Traitors Within

by James Rosone

  As Becky was asking one of the men to open the bay door, Jamaal looked in the back of the truck. “Get ready, my friend,” he told his partner. “Once they open the bay door, I’m going to back up to get us inside. When I stop the truck and give you the signal, jump out and start shooting everyone you can see. I will do the same. Allahu Akbar!”

  A minute later, the door began to open. Jamaal placed the vehicle in reverse and started to back into the now open bay. As the rear of his vehicle arrived at the entrance, he stopped the van, placed it in park and then yelled, “Now!”

  Jamaal simultaneously reached down to the pistol he had in the backpack to the right of his seat. At the signal, Muthana opened the door and swung his assault rifle forward. He swiftly took aim at the first set of individuals he saw. “Allahu Akbar!” he screamed at the top of his lungs while firing into a group of soldiers, FBI and DEA agents who were gathered around a whiteboard.

  Jamaal heard Muthana yell and the sound of his shots starting to ring out. He immediately brought his pistol up and shot the FBI agent that Becky had just been talking to several times in the chest. She screamed in shock and horror. He then moved his aim to the soldier who was standing next to him before he could react and fired several more times at the soldier. Just as he finished disposing of his coworker, Becky, an FBI agent who had been on the other side of the vehicle came around the front of the truck and shot Jamaal twice in the back, killing him instantly.

  Muthana emptied his entire thirty-round magazine at the group of soldiers and FBI agents at the whiteboard and then moved to the side of the delivery truck to reload. He dropped the now empty magazine to the floor, and just as he had finished loading the next magazine and charged the bolt, one of the soldiers fired a three-round burst at Muthana. Two rounds struck him in the chest and one found its mark in his head, dropping him to the ground, lifeless.

  *******

  Acting Director Stone and his deputy, Special Agent Jim Leary, had been in Lieutenant Colonel Jacobs’s office discussing how they were going to use the Stryker vehicles to either kill or capture the Chechens. Director Stone wasn’t going to let this turn into a prolonged bloody siege—the Chechens would either surrender quickly or die in a hail of bullets and fire. Everything was going according to plan until they heard the unmistakable yell of “Allahu Akbar!” coming from down the hall. Then all hell broke loose.

  As the shooting started, Director Stone immediately reached for his sidearm and bolted out of the office toward the gunfire, with Agent Leary hot on his heels. LTC Jacobs was following, although he didn’t have a firearm. By the time they entered the bay, the shooting had stopped. They saw the bloodied soldiers and agents clustered around the whiteboard. A few agents were rushing over to see if any first aid could be administered. An assailant lay dead on the floor with an AR-15 nearby.

  Mike flagged down the first guy he saw and called him over. “I need you to call our standby medical team and have them send help right away. Tell them what kind of injuries to expect.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he responded.

  Several of the other soldiers and agents were swarming over the Panera Bread delivery vehicle where the attacker had emerged from. Stone headed over there as well. As he approached the truck, he also saw a second lifeless attacker sprawled on the ground near the front of the vehicle, along with two other bodies.

  Although a puddle of blood was already beginning to form around the man’s body, they were able to make out that he had been wearing a Panera uniform. An agent nearby had already removed his weapon and made sure the attacker was dead.

  “What in the world just happened?” an exasperated Mike asked one of the FBI agents nearby.

  “We’re still trying to piece it all together, Sir. One minute, the truck was pulling up. The next minute some guy jumps out of the back of it and starts shooting everyone,” the agent explained, still a bit shaken.

  The colonel was beside himself when he saw the attackers had emerged from the Panera delivery truck. “Oh my God, this is my fault. I placed the order from them last night. If I had only gone with another place, none of this would have happened,” he gasped, completely distraught.

  “Colonel Jacobs, this wasn’t your fault,” Stone assured. “You had no idea they were compromised like this.” He wanted to make sure Jacobs didn’t let himself sink into a pit of despair.

  Then Director Stone turned to the rest of the agents nearby. “I want to know who the heck these guys are as soon as possible, and I want agents at their house now!” Stone yelled. They immediately went to work searching the attackers for any signs of who they were, as well as anything that might connect them to the Chechen cell.

  Stone began to walk toward the JSOC team commander to get things moving again, “Major Kiln, I want your men to saddle up. We need to get out to the farmhouse and get this perimeter set up and take these guys out. I want them neutralized by the end of the day. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Sir. We’ll have this settled soon,” he replied with conviction.

  With the JSOC team getting ready, Stone walked back over to what was now a crime scene filled with a gaggle of FBI agents. “What have we found so far? Anything yet?” he asked no one in particular.

  One of the FBI agents who had assumed command replied, “These guys must’ve been in a hurry, because they didn’t take a lot of precautions to hide or mask their identity. We found their wallets and even cell phones still on them. We’re cross-referencing the IDs now to make sure they are in fact their true identities. A couple of the JSOC sensitive site exploitation guys are dumping their phones right now. They’ll check them against any known bad guys we have in the system.”

  “This is great news. Thank you for working through the JSOC SSE team—they have the equipment on hand, and we’ll get results back a lot faster than if we had to fly them back to Chicago for examination. Please continue to stay on top of this and run down any leads. See if they somehow coordinated with the Chechens. Check cell towers and anything else you can think of. I’m going to roll out with a few of the agents who aren’t immediately tasked along with the DEA guys. We’ll be at the farmhouse location with the JSOC team. Once the area is secured, we’ll let you know when to send the forensic team over.”

  When they finished surveying the scene, the brief thirty-second attack had resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents, one DEA agent, and three soldiers. Nine others had been injured in the attack. One of the FBI agents that had been killed was Special Agent in Charge Deeks.

  *******

  An hour later, four Army Stryker vehicles and half a dozen other Army vehicles headed down the road toward the farmhouse and the location of the Chechen terrorists. The local sheriff and police had already cordoned off the streets and areas around the property, ensuring no civilians or nosy media types were nearby that could potentially get caught in the crossfire once the festivities started.

  The sheriff’s SWAT team, along with a number of DEA and FBI agents, had already established a perimeter around the farmhouse and had a good view of the house and the barn. They had spotted movement within the house, but nothing outside. Using various thermal devices, they were able to identify all of the attackers as being in the house.

  Within an hour of arriving at the location, the JSOC soldiers had established their new command center and began to move the vehicles to their various attack locations. They were going to have two vehicles approach from the east, while another two vehicles would approach from the north. This would give them good fields of fire to support each other, while not creating a crossfire that could result in them shooting at each other.

  Major Kiln was just about to order his vehicles to their positions when Director Stone walked into his command center and signaled that he wanted to talk with him privately. “Major Kiln, I want this situation solved soon. This morning’s shooting is going to be all over the news shortly, and the sighting of these vehicles will only add further fuel to the stories and rumors. How do you recommend
we approach the farmhouse to offer them the chance to surrender?”

  Personally, Director Stone did not want to offer the Chechens a chance to surrender, but he knew politically it had to be done. He needed to cover his butt and also offer the enemy a chance to live so that they could gather further intelligence from them. If they chose not to surrender, then at least he couldn’t be held liable for their deaths when the shooting did start. He had no plans of letting this standoff go on now that they had surrounded them.

  Major Kiln paused before responding, “Sir, I think one way we could approach this is to drive one of the FBI up-armored SUVs with a white flag near the house. We can have whoever the negotiator is going to be get out of the SUV on the opposite side, and then shout the offer to them with a bullhorn. This way, if they do shoot at the negotiator, they have an armored vehicle to protect them and get them out of the area.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, Major,” Stone admitted. He scratched his chin. “OK, here’s what I want to have happen. I’m going to have the FBI head out there like you said in one of their armored vehicles. Then I want your vehicles to head to their positions—but make sure the Chechens see your vehicles and heavy weapons. That way they’ll know there is no getting out of this. We aren’t even going to let them have a chance to shoot at our people. If they fail to surrender, then I want your guys to light up that house with the .50-cals and burn them out.”

  *******

  Ten minutes later, one of the FBI’s up-armored Suburbans had a white towel tied to a pole on it and zoomed out to the farmhouse. As they approached the terrorist safe house and got within 100 yards, several shots rang out, hitting the vehicle. The agent driving the Suburban stopped and turned the vehicle so that only the passenger side of the vehicle was facing the house. The Chechens held their fire as the FBI negotiator got out of the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  Agent Schneider was the man who had drawn the short stick to drive out there and talk to the Chechens. He was still a little shaken up from one of the rifle shots that had struck the windshield right in front of him.

  Thank God for bulletproof glass, he thought as he opened the door. He was a white-collar crime agent—certainly not used to convincing terrorists to surrender.

  He crouched down a bit, making sure he could dive back into the protection of the vehicle if needed. Then he raised the bullhorn to his mouth.

  “I’m Special Agent Schneider from the FBI. I have been instructed to offer you a chance to surrender. You have exactly three minutes to come out of the house with your hands up,” he yelled into the bullhorn, making sure it was pointed above his head and in the direction of the farmhouse.

  As he was speaking, he could hear, and then see, four Army Stryker vehicles moving to their positions about 200 yards behind him. He saw several soldiers manning the heavy machine guns. It was intimidating, and he hoped the sight of them would make these guys give up. They had no chance of surviving the attack if they didn’t.

  *******

  “Aslan, what are we going to do? Those are heavy machine guns on those armored vehicles,” Shamil pointed out. “And look at their uniforms—those are soldiers, not FBI or police officers.”

  All eyes were on Aslan. His mind raced, trying to figure out what their next move was. He knew the farmhouse couldn’t withstand the heavy machine guns on those Army vehicles. He also knew they couldn’t surrender. They would be shipped off to Gitmo and never heard from again. That would be worse than death.

  Suddenly, he had an idea. “Look, we can’t stand up against those heavy machine guns on those vehicles, but it looks like they only have four of them. So, here’s what we’re going to do. Two of you are going to pretend to surrender. As you walk outside, I want our guys with the sniper rifles to get down in the basement. Identify the soldiers manning the heavy machine guns, and when I give the order, I want you to take them out. I want the two RPGs we have positioned on the second floor—you’ll need to fire at the vehicles and try to take them out. Once you fire the first rocket, they’ll probably start to move quickly, so you will have to remember to lead the vehicle when taking aim, just like we used to do in Iraq and Syria.”

  The men in the room nodded in agreement.

  Aslan struck his chest as a sign of strength. “We are most likely going to die, but let’s make sure we go out with a bang and take as many of them with us as possible. Is that understood?”

  Everyone replied with “Allahu Akbar!” and began to get into position. They didn’t have much time.

  *******

  Agent Schneider was about to give up and head back into the vehicle when he heard a voice call out from the farmhouse. “FBI! Don’t shoot. We are coming out. We surrender,” the voice shouted from the farmhouse. Agent Schneider looked through the vehicle’s armored windows and sure enough, he saw two figures starting to walk out of the farmhouse with their hands held high, holding a white T-shirt.

  As the two men began to move toward the vehicle, Schneider shouted out, “Where are the others? Are only two of you surrendering? We need everyone to surrender!”

  Something just doesn’t feel right about this, he worried. Why would only two people surrender?

  Just as he was trying to figure this out, two loud shots were fired. Then there was a whooshing noise as he saw something fly out of two different windows from the second floor. Then the two individuals who had been walking toward the SUV turned around and ran at breakneck speed back into the farmhouse.

  Then the scene erupted into violent pandemonium. One of the Stryker vehicles lurched forward with amazing speed. An RPG hit where it had just been, exploding, but not doing any major damage to the vehicle. A second vehicle also lurched forward but was slightly slower; the other RPG round hit the rear of the vehicle as it exploded. The second Stryker wasn’t destroyed, but it was disabled and powerless to move. One of the two loud shots that Schneider had heard hit one of the heavy machine gunners in the head, killing him instantly. The second shot just barely missed the other gunner.

  Within seconds of the RPG rounds hitting and the two sniper shots, the heavy machine guns opened fire. They immediately cut down the two terrorists who had pretended to surrender. One of the Chechens was hit by enough rounds that his body was completely cut in half. For a split second, Agent Schneider saw the upper body of the terrorist attempt to crawl to the farmhouse before it just went limp. The other terrorist had one of his legs ripped off as he fell to the ground. Schneider jumped back into the vehicle just as it began to take heavy fire from the farmhouse. The driver immediately raced away from the house to get away from the incoming barrage.

  *******

  Director Stone heard the shooting and immediately put the binoculars to his eyes to get a better picture of what was going on. As soon as he saw that one of the Stryker vehicles had been hit, he immediately ordered Major Kiln, “Send several of the other armored vehicles forward to help get anyone who has been injured out of that vehicle.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he replied.

  The other three vehicles were moving slowly, ready to dart to the right or left if they saw any additional RPG rounds. Meanwhile, the gunners were raking the house with .50-caliber rounds, tearing huge chunks of wood out of the walls and shattering all the glass windows in the farmhouse.

  With every second round being a tracer, it looked like lasers were slicing into and through the farmhouse. Many of the rounds were punching right through the house and continuing into the trees behind them. As more tracer rounds hit their target, several fires started to pick up. Stone peered through his binoculars, squinting. He noticed a lot of the enemy gunfire was coming from the basement windows.

  Smart—using the basement as an improvised bunker, he thought.

  He turned to Major Kiln. “Major, have your gunners shift their fire to the basement windows. That’s where the Chechens are firing from.”

  Major Kiln looked through his own binoculars, and sure enough, he saw muzzles flashing from the basement. He raised
his radio to his mouth and began to redirect his guys.

  As the machine gunners shifted their fire to the basement windows, they shot huge holes through the foundation of the house. The second floor of the house was already in flames at that point since they’d focused their initial fire where they had spotted the RPGs coming from. The only time they stopped shooting was to reload their .50-cals. A number of other JSOC members were using high-powered sniper rifles as well, and they continued to pour accurate fire into the various windows or areas that they saw the Chechens shooting from.

  The intense gun battle went on for maybe five minutes before Major Kiln told his guys to cease fire. As the shooting died down, it quickly became apparent that the Chechens had either all been killed or were waiting for them to do something stupid to expose themselves. Smoke continued to billow out of the basement windows and the areas that the heavy machine guns had punched through, so clearly, fires had started down there as well.

  Director Stone saw Major Kiln on the radio to his guys. “What’s our casualties?” he asked.

  Major Kiln held up a finger, saying he needed a minute. Then he placed the headset down on the table and turned to Director Stone. “One of my guys was killed by that initial sniper shot. He got hit in the head—nothing we can do about that. Two other soldiers got injured from that RPG, but other than that, no one else was injured.” Looking at the farmhouse, which was now nearly completely engulfed in flames, he continued, “I think we got ’em all. Do you want to let the farmhouse burn to the ground or send in the firefighters?”

  Mike thought for a minute before responding. “No, I want the farmhouse to burn. We can’t guarantee that they’re all dead, and I don’t want to risk the lives of any of the firefighters. We’ve already lost enough people today. You all did a great job. Keep your guys in place until that house is burnt to the ground. Once it is, then I want your guys to provide cover for the firefighters as they go in and put the remaining flames out, in case someone somehow survived,” Stone directed.