BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (3 page)

The drone of the plane behind him increased in pitch. Jake twisted in his harness to get a better look. The Pitts accelerated as it skimmed over the water. It was headed straight for him. It didn’t take a genius to calculate that the plane would be on him before he completed his descent. He pulled down on the starboard riser, twisting to face the approaching plane. With both hands on the risers, he fought to maintain his position against the offshore wind.

At three seconds before impact, Jake was sixty feet over the water. The Pitts streaked straight at him.

Two seconds. 

Now!

Jake dropped his hands and snapped open the chute’s quick-release levers. He slipped out of the harness and fell like a stone.

Before he hit the water, Jake saw the Pitts veer sharply away from the collapsing chute. It headed directly toward Francesca’s school.

**

Francesca knew better than to hesitate when she received Jake’s mental warning. “Bradley,” she said as she raced over and pulled the red fire alarm on the wall. “Get the kids out of the building now!” She grabbed her cell phone from the desk, punched in 911, and rushed into the hallway. Sarafina was at her side.

With the phone clasped to her ear, Francesca shoved open the door to the next classroom. The startled teacher and children were lined up at the window. “Quickly,” Francesca shouted, her voice controlled but urgent. “Outside.
Now
. This is not a drill.” 

Before she could elaborate, the emergency operator came on the line. “Nine-one-one. State the nature of your emergency.”

Francesca turned her back to the class. She cupped her hand over the phone. “I’m calling from the Hathaway Middle School. There’s a bomb in the building. This is real. Get here fast!”  She snapped the phone closed, took Sarafina by the hand, and ran to the next classroom.

**

Jake’s head broke the surface of the water. He took a huge gasp of air, ripped off his leather helmet, kicked off his flight boots, and broke for the shoreline fifty yards away. He saw the Pitts circle toward the school.

Jake’s brain kicked his muscles into afterburner. The crests of the breaking waves in front of him seemed to suddenly move in slow motion. Licks of foam reached upward like rising oil in a lava lamp. A pair of surfers sat on their boards, their mouths agape as Jake sliced through the water. It must have looked to them like a fast-forward video of Michael Phelps at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Jake embraced the changes that had occurred to his brain. A freak accident during an earthquake had caused the MRI scanner he was in to go haywire and send him into a seizure, giving him incredible mental and physical capabilities afterward. One of the most shocking changes was the ability to move very fast for short periods of time. Like the burst of strength a parent might find to lift a car to save their child, it seemed Jake was able to call upon that ability at will. The accident had also sent his terminal cancer into what he prayed was a permanent remission.

As soon as Jake’s knees scraped the sand, he peeled off his soggy socks and charged toward the rocky escarpment that hugged the coastline. The incline was steep. He scrambled upward on all fours as sharp-edged rocks cut into his feet. He ignored the pain, but the swim to shore had sapped his reserves. His heart raced like a machine gun. He couldn’t seem to draw enough air into his lungs to keep up with the demand for oxygen. A wave of dizziness assaulted him.

But he refused to slow. The ridgeline was just ahead. Jake pulled himself over the edge and pushed to his feet. He was at the edge of the hillside neighborhood that fronted the school. A quarter-mile to go. He looked up at the plane circling over the school. Jake knew in his gut that Tariq was watching him. Taunting him.

He sprinted toward the road, his bleeding feet slapping painfully against the concrete. The wings of the Pitts wagged in the universal sign of acknowledgment.

Then it dipped from view.

A moment later there was a huge explosion over the ridge. From his vantage point, Jake could see only the top edge of the fireball that rose over the rooftops in front of him. Chunks of debris spewed into the sky.

“Noooo!” Jake screamed.

Chapter 5

Hathaway Middle School

Malaga Cove, California

T
he children had practiced the fire drill many times. By the time Francesca and Sarafina reached the third classroom, the rest of the doorways had opened. Children filed out just as they had been taught.

Once outside, Francesca urged the principal to escort the children into the street across from the schoolyard. Jake still circled the school above them in the Pitts. She dialed his number for the third time, wondering why he wouldn’t pick up.

It was then that she noticed Josh was missing.

Per l’amore del Dio!

She took off running toward the school. Bradley caught up to her, grabbing her arm. “Where the hell are you going?” 

“It’s Josh. He’s still inside!”

Bradley scanned the crowd of children across the street. Josh was not among them. A dog barked. Bradley turned to see Max rushing toward them from the school. The leather handle of his guide harness flopped against his back.

“Stay here!” Bradley shouted to Francesca. He handed her Max’s harness. “Hold him.”

Francesca kneeled on the grass, her arm around Max’s neck, and pulled him close. They were both shaking as they watched Bradley run across the schoolyard and disappear into the building.

Thirty seconds later, the building exploded. The blast wave knocked her on her back, sucking the wind from her lungs. She shielded her face as small bits of debris rained down around her. Max whimpered at her side and licked her face. She struggled to her feet, her ears ringing. The world was a blur. Max pressed against her, urging her away from the heat of the burning building. She staggered back toward the street and the crowd of stunned children and teachers.

Sarafina ran to her side. She wrapped her arms around Francesca’s waist and Francesca could feel her little body trembling.

Francesca looked up at Jake’s plane. It was lower now. She appealed to him with her mind: 
We need you.
She hoped he could sense her thoughts. He’d been able to do that sometimes since the accident.

As if in response, the plane descended toward them. It appeared as if it was going to land. Children and teachers scattered to either side of the street.

When the plane touched down, Francesca and Sarafina ran toward it. The rest of the class followed.

**

Jake sped up the street toward the school. His brain screamed warnings. His body would give out any second. He ignored it by allowing images of Francesca to fill his mind. A wave of despair assaulted him. He had worried from the onset that a romantic relationship with her would put a target on her back. But in a moment of weakness—after their impossible escape from death at the hands of the terrorist Battista—he’d given in to his heart, to the joy in her eyes when she discovered he was alive, to the softness of her touch, her lips…He had woken the next morning steeped in guilt. Not because he didn’t care about her, but because he realized she had become the lever that his enemies could use to cut him the deepest. Though she’d returned with Jake and his friends to California—needing desperately to leave the memories and potential threats of Venice behind her—Jake had kept her and Sarafina close enough to watch over. But not so close as to place them in danger.

Or so he had hoped.

Houses rushed past him. Startled neighbors came out of their homes and pointed to the smoke up ahead. He faltered when he saw the Pitts descend toward the school. He would have expected Tariq to use the opportunity to flee...

Unless something had gone wrong with Tariq’s plan.

Unless the explosion failed to kill Francesca and the children.

Jake pushed harder.

He was a hundred fifty yards away when he saw the plane touch down on the cliffside road abutting the school. Children scattered to clear a path as the plane slowed to a stop. Jake saw Francesca and her students pressing toward it. They were led by the barking golden retriever that he knew was Max.

They think it’s me.

Everything seemed to slow. External sounds faded. Jake’s aural senses filled with the solid thumps of his heart, each one stretched in time. His vision tunneled to the scene now one hundred yards before him. And getting closer.

Using the pop-out step on the side of the Pitts closest to the cliff, Tariq climbed down from the cockpit. He made his way toward the tail of the plane, his helmet still on. The detonator was in his hand.

Jake saw Max rush toward the terrorist, his tail wagging wildly in greeting. Francesca, Sarafina, and the rest of the children were less than twenty yards behind.

Jake tried to send a warning thought toward Francesca, but his brain wouldn’t cooperate over the repeated alarms it received from his screaming heart.

Fifty yards to go.

Tariq rounded the tail of the plane.

Faster.

Max slid to a halt ten feet in front of the terrorist. His head cocked to one side, ears forward, his tail straight back.

Tariq hesitated.

Max inched backward, body lowered, ears back, shackles up. A low growl escaped his bared teeth. Francesca stopped abruptly behind him, her arms stretched to either side to prevent the children from running past.

Thirty yards.

Tariq’s gaze fixed on Francesca and the children. He slowly raised his hand. The aluminum detonator glinted in the sun. His mouth stretched in a grin.

Jake leaped through the air, his inhuman speed eating up the final few yards in an instant. The tackle pushed Tariq off his feet. The detonator flew from his hand and skittered across the pavement. Shocked recognition spread across Tariq’s face just before his lower back impacted the guardrail. His arms flailed, then he tumbled backward over the rail and down the rocky slope.

Jake’s shoulder hit the rail, and shockwaves of pain radiated through his system. He collapsed to his knees on the pavement, his head spinning. His chest heaved as he gasped to gather oxygen into his system. He wanted to collapse, but there was one last thing he had to do. He crawled several feet, grabbed the detonator, and threw the switch.

The explosion echoed from the canyon below. Jake’s sigh of relief was stifled by a sharp agonizing pain in his chest.

The last thing he remembered was the odd sensation of a tongue licking his face.

Then nothing.

Chapter 6

Torrance, California

T
he midsized warehouse was indistinguishable from the dozens of others in the industrial zone between Alaska Avenue and Maple in Torrance. Situated just two blocks from the city center and police headquarters, the well-kept industrial district was home to high-tech manufacturing and service firms willing to pay a premium for the convenient low-crime location.

It had been a fairly simple matter for Abbas to acquire the stand-alone facility. The location at the end of a quiet dead-end street made it perfect for his needs. It had been all too easy to make the deal. As soon as the seller discovered it was an all-cash offer, he’d risen from the bargaining table and shaken the hand of the well-dressed businessman across from him.

These Americans have much to learn, thought Abbas. It will be my pleasure to teach them. He was perched on the second-floor balcony fronting his office that overlooked the factory floor. With his olive Brooks Brothers suit, groomed dark hair, and soft-spoken manner, he’d perfected his role as an educated owner of this high-tech startup. He’d learned that appearances and mannerisms could be easily adopted to fool the most astute observer, even when the polished image belied the true nature of the man behind it.

He was proud of who he was beneath the disguise. His men had nicknamed him The Lion when he was a young man growing up in his mountain village in Afghanistan. The speed and agility of his wiry frame had earned him a reputation as a vicious and undefeated fighter, one both feared and admired. In those moments when he lowered his current façade, his eyes had been likened to those of a cobra ready to strike.

The short, sallow-faced man who stood beside him now didn’t seem affected by Abbas’s reputation, even as Abbas’s knuckles whitened around the balcony rail. “Tariq was a fool!”

“Of that, there can be no doubt,” the sixty-year-old Iraqi said with an irritating calmness. Kadir was no stranger to Abbas’s outbursts. He wore a white lab coat over gray slacks and a collared blue shirt. Thick-framed glasses perched on a bulbous nose. His thinning silver hair was slicked back behind a high forehead, and his bi-focal lenses made his seemingly lifeless eyes bulge to triple their size.