9/11 TWO Chapter 16. Countdown

16. Countdown

Turgo was barking orders. They had the missiles at the ready and were in their final countdown phase. The technician and one of the guards were having difficulty pulling down the tarpaulin from the inside. In the end they cut it around the edges of the hole they had made in the roof, revealing the dim light of a fresh dawn sky.

“We are ready? Must get away from the launcher, or we may be incinerated. When I say to, run for the garage outside.” Turgo placed his lap top on the kitchen bench. He tapped one button. “OK! Go!” he barked. The launcher clock began counting down from 60 seconds.

Buick and his force burst through both doors and side windows. The earsplitting crash and din of Buick’s men as they broke in stunned Turgo and his technician. They froze.

“Not the old guy!” shouted Buick.

The two guards, however, were at the ready. The main guard had waited just inside the front door and when Buick broke through, he grabbed him in a vice-like neck hold, forcing him to drop his weapon. The other guard was killed by Buick’s men, along with the unarmed technician. But now there was a stand-off. Buick eyed Turgo, who stood, poised over his lap top at the kitchen counter, a superior smile on his face.

Buick tried to point at Turgo. “Kill him! Kill him!” he commanded.

“I kill you!” threatened the guard, jamming the barrel of his weapon into Buick’s back. Buick’s men hesitated.

“Too late anyway!” said Turgo mockingly.

“Kill them, kill them all, including this asshole! We are minutes away from the destruction of New York!” cried Buick.

Suddenly, MacIver appeared at the doorway, his revolver raised in both hands. The guard was surprised, just enough to make him pause for a fraction of a second. That was all MacIver needed. Buick saw the gun recoil in MacIver’s hand, and immediately his captor’s body slumped to the floor. MacIver had shot him clean through the temple, the bullet coming out the other side of his head and grazing Buick’s cheek, spattering it with bits of bone, blood and brain. Without a ‘thank you’ to MacIver, Buick reached for his weapon and leaped towards Turgo.

“This one’s mine!” shouted Buick, pushing Turgo with the butt of his weapon.

“You are too late. When will you Americans ever learn?” mocked Turgo.

“Is that right?” retorted Buick as he casually shot Turgo in the foot.

Turgo screamed.

“Stop the fucking launch!” yelled Buick.

Turgo groaned, but did not answer. The counter was at ten seconds.

Buick yelled again. “OK. Asshole. Maybe this will help.” He shot Turgo again, this time in the upper leg.

More screams of agony, but Turgo refused to answer. Instead, he glanced quickly over at his laptop on the kitchen bench. MacIver followed his gaze and stepped over to the bench, grabbed the lap top and ran towards the door. Das may be able to use it, he hoped, and then almost collided with him at the door.

“Watch out!” Das cried. “The first missile was programmed to launch in 60 seconds, which must be nearly up!”

The orange LED counted down relentlessly. Five, four, three, two, one, zero!

No launch!

MacIver breathed a sigh of relief. “You picked it Manish! You’re a genius! You saved us!”

Das was happy that he had pleased his boss. But he had bad news.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I haven’t been able to crack the code for the second missile.”

“Here’s his lap top. Will that help you?” asked MacIver.

“It would take me more than 60 seconds to learn how the laptop is set up. Besides, it’s probably in Russian,” answered Das, “I’ll keep trying with my own.”

The launch counter started again at 60 seconds.

“Officer. Cuff the suspect,” ordered Buick, “no, not like that. To the bottom of the launcher.”

“Buick! You can’t!” said MacIver with consternation.

“It’s him, or several million innocent people dead. An easy choice, don’t you think?” retorted Buick.

The counter reached 30.

“You mean it’s nuclear?” asked MacIver.

“Come on you Russian asshole. What’s the code?” Buick bashed Turgo’s bleeding leg with the butt of his weapon. Turgo responded with the desired scream of agony. “Give it up, or you’ll be with Allah in just a few seconds.”

Counter reached 15.

“Allah? Who cares about Allah?” mocked Turgo, still convinced of his own superiority. “If you paid me a million dollars, then I’d give it up —”

“Sure, I can get you a million. But I don’t have any money on me right now. The code or burn!”

Counter is at 10.

Das shouted hysterically, “I think I did it!”

“You stopped it?” asked his boss.

“Not exactly. I diverted it.”

Counter is at 5, 4 —

“Get out of here all of you, or we’ll be badly burned!” ordered Buick.

The countdown continued relentlessly: 3, 2, 1, zero!

Lift off!

The missile launched and the heat from its propulsion incinerated the screaming Turgo.

*

Hearing such awful screams, Silenzio ran from the van to find MacIver.

Everyone shaded their eyes, trying to follow the streak of the missile as it flashed across the dawn sky. But it had already disappeared from view.

“God! If it’s nuclear,” cried MacIver squeezing Silenzio’s hand.

“Manish, where is it going? This is a catastrophe!”

“Sir, I’m sorry sir. But I think that it’s going to hit the biggest —” Das stopped in mid-sentence. There was a muffled explosion and a huge black cloud appeared over the New York City skyline in the direction of Ground Zero. Later, he would tell others that he felt the ground shake beneath him.

“It’s not a mushroom cloud,” observed Silenzio. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“No, it wasn’t nuclear,” said Buick, “at least it didn’t register on any of our instruments.”

“Thank goodness. But it was a huge bomb, that’s for sure. God knows where it has hit,” said MacIver.

“Sir, as I was saying, sir. I think I diverted it to the biggest rubbish dump in the world, even bigger than the one in Mumbai!”

“What? Where?” interrupted MacIver.

“The Staten Island dump, sir!”

*

Police sirens sounded and a host of cars descended on the site.

“You saved us all, Manish. I’m so proud of you!” said MacIver as he made an attempt to put his arm around Das’s shoulders and to hug him.

“Oh no sir! It is thanks to your excellence. You are my Guru, sir!” replied a proud Das, wriggling away from the hug as politely as he could.

Buick finished giving orders to his men and sidled up to MacIver.

“You saved my life,” he said, “thank you.”

“Just a scientist doing what he had to do,” replied MacIver, “you also saved our lives.”

“Still, I have to hand it to you. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“At my gun club.”

“I told him it would be harder for him killing real people,” said Silenzio who was standing by, listening in, “boy, was I wrong!”

“I have to admit,” said MacIver with some hesitation, “I found it pretty easy and very satisfying. It gets a bit boring shooting clay pigeons, especially when you hardly ever miss.”

Buick turned to him and grinned. “We’ll make a real cop out of you yet!” Then, as though this had reminded him of who he was, he said, “I better call my chief.” He had suddenly realized that his own position was a little precarious. “He’s not going to be pleased. I never told him anything.”

A helicopter appeared and landed right in the middle of Skyline Drive.

Mayor Newberg stepped down, followed by Foster. They hurried forward, bent over by the noise and wind of the helicopter. The Mayor was obviously very pleased.

“I can’t stay long,” she said, “just wanted to thank you all. You saved many lives.

“Was anyone killed at the dump?” asked MacIver.

“None reported so far.”

The Mayor called to Buick who was again issuing instructions to his men for clean-up and securing the site. “Captain Buick. I want you to know that I will do what I can to protect you. There’s going to be fallout from this, and you will be an easy target.”

“No problem Madam Mayor,” replied Buick, smiling and clearly unperturbed. “You forget. I used to defuse bombs. Politicians don’t scare me.”

“No doubt,” she said, “trouble is, though, that politicians can sometimes be more destructive than bombs.”

A TV crew approached. Foster tugged at Mayor Newberg’s arm and whispered to Buick, “watch your back.”

Avoiding the cameras, Mayor Newberg darted back to her helicopter, just as another appeared a few houses away.

Silenzio tugged at MacIver’s arm. “I need to hide,” she said, “coming?”

Das intervened. “Yes, please. Come and I will drive you both in my van.

Or if you would prefer, sir, my Guru, why don’t you and Agent Silenzio take my van, and I’ll find my way back with captain Buick, sir.”

MacIver had already walked towards the TV crew. Das turned to Silenzio and shrugged.

“Could you give me a lift, Manish?” asked Silenzio. Manish opened the door with a flourish and a bow. Silenzio was about to enter, when she heard Buck Buick shouting orders again. She stopped to listen. He came bounding across the lawn.

“I need to hide real quick. I expect you feel the same. Want a lift in a sexy not-so-undercover police car?” asked Buick.

Silenzio looked across to MacIver then back to Buick.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

*

It’s hard to believe, but Mr. and Mrs. Kohmsky had their truly first and only big argument the day Mrs. Kohmsky returned from the bank with the incredible news that the debit card had an account of $100,000. They had never had a real argument. It was in fact impossible, or so thought Mrs.

Kohmsky, to have an argument with her husband for the simple reason that he did not talk, or talked hardly at all. Having an argument with him was like having an argument with oneself. But this time Mr. Kohmsky spoke up, not only that, he kicked the furniture a couple of times too. The argument was over what to do with the money. Mrs. Kohmsky wanted to go to the FBI and give them the card and access to the account so they could use the information to track the origin of the account, and maybe that would lead them to Sarah. Mr. Kohmsky was adamantly opposed. The FBI would take the money and do nothing, he insisted, and could not be shaken from this position. Mrs. Kohmsky persisted, and every day at breakfast raised the issue. And every day for some days, Mr. Kohmsky had either ignored her, or grunted out through those pursed lips of his that they were not going to hand the money over to those liars. Mrs. Kohmsky cried, at first putting it on in an attempt to soften him up, but of course after so many years, she should have known better. There was no softness there. So the breakfasts soon became more authentic — she was crying because she really was upset. And through the tears she tried to get her immovable husband to just give a bit. Didn’t he care about finding their daughter? The money had to have something to do with Sarah. What about the password that spelled her name? And it was evidence, wasn’t it, that she was not dead? They both agreed about that, didn’t they?” Finally, at the last breakfast they had together, Mr. Kohmsky could stand it no longer.

He threw his book across the room, jumped up, his tall frame almost reaching to the ceiling, and kicked the chair over. Mrs. Kohmsky cringed and sank into her chair. He then righted his chair, sat down, pulled off his shoe and, yelling obscenities, he banged it on the table, just like Khrushchev did.

Sobbing, Mrs. Kohmsky ran to the bedroom and sobbed some more.

She heard Mr. Kohmsky walking back and forth, back and forth like a caged animal. “He must have put his shoe back on,” she mused as she fell into a fitful sleep.

*

It was still light when Mrs. Kohmsky woke. She had no idea what time it was, and the apartment was silent. Her eyes stung from the salt of her tears. She slipped into her old slippers and shuffled out to the kitchen intending to make herself a cup of Russian tea. Maybe that would perk her up.

Mr. Kohmsky was seated at the kitchen table, reading his book. He never looked up as she passed him on her way to fill the electric kettle. Things were normal as far as he was concerned. She clanged the cups and saucers while she waited for the water to boil. Finally, she asked querulously, “Want a cup of tea?”

“Good,” he said, not looking up from his book.

She poured the tea and brought the cups to the table, and as a special offering, added a couple of plain sugar cookies, the one indulgence that he accepted. She sat across from him and sipped her tea. It was too hot so she had to slurp it to cool it down as she sipped. Then Mr. Kohmsky reached for a cookie, dipped it lightly in his tea and took the soaked part into his mouth, slipping it between his tight lips. After he swallowed — the movement of his Adam’s apple that Mrs. Kohmsky had come to loathe —he spoke, not looking up from his book.

“We will go to the State Department,” he said.

“What is that?” asked Mrs. Kohmsky.

“The United States Embassy. The State Department.”

“Do you mean the CIA again?”

“Perhaps. But we should try the State Department. Tell them that our daughter disappeared from Oxford and we suspect she is held hostage somewhere, probably in Russia since that is where the previous packets of money came from.”

“But how would we explain the money? Hostage takers ask for money.”

“They don’t give it away to the victims,” Mrs. Kohmsky argued, forcing Mr. Kohmsky to acknowledge the absurdity of his position.

“Of course you are right. Then we will not show them the debit card. Just the envelope it came in.”

“But the debit card with its bank account is the first time there is a chance of following the trail of the money. Someone had to open that bank account and put the money in it.” Mrs. Kohmsky was on the verge of tears again. She realized that their conversation was beginning to escalate into a repeat of their last argument.

Mr. Kohmsky sat, still looking at his book, silent. Mrs. Kohmsky dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. Minutes went by. Mrs. Kohmsky could see that he was staring at his book, but was not reading it. She shifted on her seat.

“We will go to the State Department and tell them everything we know,” he said.

Mrs. Kohmsky looked up, a small glint in her eye. “We could spend the money first,” she said, almost apologetically.

“On a trip to Russia,” answered Mr. Kohmsky.

Mrs. Kohmsky thought she detected just a tiny hint of a smile. It made her happy. And then he continued:

“Go back for good.”