by Dana Arama
“A building like that is not accessible. Are you giving up on the possibility of attacking it?”
“Why give up?” he asked, surprised. “It’s just a bit more challenging and requires creativity and preciseness when planning. For example, a few days ago a commercial deal was signed between a big British company – which, coincidentally, I own controlling shares in -- and the Malaysian government. There will be a party to celebrate the occasion, and a catering truck will arrive tomorrow at the Malaysian embassy. At the same time, a group of students from Columbia University will go out on a protest march, located here,” he pointed at a spot in close proximity to the Israeli embassy. “They will march along this route.” The screen displayed a map of the area and Yassin pointed out the route, which terminated at the Israeli embassy. “And they will protest against the Israeli apartheid. The students, not necessary Muslim, will gather opposite the embassy, and the Israeli guards and the American forces who are supposed to prevent anyone reaching the Israeli embassy gates will be on high alert because of the protest and will pay less attention to the catering vans. When one of them stops, and opens up the hood of the car, and smoke is pouring out of the engine, it will be the least threatening situation to deal with, and they won’t take notice of it.”
“And then it will blow up?”
“First there will be shots in the crowd. People will fall like flies. They will blame the Israelis. They will start blaming each other. The security forces will respond quickly…”
“And then there will be an explosion,” I finished the sentence.
“Exactly!” He smiled and went from computer to computer. Pictures of buildings, which I guessed were Israeli consulates, flashed across the screens.
“Each consulate with its own attack,” he said with great pride. “Each operation is an attack in itself. And all of them are inconsequential compared to the attack just before Thanksgiving. Simultaneously blowing up planes en route to Israel … It is going to spike universal fear as never seen before.”
I also felt the fear rising within me, as I had never felt before in my life. To be involved in one terrorist attack seemed like cheap payment for all the sins I’d committed, but to be involved in this operation seemed like death by torture. The only thing I could think was how I could get out of it, or how to stop the madness.
Yassin pointed to the second screen, which showed a fairly new high-rise building. Above the entrance, in glittering metal letters, was the name ‘New World Tower’. Palm trees swayed beside the building in a light breeze.
I asked, “Miami, Florida?” He nodded.
“One camera is stationed on the tree opposite the entrance.” Yassin pressed a button and the street view appeared. “That is where the rescue forces will come from. Do you see the FedEx truck? Every day at the same time they arrive to collect the mail and parcels. The building has thirty stories and the ground floor is designated for businesses.” He pressed the button again and another high rise appeared. “My sniper is situated in this hotel,” He explained, with icy calm. “He will shoot at random people tomorrow in the vicinity. Unfortunately, I don’t have direct access to the embassy, but it doesn’t mean I can’t wreak havoc.” He turned the camera a bit to show a sliver of the upper car park. “In the building there is an electronic parking lot with twelve floors,” he explained. “There will be a Tesla in one of the parking bays, loaded with a huge amount of explosives. Have you seen what happens when a lithium battery explodes? A burst of inextinguishable fire ensues. When the security forces gather, he only needs to take one shot, aimed at the bottom of the car where the battery is. It will ignite and the explosives in the car will go off.”
“You know that the bottom is reinforced, right?”
“Of course.” A hint of a smile crossed his lips, “We have already tested it. That’s the reason I requested those specific bullets. And thanks to these bullets you’ve supplied me with….”
“The whole building will collapse!” I interrupted.
“Exactly. The whole building will collapse and with it, the embassy. The whole building will collapse on all the security forces in the vicinity. There will be much damage.”
“Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.” He pointed at the next screen. “A very long street.” He accentuated the word ‘long’ like a broken record. “Do you have any idea how many consulates there are along this street?” He looked at me. “I have done my homework properly.” He lifted his hand and counted on his fingers. “Argentina, Columbia, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Bangladesh, Italy, and many more. But, most importantly to us, the Israeli consulate is there too.”
“How will you get there?”
“The building next door is the post office. A very interesting parcel is about to arrive there.”
“Are you going to blow up that building too?” The feeling I had was somewhere between nausea and admiration. He was insane, but a genius, nonetheless.
“No. But as soon as the parcel, which contains suspicious white powder, arrives, they will evacuate the whole area, along with the embassy workers.”
“And then the sniper…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“And then the sniper will start shooting at the people, the security forces will come. The real fun starts when the post office van blows up.”
I looked at the darkened television screen and saw my reflection. Before Yassin reentered my life, I’d known exactly what I wanted to do. Everything I did was in service of that goal. But I had been drawn into the whirlpool and was now in way over my head. How could I, a small time crook, stop these forces? I thought about my father, sitting in England, satisfied that his son had been saved from the Red Mafia. What will he say about me now, when he found out I was involved in this shit?
“What is the plan with the rest of the consulates?” I asked tiredly and pointed at the rest of the screens. Deep down I hoped that his plan would leak, and it would be stopped in time. I couldn’t understand how someone could climb a tree and put a camera there without anyone stopping him from doing it. How can one organize a march without someone understanding who was behind it. And a movie in a building exactly opposite the consulate… Would the Israelis do the math and realize that something big was about to happen?
“Philly.” He smiled smugly. “Look how even the weather is smiling upon us there.” He pointed towards one of the screens. “The same story is about to happen there too. A sniper will shoot people randomly on the street, the security forces will close off the nearby roads and a car, already parked there, will explode.”
“Which cities are those consulates in?” I asked and pointed to two more screens where the pictures looked greyer.
“Boston. Heavily clouded. Chicago, cloudy.”
“Besides the clouds, it seems as if the skies are in your favor,” I noted. A cold spell and some snow might keep the protesters from going out in the street and the citizens from going out and getting gunned down by a mysterious sniper.
“It’s Allah smiling down upon us,” he answered with a satisfaction that was so typical of him. “But also brilliant planning. A week later and the weather would not have been in our favor. That is why the timing of the delivery of the rifles was so important.”
“And this one?” I pointed at a white high-rise building.
“Atlanta. We thought there may be a problem there. Did you know that until the Olympics, there were less than forty consulates? Since then, there are over seventy. In this building the only consulate there is the Israeli one. The building is quite isolated, in a residential neighborhood. But there’s the penthouse of this tall building here.” He pointed on the map to another tall building. I could see that there was only a street and a small, low structure with a “For Sale” on it, between this building and the consulate.
“Did you buy it?” I asked. No price was too high for him to pay, apart from the paper trail it might leave.
> “I have rented it in order to become familiar with the area. Or, to be more precise, my sniper rented the place and he will disappear from there when everything is over.”
“Park Plaza Building.” I pointed to the next screen. “Where is that?”
“Boston,” he answered. “Do you see the coffee place below? On sunny days, it is overflowing with customers. Today it is cloudy, but tomorrow, Allah willing, the sun will be shining, and the coffee house will be full. Full of Israelis, too, and there will be a car accident. A car will drive on the pavement and run over the customers sitting there in the coffee shop. Of course, the first question will be if this an innocent car accident or a vehicle-ramming attack. The security forces will arrive, ambulances will fill the street, but then someone will shout ‘Allah Akbar’. The Israeli security forces from the embassy will take hold of him, more security forces will arrive and then we will blow up the car already waiting there.”
“Chicago. The city of iron and mafias.” He smiled, and added, forcefully, “And after tomorrow a city of terror as well.” He stood next to a screen which showed the picture of the arched entrance to a building. He put his hand on it. In the middle of the arches there was a sign which said ‘500 West Madison’.
“What are you planning to do in Chicago?” I already knew the answer. They were most likely going to use snipers. I knew that protests wouldn’t work there. No people sitting at coffee shops either because the weather wouldn’t be good.
“The same scenario will work there. Sniper, citizens falling down in front of the Israeli consulate, security forces and a car explosion. The cherry on the top will be the consulate in San Francisco.” He came up close to the screen and pointed at it. “We entered a pro-Israeli blog and organized a pro-Israeli demonstration. There will be many casualties, as there will be two snipers located not too far away and one shahid who will blow himself up when the security forces arrive.”
“What do you expect to gain from all this devastation?” I managed to disguise my disgust with a tone of admiration.
“Isolation of the Little Satan, humiliation of the Great Satan, chaos to those who are supposed to protect them and aside from that, total control over the whole situation.”
“And don’t you think that, once the first embassy is hit, they will warn the others?”
Yassin smiled at me, and the smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared on his face. “That is the genius of the plan. Despite the fact that each attack is separate, one doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.” He smiled once again, and said happily, “All the attacks will happen at the exact same hour. Twelve noon tomorrow, on the dot. At noon on the sixteenth of November, 2015, the skies will darken and death will envelop all of America. The initial blow that will befall them.”
***
The telephone rang and I jumped in fright. I was loaded with drugs, but instead of calming me, they had the opposite effect. Yassin picked up the phone and listened for a moment. It seemed that Juliana, Yassin’s insubordinate wife, and his beloved son were arriving in New York in less than two hours. Yassin listened a while longer and answered, “Carry on with the original plan, the limousine is already waiting for you.”
“If we consider that she didn’t want to come at all, we must anticipate that she will most probably be angry when she walks in,” said the soft voice. “Maybe you should save some of the drugs for her, so that she’ll calm down.”
Yassin laughed and patted him on the back. “She will calm down once she sees her beloved genius of a husband.”
“With all due respect.” The soft voice sounded suddenly less soft and a bit angry. “We really don’t need one of her scenes. This is going to be a battleground. I don’t even think you should be here. It is time you vanished.”
The smile that had been on Yassin’s face over the last hour faded. The icy fire rose in his eyes and spread through the whole room. I wondered if he would shoot his aide himself, or command someone else to do it. I prayed that he would not request it of me. His aide might have a soft voice, but he also had balls of steel; he seemed not the least perturbed by Yassin’s clear rage. He carried on glaring at Yassin, as if demanding immediate action. Soon, the fire in Yassin’s eyes died down. He contemplated, and then, as if his fervor had renewed itself, he said, “You are right. Pack up everything. Only Rod and the rifle are staying here.”
We’d already partaken in one round of cocaine. Heaps of food lay on the table next to me, but we had not eaten much. A whisper of the fun Yassin, the one I’d known all those years ago, flickered into view. I took advantage of his good mood and filled a plate of food, then took it to the kid who sat in the tiny little room. He was shaking uncontrollably, and I felt sorry for him. “I heard everything,” he whispered to me. “Your friend is insane!”
I bent down to give him the plate. I whispered to him, “Take the plate and eat something. I will do my best to get us out of here.” That was enough to cause a rush of tears to trickle down his cheeks. He was careful not to whimper out loud. It was just as well because it could have got us both in trouble. He took the plate and began eating with his dirty fingers.
Happy Yassin asked, “Do you want to give him a line to snort, or would it be a waste of good stuff?”
I got up and said, as if to no-one in particular, “It would be a waste. He won’t appreciate it.” I smiled at Yassin. “On the other hand, I am ready for a second round.”
“Just let me make one call.” He contacted the man accompanying his wife and son and instructed him of a change in plans. “Tell the pilot I want him to land in Washington. More instructions will arrive later. The pilot knows where to fly.”
“How are you planning on getting to Washington?” I inquired. My eyes were concentrating on the white powder crumbling on the crystal surface. Deep inside I felt that perhaps that was the first mistake he made. Maybe the swift change in plan had no security net. I hoped someone would follow this private plane on which his son and wife were flying. That someone would manage to stop all this craziness that was about to happen. I continued looking at the powder greedily, to hide my thoughts of him being caught.
“The person who gave me the ship has given me his whole fleet. His planes and helicopters, too. I need to use his planes, just in case mine are being tailed.”
The person with the soft voice ordered Rod the sniper, saying, “Don’t use the phone but keep it charged.”
Yassin added, “You start shooting at the exact hour we set. The hellfire will start at twelve noon, eastern time, unless something changes, and only then if you receive another order from me. Any other order has to come from me. Only I can stop this operation!”
Rod took the rifle and hugged him, like they were brothers in arms, which I suppose they were. “You have nothing to worry about, boss. I have enough ammunition. I have shot more difficult targets than these. The United States army trained me well”
Yassin opened the door and the chosen, who waited loyally behind the door, walked into the room. “Collect everything, we’re moving to the next point.”
Quickly and professionally they gathered up the computers and the cables connected to them. The maps were taken off the wall and the rest of the drugs were collected into little plastic bags. The whole organization of dismantling the equipment was precise and brisk.
The third call Yassin made was short. He just ordered, “Start the motors!” and hung up.
Everyone hugged him, in a bizarre male ritual. Before we left the room, I asked Yassin, “What about your prisoner?”
“He is staying here for the time being. Right now, he is redundant, but I am keeping him as life insurance. When Rod finishes his task, he will shoot him too.” Without another glance towards the kid, we left the room.
Laura Ashton
Gideoni’s tip gave me both direction and hope that we might be able to get to Yassin on time. I left my room and asked for al
l the teams to assemble. Linda approached all the teams in the other rooms and only after everyone gathered did I start talking. “I want to talk about the big picture, because you are all equally responsible for exposing it. We are dealing with a potential terror attack. The targets are most likely Israeli. It may be their embassies or their planes or both.” I stopped for a dramatic pause and then added, “We may have found another target. It is the Israeli satellite ‘Amos-6’, located in Cape Canaveral. It could also be Israeli scientists working in the United States. So, a few words on the current situation. All signs point towards Yassin Graham. We must locate him,” I said and pointed to the screen where Yassin Graham’s portrait was displayed.
“We have received outside information,” I added, without revealing the source. “His wife and son are on their way here, most probably to New York City. We know that the wife didn’t want to come, which made me reevaluate the situation. We know that he has access to professional weapons, we know that he has motivation, and we know he has the ability to get to the commercial flights without security stopping them. All this makes us think that Yassin Graham is planning a terror attack so big that he, together with his wife and son, will all go to ‘terrorist heaven’…” I looked at everyone in the eye. They had accepted my words with grave seriousness, and I saw the determination in their faces. “But we saw just a few days ago that heaven is the living hell for those who remain. We have to stop him. We can’t allow him to do this here.” A few heads nodded in consent and I continued.
“I know that you are tired. We all have been chasing unidentified shadows for hours, but now, we have a window of opportunity. Linda will give you new tasks. They include gathering statistics on favorite hotels preferred by our target, finding other places he might stay, like clubs, yachts, anything you may think of. Try to add to that any intel on the wife. All her details are attached. She also has preferences that he may take into consideration. The second team will get the data about the plane’s route and where they are at the moment. I need to know which airport they are planning to land in and if there are any last-minute flight deviations. Based on the data we collect here, we can then distribute the officers in the field.”