by Chase Austin
But for how long?
Chapter 14
Farmer’s Terminal Market — Philadelphia
Saif, along with three of his men, walked briskly towards the basement of the Farmer’s Terminal Market in Philadelphia, that had the state-of-the-art refrigerated storage for the use of vendors. Their familiarity with the whole place was uncanny. They knew what they were looking for and where they would find it.
Storage 137.
The thick steel door wasn’t locked but no one could know for certain unless they pulled it with all their might, but no one did. Till last night, the storage space was under maintenance. A paper stuck on the door mentioned it clearly. But Saif knew otherwise. He grabbed the steel handle and pulled opened the door. Inside, under the shade of yellowish dimming light, they could see eight three-foot-long haversacks weighing at least thirty-five pounds, waiting for them. It was eerie how everything was right where they had been told to find them. Saif checked his watch. It was almost time. He stepped inside and opened the bag closer to him.
Inside the bag was a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a side-folding metal butt and ten 30-rounds magazines. Along with these, the bag had over five hundred rounds of 7.62 Soviet ammo rounds, fifteen to eighteen hand grenades, two SIG Sauer pistols along with six spare magazines and two 5-kg Improvised explosive devices (IED) with a programmable electronic timer switch programmed in their wristwatches. The bag also had a burner cell phone bought from the same city where they were going, a GPS handset with pre-fed coordinates on the maps and fake student identity cards from the local universities of the specific cities they were going to rip apart. Each of them picked two haversacks and slung them onto their shoulders.
They were now ready for war.
Chapter 15
Union Square Park, Manhattan — New York
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his buddy came out of the public restroom and moved briskly towards the basement of Union Square Park. In the restroom, they had left behind an IED, timed to explode an hour later. They walked among the thousands of protesters.
The other four pairs covered 14th Street on the south, Union Square West on the west side, 17th Street on the north, and Union Square East. As soon as they got into their positions, each of them zipped open their haversacks. Eight Kalashnikovs were out. They quickly slung their rucksacks on one shoulder, leaving their firing arm free, a shooting technique of the US Navy Seals, and opened fire.
Chapter 16
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
The guards at the door considered Shahrukh and Yakub guests of the hotel. Their confident walk and their seeming familiarity with the hotel made sure of that. They confidently crossed the fragrant, opulent lobby of the Onyx, and without looking at the giant chandelier hanging from the ceiling or asking anyone directions, glided into the lobby and turned left into a marble-lined corridor. At the end of it was a men’s restroom.
Inside, a man was standing unusually close to the mirror, checking his face. As the two boys entered the restroom, he appeared slightly flustered and made a gesture of removing something from his face. None of them made eye contact. It wasn’t a place to exchange pleasantries.
Shahrukh and Yakub leisurely entered in the third and the sixth toilet cubicle. They took out the plastic cap of the in-wall flush toilet systems. Inside each, a small key was hanging with a thread. They didn’t have to wait long to hear the restroom’s door shutting with a click. The man had left.
First Shahrukh, and then Yakub got out of their cubicles and walked towards the only locker there. The two keys opened two boxes. Their eyes lit up. Inside, two haversacks were waiting for them. They took them out, unzipped them and took out the cell phones. They were charged and had only one saved number. After putting the cellphones in their pockets, they took out the Kalashnikovs, inserted the magazines and cocked their weapons. Opening the restroom’s door, they walked towards the reception area.
Chapter 17
Centrum, a shopping mall in Phoenix
The van had left Taha at the basement of the Centrum, a shopping mall in Phoenix, from where he was trafficked inside the mall by a covert ops team working for the Professor. An arrangement that was made in the other cities too.
Wearing a men’s hooded, waterproof jacket generally used for hunting and fishing, Taha looked out of place in the mall full of people who were there to enjoy some family time. Observing his surroundings, he slowly crept up to the center of the first floor. People busy shopping, checking their cells and doing hundreds of other things ignored him and his out-of-place outfit because the face was as American as it could get. There wasn’t any beard, or skullcap on his head, to raise any unwanted suspicion.
Taha looked around and then checked his Casio watch. The timer he had set thirty minutes ago still had four minutes. Two hundred forty seconds left to breathe before everything would be ashes and smoke.
Tiffany, a five-year-old girl, playing with her doll as she sat on a bench near the escalator, was watching Taha. Maybe the red color of his jacket attracted her or maybe his demeanor, whatever it was, her eyes were glued to him, watching what he was doing as he stood a few feet away from her. Her mother, sitting beside her, was looking in another direction at the time.
Taha observed the girl watching him, but he kept on with his ritual. He slowly unzipped his oversized jacket, took it off and dropped it to the floor, revealing a suicide vest packed with improvised explosives and armed with a detonator. To maximize the impact, it was further packed with ball bearings, nails, screws, bolts, and other objects as shrapnel. The small detonator was in his left hand.
Tiffany suddenly stood up. Her eyes were on the jacket that was now on the floor. It was the color of the jacket that interested her. With her tiny feet, she ran in the direction of Taha.
A man standing near the Nike showroom saw the toddler running and then his eyes moved towards Taha. His face suddenly drained of its color.
Almost at the same time, Tiffany’s mother found that her daughter was not at the bench and instinctively looked around to find her. She soon found her. She watched Tiffany’s short ponytail waving behind her as she ran, and then she saw where Tiffany was going, moving towards a man standing not far from where she was seated.
His left hand was raised in the air holding the detonator, and his eyes were fixed on Tiffany.
Tiffany’s mother got up with a jerk; her shopping bags fell on the floor. She opened her mouth to scream but the horror of the moment froze the sound in her throat, and she watched helplessly as her child approached death.
Within a few seconds, almost everyone on the first floor froze. Watching Taha, they all knew what was going to happen. They could not run. They could not hide. They could only watch and pray to their Gods, wherever they were.
The four security guards at the entrance watched Taha from behind and slipped out of the door to save themselves. Little did they know that the IED was going to wipe out not only the building they were paid to guard but also everything in the five hundred yards radius around it.
Taha watched as the needle raced towards zero in his watch.
Five seconds.
He ignored everyone, only watching Tiffany, who, now closer to him, bent to pick up his red jacket. Getting up with the red jacket in her hand, she looked straight into Taha’s eyes. A cackle escaped her lips. Taha involuntarily smiled. It was the effect of a child’s laugh that he couldn’t help himself but smile with Tiffany. A tear rolled down his left cheek.
Two.
Taha looked at the mother.
“No!” she screamed, finally.
One.
BOOM.
Part 2
Chapter 18
Maryland, United States
Hundreds of questions spun in the air and Helms hoped that he would get some answers once Basit landed on American soil, but for the rest of them, he had to act now. He picked up his phone and dialed Samuel Baker’s number. Baker was the White House Chief of Staff.
“Baker, I need to talk to the President. This is an emergency.” Helms was right off the bat from the word go.
“Who’s this?”
Helms didn’t know how to respond to this. It took him a moment to realize that the man on the other side wasn’t joking. Samuel Baker, the White House Chief of Staff, didn’t have the number of the NSA director. The whole thing reeked of stupidity and scam.
Are these the same people who are ruling this country? he asked himself.
“This is William Helms — Director, NSA. Get me the President, right now.” Helms somehow bottled his anger. He couldn’t let his emotions take over his rationality.
“He is on his way for a game of golf with the President of North Korea. You’d have to wait for it to be over.” Baker spoke calmly while sipping his coffee.
“I’m not sure if you’ve heard me, but this is an emergency.”
“Every Tom, Dick, and Harry comes to the White House with this or that emergency. I cannot let the President get distracted by them.”
“Listen, you piece of shit, either you get me the President right now or I will make sure that your career is over before this day ends,” Helms thundered.
Baker took some time to respond, and then Helms heard him snigger. “The President has specifically asked me to keep morons like you away from him, so you can try, but I think it will be you who will be facing the axe,” Baker hissed on the phone.
This was the first time in his life when Helms wanted to strangle someone with his bare hands. Baker wasn’t just an idiot but also had a false sense of supremacy about his reach and power. But if what he was saying was true? If it was, then the President had taken the cold war against his own men, too far.
What should he do? Leaving things in the lurch and hoping them to take shape on their own wasn’t an option here. He had always been a doer, and whether they knew it or not, the people of America needed more people like him for what was about to come.
The conversation with Baker had him worried. What if all of Washington was against him? He personally had no qualms about getting in the bad books of the White House or Capitol Hill but if it hampered his ability to get through the bureaucracy and reach the final decision-makers, then it was a problem, and a huge one at that.
He needed to check if he or the agency was being alienated from the decision-making. His next call was to the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, who didn’t pick up the phone. His personal assistant did, who promised that she would make sure that her boss got back to Helms soon.
Helms then dialed Raborn, who disconnected his call. He tried again and was shunned again. It was frustrating. He felt he was confined in an invisible cage from where reaching out to anyone was impossible, but he had to try. There wasn’t any other option.
His next call was to Patrick Mattis, the United States Secretary of Defense, who picked up his call on the third ring.
“Hello Bill, how are you?” Mattis sounded chirpy.
“We have a situation. My sources in Afghanistan have intel about a massive attack on the American soil today. The President is incommunicado. You need to take this to him and request an urgent meeting.”
“Bill, hang on a second. I’m sure this is just another hoax. America today is not like the America of 2001. There is no 9/11 happening on our soil ever again. I heard you were on leave so just relax for a day. I’m heading out to my office. I’ll see if I can reach out to the President. You know he is busy with the North Korean President.”
“Hoax or not, we need to consider any such threat with absolute seriousness. And let me worry about my off-day. At the bare minimum, we should begin checking all pickup trucks, box vans, and semi-trucks headed into the major cities. We should also consider increasing security at the transport hubs and crowded places.”
“Which cities are you talking about?”
“All the tier-1 cities, starting with New York, Washington…”
“Don’t be stupid, Bill,” Mattis interrupted him. “We don’t have enough manpower and you know that. and also, we can’t just shut our cities without any credible intel.”
“This information is credible, and this is an emergency. You need to tell the President that this is happening today, whether he likes it or not. If you want me in DC, I can be there in an hour.”
“Helms, I don’t think that there is any need to spend taxpayers’ money on unnecessary travel expenses. You should stay in Maryland, I’ll see what I can do.”
This was unusual. “Patrick, is there anything that I am not aware of?” Helms asked.
“Bill, it’s not that.”
“Patrick, we have known each other for twenty-five long years, and you know that I take bad news better than anyone else. If there is one, I’d expect you to tell me to my face.”
“Bill, listen to me, do not come to DC and do not stay in your office. Go home and spend time with your family. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Patrick, it’s not about me or my family, it was never about that and you know that. I called you to tell you that my intel is legit. It’s your call now. If I don’t get a call from the President in fifteen minutes, I’ll need to find other ways to get this message out.”
“Listen, Bill, don’t do anything rash. I told you to take it easy. Let me talk to the man and I promise to get back to you as early as possible.”
“Fifteen minutes, Patrick. That’s all I can give you.”
“Bill. I hear you, let me talk to the President. I’ll call you back.” Mattis didn’t wait for Helms’s response. It took Helms a few seconds to realize that Mattis had hung upon him. Was he really going to talk to the President? He decided it was better to deliver a summary report to Mattis just in case.
A moment later, Helms’s office door opened. It was Andrew. “Sir, you need to see this.” He switched on the television.
The newscaster was hysterical. “A minute ago, two near-simultaneous explosions have been reported at Phoenix and San Diego.”
This was much worse than what Helms had estimated. The attacks had begun, and the world’s most powerful nation wasn’t the least bit prepared for them.
Chapter 19
Washington DC, USA
The warning came in while the majority of Washington was in a weekend morning mood. The duty officer in the White House Situation Room received the call from the CIA Ops center. Within minutes, phone lines were buzzing around the capital and beyond. Calls went to Walter Raborn, the CIA director and the agency leadership. Simultaneously, security details were rousted, motorcades were sent out, and key players in the National Security were ordered to get to their respective offices immediately.
Patrick Mattis had just got off the call from Helms when the bad news reached him, and he was the first cabinet-level official who received it. Between his call with Helms and the bad news, he had three or four minutes which he spent thinking about what he would tell Hancock, or whether he should even tell him anything.
But now there wasn’t any option.
Alone in the backseat, Hancock was deep in thought on what he should do next when he absent-mindedly read the scrolling tape at the bottom of the television screen. News about some hotel in some city. Which city he didn’t know, didn’t care, but then he started to pay attention.
Five blasts in three American cities, all within a span of minutes. A shopping mall and a luxury hotel in Phoenix, two malls in San Diego and a luxury hotel at Indianapolis were hit by what seemed at the moment like a suicide bomber attack. The names of the shopping malls and the hotels were on the screen.
Hancock was dumbfounded. He had only a vague concept of something like this happening to elevate his chances, but he hadn’t properly considered the repercussions, if anything like that ever happened. It was a far-fetched idea unless someone took it upon themself to deliver it to him. And now someone had taken it upon oneself to deliver it to him, and he had no clue what he should do with it! The situation was unprecedented, and he was painfully out of his depth
.
The initial death toll is somewhere around 900 people with more than 2000 wounded, the scroll at the bottom read. The 9/11 attacks had a death toll of 2,996 people with more than 6,000 injured. The nature of the blasts was not immediately clear and there were no immediate claims of responsibility.
As his motorcade kept moving towards the golf course, Hancock was still lost in thought when his phone rang. It was Walter Raborn, Director of the CIA. He was the right person. He could help him. Hancock picked up the phone before the third ring.
“Mr. President, have you…?” Raborn asked, stopping in mid-sentence.