Independence Day (46 page)

He flicked his finger again, engaging the cabin speaker system.

“We have a firefight,” he said. “Better get up here.”

Stihl flicked his thumb, and the windshield of the chopper abruptly transformed into the same digital screen he was seeing inside his helmet, like a large television screen. The rain was gone. The two figures looked like ghosts against a black backdrop.

Dewey moved to Stihl’s right, studying the scene.

“Can you get a closer shot?” asked Dewey.

They watched as the gunman in the elevator kicked open the side of the cabin, then charged into the blackness, just as, at the other side of the same floor, another man climbed slowly up the stairs.

“Who’s who?” asked Dewey.

“I don’t know.”

The screen showed the man running across the empty floor, sprinting, his path leading directly toward the man now climbing the stairs.

“That’s Alexei,” said Stihl.

“Which one?”

“The one running,” said Stihl. “He’s running right into him. He’s going to get killed.”

“Take me in.”

“I’m going to level the guy on the stairs,” said Stihl, suddenly engaging the weapons command.

“No, you’re not,” said Dewey. “Take me in.”

Dewey stepped back into the cabin.

“He’s going to die if I don’t—”

Stihl’s words were abruptly cut off as, inside his visor—and across the front screen—a blinding white light hit the left side of the view. He knew, in his bones, what it was.

“Hold on!” he screamed.

A ferocious torrent of wind shear, funneled like a tornado up into the valley between the skyscrapers, slammed like a wall of steel into the helicopter. They were kicked back and to the right, so hard that Stihl’s helmet went flying from his head, struck the ceiling, and tumbled to the floor.

The chopper was jacked instantly sideways, its rotors vertical, as Stihl fought—using the exoskeletal gloves—to right them before they smashed into the building.

96

LONG ISLAND SOUND

OFF THE COAST OF STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT

Faqir steered a mile offshore, keeping the lights of the coastline in view, tiny yellow and white lights, from homes along the shore, a typical American evening.

It was pitch-black out on the water. He wore night optics. On the radio was news about a suspected terrorist plot in Boston. The American president had just announced that it had been stopped.

He knew that if the White House was announcing it, it meant they had no clue as to the existence of the other device, the bomb lying on the deck next to him.

Most of the crew were inside the cabin. Every hour or so, Faqir walked among them, feeling if they were still alive. Occasionally, a man would open his eyes. For the most part, they were all dead to the world. Vomit covered the ground.

Faqir stopped vomiting sometime during the night. Aswan, another crewman, had made a similar transition before dying an hour after they departed Boston. He’d tied a concrete block to Aswan’s ankle, then dumped him overboard.

Though he didn’t say anything, Faqir grew increasingly worried, wondering whether he would last long enough to get the boat to New York harbor.

One of the Chechens, a light-skinned teenager named Naji, was the only crew member still in relatively decent shape. He had enough energy to puke over the side of the boat. When there was work to be done, it was Naji whom Faqir turned to.

Faqir had taught Naji how to run the boat, as well as navigate, just in case he died unexpectedly.

The Talaria was now near the shore, as Long Island Sound narrowed the closer they came to New York. As he looked to the shore, he saw a busy marina. People were sitting out front, eating at a waterside restaurant. Hundreds of watercraft, from beat-up skiffs to gaudy million-dollar cigarette boats, were moored along piers that stretched hundred feet into the water, then ran along the busy coast, beneath office and apartment buildings, for a quarter mile.

A memory flashed in Faqir’s mind.

Many months ago, Faqir imagined that the night before the bomb was detonated—his last night on earth—he would celebrate, like Mohammed Atta had done the evening before 9/11. He imagined docking the boat and taking the others out for dinner, perhaps ordering wine.

A small grin came to his emaciated face as he thought about how much fun it would have been. Then he looked around the cabin. His grin disappeared as he realized that, except for Naji, all the crewmen were dead.

97

EVOLUTION TOWER

MOSCOW

The wall of wind shear pummeled the Eurocopter sideways. The chopper’s rotors tilted into a vertical position, then the chopper dropped more than two hundred feet in just seconds, before starting a somersault. The three-and-a-half-ton helicopter was out of control, in the rain and dark, sixty stories above the street.

Dewey felt the onset of the first gust, and all he could do was stick his hand out to shield his head before he was thrown into the back wall. He slammed into it, then dropped to the floor.

Desperately, he grabbed along the wall, searching for something to hold on to. He found a utility bar and clutched it with every ounce of strength he had, holding on as the chopper whipped violently upside down.

Stihl was strapped tightly to the pilot’s chair, focused on the digital screen inside his visor. He’d already flipped the Eurocopter’s avionics to his control, and now the chopper’s fate was fully vested in the pair of highly advanced exoskeletal gloves on Stihl’s hands. He had to right the helicopter before it crashed.

The wind shear should’ve hit in a straight wall, like a wave. But the tall buildings altered the wind, each steel-and-concrete spire cutting into it, making the gust choppy and uneven.

Stihl, who’d flown in blizzards in the hills outside Grozny, who’d tangled with hurricanes in the Hindu Kush, now had a serious situation on his hands, certainly the worst he’d ever faced.

Stihl reached his hands out, trying find some level of stability within the maelstrom. He tried to focus on the graphical of the wind. Its white blur was now dead center, shaped like an upside-down U. It was moving. The air was clear on the other side.

Stihl’s eyes shot to the top of the screen. In bold green, a square box of geometric isobar lines was approaching the center of the screen. This was a skyscraper. Three hundred feet and closing. They would slam into it in seconds.

He waited one extra moment, unsure if what he was about to do would work, then realized it didn’t matter. It was all instinct now. A quarter century’s worth of gut, all funneled into one move.

“
Hold on!
” he screamed.

Stihl dumped fuel from all but one tank, then slammed on both front and rear rotor brakes. A half second later, he released the rear rotor.

The chopper tilted down, its nose suddenly going from aiming at the sky to the ground, as, in the same instant, the craft dropped. Gasoline poured down around the chopper, mixing with the rain, displacing weight.

Then Stihl jacked both engines to the max. Front and rear rotors churned ferociously. The chopper kicked forward and down. Stihl was slammed back in the seat. Whatever fuel hadn’t been emptied juiced the Eurocopter’s turbos, which crushed the gas into a barely controlled, sudden explosion of power. Every ounce of thrust the Eurocopter was capable of providing was being used as, on the digital screen, the skyscraper and chopper appeared as if they were in the process of merging.

Dewey, still clutching the utility bar, was pulled sideways, toward the front of the cabin. The chopper’s momentum was too powerful. He couldn’t hold any longer. He careened through the air and slammed into the front wall.

Stihl took the chopper below the wind shear, down into the chasm between the two buildings, thrusting lower and lower toward the ground. The street grew larger as the helicopter charged to earth. Buildings, which were wider at their bases, grew up on both sides of the chopper; Stihl would soon run out of room to steer or turn.

On Stihl’s digital visor screen, the bold geometric lines of buildings on both sides arose in sharp green relief as the chopper looked as if it would slam into the ground. For the first time in half a minute, Stihl felt that he had the chopper under control. He was below the shear. The only problems now were the walls of steel and concrete on either side and that wall of dirt below called earth.

Stihl straightened the chopper, then bottomed out and turned. The chopper climbed back up the face of a building.

Stihl took one extra breath, then swerved around the spire of a building, aiming the chopper back toward the top of the tower. He brought the thermal interface back up as, in the distance, the unfinished pair of steel ribbons appeared directly ahead.

He triggered the loudspeakers in the cabin.

“You still alive back there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Dewey.

*   *   *

Malnikov sprinted away from the elevator, across the empty concrete, which was wet with windblown spray from the storm.

His chest and shoulder throbbed as he ran. He felt tightness and a recurring stabbing pain down his leg, like an electric shock. But he ignored it. He could live with anything now, any pain or punishment.

He glanced back at the shaft. It was still, motionless.

Had one of his bullets hit Cloud?

He stopped near a concrete piling. He heard metal scratching metal, a round being chambered. It was close, just behind him.

Malnikov turned.

Cloud was barefoot, and that foot was covered in blood. His leg was badly damaged. The pants were torn away from the knee down. The skin was raw, pink and black, most of the skin scraped away.

He held a gun.

“So you want your money back?” asked Cloud.

*   *   *

Dewey stood up and stepped to the front of the cabin.

He stuck his head inside the cockpit. On the screen was a three-dimensional digital pictograph of the tower.

Stihl had the Eurocopter blazing straight for it.

As they moved closer, two men were visible on the high floor. Dewey studied the screen. The men were now standing next to each other. Malnikov was larger. He stood before Cloud, who had a gun aimed at Malnikov’s head.

“We won’t be able to land,” said Stihl.

“He’s about to die. What options do we have?”

“Machine guns,” said Stihl. “But I must tell you, there will be no survivors.”

Dewey stared into the large digital screen that still occupied the view where the windshield was.

“Can you take that off?” asked Dewey, pointing to the digital screen.

The screen abruptly turned off. It was replaced by the actual view through the windshield. Raindrops coated the glass. Evolution Tower looked apocalyptic, sporadically alight in neon yellow, its shape otherworldly. The unfinished floors appeared to be disintegrating, their edges rough and unhewn.

“Take me in closer.”

“Hold on.”

As Stihl maneuvered in toward the upper floors of Evolution Tower, Dewey turned back to the cabin.

Working quickly, he unclipped himself from the hoist bar, removed his harness and dropped it on the ground. He found the KSVK rifle. Dewey tightened his helmet and returned to the cockpit. They were now hovering fewer than a hundred feet from the high, empty floor. Dewey pulled his night optics down over his eyes and flipped them on. The screen lit up in dark blue, then sharpened. He looked toward Malnikov and Cloud. Malnikov was now on the ground, writhing in pain. Cloud stood over him. Dewey watched as Cloud stepped closer, then aimed the gun down at Malnikov.

“Take me in,” barked Dewey.

“I can’t do it.”

“You have to do it.”

“I can get you ten feet away. But even if I could get you closer, even at five feet, the wind is too strong. You’ll be blown sideways.”

“Open the door and swing it around,” ordered Dewey sharply. “Get me as close as you can.”

Stihl shook his head, disagreeing, then motioned. The chopper abruptly shot forward, then right and down.

“I’ll come at it from below,” said Stihl.

“You need to tell me when to jump,” said Dewey.

“Fine. Stand back and hold on. It’s about to get wet and windy in here.”

Stihl shut the cockpit door.

Dewey grabbed a canvas strap with his right hand as, in his left, he clutched the rifle.

The chopper doors slid open. A fierce torrent of wind and cold rain blasted into the cabin, drenching Dewey and pushing him back against the wall.

He studied the digital screen inside his helmet as the chopper flew directly at the skyscraper.

He felt it then. Warmth, his heart beating, then the adrenaline.

Risk it all, Dewey. Now is the time, the moment.

The chopper tore through the wind-crossed melee toward the tower, getting closer and closer.

Stihl’s thick Russian boomed over the in-helmet commo.

“
Three! Two! One!
”

Dewey charged toward the open door of the helicopter. He took one big step and then heard the last word from Stihl: “
Go!
”

Dewey’s right foot hit the outer edge of the cabin floor just as the chopper was within feet of the building. Then Stihl slashed the chopper hard right. Dewey leapt into the breach, fifty-five stories up.

Dewey kicked his arms and legs furiously in the free air. He struck the floor’s outer edge, throwing the rifle out from his right hand, then hit the building, the thick concrete catching him at the waist. He grabbed the floor, his hands scratching wet concrete, just as a squall of wind from the chopper pulled at him, yanking him out as he tried to hold on. But it was too strong. He slipped back, then his hands were pulled to the very edge of the precipice.

Dewey felt himself dropping. His hands grasped at the last edge of the concrete, then slipped off and he started to drop. His hands grabbed at air, then his right hand felt something sharp. He clutched it and held on. For an awful moment, he swung in the air by one hand, his fingers wrapped around the jagged end of a steel rod.

He glanced down. He was dangling more than fifty stories in the air. He took a moment to catch his breath, then pulled up. Heaving, he hoisted his body up and then swung his left leg over the end of the floor. He slowly pulled his body onto the concrete.