Jihad

CHAPTER 62

Karr, following the chopper’s searchlight as it swept along the creekside, spotted a shadow near a complex of buildings used for distilling naphtha, the very volatile lighter components of petroleum used for solvents.

“There!” he yelled to the pilot. “There’s someone there. Get your light there!”

Ground units were already scrambling nearby, running toward the pipelines connecting the two portions of the plant. Light erupted near it, so intense that Karr threw his hand up to shield his eyes. The chopper pirouetted away as a ball of fire shot into the air, so high that it exploded over the helicopter, an umbrella of red and yellow.

“Explosions,” said Karr, telling the Art Room what was going on. He cursed, angry that he hadn’t figured out what was going on sooner. He leaned back toward the window, trying to assess what was going on. The two tall cooling stacks — made of concrete, they looked like smoke stacks but were used to condense gases in the desulphurization unit — stood over the complex, twin sentinels.

A fly was climbing on one.

“That tower there,” he told the helicopter pilot. “The smokestack. There’s somebody on it. Knock him off.”

“Was?” sputtered the pilot. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t have a gun. Get him off of there. He wants to blow the stack.”

Karr reached for the helicopter’s controls, threatening to do it if the pilot didn’t. It was a bluff — Karr had no idea how to fly the aircraft. But the pilot didn’t know that. He pitched the chopper forward, veering as close as he dared to the man climbing up the side of the large stack. The man tottered for a second, then began fiddling with a small pack at his belt. As the helo turned away, the wash knocked the terrorist off balance and sent him tumbling toward the ground.

He exploded about twenty feet from the pavement, obliterating himself, but failing to ignite a fire or destroy the stack, either of which could have touched off a much larger explosion.

“Do not interfere with the controls,” said Hess, leaning forward from the back. “You are a very dangerous man, Herr Magnor-Karr.”

“Not dangerous enough,” said Karr, still mad at himself for being a step behind the terrorists.