Against All Enemies mm-1

by Tom Clancy

  As he sat there, the diesel engine thrumming, the radio set low so he could hear Ricky’s call, he did a double take at the three men getting out of their Hampton Inn shuttle van parked across the lot in the next row of angled spaces. They were dressed like Mexicans but were taller, and all three wore black ski masks. While two guys argued with each other, a third went around the back to open the rear doors.

  The two arguing broke off, and one pointed to the sky, where a Southwest jet was just lifting off.

  Then the other guy reached past the van’s open side door and handed his partner a rifle with a curved magazine, an AK-47.

  Joe Dominguez blinked. Hard.

  Now both guys had rifles and joined the third guy, who lifted to his shoulder a green missile launcher like the kind Dominguez had seen in Schwarzenegger movies. The launcher man swung his weapon toward the climbing airliner while the two riflemen swept their barrels across the rows of cars, covering him.

  The cell-phone lot was packed, and a quick glance to his left revealed that the woman waiting in her small sedan was pointing at the men and yelling something at the teenage girl seated beside her.

  This, Dominguez needed to remind himself, was not a daydream. These motherfuckers—because that’s what they were — planned to shoot down that plane!

  His heart raced as instincts took over. He threw the truck in gear, jammed his snakeskin boot down on the accelerator pedal, and took the black beast forward with a great roar and cloud of diesel exhaust. He steered directly for the guy with the launcher, covering the distance between them in three seconds.

  The other two bastards reacted immediately with gunfire. Dominguez ducked behind the wheel as rounds punched through his windshield. First came a thump, then a much louder crash as he plowed into the back of the shuttle van. He stole a look up—

  The other two, who’d gotten out of the way, fired once more into his truck, bullets pinging off the doors. He ducked again and let out a scream.

  Then …more gunfire from outside. Different guns. He chanced a look through his side window, saw two men with pistols, one wearing a black cowboy hat, running straight at the terrorists and emptying their magazines. Dominguez, a registered gun owner himself, finally remembered that fact and reached into the center console of his truck. He dug out his Beretta, worked the safety, chambered a round, then jumped out of his truck.

  He crouched down near the front wheel, and there beneath his engine lay the missile-launcher guy. He’d cracked his head open on the pavement but was still alive, groaning softly.

  Gunfire continued popping, and in the fray, Dominguez watched as the terrorist glanced up at him, then reached toward his waist.

  Dominguez cursed and fired a single round into his head.

  “We’re clear, we’re clear!” someone shouted behind him. “They’re all down!”

  He craned his neck, and the man wearing the cowboy hat was hovering over him. His gray beard was closely cropped, and the diamond earring in his left ear seemed to match the twinkle in his eye. His collar was bound by a bolo tie featuring a long-horn steer head with turquoise eyes. “I saw what you did,” he said. “That got my attention. I just can’t believe it.”

  The cowboy proffered his hand, and Dominguez took it. He stepped away from the truck, then glanced back at his pride and joy.

  Holy shit. The black beast was riddled with bullet holes. He gasped and began to feel a pinching sensation in his left arm. He pushed up his sleeve and noticed a cut across his biceps and a piece of skin flapping.

  “Damn, son, you got grazed! I’ve never seen one that close!”

  Dominguez didn’t know what was happening, but as he touched the wound he began to feel nauseated, and then it hit. He’d almost died. He leaned over and threw up …

  “Aw, that’s all right, boy, you let it all out.”

  Sirens lifted in the distance.

  And from inside the truck, his cell phone rang. Ricky …

  US Airways Flight 155

  Phoenix to Minneapolis

  Mr. Dan Burleson had settled in to enjoy the terrific roar and awe-inspiring vibration of the Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines when three events occurred in succession.

  First, they left the runway without incident and the fasten-seat-belt sign remained lit.

  Second, the scared-looking guy beside the college girl suddenly threw off his seat belt and literally climbed over the girl, stomping on her lap, to get into the aisle.

  Third — as Dan thought, What the fuck? — the guy began screaming for people to turn their electronic devices back on and video-record him. He raised his voice even more as some shocked passengers lifted their cell-phone cameras. A fiery light came into his eyes, and he spoke in a strange lilt, the words heavily accented but clear enough:

  “People of America, this message is for you. The jihad has returned to your soil because we are free men who do not sleep under oppression. We are here by the grace of Allah to fight you infidels, to purge you from our Holy Lands, and to remind you that the false prophets in your White House who wage war against us to keep their corporations busy are responsible for your deaths. This is the recompense for unbelievers who attack Allah. This is the truth. Allahu Akbar!”

  As one of the flight attendants who’d been buckled in at the front of the aircraft came rushing down the aisle, the crazy guy whirled, reached into his pocket, and produced his cell phone, which he held tightly in one hand, allowing it to jut out from the bottom of his fist like some pathetic knife. He reared back and ran toward the approaching attendant, a lithe blonde no more than five feet tall who couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds.

  Well, fuck this shit, Dan thought. He threw off his seat belt and bolted up into the aisle, charging after the guy, as two more flight attendants appeared behind the first.

  And that’s when the plane shook violently, as though it’d passed into a powerful downburst. A flash of light came through the windows near Dan’s seat, and he flicked a quick glance back. Smoke and flames were whipping from beneath the wing, and worse: Most of the engine was now gone.

  Meanwhile, the punk terrorist in the aisle was only a few seconds away from attacking the flight attendant.

  Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

  Cell-Phone Waiting Lot

  9011 Airport Boulevard

  A few of the cars farther away from the van began to turn around and try to exit the lot, tires squealing a moment before two of them crashed into each other, blocking one exit.

  Samad fired a warning salvo into the air as a fat Hispanic guy with a beard that seemed to have been drawn in marker on his face shouted at him.

  Behind Samad, Niazi was helping Talwar load the second missile, and without delay — their count going exactly as planned — Talwar fired again.

  The airliner had already taken the first hit. Its engine had exploded and was issuing a long trail of smoke as the plane rolled toward the damaged side.

  Three, two, one, and praise Allah, the second missile, which Samad thought might take out the other engine, homed in on the hottest heat source, the first engine still on fire.

  It was simply unbelievable to watch the MK III cut a secondary path through the first missile’s smoke trail, a tiny spot of light growing fainter for a second until a magnificent flash, like the first impact.

  Because the plane had rolled, this second strike tore up through the flaming engine, blasting apart the wing. Part of it hung on for a second, then ripped off and boomeranged away beneath fountains of flaming and sparking debris.

  Samad was enthralled by the image, unable to move, until the man who’d been yelling at him regained his attention. The guy had gotten out of his car and drawn a handgun. At that, Samad gasped and opened fire, full automatic, hammering the guy back into his low-rider car, blood spraying across the roof and windows.

  And then, as quickly as it all happened, it was over. Samad leapt into the back of the van, where Talwar closed the door after him. Niazi was at the whee
l now, and they sped away, riding up across the grass along the lot’s perimeter, then bounding over the sidewalk and bouncing onto the street. They raced up to the first corner and turned sharply. Once there, they slowed with the traffic so as not to distinguish their vehicle from any others. They headed toward the parking garage five minutes away, where the second car and driver were waiting.

  If only they had time to watch the airliner crash, but he’d assured his men that they’d be able to watch it over and over on TV, and that in the years to come, cable channels would create documentaries detailing the genius and audacity of their attack.

  “Praise God, can you believe that?” cried Talwar, glancing up through the windshield, trying to watch the airliner’s trajectory as it now began to dive inverted toward the ground at about a forty-five-degree angle.

  “Today is a great day,” cried Niazi.

  Samad agreed, but he couldn’t help wishing that he hadn’t burned that photograph of his father.

  110 Harbor Freeway Southbound

  Los Angeles, California

  Abe Fernandez cursed as the guy in front of him jammed on his brakes. It was too late. Fernandez plowed into the back of the guy, who was driving a piece-of-shit old Camry. But then some asshole smashed into the rear bumper of Fernandez’s small pickup, and they were all piling up, one after another. He screamed, turned down the radio, and pulled his car over to the shoulder, his front bumper still attached to the other guy’s car.

  Growing up in downtown Los Angeles had allowed Fernandez to see a lot in his short life of nineteen years: car accidents, shootings, drug deals, high-speed chases …

  But he had never witnessed anything like this.

  He realized why everyone was stopping, why everyone was crashing, because in the sky to the west came a surreal sight.

  He blinked hard. Not a dream. Or a nightmare.

  A giant commercial airplane, US Airways, with its blue tailfin and pristine white fuselage, was missing a large portion of one wing, rolling out of control, and streaking directly toward them. What sounded like metal actually screaming and the plane’s remaining engine joining in made Fernandez’s jaw drop. In his next breath he smelled the jet fuel.

  Reflexively, he threw open his door and started running back along the freeway, along with dozens and dozens of other drivers, the panic reaching their mouths, the cries of hysteria sending chills down Fernandez’s spine as he felt the heat of the aircraft’s approach.

  He charged past a kid wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt who was videoing the airliner with his iPhone, as though it were all happening on YouTube and he weren’t about to be killed. The kid didn’t move as Fernandez screamed at him, nearly knocked him over, and when he looked back, the airliner — upside down, dark liquids streaming from its torn wing, its single engine now coughing, struck the freeway at about a thirty-degree angle.

  There was nowhere to go. Fernandez just stopped, faced the massive nose of the plane, and couldn’t believe that this was the way he would die.

  The plane exploded not fifty feet in front of him, the wind knocking him to the asphalt before the fires came roaring. He took a breath. No air. And then the plane was on him.

  Gilbert Lindsay Community Center

  East 42nd Place

  Los Angeles, California

  Barclay Jones was ten years old and loved going to the rec center. He was part of the after-school club, and his mom paid fifteen bucks a day so that he could play baseball with a pretty cool bunch of guys. He also got snacks and homework help and tutoring. There were a couple of bullies he didn’t like at the center, but sometimes their moms couldn’t afford to pay the money and they didn’t come.

  Barclay stepped up to the plate and was ready to hit a home run like one of his Baseball Hall of Fame favorites, Cal Ripken, Jr., who used to be called Iron Man back in the days when he played.

  However, before the first pitch to him was thrown, a booming came from the distance. He frowned and lowered his bat, as the pitcher turned to his left and Barclay turned to his right. Now the booming sounded louder and louder, and just above the trees that formed a row behind right field came a strange line of black smoke rising high into the air, like the smoke from an old train chugging down the tracks.

  The booming was louder now, and weird sounds like cars crashing and buildings smashing all at the same time got scary loud, and Barclay began to pant.

  Something crashed through the trees, and it was only in that last second that he knew what it was, the tail section of a giant plane that looked as though it had tumbled along the ground, picking up pieces of buildings and trees and even what might be some people along the way.

  Just after the tail came a rush of fire so loud that Barclay covered his ears and started to run toward the third-base line, as did every other player on the field. Barclay watched as the tail section came slicing across the field, and one by one his friends vanished beneath the gigantic, flaming steel. He screamed and called for his mother.

  San Diego International Airport (SAN)

  Cell-Phone Waiting

  Lot North Harbor Drive

  Moore and Towers were still on scene at the cell-phone lot, and the news coming in was changing by the second, rapid-fire and fragmented. Reports of missiles being launched from the ground …witnesses saying they filmed a crew in Los Angeles jumping out of a van and firing on a plane …more witnesses saying they saw something very similar in San Antonio.

  Panic. Pandemonium. Moore watched a news feed on his smartphone with an on-air anchor having to leave her seat because she began crying …

  People in New York and Chicago were reporting that they thought they saw missiles fired at planes taking off from their airports …

  A police officer in Phoenix said he witnessed a missile rise up from the ground to strike a plane taking off …He’d recorded the video with his phone, had e-mailed it to his local news station.

  And there it was, a white-hot streak on Moore’s phone screen, rising like a firefly to strike the airliner.

  “How did you get such a good picture of this?” the anchor asked. “It all happened so fast.”

  “My daughter wanted me to take some videos of planes taking off and landing for a school project. I just came down here when I got off work. It’s a coincidence that’s making me sick.”

  US Airways Flight

  155 Phoenix to Minneapolis

  Before the screaming man could strike the tiny flight attendant with his cell phone, Dan Burleson came up behind him and wrapped one of his powerful arms beneath the man’s chin while simultaneously seizing the man’s arm and drawing it behind his back with such force that he heard the man’s shoulder popping.

  The guy let out an ear-shattering cry as Dan dragged him back and away from the attendant, saying, “I got him! I got him!” If there was a federal air marshal onboard, Dan didn’t see him …

  At the same time that Dan seized the guy, the plane began to roll, and Dan knew that the pilots would have to compensate for the missing engine. Dan dragged himself backward with the terrorist in hand until he got near his seat and collapsed into it, still gripping the thug by the throat. He did not make a conscious decision to increase his grip. The man struggled against him, and Dan only reacted. He gritted his teeth and fought to remain in his seat as the single engine thundered up and the passengers continued to cry and scream. An elderly black woman two seats ahead got to her feet and shouted, “Y’all be quiet and let Jesus do his work here!”

  And that’s when Dan realized that maybe Jesus had begun his work, because the terrorist was no longer moving and the pilots had finally leveled out. Dan relaxed his grip on the man and just sat there, listening, as the pilots ramped the engine to full power. They’d already no doubt cut off the fuel supply to the damaged engine and had rotated the dials on the transponder to read 7700, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) code for EMERGENCY. Flight controllers had noticed the brightening of the plane’s radar signature on their screens and were receivi
ng audible alarms of the emergency. No radio contact would be necessary. Those pilots were too busy attending to the aircraft to give a second thought about talking to ATC.

  The flight attendant who was about to be attacked staggered her way to him and looked at the terrorist.

  “Is he dead?”

  Dan shrugged, but he felt pretty sure he had choked the guy to death.

  She widened her eyes, started to say something, changed her mind, then said, “You have to buckle up! Now!”

  Dan shoved the guy into the seat next to his, then buckled up as he was told.

  The college girl, whose face was now stained with tears, looked over at him and nodded.

  San Diego International Airport (SAN)

  Cell-Phone Waiting Lot

  North Harbor Drive

  Moore and Towers were standing near the open back door of an SUV, watching a live news feed on a laptop supplied by SAC Meyers. Moore glanced down at his hand; it was shaking.

  The incidents appeared to be moving from west to east. The West Coast news was in full swing, and their reaction time in airing news was much faster. Moore had already watched footage captured by a KTLA news helicopter of the incredible and surreal damage in Los Angeles, the long line of destruction carved across the city as the plane had struck the freeway, then dropped down to plow through the densely populated section of West 41st and West 42nd Streets, destroying homes, bars, bargain stores, fish markets, and anything else in its way. The tail section had been catapulted off the freeway at an even higher velocity than the rest of the plane and had crashed into a recreation center, where, reports said, more than twenty children had been killed.