Page 120 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

Obaid’s shoulders tensed.

Davis rolled over onto his knees, struggled to his feet, lowered his head, and charged at the terrorist.

He smashed into him, knocking Obaid down, then he went down himself. The terrorist screamed in pain and rage and hammered Davis in the forehead, slashing him with the back of the Stinger launcher.

Davis saw stars and lost consciousness for a second. When he came to, Obaid was on his feet and had the launcher shouldered again.

“You can’t stop fate,” the terrorist said, swinging with the United Airlines jet as it passed overhead. “The heat-seeking system loves the rear engine.”

He pulled the trigger.

But rather than a whoosh of fire, a feeble puff of flame exited the back of the launcher barrel. The missile shot up and out, got three hundred feet into the air, and lost thrust; it dived down into the woods and hit a tree.

An explosion rocked the snowy forest, lit it up for a second like a flare. The United jet disappeared into the clouds.

“It’s over!” Davis yelled as blood poured into his eyes from the gash. “You lose!”

“Never,” Obaid said, setting down the launcher. He grabbed his knapsack and got the second rocket-propelled grenade out. He loaded it into the launcher as another jet began to accelerate at them from the north end of the west runway.

CHAPTER 103

THE HUGE DUMP TRUCKwith the snowplow was turning around when I burst from the trees and ran across the VORTAC road onto the runway, waving the flashlight and my pistol wildly at the dump-truck driver and hearing a jet begin its takeoff from the north.

The driver threw his brights on and accelerated. I realized a gun wasn’t the best thing to be waving at him, so I dropped it in the snow, pulled out my credentials, and waved them instead.

For a second, I thought for sure he was going to run me down, but then the plow skidded to a stop. I snatched up my pistol, sprinted to the passenger side, got up on the step, and opened the door. I saw a grizzled Black man in his fifties behind the wheel.

“I’m Alex Cross,” I said, gasping as I climbed in. “I work for the FBI. There’s a terrorist on the grounds. He’s got a missile.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, sir,” I said, seeing the jet lift off east of us and cross over the top of the runway we were on. “Call the tower. Tell them to stop all —”

Just then, through the snow, I saw a flash to our two o’clock, no more than a quarter of a mile away. Something arced into the sky, then fell and exploded with a brighter flash. The United Airlines jet gained altitude and vanished into the clouds.

“Son of a bitch!” the driver said. He threw the dump truck in gear, punched the gas, and raised the plow so it covered the lower windshield. “Grab that radio there. Call ground control. Tell them you’re with Sweet Al Dupris on the south runway.”

I snatched up the radio mic as he kept shifting gears and we accelerated east toward the explosion site. “Ground control, this is Alex Cross, a consultant with the FBI,” I said. “I am with Sweet Al Dupris in his plow on the south runway. There is a terrorist on the grounds with a Stinger missile. Call the tower. Stop all takeoffs. Repeat, stop all takeoffs.”

“Who the hell is this?” a woman came back. “Put Dupris on.”

I held out the mic and pressed the transmit button. Dupris said, “He’s not shitting you, Alfie. Call the tower. Shut all flights down.”

A tense voice came over the radio. “This is Lieutenant Paula Renfrew with the airport’s fire and rescue department. We have a DC homicide detective here with a severely wounded woman. He’s saying the same thing. There’s a terrorist with a missile on the grounds!”

To our ten o’clock, and to my dismay, I saw another jet beginning its takeoff down the runway toward us. I swung my attention back to two o’clock and peered through the storm in the direction of those flashes we’d seen.

For a moment, I saw nothing but big white flakes slashing the windshield.

But then a figure appeared at the limit of the dump truck’s headlights, running out of the woods through the snow. In the next second, I made out the missile launcher up on his shoulders.

“There he is!” Sweet Al shouted.

I lowered the window so I could lean out and shoot at Ibrahim Obaid if we got close enough. The jet was still coming fast at us from our left, about six hundred yards away.

The terrorist shouldered the launcher. Over the radio, we heard someone in the air traffic control tower yell, “Delta one-one-seven, abort takeoff! Repeat, abort takeoff!”

Captain Davis burst out of the woods and ran right at Obaid, who saw him coming. He clubbed the former NFL player with the launcher, knocking him down. To our left, the jet’s engines cut off, and the plane began to skid and slide.

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