But with forty metres to go, the two men had turned and were going into the hut. They had definitely seen him. Joe forced himself to move even faster. After another ten seconds he had burst through the door of the hut, weapon in hand. The place stank greasily of aviation fuel. One of the men had a telephone to his ear, the other was just standing in the middle of the hut, frozen with fear.
‘ Get on the fucking floor! ’ Joe roared, aiming his pistol first at one man, then the other. ‘ On the fucking floor, now! ’
Both men dropped to the ground.
There was no time to restrain them. Joe had to put them out of action, and fast. He turned the gun round to hold it by its barrel, then slammed the grip down on the back of each man’s head, knocking them out cold.
Joe straightened up. He could hear the tinny, urgent sound of a man’s voice from the telephone handset. He ignored it as he slipped his bag from his shoulder and took out the components of the sniper rifle. He fitted these together, each section clunking solidly into its neighbour until, fifteen seconds later, the weapon was ready to use. He pulled out the ammunition and loaded up, then looked once more around the hut. A steel cabinet standing against one wall, lockable but open, contained six keys hanging on hooks. Joe grabbed them all. The rest of the hut was a jumble of tools, jerrycans, greasy rags – everything needed to keep the fuel trucks on the road. Stashed in one corner were five handheld air-traffic-control beacons, each a couple of feet in length. Joe grabbed one and, beacon in one hand, sniper rifle in the other, ran back outside.
He knew he had less than a minute – the alarm had been raised by a phone call – and although the Agusta was still circling, it would be heading in his direction any moment. Joe sprinted towards one of the fuel trucks. A dial on the back indicated that it was three quarters full. He ran round to the cab, laid his rifle on the tarmac and jumped up into the driver’s seat, pulling the keys from his pocket one by one and trying them in the ignition. The engine started on his fifth attempt. Joe pressed his foot on the brake, then knocked the automatic gearbox into drive.
The sound of sirens reached him. He blocked them from his mind as, foot still awkwardly pressed on the brake, he manoeuvred himself into a position half in, half out of the cab, clutching the beacon and preparing to jam it against the accelerator.
A hundred metres away, a plane was turning onto the runway, and the Agusta was suddenly changing course.
Heading in his direction.
He pressed the beacon against the accelerator and released the break. The truck slid forward. With a sharp jab, he forced the opposite end of the beacon against the front of the driver’s seat and let go.
The truck continued to move.
Joe jumped out.
As he ran back to the sniper rifle, the air was filled with a riot of noise: the sirens were getting louder, the engines of the aircraft were rising in pitch as it prepared for take-off, the rush of the Agusta’s rotors was getting nearer. Joe flung himself on the ground, grabbed the rifle and took up the firing position.
The fuel truck was accelerating towards the plane that had stopped at the end of the runway in advance of take-off. It was twenty metres away – then thirty – heading at right angles towards the runway. Joe was right in the zone. There was no longer any panic or fear. Just a ruthless, clear-headed determination. He had to turn this truck into a moving fireball. It was his only chance of seeding panic in the international air-traffic control network. His only chance of keeping flights on the ground.
He fired a single shot into the truck’s massive fuel tank. He didn’t expect an explosion at first, even with this HEI round. Aviation fuel was not as flammable as regular petrol, and even that was difficult to explode without a bit of help. Unless he got oxygen into the tank, the plan was fucked.
The Agusta was directly over the moving truck. He heard a strident voice coming from a loudspeaker. ‘ Stand away from your weapon! Stand away from your weapon! ’
The truck had swerved. It was heading towards the aircraft standing at the end of the runway. Joe fired a second round. He saw it impacting, but there was no explosion.
The Agusta was touching down, just fifteen metres to his right. He had one more chance. One more shot.
He fired.
An immense explosion was followed by a massive fireball of orange flame and black smoke. The blast knocked the fuel truck onto its side and boomed out over all the other noises. The ground shook. The heat radiated towards Joe’s face – a harsh burning that he felt singe his hair and skin. Immediately he rolled away from the rifle, flinging his hands up to his head. The noise all around was deafening – from the Agusta’s rotors, the burning truck, the sirens on two airport security vehicles as they roared up and came to a halt just metres from where he was lying.
In seconds he was surrounded. Five flak-jacketed armed police with MP5s dug into their shoulders, the barrels pointing directly at Joe, each of them screaming instructions at him: ‘ Don’t move! Keep your hands on your head! ’ Two more officers arrived. They rolled Joe onto his belly and jerked his hands behind his back. He felt cold metal against his wrists as they cuffed him.
He started to shout. ‘ Listen to me! You’ve got to listen to me! Ground all flights! ’
But the only response was rough hands pulling him to his feet. ‘We know who you are! Get into the fucking chopper now…’
‘ Listen to me! Listen! ’
But nobody listened. They just shoved him, stumbling, through the downdraft of the helicopter and into its body. The MP5 barrels didn’t deviate. The shouting didn’t stop.
‘ There’s going to be an attack! I know which planes! I know which fucking planes! ’
‘Shut him up!’ roared a voice.
Joe felt a boot in his stomach knock the wind from his lungs. He tried to shout again, to tell them, but it was no good. Now he couldn’t even speak.
The chopper was already lifting off.
He’d failed.
It was five minutes to ten.
0455 hours EST.
At Tampa International there were no signs that any of the passengers for flight number AA346 knew there was anything wrong. They had filed from the gate and into the waiting buses without comment. If any of them thought it unusual that the airport had laid on three buses and that each person had a seat, rather than being packed into one vehicle as was the norm, they didn’t mention it. And since they were all looking out of the side windows at the lights twinkling in the early-morning darkness, they did not notice that the buses moved nose to tail, just a couple of metres apart.
The convoy trundled in a straight line north from the gate. Those passengers on the right-hand side of the buses saw, approximately thirty metres to their right, a vast aircraft hangar, 200 metres long, ninety wide, fifteen high. Its steel doors were closed and they remained so until, in perfect synchronization, all three buses turned ninety degrees clockwise.
They accelerated. The hangar doors slid open. Inside each bus, two men stood up. They all wore sports jackets which they unzipped to reveal blue flak jackets with ‘FBI’ emblazoned on the front. ‘Federal officers,’ they yelled. ‘Stay in your seats and put your hands on your heads. Stay in your seats and put your hands on your heads! ’
Confusion. Anxious, alarmed faces. Sitting in the back row of the bus that had been at the head of the convoy and which was now on the left as they sped, three abreast, towards the hangar, a woman who looked Middle Eastern slowly put her hands on her head. Her bag was nestled firmly on her lap. Her eyes flickered down towards it, and then in the direction of an FBI officer who had drawn a Glock 22 and was still yelling.
Читать дальше