That a half dozen likely heavily armed jihadist jackwads were in such close proximity to LaGuardia Airport was blood-chilling. That’s why the brass had let the leash off on a tactical raid immediately. We needed to go on this and go on this now.
Although the new lead was a godsend after such a lack of progress, it was actually a rough setup in terms of takedown. Our target, two blocks away, was an old one-story brick industrial building that covered the whole block from 47th to 46th Streets. The fortresslike building had closed steel shutters over both its doorway and driveway and rusted wire mesh over its windows. It was also somewhat isolated, sandwiched between two storage yards, which put a damper on any kind of flank stealth approach.
There were more than a hundred cops and agents about to swoop in, but I still had a bad feeling. You wanted to model and game a raid for a bit before going into such a heavily fortified target; have backup plans for backup plans; be as prepared as possible. But we didn’t have time for all that. Getting in there was not going to be quick or easy by any stretch.
“If there’s anything good to say about things,” I mumbled to Emily, “at least there aren’t a lot of people around.”
“Besides me.” Emily nodded with her eyes closed and her hands clasped as she said the Lord’s Prayer under her breath.
I decided to join her when her phone suddenly pinged with a text.
“Hit it, Mike,” she said. “It’s a green light. All units converge.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I pinned it, peeling out behind a half dozen other units waiting up and down the desolate block.
Two BearCat armored personnel carriers filled with FBI hostage rescue agents and NYPD ESU cops were already on target by the time I made the corner of 46th. Over the convoy of cop cars, I watched the two formidable black commando trucks swerve into the brick building’s driveway, the chug of their big turbo-diesel engines roaring. Two jarheaded commandos in olive-drab Kevlar popped out of the left side door of the lead truck and quickly attached the cable of the truck’s winch to the gated doorway. A moment later, there was a high-pitched whine followed by an enormous ripping sound.
“Now, that’s what I call a no-knock warrant,” I cheered as the entire housing of the target building’s rolling gate was torn from the facade.
But I’d spoken too soon. Way too soon.
The wrecked gate had just clattered onto the driveway when the heavy drumroll bang of automatic gunfire erupted from the now gaping hole in the building. The agents on the sidewalk dove behind cars and the balaclava-clad agent in the BearCat’s rotating roof turret turtled down as a swarm of bullets and tracers exited the building and raked the truck’s thick metal plate.
Then a moment later, I watched in jaw-dropped awe as a series of whooshing, smoking orange flares streaked out from the black, cavelike gap in the building. Smoking contrails accompanied the light streaks as they skimmed inches from the sides of the now rapidly reversing BearCats. Then a string of thunderous explosions ripped chunks off the brick warehouse across the street from the target.
Glass and bricks rained on cop cars as a huge cloud of pale dust billowed, instantly obscuring and darkening the entire narrow street.
“Shit! Back it up! Back it up! We have rockets! RPGs! RPGs!” screamed a voice through the crackling radio.
My mind wobbled as the pale fog billowed over the windshield of my unmarked, leaving behind a pink-sugar dusting of pulverized brick on the hood.
This can’t be happening, I thought. It’s impossible. Am I dreaming? Am I still home in bed?
But I wasn’t home in bed. No matter how much I wanted that to be true.
War had come to Queens.
Chapter 52
I snapped out of it as a bullet hit the asphalt just to the right of the car. I bailed left, keeping low, as I put a parked car between me and the gunfire ripping out of the rug warehouse. When there was a pause in the shooting, I bolted out from behind the parked car and across the sidewalk, pressing myself against the building’s brick.
I’d just made it when our side recovered and began returning fire. I’d never heard anything like our return fire before in my life. It seemed like a single sound — one ragged, deafening, smashing death wall of gunfire as fifty or sixty agents and cops went full auto at the building at the same time.
I was hunkered down against the brick, thinking that maybe I should head back to my car before I was hit with friendly fire, when someone blew past me in the brick-dust fog. The tall, dark figure flashed past me so fast that I was just able to recognize that instead of a raid jacket he was wearing a light-brown sweat suit with the hoodie pulled up.
And carrying a small AK-47.
Had he come out of a window? Hadn’t anyone else seen him? How had he avoided getting shot in the barrage? I wondered as I gaped at his fleeing back.
As if it mattered. I leaped up and bolted after the figure.
It was only as the speeding suspect turned the near corner that my adrenaline kicked down enough for me to realize that I’d left my radio and long gun back in the car. No time to go back now, I thought as I turned the corner, pumping my drawn Glock handgun like it was a relay baton.
I knew per the raid plan that the surrounding blocks were supposed to be in lockdown, patrolled by the local precinct, but someone must have lost the script, because the running Nigerian and I were all by our lonesomes.
When the lean, sprinting Nigerian shifted out into the street, I could see he was almost three-quarters of a block away and getting more distant by the moment. I tried valiantly to keep up, but being past forty and non-Kenyan and wearing Kevlar, I had my work cut out for me.
I cursed when I got to the corner of the next block and saw that the industrial area had become a residential one. As small houses blurred past, I pictured buses and kids going to school.
“Get down! Stay where you are!” I screamed at a woman coming out of her house with a baby in a stroller. How could this thing have gone wrong so quickly?
I’d just made the next corner when I saw the Nigerian start firing at a tow truck passing through the intersection. The driver didn’t have a chance as his side window blew in. The truck jumped the curb and smashed into the side of a C-Town supermarket.
The Nigerian wasn’t trying to get away, I realized as he ran into the supermarket. He was on a suicide mission, out to kill as many people as possible.
I’d just made the corner past the honking crashed tow truck when automatic gunfire boomed from inside the supermarket and the glass on the market’s sliding doors shattered into a million pieces. I dove headfirst beside the truck as screams came from inside, followed by more gunfire.
Wait or go? I thought. Then I climbed back up on my feet, keeping low as I crunched over the broken glass into the store. I swung my Glock over the open produce section on the left. Nothing. No one. I peeked into the first aisle. Again nothing — just cereal boxes.
I broke into another run when I heard screams and then gunfire at the back of the store, in the far right-hand corner. When I got there, I saw the Nigerian raking gunfire over the butcher and fish counters.
I fired my Glock — emptied it at the figure so fast I thought maybe I’d forgotten to fully load the fifteen-round magazine. I reloaded and trained it on the Nigerian as I walked over.
He was down on his back wheezing as he lay in the refrigerated meat case. The hoodie had come down now, and I could see for the first time that it was a woman.