Boom
Time seemed to move in slow motion. The prince made his way up the ramp, step by step. His guards closed in around us, careful to keep their guns trained on both Dempsey and me. I looked for any move I could make, but there was none. Yehudi continued to glare at me and my family, fire in his eyes and no doubt about his intentions once we were in his control. Demetrius was poised and ready to move, but the bearded man kept him at gunpoint, a look of resignation on his face.
As the prince neared the door, I heard a slight buzzing sound in the distance. He must have heard it too because he stopped momentarily and cocked his head. The sound got louder, and slowly a figure appeared—a small figure on an Indian dirt bike. A heroic figure who should have been going the other way.
The prince shook his head. “Your friends are valiant, Mr. Knight, but not very wise.” He turned to Yehudi. “When the old hag gets within range, shoot her.”
Yehudi happily nodded.
I wanted to jump one of the guards, but they were ready, waiting for me to make a move. There was nothing I could do.
The prince tapped three times on the plane door and waited.
I expected to hear the hydraulic hiss of the electronic door opening. Instead there was a deafening boom as the door exploded outward, coming completely off its hinges and carrying the prince with it, over the top of Yehudi’s head, away from the plane, and down onto the tarmac. The prince landed on his back with a thud, the heavy door on top of him. He didn’t move.
For the space of a few heartbeats, everyone stood and stared in stunned silence. And then everything seemed to erupt at once.
I grabbed Jin from the stroller, pulled Hope with me, and rolled over the top of the cement wall in front of the wheelchair ramp. I heard the bullets tearing away great chunks of concrete as Sayami’s guards opened fire on us.
“Keep your head down,” I said to Hope as I transferred Jin from my arms to hers. Jin turned her face into Hope’s chest and clung to her tightly.
Dempsey was also moving. He grabbed the bag of cash, dove inside the hangar doors, and came up holding a gun in his hand. We needed to get inside those doors if we were going to have any chance.
“Cover us,” I yelled at him.
He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. All we needed were a few seconds to get across the walkway and through the doors, but we weren’t going to make it without some cover fire.
“We’re on the same side,” I said. “You’re CIA.”
“Not anymore,” Dempsey said. “I think I just received my burn notice.”
“Mr. Dempsey.” It was Hope’s turn to yell at him. “Please, I have a little girl. We need your help. I know you’ve got some good in you. I’ve seen it.”
By the look in his eyes, I thought Hope’s words might have gotten through. But then a shower of bullets peppered the door next to him, and Dempsey disappeared into the dark abyss of the hangar.
I turned my attention to where Demetrius had been. The man with the beard seemed conflicted about keeping his gun on Demetrius or turning it toward the prince’s guards. He seemed to make up his mind when one of the guards opened fire on him. Both the bearded man and Demetrius leaped behind the van on the other side of the hangar opening.
The bearded man raised his gun above his head and shouted, “Stop shooting. Stop shooting. I’m on your side.” This prompted an immediate barrage of bullets from one of the guards who seemed to be enraged. It also prompted Demetrius to punch the bearded man in the face and take the gun away from him. The man crumpled to the ground like a wet blanket.
I took a quick peek over the wall. Four of the six guards were pulling the plane door off the prince, who was groaning and holding his ribs. The other two guards were raining focused volleys on the wall and the van. I peered around the side of the wall and immediately got cement chips in my eye. Demetrius was in a similar predicament, even though he had a weapon. He tried to return fire but was quickly forced down by a barrage of bullets.
I wondered where Yehudi had gone, and then I heard the cackling of his maniacal voice. It was coming from above the guards, and it sounded like he was shouting out instructions in Arabic.
My language skills were rusty, but I picked up enough to know the gist of what he was saying, and I felt a cold dread creep up my spine.
“Focus your fire on the dark one,” he said in his own language. “Keep him pinned down.” And then in English. “Let the infidel and the woman raise their heads. I want them to watch while I take the life of their son.”
Hope stood before I did, but only by a fraction of a second. We were completely exposed to the guards, but they had done as Yehudi had instructed and had Demetrius completely pinned down.
At the top of the ramp, where the plane door had been blown off, Yehudi stood with an arm around Peng, his long knife held against my son’s throat.
“Take me instead,” Hope shouted. “Take me and not my son.”
“There will be plenty of time for you,” Yehudi screamed. “Plenty of time for your husband to witness that as well. The prince was right. I will be patient. I will take most of you back alive. But I will also give you a taste of what is to come. Look on your son, Matthew Knight. Know what happens when you cross the Yehudi family.”
I glanced wildly around, looking for any way to stop the events from transpiring. Hope was pleading with Yehudi, sobs wracking her body. Demetrius was hopelessly pinned down by the gunfire from the guards. The prince was slowly regaining consciousness but was not aware enough to take control of the situation. Chico was lying unconscious somewhere in the desert, Dempsey had fled, and Permelia was approaching on the dirt bike at a pace that might get her here by next Tuesday. Peng didn’t look scared. He looked proud. Yehudi stood behind him, the sacrificial knife in his hand. I needed to do something. I needed to save Peng. I was his father. He was my responsibility. Hope was counting on me.
But there was nothing I could do. The situation was beyond my control. All I could do was watch—watch, pray, and trust that God was in control.
I’d never been to the other side, but when Hope talked about her near-death experience, her face glowed with light. “Death is no tragedy,” she often said. “It’s like going home.”
What if it was Peng’s time to return home? What if it was God’s will that he should leave us? Could I accept that?
Let go. It will be all right. The thoughts from the night before returned.
I took Hope’s hand and tried to comfort her. I ignored Yehudi and met Peng’s eyes. I looked at the exploded door and the prince lying on the ground and nodded to Peng as if to say, “Good work.” I hoped he got my meaning. I was proud of him. He had done well.
I thought I saw the tug of a smile on his lips, and he turned his eyes from Hope to Jin and then back to me. “Take care of them,” he said with his eyes.
I knew exactly what he meant. We didn’t need words. We were family. I nodded to him that I understood.
Yehudi laughed again and held the knife in the air in dramatic emphasis.
“Close your eyes,” I told Hope, pulling her head into my chest. “You don’t want to see this.”
She did as I said. I should have done the same, but I couldn’t look away. I kept my eyes locked on Peng’s. In his final moments, in the moments before he passed into a realm where beings of light would embrace him with warmth, I didn’t want him to be alone.
The knife descended onto its target, and Peng dropped to the ramp.
My heart dropped with him. I had known grief before. I had seen my mother murdered in front of my eyes. I had lost my best friend, Robbie. I had awoken with night terrors, dreaming that Hope’s cancer had come back and that she had been called home. But none of this had prepared me for a grief like this. A grief that could only come by the death of a child. The death of my child.
I looked from Peng to Yehudi. Something had changed in his expression. His eyes went from triumphant to confused. He looked down at the blood on his hands and dropped the knife. He reached up toward his forehead, where I now noticed that two small holes had appeared. And then he toppled off the ramp. Peng was moving now, scrambling back inside the plane. I struggled to piece together what had happened. Peng’s throat had not been cut. Someone had shot Yehudi before the knife had found its mark.
I pulled Hope back down behind the wall and tried to identify where the shots had come from. There was somebody in the control tower with a sniper’s rifle. At first I thought it was Chico, awakened from his slumber, but as I looked closer, I recognized the familiar figure. From this distance, I couldn’t see the broken nose, but I knew where it sat on his face. Dempsey had returned. He’d saved Peng’s life, and he was starting to pick off the prince’s guards one by one.
Two of them were down, but the other four concentrated their fire on Dempsey. Dempsey took out one more of the guards before the barrage of fire hit him and he fell backward off the tower.
Demetrius rose and opened fire on the remaining three guards. One of them went down, but the other two trained their weapons on him and forced him back behind the van. Dempsey’s sacrifice had been valiant, but it had not quite been enough. The closest fallen guard lay at least twenty yards from me, next to the prince, who sat on the ground looking bewildered. If I could just get to his weapon . . . but they would cut me down before I made it three steps.
Peng peeked his head out from the doorway of the plane. He had Yehudi’s gun in his hand. I shook my head at him. As soon as he started firing he would be an easy target for the two remaining professionals. I waved at Peng to get back. For once in his life, Peng heeded me. He nodded and stayed concealed. The two guards began a flanking maneuver. It wouldn’t be long before Demetrius was exposed. I looked around frantically. There was no weapon in sight, except a metal piece of rebar that would be of no use at this distance. Unless . . .
I picked up the rebar, held it like a rifle, and nodded to Demetrius to be ready.
He signaled back by holding out his arms as if to say, “Are you crazy?”
I popped up from my position and yelled, “Drop the guns, or the prince dies.” I hoped the rebar looked enough like a rifle at this distance to at least make them hesitate.
They did, but not for long. Both rifles swung in my direction. Hope was pulling at my leg to get down, but there was no time.
Demetrius took the opportunity to take out the guard in his line of vision, but he didn’t have a shot at the other one.
The prince seemed to have recovered his senses and was getting to his feet. “Kill him,” he shouted. For some reason, he was pointing at me. “This infidel has ruined everything.”
The guard raised his gun obediently, but as he did, Peng stepped out into the open. He didn’t fire on the guard, although he could have. Instead, he trained Yehudi’s gun on the prince. “Don’t,” he said.
I waved at Peng to go back inside, but it was too late. The guard still had the black barrel of his assault rifle pointed at me, but I could see he was gauging the time it would take for Peng to react.
“You might shoot me,” Peng said. “But not before I kill the prince.” Peng’s voice was confident. He didn’t sound like a kid anymore. He didn’t sound like he was bluffing either.
The guard didn’t seem as convinced as I was. He was hesitating. I could tell that any second he would make his move. Peng would probably be able to kill the prince before the guard shot him, if he even knew how to operate an assault rifle, but either way, the guard was going to take him out.
The guard smirked, and Peng tightened his grip on the rifle and kept it steady on the prince. Demetrius was working his way around the wall for a clear shot, but he wouldn’t make it in time. The stage had been set. The pieces were in place. And I didn’t like the way this scene was going to end. The guard’s eyes no longer showed any sign of hesitation. He was going to act.
The only sound on the airfield was the buzzing of Permelia’s motorcycle, still too far away to make any difference.
The prince had turned and was looking back and forth between his guard and Peng. The guard began to move.
“Stop,” the prince yelled. “Stop, you fool.”
The guard stopped his movement.
“How dare you risk my life with your bravado.”
“But, my prince, they have killed your royal guard.”
“I can replace my royal guard, you idiot. I can buy a thousand royal guards. I cannot replace my life.”
“But they will take you captive. They will shame your family.”
The prince smiled. “Drop the gun, Ahmed. There is nothing they can do to us. We are diplomats on foreign soil. We have immunity.”
The guard lowered his gun. Demetrius came out from behind the wall. “On the ground,” he ordered. The guard went to his knees and put his hands behind his head.
“I don’t think you know how diplomatic immunity works.” Demetrius kicked the guard’s rifle safely away from him and turned his gun on the prince. “You’ve committed terrorist acts on American soil.” He nodded in Dempsey’s direction. “You’ve murdered a member of an American security agency. Diplomatic immunity doesn’t apply here. Put your face on the ground.”
I walked out, picked up one of the dead guard’s guns, and joined Demetrius.
The prince just smiled. “I believe it is you who does not understand diplomacy, my friend, or the politics of power. You see, I have an agreement with a member of your government. Someone who outranks you by many levels. Someone who wants me in power. Someone who was willing to give me Mr. Knight and his family in order to secure my loyalties. Do you think the killing of Mr. Dempsey is going to change any of that? Officially he is an outlaw mercenary. I might even get a reward. Put your guns down, gentlemen. I am no longer a threat to you. With Yehudi dead, I don’t need his loyalties. Mr. Knight, you and your family are free to go.”
“I don’t think so.” I kept the gun pointed at the prince’s head and looked over at Demetrius. By the look on his face, I could tell he was having the same doubts about our government handling this that I was. If what the prince said was true, the CIA might not like us messing with someone they viewed as an asset.
A deep and booming voice sounded behind us. “Your agreement with the government ends here, Prince Sayami.”
Zack appeared in the hangar door. He had his forearm tightly around the neck of the bearded man, who I realized had disappeared at some point during the firefight. The man was squirming, but I knew there was no escaping that grip.
“Little Gerald Morgan. Always sneaking out of my classes at Quantico and trying to slither away now. I think he will make a great witness of today’s events when they are presented to a grand jury.”
Gerald’s face was beginning to turn purple.
The prince was nonplussed. Even in his burned and tattered robes, even with two guns trained on his head and the remains of his royal guard lying dead around him, he still looked like he believed he was in charge.
“It will be my word against his,” the prince said. “And your word against the deputy director of your CIA. You can’t win here. None of this ever happened. If anything, the evidence will suggest that I was the one attacked.” He nodded to Demetrius and me. “Your country has special offshore prisons for men like these—suspected terrorists and enemies of the state. Do you think this will ever come to a trial? Who do you think is going to win here? All of the evidence will support my position. You can either let me go, or I guarantee you will all go away to a very dark place for a very long time.”
“What about the video?” Demetrius said. “Dempsey said this was being taped.”
The man in Zack’s grasp was shaking his head. Zack released his throat long enough for him to speak. “The video doesn’t exist,” he said. “I unplugged the cameras.” He rolled his eyes up toward Zack as Zack began to retighten his grip. “It was orders,” he said desperately. “Orders from above. They told me to turn the cameras off.” Zack looked like he wanted to keep squeezing, but he eased up.
“Not true.” Peng stepped forward. He’d made his way down from the top of the ramp and was holding Jin and embracing Hope.
“That man did unplug the cameras, but I plugged them back in.”
“Impossible,” the bearded man said. “Those aren’t your everyday Walmart cameras, kid. They’re sophisticated equipment. It took me years to learn how to use them.”
Peng just shrugged. “I’m good with cameras.”
The bearded man started to protest again, and Zack squeezed a little harder. “Gerald. Don’t argue with my favorite grandson.”
Gerald passed out.
All eyes moved toward the observation tower. The windows were pockmarked with bullet holes where the shots had been fired at Dempsey. If there were cameras, there was no guarantee they were still in working order.
“I guess we better go take a look,” I said and started walking in that direction.
About that time, the buzzing noise heightened, and Permelia pulled around the corner on the motorcycle. She looked around at the bodies on the ground and the rest of the bad guys in custody and snorted. “I missed out on all the fun,” she said. “These bikes look a lot faster in the movies.”