ammo clip was full. Clicking the safety off, he dropped it into his jacket pocket.
The computer let out a small chirp to alert that a new e-mail message had arrived.
‘Now what?’ he grumbled. When he saw who’d sent the message, his heart faltered. ‘It’s about time, Frank,’ he muttered. He opened the e-mail and read Roselli’s long-awaited message:
How ironic that I’d come to your office to kill you. But as always, you were a step ahead. Congratulations, Randall! If there is justice in this godforsaken world, you will no doubt confiscate my PDA, which holds the incriminating information about your mad conspiracy to exterminate innocent people in the name of God. If so, you may have noticed the thin residue coating its keyboard. See that rash on your hand? . . .
Pulse accelerating, Stokes turned over his hand and assessed the raw, inflamed skin on his palm.
Since you’re so obsessed by disease, it’s only fitting that you die from pestilence. That was a highly concentrated strain of anthrax you touched. Even more potent than the Ames Amerithrax we’d field tested in 2001. When absorbed through the skin it’s 100 per cent lethal, non-transmi
ttable to others. Engineered for selective reduction, or covert assassination. If you touch your nose, eyes or mouth, its virulence will be intensified. Death comes swiftly, but not before two to three days of intense suffering as your respiratory system bleeds out and chokes you. Or maybe you’ll choose to hasten your demise by your own hand? Good riddance. See you in Hell.
Stokes’s shoulders slumped. He crumpled in his chair and turned to the window. On the other side of the glass, a black dove stared in at him.
56
IRAQ
‘That’s them,’ Jason said, lowering his binoculars. From the sky, the rogue pickup truck was easy to spot as it sped along an open ribbon of dusty roadway leading west over the expansive plain.
‘Where do you think they’re taking him? Kirkuk?’ Meat asked.
‘Probably. And we can’t let that happen.’
‘No problem.’
‘Without killing them,’ Jason clarified.
‘Well, who doesn’t like a challenge?’
‘If you get us low alongside them,’ Camel cut in over the intercom, ‘I can shoot out the tyres.’
‘Much appreciated,’ Jason said, scanning the terrain in infrared through his binoculars. ‘But I think I’ve got a better idea. Meat, the road crosses a bridge about three klicks out. Think you might be able to set us down on the west side, block them in?’
‘Hell yeah,’ Meat said. ‘We could just take out the bridge too.’
‘That would be a waste of taxpayer dollars,’ Jason said with a smile. ‘Let’s not be lazy, okay?’
‘I was just joking,’ Meat replied sheepishly.
‘And if the truck turns around?’ Jam asked.
‘If they turn around, they’ve got nowhere to go,’ Jason said. ‘We’ll just keep them moving until they run out of gas. Then we’ll get on the ground and surround them. It’s just the driver and Al-Zahrani. Al-Zahrani’s in no condition to run and the driver certainly won’t be able to carry him far without help.’
The Genesis Plague Page 23
