The Zarrabian Incident Page 3

  “Rheinholt and Lee, get to work coordinating incoming civilian news and videos: radio, TV, citizens’ cell phones, whatever. I need minute-by-minute updates.

  “Garcia and Atkins, you’re coordinating with local law enforcement. Get in touch with SFPD, Marin County Sheriff’s Department, the Coast Guard, and CalTrans, too, and set up communications, then get out to the bridge to coordinate.”

  Smith looked down at his notes again, then looked McCaig in the eye. McCaig felt a rush of adrenaline; his senses were suddenly alert, a feeling that had eluded him for years. But as quickly as it arrived, the rush evaporated. He didn’t want this. His road to retirement was quiet, smooth, and boring—and it sure didn’t include terrorists, bombs, and international politics. His hammock in Hawaii was already swinging in the tropical breeze, beckoning to him.

  Besides, Smith was going to give him another desk assignment: coordination, logistics, information liaison, anything to keep him off the front line.

  “McCaig,” said Smith, then paused again. He glanced down at his notes, then back at McCaig. “You’re in charge.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re in charge, McCaig. Get out to the bridge as fast as you can. Take Bashir with you. Bashir, you’ve got about three minutes to grab whatever communication equipment you need to set up a command post until we can get a proper team up there. McCaig, your first job will be to establish contact with the terrorists. We’ll get the negotiators in touch with Bashir, then I want you to figure out what these bastards want. We’ve got a bridge to save. Go!”

  Zarrabian released the trigger of the smoking machine gun. The ammunition was spent. Behind him, he heard the last few rounds of fire from the other truck drivers’ guns. A quiet fell over the bridge, punctuated only by the distant sound of a car alarm.

  In front of him, every car within a hundred meters had at least one bullet through its windshield. The closer windows were completely shattered. Coolant dribbled from radiators and steam billowed from under hoods. One had erupted in flames. The pungent smell of leaking gasoline hinted that more fires would soon follow.

  In the distance, he could see the backs of civilians running, shuffling, hiking, and limping, escaping the deadly gunfire any way they could. There was even one on crutches lurching frantically down the roadway.

  The nerdy Silicon-Valley whiz kid who’d tried to help Zarrabian had been the first to turn tail. Zarrabian had encouraged him with several very close shots. One bullet shattered a car’s side mirror right next to the kid and sent shards of glass into his temple, causing him to scream and clutch the side of his head.

  Then there’d been one man with a gun—a wannabe cowboy. He’d fired a couple shots at Zarrabian, but like most untrained amateurs, the reality of a genuine gun battle gave him an instant adrenaline surge. His shaky hands had sent his bullets wildly astray. Zarrabian took time to aim carefully. The man would live, but might lose his leg. Two young men running by had stopped long enough to drag him away.

  The rest had been fast. The Negev machine gun was very efficient. He scanned the bridge one more time to ensure that no threats remained. It was clear. Time for the real action.

  Zarrabian climbed down from the overturned truck and scanned the scene. Two of his drivers had climbed from their cabs across to the overturned trailers to serve as lookouts. The other men were using crowbars to pry the tops off of five large crates they’d unloaded from the van. He joined them, issuing curt, calm orders.

  One by one, the crates revealed their contents: a huge quantity of high explosives, detonators, timers, wires, surface-to-air missiles, and several dozen more small- to medium-caliber guns. They had enough firepower to defend against just about anything civilian police could throw at them, and could even make a brief stand against a minor military assault—long enough to finish their task. And they had enough explosives to bring this bridge down.

  “Colonel!” one of the lookouts yelled. Zarrabian turned to the voice; it was on the south side, as he expected. “Police are approaching!”

  Zarrabian quickly reached into one of the crates, pulled out a long metal case, and laid it on the roadway. He flipped the latches and opened it, revealing a Russian-made anti-tank missile launcher. One of his men pulled an aluminum ladder from the van, extended it, and leaned it against the truck. Zarrabian loaded a missile into the launcher, shouldered it, and climbed the ladder to join his lookout.

  The northbound bridge lanes were completely blocked by damaged and destroyed cars, but Zarrabian could see a menacing-looking SWAT truck racing north in the empty southbound lanes. He crouched down and aimed, then waited. The Russian-made missile was a very old design; embargoes had made it hard to acquire quality weaponry. His team had to be content with the castoffs of so-called revolutionaries who could be made to forget their ideals with a bundle of American hundred-dollar bills.

  He looked through the sight of the launcher at the oncoming SWAT truck. It was now near enough that he could make out the shape of the policeman driving it. The man was a civilian, not a soldier. This wasn’t a fair fight. The men in SWAT truck were trained to take out deranged gunmen and desperate, jealous husbands brandishing small-caliber weapons. When these men had sworn their policeman’s oath, it hadn’t been with the idea that they’d face a Russian-made missile designed to pierce an armored tank. He hesitated.

  Then he remembered. The marketplace. His beautiful wife and daughter, strolling hand in hand. The American cruise missile.

  He pulled the trigger. The launcher jumped on his shoulder as the missile streaked away.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” yelled McCaig. The on-ramp to Highway 101 north was completely gridlocked. Their siren and flashing lights were useless. McCaig’s honks and curses frightened the drivers, but there simply wasn’t room for them to get out of his way.

  In the passenger seat, Bashir was madly banging the keyboard and clicking the mouse as pictures and news feeds flashed by.

  “I need another another route!”

  “Maybe cross over and drive north in the southbound lanes?”

  “Where’s the nearest place we could get on?”

  “Well . . . forget it, we can’t get to it. It’s up by the bridge, and those roads are jammed too. We could go back toward downtown and try that.”

  “Too far! Tell me what’s going on!”

  “Nobody knows anything yet. There’s been a lot of shooting. One of the local news choppers got this photo.”

  He turned the screen toward McCaig. McCaig could see the masterful “crash” of the four trucks that had turned the bridge’s center into a fortress. Inside it, open crates and equipment were lined up. McCaig could make out at least a half-dozen men working.

  “Crap. They’re gonna try to blow the bridge.”

  “Why do you say that, boss?”

  “Use your head, Bashir. Why else would terrorists be on a bridge?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Hang on.” McCaig whipped the wheel to the left and accelerated into a screeching U-turn. Bashir gripped his computer with one hand and had a white-knuckles grip on the armrest with the other.

  “Find me a clear route to The Marina!”

  “The Marina?”

  Grant Petri and his team were gathered around a bank of video monitors. Below the monitors, a row of technicians and news directors talked on headsets, typing, clicking, and orchestrating the flow of data arriving from around the world. On a large screen in the center, a newscaster was broadcasting from San Francisco’s Pier 39 with the Golden Gate Bridge as his backdrop. Several columns of black smoke were rising from the bridge.

  “Let’s hear him!” Petri barked. A technician poked a button.

  “. . . the terrorists have apparently taken control of the Golden Gate Bridge. We have unconfirmed reports of dozens killed by gunfire. The terrorists have barricaded themselves using trucks, but as of now, nobody knows what they want.”

  A director turned to Petri and pointed to one of the smaller video
monitors. “Got a live video, sir. The local station’s chopper.”

  “Put it on the big screen!”

  The technicians clicked madly for a couple seconds and replaced the news anchor’s report with the helicopter’s view. Smoke was billowing from burning cars and trucks. There was no moving traffic. The chopper’s camera zoomed in on the center of the bridge, revealing the overturned trucks, the white cargo van, and the crates and gear. Men could be seen lifting and carrying equipment.

  Petri scowled and leaned closer. “Christ, they’re going to blow up the bridge!” He spun around. “Has anyone found Garrett yet?”

  Christine couldn’t believe what she was hearing overhead. She’d been in war zones, but it didn’t take an expert to know the sound of heavy-caliber machine-gun fire. This wasn’t just a few shots, it was a sustained barrage from multiple weapons. What the hell was going on?

  She was still drifting, now almost directly under the bridge. She had to get to her phone. A huge news story was playing out literally over her head, and she’d missed the call. Damn!

  Above all else, she was a journalist. She’d fought for her career from the first day of her job. There were asshole producers who thought women shouldn’t go into dangerous areas, directors who thought women were supposed to be eye candy for viewers and wanted her to do fluff stories, and cutthroat coworkers who would walk over anyone to get to the top.

  Crime scenes, freeway pile-ups, political intrigue, corruption, a war zone, and even a mass murders—she’d investigated them all, and had done it better than anyone else, male or female. She’d managed to keep her integrity on the way, and had only bent the rules when someone showed her that they weren’t playing by those rules.

  Now the biggest story of her career, just three hundred feet overhead, might as well have been on the moon. She couldn’t see a thing. Above her, several columns of black smoke were billowing from the bridge. She had to contact the station. Right away.

  She looked at the flapping spinnaker, then at the ocean. Maybe during a lull in the wind? She waited a few seconds, felt the wind slacken just a bit, and let go of the tiller. She dived for the hatch, hoping to get the phone before the boat turned too much. But the lull was too short; she felt the boat heeling over sharply as it started to turn. The wind snapped the spinnaker even harder.

  “Crap!” She jumped back to the tiller and pulled hard, turning the boat back to a safer angle. The spinnaker’s shaking was relentless.

  An explosion assaulted her ears. Above her, a huge armored van flew off the bridge, spinning end-over-end and trailing smoke and debris. Her eyes registered the word “SWAT” on the van’s side.

  She thought for a moment that it was going to land right on top of her boat. Down it tumbled before finally crashing into the ocean a boat length in front of her bow. Christine threw her arm up to shield her face from the stinging spray. A huge wave crashed onto the foredeck of the Watergate and swept back into the cockpit. Christine had one hand on the tiller and grabbed the mainsheet with the other but was nearly washed overboard.

  The wave passed and the water in her cockpit drained rapidly out the scuppers. Everything was still intact. She leaned over the side and peered into the deep water. Fifty feet below, the red-and-blue police lights of the SWAT van were somehow still flashing. She watched it sink into the depths.

  A new sound started to grow over the whistling wind and her flailing spinnaker. As quickly as she could turn her head to toward its source, a US Marines Harrier jet roared past, nearly deafening her.

  Zarrabian scrambled down from the top of the truck. This was no time for regrets over the SWAT van and policemen. It was unfortunate, but it also served a good purpose: the local police would realize they were outgunned. They would keep their distance.

  Any further interference would be from the military, and here in America, the military wasn’t prepared for domestic operations. The United States of America could fly a B-1 bomber twelve thousand miles to drop a precision-guided bomb on a terrorist sitting on his toilet, but it would be slow to respond to an enemy on its own soil.

  He looked with satisfaction at his team’s progress. Their planning and training were paying off. The explosives were in place. The team was busy with detonators, wires, and switches. In just a few more minutes, they’d be ready.

  Almost before Zarrabian heard the jet approaching, his men dropped their tasks and grabbed an anti-aircraft missile.

  The US Marines Harrier blasted under the bridge with a roar that made the whole bridge shudder. He watched the jet bank into a hard turn and slow, its engines rotating downward to the hover configuration.

  This was bad luck. Very bad luck. There were no aircraft like this stationed anywhere near San Francisco—the Harrier must have been training nearby.

  Behind him, Zarrabian knew without looking that his men had a deadly surface-to-air missile prepared. A few seconds later, the Harrier was hovering menacingly two hundred meters to the east. Zarrabian wondered briefly if it was even armed—it was most likely just a pilot in training.

  A missile streaked out from the bridge. The Harrier bloomed into a fireball. Bits and fragments streaked outward, leaving a starburst of smoke trails behind. One of those fragments suddenly popped a parachute: the pilot had ejected before impact. His lucky day, thought Zarrabian.

  The Harrier’s carcass dropped out of the fireball and plunged into the ocean. Ibrahim, who had fired the missile, raised his fist in victory.

  Zarrabian turned quickly. “Your job is not done!”

  “Yes, Colonel!” But Ibrahim was still smiling.

  A minute later, Zarrabian scanned their work. It was almost ready. On the east side, two of his men were placing the last detonators and stringing wires to the van. But on the west side, there was only one man. Zarrabian strode quickly across the bridge.

  “Where is Ibrahim?”

  “He went to the van to get more detonators.”

  Zarrabian walked quickly to the van. It was empty. Puzzled, he looked around. Something caught his eye, and he jogged back to the east railing. A rope? It was a mountaineer’s rope, tied to the railing and hung over the side of the bridge. That was odd.

  He leaned over the railing. Eighty meters below on wind-whipped waters, a motor launch was idling, holding its position against the strong Pacific trade winds and waves. The rope was swinging wildly in the strong wind, but was held fast at the bottom by a man at the stern of the boat.

  Then, just below on the great steel beams of the bridge’s structure, a movement caught Zarrabian’s eye. It was a man’s shoulder, barely visible.

  “Ibrahim!”

  Ibrahim leaned out to look up at Zarrabian. He had a cell phone pressed to one ear. Zarrabian caught the faint sound of approaching helicopters, growing louder rapidly.

  Understanding dawned.

  “Traitor!”

  Zarrabian pulled out his handgun, leaned over the edge, and fired, but Ibrahim disappeared and the shot missed. He could hear Ibrahim’s voice, talking excitedly on his phone.

  Zarrabian looked back at the rest of his team. They were staring in his direction; one had left his task and taken a couple steps toward Zarrabian.

  “Get back to work! Do not stop for anything!” he yelled. He climbed over the railing and wrapped his legs around the rope, then twisted it around one arm, protected by his sleeve for a fast descent. With his free hand, he pulled out his gun, then began sliding down the rope.

  The thump-thump of the heavy helicopters was growing loud.

  Petri, for once, wasn’t moving. Nor was most of the newsroom. All eyes were glued on the big monitor filled with the image of news anchor Dana Poindexter.

  “With this latest development, our senior military correspondent, retired General Daniel Newman, tells us these are not al Qaeda-style terrorists. Colonel?”

  The news anchor’s image was replaced by Newman. His conservative business suit barely concealed his tight muscles and trim body. Iron-gray hair was the only t
hing that indicated his true age.

  “Yes, Dana, there’s no question. We’re watching trained military professionals at work.”

  “Is that because of how quickly they shot down one of our fighter jets?”

  “No, quite the contrary, Dana. Anyone can be trained to point a missile and pull the trigger. In fact, I’m frankly surprised we sent in an asset like that without knowing what we were facing.”

  “So what impresses you about this operation, sir?”

  “Well, I hate to use the word ‘impresses,’ but I am impressed. These guys are fast and precise. Every move is rehearsed. They follow orders. Their planning was meticulous. It was timed for maximum publicity. And they are very well financed. Those four trucks probably cost them close to a million dollars, and there’s no doubt they destroyed one or two others rehearsing that crash.”

  “Colonel, do we have any idea what they want?”

  “We can only guess. The first concern here will be to neutralize the threat. We may never know what they wanted.”

  “Are they planning to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “I hate to speculate. I’m sure that scenario has crossed a lot of minds. My guess is that they’re going to hold the bridge hostage for some other demands. Once they blow it up, assuming they manage to survive, they’ll have no further leverage.”

  “Thank you, General. That was retired General Daniel Newman, speaking to us from . . .”

  Petri spun around. “Talking heads! That was filler. I want facts! Sources! What have we got? Speak to me!”

  Nobody answered.

  “Nothing?”

  A senior producer spoke up. “These guys seem to have appeared out of nowhere.”

  “Nobody appears out of nowhere!”

  “We can’t find any buzz on social media or terrorist web sites, Al Jazeera is stumped, and our sources at the Pentagon are blank. No rumors, no speculation.”

  “Christ!” Petri stormed toward his office, trailed by several assistants. “This operation is huge! Somebody somewhere knows about it. Find him! And I mean—”