The fireball seemed to expand out the upper windows of the convention center, angry flames licking at the supporting beams. Debris rained down on the street separating them from the target building, a half-broken concrete block smashing into the hood of a parked car.”
He looked over into Marika’s face, seeing his shock mirrored in her eyes.
It only seemed to last for a moment before she shoved open the driver’s side door, her gun hand coming out with a Glock. “Powers?” she demanded, speaking into her radio. “Carlson? Rodriguez? Boehm?”
Static.
Thomas stepped out onto the asphalt, slipping his Beretta from underneath his jacket, gazing across the debris-strewn pavement to the flaming shell of the building the FBI tactical teams had entered only minutes before.
They’d been led into a trap.
Marika’s radio crackled as she came around the front of the Suburban. “…don’t. It’s not—”
She stopped stock-still. “Did not copy your last — we’re coming for you. Just hold on.”
More white noise and then the voice was back. Loud enough for Thomas to hear him. “—no.” The agent on the other end coughed loudly, a rough, hacking sound. “…the nerve gas…released.”
“Flight 94, please continue in holding pattern at 9,000 MSL.”
The lights of the Vegas Strip shone thousands of feet below as Pamela Gonzalez acknowledged the order, guiding the massive Boeing into the inbound leg of the pattern.
“If they’d known we were going to run into this delay, they’d have held us back at SLC,” her flight officer observed, referencing their lay-over in Salt Lake City.
He was right. It was standard operating procedure — even with their airspeed held down to just over two hundred knots, every moment in air cost Delta big-time in fuel.
“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” she responded. “Plans?”
“I always visit the Venetian — always lose. We’ll see if tonight I can break even.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
He grinned. “That too.”
The radio came alive again. “Flight 94, this is Tower. You are cleared to land, runway three.”
Omar rose from his kneeling position on the flat, gravel-covered roof, staring up into the night sky. “There is no god but God,” he whispered, stilling his trembling hands.
He could hear the whine of jet turbines coming toward him as he raised the SA-24 to his shoulder, gripping the missile firmly with both hands. His fingers closed around the pistol grip, flicking the selector into automatic mode.
And there it was, descending toward him — a winged beast out of the night. It must have still been a mile off, but the jet loomed large in the Igla’s night-vision scope. And Muhammad is His Prophet…
His finger curled around the trigger, pulling back firmly as the Boeing 757 filled his sight picture.
The Igla recoiled in his hands, an intensely physical release — all of the tension leaving his body in that moment, as the missile’s flaming backblast curled into the night behind him.
Screaming into the sky, the SA-24 Igla flew toward Delta Airlines Flight 94, closing the distance at nearly six hundred meters a second, homing in on the heat signature of the Boeing’s engines.
Moments later, it impacted just inches from the 757’s starboard engine, igniting the fuel stored there in the wing.
Captain Gonzalez felt the aircraft shudder beneath her as if it had run into an invisible wall. The Boeing pitched right, veering off the approach to McCarran.
Altitude: 6,000 MSL and falling fast. Too fast now, a sick feeling of dropping from the sky.
She reached forward, taking the yoke in her own hands as she switched off the autopilot.
“We just lost the starboard engine,” her flight officer announced, an edge of panic to his voice.
Fighting back her own fear, Pamela glanced out the cockpit — only to see the starboard engine engulfed in flames, tongues of firing licking up and down the entire surface of the wing.
There was no time to react…nothing that could have been done in any case. The next moment, Delta Flight 94 exploded, disintegrating in mid-air, fiery debris raining down upon Las Vegas.
Omar shielded his eyes from the explosion, realizing only then, as a ball of fire lit up the sky, that he’d been holding his breath ever since the missile left his shoulder.
It seemed surreal, as if a dream. He screamed, barely even recognizing his own voice in the heat of the moment. “Allahu akbar!”
To strike a blow for God.
“Harry, you need to see this.” There was an unmistakable note of urgency in Carol’s voice.
He crossed the room to stand at her side. “What is it?”
“I know why Tarik Abdul Muhammad is in Vegas. Look at this.”
She scrolled across the local news station’s webpage, double-clicking on a woman’s picture. “Congresswoman Laura Gilpin. I didn’t see this till just now.”
“So? How does she fit into this picture?”
“She spearheaded the Congressional effort to block his release from Gitmo. Nearly succeeded too, only needed ten more votes.” She glanced up into his eyes. “She’s here in Vegas tonight, giving a dinner at the Bellagio for the supporters of her successful reelection bid. She’s the target.”
And it all became clear. “Wait…you said the dinner is tonight?”
“Yes.”
Without another word, Harry walked to the door of the adjoining motel room, throwing it open without knocking. “Boots and saddles, people — it’s going down now. We’ve been played.”
He shot a finger toward Carol. “Get everything packed up. I’ll get Thomas on the phone, he can alert the Bureau.”
As if on cue, the phone in his hand vibrated with an incoming call. Thomas.
“Yes?”
“It’s already begun…”
There was no spectacle on earth like the Cirque. No place to experience it like the “O”.
A smile crossed Laura Gilpin’s lips as she glanced over at Steve Winfield’s face in the half-darkness of the theatre. They’d known each other since college, and he was in his element on a night like tonight. Surrounded by his friends and playing host.
Heralded by swelling music, a steel-framed ship flew out over the flooded stage, its crew of acrobats swinging from one end of the ship to the other.
The Bateau, she thought, remembering a previous performance as she spotted the muscular Barrel Organ Grinder near the prow. It was magnificent.
She heard voices behind her and looked back to see the Bellagio’s head of security leaning over Steve’s shoulder, whispering something. “…we have a situation…a plane just blew up on approach to McCarran.”
The casino owner’s response was unintelligible, but she reached over to grasp his hand as the Israeli walked away. “What’s going on, Steve?”
There was a look she had never seen before in his eyes as he responded, “I don’t know.”
The SUVs pulled into the north valet entrance, one right behind the other. Pulling the black balaclava mask over his face, Jamal looked out the tinted windows of the Suburban to see the Bellagio crest over the ornate entrance.
This was the moment. All of the months, waiting for this…
The Pakistani beside him threw open the door, his Kalashnikov leading the way as he jumped out on the pavement.