American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (30 page)

“Get the AKs,” shouted Casey.

Alex and Freddy grabbed the assault weapons. It was a tight squeeze but they both leaned out the passenger window and pointed the artillery at the oncoming chopper.

***

“Cover me. I’m going down,” said Rayna. She began rappelling down the rope.

“You’re nuts,” shouted Chuck as he fired a grenade.
 

Rayna landed on top of the truck’s box and grabbed the back edge, preparing herself as Chuck’s grenade exploded in the front of the truck.

BOOM! A massive crater appeared.

Casey swerved to the side to avoid it. The motion knocked Alex and Freddy back inside the cab.
 

Rayna reached into her pack and yanked out a rope with a large hook. She threw the hook onto the latch at the back of the truck and pulled it up.

Lying prone on top of the van, she leaned over to see its contents. She screamed into her radio, “Holy shit, guys. This thing’s full of explosives.”

“You can’t let it get close to the stadium,” said Julio.

“Tell me about it.”

Rayna stood up. Casey started rocking the truck back and forth, trying to throw her off. Fighting to stay erect as she moved to the front of the box, Rayna heard the voice of her mother, the martial arts instructor saying, “Balance. Balance. Balance.”

Made it!
Rayna leapt to the top of the cab.

The truck started accelerating. Directly ahead, a hundred and fifty yards away, was the service entrance but the way the truck was moving, it was clear the driver had no intention of stopping.

“Rayna, he’s aiming for the wall at the side of the entrance!”

If the truck crashed into the wall, the resulting explosion would be enough to bring down a quarter of the stadium at a minimum.

Rayna reached in through the driver’s window, trying to take control of the steering wheel. Casey had one hand on the steering wheel, the other trying to throw her off.

“Screw it!” he shouted. He floored it, using both hands to rock the steering wheel. As Rayna tried to grip the steering wheel, she glanced up to see Chuck firing again. She saw Heaven a moment away as her eyes fixed on the little metal pineapple. Almost as if the grenade were flying in slow motion, Rayna watched the arc of its trajectory.

What the…? He missed the damned thing by a mile.
 

But the truck was not the target. The fire hydrant to the right of it was, and it was a direct hit.

BOOM! The grenade exploded, and water gushed to the sky, soaking everything. The truck stopped moving and the impact of the explosion sent Rayna flying fifty feet ahead of the stalled vehicle. She looked back to see Casey pulling the pin on a grenade. The damned thing exploded with enough impact to kill Alex, Freddy and Casey in the cab, but the explosives in the box were just too wet.

Sorry, boys, Rayna grinned. No virgins today.

***

Chuck rappelled from the chopper, landing beside Rayna. “Come on, soldier, we got a job to do,” he yelled as he helped pull Rayna upright. He held onto her as the helicopter winched the two of them back to the flying machine.

“What the hell are these two doing here?” yelled Rayna as she saw Jennah and Lena on the chopper.

“I’m sorry. We snuck on and hid when they were loading,” said Jennah. “But you need us. We know what they look like better than anyone else in the world.”

There was no time for argument as the chopper made its way from the parking lot and moved over the stadium.

***

There was absolute pandemonium at the stadium. While the blasts were confined to a small area with almost no one around, word spread like wildfire that someone had blown up the parking lot and the stadium was next, which actually wasn’t that far from the truth. In the parking lot and on the streets, people abandoned cars, running away on foot. Inside the stadium, people pushed others over, trampling women, kids, friends, family, all trying to get out.

Fifty drones were in the air looking for explosives.
 

The chopper carrying Rayna, Chuck, Jennah and Lena ascended above the stadium and flew toward the baseball field. Arriving above home plate, the chopper began descending.

***

“What do we do, Fatima?” asked Ahmed. “There’s chaos but no sign of the destruction that should have happened.”

Fatima’s eyes flashed anger. “The idiots failed and we are the ones who must pay.”

“We still have those,” said Ahmed, pointing to the grenades he had fished out of the ice chest.

“Not enough to do anything. We’ve got to get going,” Fatima shouted at him.

“We will lose the arrangement with Muhammad if we don’t succeed.”

“No, this is still a victory. Not as big as we planned but only you and I know that. To the world, we have stunned and terrified fifty thousand people. We are on international television, the internet… everywhere. If Muhammad doesn’t come through, there will be a thousand others. And I still have almost two hundred thousand left from Hank Azarius. This is victory!”

Ahmed rose tall, powerful and courageous. “We will reign.”
 

Ahmed and Fatima filled their hands and pockets with grenades and headed out the suite door.

***

The chopper hovered at suite level, searching every box for a sign of the deadly siblings. The chopper’s passengers couldn’t believe their eyes. Maybe they were prescient, or maybe it was an oversight or perhaps they were just damned lucky but, for some unknown reason, the builders of the stadium decided the suites should be built so they could survive a nuclear attack. As the chopper passed, some drunken idiots inside the suites waved or gave the thumbs up to those inside the chopper. Except for the couple wearing baseball jerseys that were leaving a suite.
 

“Can you move in a bit closer?” requested Rayna. “It’s odd. There’s a helicopter less than seventy feet away from them making a hell of a racket and they don’t even look in our direction.”

“That’s them!” yelled Lena.

The chopper moved in closer.

“Why do you say that?” Rayna asked.

“Look at their hair. It’s the same color as ours!”

“Yes! Yes!” agreed Jennah.

“I can’t tell the difference,” said Chuck, shaking his head.

“Neither can I,” yelled the pilot over the din.

Even in the midst of a maelstrom, the three females managed a split second knowing glance.
Men!

“That’s because you’re not a girl. We know everything about hair,” said Rayna.

Suddenly, no more proof was needed.
 

Ahmed whipped around and launched a grenade right at the chopper.

The chopper dropped quickly but the explosive hit its rotors. The pilot tried to keep the chopper airborne but it was a losing battle.

Thank God it was only a twenty-foot drop so damage was minimal. Rayna and Chuck clambered out, trying to see where the terrorist siblings were.

There was no sign of them, but another grenade was coming straight for them. Rayna and Chuck leapt to the side only to have another miniature bomb come sailing at them. While they were able to avoid direct hits by the explosives, not so for the flying debris caused by the grenades. Bits of metal sped at them, searing their skin with blazing heat. Needles of pain shot through their systems as fragments landed on their arms.

Rayna and Chuck dared not fire back. Fatima and Ahmed were now imbedded with the fans and they couldn’t risk stray shots accidentally killing any of them.

Suddenly, Lena and Jennah started running into the bleachers, hell bent on revenge.

“Don’t!” yelled Rayna as she began chasing after them, but the sisters were not to be denied.

Ahmed lobbed a grenade at them. Rayna leapt and snatched it out of the air. Landing back on her feet, she tossed it high in the air away from the crowd. The deadly aerial blast was beautiful as it lit up the bit of sky.

Less than a dozen feet away now, Jennah’s eyes were full of fury and tears as she made her way to her rapist. “How could you? How could you?” she wailed.

Fatima whipped out a gun, set her sights on the child and began squeezing the trigger.

BANG! Before Fatima could complete the action, Rayna fired a bullet into the center of her forehead.

Lena was now on top of Ahmed, pounding and pounding away. Chuck set his pistol’s sights on the terrorist, waiting for a clear shot while Rayna ducked out of sight and began snaking herself toward Jennah.

“STOP!” yelled Ahmed. He lifted Lena up with one hand in front of his body as a human shield while his other hand fingered the pin on another grenade.

Chuck froze.

“Put your weapons down or I will blow us all up,” threatened Ahmed.

“Don’t hurt her,” said Chuck as he slowly laid his weapon down.

“Now I am going to leave the stadium. Do not follow me. I have another six grenades on me. If I pull the pin on the one I am holding, who knows how many more casualties there will be?”

“I know,” called Jennah from the side.
 

Ahmed gave a quick glance in Jennah’s direction.

That moment was all Rayna needed. She leapt up and fired. The bullet landed in the same spot in Ahmed’s head as the shot she fired into Fatima’s.
 

As Ahmed started crumbling, Chuck rocketed over, catching his toppling body just before it hit the pavement. The soft landing prevented any grenades from detonating.

Inhaling and exhaling quickly, the Fidelitas team just sat down and let the madness around them go on. They sat there silently while the SWAT team, bomb squad, FBI, and Homeland Security did their jobs.

Finally, Rayna opened her mouth, gazing at the two young sisters whose lives were eternally scarred with unspeakable atrocities at an age when they should just be playing with dolls.

“It’s done. The monsters are dead.”

Somehow, no one was in the mood to celebrate.

Epilogue
 

At San Francisco’s Evergreen Golf Club, Muhammad and Tariq shared a quiet plate of kebabs, hummus and tomato salad.

“It’s not over,” said Muhammad, chewing thoughtfully on his cube of lamb.

“No, it’s just the beginning,” agreed Tariq.

“Contemporary radicalism. It will work if the right people are found.”

“It will work
when
the right people are found. Like your daughters and mine,” said Tariq.
 

“Or maybe just you and me.”

THE END
 
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