Bella MacLeod's Twilight Fanfiction

Atonement

By BetterInTexas

Chapter 16:

Garrett POV

I looked over the mansion from four hundred yards away. Satellites had picked up no trace of Stone or Amun. I knew Amun would not be there. I also knew the vampires I was looking for would be. The grand residence looked deserted on the outside. But they were there. It was day time. Where else would they be? Clive, Ty and I had put our sunblock on and planned to walk up to the front door. The three of us threw on robes and walked to the front of the mansion. It was not isolated, rather in the heart of Cairo. Street urchins milled around outside but scattered when they saw us.

“Ty, go around back. When the women come out make them sick. Clive please assist Ty.”

“I’ll be damned. I plan to…”

“Get information. That is what we are going to do. We need bargaining chips, don’t we?”

Clive nodded and followed Ty around back. I hoped Ty had the stomach for this. I didn’t. But it had to be done. Bella was three hours away from having Dani to complete safety, however many, many other people would not be safe no matter where they were. No one expected London to be the first target. I had no idea where else he planned to strike, but considering the death toll in London it was obvious the gloves were off and nothing could be taken for granted.

I kicked the front door in. Standing in the hallway was Benjamin with Kebi and Tia behind them.

“What did he do?” Benjamin asked.

“I am sure you already know. I am sure you have an idea of what he is going to do next. And I am sure before I leave you are going to tell me every single thing you know.”

“Run.” Benjamin whispered. Tia and Kebi took off towards the back. We would have them momentarily.

Benjamin stood his ground.

“I don’t want to fight you. Kebi, Tia and I have nothing to do with this. If it is some sort of revenge you are after take it on me. Leave he women out of this.” He whispered.

He was a brave soul. I hated to do this to him.

“I’m afraid no one can stay out of this now Benjamin. It is too late. Unless you can tell me where Amun is.”

“I don’t know. He left. He told us to hide. He said the Volturi may come for us eventually. But we couldn’t. Not… we saw the news… he did it, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Oh no…”

“Yes.” I agreed with his sentiment.

“I… no matter. He is my maker. He gave me this life. He guided me. I will not betray him.”

“He has lost his mind Benjamin. He has committed murder on an unprecedented scale. He has to go down.”

“Why are you here?” Benjamin asked.

“Because my home is going to be next. I would like to stop it before it gets that far.” I told him honestly.

“This is a Volturi matter.” He said.

“Where is he, Benjamin?”

The walls began to shake. Benjamin had a determined look on his face. Not good.

“I am sorry. I am sorry for the people of London. But I cannot tell you what I do not know, and I will not let you harm my coven.”

I hit him before he could bring the walls down on the two of us. He stood his ground and attempted to fight back.

Benjamin was a good soul I feared.

And a very poor fighter.

On his fifth strike I broke his arm at the elbow. Twisting I snapped it off. He screamed. I kicked his knee and he dropped. I was behind him, arms locked around his neck. He said a prayer quietly.

“We aren’t going to kill you Benjamin. We are going to kill them.”

Clive and Ty walked in with Kebi and Tia in headlocks. The women looked frightened. They should be. I knew Ty was under control. He always was. Clive however was a wildcard. Clive had been turned nearly the same time I had. We fought once during the revolution. Neither of us came away a victor. He had served his country since that time as I had served mine. We became friends during World War 1 and have continued to be friends to this day. He was clever, funny, adventurous, charming, and… right now he was on the edge of killing anyone he considered might possibly be an enemy.

“Leave them alone.”

“No. We start burning body parts, starting with fingers from the small one, in ten seconds unless you talk.”

Clive threw Kebi to the ground and walked to the fire place, and lit the wood inside with a lighter over the mantle.

“If you think of using that flame to attack us Benjamin I promise my friend Ty there will make you sick before the flame can rise and I will burn Tia immediately.”

Benjamin said nothing.

“Ty break off Tia’s ring finger.” Ty looked like he was going to be sick. But he locked his face and grabbed her hand.

“No!” Benjamin shouted.

“Ty stop. You have something to say Benjamin?”

“You will leave them alone?”

“I want to leave them alone very badly Benjamin. I do not wish to harm you or your coven mates. I swear. I only want Amun. I also swear I will do what I must to get him.”

Ben nodded in my arms. I let him go, grabbing his arm off the ground and handing it to him.

“Come with me.” He moved quickly and I followed, as did Clive. Ty stayed with the women I suppose. I hoped he could maintain an intimidating presence.

We walked into a large study. I assumed it was Amun’s. Benjamin sat and motioned for me to do the same. Clive remained standing.

“Amun… he was giving money to humans. For the last ten years or so. It started simple. He would support the families of the jihadist who died.”

“Died? You mean the suicide bombers who killed themselves along with their innocent victims?” Clive asked.

Benjamin ignored him.

“Last year he began moving huge sums of money to an American. I never found out his name. Amun kept us out of his business dealings. I had no interest. I swear I don’t…

“His name is Stone. Go on.” I said impatiently.

“How do you…”

“Which one of those ladies should I burn before your eyes?” Clive ask.

“Clive! He is cooperating.” I told him.

“Yes. I’m waiting on the telltale sign of deception. One lie Benjamin and I…”

“Clive!” I needed him cold. Not out of control.

“He started meeting with this man about once a month. I followed him once when the man came to Cairo. I saw them meet at a camp in the desert. He also met with…

“Yes? You’re doing well Benjamin. You are saving those women in their and saving more lives than you can imagine.” I encouraged him.

“He met with Adel Kayhat.”

That would explain a lot.

“The second in command of al Qaeda?” Clive asked.

“No. He is the head now. The camp they met at wasn’t a typical jihadist camp. There were buidings. Men walking in and out who appeared to be scientists. American vehicles. Vans. I saw the three of them having a discussion deep into the night. After that Amun would visit one or the other every couple months. I only followed him a few times. I… I decided I didn’t want to know. The visits became more frequent until a week ago. He packed and told us to run and hide, and then left. That is all I know. I swear.”

I looked at Clive. He was always better at determining deception than I was. I was a fighter. A soldier. He was a born spy.

“She us this camp lad.” He told Benjamin.

One hour later we were standing in the middle of a deserted camp. The tnets were there but empty. The buildings were there though.

“Gar!” Ty shouted. I ran to the metal building he had entered. Tools lay around scattered but no clue what they had worked on.

“You see something weird?” Ty asked.

I followed his gaze to the edge of the building under a table.

Ceramic pellets. Ball bearings.

“Garrett.”

I turned and saw Clive walking in holding something in his hand. He tossed it to me and I saw a simple object that sent a chill down my spine. A glass vial.

“There are hundreds of them in one of the buildings. It is a lab. I can’t identify the smells but this camp has not been abandoned long. I would say a week at the most.” Clive told me.

Suicide bombs undetecetable by metal detectors. Nuclear bombs. Biological and chemal weapons. I had no leads, no names other than one name the entire world already knew. I had done all I could here.

“Ty. We are heading back to the States.” I honestly had no idea what else to do except pray the FBI and CIA had something.

“I’m coming with you old boy.” Clive told me.

“You need to go back to London Clive.” I whispered.

“We both know there is no London to go back to. Bombing London was the big play. It’s over there. Our colonies however need to be protected.” He grinned at least. He knew I hated when he called the US his colony.

“Besides. We know where Amun is heading. He is going to the States. Nowhere else he would be. Time to go Garrett.”

I nodded. We would find nothing here about the targets. But we did know what threats to look for. Every threat imaginable.

Bella POV

I watched Dani rush to her father. They both had tears in their eyes and I was rreminded of my reunion with my parents. That brought my mind to Garrett. He called and told me what he found.

The President and the Government were all here under this mountain in Colorado. We were buried half a mile down, reinforced concrete bunker ten yards thick a foot of lead above and below it. The only entrance and exit was at the top of the mountain. To attempt to get below without clearance would be a suicide. At least for humans.

“Bella I can never thank you enough.” Dave said, walking up. He hugged me. I froze. Then I slowly hugged him back. I noted that every Secret Service agent, Marine and Soldier were staring at me in suspicion. Except for Connolly’s team. No one knew who I was and it needed to stay that way.

“I did what I told you I would do. That’s all.” I whispered.

“I need to explain some things to Dani, and stress the importance of secrecy. It may take a while. Connolly can show you to a room. Is there anything you need?”

“A target.” I said without thinking. My mind flashed to the agents who died and the people of London.

“As soon as I have one you will be the first to know, Bella. In the meantime are you hungry?”

I thought about it and realized I was hungry. Very hungry. Somehow it had slipped my mind though.

“Yes.” I said quietly. Dave nodded to Jason who told me to follow him. We walked to a medical room and Jason closed the door, locking it behind us. He walked over to a refrigerator and pulled out a bag of blood, hesistated, and then pulled out a second then placed them both into some sort of oven.

A few moments later and the blood was warm. He sat a cup down and poured half of one bag into it.

“You should leave. I probably need to be alone.” I told him without meeting his eyes.

“Nah. No one should have to eat alone. I’ll sit here and keep you company.”

“Jason I could go into a frenzy and kill you.”

“No. You couldn’t. Now eat. No telling when any of us may have a chance to do it again.” He hopped up on a counter and smiled at me.

His funeral. I shrugged my shoulders and downed the cup, then another and another.

Wiping off my lips self consciously I looked at him for a reaction.

“If you expect me to be disturbed you still have a lot to learn about me.” He grinned.

“I don’t like sitting around.” I told him honestly.

“True, but it’s a big country. Can’t exactly patrol the whole thing looking for guys who don’t want to be found. Let the police do their job. Then it will be time to do ours.”

A voice over the intercom called for Connolly.

“Looks like it is time to do our job.”

I followed him to the main control room where we were directed to go into the President’s office. Walking there Dani walked out. She stopped and looked at me. I suppose she knew by now.

“I don’t care.” She whispered and then smiled. “Thank you.” With that Dani walked off.

I shook my head and walked in to see Dave sitting with military guys with a lot of bars and metals on their uniforms.

“Have a seat you two. It’s started.”

Oh no.

“What happened?” Jason asked.

“A silent alarm was tripped by an air marshall. It is only to be tripped in the event of a hijacking. The plane is a 747 heading to New York from LA. It will be flying over Colorado in the next hour. We are afreaid of what the hijackers may have on board. We doubt the objective is to simply crash a plane. Based on London we have to assume a nuclear bomb could be aboard.”

“How would a bomb get on a plane? Airport security…” I started.

“Six airline employees were found dead in a dumpster in Los Angeles. They worked in the loading area for the plane in question. Anything could conceivably be on board. We would like to avoid shooting down the aircraft. My advisors tell em that is the safest course of action. I believe we should try to take back over the place.” Dave looked at me. Oh shit.

“Sir with all due respect you simply cannot board a 747 in flight!” One of the generals said.

“Connolly’s team specializes in high risk operations like this. If they can intercept in the next hour they can board. Correct Connolly?”

“Yes sir Mr. President.”

“Who the hell is she?” Another of the uniformed old guys asked.

“A member of my team. All you need to know sir.” Jason responded.

“Excuse me son? You got a helluva ways to go before you tell me what the fuck I need to know!”

“She is a member of his team. It’s all you need to know General.” Dave said coldly. The general looked away. I glanced at Jason and saw he was barely holding in a grin. Idiot.

“Jason. Can you do it?”

“Yes sir.”

“What do you need?” Dave asked.

“Only Bella and myself will board the plane. I need a single Airbus and a crew to fly it. I need a couple oxygen suits, an acetylene torch, and as many weapons as we can carry.”

“How do you plan to get on the plane?” A guy who I think was from the Marines asked.

“Sir, I just need those tools and I need them quickly. Let me worry about how to get on.”

“How are you going to get off?” A guy in a suit asked.

“I’m going to land the plane if the pilots are incapacitated.” He answered.

“You are?” I asked surprised.

“Yeah. I’m checked out. I can land it. You can help. If you do good I may let you play with the stick.” He wiggled his eyebrows. He will pay for that later.

Less than an hour later we were in the cargo bay of the airbus. Once Dave gave the go ahead everything moved quickly. I was given a black suit that looked like an astronauts outfit to wear over my black BDUs. Connolly was dressed the same. His team was not with us.

“Why don’t you let me go up myself?’ I asked him.

“Can you land that plane?”

“No. You could talk me though it.”

“Can you deactivate a nuclear bomb or a biological weapon if one is aboard?”

“No…”

“You can’t be talked through that. Relax. This isn’t the first time I have pulled shit like this.”

“It isn’t?” I asked doubtfully.

“Okay. It’s the first time I shot a grappling hook from the top of one plane to the bottom of the other and attempted to enter the cargo hold of the top plane using an acetylene torch and a vampire. I’m giving it thirty seconds. If it doesn’t work them you rip a section open. Try to make it just big enough for us to enter.”

“Why can’t I just jump on top?”

“And tear the passenger cabin? Decompression, bodies flying everywhere. Trust me. I’ve done this before.”

“You just said you hadn’t.”

“Exactly.” He said. What the fuck? He was going to die. I was going to fall a long way but he was going to die.

“One minute to intercept.” The intercom said.

“Okay. Showtime. Relax. You can’t die.”

“Yeah…” I had a feeling though if there was a way he would be the one to find it. We walked up to the hatch. Connolly placed his hood on and grabbed a grappling hook gun. He handed one to me. The top opened and we looked up. The wind shear was incredible. I looked up and saw… wow. There it was. A 747.

Connolly fired and the grappling hook hit the belly of the huge plane. I fired and mine struck a few feet to the left of his. We clamped the steel line to our vests. He looked at me and nodded. I grabbed his suit to steady him and pressed the button on my suit while he did the same. We shot up out of the Airbus and were traveling up. Fast. Too fast.

Halfway to the 747 the wind caught us and blew us sideways. Now we were trailing the 747. Our suits grappling system was having difficulty moving against the wind. We weren’t moving as quickly now. I grabbed both lines and began pulling, helping the pulley. Another gust of wind and we were tossed sideways again. I saw something fall.

At least it wasn’t Jason.

We were within feet of the plane finally. I grabbed the hook, careful not to pull it out. That would make for a long trip back to Colorado. Connolly grabbed his. He managed to get his boots on the body of the plane. The suction at the bottom was working but it wouldn’t hold us for long. Too much wind. I looked at him and saw he was mouthing something. Even with my hearing I couldn’t understand. The wind and the engines of the 747 and the hood he had on…

He looked at the place we were stuck to the bottom of and nodded. What the hell?”

“Tear it!” I barely heard.

I looked at his waist and saw his portable torch was gone. Guess that was what fell. I steadied myself and punched through the hull with my right fist. Ripping back a two foot section I grabbed inside and swung myself in. Connolly tried to reach the hole I made and I saw his hand slip.

I caught him by his wrist before he fell a very long ways.

Damn that was close. He fell into the hold and landed on his ass. I may have pulled a bit to hard.

Okay. We were in. In a plane that was being hijacked. Jason took off his hood and stripped out of his suit. I followed his lead. We began moving threw the luggage looking for anything that looked out of place.

“They had to have heard that, right?” I asked.

“Maybe. Be ready to kill anyone who comes down. Don’t shoot. We don’t need to use bullets if we don’t have to.”

Not far away we saw it. A long wooden crate.

I gently lifted the top of the crate, popping the nails up gently.

Inside was a bomb. A big fucking bomb.

“It’s not on a timer. Detonator. They must plan to crash this plane and hit the detonator right before it hits.” Jason whispered.

“That means one of them has the detonator.” I realized.

“Yep. Go get it. I’m going to work on defusing it from here.”

Wait.

“Me?”

“Yeah. One of us has to kill the terrorists and grab the detonator before they now what hit them. I’m fast but I’m not that fast. You are.”

“You want me to kill them all?”

“Either they die or the passengers do. No matter what Bella this plane cannot get near New York and cannot get close to the ground while this bomb is active. We have to do this. The only chance those passengers have is the two of us defusing this bomb. You game?”

Yeah. I was.

“Okay. I’m going up. Hope we see each other again.” I mumbled.

“If we don’t it’s been a good ride Swan. Don’t worry. We are too pretty to die.” Jason started working on the bomb and I headed towards the stairway at the end of the bay.

Walking up quietly and quickly I planned to get a layout, figure out who I needed to hit first and go from there. Instead I saw scared people bent over in their seats and the backs of four gentleman who I can only assume were the hijackers with their backs to me.

“I swear I heard something down below. It sounded like tearing metal.” One said.

“We checked below. No one was there. No one could get on this plane. Relax.” Another one said.

“There was that plane below us…”

“That is gone now. If you are so worried go look for yourself.”

“No. I don’t want to be near that thing. I don’t give a damn what Amun said. I don’t think we can survive a nuclear bomb going off. I plan to jump before we land.”

“You will complete your mission. You know we are indestructible. It is Allah’s will and we are his agents. We have been blessed with this power. Do not doubt Allah.”

Amun? Indestructible? Why would they think they were indestructible?

“Fine. I will go check the bottom.” He would be turning towards my door. I would lose the element of surprise. I needed to kill them all now and find the detonator. I quickly opened the door and stepped inside.

The smell hit me at once causing me to hesitate.

The four hijackers turned towards me, looking at me with very red eyes.

“Who might you be?” One asked, smiling.

Four vampires. One had a detonator for a nuclear bomb beneath my feet. Plane full of passengers. Okay.

I got this.

Garrett POV

“She is doing what?!”

“Garrett it was Connolly’s idea.” The general told me over the secure line.

“Damn it General! I don’t even know if a vampire can survive a nuclear explosion. Especially at ground zero. Who the hell talked her into this? Why wasn’t I called?’

“There wasn’t enough time. Plus we don’t even know if there is a nuclear bomb on board…”

“Bullshit! They didn’t kill a baggage crew to sneak a biological agent on board. They needed the cargo hold. That means nuke.”

“Be that as it may be, they are on the plane by now. We hope.”

Damn it Bella. Damn it Connolly. I’m going to fucking kill him. I hung up and cursed.

“What is it G man?” Ty asked.

“Connolly.” I seethed.

“He putting the moves on your honey? I think you got her man. No worries.”

“No worries? Right now your baby sister is in a 747 over middle America taking on hijakers while Connolly is probably acting like he knows how to defuse a nuclear bomb.”

That shut Ty up.

“I’m going to kill that fucking hillbilly.” He finally whispered.

“Let’s hope we get the chance. Tell the pilot we are no longer going to Colorado. We are going to New York.”

“Why New York?” Clive asked.

“Because I am going to get my woman. I just need a jet and a pilot ready on the ground. No! I need a drone. A high altitude drone. Get on the phone and make it happen Ty.”

Two hours tell I land. Then I would get to her. Nothing on Earth was keeping me from her. Amun could wait.