Dressed all in black, five hijacker spirits danced before him. Like throwbacks from “West Side Story,” they jockeyed on the balls of their feet, wielding box cutters like switchblades. Box cutters for Christ’s sake. The same weapons they’d used to commandeer the airplanes. Jesus. And didn’t Bud mean that.
Could one ghost cut another? He doubted it, so what was he afraid of? They couldn’t kill him; he was already dead. Bud slid away from the electrical panel so he could do a little bouncing on his own feet. Just his luck to finally come face to face with his wife’s killers and be dressed for the Marine Corps Ball. Looking as menacing as he could, eyes slit at the scum who stood before him, he unbuttoned his dress blue jacket and cast it aside.
Bud recognized the leader—the goddamn pilot who had crashed Helen’s plane. Bud’s gift for languages served him well as the al-Qaeda ghosts sputtered away in Arabic. He caught the gist: “Step away from the door, infidel!”
“Not on your life—or your death,” Bud replied in his best Arabic. “Who let you bastards out of hell anyway?”
For some reason that made them laugh. Two still had rotten teeth. Bud guessed there weren’t any dentists in Paradise.
“A day’s reprieve,” another said. “We were sent to take care of some unfinished business. Rumor had it the infidels were bringing 9/11 ghosts to the fight. So the true believers are here to level the playing field.”
“Who sent you? Bin-Laden? Or do you serve a higher—I mean, lower—power these days? Hmmm. Let’s see… That would be…” Bud’s face lit up. “Satan! So I was right. You did go straight to hell on 9/11.”
“Shut up!” The leader lunged and swiped his knife though Bud’s middle, cutting him in half before he re-formed. That was good to know—that he could re-form.
Fury lit the terrorist’s face, but Bud could match fury with fury. “You need a lesson in Islam, boys? Because I can give it to you. I lived and worked among Muslims for eight years of my life—and many years since my death.” The volume of his voice rose with his anger. “I have no doubt my Muslim brothers who observed all the tenants and instructions received their rewards when they died. But here’s a newsflash: If you want to go to the Promised Land, you gotta follow the rules!”
Bud screamed the next line loud enough to rustle papers deep in the files of the dusty storage room. “And you don’t get there by murdering innocent people!”
“Enough of this excrement!” screamed the leader. His knife swished through Bud once, twice, three times.
But Bud wasn’t finished. He screamed right back. “What? You think you can hurt me? I’m as dead as you are!”
“No,” the terrorist replied, flashing him a smile of pure evil. “But I can hurt the men on the other side of that door. And I can walk through this consulate and slit the throats of every infidel who’s held prisoner.”
It took the length of what used to be one heartbeat for Bud to react. He did what he’d always done, mentally dropping to his knees and praying. And deliverance arrived in the form of Angelo Bruno, Dominic Santori, and Frank Nikolopoulos, USMC, toting M-16’s.
Bud laughed in the faces of the five al-Qaeda ghosts. “Go tell it to the Marines!” he yelled.
* * *
Something was wrong.
Psychic or not, Gwyn felt it permeate the Combat Information Center. The silence was deafening. At first, everyone’s eyes had darted around, hoping somebody had answers.
But then she’d blinked, and all the players froze in time—except for her and Helen. Captain Littleton stood, eyes glued to a monitor, his hand spread in mid-stroke of his chin. Commander Smith’s fingers were poised to run through her short, dark hair. The Senior Chief Operations Specialist had a coffee cup halfway to his mouth, his lips pursed, ready to sip.
Gwyn raced to look at their screens. Colonel Mac was frozen, his eyes squinting toward the building, probably wondering why he wasn’t hearing Jaguar Team’s weapons firing. Adam stood next to him, ever vigilant for the sound of gunfire as well. Gwyn panned to the hostages in the field. All lay on the ground of the soccer field surrounded by the scumbags who’d died just seconds before.
Or was it minutes? Or hours?
The only beings moving on any of the screens were ghosts.
And had they said Satan had released them for the time being? Was she in some kind of time warp?
“Oh, my Lord!” Helen cried. “Look at Bud. He’s young again, too.” Then turning back to the monitor she screamed, “It means you’re free to pass to the other side, Bud! Don’t be a fool! Run! Go to the light!”
Bud was outnumbered five to one, although whoever the other ghosts were, they were only armed with knives of some kind.
Knives?
Gwyn felt the hair lift on the back of her neck.
It couldn’t be.
Five terrorist ghosts armed with knives?
Box cutters?
Gwyn’s hand flew to her mouth. A wave of dizziness hit her. Her legs gave way and she sat. “Oh, God, Helen, these are the men who killed you.”
Helen’s jaw dropped.
The terrorist shouted through the screen, “But we can walk through this consulate and slit the throats of every infidel who’s held prisoner.”
“Bloody hell!” cried Helen. “Not on my watch you don’t, arsehole! Not this time! Why, if I could climb through this screen, I’d come and get you myself, you ruddy bastards!”
“Go tell it to the Marines!” Bud called from the monitor.
“Look!” Gwyn cried to Helen, spotting the three firefighters on the CIC Officer’s screen. “It’s the firefighters! They’re still with us!” She and Helen raced to the next computer screen.
“Thank God! Get those sons of bitches, boys!” Helen yelled.
The three young Marines in green fatigues swaggered their way across the storage room toward the terrorist spirits, who looked momentarily stunned.
Gwyn glanced around CIC and found it surreal. Everyone remained stock-still. And on the screens, Adam, Colonel Mac, and the Marines still looked to the consulate with confused looks on their faces.
“What’s the matter?” Bud yelled at the terrorists. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gun fight?”
“Oh, God, don’t taunt them, Bud,” Helen pleaded, her hands flying to her chest.
“Goddamn you to hell!” the head terrorist cried from the screen.
“I guess you’d know all about that!” Bud yelled back.
But instead of fighting, the leader called out, “Yellah! And took off for the operational side of the Basement, with the other four tango ghosts trailing behind.
“No!” Gwyn cried, fighting back nausea. She yelled at the Marine ghosts, “Follow them! Save the hostages!”
The three firefighters did just that. They tailed them—more flying, than running.
But Bud remained behind.
“Bud!” Helen screamed. “You have to save them before the terrorists slit their throats!” She hit the table in frustration, although her hands made no sound.
Bud slid the electrical panel aside, lifted the latches, and opened the door to the secret tunnel, revealing the SAS agents crouched down preparing to light another fuse. Once the door was open, Bud flew off, literally, and followed the firefighters.
“Yes, Bud, yes!” Helen cried.
The two Wrens found a monitor tuned in to the operational side of the Basement. Trashed computers and rubbish littered the room where the agents had tried to destroy evidence in the takeover. Hostages were hooded and tied to chairs. Others sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. Terrorist guards stood still with weapons trained on the prisoners.
“Count them, Gwyn,” Helen ordered. “You count the guards and I’ll count the prisoners. We’ll need to report to Mac as soon as we can.”
The ghost terrorists entered the space and zeroed in on a single hostage. One of them ripped off the hostage’s hood to show a young man, his face frozen in horror. The three firefighters flew into the room, weapons drawn. Bud followed, looking out of place in a shirt and tie.
The leader grabbed the hostage’s hair and pulled his head back, placing the blade of his box cutter against the side of the man’s neck.
“No!” screamed Gwyn and Helen at the same moment in CIC.
The terrorist smiled at Bud. “Save your infidels now, sir.” He made a cut in the hostage’s skin. Drops of blood trickled down the man’s neck.
The firefighter/Marines fired their rifles, but the bullets went right through the hijackers and lodged in the wall. The Marine ghosts charged, swinging their rifles through the terrorist spirits, who retaliated by slicing their box cutters through the firefighters. Helen and Gwyn looked on in horror as total chaos reigned. Black-shirted torsos juxtaposed themselves with camouflage green legs while arms and weapons flew through the air punching and stabbing and hitting and slicing.
Bud screamed, “Enough!”
The fighting stopped and, one by one, five terrorist spirits and three Marine spirits re-formed.
“Weapons are powerless over spirits,” he said. “Besides, violence solves nothing.” He fell to his knees and began to pray.
The terrorist leader tilted his head in confusion. Then he laughed. His henchmen followed suit, shaking with laughter. A deep rumble that echoed throughout the Ops Center.
The hijacker stopped laughing long enough to say, “You think prayer can save these men? You think your God—?”
“And your God too!” cried a new voice.
Helen and Gwyn scrambled to find a monitor that showed who was now speaking. They looked at each other in utter shock, then back to the screen when they discovered the owner of the voice.
Where in the world had a priest come from?
He raised a cross, then flew at the leader. Adrenaline dumped into Gwyn’s gut. “He’s a ghost, too!”
Helen grinned at the screen. “No, dear. A spirit.”
“Look, Helen, that’s the cross from the New York! And he’s got the Star of David and the crescent too!” She remembered her sponsor’s words: They represent those who died on 9/11, along with the fortitude of the sailors and Marines who come in here to touch them.
The ghost priest raised the religious symbols from the sacred ship and cried out to the terrorist ghosts, “I cast you out in the name of all that is righteous! Take your evil spirits and be gone with you!”
Gwyn’s heart raced as the hijackers’ grins turned to grimaces. They wrapped their arms around themselves as if to hold themselves together, all the while their faces twisted in agony as they screamed out pleas for help.
Gwyn sucked in a breath when fine lines appeared all over their bodies. Then, like sharp-edged jigsaw puzzles, they cracked into a thousand pieces. She turned to Helen, who was staring wide-eyed at the screen, her mouth agape.
The puzzle pieces crumbled to the ground. Smoke erupted from the piles of rubbish. Bud and the firefighters covered their faces and backed away as the priest continued to wave the symbols through the smoke and cry out, again and again, his order to banish the hijacker spirits back to the underworld.
Helen and Gwyn gaped, spellbound, until the last wisp of smoke disappeared, leaving scorch marks in the carpet.
Then they heard: “Twin Towers, the door is open. Jaguar One is goin’ in!”
Followed by Colonel Mac’s: “Sledgehammer One copies! Meet you inside, Jaguar!”
* * *
Adam heard the radio crackle. “Sledgehammer One, this is Gypsy Queen. I have updates.”
Mac grabbed the radio. “Gypsy Queen, copy.”
“Jaguar’s door jammed and just now opened. Tell them they will find twelve hostages and three guards, but the guards are not a threat. Trust me on this one. Just trust me. You must go into the building now and clear the first floor where you will find the remaining sixteen prisoners and five guards in the ballroom. These guards are armed and dangerous. Alert Jaguar One to meet you in the ballroom as soon as they detain the guards in the Basement. Out.”
“Roger, Gypsy Queen. Sledgehammer executing.”
Adam felt a rush knowing Mac trusted Gwyn enough to follow her orders. They left the snipers and raced down the stairs to join the waiting extraction and mop-up teams, including a rifle squad for security and firepower and another group carrying empty backpacks for the encrypted material.
“Men, we’re heading in to clear the main floor. Squad One on me. Squad Two, go to the soccer field and secure the hostages. Wait to be called forward once the relief team gets here.”
Mac and his rifle team raced in. Adam followed in case Gwyn had important information.
Finding no resistance, they filed down the main hall and approached the ballroom. But just as they reached it, the doors burst open, revealing a man with the thickest eyebrows Adam had ever seen. It took a nanosecond for the Marines to I.D. him before they riddled him with bullets.
Mac’s men stepped over the body and flung flashbang grenades into the ballroom. After several blew, the Marines swept in. In Arabic, Mac yelled, “We are U.S. Marines! Put down your weapons!”
Like that was gonna happen.
One terrorist stood holding his head, blinded by the flashbang. A Marine cracked him with the butt of his rifle. The hostages, fortunate to have their faces covered, had been well trained. Those who could, had rolled to the fetal position on the floor. Several had even tipped over their chairs to lay low, as they’d been taught.
Two guards were on the dais at the back of the room, using an overturned piano as cover. Their weapons erupted. Three Marines went down. Two of Mac’s men aimed their SAWs and let fly. The cacophony was deafening. The Squad Automatic Weapons tore through belts of ammunition, sending a hellish torrent of fire into the piano, reducing the wood and strings to an unrecognizable pile of rubble. The two assholes who thought they’d found cover behind the instrument had just played their last duet.
A set of double doors to Adam’s right burst open, causing the Marines to pivot, trigger fingers at the ready. It was the SAS and Royal Marines who’d finished up downstairs and raced up the stairwell. The Americans relaxed their weapons.
“All secure in the Basement,” Colonel Stewart announced.
“Heads up, Royals. We’ve got one guard unaccounted for,” Mac called back.
Adam noticed movement in a velvet curtain running along the left wall. “Curtains at ten o’ clock!” Everyone braced. As if a stage manager pulled on the drapery strings, the drapes opened to reveal a man wrapped in a vest of plastic explosive blocks.
“Bomber! Cover down!” someone cried. Adam hit the deck, but instead of his life flashing before him, he witnessed the strangest thing he would ever experience. The bomber just stood there. Dumbfounded, mumbling in Arabic. Both fear and shock played on his face. As he appeared to fight an unknown force, his hands crept higher and higher into the air. While the detonator plug hung limply at his side.
What the hell?
And then Adam knew. Gwyn’s stowaways. What had she said on the radio?
Trust me on this one. Just trust me.
Panicked gazes darted around, clearly fearing it might be a trick, before the British Colonel nodded to the SAS demo expert. He rose and cautiously approached the trembling terrorist, whose hands now reached for the sky. The Brit reached the suicide bomber, grasped the unit at his side, then pulled the blasting cap from the block of explosives, rendering the vest as safe as possible for the time being. There was an audible sigh of relief throughout the room, amidst the smoke and carnage.
Two Royal Marines sped over to cuff the bomber. Adam recognized Bruce. The Junglie finished with the terrorist, spotted Adam on the floor, and smiled, his white teeth flashing against his black face paint. Adam knew it would be a pleasure to buy the Junglie’s next round of beer.
The extraction teams entered, untied hostages, and ushered them away from a possible explosion. Before Adam headed to the Basement to confiscate equipment in the Ops Center, he turned to wave at Bruce. The Junglie was now at the far end of the ballroom, his Enfield rifle slung over his back. He removed the hood from a hostage to ensure the man was a friendly, then pulled his black commando knife from its sheath, and cut the bindings. He looked up, saw Adam, and raised his knife in the air to wave.
Adam had no sooner waved back than he saw a shadow move from behind a potted palm. “Bruce, behind you!” he screamed. Bruiser turned to watch a female—fuck, the interpreter—pull the spoon on a hand grenade and swing her arm back to throw it into the room full of hostages and Marines.
“Grenade!” Adam hit the deck again, along with the rest of the troops in the room.
What happened next would play in slow motion through Adam’s head for the rest of his life. Bruce’s reaction came straight from the rugby fields of Leeds, as he launched himself shoulder first into the woman’s solar plexus. They tumbled back into the plant. The grenade fell from her hand and rolled onto the ballroom floor. Adam’s eyes shut of their own accord when Bruce disengaged himself and dove onto it in the instant before it exploded.