The Ghost of Flight 666

CHAPTER 23: General Washington’s Kabob

Brueget hopped in the big, black Peugeot and started the engine. Slade threw his case in the back and followed it in. Throwing the transmission into drive, Brueget smoked the tires, trying to nudge the Renault as careened past. He missed, but Brueget kept his foot on the gas, sliding into the street in pursuit, followed by a line of gendarmes with sirens wailing.

There were four men in the Renault, and three of them had automatic AK-47 assault rifles. One of them was Abdulla. The Budda-budda-budda of the Kalashnikov thumped the Paris morning.

“Are they insane? There are citizens everywhere!” Brueget cursed, sliding into a hard left turn onto Quai d’Horloge. The Renault took the next left toward Pont Neuf, and then crossed the Seine, screaming left again against the traffic along the river. The Renault dodged cars and motorcycles, zooming past the Great Canadian Pub’s big red maple leaf and trying to make the turn into Saint-Michel — he didn’t make it — instead skidding across the plaza, guns blazing, where the Arab population was already gathering for another day of protests.

The Renault plowed through the crowd, with the young terrorists in the back firing wildly, facing backwards. They tried to shoot at the Peugeot, which Brueget swung wide to avoid the crowds, but they seemed just as happy to shoot down people — little realizing these were their own sympathizers.

The Renault was slowed by the multitude of people it ran over, and Brueget was on the point of cutting it off, so the driver steered hard left and headed back over the Saint-Michel Bridge where he started.

Brueget cursed and spun around, gunning it and following. Over the Saint-Michel Bridge they sped, past pedestrians and tourists.

Slade drew his pistols and rolled down his window. He leaned out as soon as he had a clear shot and sent a flurry of 9mm rounds at the Renault. One of the terrorists took a bullet in the shoulder. It spun him around in the seat, but as he was already half standing, he lost his balance and spilled over the side.

“That wasn’t Hussein?” Brueget exclaimed.

“No!” Slade replied — thump, thump — Brueget made sure of him.

“Double tap!” Brueget exclaimed.

The heavy car rolled over him, dragging the terrorist for a bit, leaving a bloody smear on the pavement and over the bridge, before the broken man rolled out from underneath as they skidded onto Quai des Gevres, again going against traffic.

The drag of the terrorist had slowed the Peugeot down, but now Brueget stepped on it, weaving through the oncoming traffic, gaining on the Renault. By the time they were close enough for Slade to take another shot they were passing Pont d’Alma. The Renault entered the proper lane and headed toward Place d’Lena on the Avenue du President Wilson. The buildings sped by. As the approached the wide roundabout, Brueget yelled, “He’s got to slow and turn right!”

Slade whipped out his gun and shot low. He emptied the clip at the Renault’s rear tire. The back tailgate and bumper sparked, and then the right rear tire blew in a cloud of white smoke.

Young Abdulla was not an experienced fighter. He waved the barrel of the AK-47 around like a movie prop, missing the Peugeot entirely. When the tire blew he and his companion clutched the rear of the Renault, just trying to stay in the swerving car. With the tire blown the driver couldn’t make the turn. He careened through traffic, bouncing off several cars before running headlong into the concrete pedestal on which rested the equestrian statue of General George Washington. The little Renault slammed to a stop, throwing Abdulla high into the gray morning sky.

The impact tossed Abdulla like a rag doll some sixty feet in the air. He came down on the point of the George Washington’s up-thrust sword, impaling himself through the stomach on the symbol of America; the Great Satan. Abdulla hung there for a few moments, weakly clutching at General Washington’s steady hand before he fainted.

Jean pulled the Peugeot to a screeching halt next to the statue, laughing. “How apropos,” Jean sighed, getting out his phone. “I will get the ambulances on the way. You had better see to young Abdulla! Although I fear he is of no more use to us!”

Slade leapt out of the car and sped to the Renault. The driver was dead, crushed into a bloody pulp with only his wide eyed face visible out of the smoldering wreckage. The other terrorist was flung out of the back as well. He landed on the other side of the statue, just in the street, where the Parisians promptly ran over him a dozen times.

Slade retrieved the AK-47 Abdulla dropped and flipped the clip, chambering a round just in case. He walked around to the north side of the statue where Abdulla’s head hung over.

He looked up to the young terrorist, who hung draped over the general’s arm; the bloody blade of Washington’s sword protruded from the young jihadist’s back. Blood and entrails slimed the shaft.

Amazingly young Abdulla looked to be alive — for now. His hands were clutching feebly at the air and his head was twitching, as if he were having some conversation with an unseen companion.

“Abdulla!” Slade called up to him and the jihadist’s eyes fluttered open. “Where’s your father Abdulla? Tell us and we’ll get you down from there in one piece!”

He groaned, but said, “My father will be a great martyr! Zion will fall! I will see him in paradise!”

“Maybe we’ll just leave you up there with General Washington,” Slade told him. “Maybe he can talk some sense into you.”

“No, you must get me down, I must continue to fight,” he said breathlessly, his voice wavering in and out of coherence. “You cannot leave me here; you won’t. Westerners are soft. You will do whatever you must to save me. You will save me so that I can watch your world fall!”

The smell of fuel alerted Slade to another danger. The Renault’s fuel tank burst and the petrol was seeping toward the hot engine block. “Sorry Abdulla!”

He hustled away. There was no choice; he was almost too late. The engine caught fire. The fire swiftly spread through the Renault, searching for the fuel tank.

Abdulla was only partially coherent, but there is something about the smell of smoke that instills instinctual terror on any being unfortunate enough to be around it. He stopped his jabbering, his head lolling from side to side, his eyes trying to see through his puffy, bruised face. When they focused on the bright blur of the flames he started keening, as he was too weak to scream.

His voice became a high drawn out wail — whoomph! The fuel reached the hot engine block. The flames raced back to the breached tank and the trapped fumes exploded, rupturing the tank completely. A fireball of flaming fuel erupted upward engulfing George and his skewered victim in fire and fuel. The flames rose up into a black cloud as the fuel began to burn greedily, licking at the statue and roasting Abdulla on the spit.

“I suppose he’s not going to be around when we finally fall,” Slade sighed.

Brueget grimaced, “Mon Dieu! He is determined to roast in Hell!”

The young jihadist’s wails ended in a single high pitched cry. His arms reached for the sky, hands ending in grasping, burning claws. Then he collapsed and went limp as a fish.

There was nothing more to be done; nothing to salvage from the wreck. The rescue crews came and put out the fire. When it came time to remove Abdulla from General Washington’s sword they had two choices: either cut the sword off the monument or cut Abdulla.

The sword remained intact.

As they walked away from the grisly scene something crunched under Slade’s boot. It was a cell phone. He picked it up and tapped it. The phone came on.

“It’s Abdulla’s,” Slade told Brueget.

“Incredible!”

They drove back to Saint-Michel. It looked like a war zone. The paramedics were sorting those who were dead, those who could be saved, and those who were going to die. Abdulla and his fellow terrorists killed thirty-three of their own people — amazingly, no other citizens of Paris or Tourists were hurt.

Slade was spirited away to the embassy. Once there, he and Brueget examined Abdulla’s phone. The last call from Abdullereda to his son came through a cell tower in Jakarta.

Slade reported direct to Gann.

“Good work Slade, we’re getting you out to the Enterprise pronto. We need you on the Galaxus when the convoy leaves Bandar Abbas. If there’s a switch I want you and the Delta’s there to nail it.”

“Sir, what about the jet. It’s got to be in Jakarta.”

“I’m heading to the White House to brief the president right now. Get to the Enterprise Slade; I want you on the Galaxus tomorrow night!”

The connection ended. Jean glanced outside and then at his watch, “Mon Dieu it’s six in the morning already. You’ve made a full night of it — again!”

Slade took the evening military flight from Charles de Gaulle to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It was a little over eight hours on a normal flight, over nine this night since Hamas precipitated a war in Southern Israel and Gaza.

After the Russians mistakenly shot down a Malaysian Airlines flight over the Ukraine just a few days past, mistaking the airliner for a cargo plane, no one had any desire to fly over or near a war zone.

“Malaysian Airline’s days are numbered,” Slade thought as he read the Company brief. “So are mine. The president wants me dead. He approved this mission because it puts me in shark infested waters during their feeding time. I know it!”

Slade tried not to think of the night dive. He shook his head and failed. “If the sharks don’t get me I’ll probably hyperventilate because I’m worried about the sharks getting me. I’ll get the bends or black out and drown. Then the sharks eat me. Any way you look at it the sharks get me; that ought to make him happy.”

He studied his file, but he wasn’t happy about it. After landing, Slade transferred to a Navy Hawkeye E2C Hawkeye for the flight aboard the Enterprise. It was late morning and Slade met ‘Killer’ Kincaid in the ready room.

“I’m sorry about Johnny and his family,” Slade said, shaking hands with his old Delta Force buddy.

“I was hoping you’d have news of the snitch?” Killer said grimly.

“It goes straight to the president,” Slade told him. “I was warned off Waters, but I took the opportunity to put the bug in the ear of the jihadists that he’d given them up.”

“Hopefully we’ll be seeing his head on the evening news, just his head,” Killer sighed. “They offered us an out after the attacks, but the rest of us we wanted to see it through for Johnny Bravo. After what they did to him we have to finish this. I’m only sorry they dragged you out here for such a vanilla mission; there’s no one to shoot. It’s a standard seaborne insertion and extraction. We’re swimming a few miles to the ship, getting on board and ascertaining the status of the cargo — that’s it. Not much to it.”

“Well, let me tell you what’s going on, and what we’re worried about,” Slade sighed. He told everything that had happened. The further he got the grimmer Killer’s expression.

“So we’re afraid that the Iranian’s may be shipping out radioactive material to Jakarta?” he asked incredulously.

“We think they’re going to make a switch after the cargo is checked by the United Nations inspectors,” Slade told him.

“Cheeky bastards,” Killer shrugged. “All right, let me get this straight, we’re checking some Indonesian freighter with an American captain. We’re making sure his cargo of sand is just that — sand.”

“Sand,” Slade sighed.

“It does seem a bit suspicious that the Iranians are going to just give up three tons of nearly weapons grade Uranium.”

“Everyone is watching this. They’ve invited reporters from CNN and MSNBC — our favorite propaganda networks — on board along with the UN to supervise the loading of the Uranium.”

“If the United Nations is checking the containers going on the Atlas what are we looking for on the Galaxus?” Killer asked again.

“Radioactivity.”

“It’s a shell game.”

“Right — we’re taking a swim in shark infested waters just to make sure the Iranians are sending a bunch of sand to Soekarno for his zoo exhibit,” Slade replied. He tried to look unconcerned. “These two things might be unrelated — who knows — maybe the Iranians are shooting straight.”

“That’s about the only thing we know isn’t true!” Killer said sharply.

“Agreed,” Slade said, putting on his deepest, darkest scowl. “However, let’s just say for the sake of argument that Soekarno’s shipment is harmless desert sand and the Iranians enriched Uranium is transported to Abu Dhabi. Where does that leave us?”

“We’re back at square one,” Killer sighed. “We have no airplane, we have no cargo for that missing airplane, and we’re no closer to discovering what the Iranians, Al-Qaeda and ISIS were meeting about in Iraq.”

“Let’s hope we don’t come up empty,” Slade said firmly.

Killer shrugged and shook his head, saying, “One thing at a time. We drop in fifteen hours. Come on, get some sleep. We’re all packed up and ready to go.”