To The Death Part 1

To the death : a new novel.

by Patrick Robinson.

CHAPTER 1

Logan International Airport, which sits atop a zillion-ton concrete promontory, hemmed in by runways, tunnels, and the harbor, was heaving with travelers. Thousands of them, packed into lines for tickets, lines for check-in, lines for security, lines for coffee, c.o.ke, donuts. They even had lines for cheeseburgers, and it was not yet 8 A.M. on a gloomy, freezing January morning. hemmed in by runways, tunnels, and the harbor, was heaving with travelers. Thousands of them, packed into lines for tickets, lines for check-in, lines for security, lines for coffee, c.o.ke, donuts. They even had lines for cheeseburgers, and it was not yet 8 A.M. on a gloomy, freezing January morning.

South. South. The demand was always south. South to Florida. South to Antigua, Barbuda, St. Barts, south to the islands, any island, anywhere to get the h.e.l.l out of this cold, snow, sleet, and ice. It was the peak of the season. High fares. Ruinous hotel bills. n.o.body cared. This was the ice-bound airport of the winter-grim northeastern city of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts. Beyond the departure terminals, a bitter easterly wind howled straight off the slate-gray waters of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. A mile to the west stood the frozen granite towers of the downtown area.

All this had once been home to a battle-hardened race of New En-glanders who accepted the cold, fought it, and shrugged it off. Not any more. Modern prosperity, air travel, and a sense of indignation and ent.i.tlement pervaded. G.o.ddammit, I don't need this tundra c.r.a.p. Get me out of here. G.o.ddammit, I don't need this tundra c.r.a.p. Get me out of here.

Thus the eager vacationers collided in a tidal surge with the already-irritated business crowd, which was, en ma.s.se, en ma.s.se, fed up with late takeoffs. As Monday mornings go, this one was up and running. fed up with late takeoffs. As Monday mornings go, this one was up and running.

"This is totally f.u.c.king crazy," muttered Officer Pete Mackay, adjusting his gloved hands on his light machine gun as he moved through the crowd.

"Tell me about it," said his teammate, Officer Danny Kearns. "Osama bin a.s.shole could vanish without a trace in the freakin' donut queue."

Mackay and Kearns were buddies beyond the confines of the Boston Police Department. Each of them brought a missionary zeal to the fan base of the New England Patriots. For almost eleven months of every year, and sometimes for twelve, they believed to the depths of their souls that this year was theirs, that the glorious years of Super Bowl victories would stand before them again.

They lived football. They ate and slept football. Each of them would awake in the night, leading the blitz as the Patriots surged forward; the big, bullnecked Pete Mackay, in his dreams the greatest defensive lineman who ever lived; Danny, more modestly, the fastest running back on earth. Whenever they could, they went to the games together, taking turns bringing the kids, Pete's Patrick and Sean, Danny's Mikey and Ray.

Both cops were fifth-generation Boston Irish; they both lived on the south side of the city, across the water from the airport. And their great-great-grandparents had emigrated from Ireland around the same time, right after the famine. No one could remember when the Mackays and the Kearnses did not know each other. Both Pete's and Danny's fathers had been Boston cops.

The whole lot of them had attended the same grade school in Southie, played football together, played baseball together in the streets, got in fights with their neighbors, and endured a cheerful sc.r.a.ppy childhood. Pete and Danny both made it to Boston University, and both played football-though not at the highest level, however much effort they put in.

Subsequently, both men viewed the Patriots with a kind of stricken pride, a complicated self-irony that burst into an unreasoning, inflamed pa.s.sion when the Barbarians were at the gate-that is, when any other team from any other city in the United States challenged the boys from Foxborough.

As a cop, the 34-year-old Pete Mackay was scheduled to go right to the top. He was ambitious, tough, and cynical, though not unreasonably. In action, he was still fast on his feet and a master at dealing with the occasional outbreak of inner-city violence. Like Danny, he was an expert marksman. Also, he packed a right hook like a jackhammer, should anyone be foolish enough to attack him.

Officer Kearns, the resident comedian of the precinct, was not quite so dedicated to the police department. He had a very beautiful Italian wife, Louise, and by the end of most days he was about ready to call it quits and get home to the family. His straight man, Pete, also had a pretty wife, Marie, but he was always looking around for crimes to investigate, chatting with the detectives, moving steadily toward the day when he would become Detective Sergeant Mackay.

They were a popular team, Mackay and Kearns, and they both spent a lot of extra hours raising funds for the families of police officers killed or injured in action.

This morning, in the jostling hub of the airport's Terminal C, they were on high alert for anything that looked even remotely suspicious. Normally they patrolled slowly, moving from one end of the terminal to the other but never straying too far from the sightline of the security staff.

This morning it was more difficult, owing to the sheer volume of pa.s.sengers. The shouts of the airline staff rose above the throng-This way, sir . . . I'm sorry, sir-right to the end of that queue right there . . . We're moving it along, sir, just as fast as we can . . . just keep moving along . . . keep moving right along.

"Jesus, Pete," said Danny. "I was in Greece one time, and they treated herds of f.u.c.king billygoats better'n this."

Pete Mackay laughed, like always at Danny's humor. But then the innate Boston cop on terrorist alert took over. "Yeah, but this is serious. We couldn't hardly move if anything happened. I been trying to calculate, maybe a full half-minute from here to get to the security guys-unless we knock down a coupla dozen pa.s.sengers."

"You mean like Ryman against the Steelers last month-that time he took three defensive linemen with him-h.e.l.l! That was some play."

"I guess that's the kind of thing-a head-down rush. But seriously, these are tough operating conditions, and we have to stay in view of the pa.s.sengers and staff."

"Sure as h.e.l.l be better if we could move a coupla feet without crashing into someone."

The two police officers tried to move along toward the head of the queue, but turned back. "Just don't want to get out of sight of security, that's all," said Mackay.

Donald Martin was the junior vice president of a Boston brokerage house, and he was doing his level best to clear the new pa.s.sport control system and get on a flight to Atlanta. He had no baggage and expected to be back home in Newton, west of Boston, by midnight.

He was traveling with the president of his corporation, a silver-haired financier, a Boston Brahmin named Elliott Gardner, thirty years his senior. Donald was quietly reading the Globe; Globe; his boss was staring somewhat aimlessly into the distance, bored sideways by the airport procedures, unamused that their first-cla.s.s tickets did not allow them to bypa.s.s this unattractive closeness to the rank and file. Particularly as the queue had come to a tiresome halt. his boss was staring somewhat aimlessly into the distance, bored sideways by the airport procedures, unamused that their first-cla.s.s tickets did not allow them to bypa.s.s this unattractive closeness to the rank and file. Particularly as the queue had come to a tiresome halt.

Behind them stood one pa.s.senger, apparently alone, and behind him was a family, two very young children presumably with mom and dad. They had a lot of baggage piled on a cart. One child was screaming. Elliott Gardner hoped to G.o.d that the family was not traveling first-cla.s.s on Delta to Atlanta.

"WA-HAAAAAH!" wailed the child. "Jesus Christ," muttered Elliott Gardner. And then he felt a mild tap on the shoulder. The pa.s.senger behind him was making contact. He turned around and came face-to-face with a youngish man, well dressed, no more than thirty, of decidedly Middle Eastern appearance. He could have been Turkish or Arabian, but not Jewish or even Israeli. This was a face born and bred in desert or casbah.

The man smiled broadly. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "I have two quite heavy briefcases here, and I'm just going over there to Starbucks for some coffee. Would you mind keeping an eye on one of them for me-kick it along if the queue moves?"

Elliott glanced down at the brown leather briefcase on the floor. A well-mannered man, unaccustomed to rudeness, he replied, "No problem. Leave it right there."

Donald Martin absent-mindedly looked up from his newspaper and asked, "What did he want?"

"Oh, just to watch his briefcase while he went for coffee-he's over there, heading for Starbucks. Guess I should have had him get some for us, since the G.o.dd.a.m.ned queue has stalled."

"Where is he?" said Martin, suddenly alert.

"Just over there at the Starbucks counter."

"What's he wearing?"

"Some kind of tan-colored jacket, I guess."

Martin swung around and pointed, "You mean him, that guy moving down the hallway, against the crowd?"

"Yeah, dark hair, that's him. What's up, Don?"

"Well, he just walked straight past Starbucks, for a start."

"Probably going to take a leak," replied Elliott.

"Well, he just broke every rule in the book, about leaving luggage unattended. And so did you. You have no idea what's in that briefcase. AND the guy looks like a f.u.c.king Arab."

Elliott Gardner looked startled at this apparent brush with a dangerous corner of the outside world. And his very junior vice president threw his right arm in the air and looked straight across the crowd to the patrolling Pete Mackay and Danny Kearns.

"OFFICER!" he yelled, loudly. Very loudly. he yelled, loudly. Very loudly. "RIGHT HERE-OVER HERE, PLEASE!" "RIGHT HERE-OVER HERE, PLEASE!"

Officer Mackay spun around. He could see Don Martin's raised arm, and he dodged and ducked thirty yards through the crowd. Danny Kearns was right behind him.

When they arrived, Donald Martin was herding people back, away from the briefcase, which now stood in solitude like a couple of roosters in a c.o.c.kfight, hemmed in by the spectators.

"Officer," said Martin, "a guy who looked like some kind of an Arab left that case right there and said he was going to Starbucks for coffee. But he didn't. He went right past Starbucks, and he's on his way out of the building right down that corridor."

Pete Mackay grabbed a small state-of-the-art stethoscope from his belt and stuck one end into each ear, the long tube onto the briefcase. "Jesus Christ!" he breathed. "Danny, there's a slight ticking sound. Get the detector."

Danny Kearns pulled a wire contraption from his belt and held it against the case. It immediately bleeped. "That's metal inside, Pete, and possibly explosive. This is a f.u.c.king live one."

"What's he wearing?" yelled Pete. "What the h.e.l.l's he wearing?"

"Tan-colored jacket," replied Elliott Gardner. "Black T-shirt. He's not tall, short black hair. Looks obviously Arabian."

"GO GET HIM, PETE! LET ME TAKE CARE OF THIS."

Danny Kearns had patrolled for a lot of hours in Boston's airport. And he knew the real estate. Out through the wide gla.s.s doors, there was a four-lane throughway for dropoffs, cars, limos, and buses. Officer Kearns was accustomed to making split-second decisions, but had not previously been confronted by anything quite so urgent. Whether to evacuate the terminal as fast as possible? Or to take the death-or-glory route, grab the briefcase and get it out of here, hoping to Christ the sonofab.i.t.c.h didn't blow?

The latter course held another diabolical question-what to do with the d.a.m.n thing once it was outside? The terminal on the departures level was surrounded by concrete parking lots, and Danny Kearns sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to be holding the G.o.dd.a.m.ned time bomb for longer than necessary.

His mind raced. If he flung the briefcase into the concrete ramparts of the parking garage, he'd wreck a few cars and maybe knock down a couple of floors, maybe injure or even kill a dozen people. If he left it in the terminal while he ordered people out, it would surely kill a thousand.

No contest. Danny Kearns, Patriots fan, husband of the beautiful Louise, father of Mikey and Ray, grabbed the briefcase. He held it in the cla.s.sic grip of the running back, tucked against his body, his right hand securing its underside. Instincts, honed from watching thousands of hours of NFL football, caused him to run with a slightly lower gait than normal.

He looked ahead at the gla.s.s doors, and he set off, legs pumping, running hard for the first objective, brushing aside pa.s.sengers, hitting anyone in the way with a crunching shoulder charge. Ahead of him was a group of maybe six people blocking the doors-the G.o.dd.a.m.ned defensive secondary, too many of 'em. Danny rammed into the first astounded air pa.s.senger, then spun away, coming back in, hard on the left, grimly hanging on to the briefcase. Danny rammed into the first astounded air pa.s.senger, then spun away, coming back in, hard on the left, grimly hanging on to the briefcase.

The doors were open; a redcap with a luggage cart blocked his way. But Danny Kearns saw only the free safety, a deep defensive backfield man, ready to hammer the tackle home. He rammed out his left hand and caught the luggage guy right under the chin. Then he cleared the empty cart and charged out into the airport dropoff zone.

A bus braked and was. .h.i.t in the rear by a taxi. Two cops on duty heard Danny yell, "CLEAR THE PARKING LOT RIGHT NOW! I'M HOLDING A f.u.c.kING BOMB!" "CLEAR THE PARKING LOT RIGHT NOW! I'M HOLDING A f.u.c.kING BOMB!"

The two cops saw him running for the center of the roadway and charged out into the traffic. A limo driver hit a truck. An SUV mounted the sidewalk. And Danny Kearns kept running, dodging, sidestepping, and now he was shouting, yelling over and over, "GET OUT OF THE PARKING GARAGE-VACATE THE AREA!" "GET OUT OF THE PARKING GARAGE-VACATE THE AREA!"

In front of him was the low concrete wall of the garage's first floor, and Danny prepared for the greatest throw of his life. He could see that the area he wanted was empty, like a yawning end zone. In Danny's mind, Tom Brady, the Patriots' legendary quarterback who was still going strong at age thirty-five, was urging him on. The ma.s.sed ranks of the Patriot fans were roaring him home.

He adjusted his grip on the briefcase, fumbling for the handle. Then he straightened up, swiveled, spun around, and leaned back, a lot more like a javelin thrower than a quarterback. And then he let fly, hurling the briefcase into the garage, hurling it as near to the center as he could.

He watched it fly, whipping over the roof of a Cadillac and then tumbling to the concrete floor. Danny, still shouting, still imploring everyone to get the h.e.l.l out of the garage, hit the deck, right under the low wall that separated the garage from the roadway. He covered his head with his arms, suspecting correctly that if the terrorist had any clue what he was doing, the timing device would be overridden by any major impact on the briefcase.

Thirty-two seconds later, the case detonated with a stupendous blast. It sent four cars into the air, blew twelve more sideways up to ten yards from their parking s.p.a.ces, and knocked down four concrete- and steel-reinforced support pillars. The second floor of the parking garage collapsed onto the first. The third floor was punctured by a 25-foot-wide crater, and possibly forty cars were effectively totaled. However, only twelve people had been in the direct line of the blast and were quite badly injured by flying debris. No one was dead.

The entire area was enveloped by smoke and flames from burning gasoline, and the unmistakable smell of cordite hung on the air. Logan International Airport had been transformed into a battle zone, and Officer Pete Mackay was right in the thick of it.

While Danny Kearns had been removing the bomb, Pete Mackay had pounded through the terminal after the man in the tan-colored jacket. At the second emergency door, Pete had busted through to the sidewalk and kept running, praying that his quarry would make an exit at the next automatic door, and knowing that he, Pete, could run a h.e.l.l of a lot faster outside than anyone could inside the packed terminal.

He reached the doors before the blast. And as he did so, the man who had left his briefcase in the care of Elliott Gardner came running out. It was, perhaps, the moment for which Pete Mackay had waited all of his life. He slammed that terrorist with a block that would have made a grizzly bear gasp.

The man cannoned back into the door and crashed to the ground. Pete Mackay had his hands around the man's throat before he hit the ground, his head crashing into the sidewalk. But that was when the briefcase detonated, and as it did so a third man entered the fray, another Middle Eastern-looking character who burst out of a black limo on the sidewalk and delivered a vicious kick to Mackay's ribs.

Pete fell back, temporarily winded, grabbing for the man's ankle. But by now the first terrorist was up and running, heading for the black car. Pete was still on the ground when the second man tore himself away and rushed for the driver's-side door. He piled in, revved, and accelerated. The light tan jacket could be seen right beside him.

Pete Mackay climbed to his feet, ran into the road, and leveled his machine gun. The car drove straight at him, but Pete held his ground, pumping bullets through the windshield until the last second, when he dived clear. The car veered out into the stalled traffic. The driver was dead, but he slumped forward and rammed down the accelerator. The vehicle lurched diagonally, hit the rear end of a Hertz bus, and flipped over, exploding in a fireball.

Danny Kearns was now up and heading across the traffic to help his partner. But the left-hand side of the car was an inferno. Danny kicked out the pa.s.senger window, and together they hauled clear the terrorist in the partially burned tan-colored jacket and dragged him away.

Within minutes, police cruisers from all over the city were headed out to Logan to a.s.sist with the total evacuation of the terminals. Incoming flights were diverted to Providence, Rhode Island, and only outgoing flights that had already left the gate were permitted to taxi out to the runway and take off.

Officers Mackay and Kearns a.s.sumed a loose command in Terminal C, and in effect they just turned the long pa.s.sport lines and security lines toward the main doors and told everyone to leave the airport with all speed. Plainly the police department had no idea whether this was another 9/11, and the airport blast might be the harbinger of a whole series of attacks. No one was taking any chances. Logan International was history as far as this day was concerned, and according to security forces there was no possibility of its opening again for at least forty-eight hours.

The intense bush telegraph that hits local media newsrooms when something this big happens was instantly into gear, and by 8:45 A.M. the entire city knew there had been a big bang at the airport. Terrorist-related. Right now, the police were denying access to television crews, which traditionally managed to get in everyone's way during emergency operations, as this now was.

The media on these occasions are apt to a.s.sume an air of slightly irate self-importance on the basis that they are a great deal more significant than the firemen trying to extinguish the ferocious blaze in the parking garage and the army of cops trying to stop anyone else from getting blown up, or perhaps even killed.

But how could this have been allowed to happen? How the h.e.l.l could the security forces have been so incompetent? Do you expect heads to roll? The public has a right to know . . . what's the status out here?

At this moment, the police decided to dispense with all that and allowed no broadcasting crews into the airport. Nonetheless, news of the terrorist bomb at Logan International had hit the airwaves in every corner of the country-and, within a few minutes, every corner of the world, regardless of time zones.

National security went to the highest level. The National Security Agency at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, was vibrating with communications, and at five minutes before 10 A.M. the president's national security adviser was in the Oval Office to brief the boss on this latest outrage-an estimated thousand lives saved by the heroic actions of a couple of Boston cops.

Al Qaeda, however, had unquestionably struck again, even if it had turned out to be in the parking garage. Every police officer in the entire country was on heightened bomb alert.

Paul Bedford, the Democratic Party's right-of-center president, was an ex-U.S. Navy lieutenant. As commander in chief of the United States armed forces, he still found it more comfortable to consult with the high-ranking generals and admirals of his younger days than he ever did with professional politicians.

There was a myriad of reasons for this: possibly the unquestioning patriotism of the military, perhaps their impeccable good manners and respect for high office, or maybe their clarity of thought, the military's instant grasp of what can can be done, what be done, what could could be done, and what be done, and what must must be done. Paul Bedford admired the way the admirals and generals did not confuse the three. be done. Paul Bedford admired the way the admirals and generals did not confuse the three.

Today he was due to have a private lunch in the White House with Admiral Arnold Morgan, the former head of the National Security Agency and former national security adviser to the president. Admiral Morgan had effectively put President Bedford into power a couple of years previously. And Bedford still, in unguarded moments, called the admiral "sir"-because, in the president's mind, it was still young navigation officer to nuclear submarine commander. And it always would be. Yessir. Yessir.

Admiral Morgan would arrive at noon, which was not, by the way, to be confused with thirty seconds past the hour, nor indeed with one minute before the hour. Noon was noon, G.o.ddammit. Noon was noon, G.o.ddammit. And Paul Bedford always looked forward to the moment his desktop digital clock snapped over to 1200 from 1159. The door would fly open as the admiral let himself in, unannounced, called the end of the forenoon watch, and snapped "Permission to come aboard, sir?" And Paul Bedford always looked forward to the moment his desktop digital clock snapped over to 1200 from 1159. The door would fly open as the admiral let himself in, unannounced, called the end of the forenoon watch, and snapped "Permission to come aboard, sir?"

The president loved it. Because it not only brought back distant memories of nights spent at the helm of a U.S. Navy guided missile frigate, racing through the Atlantic dark, but it heralded the arrival of the man he trusted most in all the world.

This morning, however, events were crowding in upon him. These half-crazed al Qaeda fanatics had apparently had a serious shot at blowing up one of the busiest airport terminals in the country, and according to the CIA this latest Islamic offensive might not be over yet.

His new national security adviser was the dark, angular Professor Alan Brett, former lecturer at both Princeton and West Point, former colonel in the United States Army, and a firm believer that in the past thirty years only George W. Bush had had the slightest idea about showing the proper iron fist to Middle Eastern terrorists.

Paul Bedford did not believe that Alan Brett considered him to be soft, but he always sensed that the former infantry colonel erred on the side of a hard, ruthless response to any actions taken against the United States. President Bedford had no problem with that. Besides, Alan Brett's motives were unfailingly high.

A half hour ago, the professor had briefed him fully on the explosion at Logan. He had also produced a preliminary CIA report, which recommended no one drop their guard, that al Qaeda might not be finished on this day.

A nationwide security clampdown was in effect. All East Coast airports were either closed or closing, once the incoming pa.s.senger jets from the western side of the Atlantic had safely landed. Every aircraft coming from the eastern side of the ocean had been turned back to Europe. They had already shut down JFK in New York, Philadelphia, Washington Reagan and Dulles, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Miami. Only the smaller airports were allowing transatlantic flights to land, mostly stranding thousands of pa.s.sengers hundreds of miles from their destinations.

If the al Qaeda operatives had been bent on causing death and chaos, they had achieved the latter in spades. Large-scale death had been averted thanks to the actions of Pete Mackay and Danny Kearns, whose photographs were currently in the hands of President Bedford.

The president was anxious to speak to Admiral Morgan, but right now he could only listen to the incoming intelligence, and the news was not all bad. The pa.s.senger wearing the tan-colored jacket, dragged from the wreckage by Officer Kearns, had been shot in the upper arm and suffered burns on his left hand. He was alive and conscious under heavy guard in Ma.s.s General Hospital. According to the name on the Egyptian pa.s.sport he was carrying, he was Reza Aghani. His cohort, the driver of the getaway vehicle, was dead.

The CIA, however, was in permanent communication with the National Security Agency over at Fort Meade, and according to Professor Brett they had a lead-one that he believed made the plot more complicated and a lot more dangerous.

0955 Friday 14 January 2012 National Security Agency Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.