“Sure. No-hoper. Fine then. My guess, Rich, given what’s at stake here, their orders are shoot to kill.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Because they’ve already tried to kill us on multiple occasions, idiot. Now hit the gas and blow the checkpoint.”
“Zak, people are going to get hurt here.”
“Don’t you see it, you moron? This is way bigger than us. Kumar here has information that could blow the whole Afghanistan charade out of the water. If they can arrest the admiral and General Pershing and probably Ambassador Buckingham because of this, if they can do that, their orders will be to shoot first and ask questions later. Our own country tried to take us out, on more than one occasion, with Hellfire missiles. They want us dead. Now run the fucking roadblock.”
The reasoning was ineluctable. Richard shrugged and began to pull toward the left, onto the inner shoulder of the divided highway, grinding through the gears and picking up speed. The cops saw him coming as he went north of forty. They began to fire at the Peterbilt, but it had too much momentum and crashed through the police lineup. The huge truck clipped one of the police cars, knocking it backwards. It bounced through the guardrail and plummeted more than forty feet downward, where it crashed onto the Burnese Terminal Road, bursting into flames upon impact.
“Now what, Zak? We’re through the roadblock. I don’t think we’re invisible anymore. We’ve probably got the security forces and militaries and gangs from half a dozen countries after us by now. What’s your next brilliant idea?”
“Spare me the editorial, Rich. Three or four hundred yards ahead there’s a road to the right. Take that exit. Use your signal lights if you’re having a crisis of conscience.”
The steering began pulling to the left as the smell of burning rubber started to permeate the air. “I think our front left tire is gone. Probably the suspension, too. We can’t drive more than a mile before we crash.”
“Just keep it between the ditches for a mile, mile and a half. Ignore the cops and sirens behind you. Get ready to hang a right when I tell you.”
As the Peterbilt veered down a side road toward Karachi Harbor, there was the distinct whap-whap sound of a helicopter. “Zak, there’s a chopper, a couple I think, just above us. We are totally screwed here.”
“Take a pill, Richard. No fucking wonder you became a drug addict. A ride becomes a bit challenging and you’re starting to wail. Do as I say and we’ll be just fine.”
“Zak, whoa on the sexism. You’ve been in the tribal lands for too long.”
Two helicopters descended and were flying less than a hundred feet in front of them. One of them was an AH-64 Apache gunship, bearing the markings of the Pakistani army. A thirty-mm M230 chain gun was hanging between the landing wheels. The massive gun swiveled toward them.
“Now fucking what, Zak? Those are thirty mike-mikes. A ten-second burst from that thing will totally incinerate this cab.”
“Richard, you are beginning to piss me off. Up ahead, fifty yards. The front gates of the Pakistan Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. Blow through the front gates and stop. Kumar, pass me that metal toolbox. It’s wedged behind the driver’s seat. Now here is what we’re going to do—”
Richard acquiesced to the strange command. They would be dead within ten seconds in any event.
As the gunner in the AH-64 adjusted the angle on the massive chain gun, the driver and passenger doors flew open and three men jumped out of the truck. Zak dropped the heavy toolbox on the gas pedal and slammed the transmission up one gear. The truck headed directly toward one of the large distillation towers in the refinery complex. The gunner stayed his hand momentarily, attempting to make sense of what was transpiring beneath him. The tractor-trailer rig smashed into the tower with sufficient force to penetrate its walls. The tearing of metal against metal produced a shower of sparks igniting the ethylene within. Exposed to the outside air, the mixture exploded violently, sending streams of metal and burning fuel across the complex. Other distillation towers were compromised, and exploded.
At the center of the complex stood a large, heavy, crude cracker. Under very high temperatures, the molecular bonds of the raw petroleum were severed, creating a host of various other petrocarbon compounds of commercial value. The cracker was many times the size of the other towers, and when it exploded, it took out the rest of the refinery and the two AH-64s.
Richard and Kumar raced away from the complex. Zak was unable to keep up, as he was still getting used to the two artificial toes and the artificial forearm provided by the scientists and engineers of DARPA and Stanford University. Zak stumbled and began to fall at the same moment the cracker ignited. He was blown away from the explosion, falling in a crumpled heap a few yards behind Richard.
Richard was able to pull Zak up as one of the 10,000-barrel cylindrical storage containers ruptured and ignited, turning the center of the complex into a vicious cyclone of flame and steel.
“Let’s go, Zak. This plant has got a few more explosions left in it. Not safe to be here.” The three of them raced away from the dying refinery as emergency response teams were dispatched toward what was once the Pakistan Petroleum and Chemical Corporation.
It was 1976. The huge, protected Karachi Harbor was as busy as the city, with many cargo and container ships anchored or docked, waiting to be loaded or unloaded. Hundreds of smaller craft whizzed about with no apparent pattern or logic to their movements. Yousseff watched the action with distaste as Omar piloted the Janeeta II through the outer breakwater and into the harbor itself. Omar motioned to the distant, southeastern area of the harbor. Squinting in the rain,
