O’Brien drove down the dirt spur road, careful not to stir dust. Three SUVs loaded with federal agents followed. They parked beneath two large live oaks about one hundred feet from the rear of the hangars.
O’Brien said, “Remember, they’re holding a hostage. You all have the description of Jason Canfield. He needs to walk out of here. His father died on the bombing of the USS Cole. This one is for Jason’s dad! Let’s make sure his son lives.”
Both rear seats were on the tarmac to the left of the Beechcraft. The men removed the quilt from the bomb and walked it over to the open doors on the plane. The bomb was like a fat torpedo. More than four feet in length. Two feet thick. Ugly gray, a dark tapered point. Twin fins on the tail. It took five men to lift it into the plane.
One man held a video camera recording everything. Three others stood guard holding AK-47 assault rifles. Sharif and Rashid Aahmed were at the hangar door. Sharif just ended a phone call while Rashid scanned the area for intruders. “It is time,” Sharif said, walking toward the plane. “Bring Canfield.”
In front of the plane, Waahid-Barak dropped to his knees, body facing east and lowered his forehead to the ground. When he stood, Sharif kissed both of his cheeks and said, “You will be the martyr all our children’s children will respect. You are mujaddid. You were chosen by Allah. You will have a special place in paradise. Salaam alaikum.”
Waahid bowed his head. The men watched as he climbed in the pilot seat.
Two men lifted Jason who screamed, “Shoot me now assholes! I’m not going on your bombing mission!”
One man hit Jason in the jaw with the butt of his pistol. Jason dropped to his knees. The man with the video camera zoomed in closer on Jason’s face. Sharif shouted, “Jason Canfield! The choice is yours. Renounce the atrocities of your government and you live. If you do not, you will have a front row seat to the greatest explosion ever to happen on American soil.”
Jason was silent.
“Renounce the hypocrisy of the Unites States … the land of the free!”
“Fuck you!” Jason yelled.
Sharif kicked Jason in the face, the blow knocking him back on the runway. “Load the infidel into the aircraft!” shouted Sharif. The men loaded him in the front seat, hands bound behind his back.
They slammed the door as Hunter whispered in his radio, “Let’s take ‘em!”
“Hands up!” Shouted an FBI agent as they fanned out from the building.
“Get down! Down! Down! Faces on the Ground!” ordered another.
“Depart!” shouted Sharif, waving his arms. The pilot started the plane amidst Sharif’s men firing rounds from their AK-47s. They ran for cover behind the van and planes.
O’Brien heard a bullet wiz above his left ear as Sharif sprinted to the hangar.
“Jason’s in the plane!” Hunter shouted. “Shoot the tires!”
The automatic rounds from Sharif’s men ripped through the corrugated aluminum hangars. The agents returned fire, killing two men in seconds.
O’Brien turned, running full bore to the parked SUV. He grabbed a 30.06 scoped rifle and bolted toward the old flight tower. He keyed his mic. “Cover me! I’m climbing the ladder to the tower. I’m going to try to take out the pilot before he gets in the air!”
The agents released a barrage of bullets at the two remaining terrorists. One saw O’Brien climbing the tower and rose to get off a shot. Hunter fired a round and the man’s head exploded. The last man hiding behind the van threw out his rifle and shouted, “I surrender!”
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
The Beechcraft was at the end of the tarmac, engines revving, the pilot moving down the runway. O’Brien stood on the platform fifty feet above the ground. He used the railing to steady his rifle and followed the small, twin engine plane through the scope. The sun was setting directly behind it, pushing light through the window. In the profile, he could see Jason looking out the window, a horrific expression, a plea on his young face.
O’Brien would have to shoot through Jason’s window to hit the pilot. O’Brien stood, waving his arms, gesturing for Jason to duck down.
Jason saw the man on the tower in the last rays of sunlight, waving his arms, then signaling in a squatting-like motion. “Sean ….” whispered Jason, under the drone of the engines. He leaned down, touching his forehead to his knees.
“You sick? Sit up!” ordered the pilot.
O’Brien looked through the scope as the plane moved at least forty miles an hour, its wheels bouncing off the ground.
One shot.
One second to take it.
Hunter stared up from the ground. “Come on O’Brien,” he whispered. The rest of the agents watched, each man holding his breath as O’Brien aimed.
O’Brien exhaled slowly. He stopped breathing. He had the pilot’s profile dead center.
NOW.
He squeezed the trigger. The window above Jason head exploded. The bullet struck the pilot in the temple. He slumped back in his seat, the left side of his head blown off.
Jason used his feet to maneuver the controls on the plane’s floorboard and managed to use one knee to back off on the throttle. The plane, swerving and rocking, taxied to a stop ten feet from entering the highway.
O’Brien and Hunter jumped in their SUV and drove to the end of the runway. O’Brien opened Jason’s door and helped him out. Hunter checked the pilot. “Dead! That shot might make some kind of world record.”
Jason tried to stand, knees wobbling, his voice coming in an emotional burst. He leaned back against the plane. Through streaming tears he said, “Sean, they were gonna kill millions of people … millions.”
O’Brien hugged Jason as three F-16s roared overhead. “Stay here, Jason!”
“Where are you going?”
“This isn’t over.” To Hunter, he said, “Cover me. Have the men cover the exits from the hangar. Mohammed may be hiding in there. O’Brien sprinted around a half dozen idle planes. He darted behind a dumpster, zigzagging toward an open door to the hangar. He ran past a classic Triumph motorcycle parked next to the door, the ignition keys winking in a ray of sunlight.
O’Brien stepped over a man’s body lying just inside the door. He was dressed in blue coveralls. Shot in the back of the head. The mechanic. Mid fifties. Probably his motorcycle out front. O’Brien tried to control his breathing as he reached for the door handle. He opened it just enough to see inside the hangar. A plane and a Learjet were inside. A bumblebee hovered over a doughnut on a paper plate beside a coffee stand. A sparrow flew between the rafters, the movement just enough to break the silence.
The jet moved. Slightly. Someone inside. O’Brien burst through the door and rolled up behind the jet. “Come out Mohammed! It’s over!”
Three shots were fired from an opening where the jet’s door was ajar. One bullet hit the propeller a few feet from O’Brien’s face. The second nicked his left shoulder. In the earpiece, O’Brien heard Hunter. “Sean, what’s the status in there?”
The jet’s engines started, the whine deafening in the hangar. The Learjet began taxing, easily pushing through a flimsy bay door.
Eric Hunter and the men scattered off the runway as the Learjet plowed through the hangar door. One man aimed toward the front section of the jet. “Hold fire!” Hunter ordered. “We don’t know if O’Brien’s in there.”
As the Learjet taxied farther down the tarmac, O’Brien straddled the motorcycle, bringing the engine to life. He roared through the gears, quickly gaining on the jet.