by Chase Austin
“Thousands of people died.”
“And everyone saw its impact.” Hancock was trying to sell hard.
“You can’t be serious,” said Jackson, completely baffled.
Hancock looked him in the eye. Jackson felt a sudden urge to get away from this man, the man he had gotten elected as President. This was sick. But he said nothing in response because he didn’t know what to say.
“Think about it, an attack on this country and people will forget about everything. This is what I need. You need to make it happen.”
“I can’t, and you shouldn’t be wanting this.” It took a lot out of Jackson to say these words. His confidence was wobbly. He thought he was staring at a mad man.
“This…this is the difference between you and an achiever, Jackson. So, either make it happen, or find another job. It’s that simple.” Hancock used his oft-used weapon. He knew a White House job was the greatest thing in this country and no one could comprehend losing it, even in one’s dreams.
Jackson ran his hand through his hair. Hancock ignored it. Jackson then rubbed his face with his hands while taking long breaths. From the spaces between his fingers, he watched the laptop screen. His fingers then moved quickly on the keypad.
“My resignation will be in your inbox in a second.” Jackson shifted his gaze away from the screen and spoke in the side microphone connected to the driver seat. “Stop the car,” he said. The limo stopped to the side. Jackson opened his side door and with his bag in one hand and laptop in the other, got out. Hancock didn’t expect this from Jackson, he considered a sleaze-ball devoid of morality, but he had just been proved wrong.
“Jackson, you are letting go of a golden opportunity,” Hancock shouted from behind.
Jackson looked at Hancock one last time and shut the door without saying a word.
“Sir, should we move?” the driver asked though the microphone.
“Yes,” Hancock snapped to no one in particular. He had a hard time believing what had just happened. He looked for the remote and switched on the limousine’s television in a bid to distract himself.
Chapter 11
Houston
Olivia, twenty-one years old, had just begun work at the hotel. Onyx was a 7-star hotel at the Marina, an upscale shopping mall located in the heart of Uptown Houston. It was one of the landmarks of the city, with a retail complex, office towers complex, a private health club, and housed names like Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Macy’s. Olivia was happy that her first job was with a big brand like Onyx.
But it was turning out to be a rare weekend for Olivia. On one hand, she had to report to work for half a day to relieve a co-worker. On the other, Briella, her long-lost cousin from London, had imposed an impromptu visit on her. And with her she carried a huge shopping to-do list that Olivia would now have to navigate through.
As if London had a shortage of big brands. Olivia thought.
“I’ll be at the hotel till two in the afternoon, so you will be on your own,” she warned Briella. Onyx was Olivia’s first paying job, so she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.
“Not to worry, my cute cousin. I’ve already made some plans.”
“What plans and with whom? You don’t know anyone here.”
“You stress a lot. Two of my friends are also staying at your hotel.” Briella had met the two boys during her flight. Olivia was skeptical when Briella continued bragging about them nonstop, but on seeing the pictures her jaw literally dropped. Even in loose fitting clothes, she could make out that they both had great beach bodies. Their Instagram profiles were public, with followers in thousands. By the look of it, they both seemed legit.
Olivia finally decided that she didn’t want to let half her off-day go to waste. She would join them once her shift was over, but first, she needed to feel ready. She took her clothes off and hopped in the shower. Half an hour later she came out, blow-dried her hair and decided to try a braid this time, making sure it wasn’t out of control either. This simple meeting could turn out to be a date but she didn’t want to go overboard with her look. She checked her wardrobe and took out her trusted baby pink short dress and high heels, a light jacket, a small bag, and beautiful earrings. She packed all this in a bag. Her plan was to change once her shift was over. Till then she would be in her hotel uniform. She applied a light makeup to accentuate her natural beauty. One hour later, she was ready for her job. Ten minutes after that, both of them were in a cab, heading to the Marina.
The decision to take the cab was Olivia’s, since despite having six parking garages, the Marina’s parking always seemed to be full whenever she needed parking the most. The car took some forty minutes to reach the destination. Olivia had been there a couple of times before but for Briella it was a different thing. Wide-eyed, she just soaked in the beauty of the place; it was so huge and lavish.
The boys were not ready yet, so Olivia decided to keep Briella company until they arrived. Some window-shopping later they were starving. The food court seemed the most logical spot, but Olivia was on a diet and the food court was not exactly for people like her. Everywhere she looked, there were burgers, deli sandwiches, French fries, and ice creams. Luckily, Briella spotted a ‘Build-Your-Salad’ counter, somewhat hidden from the main area, at the far corner of the giant food court.
Perfect! Olivia felt like jumping with joy.
They stacked their salad plates with romaine lettuce, broccoli, sliced cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, and beets with olive oil and lemon juice dressing. When they saw their salads, it literally looked as though they had brought the whole rainbow onto the plate.
They found a secluded corner, and by the time they finished their food, Briella got a call. The boys were coming to meet them. Once they arrived, Olivia took leave to start her day at the hotel.
“See you soon,” said, Briella, and hugged her.
“I will,” Olivia chuckled.
Shahrukh muttered Allah’s name under his breath. Sitting in the passenger seat of a decrepit Ford Minivan, Shahrukh could see the majestic structure of the Marina. Over the last two months, it had been meticulously recced by a mole planted in the city, and he and his team knew the layout like the back of their hands. None of them felt that this was their first visit to the place. All of them wore snug full-sleeved t-shirts, Puma running shoes, a pair of dark sunglasses and baseball caps.
The building started to expand in size as the minivan rushed on the Hidalgo road before taking a sharp left turn towards the McCue Road that led to the parking. The first stop was where Shahrukh and Yakub disembarked the vehicle right at the entrance to the mall. The minivan dropped off the rest of passengers at three different points and then made a U-turn, speeding away from the building.
Observing the Marina, for Shahrukh the first feeling was one of shock. The place was filled to the brim with hundreds of cars, people going in, people coming out. He tried to imagine the place once they got into action, but he got nothing. Training simulations were different. This was reality. He looked at Yakub. He too seemed a bit taken aback by the realness of it. No one was there to hold their hands and show them the path. They were on their own. All they now had was their training and their God.
Marina’s security was overseen by a Pennsylvania-based company known for its high-end security systems and a flawless track record. As per the intel received thirty minutes ago, forty-three guards were on call that morning along with the facilities management staff and mall employees. Shahrukh knew that despite the tall claims of the company website, most of these guards were recent high school graduates and were barely above the age of eighteen. Their training was measly, done to save time and money.
As planned, the team had already split into four pairs. They were going to enter the building from four different points. Shahrukh and Yakub walked towards the main entrance, soaking its grandeur. At the gate, six guards using highly sophisticated security systems were vetting the visitors The boys carried nothing but their so
cial security cards and a plain Casio watch. No money, no weapons, no nothing. The entry was a cakewalk. None of the guards looked at them after they crossed the entrance threshold. The boys knew the positions of the CCTV cameras and deliberately avoided looking at them. The baseball caps and sunglasses helped.
Once inside, they walked past the Nordstrom store on their left and then turned right towards Macy’s. Passing several smaller stores like Chico’s, Peloton, and Crazy8, they eventually came to the crossroads. Behind them was Tesla and Banana Republic; to their left was the West Alabama Street and in front of them was one of the two Onyx hotels – a 7-star property with more than four hundred fifty rooms.
This was it.
Chapter 12
Union Square Park — Manhattan, New York
Richard, a twenty-six-year-old sales executive with BMW, observed the silent protesters from his preferred spot at Union Square. He was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. In fact, he was one of those who were always politically incorrect when it came to anything, as per Lily.
Lily was the daughter of Ohio’s Senator Rob Turner and that, according to Lily, automatically made her an authority on US politics. Richard chose not to contest this claim. For the moment, she was only his best friend and his childhood crush, but that was going to change soon, or so Richard hoped. He was planning to ask her out officially, and he expected her to say yes.
Right then he could see her standing among the protesters. She held a large placard, waving it in the air with all her energy. The cool breeze caressed her soft smooth hair, and she radiated an unique energy. She was meant to achieve great things and Richard wanted to be there for her, to be her support if she ever needed one. He looked at her with longing. One day, not far in the future, she would reciprocate his feeling for her, and he would be the happiest man alive.
He checked his cell phone. The New England Patriots were on the field. Richard didn’t care much about the game. He only kept himself aware of it because of Lily. She was a big Brady fan. He raised his head and looked again at Lily who was busy talking to someone standing next to her. He saw her laughing, throwing her head back with elation, but it was the two young men standing beyond her that grasped Richard’s attention. Wearing beanies, they were looking the odd ones out, even in this group of protesters. From their postures they didn’t seem to be participating in the demonstration, but yet they were there. Fair, clean-shaven and in their twenties, they didn’t appear to be shady but it was their eyes; there was something odd in the way they looked at the others.
Observing everything, as if waiting for something.
Richard looked in the opposite direction where he had seen a few law enforcement officers.
Should I talk to them? He thought to himself.
Khalid keenly observed the army of protesters flooding Manhattan’s Union Square on the fourth straight day of rallies against President Hancock’s policies. Police estimates had indicated that the number was somewhere north of a thousand. The day before, two people had been arrested, yet the crowd was in no mood to break down against the administration’s crackdown. A group of people representing the protestors had met with the city’s Chief of Police last evening. The police had agreed to allow the participants to continue the demonstration, but warned them not to stand on or climb the barricades placed in front of the park, otherwise they’d be arrested.
Homemade picket signs bobbed throughout the sea of protesters, several of which read ‘HANCOCK — YOU ARE NOT A SUPERHERO’ in bold black letters.
“We reject the President!” the crowd chanted as protesters started marching up Fifth Avenue. Some climbed the poles of scaffolding and stood on them, holding protest signs while pumping their fists in the air. Traffic delays and intermittent street closures were present throughout Manhattan in the afternoon, including the Union Square area and East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Khalid had seen enough recce videos over the last two months to understand the ins and out of the place. It was a popular convergence point to hold rallies and protests due to its neighborhood — the Flatiron District, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, East Village, and Gramercy Park. The location was bounded by 14th Street on the south, Union Square West on the west, 17th Street on the north, and Union Square East to the east, linking together Broadway and Park Avenue South to Fourth Avenue. Also, many of the New School’s buildings, as well as several dormitories of New York University, were at a touching distance from the square.
There was the impressive equestrian statue of U.S. President George Washington cast in bronze, along with the sculptures of Marquis de Lafayette, Abe Lincoln, and Mahatma Gandhi. There was also a Temperance fountain with the figure of Charity emptying her jug of water, aided by a child.
Standing at the center of all of this, Khalid soaked in the beauty surrounding him for the last time.
Chapter 13
Farmer’s Terminal Market — Philadelphia
It was an unusual morning in Philly. Unlike its usually wet and cloudy weather, today the air was nippy and the air dry and cold. Mary, a fifty-eight-year-old woman from Ambler, a tiny borough near Philly, found a quiet place to sit along the fringes of the main seating area at the Farmer’s Terminal Market in the heart of Philly. Her son, Stan, accompanied her.
At the 12th and Arch Street in Center City Philadelphia, Farmer’s Terminal Market was an enclosed public market, spread over two floors. It was a popular spot for tourists and locals alike, with over a hundred merchants on the ground floor. The entry was from Filbert Street in the South, Twelfth Street in the West, and Arch Street in the North. The seating arrangement was in a grid pattern with an open area at the center. The basement level had state-of-the-art refrigerated storage for the use of vendors. With more than 6 million visitors annually, the market remained busy year round.
Mary wore an easy smile and her eyes beamed with curiosity. She didn’t have much going on, which was fine by her. Her gaze panned slowly across the expanse of tables, merchant stalls, and flow of customers ambling through the aisles. The market was a familiar place to her. She’d been coming here since she was young. These days she often came to the market alone or occasionally with her son, Stan, who worked in the Howard County Water Department. In reality, Stan was a part of the TF-77’s best support team – Vesuvius. The job at Howard County Water Department was his cover. Mary was content that her son had a stable job with a solid 401K. After her husband succumbed to leukemia, Stan was all she had. Stan’s job kept him busy but whenever he visited Ambler, both of them visited the market. He had no interest in the market, but he did it for his mother. The place was her constant companion when he was in the field, fighting the bad guys.
“I like sitting in a corner and looking at people. I like the movement; it tells me that I might be old, but I’m alive…” she had once told him when he asked her the reason for visiting the marketplace time and again.
“You’re not old, mom,” he had told her then, but she wasn’t listening. He knew it wasn’t just the people that drew her in. It was nostalgia. She used to come here with his maternal uncle, and his grandmother, strolling with them through the aisles together for hours, their arms gradually becoming weighed down with bags of groceries as they went. Nowadays, she often found someone familiar to chat with and sometimes even ventured to strike up conversations with complete strangers — especially when she sat at the bank of communal tables at the center of the market. She was happy to take the forty-minute train ride from Ambler to Philly several times a month, just for the feeling of being connected with her childhood, and establishing a connect for her son, Stan.
Today, like on other days, Mary was sitting at her usual place by herself while she waited for Stan, who had gone to the restroom. As she waited, she kept looking around, her bright eyes taking in everything.
Even at this time in the morning, seats in the central seating area were tough to come by. Many people, after scouting and hovering for a few minutes, wandered off to try to find one of the s
olo tables that lined several of the aisles, or simply find a small patch of space where they could linger long enough to wolf down a quick bite. Nearby, a middle-aged couple stepped away from the bar at Molly Malloy’s and danced their way into the main seating area. A pair of late-teen girls wandered by, one asking, “How do you even decide where to go?” She saw a middle-aged couple rushing toward a four-person table that had just opened up and successfully grabbing it. And after they quickly settled in, a younger, twenty-something couple who were scanning the tables was invited by the middle-aged woman, who waved an arm and motioned to the two extra seats at their table.
“Are these free?” the younger woman asked, over the din of the other diners.
“As long as you don’t mind sitting with strangers,” the older woman said.
“Not at all!” came the reply. A moment later, the two couples began eating lunch together. Mary smiled.
Surveying everything, Mary thought of how there was always a certain vibrancy to the place that she loved.