Terminal Rage (21 page)

When the Jordanians stood outside the van, the masked man spoke to them in passable but not native Arabic. “
Al Salamu Alaykom.
”

“
We alaykum al salam wa rahmatulah we barakatu.
” Nabulsi ogled Julia
’
s naked thighs. The masked man pulled out a photograph and compared it to Nabulsi and Madi until he was satisfied it was them.

“What was the license plate number of the van you were in when Egyptian police apprehended you?”

How the hell did he expect them to remember?

But Madi, who hadn
’
t spoken a word since they left the prison, answered. Perfectly. “It wasn
’
t a van. It was a taxi, registered in the South Sinai governorate. A white Mitsubishi Lancer, 2002 model. The license plate number was 716680.”

“And the driver
’
s real name?”

“Abu Hamza.”

“Welcome home, brothers.” The kidnapper shoved Julia with his foot, sending her flying out of the vehicle. Smythe caught her in time to prevent her from falling on her face. Nabulsi and Madi jumped inside. The masked man reached for the door and slid it shut as the van bit into the concrete and careened out of the park.

Zeta wrapped a gray woolen blanket around Julia
’
s shivering body. He picked her up and carried her in his arms. She rested her head on his chest for the walk back to the helicopter. The tenacious rain had stopped now and the sun
’s
rays had finally prevailed.

§

Nabulsi was wondering why the van was not moving any faster as it drove out of the park and back on the main ring road. As it turned left he glanced at the street sign. They were on Via Calimberti Tancredi, and then turned on Via Labriola Antonio for about three hundred feet.

The van then turned right again into a complex of mustard-colored buildings and parked in the rear. Nabulsi emerged from the van with Madi next to him. The German man who had freed them had taken off his mask. He was about six feet tall, with cropped blond hair and dark green eyes. He wore brown sandals, a black T-shirt, and beige cargo shorts.

Nabulsi walked by the German with Madi trailing behind them as they entered one of the buildings. A man was waiting for them inside the lobby of the building. He was about fifty and wore a light blue shirt and dark sunglasses. He ushered them inside a miniscule elevator, which took forever to get to the top floor. No one uttered a word during the ride up. When they got there, the Italian searched through a big bunch of keys until he found the correct one and let everyone up to the rooftop.

Nabulsi stood motionless next to Madi, while the tall German dialed a number on his cell phone.

“
Siamo pronti.
”

Not long after, a single-engine helicopter landed on the rooftop of the building. The words
Stelle Elicotteri
were imprinted on its tail. The blond man walked with Nabulsi and Madi to the aircraft. He hugged them and wished them well, before they got in the helicopter and disappeared in the Neapolitan sky.

EIGHTEEN

Sunday, November 6, 2011—4:12 a.m.
Manhattan, New York

S
mythe
’
s voice was barely audible on the loudspeaker, with the sound of the helicopter and the background hustle of the other men.

“We have her. She
’
s safe.”

The negotiating room erupted in raucous applause. Blackwell sighed from the deepest part of his heart. It was the first piece of good news all night and a welcome release from the gloom that had taken over since Voss and his men were killed. Deputy Director Benny Marino had been patched in to the call.

“Sir, you hear that?”

“I sure did, Monica. Outstanding work, Jamie. Outstanding! How soon can Senator Price speak to her?”

“Not a good idea right now, sir.” Smythe lowered his voice, probably to avoid being heard by Julia.

“She
’
s been—beaten up quite bad. Frail. Dehydrated. Quite distraught. She
’
s been assaulted, sexually. We
’
ll get her checked out at the Navy hospital in Naples and take it one step at a time. But tell the senator and Ms. Price their daughter is safe and I won
’
t leave her side until I get her back to them.”

The voice of the communications officer echoed in the room.

“Mr. Blackwell, the suspect
’
s on line two for you.”

“I
’
ll take it.” Blackwell zipped back to his seat.

It had been more than five hours since he last spoke to Seth, after what he had done to Voss and his men. His was the last voice he wanted to hear.

“You are a man of your word, Blackwell. I just spoke to Tarek Nabulsi and Hassan Madi, who are on their way home as we speak. Free at last.”

“You got what you came for, Seth. Now let
’
s end this.”

“I did get what I came for. And we will end this. My men and I would like safe passage out of this building, and a flight out of this country.”

“The hostages first, Seth. You are not going anywhere until you release them, and tell us where you
’
ve planted the other bombs.”

Seth completely ignored him and carried on with his instructions.

“There is a LAN Airlines flight originally scheduled for Guayaquil, Ecuador, leaving tonight at ten fifty-five from JFK. The aircraft will arrive on its inbound leg in about an hour. I want this plane fueled and ready for us at ten a.m.
That
’
ll
give you five and a half hours to get all the approvals you need to make this happen.”

“How do you expect to get to the airport and then clear security?”

“We
’
ll use the Lexus SUV my associates drove here. At nine a.m., the three of us will walk out of this building and drive ourselves to JFK. The FBI will ensure we clear immigration and security at Terminal Eight using three Ecuadorian passports. Juan Bermejo, Ernesto Guzmán, and Ortiz Alvaro. The plane must be parked at Gate 47 in Concourse C. We
’
ll walk to the aircraft without being intercepted.”

Blackwell thought hard about this. Three terrorists alone in an airplane over the New York skies. A nightmare. But before he could articulate his concerns, Seth jumped a step ahead of him.

“We are getting on this plane with nothing more than our passports. You can have the TSA scan us for guns and explosives, if that
’
s what you
’
re worried about. The crew of the plane can remain locked in their cockpit for the duration of the flight. We
’
re not trying to recreate history—we just want to get to Ecuador, Mr. Blackwell.”

“And the hostages? The daycares?”

“The conference room has sensors on the doors that will set off the bombs if any of the hostages try to leave. Each set of explosives we
’
ve planted—whether here or at the daycares—is connected to two cell phones. One phone disables and the other detonates. Once we arrive safely in Ecuador, we
’
ll deactivate the bombs. We
’
ll also tip off the relevant police departments across the country about the locations of the three daycares. But if anything happens to us, our people on the outside will trigger the explosives by calling the other phones. Do we have an agreement?”

Blackwell turned to Vlasic for a decision. She nodded.

“We do.”

“And so it ends, Alex Blackwell.” Seth hung up.

Blackwell removed the headset and turned his chair to face the conference table. Vlasic
’
s face betrayed she had already decided what the next move would be, and even if no one in the room agreed, she would still do it.

“Over my dead
body they are getting on a plane and flying into the sunset. The show is over once they step out of that building.”

Blackwell could see Vlasic
’
s eyes transforming. This was her special talent. To summon multiple personalities at whim. Right now with her looking like that, she was worlds apart from the subdued woman of last night who had shown earnest signs of remorse for her past decisions. And it was her volatility, that instant flip of a switch to decide whether men, women and children would live or die that had tormented Blackwell for all those years. It started to feel like Hermosa Beach all over again.

“Monica, we have
zero
options here. Let
’
s admit defeat and think about what really matters—saving lives. He
’
s better than us. He
’
s the one who got us. I didn
’
t ask to come here, but now that I did, I have a say in this. I refuse to get my hands dirty with any more collateral damage.”

“Maybe living on a cute island has eroded whatever
’
s left of your common sense, Alex. You back there playing captain of the Love Boat while the rest of us do the dirty work in the real world. Excuse us all for not having your frail sensibility and spiraling into a nervous breakdown every time someone dies on a job. We signed up for this. And there was a time when you too were okay with that. What the fuck happened to you, Alex?”

“This is not about Hermosa Beach. Keep it out of this discussion. You heard what the psycho terrorist just said. There. Are. No. Options.”

“There
’
s always another option, Alex, but it depends on whether you have the balls for it. If you think for a minute these guys are going to deactivate the bombs once they
’
re home free, you
’
re a whole lot stupider than I thought you were.”

Fuck you!
He leapt up and charged towards the conference table. Years of submerged rage surfaced to the top like a soda can shaken violently. Blackwell was not sure he could or wanted to control the impending eruption. Vlasic was the commanding officer, a few years his senior. To openly challenge and berate her in front of the rest of the team was unthinkable under the reigning culture of the FBI. But he had detached himself from the Bureau a long time ago, and was ready for this. He
’
d been ready for this for the last four years.

He stopped in front of her and pointed a finger at her face. “I know what this is
really
about. Julia Price is safe now. Everyone else can go to hell. So how much sucking up to Benny Marino is going to be enough, Monica? How far up the ladder do you have to climb for innocent people to stop dying when you lead an operation?”

“If that
’
s
what you think this is about, you really are a fucking moron.”

Blackwell leaned closer towards her and roared at her face.

“We don
’
t have any other damn option—get it through that stubborn head of yours! He has twenty-five hostages and God knows how many kids at his mercy. If we do
anything
other than what he asked for, everyone dies. They all die, Monica! What exactly are you trying to prove?”

Monica chuckled with contempt and looked around the room at the stunned eyes of the others to gauge their loyalties. “You
’
re pathetic. He
’
s not going to set them free or tell us where the kids are. He got what he wanted. Why aren
’
t you seeing that?”

Blackwell hated himself for ending up in exactly the same situation that had consumed many good years of his life and destroyed his marriage. But he couldn
’
t stop himself now—the words continued to pour out of him.

“This isn
’
t about me, Monica. It
’
s you. Whatever anger you have festering inside, whatever feelings of inferiority you have as a woman working in a male-dominated profession, and whatever bitterness you harbor from a fucked-up childhood should be dealt with on the couch of a good DC shrink—
not
in a hostage situation. Because every time you do that, good people like Albert Voss end up dying. The blood of Voss and his men is on
your
hands.”

Blackwell was expecting a massive slap when he saw Vlasic
’
s hand pull back and swing towards him. Instead he felt a sharp stinging blow to his jaw. Even after the pain had numbed the rest of his face, it took him a few seconds to register that Monica had actually slugged him. Really hard. Nishimura jumped to his feet and grabbed a Red Bull from Blackwell
’
s chiller and gave it to him to hold on his face. Vlasic
’
s hand covered her mouth, her eyes suggesting she was equally as shocked as the other agents in the room at what she had just done.

Despite the punch in the face, Blackwell felt an unexpected calm. A sort of release. Years of tension between them had culminated into a confrontation that should have happened a long time ago. It should have happened during the Hermosa Beach standoff, but he had failed to confront her back then.

Monica
’
s eyes welled up with tears, ready to erupt. He had pushed her to her limit and said things he shouldn
’
t have. Pressed hard on her vulnerabilities, leaving her no option but to come straight at him.

The initial satisfaction of standing up to Monica was deflating out of him faster than a punctured tire. The gravity of the words he had just spoken transformed the fleeting relief in Blackwell
’
s belly to fiery tightness in his chest.

Blackwell had first heard of Monica
’
s troubled and secretive past through the grapevine at the Bureau, just like everyone else. But after the Hermosa Beach incident, and right before his own breakdown, he had descended into a mad obsession of wanting to know everything about her. He had broken many rules to secure an unauthorized copy of her FBI psych profile, which had formed the basis of the nasty things he had just told her. He looked at the other people in the room, especially Natasha Shaker. He knew exactly what they were thinking. It was
he
who had hit below the belt first.

But it wasn
’
t just the guilt of pushing Monica to her emotional limit that left Blackwell feeling hollow. The way he behaved was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction, conditioned by his own sense of failure. Deeper issues he thought were resolved. The illusion that he had forgiven himself had just come tumbling down in front of some damn fine FBI agents and analysts. And what
’
s worse, Monica was actually making sense this time. Putting Seth and his men on a plane was probably the dumbest thing they could do. And the fact he had allowed his own biases and burning need to have a showdown with Vlasic cloud his better judgment, stung hard.

Vlasic wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and composed herself.

“Mr. Blackwell—the hostage negotiations are now officially over. We
’
ve entered the second stage—to rescue the hostages and apprehend the terrorists. You
’
re welcome to stay in the room until we are done, out of courtesy for the excellent work you
’
ve given us so far. But there will be no more weighing in on any
decisions I take. And that goes for everyone else in the room.” Her eyes scanned around like a wounded lioness waiting to make a prey out of anyone else who dared challenge her dominance.

There was silence in the room as everyone else avoided eye contact with Blackwell and Vlasic.

Blackwell walked to the negotiating table, grabbed his cell phone, and started heading towards the door. Then he stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at Monica. He
’
d done his fair share of running away from his problems and was not about to do it again.

“With your permission, Agent Vlasic, I
’
d like to stay on until the end.”