The Invisible. Andrew Britton
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Up ahead, the police officers had stepped out of their vehicles and were moving toward the truck. As he watched through the windshield, Petrina inadvertently nudged an object on the floor, by his right foot. The weapon—a Heckler & Koch MP5 with a 3-round burst trigger group—was perfectly suited to his current task. It was easy to use, extremely versatile, and accurate out to 200 meters in the hands of a skilled operator. A 30-round magazine was already loaded, the first round chambered. The safety was on. The weapon’s proximity afforded Petrina a small degree of comfort, but he knew it wouldn’t make much difference if the worst were to happen.
The detail leader tried to push away his lingering doubts as the Pakistani officers finished questioning the driver. As they moved toward the back of the truck, Fitzgerald said something behind him. Petrina was turning to address her when something flashed in the corner of his eye. A split second later, the vehicle was violently rocked by a pressure wave and the deafening sound of a massive explosion. Swinging back to the front, Petrina looked on in disbelief as the shattered remains of the truck crashed to the ground, some of the burning debris landing in the trees on either side of the road.
Most of the blast had clearly been pushed out the back of the vehicle; the officers had been killed instantly, along with the driver of the truck. Both police cars had been pushed off the road, completely gutted by the force of the explosion. As Petrina took in the devastation, he focused on the third vehicle in the motorcade. The armored Suburban had been flipped onto its side by the blast, and from the state of the vehicle, it didn’t look as if the agents inside had survived.
Less than two seconds had elapsed, but for Mike Petrina, it felt like an eternity. He couldn’t react; all he could think about was how fast it had happened. Nothing could have prepared him for the speed of it, but as intense as it was, the shock couldn’t last. Petrina was too well trained for that. He forced himself to block out the sounds of fear and disbelief in the backseat, listening instead to the frantic traffic coming over his earpiece. “Get us out of here!” he screamed to the driver as he reached for the MP5 at his feet. There was nothing he could do with the weapon, but that didn’t stop his instinctive reaction to arm himself. A split second later, the driver threw the SUV into reverse and slammed down on the accelerator. The Suburban rocked to the right as the driver swung the wheel to the left, Petrina shouting orders over the secure channel the whole time.
He looked out the passenger-side window to see the doors on the incapacitated SUV being pushed up and out. He was hit with a sudden wave of relief; at least two of the agents had survived. Go, he found himself willing them. Get out of there. Both agents started to climb out of the vehicle, but they never made it. A pair of projectiles streaked in from the tree line. Both burrowed into the vehicle, one after the other. The explosion that followed tore apart what remained of the Suburban in a flash of blood, orange flame, and black smoke. More rockets followed, targeting the fourth vehicle in the motorcade.
“Let’s go!” Petrina screamed at the driver. On some level he knew he was taking his anger, fear, and frustration out on the nearest target, but he couldn’t restrain himself. “Move this fucking truck! Move!”
The driver didn’t respond, intently focused on completing the J-turn. He slammed the SUV into drive and stamped on the accelerator, the vehicle shooting forward. Suddenly Petrina had new sight lines to focus on, and he commanded his mind to adapt, his eyes scanning back and forth for new threats.
He didn’t have to look far. As the Suburban accelerated back in the direction they had come from, Petrina caught sight of a Nissan truck identical to the one that had just exploded. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but before he could, the truck slammed into the back of the last car in the motorcade, which was still facing south. The impact wrenched both vehicles to the side of the road. As Petrina watched in horror, more projectiles flashed in from either side of the road. Two punched into the vehicle that had just been struck, another Pakistani police car. Three additional rockets—something in Petrina’s mind screamed, RPGs, but he couldn’t be sure—tore into the 10-passenger van carrying the press pool. The first warhead penetrated the rear windshield, traveled 3 additional feet, then detonated in another cloud of fire and smoke. The second and third warheads shredded what remained of the vehicle, then lifted it into the air.
Petrina whipped around to check on his principal. Brynn Fitzgerald was down on the floor behind the front seats. Lee Patterson was on top of her, shielding her body with his. Petrina realized that he must have told them to get down at some point, though he couldn’t recall doing so.
Satisfied with what he saw, he turned again to face forward. The driver screamed a warning, and Petrina opened his mouth to react. He had just enough time to see something dark and small moving toward them with incredible speed. It slammed into the front grille, then punched through the radiator and into the engine block. He didn’t hear the explosion, but he saw the flash, felt the searing heat and the sense of everything collapsing around him. Then everything went black.
For Naveed Jilani, the end didn’t come nearly as fast; in fact, he almost made it through the entire event. Despite the fear that wracked his body, he’d done exactly as Mengal instructed. He’d dropped his head and wedged it between his knees when he saw the cargo truck explode on the other side of the bridge. With his head down, he didn’t see the rocket that skipped off the pavement and hit the rear fender of his own vehicle, 4 inches to the left of the fuel tank. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel tearing through the backseat. Ghulam Mirza was killed instantly, but Jilani narrowly escaped the whistling shards of steel and fiberglass. Seconds after the deafening noise stopped, he felt a stinging pain all over his body. His eyes flew open, but it took his mind a few seconds to register what was happening. And then it hit him: he was on fire. Every square inch of his flesh was burning, his suit melting into his skin…
He found himself wrenching off the door handle, trying to get out. He couldn’t concentrate on the task; the plastic was sticking to his hand, burning a hole right through his palm, and the screaming…The screams were just so loud; he couldn’t get them out of his mind. Jilani never had the chance to realize that the screams he was hearing were his own. He took a deep breath to let out another howl of agony, inadvertently pulling superheated air into his lungs. He managed two more breaths before his respiratory system shut down entirely. Then the noise finally stopped, and the darkness pulled him into a deep, cold sleep.
CHAPTER 9
ICELAND
Ryan Kealey was seated near the back of the 14-passenger Mercedes minibus, staring absently out the window. He’d been arranging his thoughts for the last hour as the vehicle sped west on Route 1. Otherwise known as the Ring Road, the two-lane highway encircled the better part of the island, linking most of the country’s major cities in the process. The afternoon sky was overcast, dark cumulus clouds towering high over the barren, rocky soil. Everything was marked in tones of black, brown, and gray, except for the dirty white snow on the peaks to the north. A light drizzle obscured the passing terrain, the cold drops clinging to the vehicle’s windows, but even on a clear day, there wouldn’t have been much to see. At least not in this part of the country. Iceland offered some amazing sights to the perseverant, physically fit traveler, but simply taking in the scenery from a moving vehicle wasn’t enough. In order to fully appreciate the landscape, one had to be willing to venture off the main roads.
Kealey was that kind of traveler. Over the past couple of weeks he had laid eyes on a number of natural wonders, including the multitiered waterfall at Gulfoss, the Strokkur geyser, and the chaotic ensemble of hot springs, lava fields, and rhyolite hills at Landmannalaugar. They were amazing sights, but he’d happened across them purely by accident. He would never have seen them otherwise, and in truth, he’d gotten more out of the lunarlike ice fields of the interior than he had out of the common tourist attractions. As he stared out at the passing terrain, he felt a small tinge of regret; he was sorry to be leaving so soon.
Shifting his weight on the seat, he allowed his gaze to drift around the vehicle. Although it was the height of the tourist season, he and Naomi Kharmai were the only two passengers. She was on the seat directly across from his, her small body curled up on the warm plastic. Looking over, he could see only the top of her dark head and the left side of her body.