by Rick Jones
. . . Here lies your moment of accepting redemption . . .
Bonasero’s voice was fading, his words no louder than a whisper as if the ‘Light’ was falling into some cosmic or ethereal range that was beyond his grasp.
Bonasero, don’t leave me!
. . . The time is now, Kimball . . . The choice is yours . . .
And then the voice disappeared into whispers that sounded like the soft sighing of the wind.
Bonasero?
Silence.
Kimball felt completely abandoned, if not entirely soulless. Half the shot glasses were empty and placed upside down on their rims. The others waited upon Kimball’s decision—to seek a final comfort in the words of Bonasero Vessucci . . . or in drink.
Kimball chose the latter by drinking all the shot glasses, and then ordering more. By day’s end it took a pair of Vatican Knights, Isaiah and Jeremiah, to retrieve a passed-out Kimball Hayden and return him to his cot.
There would be no lighting of votive candles.
There would be no kneeling upon the prayer rail.
There would be no opening of the Bible which sits upon the pedestal.
And there would be no invitation from the Virgin Mother.
Kimball had finally fallen into the Abyss.
Chapter Eleven
New York City
The Following Day
0925 Hours
The trip from Winchester, Virginia to New York City by car is approximately 280 miles, or a four to five-hour drive. Three men rode in silence lacking the exuberance they shared the night before. The idea of dying in the name of Allah had lost its shine and doubts were beginning to cross their minds. After abandoning the car in Manhattan, two of the guerillas took separate cabs to the target point, whereas the third took the train to Ellis Island. As a distraction, each man carried a backpack filled with bottled water, hats, items that would have the security team focused on the bag’s contents, rather than what was beneath the long hoodies that disguised their vests. The lines were long, and the security checks were swift to keep the lines moving. As soon as they reached the second checkpoint, additional security made quick passes of a metal-detecting wand but discovered no traces. After they had been waved through, they situated themselves at different points on the ferry. One stood at the bow while another remained at portside. The third man stood at the ship’s stern.
After they reached the island and disembarked, the trio gathered at the base of the Statue of Liberty, the magnificent structure a representation of America’s freedom that stood 305 feet.
Each man traced the full length of her height with careful measure, with their heads craning skyward as if watching the slow trajectory of a rocket.
Abdul Kassam shrugged as if the vest was proving to be a discomfort, then settled back into a state of ease. Yet his heart continued to pound heavily against the wall of his chest as zero hour was nearly upon him. “Are you ready, my brothers?” he asked.
Both men nodded.
Then Kassam, after taking a deep breath through his nostrils and releasing it with an equally long sigh, said, “As Allawi stated earlier, tonight we will dine together in Paradise. Think only of that when the time comes.”
As a team, they headed toward the Statue of Liberty.
* * *
Washington, D.C., The Washington Monument
0946 Hours
While the Manhattan team was preparing for the moment of engagement, the D.C. unit was doing the same. Since timing and coordination were key to this entire operation, everything had to move without a hitch. People were milling about the monument’s base taking photos with their smart phones, while others stared at the column debating whether the climb would be worth it.
After passing the checkpoints with minimal examination, they came upon a pair of officers who were asking people to unzip their jackets for cursory inspection, which was a problem for the team.
“What do we do?” asked Salil, a nineteen-year-old who exhibited his concern by shifting his weight anxiously from one leg to another. “This can’t be done. We’ll never get through.”
Tarek placed a hand on Salil’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Relax, Salil, or you’ll give us away. Close your eyes if you have to and take a deep breath.”
Salil did just that. Still, his heart threatened to misfire inside his chest, the beat was so rapid.
“No second thoughts,” Tarek said. Then after a pause, he added: “To have doubts, Salil, will not be favorable in the eyes of Allah, since He has chosen you for this assignment. If you deny Allah this moment, then Allah will deny you not only in His heart, but also in Paradise. Do you understand this?”
Salil nodded.
“This is a great honor, Salil. Remember that.”
The nineteen-year-old took additional deep breaths to calm himself. Then he nodded his head to signify that he was fine.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m fine, Tarek.”
Then Tarek, who acted as group manager, looked at his watch. It was 0954.
“We’re running behind,” he said, looking up the obelisk. “And we’ve only minutes to achieve the means.” Then he turned to Izrail, a man who was in his late twenties and mentally prepared. Then from Tarek: “Izrail, we need someone to pave the way.”
Message understood.
After tilting his chin in acknowledgement, Izrail looped a finger through the ring to discharge the vest, and advanced toward the security team mouthing words of prayer. Moving past others in line who gave him glaring looks, Izrail stood before the two-man security team. His eyes darted from person to person while sweat began to bead on his upper lip, even on a cool day. Then in a moment of embracing fate, Izrail closed his eyes, tilted his head skyward, and yelled, “Allahu Akbar!” And then he pulled the pin.
* * *
After they had drawn a sizeable distance from Izrail, Tarek and Salil were still knocked off their feet from the concussive waves. A mushroom fireball went airborne, as the fiery orb clambered for great heights before it turned into a dense cloud of black smoke. Multiple people were killed instantly, the blast tearing them apart. The ground shook, the area where Izrail once stood now a smoking crater. Screams carried through the air as cries for help, the masses in great pain. Bloodied torsos, discarded limbs, burnt pieces of clothing now littered the landscape. From his belly on the ground, Tarek looked at his watch.
. . . 09:57:18 . . .
“Now, Salil, time is short.”
They hurried to their feet and ran through the cloying thickness of clouds and agonizing screams. People covered with black soot and blood reached out a hand to them in the hopes of receiving aid, only to be passed by.
Moments later, they entered the monument the same time that people were running from the memorial’s cap in panic. They were now moving against the grain, with the rush of people working against them, and began their climb.
“Stay close, Salil! Our time is almost upon us!”
. . . 09:58:02 . . .
By 0959 hours, they were able to make a third of the climb. People were still coming down the steps—men, women, children, the elderly, all who were seeking the safety of level terrain.
Then Tarek looked at his watch, which was in perfect synchronization with the Manhattan team.
. . . 09:59:37 . . .
Tarek was breathing heavily as was Salil, whose adrenaline continued to fuel their actions. They looked at each other with pinning eye contact that said it all: the time has come.
Looping the crook of his finger through the ring of the pull cord, Tarek motioned to Salil to do the same. Slowly, as if reluctant, Salil managed to do so.
“Good,” said Tarek, approving. “You won’t feel a thing, Salil. And remember, a simple pull is your admission into Paradise, yes?”
The nineteen-year-old feigned a grin.
. . . 09:59:53 . . .
“Just a few moments now.”
Then from Salil: “This is not as easy as I thought it w
ould be,” he told Tarek.
“Giving your life to Allah, I mean.”
But Tarek ignored him as he began his countdown. “Five . . .”
“Tarek—”
“We’re almost there, Salil. Only a few seconds more . . . Four . . .”
“I’m afraid, Tarek—”
“. . . Three . . .”
Salil began to cry, his chest heaving and pitching as he sobbed.
“Stay with me,” Tarek stated harshly. “Two . . .”
“. . . One . . . Allahu Akbar!”
In unison, they pulled their cords.
* * *
In New York, the three-man unit made it halfway up the monument before they united. The time on Kassam’s watch read 09:58:57.
“That was easier than I thought,” said Jabril, a man who had discovered his purpose and faith inside of Rikers Island. So, for Jabril, returning to New York had meaning. This was his chance to give something back for all those years of anguish suffered at the hands of prison guards. “A lot has to be said about security.” “They usually usher people through quickly when the lines are too long. And when people are rushed, my brother, complacency rises for the benefit of Allah, who no doubt has paved the way for us to meet our goal. All this is by His direction.”
Kassam checked his watch once again: 09:59:38. Then: “Soon, my brothers, we’ll be in Paradise. It is now time to ready up.”
With each man looping a finger through the ring to detonate their vest, Kassam counted down from:
. . . Three . . .
. . . Two . . .
. . . One . . .
Allahu Akbar!
* * *
From the sites of the Lincoln Memorial and the rooftop of the White House, billowing smoke could be seen rising from the Washington Monument. Once the Semtex detonated, the walls of the structure blew outward, which badly compromised the stability of the tower. Since the damage to the monument was at a lower level, it eventually collapsed and fell straight down, the action coughing up thickening plumes of dust and smoke.
From his vantage point of the White House rooftop while looking through a pair of binoculars, the Secret Service agent whispered, “My God.”
The time was 1000 hours.
* * *
From the shoreline of New York City, people watched as the metal plates just below the pelvic region of the Statue of Liberty blew outward. Billowing flames and smoke belched from the openings as the supporting beams of the statue were compromised by the blast. Since the weight of the upper half was too great for the damaged columns to bear, it began to lean until the weight of its momentum carried it forward and downward, where it finally came to rest at a horizontal angle that was parallel to the surface. Sadly, Lady Liberty was no longer looking at the cityscape of New York.
Instead, she was staring directly downward at the damaged earth.
* * *
Winchester, Virginia
1012 Hours
It didn’t take long for the networks to break into scheduled programming for the moments that were playing out in New York and D.C. The screen images were split with New York on the left and Washington, D.C. on the right. The images were horrific. The top portion of the Statue of Liberty from the pelvic girdle had fallen to a 90-degree angle from its standing position, while smoke continued to billow upward from the opening as blackened boils. On the right side of the screen, what used to be the Washington Monument now lay in ruins. Blocks of stone the color of desert sand were heaped at the structure’s base. It had also been reported that the power of the blast was significant enough to catapult fist-sized stones throughout areas of the capital city, causing not only extensive damage, but several deaths as well. The death toll, at such an early stage of reporting, could not be determined. Yet the analysts, who based their assessments on daily activity at both sites, put the amount well into the hundreds.
Inside of his nondescript home in Winchester, Virginia, Mohammad Allawi could not have been happier. Everything was going as planned. There would be chaos no matter how much the government claimed to be on top of such calamities.
Soon, the DOW would begin its rapid freefall, which was already beginning to show on Najm’s computer. The numbers, in less than fifteen minutes, had dropped more than 400 points, and continued to fall.
While these pictures continued to play out on the TV monitor, Allawi had to turn away from the images with great effort, and then he pointed to Najm. “Now,” he told him, “put an exclamation point to all this.”
“Yes, Allawi.”
As soon as Mohammad returned to appreciate the images that were being played on the screen, Najm typed commands into the computer to begin an action that would really bring the nation to its knees. Once the program had been instituted, Najm hit the “ENTER’ button.
* * *
Air Force Two
Somewhere Over the Rocky Mountains
1011 Hours
Air Force Two is a modified 757 aircraft that is used as the vice president’s personal transport. As it made its eastbound trajectory from LAX, the Boeing was above the Colorado Rocky Mountains when the alarms inside the cockpit started to signal a system’s malfunction. The pilot immediately hit the toggle switches to engage the backup system, which also malfunctioned. Then the engines began to power down, the meters indicating that the outer engines were failing. And then the plane began to hitch as if hitting turbulence, the ride becoming bumpy as the engines tried to stabilize the aircraft on minimal power. The outer engines were gone, the turbines winding down, leaving two of the four engines operable, but marginal, with the meters starting to indicate that they, too, were beginning to lose power. The pilot’s yoke began to shudder and shake, the driving mechanism beginning to lock into place. The pilot battled for the plane’s control while the fuselage continued to vibrate. The pilot flipped more toggles, more switches, and turned additional dials. But nothing worked as the interior-wing engines began to lose power. The outer engines were already gone with all command lost. Then Air Force Two began to bank softly to the left with the engines on the captain’s side completely dead. The aircraft was now gliding on its stabilizers with a single engine remaining active on the first-officer’s side, though that engine was becoming sluggish as well.
And like all the other propulsion systems it, too, was beginning to wind down to its final rotation.
* * *
Vice President Connolly was sitting in the office section of the aircraft with Senator Donald Jackson of California, a leading politician who was reported to be a strong candidate for the highest political seat in the land, who now currently served the Senate as the Minority Leader. They had been in California for a summit meeting regarding legislature which required the powerhouse backing of White House giants like Connolly and Jackson, with their presence a show of support for the bill. Now that the campaigning was over, there was much more to do in D.C. to give the proposal firmer legs to stand on.
While they were discussing plans to bolster the plan on the D.C. front, Vice President Connolly received an incoming call from a satellite connection. Pressing the red flashing button on the speaker phone, he said, “Vice President Connolly.” “Mr. Vice President, incoming channel feed from the White House. You might want to look at this.” It was his secretary who monitored the craft’s communications system at the plane’s fore.
“Thank you, Michelle.” Cutting off the call, the vice president turned on the TV monitor against the opposite wall. A moment later a live news feed from a major network was showing the devastation on two fronts, one in New York City and the other in Washington. D.C. On the left side of the split screen was the image of the Statue of Liberty, which had nearly been separated from the pelvic girdle region, but somehow managed to hang on only by the tenuous hold of a few beams. On the right side of the screen was the rubble of the Washington monument, whose foundation poked through the surrounding rubble like a fractured tooth.
“Oh, dear Lord,” the senator mumbled. Then l
ouder. “It’s nine-eleven all over again.”
The plane suddenly lurched violently, first up and then down, like hitting a rough patch of turbulence that was quickly followed up by an extreme tremor, the vibration becoming intense.
Connolly and Jackson grabbed the armrests of their chairs.
“What the hell,” the vice president remarked.
More dips.
And then more rises and falls like a rollercoaster.
Then the fuselage sounded like it was beginning to stress, the metal whining in protest like the wood of an ancient ship.
Nerves were becoming frayed. Each man, having flown many times because of their political positions, realized that the Boeing seemed far more erratic in its flight pattern, with the bumps and pitches well beyond normal.
And then the aircraft began to bank softly to the left . . .
* * *
“We’re free floating!” the plane’s captain cried out.
Air Force Two was now a crippled vessel that glided on its stabilizers, which were not created for long-term purposes as the nose of the aircraft began to dip, though slightly, while beginning its freefall.
The captain clenched his teeth as he attempted to pull back on the yoke, the wheel now shaking violently in his grip as the nose of Air Force Two began to dip, then plunge, the captain screaming about lack of thrust as the jagged peaks of the landscape appeared to be racing up at them. The alarms inside the cockpit were going off as a constant whine like a keening wail.
And then the aircraft began to turn, then roll, the ground now spinning like a pinwheel as Air Force Two began its death spiral, the vehicle turning and rolling.