Recall to Arms

by Frank Perry

with two fingers. It was difficult to extract and seemed to periodically stick. Razzaq vomited. Slowly, the bag came out.

  With the bag removed, the wound was closed using a large needle and heavy thread. The medic stitched Razzaq closed quickly then bathed the area in alcohol. They had no antibiotics, so Razzaq would rely on his immune system and regular cleaning of the wound to fight infection. The sealed bag was taken to the kitchen where it was washed, revealing the small circuit card, antenna wire and batteries.

  As he lay there on the table, Razzaq began breathing more normally and the pain in his back changed to an intense throb. He needed sleep, but he had a sense of dread. He rolled onto his stomach and rotated off the table onto the floor. Using the table for balance, he stumbled to the kitchen. It felt much like being shot in the back. Masood helped him to the sink. Once there, he took his arms from their shoulders and balanced his weight against the counter. He examined the electronics carefully. Damned Israelis!

  He laid the bag down, not wanting to destroy the contents. If his plan was to proceed, it must accelerate. Whoever was tracking him had not been detected by his men. He told Masood to put the package above the cabinets.

  He instructed the men in the house to have everyone assemble at the Woodstock facility. They were to move carefully and not draw attention to themselves. At Woodstock, all vehicles were to be parked inside the warehouse and doors were to remain closed. He’d evaded capture many times before. With the tracker removed, he could now move in secrecy. He was thankful that he’d not visited all of their locations.

  Late in the afternoon, the federal team agreed to start visual surveillance on the Villa Park address. The tracking device had not moved for hours. Luke and Angela were to watch the house and determine how many people were present. Peter and another FBI agent would drive to Woodstock.

  Both surveillance teams used their personal cars and “dressed down.” Peter wore jeans and a cutoff sweatshirt over an Army sand color tee shirt. The sweatshirt concealed his shoulder holster. He put two magazines in his back pocket and four more in the glove compartment of his Explorer.

  The teams would communicate with hand-held encrypted radios. Luke drove to Villa Park, letting Angela handle the navigation and communications chores. Peter preferred to be in the passenger seat, so he let the Agent drive. En route to their stakeouts, both teams stopped for snack food and drinks. In the back of Peter’s Explorer, he had a large athletic bag with clothing and equipment.

  Woodstock

  Razzaq moved carefully and appeared weak to the sixteen men assembled at the warehouse. He briefed them on the discovery of the tracking device and had them begin searching the warehouse for any kind of surveillance apparatus. The building was about five thousand square feet of open metal construction, so it would be difficult to hide cameras or listening devices. The building inspection included every square inch of overhead, wall and floor space, taking almost an hour to complete. He then had them check their cars, which were more difficult to examine. There were twelve cars, and it took another hour. Finally, he had the men checked with the electronic wand. Nothing was found. The process had consumed hours, which made him more anxious to move forward. They were all assembled with the cars and bombs. They were most vulnerable.

  His instructions were given. Each of the drivers was to take their car to one of the three safe houses he hadn’t visited. The cars were to be garaged or covered. He would move to one of the houses. Most of the cars had been painted to look like Patriot taxis, but only six had the bombs installed in the trunk. The installation in the taxis required welded supports and modification of the rear seat, removing the spring structure where the nosecone protruded. The rear seat covers had a slight budge. None of the car bombs had the detonation systems installed yet, but this could be done elsewhere. Razzaq knew they could be discovered at any time and ordered the vehicles moved. They would be leaving four bombs behind. After the cars were moved to new locations, none was to be driven unless instructed by him. Concealment was vital.

  Masood would rent another warehouse. Each of them would be contacted to bring the cars to that location. They were then ordered to leave the warehouse at two-minute intervals with all lights extinguished while the garage doors were opened.

  As the procession began, Razzaq and Masood tried scanning the warehouse for anything that would lead the Americans to them. Remnants of the warhead were all over and there was no way to hide the existence of the bombs.

  As Peter and the agent arrived at the warehouse, a car car emerged. Another car came out two minutes later, then another one and another. Peter reported the movement. The dispatcher patched the message to Sam Lee’s phone in the office.

  Once connected, Peter said, “Sir, three vehicles have exited the building. They all appear to be taxis, the Patriot Company. The building is dark. Should we follow one of them, or maintain our position? Over.”

  Lee responded, “Acknowledged, hold one” Sam put the call on speaker in the conference room and asked others for any opinions. “Peter, I want you to hold position and count the cars. Get license and taxi numbers if possible.”

  “Roger that.”

  The cars were exiting away from them, and it was too dark to read license plates. The cars stopped leaving after several minutes.

  Peter reported, “SAC, this is Peter, we counted twelve vehicles exiting the building, all were white, ten were marked, unable to identify numbers. All appears quiet at the scene. Should we reconnoiter sir?”

  ”Wait one.” After a moment, Lee said, “Advise you wait for backup before reconnoiter.”

  Peter responded “Sir, recommend against backup. I believe I can get into the building more quickly and safely alone.”

  After a few moments, Lee said, “Woodstock, you are cleared to enter the building.”

  As the Agent listened to the message traffic, he told Peter that he wouldn’t go near the building without backup. Peter told the young agent, Jason, to maintain surveillance from the car. He could do this better alone.

  Jason did not complain. Peter went into his glove box for a role of black electrical tape, which he used to cover the interior light of the car. He crawled over the seat to cover the second interior light. He went out the door quietly and moved behind the truck, opening the lift gate. In the dark, Peter was putting on some dark fatigues and a utility vest made of Kevlar with several compartments. He sheathed a fighting knife across his chest and a shorter throwing knife behind his waste. He applied face paint and covered his head with a black floppy hat. His shoulder holster was moved outside. He put a role of duct tape and tie wraps in pockets. Closing the back, he moved to the passenger front door for extra ammunition magazines in the glove compartment. He handed Jason a communications headset and did a radio check. He helped him adjust and operate it. Peter already had his set on. Closing the door quietly, he was gone. Jason did not see him slip away. With few streetlights in the area, Peter had disappeared.

  The team at Villa Park was checking status of Razzaq. Intelligence was analyzed in Washington, and Rachael got a report that the transponder was stationary for hours.

  Sam Lee called Angela on TAC2, “Villa Park, come in.”

  She acknowledged immediately, and Lee continued, “The pigeon may have flown, no movement in four hours. How is your view?”

  Angela answered, “No movement since we arrived, should we investigate?”

  “You are to wait for backup, a warrant is in process.” Sam decided to go to Villa Park himself. He and Rachael drove together in a Government car, and she brought the tracking receiver with her. One of the ASACs called the Villa Park police for support, and identified Luke Gallagher as the agent in charge.

  While the Villa Park team was waiting, Peter had crossed the street in Woodstock moving in the nighttime shadows to the back of the building across from the Explorer. With almost no light, he moved cautiously. Debris was strewn be
hind the building. An old chain link fence ran behind, leaving only four feet of clearance. Three minutes passed before he got to the corner of the building next to the target. It was encased in old corrugated steel, typical of utility buildings built before WWII. The gap between the buildings was only ten feet. The side across from him was about fifty feet long to the street with one window and a door located at the front. He crossed the open area in long steps. The backside of the building appeared to be about one hundred feet long.

  In darkness, the building seemed symmetrical with windows along the back. They were hinged on top and opened outward. All were closed. He crept along the back quietly finding several windows with faulty latches. He did not try to open any. At the far end, the building had another single window and door on the side near the front. He moved back to the center rear of the building. Peering through the glass, he was sure that all garage doors along the front were closed.

  He would need to open a window, cut through the screen if necessary, and then get inside without being detected. He called Jason, “Jason, it’s Peter, can you hear me?”

  Jason replied in a whisper, “Peter, I was getting worried.”

  “I’m okay, but I need you to raise a little commotion.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to gather some pieces of concrete block and drive down the street. As you pass the building, throw them at the garage doors, then keep driving around the corner.”

  Jason answered, “Okay, got it.”

  Peter tested his gear to be sure it was secure. A minute passed when the first stone landed with a loud crash. When the second one hit, he threw the window up, which had a screen. Finding the hilt of his fighting knife, he slashed twice diagonally and jumped catlike to the window ledge, then rolled inside. He let his knife hand hit the surface using his knuckles to brace his fall. He stopped in a low crouch, remaining motionless as the last brick hit its mark. Jason had done a good job. He turned off his headset and moved it to his neck.

  The interior of the building was black until his eyes started to adjust. The only light was distant streetlight ebbing through the darkened windows in the overhead doors. He heard muffled dialogue, which sounded Arabic. There were dark shadows of obstacles on the floor. By elevating, he could see over the debris and scanned the building. Side windows near the front were vaguely discernable. On the right, there were cigarette embers held by men on either side of the window. At least two men were in the building.

  Peter crept toward the front by feeling the floor. The men were agitated and talking quietly. They were edgy. Peter moved slowly, listening for other people in the building.

  He moved obliquely, following a jagged path around the rubble toward the men. Several minutes were needed to move half the distance. One of the men dropped his cigarette butt on the floor and ignited his lighter. The flame illuminated half of the building. Peter was able to see the men and their weapons. Both carried AK assault rifles. One he could see clearly had an AK74 that was developed in 1974 as a modernized version of the world war II-era AK-47, chambered for smaller 5.45 x 39 millimeter ammunition. He assumed both men had identical weapons. The upgrade of the AK increased the magazine capacity to thirty rounds, which could fire at a rate of six hundred per minute in full automatic mode. Three seconds of continuous fire. Peter had 9mm low velocity ammunition in his handgun. The AK had a muzzle velocity of almost three times faster than his weapon.

  He had a clear line of fire from a pallet to the two men. Feeling on the floor around him, he found a loose metal frame. Crouching behind cover, he opened a breast pocket and removed a palm flashlight. When set, he threw the frame over his head, to his left. The metal hit something semi hard with a discernable thud, not a loud noise he’d wanted, but the effect was the same. An Arabic curse sounded and both gunmen began firing randomly toward the noise in cyclic bursts. The muzzle flashes acted like strobe lights showing their postures, hip shooting and spraying the area with bullets.

  When the shooting stopped, they had each wasted half a magazine. For a moment, everything was quiet and Peter started to switch on the light when something fell, probably dislodged by the shooting, and the firing began again. One gunman stopped firing and lifted his weapon. Empty. The other one stopped firing.

  Peter switched on the light and yelled from behind the cover, “Drop your weapons or we will shoot!” In a combat action he shoot without warning.

  Before he could finish speaking, one man bolted to Peter’s left as the other man aimed his weapon. Peter fired twice at the fleeing man then fell behind the pallet as the second man fired three-rounds. Peter jumped right, falling on his side with his head and shoulders exposed. He aimed at the man’s sternum, firing twice. The man twisted violently to his left, out of the light beam. Peter jumped to his feet, not knowing if either man was seriously injured. He panned the light looking for the first man and saw him on the floor, crawling slowly. Panning right, he saw the second shooter on his hands and knees with his head resting against the front wall of the building. He rushed to the moving man. The rifle was behind him where it dropped. Peter stripped the magazine and cycled the charging handle to empty the chamber, tossing it aside.

  He stepped nearer to the crawling man with his gun cradled. His flashlight was balanced in his left hand. The man appeared to be wounded in the buttocks. He moved to within five feet and ordered him to lie still. In pain, the man kept crawling. His hands were empty. Peter buried his knee in the man’s back and pulled one hand backward as the wounded man screamed. The man yelled something in Arabic, but he had no means of defending himself. Peter’s gun barrel was at the base of his neck. He shifted gun hands then pulled the other hand back. Laying the light on the ground, he pulled a tie wrap from his pocket and bound the man’s wrists tightly. He could feel the man’s rhythmic deep breathing in defiance, but he was helpless.

  Peter then returned to the first man who was now lying on his side. His breathing was shallow and he could see at least one center chest wound. He checked him for other weapons; then put his communicator back on his head and radioed, “Jason, come in.”

  After a few seconds Jason replied, “Colonel, are you all right? It sounded like a war zone?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Drive to the front of the building. I’ll try to find some lights and open a door to let you in.”

  After locating the electrical box, he opened one of the oversized garage doors and Jason drove through, then it closed behind him. Peter met him as he opened the truck door saying, “Jason, you need to call Sam Lee, and the FBI will need to take charge. We need reinforcements ASAP. Keep the doors locked until the cavalry arrives. In the meantime, let’s look around. Oh yeah, tell them we have two shooters down with gunshot wounds; one is critical. I’m going to look around.”

  They kept the car lights on while Peter turned all the lights on in the building. He scavenged the AKs and put one in his truck, handing the other one to Jason that still had some ammunition in the magazine.

  Safe House

  The warrant took longer to process than expected while Luke and Angela waited patiently down the street from the Villa Park house. Sam finally arrived in a caravan of cars with most of the task team. Luke met him in the street. Almost simultaneously, the local Police Department arrived with a large van and their SWAT team. They would make the first entry into the house. Police officers were dispatched to the rear of the house and also to the neighboring houses for protection. Four SWAT officers in battle dress formed an assault line at the front door. The first officer in line carried a ramming tool. Four more officers were staged at the corners of the house for perimeter protection. Behind them, uniformed police and the FBI had their weapons drawn.

  As the door slammed open, the lead entry officer yelled, “POLICE! FEDERAL SEARCH WARRANT, NOBODY MOVE!” The entire team was through the door in a split second using cover-on-cover protocol, moving w
ith speed and efficiency. Breaching is tricky business and the teams are trained to get to all occupants quickly. The house was empty.

  As the team leader announced that the breach was complete, they exited the building so investigators could go to work. Rachael used the locator with efficiency and it took only a few minutes to find the transmitter in the kitchen.

  About the same time, Jason’s call from Woodstock was received. Sam left Luke in charge and called for a helicopter. Before the chopper arrived, he radioed to the Chicago operations center to have Woodstock Police Department provide immediate police protection at the scene. He used his cell phone to call the Governor’s office to report. As he boarded the helicopter, he called the TAG (The Adjutant General), to assess local guard unit specialties in case nuclear weapons were discovered.

  Sam radioed Woodstock that he was en route by air with an ETA of fifteen minutes, and that local police were being dispatched. Jason acknowledged and continued following Peter through the building. It was cluttered with painting equipment, tools, and car interior components. Then Peter found what was feared, the remnants of the SA18 warhead. Ten nuclear bomblets had been removed. Not far away on a pallet under a blue cover, they located four of them. They were stacked two on top of two with wooden braces in between. Each was about five feet long and one foot in diameter. The stack was wrapped with metal bands to hold them in place. Under the pointed end of the re-entry vehicles, was a metal box with cables to each of the warheads.

  Peter called Sam immediately to alert him to a probable nuclear bomb trap. He then radioed to the Illinois Adjutant General. Sam was, in turn calling the Department of Justice, who would notify the President’s staff. This initiated a chain of confused and convoluted response actions.

  The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, located within the Department of Energy, was created in 1975 with cognizance over domestic nuclear incidents. NEST, in turn, relies on the Defense Department for actual ‘render safe’ support using its Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams. These teams are trained to work worldwide under hostile conditions.

  The FBI had trained technicians in basic principles of nuclear device construction and operation. About 100 special agents are trained as bomb technicians; however, they cannot render the device safe. This remains the sole purview of the EOD teams.

  Sam was the senior federal officer with on-scene authority. Within an hour of the discovery, Woodstock