Chapter 30

James’ eyes opened wide, his pupils dilated and frantic. His vision was blurry, like he’d gone cross eyed and he struggled to focus. His sense of smell returned next. Smoke, he thought, fire… Eve. His stomach began to twist itself into knots as his faculties returned slowly. He couldn’t have been out for long, the fire was still burning unchecked, dancing toward him and his faulted vision. For a long second, James considered staying down. He wasn’t sure if his injuries were severe enough to kill him, but he hoped they were. It only seemed fair. Hadn’t he seen enough? Done enough? Hadn’t he caused enough death to earn his own? James didn’t know if he believed in a heaven or hell, but in that moment he was certain. Hell was real and it was where he was going, but he welcomed it calmly like a martyr-masochist. He’d die for his country. He’d die for his woman. He closed his eyes and hoped the flames would embrace him, but they stayed where they were, corralled by the empty blacktop surrounding the car, taunting him. The world began to fade away again and James was relieved.

Then suddenly, it all came rushing back at once. James’ eyes popped open, adrenaline surging through his veins as though it had simply taken this long to get the system running again. His feet twitched, daring him to stand. James sat up and looked down at his body. It looked like it was all there. The blood on his face and neck had begun to dry. It felt like Halloween makeup, crinkling as his skin stretched with his movements. James stood up, fists clenched, tears streaming down his face. Nothing else mattered now. I’ll end this. Then I can die. He assured himself without a hint of irony. It wasn’t that James had nothing to live for, it was deeper than that, colder than that. A man can live a lifetime without cause or reason; having nothing to live for was simply not enough to warrant dying. James, on the other hand, longed to die. He didn’t want to bare the weight of all those lives anymore, he couldn’t stand to bare the weight of Eve’s. It was time he shared the weight. It was time he shared the pain.

Minutes earlier, James could barely stand, but homicidal intent is a powerful motivator. He crossed the parking lot at a brisk pace and kicked the AK-47 away from the dead man’s hand, just in case he wasn’t as dead as he seemed, and began stripping the ammunition from his belt. He patted his other pockets and found a key ring with a single apartment key on it, nothing else. The other man’s rifle was in better condition, James picked it up and racked it, ejecting an unfired round onto the muted face of its former owner and loading another one into the chamber. He checked his pockets too, but found nothing. James then calmly crossed the street, climbed in the SUV they had arrived in. The keys were still in the ignition. He started it up and pulled out of the parking lot, headed for the highway just as the sound of sirens fell upon the smoldering scene. He pressed the pedal to the floor and clenched his teeth. He knew exactly where to go.

It took only ten minutes for James to make it to the street he’d spent twelve of his last twenty-four hours sitting in passively. If he’d only done this sooner, Eve would still be alive. James vision was still blurry, his heartbeat pounded a rhythmic drum beat into his forehead and behind his eyes. His hands, when not wrapped around the steering wheel with white knuckle intensity, were shaking and tears were streaming down his face, forming miniature canals as they met with the blood and snot that was now only creeping out of his nose. It was broken, not that he’d noticed, and his left ear drum was ruptured, but James could only see Eve’s face and nothing more. Road signs, cars, and houses passed by him like a movie he was watching in fast forward. The red Cobalt, undoubtedly manned by an agent he might even know passed by on the right just a few seconds before he pulled directly into the driveway they had been conducting surveillance on. James failed to hit the brakes quickly enough and the GMC Yukon he was driving plowed into the back of a white Honda Civic sitting in the driveway. The airbag didn’t deploy and James didn’t spend any time appreciating the favor. He climbed out of the driver’s seat and stumbled around the truck, assault rifle in hand, pockets full of magazines. His conscious mind, glaringly absent until now, screamed for him to stop but a pain unlike any James had ever known muffled its call. It was as if James was being torn apart from the inside… and yet, he felt strong for it. Stronger than he ever had.

James walked up to the door briskly, raised his right foot and brought it down with all his might just above the door handle. The wood splintered but didn’t give way. He backed up, positioned the rifle to fire, and thrust his foot into the door once more. The door cracked like thunder, but held, crushing in where his foot struck. He could hear yelling inside and as he raised his foot one more time, he heard Jack’s voice calling to him to stop from behind him. The third kick threw the door and into the wall, a man with a pistol jumped back in surprise as splinters of wood flew about and James put two 7.62 rounds into his chest. The man clutched at the wounds and collapsed into a heap, the pistol laying useless on the floor beside him. James stepped across the threshold into the house and he could hear footsteps approaching behind him quickly. He knew already that it was Jack, but it was too late to stop him. James took two more steps into the house and saw a pistol poke out from around the corner. He dove into an open door to his left and came sliding into a filthy toilet as the sound of pistol rounds hitting the walls thudded above him. He looked back toward the door just in time to see Jack’s large frame block the light from outside, a twelve gauge shotgun in hand and pointed down the hall. He pulled the trigger and James felt the discharge reverberate in his chest as a three inch slug blew most of the corner of the wall into the next room. James heard more Arabic shouting but no return fire as Jack hurried into the bathroom for cover.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jack shouted at James, looking into his eyes and clearly unsure of what he was looking at. James’ pupils were tiny and the white of his eyes had glazed over so pink they verged on red.

“They killed her. They killed everyone…” James couldn’t begin to explain what he felt. He wanted to tell Jack to leave, that it was his fight and his death to earn. He wanted to say so much, but before he could try again, more gunshots rang out. Jack ducked down instinctively, though the rounds hit the wall outside the bathroom. James got back on his feet.

“Well we’ve got a good old fashioned gun fight to focus on now,” Jack pulled a shell from his belt and slid it into the shotgun, “we can figure the rest out later.” He calmly leaned out the door and fired his shotgun three times in the direction of their enemies, however many there were. James was surprised at Jack. He wasn’t afraid at all. He didn’t have the time to admire his friend though, there were people right outside the bathroom that needed killing. He pulled the magazine from his rifle and glanced at it, half a mag, he mumbled to himself as he patted the three others crammed into his pockets. He took a deep breath, looked at Jack who nodded his understanding, and stepped out of the bathroom.

James approached the corner Jack had been punishing with his cannon and crouched down, Jack stepped out of the bathroom and took a position a few inches away from the opposite wall, making sure not to get too close as ricochets often travel along walls. James counted to three in his head before spinning into the room, finger on the trigger and begging for someone to kill, but the room was empty. James ran across it and ducked behind the breakfast bar that separated the living room they had entered from the kitchen. Jack trotted past him and with one arm flipped the coffee table up onto the couch before hunkering down behind the wood and cushions.

“I don’t suppose you came here to negotiate?” Jack spoke loudly to James, he didn’t care if they heard.

“I came here to kill them all.” James looked at Jack in the eyes and allowed no room for ambiguity.

“Well, then let’s kill them all, brother.” Jack spoke calmly. He was a killer like Black, James realized. He was lucky to have him there. “So get the fuck out here so we can kill you and go home!” He shouted at their missing opponents. The door just passed the refrigerator swung open and the clang of something metal hitting the floor in front of them met James’ ears before his eyes could make sense of what was happening.

“Flashbang!” Jack screamed, but it was too late. The brightest light James had ever seen coupled with what could only be described as an ear mutilating boom tore through the room and left James blind, deaf, and confused. He covered his head and writhed in pain, demanding his senses return to him. His vision and hearing eased back to him simultaneously, as though a fog was lifting and just beyond it was Jack, still standing and firing his shotgun, shouting something that James couldn’t make out. Jack ducked again and began refilling his weapon with shells. He looked at James and shouted some more, but James still couldn’t hear him.

“I’m fucking deaf!” James shouted in frustration as he wrapped his hands around the grip of his rifle and put his feet underneath him once more. Jack mouthed words and motioned with his rifle toward the door they were taking fire from. James was no master at reading lips, but he was pretty sure he was yelling, “shoot these sons of bitches!” James wheeled the rifle out over the breakfast bar and quickly apprised the situation; two men on the left, one on the right. He squeezed the trigger and let the fifteen rounds left in the magazine go, tearing through one of the two men on the left and possibly hitting another before he dove behind cover. James ducked back behind the thin wood of the breakfast bar and felt a tapping on the wood behind his back. He looked at Jack, he was about to pop up for another volley of rounds; it wasn’t him. James looked at the wood he was leaning on – silhouettes of daylight poured through perfectly circular holes all around him. Bullets had been flying through the wood and whizzing past him, but he couldn’t hear the gunfire. James quickly fed another magazine into the weapon and racked it, then stood and sprayed thirty rounds into the kitchen as he crossed the room and ended up behind the same makeshift cover Jack had been smart enough to throw together. He dropped the magazine and fed his second to last one into the rifle.

“Just like old times, right?” Jack yelled. James’ hearing was creeping back.

“We never got into any firefights!” James shouted back just before firing two rounds toward the counter he knew one of the remaining gunmen was hiding behind.

“Well, it’s just like the stories I tell girls about the old times,” Jack actually smiled before standing up again and firing two more huge rounds into the granite counter top, shattering the stone and throwing up clouds of dust. A hail of gunfire erupted from the door the flash bang grenade had originally come from and both men ducked back behind the couch. From the sound of them (if his ears could be trusted) it was two more men with machine guns.

“We’re probably not gonna get outta here,” James looked at Jack, a solemn understanding that death was inbound and approaching fast.

“You ever read anything by Bukowski?” Jack slumped down and loaded his last four slugs into his shotgun.

“Can’t say I have,” James replied, looking at his friend with all the gratitude his eyes could muster.

“What matters most is how we walk through the fire.” Jack quoted the author, though James would never know that. Jack’s eyes had grown distant, grey looking and James wanted to take it all back. He wanted to run away and save his friend, but it was too late. Jack stood up and fired his shotgun from the hip, hitting one man and throwing him backward into another. Jack walked out from behind the couch and fired another round, this too hitting its target and dropping a man. Another shooter popped up from behind the counter and fired, hitting Jack in the side. James fired twice, hitting the man in the neck and face just as the last shooter fired his pistol only a few feet away from Jack. The bullets entered just below his left eye and tore the back of his skull from the rest of his head on their way out. James span and fired, hitting the last gunman in the stomach, the pistol fell from his hands as the force of the rounds impacting pushed him back into the wall. James ran to Jack, but there was no reason to check for a pulse or administer first aid. He paused over his friend’s body and thanked him before checking his pockets. He took Jack’s cell phone and notebook, then stepped past him toward the whimpering man lying in a heap in the bedroom door, a pistol laying inches from his hand.

James led the limping man at gunpoint out the back door and into the garage of the adjacent house. It took ten minutes or so to silently tie the man to an office chair. James found a roll of duct tape in a drawer and used it to secure the man’s wrists to the arm rests. James knew he didn’t have long before the police would arrive, even if they had been told to steer clear of the area for the sake of their investigation. It’s hard to ignore automatic weapon fire in a residential neighborhood. Being next door would buy him some time. James grabbed a large wood saw, a pair of hedge clippers and a hammer and placed them on the bench in front of his prisoner. Then he removed the rag he’d tied around his mouth.

“You’re not going to torture me, this is America!” The man smiled nervously, as though he knew he was wrong.

“You’re going to die. That hole in your stomach is going to keep bleeding until you do. The pain is going to be excruciating.” James picked the hammer up as he spoke.

“You’ve got to get me to a hospi…” James interrupted him by slamming the hammer into the man’s knee. He felt the bone crack under the force and the man screamed. James mashed the rag into his mouth and held it there with his hands, staring into his pleading eyes.

“You’re going to tell me everything or I’m going to make your last few hours as painful as possible, do you understand?” The man nodded and James pulled the rag from his mouth.

“I don’t know anyth…” This time James interrupted him by pressing the barrel of the pistol onto the knuckle of his left pinky.

“Think carefully about your next words.” James spoke through clenched teeth. The man looked at him and gulped.

“If I tell you what you want to know, will you let me go?” James pulled the trigger, sending the man’s pinky finger flying and spraying both men with blood. The prisoner screamed and James muffled him once more with the rag.

“The statue of liberty! Okay? That’s all I know! We’re taking down the statue of liberty!” His accent hung thick on the word liberty.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” James pressed the pistol onto the index finger knuckle of the man’s other hand.

“Blueprints!” The man shouted almost too quickly to understand. “There are blue prints and plans in the house! Go! Go get them! You still have time! Just leave me here and stop them before it’s too late!” The man pleaded.

“It’s tonight?” James asked.

“It’s right now! You must go!” James lifted the rag to silence his prisoner once more, then stopped and raised the pistol instead. The man’s eyes met James’ for a split second before James squeezed the trigger. His eyes were still open, but their focus faded, then his head slumped over. James tucked the pistol into his pants and walked back out the door he’d come in. He had blueprints to find before the police got there.

Five minutes later, James was jogging through the backyards of the neighborhood, phone in hand and held to his head, shouting to Agent Black over the ambient noise of nature.

“The statue of liberty is the target! I found blue prints with weak points, the whole thing – it’s going down tonight!” James shouted into the phone. Agent Black asked no questions about the source of the information, only the pertinent facts: when, where and how. James provided all he could. When he reached the end of the street, a black town car pulled over to pick him up. A helicopter would be waiting ten minutes further down the road.

James landed on Liberty Island with tears in his eyes. He stepped off the chopper wincing, the thumping of the rotors exacerbated the pain in his ears, but that had nothing to do with the salty water lines streaming along both of his cheeks. He had lost another one, and somehow, hadn’t managed to die himself. There was nothing left to do but find the explosives. There was nothing left to do for James at all. Agent Black extended his hand and James shook it, though whatever the older agent said to him slipped by in the night air. There were men in suits and tactical gear running around them as they strolled in silence through the chaos. James didn’t know what Black knew, but it didn’t matter. There would be repercussions for his actions and James couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was already dead in so many ways, there was nothing left to do to him.

“They found one brick of the stolen C4 on the frame of the structure,” Agent Black broke the silence.

“I left the blue prints in the chopper,” James began. He’d studied them on the flight, the joists of the internal structure (which looked remarkably like the Eiffel Tower James noticed) had been marked at the weak points.

“You aren’t listening,” Agent Black stopped walking, “they only found one brick.” James didn’t understand.

“What do you mean? One brick couldn’t bring this thing down,” James began.

“It’s not a very good tactical target either,” Agent Black nodded as though they both must have already come to the same conclusion. James, though, hadn’t.

“What does that mean?” James decided to be direct. The sun had gone down and the cold December air nipped at James through the jacket he’d been given before getting in the helicopter.

“It means we keep looking.” Agent Black shrugged.

“How did you know I’d been compromised?” James wondered how much Black knew about what had just gone on at the motel.

“A picture of you with a girl in Honduras has been circulating. Our informant in Iraq sent it my way.”

“They have my real name?” James asked, suddenly worried about the family he hadn’t seen in years.

“No. It must have been Ramon. I wouldn’t suggest going by Brandon Webb again anytime soon.”

James’ stomach began to twist again. He sat down on the curb and looked out over the water toward the city. It was lit up like a Christmas tree and thriving in its ignorance. It was beautiful and sickening all at once. The American dream was out there somewhere, but it wasn’t what he thought it was. The dream was a lie, a cover story just like Brandon Webb. It was, in fact, a dream; a dream gifted to the unaware and paid for in the blood of patriots too far removed from their innocence to ever come back. James felt the weight of the pistol tucked into his pants and wondered if shooting himself would keep the men searching the statue working later than they’d have to.

“They’re throwing us off the scent…” Agent Black looked worried.

“What are you talking about?” James looked at him incredulously. Agent Black didn’t have a chance to answer, a flash of light followed by a thunderous shockwave erupted from the distant skyline. James and Black jumped to their feet, as though standing would allow them to see past the skyscrapers in their way. First, there was silence, then every cell phone and radio on the island went off in a chorus of beeps and midi-songs. Every one of them clamoring to relay the same message: Madison Square Garden had just exploded.