Three, two, one, and praise Allah, the second missile, which Samad thought might take out the other engine, homed in on the hottest heat source, the first engine still on fire.
It was simply unbelievable to watch the MK III cut a secondary path through the first missile’s smoke trail, a tiny spot of light growing fainter for a second until a magnificent flash, like the first impact.
Because the plane had rolled, this second strike tore up through the flaming engine, blasting apart the wing. Part of it hung on for a second, then ripped off and boomeranged away beneath fountains of flaming and sparking debris.
Samad was enthralled by the image, unable to move, until the man who’d been yelling at him regained his attention. The guy had gotten out of his car and drawn a handgun. At that, Samad gasped and opened fire, full automatic, hammering the guy back into his low-rider car, blood spraying across the roof and windows.
And then, as quickly as it all happened, it was over. Samad leapt into the back of the van, where Talwar closed the door after him. Niazi was at the wheel now, and they sped away, riding up across the grass along the lot’s perimeter, then bounding over the sidewalk and bouncing onto the street. They raced up to the first corner and turned sharply. Once there, they slowed with the traffic so as not to distinguish their vehicle from any others. They headed toward the parking garage five minutes away, where the second car and driver were waiting.
If only they had time to watch the airliner crash, but he’d assured his men that they’d be able to watch it over and over on TV, and that in the years to come, cable channels would create documentaries detailing the genius and audacity of their attack.
“Praise God, can you believe that?” cried Talwar, glancing up through the windshield, trying to watch the airliner’s trajectory as it now began to dive inverted toward the ground at about a forty-five-degree angle.
“Today is a great day,” cried Niazi.
Samad agreed, but he couldn’t help wishing that he hadn’t burned that photograph of his father.
Abe Fernandez cursed as the guy in front of him jammed on his brakes. It was too late. Fernandez plowed into the back of the guy, who was driving a piece-of-shit old Camry. But then some asshole smashed into the rear bumper of Fernandez’s small pickup, and they were all piling up, one after another. He screamed, turned down the radio, and pulled his car over to the shoulder, his front bumper still attached to the other guy’s car.
Growing up in downtown Los Angeles had allowed Fernandez to see a lot in his short life of nineteen years: car accidents, shootings, drug deals, high-speed chases …
But he had never witnessed anything like this.
He realized why everyone was stopping, why everyone was crashing, because in the sky to the west came a surreal sight.
He blinked hard. Not a dream. Or a nightmare.
A giant commercial airplane, US Airways, with its blue tailfin and pristine white fuselage, was missing a large portion of one wing, rolling out of control, and streaking directly toward them. What sounded like metal actually screaming and the plane’s remaining engine joining in made Fernandez’s jaw drop. In his next breath he smelled the jet fuel.
Reflexively, he threw open his door and started running back along the freeway, along with dozens and dozens of other drivers, the panic reaching their mouths, the cries of hysteria sending chills down Fernandez’s spine as he felt the heat of the aircraft’s approach.
He charged past a kid wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt who was videoing the airliner with his iPhone, as though it were all happening on YouTube and he weren’t about to be killed. The kid didn’t move as Fernandez screamed at him, nearly knocked him over, and when he looked back, the airliner — upside down, dark liquids streaming from its torn wing, its single engine now coughing, struck the freeway at about a thirty-degree angle.
There was nowhere to go. Fernandez just stopped, faced the massive nose of the plane, and couldn’t believe that this was the way he would die.
The plane exploded not fifty feet in front of him, the wind knocking him to the asphalt before the fires came roaring. He took a breath. No air. And then the plane was on him.
Barclay Jones was ten years old and loved going to the rec center. He was part of the after-school club, and his mom paid fifteen bucks a day so that he could play baseball with a pretty cool bunch of guys. He also got snacks and homework help and tutoring. There were a couple of bullies he didn’t like at the center, but sometimes their moms couldn’t afford to pay the money and they didn’t come.
Barclay stepped up to the plate and was ready to hit a home run like one of his Baseball Hall of Fame favorites, Cal Ripken, Jr., who used to be called Iron Man back in the days when he played.
However, before the first pitch to him was thrown, a booming came from the distance. He frowned and lowered his bat, as the pitcher turned to his left and Barclay turned to his right. Now the booming sounded louder and louder, and just above the trees that formed a row behind right field came a strange line of black smoke rising high into the air, like the smoke from an old train chugging down the tracks.
The booming was louder now, and weird sounds like cars crashing and buildings smashing all at the same time got scary loud, and Barclay began to pant.
Something crashed through the trees, and it was only in that last second that he knew what it was, the tail section of a giant plane that looked as though it had tumbled along the ground, picking up pieces of buildings and trees and even what might be some people along the way.
Just after the tail came a rush of fire so loud that Barclay covered his ears and started to run toward the third-base line, as did every other player on the field. Barclay watched as the tail section came slicing across the field, and one by one his friends vanished beneath the gigantic, flaming steel. He screamed and called for his mother.
Moore and Towers were still on scene at the cell-phone lot, and the news coming in was changing by the second, rapid-fire and fragmented. Reports of missiles being launched from the ground …witnesses saying they filmed a crew in Los Angeles jumping out of a van and firing on a plane …more witnesses saying they saw something very similar in San Antonio.
Panic. Pandemonium. Moore watched a news feed on his smartphone with an on-air anchor having to leave her seat because she began crying …
People in New York and Chicago were reporting that they thought they saw missiles fired at planes taking off from their airports …
A police officer in Phoenix said he witnessed a missile rise up from the ground to strike a plane taking off … He’d recorded the video with his phone, had e-mailed it to his local news station.
And there it was, a white-hot streak on Moore’s phone screen, rising like a firefly to strike the airliner.
“How did you get such a good picture of this?” the anchor asked. “It all happened so fast.”
“My daughter wanted me to take some videos of planes taking off and landing for a school project. I just came down here when I got off work. It’s a coincidence that’s making me sick.”
Before the screaming man could strike the tiny flight attendant with his cell phone, Dan Burleson came up behind him and wrapped one of his powerful arms beneath the man’s chin while simultaneously seizing the man’s arm and drawing it behind his back with such force that he heard the man’s shoulder popping.
The guy let out an ear-shattering cry as Dan dragged him back and away from the attendant, saying, “I got him! I got him!” If there was a federal air marshal onboard, Dan didn’t see him …
At the same time that Dan seized the guy, the plane began to roll, and Dan knew that the pilots would have to compensate for the missing engine. Dan dragged himself backward with the terrorist in hand until he got near his seat and collapsed into it, still gripping the thug by the throat. He did not make a conscious decision to increase his
