The result was pandemonium.
People screamed and ran in all directions. Even before the hapless guard hit the ground, the two terrorists sprinted up the stairs directly toward Nash. Bishop and Eva were yelling in his earpiece but he couldn’t focus on them, he had more pressing concerns.
Reluctant to take a shot with the scrambling crowds crisscrossing his line of sight, Nash did the only thing he could think of. He ran towards the terrorists. Sprinting down the stairs, he dropped his shoulder and rammed into Double Denim like a linebacker. Nash grappled for the semi-automatic Beretta in her right hand as she went sprawling backwards.
All Nash could hear was Eva in his ear screaming, “What the fuck are you doing?”
She had a point.
As the woman reeled backwards down the stairs Nash’s left hand removed the magazine From of the semi-auto and pushed the slide against his thigh to eject the live round. His right hand moved like lightning, grasping one side of the woman’s denim jacket while she was in mid-air and giving it a yank. She twirled like a demented tango dancer, and relinquished her hold on the pistol as her jacket unbuttoned to reveal a succession of vertically placed sticks of explosive with what Nash guessed were bags of ball bearings strapped to the outside.
Landing on the back of her head, she bounced down a succession of stairs, finally coming to a halt, her eyes open and glazed. Out cold.
Ignoring Nash’s actions, Red Jacket sprinted up a set of stairs to his right, fighting through the crowd, which surged downward in panic at the sound of the gunshots. Eva came down the set of stairs to the left. The terrorist held aloft a gun to keep his path upwards clear.
A series of wires snaked their way to the inside pocket of Double Denim’s jacket. Nash carefully extracted a handmade switch made from a household light switch. Inhaling deeply, he gave the whole mechanism a yank, separating it from the explosives.
Eva leaned over his shoulder and asked, “How did you know it wouldn’t set the whole thing off?”
“I didn’t,” Nash said coming to an uncomfortable realisation.
“Good. Just as long as this isn’t a slapdash operation.” She hit her comms device. “One down. Bishop, Red Jacket heading your way.”
“I see him.”
Confirming Double Denim was indeed still out, Nash searched her, finding no more weapons. Eva checked the security guard for a pulse and gave a grave shake of her head. They bounded up the stairs, following the route Red Jacket had forged through the crowd. Eva followed with Double Denim’s suicide jacket in hand.
It wasn’t easy going. The weapons fire had caused panic, and everyone on the immense structure was fighting to leave at the same time. The guns in their hands helped clear the way, as did Eva’s shouts of, “Police! Move, you cunts!”
Nash’s first question was, Why hasn’t he detonated his bomb? Red Jacket had had ample time to explode his own vest but hadn’t. When they reached the next landing Nash had his answer.
The man’s jacket was wide open, the explosives strapped to his chest on display for all to see. Streams of panicked New Yorkers stampeded past the instigator of their terror, oblivious. He was fumbling with the wires, shoving them into the light switch, which had detached from the main device. It must have dislodged as he jostled his way up the stairs, and now he was frantically trying to reconnect them.
Inside The Vessel was a labyrinth of interconnected stairwells snaking their way ever higher. The streams of frightened civilians flooded past, more concerned with the possibility of an active shooter than a man with a vest.
Seeing Eva and Nash approaching, Red Jacket stepped back and yelled, “I’ll detonate it! Stand back!”
Holding one palm up to appear less of a threat, the gun behind his back, Nash said, “You’re being lied to.” He raised his voice to be heard over the panicked crowd streaming past. “You’re not following orders from your cell leader. You’re being used. What you’re doing has nothing to do with Yemen independence. Your organisation won’t claim this as a major victory because they know nothing about it. You’re going to kill all these people for nothing.”
The momentary pause didn’t last long.
“You’re the liar!”
Nash could see a fraction of doubt creeping in, but realised it wouldn’t be enough. The man was a zealot. It would take a long time to convince him, and as Red Jacket fumbled with the wires Nash realised it was time he didn’t have.
In a low voice, Eva said, “We can just shoot him.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I rather would,” Eva replied matter-of-factly. “If it’s the difference between him and everyone else.”
To emphasise the point, she extracted her Desert Eagle, which only spooked Red Jacket all the more.
“Not helping.”
The crowd had thinned, with only stragglers flooding past them. Red Jacket stripped a piece of wire with his teeth and was anxiously stabbing it into the switch, his shaking hands making the task all the more difficult. They were running out of time and options. The structure was almost cleared. Bishop was somewhere above, though Nash couldn’t be sure where.
“I have a clear shot,” Bishop’s disembodied voice said in Nash’s ear, as if reading his mind.
“I just had that same conversation with your partner,” Nash replied as quietly as he could to avoid alarming Red Jacket any more than he had to. “We’re avoiding it if we can.”
“Fine.” Bishop’s voice suggested it was anything but. The sound of movement filled Nash’s earpiece. “Get ready.”
“For what?”
The answer came from the most unexpected place. Bishop, replete in his three-piece suit, leapt from the level above, aimed directly at Red Jacket. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Bishop’s suit fluttering as he dropped like a stone, steely-eyed determination on his chiselled face.
His leather boots landing on the terrorist’s shoulders, Bishop knocked him forward as he landed awkwardly with a strained grunt.
Wasting no time, Nash wrestled the suicide vest from the dazed Red Jacket, who sported a bleeding gash on his forehead. In seconds, he’d stripped him of his devastating device. The mass of wires he’d been so focused on were yanked from his disorientated hand. Groggily, Red Jacket looked at the vest and the detonating wires in Nash’s hand and swiped at them, but was too far away to get anywhere near them. He’d lost, his false mission a failure.
Ignoring the groans emanating from Bishop, Nash raised his gun and yelled, “Stay where you are!”
Red Jacket did not stay where he was. In fact, he did the opposite of staying where he was. He leapt over the railing onto the landing below.
“I need a little help.”
Bishop didn’t need just a little help, he needed a lot. Both his legs were splayed at unnatural angles and he was wincing in pain. Eva darted to his side.
