Collateral Damage - Marc Cerasini [28]
"I heard a struggle, and..."
"Cuff him," Jack interrupted. "I'm going out."
While Layla strapped flex cuffs around the man's wrists and ankles, Jack slipped through the door.
Outside, high winds buffeted him, flapping the legs of his baggy pants and tugging at his hair. Jack blinked against the constant blast and scanned the roof.
He spied the intruders on a steel ladder. They'd climbed a hundred and fifty feet up the transmission tower. They were both focused on their ascent, and neither noticed the absence of the Port Authority policeman who'd been guarding their backs.
Jack bolted across the roof, leaping over steel cables, until he reached the metal platform that ringed the tower base. Still undetected, he ascended two levels of steps, wending his way around a dozen or more STLs and ENG receiver dishes. Amid an electronic hum mixed with the howl of the winds, Jack reached the bottom of the ladder.
The tower was a building in its own right, a square structure eighteen hundred feet high and perhaps a hundred feet around. The ladder in front of him snaked up the side.
Eyes squinting against the bright sunshine, Jack gripped the steel rail and began to climb. After twenty rungs, he knew why the intruders weren't looking down. The vistas around him were incredibly vast, the height dizzying. Jack battled a constant wind that whistled in his ears and threatened to rip him off the ladder.
"Can you hear me, Morris? I need to know the location of the intruders."
The voice in his headset was drowned out by the gale. Jack muttered a curse and kept climbing.
He couldn't find the intruders now. He did come across three bombs taped to the tower wall — solid bricks of C-4 wired with detonation cords instead of timers. Jack ripped the cords out as he went.
About two hundred feet above him, between rows of saucer-shaped dishes, Jack saw a steel mesh platform that circled the tower. The men had apparently exited the ladder there, and moved to the opposite side of the transmission tower.
Jack continued his ascent until the platform was less than twenty feet above him. Here the climbing space narrowed because the ladder was sandwiched between two massive receiver dishes. As Jack moved between them, strong hands grabbed his throat and threatened to tear him from the ladder.
"Te morati poginuti!" the attacker cried.
Jack understood the language from his Delta Force missions in Eastern Europe. Rather than resisting, he threw up his arm so his attacker could see the tattoo.
"Prekid JA samjedan prijatelj," Jack rasped in Serbian.
"JA moći pomoć."
The big man saw the tattoo, heard Jack's words. Suddenly the pressure on his throat eased. Jack did not resist when the man grabbed his forearm and dragged him onto the top of a massive receiver dish, where he sprawled, gasping. The man loomed over him, stocky build, dark eyes, a once aquiline nose twisted by too many breaks.
"JA samjedan prijatelj," Jack repeated, telling the man he was an ally.
Jack heard a grunt of surprise. At the same instant, he realized the tattoo on his forearm had smeared. The other man was looking at his own hand — the ink was now staining his fingers.
Before the big man could make a move, Bauer lashed out with his elbow, crushing his larynx. As the man's head jerked back, Jack grabbed him by his collar and flipped him from his perch.
The big man tumbled silently, arms and legs windmilling in the blasting winds. A hundred feet above the roof, the man struck a steel cable that severed his body in half. Jack looked away, spied another bomb, and ripped out the det cord. Then he grasped the ladder, swung himself onto the rungs, and continued his climb.
Grunting, he pulled himself onto the platform a moment later. There was no sign of the other utility worker, but Jack spied bundles of plastic explosives taped to the tower, and a detonation cord leading around the bend.
Jack drew the Glock and followed the wire. He turned a corner and came face to face with the bomber a moment later.
"Tko biti te?" the Serb cried.
The lanky blond