Blackout (33 page)

Monday, September 14, 8:20 p.m. EDT

New York, New York

Keith came awake with a gasp. His nasal passages burned, and the sensation traveled back down his throat. He flailed about and tried to get to his feet.

“Keith, stay down,” a voice said.

He tried to open his eyes and found that he could only get any movement in one. As his vision began to clear, he saw Ted Bonham leaning over him. He had an ammonia strip in his hand.

“You need another hit?” Bonham asked.

Keith tried to say no but only managed a grunt. He pushed Bonham's hand away. Looking around in the flickering light, he saw Chris Gorkowski and Donovan Williams standing over him. Turning his head farther, he saw Travis Marshall and Danie Colson. They were kneeling next to . . .

Afshin's body was alongside a Dumpster, and suddenly Keith realized why he was so disoriented. He had been moved into what seemed to be an alley. It was hard to tell with the only light coming from a fire that someone had lit in that same Dumpster. He tried to drag himself over to Afshin, but Bonham kept him still.

Rage filled him, and he pushed Bonham, sending him flying onto his back. Gorkowski and Williams attempted to hold him down, but he was twisting back and forth so hard, trying to pull himself up, that they called for Marshall.

Marshall scooted over and placed his hands on Keith's shoulders. Keith connected a hard right hand to the lineman's head, but his friend didn't let up.

“Stop, Keith! Come on, stop! He's gone! There's nothing you can do about it! He's gone!”

Keith finally looked Marshall in the face and saw tears in his eyes. He stopped fighting, closed his one good eye, and dropped his head back to the ground. Marshall's words echoed in his mind.
He's gone! He's gone!

Pushing his friend's hands off his shoulders, Keith laid his arm across his eyes. The pain of touching his face was excruciating, but he figured it was the least he deserved.
I let them kill him! He always told me that he had my back, and the one time he needed me, I let him down.

A sob escaped his lips and convulsed his body, but that was all he would allow himself. After using his arm to wipe his tears, he looked over at Bonham, who was just getting himself back up.

“Sorry,” he said, his slowly recovering voice sounding distant and slurred.

“Forget it,” Bonham said, pulling a bottle out of his pocket. “Let me give you something for the pain. Then we'll get you out of here.”

“Wait,” Keith replied, holding up a finger.

He nodded to Gorkowski and Williams, and they took their hands off of him. As he sat up, the alley spun around him. He put his head between his knees and took a couple of deep breaths. When he felt a little more stable, he started to stand. Marshall quickly took him under the arm and helped him up, steadying him on his feet.

With a jerk of his head, he indicated that he wanted to go see Afshin. Danie Colson still squatted next to the body. He was naked from the waist up. The shirt he had been wearing was now draped across Afshin's head.

Keith knelt down—Marshall never taking his arm off of him—and lifted the shirt. What he saw caused the anger to swell again. But it was just as quickly overtaken by a profound sorrow.

What a waste. At a time when all of America should be coming together, a handful of ignorant bigots tear a life apart.

If only they knew . . . If only they knew how much good you did for people. If only they saw your love for the hurting—the hours you put in at the children's hospital, the anonymous cash you'd drop off in the mailboxes of financially strapped people from your church. Remember that time on our way back from practice? You were dropping off an envelope and saw the door opening. You panicked so bad that you came diving through the passenger window as I burned rubber down the block! Oh, man, that was crazy. What a memory. What a guy. . . .

Keith gently put the shirt back.
You were always trying to beat me at everything—more tackles, more sacks, more QB pressures. Well, now you did beat me at something. You finally won! You're the first one to see our Savior's face. You're the first one to experience heaven, while I'm still stuck down here in this hell. It just ain't fair, Rook,
Keith thought with a sad smile, placing his hand on Afshin's cold arm.
It just ain't fair.

“We need to get moving,” Marshall said sympathetically. “It's dark and we've drawn a crowd. It's not safe here anymore.”

Like it was safe before,
Keith thought bitterly as he rose to his feet. The pain made him want to cry out, but he wouldn't let himself—wouldn't give the onlookers the satisfaction.
Stinking cowards. Just stand there and watch someone get beaten to death.

“Cowards!” he shouted. He doubled over from the strain his outburst caused on what felt like multiple broken ribs. “Stinking cowards,” he mumbled.

Bonham stepped next to him and slipped a few Percocets into his hand. Keith pushed them past his swollen lips and swallowed them down.

Williams walked toward Afshin, but Gorkowski stopped him.

“Kid's mine,” he said quietly. Bending down, he slipped his hands under Afshin's body and cradled him in his arms. Walking up alongside Keith, he said, “Let's go.”

Keith gave him a nod of thanks and began walking, Marshall still helping support him.

“How'd you find us?” Keith asked Marshall after they had cut through the crowd.

“When you didn't show up on time, we decided to give it another half hour in case you had just gotten caught up. By the time that passed, Gorkowski was going crazy, saying we needed to go right away. When we agreed, Snap practically ran all the way down here. We missed you at first because we just followed the route you had marked out on the map. After we had gone a ways, we doubled back and started asking people on the street if they'd seen you. That was when a guy told us about the beating and about you two being in the alley.

“He also told us about you not leaving Afshin when you had the chance. You were free to escape, and no one would have ever known. Instead, you stood by Afshin's side. In my eyes, that makes you a hero,” Marshall said, looking at Keith.

Tears stung Keith's eyes, and he didn't return Marshall's look. “Hero? I don't think so. Look at Afshin,” Keith said, tilting his head toward where Gorkowski carried him. “A real hero would have stopped that.”

Marshall was shaking his head. “You tried. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' You were willing to do that. That's a hero in my book.”

Keith didn't respond—partly because he was uncomfortable with the whole conversation and partly because the Percocet was kicking in.

Later, when he finally lay down on a makeshift bed inside the bus, he had a hard time remembering how he had gotten there. He knew there had been a long walk, and it seemed to him that nobody had really talked most of the way. Beyond that, the details were murky.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture in his mind the things that Afshin was experiencing.
Has he left Christ's side? If so, whom has he met? What does it look like? Is it a giant throne room floating on the clouds with angels fluttering all about? Or is it like here, with grass and mountains and cool, flowing rivers? And speaking of cool, what's the weather like in heaven? Is it one perfect temperature for everybody, or can you set your own thermostat, like having dual temperature controls in a car?

Whatever it's like, the rook is one lucky dog,
Keith thought as his brain finally started to shut down and he drifted into a long, deep sleep.

Monday, September 14, 8:48 p.m. EDT

Baltimore, Maryland

The fifteen-minute flight was almost at its end, and Riley was chilled to the bone. He took turns flexing one hand while the other held its grip. Up ahead he could see Chesapeake Bay fast approaching.

“Going dark,” said Noah Jefferson, the pilot, and the cabin instantly went black. Riley's heart gave a quick start, but unlike in his visions, this time when the lights went out, the helicopter stayed in the air. He looked behind and could just make out the silhouette of the second Little Bird against the almost completely dark sky.

Riley pounded his fist into Skeeter's thigh. “You ready?”

“Let's end this thing,” Skeeter said in a voice that made Riley glad he was on the good side of the man's gun.

“One o'clock,” came Jefferson's voice again. Riley looked around Skeeter and saw the lights of the trawler coming up. The chopper, which had already been flying low, dropped to just above the water as soon as they hit the shoreline. Riley always found it amazing how these pilots handled their machines. He felt like he could almost reach his foot down and dip his boot in the helicopter's moonlight reflection in the water.

Slipping off his headphones, Riley readied himself. The second Bird was going to hover just above the rear of the boat, where the guys could jump off onto the deck. Riley's wouldn't be able to get low enough, though, and this chopper was not equipped with winches, so they'd have to go down drop ropes. The whole goal of the operation was to get control of the boat as quickly as possible in order to prevent some idiot bad guy from pressing a red button and turning them all into human jigsaw puzzles.

Riley barely had time to take two deep breaths before they were there. The Little Bird made a quick lift, sending Riley's stomach up into his throat. Skeeter dropped the rope, and Riley grabbed hold of it, swinging out and clamping his feet to steady himself. Then he let himself slide, quickly descending the twenty feet to the roof of the bridge. Scott landed a second after him.

Quickly, each man jumped down on opposite sides of the cabin. As soon as Riley hit the metal walkway, an AK-47 shot out the window. Riley flattened himself on the ground.

“On three, Scott,” he said into his comm. “One, two, three!”

Riley stood and fired into the cabin, making sure to avoid Scott's position as Scott did the same from his side. Three men inside quickly went down, victims of the deadly cross fire. Skeeter dropped beside Riley and on Riley's signal kicked in the door. Scott mirrored the action from the other side.

Each person took a different corner of the room.

“Clear,” Riley called.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

More gunfire erupted from the deck below.

“Scott, Khadi, stay here and see what you can find. Skeet and I'll go check out the delivery system.”

Skeeter and Riley ran out the door. Riley could see Kasay and Guitiérrez on the foredeck. The rest were below.

“Gilly, give me a status,” he called to the leader of the second team. For this operation, Riley had decided to do away with the enigmatic call signs. His mind was already cluttered enough.

“Four down and two in custody. We've found the missile. It's a Scud.”

“It's a North Korean Hwasong-6,” added Matt Logan, the team's munitions expert. “Thing has a range of at least a thousand kilometers; plenty for what they intended. It's loaded with . . . oh no! It's missing the warhead! They haven't got the warhead yet!”

Riley's heart sank as he ran belowdecks. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he almost stumbled over a crumpled body, leaping over it at the last second.

The missile was huge. Fifty feet long, it took up almost all of the specially modified cargo area. Riley wondered how the boat could survive the launch, but as he ran along the side of it, he saw an elevator system designed to raise the missile and probably place it over the water.
It's a little scary that Cuba's got these boats sitting around waiting to be used!

But the
hows
of the delivery system were not as important to Riley at the moment as the
what nows
. He reached the front of the Scud and saw that indeed the nose was flat—just waiting for something to be attached to it.

“Where are they?” he asked Posada.

“Starboard,” Posada replied, nodding to the other side of the missile.

Riley rounded the front of the Scud and found Li and Hummel with their weapons pointed at the heads of two very frightened men. Next to them was one of their dead comrades.

Hummel said, “I tried to talk to them, but I think they were speaking Arabic.”

“Where's the warhead?” Riley said to the nearer of the two men, avoiding the puddle of blood that was spreading across the floor.

“Motavajjeh nemisham,”
he responded in a shaking voice.

“That's not Arabic; that's Farsi. Khadi, get down here quick,” Riley called into his mic. Then to Li, he said, “Get that one around to the other side of the missile.”

Moments later, Khadi arrived.

“We've got two, both Iranian,” Riley explained. “Ask this one where the warhead is.”

Khadi did. “Loosely translated, he says to go have relations with your mother,” she reported.

Riley slapped the man hard across the face, drawing blood from the corner of his mouth. “Tell him to watch his language in front of a lady.”

Khadi looked at Riley.

“Tell him,” he insisted.

Khadi did. The man stared at Riley with hatred in his eyes.

“Now ask him again.”

Khadi reported back another unsatisfactory answer.

This time, rather than hitting the man, Riley stood, whispered something in Skeeter's ear, and then fired his weapon.

When Riley rounded the front of the Scud, mopping at the blood on his face, he saw the other man. He was shaking and his eyes were wide. Li's eyes were just as wide.

Riley placed the barrel of his Magpul against the man's forehead. The man whimpered at the touch of the hot barrel against his skin.

“Where's the warhead?”

“We don't have it,” the man said through Khadi.

Riley pushed the barrel harder. “I know that! So, since we've established that it's not here, tell me where it is!”

“In a warehouse in the city! I don't know where!”

“That's not good enough, cowboy. Tell me!”

Riley felt a hand on his shoulder. Angrily, Riley turned around to see Matt Logan. “What?”

Logan cupped his hand to Riley's ear and said something to him. Riley nodded, turned back to their captive, and decided to take another tack.

“What can you tell me about the warhead?”

“I don't know,” the man replied.

“Is it nuclear?”

“No.”

“Is it EMP?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the size of it?”

“No. I'm sorry.”

“When were you supposed to receive it?”

“Tonight.”

“How were you going to receive it?”

“A boat was to bring it, and we were to rendezvous.”

“And how would you know where to meet up?”

“They were going to call, and—”

The man stopped suddenly, as if he knew he had said too much. When Khadi finished her stunted translation, Riley said, “Bingo! Where's the phone?”

The man clammed up.

“Tell him that if he does not answer me, I'm going to shoot him in the knee,” Riley said as he pressed and rubbed the Magpul painfully against the man's joint.

Still the man said nothing.

“Have it your way,” Riley said, standing and pointing the weapon at the man's knee.

“Nakheyr! Nakheyr!”
the man pleaded, waving his hands.

Riley lowered his weapon.

The man began speaking rapidly.

“He says the phone is in the cabin,” Khadi said.

“Scott, there should be a phone up there somewhere,” Riley said into his mic.

“Yeah, I've got it. I was just checking through the calls sent and received.”

“Bring it down here ASAP! Gilly, go relieve Scott on the bridge. Kasay, contact Porter's office and catch them up. Carlos, you do the same with Tara Walsh.”

As they waited for Scott to arrive, Riley remembered what Matt Logan had whispered to him and said to Khadi, “Ask him whether or not the warhead can be converted to be detonated without the missile. And tell him that if he lies to me, I'll shoot both his knees.”

Khadi did. “He says that it can be, but he doesn't know anything about how. He thought he heard the captain saying something about the conversion taking fifteen or twenty minutes, but he doesn't know for sure.”

“Great,” Riley grumbled. The good news was they had taken care of a serious threat. The bad news? There was still an NNEMP hiding somewhere in a metropolis of 2.5 million people. So little was still known about these new North Korean weapons, no one had a clue as to what kind of havoc a ground-level detonation could create. Placed in the right location, it was possible that the blast alone could kill several hundred people, to say nothing of what the EMP effects would do to the city.

Riley was anxious to get out of the hold. The air was stale with the scent of metal, gunpowder, sewage, and blood. Finally Scott arrived with the phone. Riley filled him in on the new information and told him to have the team disseminate it to all who needed to know.

“Does Gooey have the number of the phone?”

“Yeah, I have him checking it out through all of his databases.”

“Tell him that we're about to make a call. I want him to give me a location on the receiver.”

To Khadi, he said, “Let the guy know that I want him to place a call to whoever has the warhead. He should tell them that the boat is having engine problems, and that they'll need to bring it all the way out. Tell him that if he gives them any sort of warning, I'll shoot him in the gut, then throw him overboard for the sharks.”

“Sharks?” Khadi asked doubtfully.

“He doesn't know. Just tell him.”

She did, and the man quickly nodded his agreement. Riley handed him the phone and watched as he dialed. Khadi gave a running translation.

The man started out speaking rapidly, but Riley signaled him to slow down. “Who is this? . . . This is Kazem Vaziri. I am a friend of your friend. I . . . Father is indisposed trying to repair our transportation. He asked me to call you to tell you that you will have to come all the way to us. . . . I know, but we cannot come.”

It seemed to Riley that as Vaziri spoke, the man got more and more nervous. Sweat was pouring down his face, and he couldn't keep still.

“I will tell Father. He'll . . . he'll . . .”

Vaziri locked eyes with Riley.

Oh no!
Riley thought just before Vaziri started frantically yelling. Khadi quickly swatted at the phone, sending it skittering across the floor.

“What'd he say?” Riley asked, trying to resist the urge to drive his gun butt into Vaziri's temple.

“The words won't translate precisely,” Khadi said between angry breaths, “but let's just say it's the equivalent of ‘Plan B! Plan B!'”

Riley snatched Scott's phone out of his hand. “Gooey, I know it wasn't two minutes, but were you able to triangulate the signal to a location?”

On the other end of the call, Gooey laughed. “Quit acting so
24
, Jack. The Gooman don't need no two minutes.”

“Seriously? You can do that?” Riley wanted to reach through the phone and give the man a hug. But then, after picturing Gooey, he figured he'd settle for a fist tap. “Where is it?”

“Patience . . . patience . . . paaaaa-tiennnnnce. Got it! Looks like 39 degrees, 16 minutes, 18.6 seconds north, 76 degrees, 38 minutes, 17.55 seconds west, which puts . . . us . . . at . . . 1600 S. Monroe St. in the beautiful metropolis of Baltimore, M-D.”

“Gooey, you're a rock star! Tell Tara to notify the Baltimore police, but have her tell them not to do anything until we get there. Let them know we're ten minutes out. And how difficult would it be for you to get a real-time satellite image in case they bolt?”

“For me? Half the time of anyone else. I'm working on it as we speak.”

“Thanks, Goo,” Riley said, handing the phone back to Scott.

“Great work, Gooey. Next bag of pork rinds are on me,” Scott said before hanging up.

“Okay, let's get topside,” Riley said, moving toward the stairs. “Li, Hummel, I want you to stay with these guys until someone comes along to claim them.”

“You mean this guy,” Li said. “Didn't you . . .” He stopped when he saw Hummel lift the other terrorist to his feet. There was blood running down his forehead, and his eyes were only half-open.

As Riley walked away, he could hear Hummel laugh over the comm system. “Nah, Riley fired through the side of the boat, which is why our friend here is a little moist. Then Skeet clocked the dude, and Riley borrowed a little blood from their less fortunate brother whose vital signs you deemed fit to end and flicked some on his face like a splashback.”