Sweating bullets.
We were about to hit one of the industrial buildings on our second antiterrorist raid in forty-eight hours. This newest lead had come in last night around midnight. It had been sifted out of the electronics that we had collected from al Gharsi’s dump upstate. It had been pulled from his kids’ Xbox, of all things. The Wi-Fi–linked gaming networks that allowed players to communicate with each other were being used by al Gharsi to make contact with the group of Queens-based terrorists to whom we were about to pay what we hoped was an unexpected morning visit.
This group of nefarious and dangerous American-hating losers was a new one for me. They were Nigerians, and it was speculated that they were members of an offshoot of al Qaeda based in Nigeria called Boko Haram. A hasty surveillance operation on the locale had spotted at least six to eight Nigerian men working, and apparently living, inside a massive carpet-and rug-importing warehouse.
Two of the Nigerians had been identified from photographs as being on student visas. What had really set off alarm bells were the cell-phone records of one of the two students, who had apparently been in contact with a man overseas named Abubar Kwaja. Kwaja was a wanted Nigerian-based wealthy arms dealer who supplied Boko Haram with weapons.
That a half dozen likely heavily armed jihadist jackwads were in such close proximity to LaGuardia Airport was blood-chilling. That’s why the brass had let the leash off on a tactical raid immediately. We needed to go on this and go on this now.
Although the new lead was a godsend after such a lack of progress, it was actually a rough setup in terms of takedown. Our target, two blocks away, was an old one-story brick industrial building that covered the whole block from 47th to 46th Streets. The fortresslike building had closed steel shutters over both its doorway and driveway and rusted wire mesh over its windows. It was also somewhat isolated, sandwiched between two storage yards, which put a damper on any kind of flank stealth approach.
There were more than a hundred cops and agents about to swoop in, but I still had a bad feeling. You wanted to model and game a raid for a bit before going into such a heavily fortified target; have backup plans for backup plans; be as prepared as possible. But we didn’t have time for all that. Getting in there was not going to be quick or easy by any stretch.
“If there’s anything good to say about things,” I mumbled to Emily, “at least there aren’t a lot of people around.”
“Besides me.” Emily nodded with her eyes closed and her hands clasped as she said the Lord’s Prayer under her breath.
I decided to join her when her phone suddenly pinged with a text.
“Hit it, Mike,” she said. “It’s a green light. All units converge.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I pinned it, peeling out behind a half dozen other units waiting up and down the desolate block.
Two BearCat armored personnel carriers filled with FBI hostage rescue agents and NYPD ESU cops were already on target by the time I made the corner of 46th. Over the convoy of cop cars, I watched the two formidable black commando trucks swerve into the brick building’s driveway, the chug of their big turbo-diesel engines roaring. Two jarheaded commandos in olive-drab Kevlar popped out of the left side door of the lead truck and quickly attached the cable of the truck’s winch to the gated doorway. A moment later, there was a high-pitched whine followed by an enormous ripping sound.
“Now, that’s what I call a no-knock warrant,” I cheered as the entire housing of the target building’s rolling gate was torn from the facade.
But I’d spoken too soon. Way too soon.
The wrecked gate had just clattered onto the driveway when the heavy drumroll bang of automatic gunfire erupted from the now gaping hole in the building. The agents on the sidewalk dove behind cars and the balaclava-clad agent in the BearCat’s rotating roof turret turtled down as a swarm of bullets and tracers exited the building and raked the truck’s thick metal plate.
Then a moment later, I watched in jaw-dropped awe as a series of whooshing, smoking orange flares streaked out from the black, cavelike gap in the building. Smoking contrails accompanied the light streaks as they skimmed inches from the sides of the now rapidly reversing BearCats. Then a string of thunderous explosions ripped chunks off the brick warehouse across the street from the target.
Glass and bricks rained on cop cars as a huge cloud of pale dust billowed, instantly obscuring and darkening the entire narrow street.
“Shit! Back it up! Back it up! We have rockets! RPGs! RPGs!” screamed a voice through the crackling radio.
My mind wobbled as the pale fog billowed over the windshield of my unmarked, leaving behind a pink-sugar dusting of pulverized brick on the hood.