both commercial and residential properties; they even had their own fleet of cars. Meanwhile, Joe had finished high school with little desire to attend “regular” college and had instead moved temporarily to Southern California, where he’d enrolled in Ford Motor Company’s ASSET (Automotive Student Service Educational Training) program to get his AA degree and become a certified Ford Automotive Technician. After two long years of taking courses in engine control systems, brakes, steering/suspensions, transmissions, and fuel and emission control systems, he’d graduated with a 3.3 GPA. He returned home to Tucson, where he’d been hired by Holmes Tuttle Ford Lincoln Mercury. He loved being a grease monkey and had eventually saved up enough money to buy his dream ride: a black Ford F-250 FX4 pickup truck with six-inch lift kit and BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 tires. His friends referred to the truck as the “black beast,” and those brave enough to come along for a ride found they needed either a ladder or good flexibility to climb into the cab. Sure, the truck intimidated the girls he dated, but he wasn’t looking for timid women, anyway. He wanted an adventurous girl. He was still looking.
As he sat there, the diesel engine thrumming, the radio set low so he could hear Ricky’s call, he did a double take at the three men getting out of their Hampton Inn shuttle van parked across the lot in the next row of angled spaces. They were dressed like Mexicans but were taller, and all three wore black ski masks. While two guys argued with each other, a third went around the back to open the rear doors.
The two arguing broke off, and one pointed to the sky, where a Southwest jet was just lifting off.
Then the other guy reached past the van’s open side door and handed his partner a rifle with a curved magazine, an AK-47.
Joe Dominguez blinked. Hard.
Now both guys had rifles and joined the third guy, who lifted to his shoulder a green missile launcher like the kind Dominguez had seen in Schwarzenegger movies. The launcher man swung his weapon toward the climbing airliner while the two riflemen swept their barrels across the rows of cars, covering him.
The cell-phone lot was packed, and a quick glance to his left revealed that the woman waiting in her small sedan was pointing at the men and yelling something at the teenage girl seated beside her.
This, Dominguez needed to remind himself, was not a daydream. These
His heart raced as instincts took over. He threw the truck in gear, jammed his snakeskin boot down on the accelerator pedal, and took the black beast forward with a great roar and cloud of diesel exhaust. He steered directly for the guy with the launcher, covering the distance between them in three seconds.
The other two bastards reacted immediately with gunfire. Dominguez ducked behind the wheel as rounds punched through his windshield. First came a thump, then a much louder crash as he plowed into the back of the shuttle van. He stole a look up—
The other two, who’d gotten out of the way, fired once more into his truck, bullets pinging off the doors. He ducked again and let out a scream.
Then …more gunfire from outside. Different guns. He chanced a look through his side window, saw two men with pistols, one wearing a black cowboy hat, running straight at the terrorists and emptying their magazines. Dominguez, a registered gun owner himself, finally remembered that fact and reached into the center console of his truck. He dug out his Beretta, worked the safety, chambered a round, then jumped out of his truck.
He crouched down near the front wheel, and there beneath his engine lay the missile-launcher guy. He’d cracked his head open on the pavement but was still alive, groaning softly.
Gunfire continued popping, and in the fray, Dominguez watched as the terrorist glanced up at him, then reached toward his waist.
Dominguez cursed and fired a single round into his head.
“We’re clear, we’re clear!” someone shouted behind him. “They’re all down!”
He craned his neck, and the man wearing the cowboy hat was hovering over him. His gray beard was closely cropped, and the diamond earring in his left ear seemed to match the twinkle in his eye. His collar was bound by a bolo tie featuring a long-horn steer head with turquoise eyes. “I saw what you did,” he said. “That got my attention. I just can’t believe it.”
The cowboy proffered his hand, and Dominguez took it. He stepped away from the truck, then glanced back at his pride and joy.
“Damn, son, you got grazed! I’ve never seen one that close!”
Dominguez didn’t know what was happening, but as he touched the wound he began to feel nauseated, and then it hit. He’d almost died. He leaned over and threw up …
“Aw, that’s all right, boy, you let it all out.”
Sirens lifted in the distance.
And from inside the truck, his cell phone rang. Ricky …
Mr. Dan Burleson had settled in to enjoy the terrific roar and awe-inspiring vibration of the Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines when three events occurred in succession.
First, they left the runway without incident and the fasten-seat-belt sign remained lit.
Second, the scared-looking guy beside the college girl suddenly threw off his seat belt and literally climbed over the girl, stomping on her lap, to get into the aisle.
Third — as Dan thought,
“People of America, this message is for you. The jihad has returned to your soil because we are free men who do not sleep under oppression. We are here by the grace of Allah to fight you infidels, to purge you from our Holy Lands, and to remind you that the false prophets in your White House who wage war against us to keep their corporations busy are responsible for your deaths. This is the recompense for unbelievers who attack Allah. This is the truth.
As one of the flight attendants who’d been buckled in at the front of the aircraft came rushing down the aisle, the crazy guy whirled, reached into his pocket, and produced his cell phone, which he held tightly in one hand, allowing it to jut out from the bottom of his fist like some pathetic knife. He reared back and ran toward the approaching attendant, a lithe blonde no more than five feet tall who couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds.
And that’s when the plane shook violently, as though it’d passed into a powerful downburst. A flash of light came through the windows near Dan’s seat, and he flicked a quick glance back. Smoke and flames were whipping from beneath the wing, and worse: Most of the engine was now gone.
Meanwhile, the punk terrorist in the aisle was only a few seconds away from attacking the flight attendant.
A few of the cars farther away from the van began to turn around and try to exit the lot, tires squealing a moment before two of them crashed into each other, blocking one exit.
Samad fired a warning salvo into the air as a fat Hispanic guy with a beard that seemed to have been drawn in marker on his face shouted at him.
Behind Samad, Niazi was helping Talwar load the second missile, and without delay — their count going exactly as planned — Talwar fired again.
The airliner had already taken the first hit. Its engine had exploded and was issuing a long trail of smoke as the plane rolled toward the damaged side.
