24 Declassified: Storm Force 2d-7

by David S. Jacobs

  De Groot lay on his back, mouth gaping, jaws stretched to the breaking point. A black centipede twelve inches long wriggled off the tabletop, falling onto his upturned face and slithering inside his mouth.

  From the time Jack had been pulled out of the chair by Silva and de Groot, little more than sixty seconds had passed.

  Jack made for the opening in the partition, stepping lively to avoid the snakes slithering across the floor. He darted through it, into the open, the high-ceilinged, barnlike space of the building.

  He now saw that the office section was at the opposite end of the building from where he and Pete had entered. He'd gotten a break; the drumming of rainfall on the tin roof, the noise of SUV engines and barge motors, all had helped cover up some of the racket generated by his escape.

  Behind him, through the open bay door, he saw an SUV roll past, moving landward, its driver oblivious to anything happening in the warehouse. Nearby, at the riverward end of the building, stood a closed exit door. Jack stumbled to it, reaching out toward it with his two swollen, inert hands.

  Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, the doorknob rattling. Someone was coming in from outside.

  Thinking fast, Jack pressed his hands against his chest, tearing open the front breast pocket of his shirt and fastening his fingers on the Saint Barbara medallion that Colonel Paz had been reaching for when he died, and that Jack had picked up out of curiosity.

  Jack's thick fingers fumbled for it, freeing it from the torn pocket. It fell a few feet in front of the door, glinting with reflected light.

  The door swung inward, opening. Jack dodged to one side of the door, flattening against the wall.

  Arno entered, bareheaded, his face and shoulders soaked with water but not a hair out of place. He entered quickly, a man wanting to get in out of the rain. Crossing the threshold, he stepped inside, halting when he caught sight of the coinlike medallion on the floor, all shiny and gleaming.

  Murmuring with interest, he leaned forward and bent to pick it up. Holding it up to the light, he eyed it appreciatively, turning it this way and that. He slipped it into his front pants pocket.

  While Arno's hands were at his sides, Jack made his move. He'd seen Arno's lightninglike gun work and wanted to catch him at the moment of optimum vulnerability.

  Jack hooked his hands over Arno's head and around his neck, yanking them inward. The nail-like point where the twin strands of the baling wire were entwined caught Arno in the hollow of his throat.

  Jack pulled him closer, tighter, abruptly pivoting to the side, putting everything he had into it. Snapping Arno's neck.

  He dragged Arno's body to the side, into the shadows behind a wall of the office partition. He fumbled Arno's pistol out of his shoulder holster, able to accomplish the task only by pressing his pawlike, swollen hands together against the gun butt. Arno had left the safety strap of the holster open and unsnapped, no doubt to facilitate his fast draw.

  The gun wasn't much good to Jack in his present condition, but it was better than nothing. An idea came to him.

  Going to the door, he opened it a crack and peeked outside, peering through a silvery curtain of slanting rain. No one else was in his field of view.

  Returning to Arno, he stooped down, getting one of the dead man's feet wedged under an arm. He dragged the body to the door, opening it and backing out into the rain-swept pier.

  The wind and rain felt good, washing over him and bringing a rush of renewed energy. He dragged Arno to the upriver edge of the pier. He pulled the gun from the top of his pants, clutching it between both hands. His thumb felt so numb and lifeless that he had to look to see where it was in order to release the safety on the pistol.

  He fired several shots into the air, then shouted in his best imitation of Arno's voice, "Here he is! I got him!"

  Footsteps pounded around the corner of the building, voices shouting.

  Jack shrieked, then kicked Arno's body over the side into the water. It raised a big splash. He stepped behind some containers, gun in hand, waiting.

  Five or six of Vollard's men dashed out on the end of the pier, guns drawn, looking in all directions. One said, "I heard a splash!"

  He went to the edge of the pier, looking downward into the dark, swirling waters. Oblongs of light from lamps on the pier fell on the water, illuminating Arno's body for an instant as it bobbed around in the eddying current, pinned for an instant against a piling.

  Then it came free, and was sucked down and under and out of sight.

  Vollard exited through the back door, joining the others where they stood in the rain at the end of the pier, staring down into black water. Less than a dozen paces away, Jack huddled behind a container box, holding the gun.

  Vollard said, "Idiots! The American killed de Groot and Silva and escaped."

  One of the men said, "No, sir, he didn't. Arno got him. They both went over the side."

  Vollard said, "Are you sure?"

  Another said, "I heard them go over and saw the splash!"

  A third said, "Me, too, Major."

  Vollard said, "Nobody could survive that, no matter how strong a swimmer they are. They've both drowned."

  Somebody swore and said, "Of all the rotten luck! Three of our best, dead… "

  Vollard shrugged, resuming command. "Hazards of war. Forget it. Their shares go into the common pot to be divided up among you men. All it means is that your shares got bigger."

  That cheered up the others. Vollard said, "We've tarried here long enough. Let's move out."

  They went away, rounding the corner of the building and going landward along the pier. The riverward end was empty of all but Jack. He slumped down, sitting on the planks with his legs stretched out, back propped up against the container box.

  The wire binding his wrists was a problem. It was tied tight and had cut deep. His wrists were bleeding, but the blood wasn't enough for him to work his hand free of the wires. The splice resisted his efforts to undo it. There was no way he could get a grip on it.

  He jammed the end of the splice into a thin, slitted gap in a flange of the metal container box. He started working it back and forth, hoping to weaken the resistance of the wires enough to break them. It was hard work, a devil of a job.

  While he was doing it, he became distantly aware of the sound of engines starting up, motors chugging away. He redoubled his efforts. He became discouraged; it seemed he was making no headway at all.

  Suddenly he felt a flash of heat stab into his hands near the base of the splice. The metal was weakening, giving way. He worked it back and forth some more and it came apart, strands of wire falling away from his hands.

  His hands felt like they were in another country. Jack dropped to his knees, head sinking down until his forehead touched the planks. Water pooled there; it was cool and refreshing.

  He straightened up, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He worked the last of the strands off his wrists. The flesh was scored, banded, and cut, blood-slick. There was a lot of blood, and for a moment he was afraid he'd cut a vein or artery or something. That would be all he needed.

  There was no blood flow, no gushing, so he guessed he was intact after all. He wrestled himself back up to his feet, hanging on to the container for support.

  His hands tingled, sensation returning to them. After a moment, the pain became so great that it wrung tears from his eyes. He blinked them away. All he wanted was to get enough feeling back in his hands so he could work Arno's gun properly and shoot some people.

  He couldn't wait forever, though. The clock was ticking. He slumped against the short end of the building with his shoulder, leaning on it for support as he moved forward, step by step, toward the downriver side of the pier.

  Something large and whalelike lumbered away from the pier, into the mainstream of the river. It was the barge, dirty gray clouds of exhaust spewing from the stacks, resisting the efforts of wind and rain to break them apart. As soon as they were dispersed, new ones spewed fr
om the smokestacks to take their place. The barge was on its way.

  Jack glanced landward. At the far end of the pier, two red dots that were taillights winked for an instant and vanished, as the last SUV in a three-vehicle column turned right and drove away, eastbound on River Road.

  Vollard's mercenary force was gone, moved out, leaving the pier deserted.

  Jack pointed himself landward and stumbled forward. The opposite end seemed impossibly distant. Memory came to him of some of the forced marches he'd been on in the Army. What you did was put one foot in front of the other and keep on going until you got where you were going. It was as good a system as any.

  At the ends of his arms, his hands throbbed like a pair of twin beating hearts. After a while, he found he could open and close them. It was agony, but at least they were working. He kept on doing it; it gave him something to occupy himself with while he slogged through wind and rain.

  By the time he neared the front gate, his hands worked well enough so that he could hold a gun in them. He came on toward the lighted guardhouse, ready to blast the first thing that moved.

  It was empty, abandoned. The gates hung open, swinging free, senselessly bashing themselves against the fence each time the wind blew a fresh gust.

  He went through the open gate, across a paved strip, nearly falling when he stepped off a curb that he hadn't seen. The gutters ran high with water, swirling over his feet and around his ankles.

  River Road was deserted; he hadn't seen a car or truck pass along it in the time he'd made his way across the pier. Across the street, in the mouth of a side street that met River Road at right angles, stood a parked car.

  Now its lights flashed on, pinning him in its headlights. Throwing up his left arm to shield his eyes against the glare, Jack dropped into a combat crouch, leveling his gun.

  An amplified voice came blaring across the street from the car's roof-mounted loudspeaker:

  "Hold up, Jack! Don't shoot! It's us— Dooley and Buttrick!"

  Jack didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Hostiles or friendlies? If the two Bourbon Street cops had wanted to, they could have shot him down like a dog before he could have reacted. On that evidence, they were friendly. Jack stuck the gun in the top of his pants and moved toward them.

  Dooley and Buttrick got out of the car, meeting him halfway. Jack staggered and they grabbed him, holding him upright. Dooley said, "Whoo-whee, what happened to you?"

  Jack replied with a question of his own: "What're you doing here?"

  Dooley said, "You and Pete have been kicking up such a fuss that we figured we'd tag along and see what happened, just for the fun of it. We tailed you here from Belle Reve Street. You been gone so long inside there, we was starting to get worried."

  Buttrick said, "Hey, where's Pete?"

  "Dead," Jack said. "They killed him."

  Dooley's face took on the aspect of a mournful basset hound. "That's a shame, a damned shame."

  Buttrick said, "You look half kilt yourself, Jack."

  Jack said, "This is important. I've got to contact CTU. The police radio in your car… "

  Dooley shook his head. "Ain't no good in this kind of weather, Jack; the storm's got the reception breaking up all to pieces. Can't get through to headquarters or nothing."

  "You've got to get me to a phone, it's a matter of life and death… "

  Buttrick said, "We got us a couple of satellite phones in the car."

  Jack started. "What? You do?"

  "Sure 'nuff We found that out last time in Katrina. Radio wasn't no good, cell phones didn't work worth a good damn, but satellite phones worked just fine throughout," Buttrick said.

  Jack was having trouble processing it. "You've got satellite phones? With you?"

  Dooley said, "Right here in the car. You want to use it?"

  "Hell, yes!"

  Dooley said, "Like I said, Jack: we're your boys!"

  22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME

  A quarter mile upstream from the Mississippi River Bridge, New Orleans area

  Not even the wind and rain of the rising storm could hide the lights strung along the Mississippi River Bridge as the suicide barge plowed downstream toward it. The river was choppy, slowing the barge's forward progress.

  The Harbor Patrol launches fired machine-gun rounds with tracers across its bow, to no avail.

  In the deckhouse, Ahmed and Rashid were in near-transports of ecstasy as the bridge loomed in their view, its lights glimmering hazily, a string of pearls seen through a gauzy veil.

  Paradise was only moments away.

  Plowing upstream were three boats, two Harbor Patrol launches and a Coast Guard cruiser. The launches were armed with machine guns; the cruiser had a deck gun and machine guns.

  The three vessels were between the barge and the bridge, racing to intercept the kamikaze craft. They knew what they were dealing with, having been briefed in full by CTU's Cal Randolph about the explosives-laden barge. They advanced in a kind of crescent shape, wide and shallow, with the two launches at the ends and the cruiser in the center.

  The barge kept on coming, ignoring radioed demands that it immediately alter its course. It was equally heedless of the same commands delivered by loudspeakers. It neared the point of no return, when the interceptors must act.

  The barge wallowed amid dark and turbid waters, chugging along, leaving a dirty-white, V-shaped trail in its wake.

  The Coast Guard cruiser upped the ante with an artillery shell from its forward-mounted deck gun. The first shell was in the nature of a warning shot; the succeeding shells were in deadly earnest. The third shell tagged the barge.

  A flash, as of lightning; a booming blast, as of a thunderclap; and the barge exploded, disintegrating with such force that pieces of it fell on the shores of both sides of the river.

  A crater opened in the black water where the barge had been, the mouth of a funneling underwater whirlpool. In a very short time, the whirlpool contracted, closing in on itself, shrinking from a crater, to a dimple, to nothing at all.

  * * *

  Ministry of the Interior Substation,

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  10:27 A.M., local time

  The ground-floor lobby of the building where the council of twelve met was T-shaped, with a vertical bar extending from the tinted, glass-walled front entrance to the double doors of the council chamber; and the horizontal bar of the T formed by a long corridor that stretched along the front wall of the chamber, its branches extending on both sides to other wings of the structure.

  The session of the conclave was scheduled for ten-thirty; at that time, the double doors would be unsealed and opened, allowing the members entry to the conference room.

  Now the council members were gathered in the front lobby, along with their administrative assistants, staff members, and other members of their various entourages.

  When the meeting convened, admittance to the conference room was reserved strictly for the council members; their followers must wait outside during the closed session meeting.

  Among those milling about in the lobby were council members Imam Omar, Prince Tariq, and Prince Hassani. Omar and Tariq and their assorted hangers-on were grouped close together; Hassani stood off by himself, way over on the opposite side of the lobby.

  Imam Omar's face was all aglow, as usual, perhaps even more so, as he greeted a succession of dignitaries, smiling and waving, his face cherubic behind its matching of long, wiry, ash-gray beard.

  Prince Tariq was clad in Western garb today, a custom-tailored Savile Row shirt and expensive, hand-tooled Italian shoes, a leather portfolio with a gold clasp tucked under one arm. He smiled often, but tightly, and seemed preoccupied.

  Prince Hassani was garbed in the traditional white robes and headdress of the desert tribes; his garments were spotless, immaculate. His gaze was distant, as if fixed on otherworldly matters; his smile was beatific, radiant in its boundless compassion.r />
  A stir went through the crowd as Minister Fedallah approached, striding along the right-hand branch of the horizontal bar of the T, closing on the conference room. Now that he was here, the conference must surely start.

  Fedallah wore the dress khaki uniform and peaked cap of a commander of the Ministry's Special Section; his shoulder boards were studded with gold stars, his cap trimmed with gold braid. He walked along in military manner, as if on parade, arms and legs swinging with clockwork precision and timing. His eyes were alert, his face utterly expressionless.

  He was flanked by two bodyguards, who marched in step alongside him. A minor breach of protocol, this, since their standard practice was to march a pace behind and to the side of him, a measure of respect that delineated that he was the leader, they the followers.

  Also, a sharp-eyed observer might have detected that the flaps of their holstered sidearms were unbuttoned, allowing for speedier access to the weapons.

  Fedallah's arrival produced a second stir in the crowd, a most unusual one, as one of the assembled in the lobby suddenly darted forward, rudely shouldering aside his fellows in a brazen attempt to rush to the fore.

  Even more startling, the offender was Prince Hassani, ordinarily self-effacing to the point of near-invisibility.

  Reaching into the folds of the oversized sleeves of his robe, he pulled out a big-caliber, semi-automatic pistol. Crying out, "Allah Akbar!" his weapon leveled, he rushed toward Minister Fedallah.

  With equal and surprising suddenness, the conference doors burst outward and open, revealing a squad of Fedallah's Special Section gunmen, elite marksmen chosen for their dead-accurate skill with handguns. Their guns were out and ready; when the doors flew open, they opened fire, blasting away.

  Prince Hassani was caught square in the fusillade, shot through the body a dozen times in the blink of an eye. He whirled and spun in a dervish dance, slugs ripping through him.

  Panic and complete chaos seized the civilians massed in the lobby. They scrambled for cover, darting to the sides, throwing themselves to the floor, some shouting, some screaming.