Bishop's War (Bishop Series Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter 10

Always a Green Beret

Maria was going
dress shopping with her mother and the newly-engaged couple planned to meet for dinner around seven. John called Felix and met him at his apartment on East 9th Street. When John told him about the wedding plans Felix immediately grabbed him in a tight head lock.

“It’s about fuckin’ time, man. That woman is a saint and she’s finer than Beyonce, J Lo, and Halle Berry all rolled into one. You know, she hasn’t gone on a single date in the three years you’ve been gone. I don’t know why, but Maria’s always loved you, man.”

John slipped out of the hold, pulled Felix’s arm up behind his back and flipped him lightly onto the rug.

“You’re getting soft, Cat. You been sparring against little kids?”

“I don’t wanna send you back to Maria all broken and bruised. Plus, I figure I owe you for last night.”

“Owe me for what?”

“Man, you had all those chicas at your party primed and ready. When you left with Maria there was nothing left but drunk, jealous, horny women. You used to be my cousin, my brother. Now I’m just gonna call you my fluffer!”

“So I guess you did your duty and took care of ‘em all.”

“To the best of my ability, son,” Felix said, giving a mock salute. “Calixto has a big house and I left wet spots all over it. I’m drained, bro. I got to Angie last and she wore my ass out.”

“She’s a big girl.”

“Yeah she is, but big girls need love too, and whenever I drink I tend to go heavy. I’ll tell you one thing, whoever ends up with that heifer is gonna need steroids and Viagra mixed in with their cornflakes just to keep up. That woman is no joke.”

“Sounds like marriage material.”

“I could do worse. Hey, you remember that big sister who ran the laundry on Avenue D?”

“You’re talking about Willemina? Now that woman was huge. Looked like she had bowling balls in her bra, and that ass. Yikes.”

“Well, I used to jerk off to that hefalo every night before I went to sleep.”

“Yeah, I remember you making love to your tube socks all the time. Didn’t know it was big Willemina making you rub yourself raw.”

“Yeah it was, asshole. Anyway, Angie reminds me of her.”

“Whatever makes you happy, primo.”

They laughed and talked some more and decided to have a fancy brunch to celebrate. They headed to Blue Water Grill at Union Square Park and passed through the basketball courts in Tompkins Square on the way.

“Remember how I used to light your ass up out here when we were kids?” asked Felix.

“You know you never came close to beating me, and I used to let you score just to keep it interesting.”

They borrowed a ball and John put on a dribbling exhibition in front of Felix, who kept lunging for steals. John had been a real magician when it came to hoops, but hadn’t played in years.

Putting the ball effortlessly through his legs and behind his back while Felix kept reaching, John said, “Speaking of name changes, Cat just doesn’t fit anymore. You’re looking real slow and sloppy out here, Dancing Bear.”

“I’ll let you dribble all day long, but you ain’t gonna score.”

“You know, I just realized something,” John said, still quickly moving the ball from hand to hand.

“What’s that?”

“I’m jealous of you.”

“That’s understandable.”

“No seriously. I can’t see myself play. I’m jealous cause you get to watch me.”

“Whatever,” Felix said, rolling his eyes.

“So, tell me the truth. All those times I busted your ass, was it as good for you as it was for me?” As he finished his question, John lifted off the ground from twenty three feet out, and in one smooth motion effortlessly shot the ball over Felix’s outstretched hand. With perfect rotation and a high arch it sailed into the hoop, ripping through the net.

“Why punish yourself like this?”

“Asshole.”

“By the way, you’re my best man at the wedding.”

They left the court with their arms over each other’s shoulders and walked the ten blocks to the restaurant. They toasted the upcoming wedding, tossed back fresh oysters, and ate steamed lobsters. After the meal they stepped out into the bright afternoon sun and onto the crowded sidewalk facing the park.

“I need a new pair of sneakers,” Felix said. “Wanna walk me to Paragons?”

“Think I’ll just wander around the market till you get back. I’ll stay in this area, but call me if you can’t find me in the crowd.”

Amir Khan was restless and full of nervous energy as he sat in the cab next to Blue Water Grill. He saw the two men exit the tall front doors of the restaurant. He could only see his profile, but the one with the crew cut was vaguely familiar. He couldn’t remember where he’d seen him; just that something about the guy bothered him. It nagged at Amir for a moment, then he dismissed it and focused his attention back on the mission. His teams were in place by now and his palms were wet with anticipation.

Man he was feeling good. The sun was shining, people were laughing, and he finally felt right again with Felix. Best of all he had Maria back. And, oh yeah, he was out of the army and getting married. Take his night in jail off the table, and it was one hell of a home coming.

Looking at all the afternoon shoppers he was amazed at the amount of children. There were boys and girls riding on their fathers’ shoulders and mothers pushing strollers everywhere. It made him realize for the first time in his life how badly he wanted his own kids.

Soon
, he thought.

John was happily strolling from stall to stall when the hair on the back of his neck stood up and alarm bells suddenly began ringing loudly in his head. His “Spidey Sense” as he called it had saved him countless times against unseen enemies, and it was now telling him that he was once again in harm’s way. Hearing the laughter of children and seeing all the smiling faces around him he thought he must be imagining things and tried to dismiss it.

Probably just decompressing from
combat
.

He slowed his breathing and did a three hundred and sixty degree scan of the area, then shrugged. “I’m losing it,” he said aloud a split second before he spotted two men standing rock still in the middle of the moving crowd. They were both wearing matching black long sleeve jackets, which was odd for such a warm day and their weathered skin and thick beards reminded John of the Taliban soldiers he had just been fighting against. One of the men had his head down and seemed to be talking to himself while the other was nervously looking about.

These guys were wrong. John edged closer. Moving casually with the flow of tourists and shoppers, he angled his way towards the two men. He stopped a few feet behind them, but kept his back turned and pretended to be reading a text message on his phone. He did his best to tune out the background noise and zero in on what the bearded Muslim was saying. John immediately recognized the man was speaking in Dari and realized he wasn’t talking to himself, but reciting an excerpt from the Koran. John turned slightly to get a peripheral view. He stayed relaxed when he saw the hand held detonator and the wires running up into the sleeve of the terrorist’s jacket. The other man had an unzipped bag at his feet and John could see the butt of an automatic weapon poking out of the top.

Most suicide bombers act alone. After a few had been stopped and overwhelmed by crowds before they could blow themselves up there were now instances of two man teams. One is the bomber and the other acts as security, ready to shoot down any good Samaritans that try to intervene.

What made the scene so incredible was that no one else noticed or paid any attention to these guys. People were just walking by and standing next to two suicide bombers in the middle of downtown Manhattan!

John was glad that no one noticed. If someone shouted an alarm the crowd would panic and the terrorist would release the trigger and detonate. John knew he had to act fast.

Retired or not, civilian or not, he would always be a Green Beret. He took the Swiss Army knife he always carried out of his pocket, opened the blade, and slid in behind his two targets. He didn’t hesitate. His body coiled like a spring, from two feet away he exploded forward with deadly speed and precision, plunging the knife into the back of the security guard’s neck. The blade entered right above the shoulders, severing the spinal cord so swiftly and forcefully that the man was dead before he could make a sound.

The bomber was unaware of what just happened and was finishing his final prayer when he saw his partner fall forward. His mouth shot open and his eyes bulged wide with surprise. They bulged even wider when John hit him with the same knife blow from behind, instantly killing him where he stood.

He knew the dead man would spasm so he grabbed the hand with the detonating button before the terrorist’s thumb released the trigger. Holding on tight, John fell to the ground with the body.

Dozens of people had just seen two men killed in broad daylight. They screamed and ran in panic.

“He killed them! He killed them!” one hysterical woman shouted as she charged through the crowd.

In the sea of human chaos John stayed cool. Holding firmly onto the firing button, he pulled open the dead terrorist’s jacket to make sure there were no trip wires or booby traps that would detonate the thick wads of plastic explosive strapped to the body.

As an 18C SF weapons sergeant John was familiar with all types of ordinance. Tuning out the noise around him, he focused on disarming the device. The mechanism was a simple yet lethal design. You hold the four inch tubular device in the palm of your hand with your thumb depressing a button at one end. When the button is released the bomb goes off. This ensures that if the bomber is shot, or killed before detonating the device himself, it will automatically go off when his fingers relax. If John hadn’t grabbed the terrorist’s hand and held the trigger down in the same instant that he killed him they both would have been blown to bits along with hundreds of innocent people.

The wires ran up the limp arm and into the back of the vest-like rig. He took his time examining each wire and then double checked before he cut the lead from the pack, making the button in the firing tube useless. He looked down at the long brick shaped strips of C4, or plastic explosive. Each “wad” had small ball bearings, marbles and nails imbedded in it, as did the vest itself. The bomb was designed to kill and maim. He estimated that everyone within thirty yards would have been dead or seriously injured.

“Jesus,” he said.

John stood up and looked around. Although some of the crowd had run far away from the grisly scene many remained close by. They stared at him and the lifeless bodies at his feet with morbid fascination. Both terrorists had blood pools expanding outwards around their heads and people were actually standing there taking pictures and phone videos. Ignoring them, he reached into the black nylon bag and removed the AK-47. After checking the clip, he turned the selector to semi-automatic and cocked the weapon.

That got everyone moving. He felt, no he knew, that these two Afghans were not alone and people were stopping after fleeing only a short distance. They still weren’t far enough away to be out of danger so he said, “fuck it,” then fired four shots into the air. He watched with satisfaction as the crowd let out a collective scream and took off running for their lives.

His yellow eyes were scanning the area for threats when he recognized the familiar echo of a nine millimeter pistol. In the fraction of a second it took his brain to process the situation, he recognized that his attacker was an excellent marksman. After the first two rounds hit the pavement at his feet, the shooter quickly adjusted fire sending the next shots whizzing by John’s head.

In one fluid motion John crouched, turned to his left with the rifle pressed to his shoulder, got the sights on his target, and fired a quick three shot burst. The terrorist was mostly concealed behind a cab twenty yards away. John knew he couldn’t shoot through the engine block, so he aimed above it, sending rounds tearing through the top of the hood. He fired four more times and heard the grunt of a man who had just been hit and hurt.

The terrorist stood up and John was about to finish him off when two things stopped him in his tracks. The first and craziest was that he knew this guy. He didn’t actually know who he was, yet there was no mistaking the face. It was the same long nosed asshole from jail who’d spit at him.

“No way,” John said.

The second thing was the police officer standing behind him, screaming at the top of lungs. “Okay Mohammed, drop the weapon! Police! Drop your weapon!”

John watched the man who launched a loogie at him two days before and who shot at him just now run off holding his side as he slowly lowered the AK to the ground.

“Officer, I’m Sergeant John Bishop, U.S. Special Forces,” he said, turning to face the officer who was screaming at him.

“Stand still! Don’t fuckin’ move! Put your hands behind your head!”

“Officer, these two dead guys were suicide bombers planning to blow up the market. I put them down.”

Police officer Louis Johnson Jr. was shaking from the rage and adrenaline running through him. His father was a firefighter who died on 9/11 and he joined the force right after he buried his dad. Like most New Yorkers, and more importantly, anyone who’d taken a personal loss on that terrible Tuesday morning in September, he’d always dreamt of revenge. He now had what he thought was a live terrorist in his cross hairs.

Louie heard what John was saying, but the words didn’t match up with what he was seeing. First of all, the guy claiming to be a Green Beret looked like an Arab and he’d just seen him shoot a machine gun in the center of Union Square Park. Louie wasn’t taking any chances.

“Last time motherfucker. Put your hands behind your head and get on your knees!”

When John slowly moved his arms up to comply, the Swiss Army knife he’d tucked in his shirt sleeve slipped out and hit the ground with a loud clack.

With the bodies in front of him, the gunpowder in the air and the sudden sound, Louie reflexively pulled the trigger just as Felix kicked his gun hand skyward. The forty caliber round passed over John’s head by less than six inches. Louie quickly turned his gun towards his attacker. Felix swiveled in with perfect balance, punched up and in and cold cocked Louie with a terrible blow to the jaw. Catching him as he went down, Felix gently laid him on the cement.