Osama (44 page)

The EasyJet plane that he had seen taking off was a speck in the distance to the south. By the time, half a minute later, that Joe had reached the fence, a second aircraft, with a logo he didn’t recognize, had taken its place. Not that he was paying much attention to it. The secateurs in his right hand were stiff and blunt and it was with difficulty that he cut through the reinforced wire of the airfield’s perimeter fence. He’d made twelve incisions before he had created a hole large enough to stuff through the bag containing the sniper rifle, and then himself. The jagged wire cut through his clothes and into his arms.

Time check: 0939. The Agusta was still hovering 300 metres away on the far side of the airport.

As far as he could see in front of him, there was a open expanse of airfield. If the guys in the Agusta had eyes out for him, there was nowhere he could hide from them. He had two or three minutes before they spotted him. If that.

He had to focus on just one thing. A diversion. Big enough to put the shits up every air-traffic controller from Bristol to Bangalore. And he had less than twenty minutes to do it.

0440 hours EST.

The waiting area for Gate 3 at Tampa International’s departures lounge was filling up. Two smiling air hostesses stood at the entrance, inserting the boarding cards of each of the passengers and checking that their features matched the image that appeared on the screen in front of them, before ushering them through with a cheery ‘Good morning’. The grunts they received in return were, in general, not friendly. The passengers for flight AA346 were tired from rising early, and not pleased with the long walk to this gate in an isolated part of the airport. It didn’t stop the two hostesses from sounding chirpy.

When a plain-looking young man wearing a University of Miami sweatshirt and carrying a bright orange shoulder bag handed over his card, there was nothing to give the two young ladies any indication that he was not a student. But then an FBI air marshal who was scanning the assembled passengers for suspicious-looking personnel noticed the way he was avoiding eye contact with his five colleagues who had already passed through.

A bland voice from the Tannoy: ‘This is the final call for flight AA346 to New York. Will any remaining passengers please proceed directly to Gate 3, where your aircraft is ready to board.’

Five minutes later a middle-aged man with a grey beard and wearing an airport uniform approached the hostesses. ‘All passengers accounted for?’ he asked them.

They nodded, and when the man took hold of the microphone that they themselves would normally use to address the passengers, the two hostesses exchanged a glance. This was unusual. But they were practised at looking unflustered, and their faces registered no surprise when he spoke. ‘Excuse me, folks, if I could have your attention. As you know, we’ve encountered a few technical difficulties with our gate system. We’ve arranged for some buses to take you directly from your gate to the aircraft. If I could ask all passengers sitting in rows A to G to make their way to the first bus, we’ll have you all boarded and in the air in no time at all.’

He released the button on the microphone and turned to the hostesses. ‘Emergency code Alpha Twelve,’ he breathed. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

The two young women looked startled. One of them glanced over her shoulder. Standing in the stark white corridor twenty metres distant from the gate, she saw two broad-shouldered men. They were wearing holiday gear and carrying shoulder bags. But they didn’t approach the gate. They didn’t move at all. They stood there, human barriers, waiting for anyone who felt the sudden need to run from the gate.

0940 hours.

Eva fell.

She cried out as her phone dropped to the ground, and although she barely felt the strength to stand up, her hand shot out to check it wasn’t damaged. The screen was still intact. But there was still no signal.

Mustering all her energy, she got to her feet again. The bandage around her waist was soaked with blood – the wound was suppurating again. She put it from her mind. The road was heading uphill to a rise thirty metres away. Her teeth grinding, her jaw set, she limped on.

0945 hours.

Joe ran north, keeping close to the perimeter fence. Airport security was always tight, but whether anyone had eyes on the right place at the right time was impossible to predict. Joe just had to keep to his plan, and that meant following the runway up towards the taxiing area, and from there in the direction of the terminal building.

A hundred metres passed. Two hundred. The Agusta was still circling in the sky above the far side of the runway, about a half klick from his position. He counted three aircraft queuing for the runway and a fourth accelerating down it. He could see the terminal now, a quarter klick to the north-east. He stopped and crouched down low in a patch of long grass, before removing the telescopic sight from the bag and using it to scan the intervening ground. There were a number of vehicles: passenger buses, forklifts for the luggage and small trucks that refuelled the aircraft, their sides emblazoned with green BP logos. Three of the fuel trucks were parked in a line, 100 metres to the east and adjacent to a steel hut. Two men, dressed in blue overalls and with ID tags clipped to their chests, were standing and talking between the hut and the fuel vehicles. One of them had a cigarette behind his ear, unlit while he was in the vicinity of the aviation fuel. Panning south he saw two airport security vans 300 metres away on the other side of the airport; as he moved the sight upwards, he got a closer look at the Agusta. There were no distinguishing marks to indicate whom it contained.

Joe stowed the sight away, making calculations that were second nature to him. How quickly could he get to the steel hut, and could he do it without being seen? Twenty seconds max, he reckoned. As for remaining unseen? No chance. The two men by the fuel trucks were looking in his direction, and it wasn’t like he had time to wait for them to wander off for a slash.

Stealth wasn’t an option. The only tools available to him were speed, and when he got there, brute force.

He felt for the handgun he’d taken from the drug dealer what seemed like days ago but was only the previous afternoon, then pushed himself to his feet and started to run.

Joe ate up the first fifty metres in less than ten seconds, and as he reached that halfway point he thought he might be getting away with it. The two airport workers were just staring at him stupidly, their feet glued to the ground.

But with forty metres to go, the two men had turned and were going into the hut. They had definitely seen him. Joe forced himself to move even faster. After another ten seconds he had burst through the door of the hut, weapon in hand. The place stank greasily of aviation fuel. One of the men had a telephone to his ear, the other was just standing in the middle of the hut, frozen with fear.

‘
Get on the fucking floor!
’ Joe roared, aiming his pistol first at one man, then the other. ‘
On the fucking floor, now!
’

Both men dropped to the ground.

There was no time to restrain them. Joe had to put them out of action, and fast. He turned the gun round to hold it by its barrel, then slammed the grip down on the back of each man’s head, knocking them out cold.

Joe straightened up. He could hear the tinny, urgent sound of a man’s voice from the telephone handset. He ignored it as he slipped his bag from his shoulder and took out the components of the sniper rifle. He fitted these together, each section clunking solidly into its neighbour until, fifteen seconds later, the weapon was ready to use. He pulled out the ammunition and loaded up, then looked once more around the hut. A steel cabinet standing against one wall, lockable but open, contained six keys hanging on hooks. Joe grabbed them all. The rest of the hut was a jumble of tools, jerrycans, greasy rags – everything needed to keep the fuel trucks on the road. Stashed in one corner were five handheld air-traffic-control beacons, each a couple of feet in length. Joe grabbed one and, beacon in one hand, sniper rifle in the other, ran back outside.

He knew he had less than a minute – the alarm had been raised by a phone call – and although the Agusta was still circling, it would be heading in his direction any moment. Joe sprinted towards one of the fuel trucks. A dial on the back indicated that it was three quarters full. He ran round to the cab, laid his rifle on the tarmac and jumped up into the driver’s seat, pulling the keys from his pocket one by one and trying them in the ignition. The engine started on his fifth attempt. Joe pressed his foot on the brake, then knocked the automatic gearbox into drive.

The sound of sirens reached him. He blocked them from his mind as, foot still awkwardly pressed on the brake, he manoeuvred himself into a position half in, half out of the cab, clutching the beacon and preparing to jam it against the accelerator.

A hundred metres away, a plane was turning onto the runway, and the Agusta was suddenly changing course.

Heading in his direction.

He pressed the beacon against the accelerator and released the break. The truck slid forward. With a sharp jab, he forced the opposite end of the beacon against the front of the driver’s seat and let go.

The truck continued to move.

Joe jumped out.

As he ran back to the sniper rifle, the air was filled with a riot of noise: the sirens were getting louder, the engines of the aircraft were rising in pitch as it prepared for take-off, the rush of the Agusta’s rotors was getting nearer. Joe flung himself on the ground, grabbed the rifle and took up the firing position.

The fuel truck was accelerating towards the plane that had stopped at the end of the runway in advance of take-off. It was twenty metres away – then thirty – heading at right angles towards the runway. Joe was right in the zone. There was no longer any panic or fear. Just a ruthless, clear-headed determination. He had to turn this truck into a moving fireball. It was his only chance of seeding panic in the international air-traffic control network. His only chance of keeping flights on the ground.

He fired a single shot into the truck’s massive fuel tank. He didn’t expect an explosion at first, even with this HEI round. Aviation fuel was not as flammable as regular petrol, and even that was difficult to explode without a bit of help. Unless he got oxygen into the tank, the plan was fucked.

The Agusta was directly over the moving truck. He heard a strident voice coming from a loudspeaker. ‘
Stand away from your weapon! Stand away from your weapon!
’

The truck had swerved. It was heading towards the aircraft standing at the end of the runway. Joe fired a second round. He saw it impacting, but there was no explosion.

The Agusta was touching down, just fifteen metres to his right. He had one more chance. One more shot.

He fired.

An immense explosion was followed by a massive fireball of orange flame and black smoke. The blast knocked the fuel truck onto its side and boomed out over all the other noises. The ground shook. The heat radiated towards Joe’s face – a harsh burning that he felt singe his hair and skin. Immediately he rolled away from the rifle, flinging his hands up to his head. The noise all around was deafening – from the Agusta’s rotors, the burning truck, the sirens on two airport security vehicles as they roared up and came to a halt just metres from where he was lying.

In seconds he was surrounded. Five flak-jacketed armed police with MP5s dug into their shoulders, the barrels pointing directly at Joe, each of them screaming instructions at him: ‘
Don’t move! Keep your hands on your head!
’ Two more officers arrived. They rolled Joe onto his belly and jerked his hands behind his back. He felt cold metal against his wrists as they cuffed him.

He started to shout. ‘
Listen to me!
You’ve got to listen to me! Ground all flights!
’

But the only response was rough hands pulling him to his feet. ‘We know who you are! Get into the fucking chopper now . . .’

‘
Listen to me! Listen!
’

But nobody listened. They just shoved him, stumbling, through the downdraft of the helicopter and into its body. The MP5 barrels didn’t deviate. The shouting didn’t stop.

‘
There’s going to be an attack! I know which planes! I know which fucking planes!
’

‘Shut him up!’ roared a voice.

Joe felt a boot in his stomach knock the wind from his lungs. He tried to shout again, to tell them, but it was no good. Now he couldn’t even speak.

The chopper was already lifting off.

He’d failed.

It was five minutes to ten.

Twenty-two

0455 hours EST.

At Tampa International there were no signs that any of the passengers for flight number AA346 knew there was anything wrong. They had filed from the gate and into the waiting buses without comment. If any of them thought it unusual that the airport had laid on three buses and that each person had a seat, rather than being packed into one vehicle as was the norm, they didn’t mention it. And since they were all looking out of the side windows at the lights twinkling in the early-morning darkness, they did not notice that the buses moved nose to tail, just a couple of metres apart.