Sleeper Cell Super Boxset (65 page)

“They’re on your three!” Toomey shouted. “Ram ‘em!”

Before Phelps could respond and react, a man in back of the first truck to their side held up a large green tube with a rocket sticking out and aimed into the air.

“We got another RPG here! On your six!”

“Take him out!” Toomey shouted.

Phelps jerked the wheel and flew into the next lane over, missing the truck as it darted to the side and slowed down. The man in the bed of the pickup truck regained his balance and fired the rocket-propelled grenade into the air, hitting the helicopter directly in its side. An explosive blast sent it into a wild tailspin off into the forest as the pilot tried unsuccessfully to maintain control.

Sparks and black smoke churned from the rotors as the copter quickly descended into the ground, exploding into a large fireball.

Another truck pulled up to their side with masked shooter manning a mounted M60 machine gun.

“On your three!” Craig shouted.

Phelps swerved to the side but missed. The gunner unloaded a belt of ammunition, hitting their side in rapid succession, but failing to penetrate the thick metal of the transport carrier. Another gunner then pulled along their side and opened fire. 

Craig could hear a hundred different rounds hitting the truck from all directions. The bulletproof glass windows filled with an array of tiny white spots as rounds attempted to blast through.

“Everyone stay down!” he said.

They fired at the rear tires, but did little to damage them. The protective, thick tread was nearly as impregnable as the transport carrier itself. However, Phelps panicked and swerved between lanes, trying to shake them off. Craig gripped tightly to a pulley as the other passengers bounced around on their seats. From the rear, mounted gunners joined the action, relentlessly firing but doing little to damage the carrier.

Phelps was quickly losing control. Their transport swung to the right lane, then quickly back to the left. Craig fell, hitting his face on the cold floor. Hicks was thrown from the bench. Donaldson was knocked out cold from hitting his head against the window. And Rivers flew into Rasheed, flipping him over. Malaka held tightly to her seat with her eyes closed as Husein gripped her arms.

Suddenly, a rocket was fired at them, causing a massive explosion at the rear. The carrier shook violently, but it still wasn’t enough to take them down. The deafening explosion caused a high-pitched alarm to go off inside.

Phelps’s nose was bleeding and he looked disoriented. “Hold on back there!” he shouted as he desperately tried to keep the truck from veering off the road.

Toomey called into his headset mic requesting immediate backup as fire burned wildly on both sides of the vehicle. Their attackers were unstoppable and relentless. 

Craig rose from the floor as the vehicles swayed. “Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

The hostile squad of trucks suddenly backed off and slowed down. For a moment, Craig thought they had given up. His relief was short-lived when he looked ahead and saw a masked man standing in a truck bed on the side of the road with his RPG aimed and ready. He fired.

Like a bug about to hit the windshield, the rocket seemed to move in slow motion. Craig noticed it a split second before an explosion erupted on the windshield, rattling the transport carrier to its core.

Phelps screamed. Toomey covered his face. The force threw Craig to the floor. Hicks flew headfirst into the bench on the other side, knocking him out. Rasheed was tossed against the cage and rolled over. Donaldson and Rivers were both out. Malaka held firm but lost Husein as the boy was sent tumbling to the floor.

              Their visibility had been completely taken out. In a panic, Phelps overcompensated and jerked the vehicle too far to the left, sending them into a fierce rollover. The passengers in the back were thrown around wildly as their world spun with the force of a high-powered locomotive. Before they knew it, everything stopped, and only orange flames, licking at the windows, provided light into their ravaged transport carrier.

Shoot-Out
 

The carrier sat motionless, flipped to one side in the grassy median of the divided highway. Large tire tracks ran across the pavement to where it now rested, compromised and vulnerable. The terrorists quickly parked their trucks and jumped out. Crouching low, armed with AK-47s, they circled the carrier. Getting in the truck wouldn’t be easy. It rested on its left side with the rear consumed in bright, yellow flames.

They knew they had little time, figuring that authorities had already been alerted to provide backup. The first car to be seen in miles was coming down the highway on the opposite side. The apparent leader of the fighters, masked like the others, pointed to the car and instructed one of his men to handle it.

The car, a blue Volvo, slowed as it drew closer, the driver clearly fixated by what he saw. A masked gunman casually approached, waving to the driver and flagging him down. The female passenger leaned forward, looking worried. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and gestured ahead, apparently pleading with him to drive on. Before he could so much as make such a decision, the shooter raised his rifle and blasted rounds through the car, riddling it with bullets.

He turned around and walked back to join his group as the car rolled to the side of the road and came to a stop. Its glass had been shattered and blown out on all sides. The inert bodies inside were slumped to the side, mutilated. With a final squeak of the tires, the car halted.

The leader of the group took his ski mask off, exposing dark, tan features, a trim beard, and long, black hair tied into a bun. He shouted instructions in Arabic, and the men immediately moved into positions surrounding the carrier. Another man approached the leader and took off his mask as well. His head was shaved bald with not a speck of hair. He wore a thin goatee.

“Your brother will be very proud of you,” he said with a smile.

The bearded man nodded. “You are right, Qadar. He knows that I would never fail him.”

And for the most part, what he said was true. Abu Omar Allawi, the leader of the U.S. sleeper cells, trusted few with the confidence he had in his brother, Ma’mun. Ma’mun was a man dedicated to the cause, but also practical in how they achieved their goals.

The West was an impatient society, driven by the desire for immediate results and gratification. It had taken the sleeper cells years to get where they were, and now that they had first struck, they believed it would take years, perhaps generations, to complete the caliphate. At the moment, however, he knew time to be critical.

The rear of the vehicle was still ablaze, and the only possible point of entry appeared to be the passenger-side door. Always prepared, Ma’mun looked at his man holding a welder tool and instructed him.

“Get to work on the door, Haashir,” he said.

Haashir, an un-masked, curly-haired welder, climbed up onto passenger side, squatted down and put a face shield on. As other men doused the flaming truck with coolant from fire extinguishers, Haashir began to weld. Sparks flew in a crackling cacophony. The plan was to weld out the self-locking mechanism of the door and pry it open, and Haashir, after working for a short time on this point of vulnerability, was close to getting there.

Inside the vehicle, both driver and passenger hung to the side, strapped in and unconscious. From the back, lying against the left side where the vehicle had flipped, Craig struggled to get up and on his feet. Hicks was lying on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

Craig grunted and pushed him aside, and saw the other passengers lying in unconscious heaps. Rasheed was at the end of the pile, slumped over. His head had been cracked open—a large gash oozed with blood. His wheelchair was tumbled over behind him. Craig wasn’t sure about the others, but he was certain Rasheed was dead. He checked Hicks’s neck for a pulse and could feel a slight beating.

Voices outside the truck were shouting to each other in Arabic. The transport was surrounded. Craig tried to shake Hicks awake. “Get up. We have to move now!”

Donaldson and Rivers began to push themselves up slowly from the floor as they came to. A ruffled black robe lay in the corner of the cab with a leg sticking out. Malaka made no movement. Husein, lying on his back, shot up suddenly as if waking from some nightmare. He looked around frantically in a dazed stupor. Blood trickled down from a cut on his forehead. He felt his head where a large bump had formed.

“What’s happening?” he asked Craig, his voice raspy.

Craig rose, crouching to avoid hitting his head, and pulled out his 9mm pistol. He felt around for his radio, but couldn’t find it. He pointed at Husein. “You stay right there and don’t make a move.”

Hicks began to awake just as the two other agents struggled to get on their feet. In addition to the men surrounding the truck, Craig could hear activity at the passenger-side door—some kind of soldering taking place outside. Then it hit him.

“They’re trying to get in,” he said to a disoriented Hicks. Craig leaned down to help him up. With Hicks’s arm over his shoulder, Craig lifted him up and held him there.

“You have your weapon?”

“Huh?” Hicks asked, holding his head.

“Your weapon! They’re trying to get in here now. We don’t have much time.”

Hicks nodded as Craig looked at Donaldson and Rivers. Both their faces were cut and bruised.

“I want you two to take the passenger door. Even with the cage divider, it won’t take long for them to get in here.” Craig then turned to look at the back of the truck. The rear doors were their only chance of escape. He was surprised that the terrorists hadn’t gone for the most obvious entrance to the vehicle, but he didn’t want to rule it out. Donaldson and Rivers shuffled to the divider cage with their pistols drawn.

Rivers looked down as they passed Husein and Malaka. “Hey, what about them?” he called out to Craig.

“Don’t worry about them right now. Just man that door.” He turned to Hicks, leaning in close. “We’re going to get those doors opened, you and me, and when we do we’ve got to take out as many of these guys as we can. It’s our only chance.”

Hicks looked up and saw white vapor from the fire extinguishers float by the small windows.

“They just put out the fire.”

They moved to the rear, right up to the doors. There was a lever that, when pushed to the side, would unbolt the door. Craig extended his hand, let it hover over the bar and felt warmth caused by the fire.

“Hand me that,” he said to Hicks, pointing to a rag on the ground.

With rag in hand, Craig grabbed the handle and took a deep breath.

“You ready?” he asked Hicks.

Hicks nodded.

“Ready?” he shouted to Donaldson and Rivers. The men both gave him a thumbs-up.

Husein shook his aunt, trying to wake her. He fixed her robe and helped her sit up. “What do we do now, Aunt?”

Her eyes opened. She looked around. Rasheed’s lifeless body lay only a few feet in front of them, with a puddle of blood at his head.

“My son,” she moaned. “My beautiful son.”

“Aunt Malaka!” Husein said, growing impatient for direction.

She glared at him, her eyes watering. “Do not yell at me, young Husein. Ever. How many times do I have to tell you to remain calm and wait?”

“Who is coming for us and why?” he asked.

Her face continued to show a hint of sadness. The glimmer of remorse quickly faded when she looked up and saw Craig standing by the rear doors with his gun drawn.

Standing poised at the door, Craig began to count down. Hicks nodded along. A bolt from the passenger door at the front fell out and onto the ground. Sergeants Phelps and Toomey remained unconscious, hanging in their seats, as the welding stopped and the prying to open the door began.

“Stay low,” Craig said, hesitating slightly. He knew that once the back doors were opened, there would be a good chance they would both be killed instantly. There was no telling how many armed men were outside. It was a risky move, but their only choice.

“One…” Craig said. He pulled the latch to the side with one forceful jerk then and pushed the door open. Daylight beamed into the cab and he immediately heard voices outside. Five masked men quickly assembled at the rear, calling to each other in Arabic.

Craig jumped out the vehicle with Hicks at his side. Just as they hit the ground, Craig fired quick head shots, dropping three men instantly. He rolled forward across the grass as the remaining two fired back, missing. Hicks responded and blew a tiny hole in the masked forehead of the first shooter. He then shot the second shooter between the eyes. Their bodies dropped to the grass, next to the others. 

On his knees, Craig looked up. “Nice shooting.”

“Thanks. You too.”

The gunfire immediately gained the attention of the rest of the crew at the front of the flipped vehicle, not realizing that two men had just fled out the back. Ma’mun immediately signaled his team to go to the rear.

“We need to make our way to the front, check on Phelps and Tommey,” Craig said.

Hicks peeked around the side of the vehicle and saw another group of six coming at them.

“We need to find cover, now,” he said. “Run!.”

They ran to the line of pickup trucks parked on the side of the road just as the black-clad gunners arrived on the scene only to find the bodies of their brothers lying dead on the grass.

Haashir tossed his welder to the side and picked up his rifle. With the door opened, they could see two officers strapped to their seats with their helmets slightly crooked and headphones blaring with police chatter. The driver began to regain consciousness. His eyes flickered as he lifted his head. Haashir held up his rifle and shot the driver dead, right through the helmet. As the helmet shattered and the driver’s head jerked back down, Haashir stuck his rifle into the face of the passenger, poking him with it.

“Quit playing around, Haashir!” said Qadar, the large man with the goatee.

Haashir nodded and pulled the trigger, killing Toomey instantly. The blast echoed throughout the vehicle. He then peeked into the vehicle with Qadar, trying to catch a glimpse. There was a cage divider between the front and the back.