Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [144]
Jack couldn’t let that stop him. He dug in and continued to press the man forward, slamming Haddad into the rail. But Haddad was not an amateur. He turned as he went back, facing Jack, and brought a knee into his groin. Jack stumbled backward toward the opposite rail. The tower was slick with mist and he lost his footing. Sara screamed as Jack fell against the rail, hitting his head. Her cry kept him from losing consciousness.
Sara needed him.
But his body had had enough. It didn’t want to move.
Now Haddad was on his feet and moving toward him with feral eyes. Before he could reach Jack, Sara blindsided him, shoving him to the floor. The backpack and her bonds made it difficult for her to move and Haddad threw her off effortlessly. Then he was on his feet again, kicking her mercilessly in the head and stomach.
“Jack…”
Sara needs me.
Marshaling every scrap of his strength, Jack used the rail to pull himself up and he ran at Haddad.
Blinded by fury, by pain, Jack hit the man like a linebacker. They both went down. Climbing to his knees, Jack punched down, blow after blow, driving the man’s head against the metal of the bridge. Haddad’s hands came up defensively but Jack yelled and swatted them aside, continuing to slam his fists at that evil face, fueled by hatred for everything the man had done, everything he stood for. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Jack thought only about Sara and Copeland and Drabinsky and Jamal, thought about the havoc people like this brought to the world, used his fists to turn thought into action.
And then Haddad stopped struggling, his breath coming in bloody gurgles, his face raw and torn. But if he somehow expected Jack to be merciful, he’d picked the wrong night. Without a second thought, Jack grabbed hold of the man’s shirt and dragged him back against the rail, flopped him against it, stared at the pulped flesh and bloody wisp of a beard.
“Enjoy the virgins, asshole.”
Jack slammed his open hands hard against Haddad’s chest, the terrorist’s battered eyelids going wide with horror as he sailed over the side of the tower to the pavement five hundred feet below, his terrified screams rising into the night sky.
The fall took just three seconds. It ended with ugly abruptness.
A moment later, the wind kicked up again.
Once more, the city could breathe.
Jack staggered, dropping to one knee, and grabbed the rail for support. He heard Sara moan, and crawled over to her. Using what little energy he had left, he ripped the bonds from her wrists and unstrapped the backpack, laid it aside. He noted the location of the cell phone.
He’d get it later. Or someone would.
Right now, all he wanted to do was pull Sara into his arms and hold her as if he’d never let her go.
41
In the months that followed, the world did not miraculously change.
The good guys had won, but that didn’t necessarily mean the bad guys would be punished. Not in the way that Jack would have liked, with handcuffs and trials and lifetime-without-parole.
Instead, the rich and powerful managed to prevail, as they often do.
Despite Jack’s statements to the FBI and Homeland Security and the twenty other law enforcement agencies that seemed to be involved in the investigation, there was no hard proof to put Lawrence Soren and his cronies behind bars. And no real proof that MI6 or the British Home Office had ever been involved.
The island in the bay had been scrubbed, sanitized. The boats the men had used were MIA. Abdal al-Fida was a suicide, Bob Copeland was listed as an “accidental death,” and Jamal Thomas was an OD. There were no e-mails, no enhanced photos, there was nothing even remotely incriminating on the computers of Dave Karras or Faisal al-Jubeir. Someone had gotten to the machines and washed them, too. Bribes had been paid to the right officials.
There was only the word of