Power Down

by Ben Coes

  “They never tell me,” Mahmoud said, sobbing now.

  “How do they pay you?” Dewey repeated. “How do you know he’s in New York?”

  Mahmoud’s eyes began to fade. He was in shock.

  “How do you know he’s in New York?”

  “He said something once, by accident. About Central Park.”

  Mahmoud stared at Dewey. He remained silent.

  “What’s the next target?” he screamed. He snapped Mahmoud’s index finger.

  “Soon,” Mahmoud whispered. “It will happen soon. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “What is soon?”

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Kill me,” he whispered. “Please.”

  “How did you get here?”

  Suddenly, Mahmoud looked up, alert. His eyes looked to Dewey’s right, at the ground. The cell phone.

  “How did you get here?” Dewey repeated.

  “Plane.”

  “Where is it? Is it still here?”

  Despite his extensive injuries, despite the blood that now covered him, Mahmoud suddenly lunged for the phone. It was a weak move, though, which Dewey easily stopped with a hard kick to the chin, sending him backward against the car bumper.

  “The plane’s waiting, isn’t it?” Dewey asked. “You don’t need to answer. You fucking idiot.”

  Dewey walked back to the Mercedes. He grabbed the Colt and returned. He aimed the gun down at his head as Mahmoud’s eyes followed. It was over. There would be no more revelations, not from this one. He aimed the Colt at the terrorist’s chest. He pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through his heart.

  He searched his pockets for anything that could help, evidence of any sort, found nothing.

  He walked quickly to the Mercedes and turned the key in the ignition. He inched out and took a last look at the bloody scene. Tomorrow, some poor tobacco farmer would get the shock of his life.

  He drove down the field road and beyond, back toward Havana. He drove as fast as the car would take him. He was tired, but his mind raced as he plotted his next steps.

  He opened his cell phone, but had no coverage. The Mercedes had one headlight now, no windshield, was badly dented and riddled with bullets. Still, it moved. It was difficult to see as he negotiated the dark countryside. After a few minutes, he began to see ramshackle cement homes. He was getting close. He tried the cell phone again.

  “Tanzer,” said Jessica.

  “It’s Dewey.”

  “I thought you were out.”

  “They found me. Two of them. I trapped them. They’re dead. I got a little info.”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “Cuba. Get a team to Notre Dame. The football stadium.”

  “The stadium?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My God—” He heard her clacking away at a keyboard. “Okay. I’ll get a team out there to rip the place up. Octanitrocubane?”

  “Yes, remote detonator.”

  “Remote detonator? All right, let me get that to my team. Hold on.”

  The phone clicked and Dewey drove for several seconds, waiting. Finally, Jessica returned.

  “We’re scrambling bomb logistics out of Indiana State Police, Quantico. Did he give any other targets?”

  “No. He would have if he knew. He called himself Mahmoud. He only knew about his own cell. He mentioned a person—name of Karim—from New York City. He mentioned Three Mile Island.”

  “Three Mile Island?” Jessica asked incredulously.

  “Yeah. Said it was their first target.”

  “I’m running the name Karim. Looks like there are more than three hundred in New York City alone.”

  Dewey kept driving. Small cement shacks turned into larger ones, clusters of homes, then shops, followed by strip malls. He was close to Havana now, on the outskirts.

  “I need your help,” said Dewey. “Can you tell me where the private terminal is at Jose Marti?”

  “Hold on.”

  Dewey saw a green sign with an outline of a plane.

  “Got it. That would be Terminal Two. Where are you?”

  “Calzada de Bejucal, heading north.”

  “Okay, hold on. Got it. You want to take a left onto Vantroi. The terminal will be on your right.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s your plan, Dewey? Why the private terminal?”

  “I’m not sure. I might have something. I’ll call you.”

  “The Cuban authorities are going to find the bodies. Am I right? Let us bring you back in. You do not want to be stuck in a Cuban prison. There won’t be anything we can do.”

  Dewey saw the sign for Avenue Vantroi. He swung left, under the streetlight.

  “I have to go.” He flipped the cell phone shut.

  He hung up and drove along Vantroi for half a mile, slowly now. He passed the main entrance for Terminal Two. He parked the Mercedes on a side street, next to a dark warehouse, climbed out, looked around. Vantroi was empty. To the right, down the street a few hundred yards, he could see the terminal, a long, plain cement building. Lit, but no activity. He checked the clip on his Colt, then tucked the gun into his shoulder holster. He reached down, felt for his Gerber blade tucked into his ankle sheath. He moved down the empty street toward the chain-link fence that ran around the airport.

  He quickly scaled the fence. At the barbed wire strands that ran in a taut line atop the fence, he placed his hands between two wires, then leaped up, cartwheeling over the fence and falling to the ground inside the airport, rolling. He felt pain jab at his shoulder. Looking at his arm, he noticed a small trickle of blood. He reached down to his ankle and removed the knife, held it in his left hand, tucked the blade up flush against his wrist and forearm. He walked through a parking lot half filled with maintenance vehicles, security vans, fuel trucks, and food service trucks. Past a small, empty maintenance building, two stories high. He stalked in the darkness, through the lot, came around the corner of the building.

  In front of him, the private terminal. The building itself was a two-story cement structure. Most of the lights were off. The planes were spread out in orderly rows in front of the building, at least thirty in all. Most were small, single-engine turboprops. In the far corner, off to the side, one plane stood out; a long, sleek black jet that Dewey recognized immediately; a Gulfstream 450.

  Dewey checked his watch: 4:17 A.M.

  In the distance, a large cargo plane was taking off from in front of the main terminal at the other side of the airport.

  The black Gulfstream glinted under distant lamplight. Dewey moved from the corner of the darkened maintenance building to the last row of small planes in front of the Gulfstream. He moved to the far left of the line of planes, away from the terminal. He moved in a crouch down the line of small aircraft, hidden by the shadows. At the last wing set, he stopped. The Gulfstream faced the private terminal, and was set apart from the smaller, single-engine aircraft, which were parked in rows in front of the nose of the plane. The jet’s door was shut. If somebody was inside the plane, they had a bird’s-eye view of everything in front of them. It would be impossible to approach the plane without being seen. It would also be impossible to get inside the shut plane.

  Staring for several seconds from a crouching position beneath the wing of a Cessna, Dewey could see a dim light on in the main cabin.

  Turning, Dewey moved quickly back down the line of planes, then doubled back to the maintenance building. He resheathed the knife at his ankle, moved along the wall of the building. He saw a door and moved to it. He stepped back, then took three running steps, kicking the door just to the right of the knob. It crashed open, the lock block tearing out of the wooden wall and splintering the jamb to the ground. He flipped on the light, looked around. Lockers, a lunchroom. He moved to the line of lockers, opened them until he found a green uniform hanging inside one of the lockers. On the chest, in yellow letters: SEGURIDAD. He put the green button-down shirt on, then the hat that hung on another hook inside the lo
cker. He moved to the door, turned the lights off.

  He smashed a window on the driver’s side of a white security van, pushed the glass out of the way, reached in and opened the door, then climbed in, ripped the plastic casing off the steering column, spliced two wires together, and started the van. He drove out of the parking lot with the van’s lights off, away from the private terminal along the dark tarmac. After several hundred feet, he turned the van around, flipped a switch on the console that turned on the van’s headlights. He noticed a yellow siren light on the dashboard. He flipped the switch beneath it and the light went on, flashing a bright orange light. Dewey drove quickly down the tarmac toward the Gulfstream. He swung the van in front of the Gulfstream and parked to the left, directly in front of the jet’s door. He pulled the hat as far down over his forehead as he could, climbed out of the van. He started waving his arms as he walked to the door, trying to get the attention of whoever was inside. In his right hand, Dewey held up his cell phone.

  Another light went on, and the face of a man appeared at the window.

  “Emergencia!” Dewey yelled. “Telefonazo!”

  Dewey repeated himself several times.

  “Emergencia,” Dewey repeated, waving the open phone in front of the window. He acted slightly frantic.

  Finally, he heard a loud bolt click, then watched as the door popped open and slowly started to move down. It swung slowly down, coming to rest just above the black tar. In the door frame stood a middle-aged man, Arabic in appearance, semiformally dressed. His nose was badly cut.

  “What is it?” asked the man.

  “Es una emergencia,” said Dewey. He stepped forward to hand him the phone. “Un hombre está en la línea. Quiere hablar con el Señor Karim.”

  At the name Karim, the Arab dropped his arms and gestured for the phone, taking one, then two steps down the stairwell.

  “Give me the phone,” he demanded.

  Karim took the third step, his hand extended to meet Dewey’s. As he hit the third stair, Dewey lurched, grabbed his arm tight at the wrist, then yanked a vicious pull, tearing him down the stairs, but holding on. He whipped the terrorist down to the tarmac, face first, slamming him into the ground. Then he moved forcefully toward his back, no hesitation. He popped the Arab’s right arm behind his back, yanked up. The bone snapped. The man screamed out in agony.

  Dewey suddenly sensed movement inside the aircraft. Glancing up at the doorway, he saw the black leather boot of another man slip from the cabin into the cockpit, the pilot, he guessed. Dewey ripped the Colt from his shoulder holster, moved toward the bottom of the stairs. As the muzzle of a machine gun suddenly appeared in the door, Dewey quickly analyzed the pace of the barrel’s movement, waited another half second, timed it, then crept quickly up the stairs and fired as the shooter’s head appeared. Dewey’s bullet ripped the left side of his skull clean off, his face a bloody wash against the walnut of the jet’s minibar.

  A sharp kick suddenly struck Dewey in the left knee from behind, and he fell down the stairs, rolling to the hard tarmac. It was Karim on him. The Arab, broken arm to his side, followed with another hard kick to Dewey’s bad shoulder, then another kick to the right arm, which sent the .45 spiraling out of Dewey’s hands to the ground. Despite sharp pain in his shoulder, Dewey stood up, only to be met with a knee in his groin, then a furious left arm strike, this time at Dewey’s chin, which took a glancing blow.

  Dewey struggled to gain his balance. Karim’s martial skills were impressive. He had to act quickly, he knew, or the Arab would take him down.

  Dewey watched as the Arab’s torso started to turn, anticipating the next kick as it swung roundhouse through the air; Dewey pulled back just in time, ducking, the boot passing his head within an inch. Dewey reached to his ankle, pulled the Gerber from the sheath, and by the time the terrorist’s leg was back on the ground, Dewey thrust forward, stabbing the knife blade an inch above Karim’s left knee as deeply as he could thrust it, more than four inches deep, then ripped it sideways, severing all ligaments and cartilage. Karim screamed and fell to the ground, clutching the maimed knee.

  Dewey pulled the Gerber from Karim’s leg, took a step back, pulled the hat from his head, and picked up the Colt from the ground. The blood had started to flow in earnest from the shoulder wound, and he glanced at the fresh stream running to his elbow. He wiped the bloody knife blade on his pants.

  As he lay on the ground, the Arab’s left hand suddenly shot up to his mouth. Dewey lurched down at him, stomping his boot onto the arm, keeping it from the terrorist’s mouth. He knelt atop the Arab’s chest, his knee pressed hard against his neck. He took the Gerber blade, inserted it into the terrorist’s mouth, vertically, so that the sharp part of the blade was pressed to the man’s tongue, the serrated razor teeth of the upper blade against the roof of his mouth, then pushed in. The terrorist groaned. Blood suddenly streamed from the fresh cut lip, from the tongue, but the Arab’s mouth was now propped open by the knife and he could not close it if he tried. Dewey reached his hand inside the open mouth, felt the molars. The top left one popped loose and Dewey removed it. Looking down, in the faint light from the cabin of the plane, Dewey saw a small white pill: cyanide.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll die soon, Karim,” said Dewey, standing back up. “Just not yet.”

  Dewey holstered the weapon, then dragged Karim up the stairs of the jet. He pulled him to the back of the thin aisle between the big leather seats on each side of the plane’s tight cabin. Dewey flipped him over, took his left arm, the good one, and pulled it upward until it too snapped at the elbow. Karim screamed out again in pain. Dewey ripped his uniform shirt off, then tore it into strips. The first he used to tie around the Arab’s mouth, drawing it tight, tying it off. The second strip he wrapped around the man’s thigh, making a tourniquet to stop the blood flow from the deep gash above the knee. He then tied a third strip around Karim’s good leg, at the knee, and tied it off to a piece of steel beneath the frame of a seat. He tied another around Karim’s forehead, creating a tight clamp which he tied off to another piece of steel, so that he could not move. The last strip Dewey tied around his own shoulder, about the bandage, trying to stem the flow of blood from the homemade yarn suture, now ruptured. He ignored the pain. He stared for a moment longer at Karim, then turned. He dragged the dead pilot down the stairwell, pulled him to the back of the security van, then lifted him inside.

  He climbed back inside the Gulfstream, waiting. He looked at his watch: 4:40 A.M. The private terminal remained lifeless. He walked back to check on Karim. Still alive, not moving. He returned to the cockpit and waited. At 4:55, he saw movement. A man exited the terminal building and walked down through the rows of aircrafts. He walked to a small, old model, white citation jet. The entrance steps to the jet suddenly came down, the man climbed the steps, entered the plane. Dewey moved. He quickly descended the Gulfstream’s stairs, then sprinted toward the citation, more than a hundred yards away, its back to him as he ran. When he got to the plane, the steps were down. Dewey climbed the steps, pulling the Colt from his shoulder holster. He looked right. The cabin was empty. He ducked into the cockpit, Colt cocked to fire. A gray-haired man with a white polo shirt was sitting in the captain’s chair.

  “Are you the pilot?” Dewey asked as he entered the cockpit.

  The man looked up, startled. “Yes,” he said with a thick Spanish accent.

  “Who are you?”

  “Come with me,” said Dewey.

  “Yeah, right.” The pilot laughed. “Get out of here before I call airport security.”

  Dewey raised the Colt and aimed it at the man’s head. “Stand up, do what I ask, and I won’t kill you.”

  The pilot raised his hands. “What do you want?”

  “Right now? You to shut the hell up,” said Dewey. “You’re flying to the United States. Once we land, I promise you’ll be safe.”

  The man sat in the captain’s chair. He was silent, and looked at Dewey with disgust.


  “Let’s get going,” said Dewey.

  “I need my first officer.”

  “You’ll do a fine job without him,” said Dewey. “Let’s go. Up. Now.”

  Dewey pressed the weapon into the pilot’s head as he stood. He moved it to his back, then followed him down the stairs as he descended.

  “Straight ahead,” said Dewey. “And before you think of screaming or running, don’t. I will kill you.”

  They walked down the dark row of planes. They boarded the Gulfstream.

  “I’ve never flown a Gulfstream,” said the pilot.

  “Now’s your chance,” said Dewey.

  The man looked back down the cabin aisle, noticed Karim, tied up and bleeding; he gasped in shock.

  Dewey pointed the Colt at the cockpit, encouraging him to enter. The pilot sat down in the leather captain’s chair. After acclimating himself to the cabin, he turned the plane’s controls on and prepared for takeoff. After a few minutes of checks, he inched the plane forward and moved across the tarmac toward the runway. He put the headset on. Dewey reached out, yanked them off.

  “I need to get clearance—”

  “Take off,” said Dewey. “Stop fucking around.”

  The jet moved slowly to the end of the runway. The sky was beginning to ashen as morning approached. A faint, dark outline of ocean was visible behind hills above the airport. At the end of the runway, the pilot pushed the throttle forward and sped down the runway, blasting into the sky.

  Dewey waited until they were several minutes out of Cuban airspace, then tried to call Jessica, but had no coverage. He put the headset on and turned on the radio set.

  “This is an emergency,” said Dewey. “I am an American flying out of Cuba and I need to speak with the FBI.”

  “Aircraft transmitting on guard,” came the voice. “This is Miami Center. State your request.”

  “Can you switch me to a secure frequency?”

  “Move to 132.2.”

  Dewey entered the new frequency, keyed the mic, then said, “My name is Dewey Andreas. I need you to do a phone patch immediately to FBI Washington, Jessica Tanzer. She is the deputy director for counterterrorism.”