by Marcus Wynne
The man studied her with interest and more than a little compassion. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s hard for me to trust anybody with my precious ones.”
“Isn’t that just true?” the grandmother said. “Isn’t that just the truth of it?”
5
Forty five minutes into the flight of ATA #923, right after the pilot announced they’d reaching cruising altitude and turned off the FASTEN SEATBELTS sign, Ahmed Salim, a native Saudi Arabian traveling on a Syrian passport, stood up and opened his overhead compartment. He took out a McDonald’s bag, pulled out a sandwich, and stood in the aisle while he ate it. As though on cue, his fellow musicians began to get up, one by one, and stand in the aisles chatting with each other, taking items out of their carry-on bags – and watching the other passengers closely.
Sue Lacey was the lead flight attendant. She cursed under her breath as she saw the flood of passengers into the aisle even as she prepared the drink cart.
“Looks like the flight to Mecca out there,” she said.
Her partner Mary, a brand new though middle aged attendant, said, “I’m scared. I don’t like this at all.”
Sue looked down the aisle, then over at Sean. “That’s what we got Air Marshals for,” she muttered. She didn’t sound convinced, even to herself.
6
June Huizar watched the Syrian band and twisted in her seat with a growing sense of outrage – and fear. She hated fear. It made her angry to be afraid, and when she was angry, she did something about it. Brains and guts and a scholarship to Cal State Long Beach had gotten her out of Central LA. Even while working full time at night in her uncle’s taqueria, she managed to pull down a straight 4.0 in Pre-Law and with that and her minority status as a Hispanic woman – all of which appealed to the white recruiters – she walked into Stanford Law School with a full scholarship. She graduated top in her class, much to her almost savage satisfaction, and then went onto a budding and successful career as a trial attorney. Her opponents weren’t prepared for the vigor of her drive honed by the long ladder she’d clawed her way up.
She knew what it was like to be hungry and scared and poor, and though she looked a long way from the street in her Armani suit and with her Gucci leather attaché that cost more than her uncle made in a month, she was no stranger to violence.
There was violence in the air right now, and the old street fighter in her made her look around and take stock of the passengers around her. What was there was blithe indifference, ignorance, and an astonishing number of frightened faces. Like sheep. There were a few other passengers who watched the Middle Eastern men in the same way she did; June marked down those people in her mind as she thought about what to do. The damn security regulations prohibited her from even having a nail file, which would be better than her empty hands, though those same regulations had nothing to say about seventeen middle-eastern males boarding enmasse and filling up the aisles to…what?
June knew. She just knew. Something was going to happen.
She took the glossy in-flight magazine out of the seat back, then did something her uncle had shown her a long time ago: she rolled the magazine around it’s spine, very tight, twisting it in her hands till it made a short, sturdy club. She pulled heavy rubber bands out of her legal attaché and wrapped them around the tightly rolled magazine, then thumped it solidly into her hand. Her seat partner, a middle aged woman in a cheap flowered blouse, looked at her, then at the men in the aisle.
“You don’t think…” the woman said.
June looked at her. “What do you think? That’s what’s important.”
She dipped back into her attaché and took out a thick Mont Blanc pen, uncapped it and tested the point with her manicured finger. She had something to hit with and something to stab with, and that was going to have to do her. This chica wasn’t going down without a fight. That’s all there was to that. She’d worked too hard for her life, and no bunch of chingada terrorists were going to take that way from her.
7
Nawaf Alhazmi remembered his mother, her face thin and pinched with pain, as she lay in her bed in a hospital battered and torn by gunfire and shells and bombs from the American warships that floated off shore from Beirut. He’d been so young, but he never forgot the look in her eyes, when she struggled to hold his hand, when she told him never to hate, to let it go, and to look after his brother as best he could. He never forgot the look on his father’s face, struck, broken, as he watched the wife that had borne him two fine sons slip away, her thin body torn by the fragments from the American bomb that had destroyed their house. He couldn’t bear to tell his wife that one son had already crossed over to the other side and would be waiting there for her.
Nawaf learned of death and violence, fear and hatred, all in that same day so long ago. After his mother died, Nawaf and his father eked out what existence they could. It was a hard life in the ruins of Beirut. His father gave up deep inside, and slipped away with a wasting disease no doctor could diagnose. Left alone, Nawaf would have wandered the streets of Beirut till he died, but the social services of Hezbollah took him in, one of the many orphans of Beirut, fed him, gave him a bed, sent him to school. And when he was ready, they sent him to the camps in the Bekaa Valley, where he excelled in the hard curriculum in what was then the Harvard of terrorist universities.
He specialized in hijacking.
A hijacker by training, he’d risen to prominence in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He led, at great cost, the assassination teams who worked in the cities and targeted the hated Raydoviki, the Spetznaz Raiders who’d been such effective fighters in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. After that war, he’d moved on as a trainer, often on loan to other terrorist organizations around the world.
In the nineties, when Al-Qaeda rose to prominence with the funding of the Saudi Wahabi fundamentalists steered by Osama Bin Laden, he established the curriculum for the hijacking school protected by the Taliban in the Afghanistan mountains. Mohammed Atta, Ziad Samir Jarrah, Waleed Alshehri, were among the hijackers on 9/11 who’d been his students, and Nawaf had watched with fierce exultation the fall of the twin towers in New York.
He’d escaped the wrath of the Americans in Afghanistan, first the laser guided bombs, and then the special forces teams, who slipped in on the ground, relentless in their hunt. After the debacle in Tora Bora, Nawaf made his way in the opposite direction, through Iran and Iraq to Syria, where the intelligence organizations made a home for what remained of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda special operations and training infrastructure. While the American hunter killer teams like Task Force 505 pursued the remains of the Al-Qaeda leadership along the Pakistan border with Afghanistan, Nawaf and other key trainers were directed by Osama bin Laden to prepare for more strikes against the American homeland.
Like this strike.
Nawaf looked around the cabin of Flight #923. The other members of his hand-picked team stood up, took bags out of the overhead compartments, went into the lavatories, lingered in the aisles. He smelt fear on the plane, and the sheepish surrender on the faces of the passengers warmed him. Some had a different look. He and the others had already marked them down. There were Air Marshals on this flight. He had a good idea who they were. The operational security of the Air Marshals was laughable. One of the many advantages of living in America was the public’s constant and naïve bleating for full disclosure about classified operations – one only had to read the newspaper and troll the internet to gather what information was needed. Air Marshals were required to dress a certain way, a fashion that stood out sorely in the dress down casual attire that Americans traveled in. For Nawaf, air travel had been a special treat; most Americans traveled via air like Nawaf’s people traveled by common bus. All he need do was look for the short haired, athletic men uncomfortable in dress clothes, unlike the businessmen who wore their suits as though born to them. That narrowed it down. Then he had to look at their seats and ask himself: If I were trying to protect this airplane against
hijackers, where would I sit?
So simple.
Despite all the Air Marshal emphasis on “secrecy”, the airline employees -- from baggage handlers to pilots and flight attendants and ticket agents -- all knew where and how many Air Marshals were traveling. None of those airline employees had security clearances, and none of them were trained in information security. Just sitting in a bar frequented by off-duty airline personnel, and listening while buying a few drinks and asking a few questions, had given his operational personnel an enormous amount of information.
Which gave rise to this operation.
It was time to remind the Americans, despite their massive expenditure of money and time and resources, that their airplanes remained completely vulnerable to the dedicated attacker. Nawaf and his team were just one of many. The much vaunted Air Marshals were no defense.
As he was about to demonstrate.
Nawaf nodded at one of the few actual Syrians on the hijacking team, Hani Hanjour. Hani turned and took down his instrument case from the big overhead compartment. He went down the aisle, slipping by his brother terrorists standing ready, into the lavatory and clicked the lock shut. He opened up the mandolin case and set the instrument on the floor while he perched on the toilet seat. Then he carefully peeled off the red velvet lining the interior of the case. Underneath the red velvet was a sheet of hardened plastic, cut to fit the inside of the case. The plastic sheet was covered with identical scorings, and Hani flexed the sheet along the scorings. The plastic broke neatly into a number of long pieces, all of them with a sharp edge and wicked point. He took a roll of heavy green duct tape and wrapped tape around one end of each plastic piece, making a sturdy improvised knife. Hani put the mandolin back in its case, set it aside, then opened up the cabinet beneath the sink. He pulled out the waste bin, and set the knives behind them, holding one back for himself, tucking it into his waistband and concealing it beneath his shirt.
Then he went back to his seat.
In two other lavatories, his counterparts did the same.
One at a time, each of the Syrian band members went into the lavatories and equipped themselves with the instruments they had chosen to play.
8
Federal Air Marshal Kristy Wang breathed deeply, in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, out to a count of four. Her seat companion, a quiet businessman with a thinning head of gray hair looked at her curiously, but Kristy ignored him. He wasn’t a threat. The threat was all around her, up and down in the aisle, lingering by her shoulder. They’d already dismissed her as no threat, something Kristy was, for once, grateful for. She remembered Hunter James telling them, in the class on Undercover Practice and Principles, how women had the edge in this business when dealing with Arabs, who dismissed Western women as useless and no threat. That was changing, though, like so many other things on the new battlefield. Muslim women became suicide bombers, carried messages, lured unwitting men to their deaths. There were a small number of women in the Al-Qaeda operational cells. The leadership had managed to overcome their fanatical conservatism about women to address a weakness in their own operational envelope, a testament to the ruthless efficiency of the strategic and tactical planners. But they still didn’t know what to look for in Western women operators, and Kristy was, thanks to her training, one of the best.
Sweat trickled down her back, between her breasts, dotted her forehead. Her heart raced, and she went through the calming breathing routine again and again. She visualized her actions, a clear movie, just like Hunter had taught her, roll it like a movie till you had it perfect, then step into the movie, and feel it right through to the conclusion…but she couldn’t see the end of this movie, and the fear she rode like a wave clouded her vision. Kristy shifted in her seat, acutely aware of the pistol butt digging into her side beneath her suit coat, the seat belt already unfastened but crossed in her lap, the warmth of the concealed Hideaway knife tucked in the front of her bra, beneath the extra opened button of her silk blouse dotted with sweat. If the one closest to her made a move, she’d take the knife and cut her way to her pistol, shoot the others, fight to her designated cover position in the galley, and pray that her partners moved to cover her…she ran the movie through her mind again and again, while another part of her watched with a sick fascination the movements of the Syrians all around her.
9
Sean Young had been up and out of his seat eight times. He was sure his cover was totally blown. The Syrian “musicians” had been in the forward lavatory, right outside the cockpit door, at least ten times. He’d searched the lavatory twice, and found nothing, but the looks he got from the Syrians in the aisles told him his job was secret no more. Sean fought not to look over at Hunter, who seemed engrossed in that damn tattered book he carried everywhere, but Sean knew that Hunter had seen and clocked every single action and player around him. Hunter was easily the most deceptive man he’d ever met in his special operations career, and Sean was grateful for that right now, because he felt as though he had a cross hair on his back. He and Hunter were the last line of defense outside the cockpit door. When it went down, as he was sure it was going to, the terrorists were going to focus on him. And then Hunter would deal with them. That’s what he did. He might smile and nod and play the absent minded professor, but Hunter James was sudden death with hands and guns and knives, especially knives, once he got up to play. And they were going to play. That was a given. Sean was at a low boil. The Marshals were hamstrung on this outing. All this crap about political correctness, about preserving civil liberties, about no racial profiling…what more did the bad guys have to do? Wear a sign that says TERRORIST HERE? Another “musician” slipped by, paused for a moment and stared down at him.
“Help you?” Sean said.
The Syrian, dressed in an open collared white shirt under a dark suit coat and dark jeans, just stared, then walked back to the rear of the plane.
“Fucking hell,” Sean muttered.
One of the flight attendants looked out the galley at Sean and raised her eyebrows as though to ask, “What’s going on?”
He shook his head no.
10
Up in the cockpit, the pilot was furious. His name was Mike Aley, and he was a tough young guy who, while a bush pilot in Alaska, had won his share of brawls with big loggers.
“So that’s it?” he sputtered in outrage to his co-pilot. “The Air Marshals and the FBI on the other end will talk to these guys? How about I land this damn plane and get them off!”
The co-pilot shook his head. “You want to be looking for a new job? Start over on a regional feeder, no seniority, work your way up again? I don’t know about you, but I’m too old for that shit. Law’s the law. They haven’t done anything illegal. If they’re going to do anything at all. It’s like the Air Marshal said, maybe they’re just testing us to see what we’ll do. If the Air Marshals do anything, they’ll be identified. The Arabs aren’t going to try anything. Let the Marshals and the FBI sort it out. We just fly the bus. They’re not getting in here.”
“I’m the Pilot in Command,” Mike said. “I’m ordering them all back to their seats.”
“That you can do,” the co-pilot said. “Safety issue.”
Mike Aley nodded vigorously and picked up the intercom microphone.
11
“This is the Captain speaking.” The announcement boomed in the cabin. “We’ve got some rough air ahead of us, so for your safety, I’m turning on the FASTEN SEAT belts sign. If you’re up and about, please return to your seats immediately and fasten your seatbelt.”
Nawaf Alhazmi nodded. He’d expected that. It was sooner than he would have liked, but he had planned for this contingency. His people knew what to do. Up two rows ahead, across the aisle, Ahmed Alnami and Ziad Samir stood up. All the hijackers were on their feet now.
“Sir?” Sue Lacey, the lead flight attendant said. “You’ll have to return to your seat. Now, please.”
Ahmed Alnami smiled at her. He slipped
his hand inside his suit jacket and gripped the handle of the plastic knife tucked behind his back.
12
Zachary Prescott stared out the window at the cloud formations, then turned and looked at his mother. “Mommy? Why are you scared?”
Amy Prescott watched the men gather in the aisle. A huge wave of fear swept over her. She reached out and took her son’s hand, then pulled him to her breast.
13
Hunter felt the energy swell throughout the plane. It was an actual physical sensation to him, a sense of weight, a tingling in his skin and spine, an impingement on the sensory receptors all over his body that worked to add up the data and feed it to the subtle subconscious machine called intuition, or instinct, the fighter’s knowledge. He’d known, of course, as soon as he’d seen the Syrians in the boarding area. He always knew, though he’d never been able to break down how he knew. It was a gift he didn’t question, something forged from his genetics, his experiences, and his training, especially what he’d learned from Raven. The older man had seen his talent, guided him down the path with the right teachers and the right experiences till Hunter’s talent shone, like a rough diamond shines after its journey through the hands of the finest cutters and polishers.
Today was his day to shine.
Hunter had done all that could be done. They’d passed their threat assessment on to Air Marshal Operations; Sean had talked to the pilot. The bottom line was the Marshals couldn’t act until there was an overt act. The Syrian band had broken no laws. Yet. And up till now, all they had displayed was the capacity to be a nuisance and a deliberate attempt to lure the Marshals into activation.
But it was kicking off now.
Part of his trained consciousness, a part that worked separately from the time sense of the rest of the world, raced ahead and examined possibilities: How would it go down? Hunter suspected pure force of arms, a rush to draw the Marshals out and then overwhelm them with sheer numbers. He’d worked a mission out of India like that, when eighteen Kashmiri separatists had boarded the flight, planning to overpower the crew with pure numbers. Would there be firearms? Other than those the Marshals held, he thought not. The stringent search of the aircraft before boarding would have located any accessible from the cabin, and every one of the Syrian passengers had been through selectee screening. Explosives? Again, not likely, but possible. Both Sean and Hunter were qualified In-Flight Explosive Technicians. They knew what to do if an explosive device figured in the problem.
