Against All Enemies

42 DEVASTATION

Joe Dominguez was at the airport to pick up his cousin Ricky, who was flying in from Orlando to spend a week’s vacation. Dominguez was twenty-four, an admittedly scrawny kid who made up for it with a keen wit and argumentative nature. He was the only son of Mexican immigrants who’d come legally into the United States back in the late 1970s. Both parents had eventually become citizens. Joe’s father was a framer and drywall installer with a crew of ten who worked for a half-dozen commercial homebuilders in the Tucson metropolitan area. His mother had started her own maid service when he was a boy, and she now managed more than forty employees who cleaned both commercial and residential properties; they even had their own fleet of cars. Meanwhile, Joe had finished high school with little desire to attend “regular” college and had instead moved temporarily to Southern California, where he’d enrolled in Ford Motor Company’s ASSET (Automotive Student Service Educational Training) program to get his AA degree and become a certified Ford Automotive Technician. After two long years of taking courses in engine control systems, brakes, steering/suspensions, transmissions, and fuel and emission control systems, he’d graduated with a 3.3 GPA. He returned home to Tucson, where he’d been hired by Holmes Tuttle Ford Lincoln Mercury. He loved being a grease monkey and had eventually saved up enough money to buy his dream ride: a black Ford F-250 FX4 pickup truck with six-inch lift kit and BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 tires. His friends referred to the truck as the “black beast,” and those brave enough to come along for a ride found they needed either a ladder or good flexibility to climb into the cab. Sure, the truck intimidated the girls he dated, but he wasn’t looking for timid women, anyway. He wanted an adventurous girl. He was still looking.

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 …

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.

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 wheel 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 receiving 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.

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.

“Moore,” Towers called, lowering his phone. “They just tried to hit Tucson, but a group of civilians took them out. And I just heard they hit El Paso and San Antonio. That’s six so far. It’s a full-on terrorist attack. Nine-eleven all over again.”

Moore cursed and glanced at the three bodies of the terrorists being zipped up while the fire department crew continued foaming down the area.

If Dan Burleson had to bet on it, he’d say the pilots were trying to decide if they thought they could initiate a turn and make it back to the airport. The more likely situation was that they would land at the best possible off-airport site. It all depended on whether or not they thought they had enough power to keep the plane level. If they attempted to turn without sufficient power, they’d very quickly lose altitude. Pilots of single-engine aircraft were instructed to never, ever, attempt to return to the runway, because they would lose too much altitude to effect the turnaround. Case in point: On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger was in command of US Airways Flight 1549 en route from La Guardia to Charlotte. He had lifted off and flown through a flock of birds, resulting in the loss of both engines. He knew he’d lose precious altitude if he started a turnaround with no engines producing power, and determined that his best course of action was to ditch in the river. His actions had saved the lives of the crew and every passenger on board.

They could blame the birds for that near disaster, but Dan felt certain that Mr. Allahu Akbar in the seat next to him, along with his buddies, was responsible for their present dilemma.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Ethan Whitman. As most of you already know, we’ve lost an engine but plan to make our turn and head back to the airport. We have every confidence that we’ll be able to set the aircraft down on the runway. Those noises you just heard were the gear going down and now we’re about to initiate our all-important turn back to Phoenix. Despite our confidence regarding the landing, we will still initiate crash-landing procedures and want to insist that you remain calm and allow the attendants to do their jobs. Listen to what they say and comply immediately for your own safety and the safety of those around you. Thank you.”

Not five seconds later, the aircraft began to turn.

Bring us home, boys, Dan thought. Bring us home.

Moore, Towers, and a few of Meyers’s FBI agents had gone across the street and spoken to the Coast Guard Station’s commanding officer, John Dzamba, who’d already sent out a dozen of his personnel to help control the scene and keep traffic moving. They borrowed a conference room equipped with big-screen TVs, and there Moore paced and watched the screens with a mixture of horror and disbelief, while Towers got online to see what intel the other agencies were gathering.

Nearly every television network in the United States of America was interrupting its regularly scheduled programming to bring word about the multiple missile attacks on airliners heading toward the East from the West Coast. The local San Diego news stations’ anchors began speculating on more attacks that might happen in the Midwest and at airports along the East Coast as flights everywhere were being grounded and air traffic controllers were doing their best to take those planes away from highly volatile areas such as the oil refineries near Newark, New Jersey, and other heavily populated areas. As a matter of fact, in Newark, flights from Europe would be diverted to Nova Scotia/Newfoundland as they had been on 9/11. And likewise as had occurred on 9/11, rumors and false reports continued to run rampant.

Slater and O’Hara finally got on a video conference that Slater said could last no more than two minutes because they were understandably swamped.

“The nuke teams are already converging on the major cities,” said O’Hara.

“And we’ve got the NSA’s computers monitoring cell phones for key words like flight numbers, Middle Eastern accents and phrases. Your man Samad might try to give his boss Rahmani a report, and if he does, then we’ll work on triangulating his location.”

“These guys are too smart for that. The only way to get him is HUMINT,” said Moore. “Boots on the ground. People who know where Samad is going. He’s got help. Sleepers everywhere, safe houses. They know how to hide — and if they still got Gallagher helping them, then he’s taught them all our TTPs.”

“We’ve got a team hunting for him,” said Slater. “And they will find him.”

O’Hara chimed in: “Towers, we’ve got the go-ahead to keep you on this, because your JTF is already set up for inter-agency ops. You’ll team up with some new agents from the FBI, DEA, and I’ve got a TSA guy we need to get onboard. I assume you’re well enough to keep working?”

“Hell, yeah, sir,” said Towers.

Moore began to shake his head. “The answers aren’t here. They’re back there. In the mountains. In Waziristan. Did you call off the air strikes for me?”

“Still working on it,” said Slater.

Moore held back a curse. “Please work harder. Sir.”

After the call, Moore went into the bathroom. He had the dry heaves and just hung his head over the toilet for a few minutes. When he returned to the conference room, he found a fresh cup of coffee waiting for him.

Towers gave him a sympathetic look. “Hey, man, there’s no way in hell we could’ve known this shit would go down. We signed on to take out a cartel. Our timing sucked. Period. But we still did our jobs.”

They both glanced back at the flat screen, now showing live video of the plane in Phoenix landing at the airport, one engine still smoking. The gear hit the tarmac in a picture-perfect landing.

But then the broadcast was interrupted once more, by live images of a plane coming down toward Interstate 10 outside San Antonio.

“Oh my God,” Moore said with a gasp.

Both engines were out, and it was all the pilot could do to keep the aircraft level. The gear was down, but then he suddenly lost more altitude.

The highway was jammed with building rush-hour traffic, and drivers attempted to pull off to the shoulder, but they were hardly in time.

Two hundred feet. One hundred. The main gear hit the ground but then collided with several cars before the forward gear suddenly slammed down with such a force that the wheels just snapped off, sending the plane skidding forward and through more cars, which were bulldozed out of the way and sent tumbling through the air like Matchbox toys. The fuselage split apart, just forward of the wings, and that first section broke off and went spinning off the highway, while the rest of the jet began to slow as it continued crashing through more and more cars, dense black smoke rising in its wake.

The newspeople were now crying on the air, and Towers was saying, “There’ll be survivors for sure. Some people will walk away from that.”

Moore tore his fingers through his hair, then tugged out his smartphone and sent off a text message to Wazir.