We were making the turn onto the runway when we saw the fire truck—humongous, bright yellow, lights and siren blazing as it barreled down the middle of the runway to block our path. I recognized it as the Port Authority’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting Unit. What was their nickname again? Something and Hoses?
A blistering spray of automatic rifle fire suddenly bloomed from one of the truck’s side windows, and the tarmac in front of us exploded with puffs from the warning shots.
Holy crap! Guns and Hoses, that was it. Those guys were a crazy hybrid of firemen and cops who dealt with both plane crashes and hijackings.
Aim for the pilot! I mentally messaged them, scrunching down in my seat as far as I could.
Although at this point, I was willing to get shot if it meant finally stopping Meyer.
He did something with the foot pedals, and we made a quick U-turn back onto the taxiway. Then he jammed the throttle level up as far as it would go, and we were suddenly rocketing down the lane, dangerously close to the row of hangars.
My breath stopped when I saw the deicing truck that was parked squarely in our way. There was no chance we could miss it. At that speed, trying to turn the plane would have sent it into a violent, out-of-control spin.
Silently I said my last prayer as we raced forward to ram it broadside.
At the last second, Meyer pulled the yoke back. With our wheels practically scraping the deicing truck’s top, we were airborne.
Chapter 91
EVEN NUMB WITH FEAR, I could feel my heart beating wildly through every square inch of my body as Meyer rocketed us up. I’d been to several plane crash sights in my time with the CRU. I knew all too well what happened to the human body when it struck something at several hundred miles an hour.
The plane seemed to be standing on its tail end, climbing straight up. I stared out at the ground lights that whirled below, feeling paralyzed with fever and fear.
My mind whirled, too, wondering what Meyer had planned. Where was he heading? Out of the country?
Not that it made much difference to me.
But mostly I thought about Chrissy. I hoped to God she hadn’t seen Meyer shoot the cop—hoped somebody had found her and called home by now.
“You know how crappy it was to lose my brother—not just once, but twice?” he said, raising his voice over the roar of the engines.
I shook myself out of my stupor. All of a sudden, I felt free. I had nothing left to lose if I was going to die, anyway. And I was damned if I’d be listening to his garbage when it happened.
“I’d have some sympathy for you, asshole,” I snapped back. “Except lots of people have it tough and don’t feel the need to go around shooting innocent, defenseless people and kidnapping little girls.”
“Screw that bullshit. When I was in aviation training, they told me, ‘Kid, you see those people down there on the desert floor, looking like little ants? Well, we want you to fire these bullets the size of butter knives down on them one thousand times a minute. Don’t worry that after you’re done, there’ll be piles of bloody rags where human beings were standing. Just ignore it.’
“But I’m also supposed to ignore the real assholes back here in the States. The ones who make people miserable, who don’t give a fuck if they treat somebody so bad it drives them to suicide—the selfish pricks who really make this world a mess. Leave them alone? I think not.” Meyer shook his head. “They can’t have it both ways. They taught me to kill for our country, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. But this time, I’m doing it by my own rules.”
And I thought my fever was making me sick. Now this guy was using a war vet trauma to excuse his evil.
“That was a tragedy, all right,” I said.
“Killing for this country?”
“No,” I yelled into his ear. “That you didn’t die for it.”
Chapter 92
I SWUNG AWAY FROM HIM and stared out the window, trying to figure out where we were. It was hard to tell, but I knew that we’d taken off in an easterly direction.
The plane ride wasn’t helping my stomach any. It was obvious that Meyer’s piloting skills were a little rusty. Every few seconds, we’d pitch to the right or left, swoop down a couple of hundred feet and then back up again.
But after we’d been up there a few minutes, he managed to smooth it out.
“Okay, Bennett, I’m ready for the final act,” he growled at me. “Time to finish what I started. Pay the Blanchettes a little visit. Plow into their bedroom at three hundred miles an hour, and you’re going with me. I told you not to get in my way, you goddamned idiot.”
Something in me had known all along that he intended to kill us both, but I’d refused to really wrap my mind around it. But now it was for sure.
Then I thought, Oh, no, it’s not.
Although my wrists were cuffed, my fingers were free. I furtively started working to undo my lap belt.
Within another few minutes, flying dangerously low and dangerously fast, we were approaching the giant lit-up towers of Manhattan. I recognized the vast, darker rectangle of Central Park, with its tree-lined pathways and glimmering reservoir.
And I shuddered when I spotted our target—the Blanchettes’ Fifth Avenue building. It was directly ahead, looking like it was racing toward us with dizzying speed. In no time, we were so close I could see the tea lights floating moodily on the surface of the rooftop pool.
I gave the seat belt a final yank, and it came loose. Then I lurched as hard as I could to the left and head-butted Meyer.
Seeing stars, I thought I got about as much as I gave, until I saw Meyer’s blood-spurting nose mashed flat against his face. He was making a low animal noise as he went for the gun in his lap. I leaned all the way over against my door. Then I ripped my legs out from beneath the console and slammed my feet up against his chin.
The kick landed hard with both heels. His head snapped back and the gun went flying somewhere behind us. The plane was going crazy, careening into a wild arc and plunging downward. I didn’t care. I kept on kicking him again and again—his head, his face, his neck, his chest—literally trying to drive him through his door, out of the airplane. With each blow, I screamed like a madman.
I might have succeeded, except he somehow extended the steel baton and whipped it down flush between my legs. I screamed again, this time from pain, and curled up with my eyes rolling back into my head.
Meyer paused to wrestle with the airplane, managing to pull it out of its dive and aim it through the building corridors and toward Central Park. Then he hit me on the forehead. It felt like he’d cracked the whole front of my skull. The world went gray as he shoved me back down into my seat.
His last measured blow with the baton whiplashed my head so hard into the door beside me that the window broke. I saw wheeling lights and blood streaming down the interior of the plane like a dark curtain, before my body went limp and my eyes closed.
I was just about gone, but somewhere deep in my head, a tiny spark of consciousness fought to stay lit.
Chapter 93
MAYOR CARLSON WAS ON THE THIRD MILE of his before-bed elliptical machine trek when Patrick Kipfer, one of his deputy chiefs, stuck his head in the doorway of Gracie Mansion’s basement gym.
“The Commissioner,” he said. “I forwarded it to your cell.”
The mayor hit the elliptical’s Pause button and lowered the volume of the hanging TV before he lifted his phone.
“Commissioner?” he said.
“Sorry to bother you, Mort,” Commissioner Daly said. “We got a hostage situation. One of our homicide detectives, Mike Bennett. His family said a man came into their apartment and abducted him and his four-year-old daughter.”
Bennett? the mayor thought. Wasn’t he the cop who was at the Blanchettes, the one who’d wanted to shut down the party?
“Tell me it isn’t the spree killer.”
“We have to go on that assumption.”
Carlson wiped his sweating face on h
is NYU T-shirt.
“Goddammit. Do we have any idea where they went? Any ransom demand? Any contact?”
“Nothing so far,” Daly said. “This happened less than an hour ago. His unmarked vehicle is missing, so we’ve notified state troopers and our guys.”
“I know you’re doing everything you can, Commissioner,” the mayor said. “You think of any way I can help, let me know immediately.”
“Will do.”
The mayor stared at the Pause button on the elliptical after he placed his cell back down. Should he call it a night? No, he decided, reaching for the button. No excuses. His cholesterol was through the roof. Not to mention how tight his suits were getting these days, with all the fund-raiser food. Just do it, and all that garbage. Besides, what good would he be to the city if he had a heart attack?
He was just getting back up to pace when Patrick returned and stuck his head in the doorway.
This time, the mayor hit the Stop button as he lifted his cell phone.
“The commissioner again?”
“The other commissioner,” his aide said. “Frank Peterson, from Port Authority Police.”
The mayor gave him a puzzled look. Christ, when it rained, it poured. What did the Port Authority commissioner want?
“Frank? Hi. What can I do for you?” the mayor said.
“One of our cops, a young guy named Tommy Wi, was just shot dead out at Teterboro,” Peterson said somberly.
The mayor shook his head in disbelief as he stepped off the machine. First a kidnapping, then a murder?
“That’s . . . ,” he started to say, but couldn’t find a word. “What happened?”
“Just before Officer Wi was shot, he called in and said an NYPD detective had asked for access to the tarmac. Two minutes later, a twin-engine Cessna was hijacked by a pair of men. Nearby, we found an NYPD unmarked radio car with a little girl inside, saying her daddy is Detective Mike Bennett.”
“Mr. Mayor,” his aide Patrick said, coming in again with another cell phone in his hand. “It’s important.”
Christ, another call? He had only two ears.
“Sorry, Frank, can you hold a minute?” he said to the Port Authority commissioner. What now? he thought as Patrick traded phones with him.
“Hello, Mayor Carlson,” said a crisp male voice. “Tad Billings, assistant director of Homeland Security. You’ve heard about the hijacking at Teterboro?”
“I’m starting to,” Carlson said curtly.
“FAA radar is tracking the Cessna over the Hudson, heading east, inbound toward the city. An F-15 has been scrambled and is en route from McGuire Air Force Base in south Jersey.”
“What?! An F-15?!”
“Part of the new Federal Homeland Security statute,” Billings said. “Teterboro spoke to the FAA. FAA spoke to North American Air Defense. NORAD scrambled a jet. I just got off the phone with General Hotchkiss. The jet pilot has been authorized to shoot the Cessna down.”
“You can’t be serious. We think there’s a cop on that plane, an NYPD homicide detective. He’s being held hostage!”
“The air force has been made aware of that. They’ll try to establish radio contact, but time constraints and the hijacker’s unpredictability are important factors. This is a major threat to your entire city, sir. As harsh as it is, as reluctant as we are to put the life of an innocent on the line, we unfortunately have to prepare for the worst.”
And he’d worried about having a heart attack? A heart attack would have been a breeze, compared to this impossible-to-keep-up-with insanity.
“Is our conversation being recorded?” the mayor finally said.
“As a matter of fact, yes, it is.”
“Then let me state for the record that you are all a bunch of heartless bastards.”
“Duly noted, Your Honor,” Billings said without hesitation. “I’ll make sure to keep you up to date.”
Chapter 94
THE F-15E STRIKE EAGLE was less than a mile out from McGuire Air Force Base when the pilot, Major James Vickers, fired the afterburners. Sapphire-blue flame shot from the jet pipes of the aircraft’s Pratt and Whitney F100 engines, and the state of New Jersey was suddenly rolling beneath him like the belt of a treadmill turned to sprint.
Located eighteen miles south of Trenton, McGuire for the most part was a C-17 cargo plane and KC-10 tanker refueling plane base. But in the aftermath of 9/11, in order to cover all future threats to New York City, a contingent of the 336th Fighter Squadron had been discreetly redeployed sixty-four miles to the north. At the aircraft’s top speed of nine hundred miles an hour, that distance evaporated in an eyeblink.
Which was what happened a moment later as the F-15 double-boomed, breaking the sound barrier.
Like opening a can of biscuits, Vickers thought with a shake of his flight helmet. You know the pop is coming, but damn if it don’t always surprise you.
“Okay, we’ve got him,” said Captain Duane Burkhart, the weapons systems officer, or wizzo, as they were called, sitting in the cockpit seat behind Vickers. “The Cessna’s transponder is still on. It’s lighting up the LANTIRN screen like a Christmas tree.”
LANTIRN was the plane’s Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night system. Since the small plane’s transponder was still operational, they could actually fire a missile now if they wanted.
“You heard the CO,” Vickers said. “We need to try radio contact first, and at the very least we need a visual.”
“Yes, sir,” Burkhart said with uncharacteristic nervousness in his voice. “Just letting you know.”
No wonder Duane had the jitters, thought Major Vickers. He’d envisioned many combat missions upon graduating from the Air Force Academy six years before. But never one that took place over the Jersey Turnpike.
“This is wild, isn’t it?” Burkhart said as the New York City skyline, unmistakable from seven thousand feet, approached rapidly on their right. “Those bastards hitting the towers was the reason I joined up.”
“You’re a true patriot,” Vickers said sarcastically, dropping altitude and buzzing by the Statue of Liberty. “I hitched up for the subsidized on-base bowling.”
“You should be able to get that visual now,” Burkhart said.
“Roger that.” Vickers spotted the blip that appeared on the canopy’s electronic air-to-air combat heads-up targeting display. The Cessna was moving south down the Hudson three, maybe four miles ahead, and closing fast.
Vickers flicked a button at the top of his joystick with his thumb and the pairs of AIM Sparrow and AIM Sidewinder missiles, nestled under the wings, hummed as they powered on, high-explosive attack dogs tugging the chain.
He had already been given the firing order by the time he’d finished strapping in. He didn’t need to know who or what was on the Cessna—only to knock it out of the sky.
“Cessna Bravo Lima Seven Seven Two,” Burkhart said into the radio. “This is the United States Air Force. Turn around and land back at Teterboro or you will be brought down. This is your only warning.”
The Cessna pilot’s voice crackled back. “Don’t bullshit me, ace. I used to fly one of those things. You can’t risk it. You could wipe out half of Manhattan.”
“That’s a risk we’re prepared to take,” Burkhart said. “I repeat. This is your final warning.”
This time there was no answer.
Had the guy really been a fighter pilot? Vickers wondered. If it was true, that added a wrinkle.
He rolled his neck as the targeting radar lock alarm suddenly sounded.
“Well, you can’t say we didn’t warn ’em,” he said.
The siren quit as the Cessna suddenly swung a hard left west in between the stone and glass towers. It was in Manhattan airspace now, somewhere around 80th Street.
“No!” Burkhart cried. “Shit on a stick! We’re too late!”
“Keep your shirt on,” Vickers said, jogging the joystick between his knees to the right, screaming the dull silver-colored jet in o
ver the West Side. He was coming over Central Park a split second later when the Cessna reappeared ahead above Columbus Circle, then immediately vanished again, weaving through the city’s high-rises, using them for cover.
Though the missile lock siren came back on, he knew he couldn’t chance a missile now. That bastard in the Cessna was right. If he missed, a big chunk of midtown Manhattan would be history.
Vickers squinted beneath his flight visor as his gloved finger reached for the trigger of the twenty-millimeter Gatling gun. He kept it there, waiting for his chance.
Chapter 95
I WAS WIDE AWAKE when I heard Meyer’s radio exchange with the fighter pilot, although I was wishing I wasn’t. I didn’t know which hurt worse, my head or my groin.
“The hell with the Blanchettes,” Meyer said, talking to himself now. He was ignoring me, assuming I was unconscious or dead. “Why waste this stellar opportunity on those old fools? Let’s hit this fucked-up country where it’ll hurt the most—the Big Apple’s pride and joy. Then they’ll read my Manifesto of Nonsense.”
I stayed slumped in my seat, but opened my eyes just enough to see that we were rocketing southward down Fifth Avenue.
Straight toward the glittering, spire-topped, man-made mountain face of the Empire State Building.
One more try, I thought, gritting my teeth against the pain. I was going to die in a fiery explosion anyway. Maybe I could keep us from taking anybody else along—except for the psycho beside me.
Meyer hadn’t bothered to strap me back into my seat. Quietly, I took a long, deep breath.
Then, with every ounce of strength I could muster, I threw my left elbow up into his Adam’s apple.
He reared backward, clutching his throat with one hand and clawing at my face with the other. I lunged into him, pinning him against his door and grabbing the wheel.