Reprisal!- The Eagle Rises

by Cliff Roberts

  “Following his guidance, we have infiltrated the Senate and the House. We have lobbyists who press our issues daily. We have men and women in all fifty state houses. Each year, more and more mosques are built in the western nations, and more and more of our faithful masses are relocated to every nation on the planet. Are you aware our mosque will be opening in Shanghai at month’s end?” Prince Mohammad added with a knowing smile. Prince Udeen nodded his head at a passing delegate as they entered the meeting room before replying.

  “Yes, I have heard this. I have also heard that the Chinese do not even pretend to have scruples, their hands are always out. The security of their homeland seems only to be an issue when it concerns the Americans or the Russians. The politicians of the West have proven to be amazingly easy to corrupt, but compared to the Chinese, they are mere children playing a game. The western politicians will do whatever you ask of them for campaign contributions, a few fact finding junkets, and sexual liaisons with prostitutes or bloated gratuities for meaningless speeches that no one ever hears or cares about. You only need to massage their egos when you make the request.

  “The Chinese, however, require you to bribe them, both politically and personally. They openly tell you the amount and what those bribes will buy you. They have no morals, no faith and no concern for their country as long as they are made rich. They are far worse than the Americans. The greed of the Chinese knows no bounds.” Udeen spoke in hushed tones as he looked over the growing crowd.

  “Our emissary in Washington has cultivated a relationship with the American president’s right hand man—his Chief of Staff, Jason Combs,” Prince Mohammad stated.

  “Mr. Combs and our emissary attended Harvard together, and Combs has graciously agreed to provide insight and guidance to our front people at C.A.R.E. for a minor fee. The relationship will, of course, be a non-public relationship, due to concerns it may be construed as a conflict of interest. It has been arranged for the money to be deposited in a numbered Grand Cayman bank account in Mr. Combs’ name.

  “As a side note, Mr. Combs will reinforce, alongside the president, our preference for blaming suspected terrorist attack on domestic terrorists and not associating the words terror and Islam with each other. Plus, he has already brought us another administration insider, Roger Bascome, the President’s National Security Advisor, who has agreed to help push our agenda,” Prince Mohammad added in a whisper as he too looked casually about, scanning the crowd for anyone who seemed too interested.

  “Praise be to Allah! Soon we will own all of them, and we can have them vote themselves out of existence.” Both men chuckled at the thought. “What of our New York friend?” Hasaam inquired.

  “He is well. He is a good servant of Allah and understands his role. We will allow the Israelis to sacrifice a few hundred men and women in their attempts to capture him, and then we will move him, perhaps to Oman, where he will receive a new face. Then he will go to South America where he will receive a new life and use his talents to further our cause.”

  “Excellent! With each failure of the Israelis, we grow stronger,” Prince Udeen stated as he glanced once more about the hallway and at the other men who were attending the conference.

  “How is our source in Israel?” Mohammad asked without taking his eyes off the crowd.

  “We have several now. It appears that even the Israelis can be bought, after all.”

  “Allah works in wondrous ways! We should find our seats, my friend,” Prince Mohammad suggested in a friendly tone. “It looks as if the meeting is about to begin.”

  “The next several weeks should be very interesting,” Prince Udeen stated as his friend and confidante stepped towards the door.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Thanksgiving morning found Chip at home reading his copy of the “Putter,” the president’s daily briefing report. He planned on getting the daily reports finished up and then over to Steven’s for Thanksgiving dinner and the traditional football games. He was just about done with the Putter when the phone rang. Without a second thought, he scooped up the phone and answered, just as if he were at the office. “Clarett.”

  “Do you have the news on?” Steven blurted.

  “What? No, you know I don’t watch much TV unless there’s a game on. Why?”

  “Turn it on, NOW!” Steven insisted emphatically. “I’ll wait.”

  “All right, let me find the clicker. How was the trip? What channel?” Chip asked.

  “Any channel!”

  Chip clicked the remote and the TV sprang to life. “What, no ‘Hi honey, the trip was great.’ What’s going on?” he asked cheekily, only to exclaim, “Oh, shit!” the next moment as he saw what was on the television screen.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said when I walked into the kitchen and there weren’t any talking heads, just this guy flying around this fire.”

  “How bad is it? Did they say the word?” Chip asked, “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “Hell, there is no one fighting this fire. From what I’ve gathered so far, when the firefighters got there, the place was already out of control, and then a few minutes later, the whole area around the refinery exploded. They have been showing pictures of people burning alive, for Christ’s sake!” Steven was barely able to control his emotions.

  “I should have had a call from the situation room already. It looks like a whole city is on fire. Where is it?”

  “Houston. A refinery blew up, setting an industrial park and the neighborhoods nearby on fire. Then, a second refinery blew up while they were fighting the fires from the first. All the roads out of Houston are packed with people trying to escape. Is this what your briefing was about, Chip?” Steven wanted to know.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Chip retorted. “But this doesn’t look good. At the same time, it could just be an accident. I’ve got to get to the office. I don’t know about dinner today. Please let Mary and kids know that I’m sorry. I’ll call when I can.” Chip hung up and sprang from his chair.

  Steven didn’t bother to replace the phone in its cradle; he quickly dialed the number for his London office. When his U.K. financial manager answered, he ordered him to sell some minor stock holdings and draw on reserve funds to make a sizeable investment in gold and other precious metals. Then he instructed him to purchase two hundred thousand oil futures. He had a hunch; oil would be going through the roof today and wouldn’t be coming back down anytime soon.

  Despite the holiday, Washington, D.C. was in gridlock as everyone, in every branch of the government, was trying to get to the office. Everyone wanted to assess what damage might have been done to their turf. Throughout the day, General Clarett and his staff orchestrated deployments of Air Force and Army personnel from across Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. The military troops were allowed to participate in the emergency response by Presidential Decree.

  The Presidential Decree is required by law, since the military is forbidden from deploying within the United States under the Posse Comiatus Act of 1878, Title 18, US Code, Section 1385. Even with the decree, their involvement is limited to that of providing support to civilian law enforcement and/or aiding in the logistics of the supply chain for refugee camps and forward areas.

  To fulfill their mandate, the troops performed security details at all of the regional and international airports and ports in Texas and Louisiana. Part of those duties included helping to unload the numerous C-130 cargo carriers that were ferrying in the supplies needed to fight the fires and to deal with the growing refugee issue.

  The National Guard troops were mobilized to help fight the fires, provide traffic control and to set up relief centers in northeastern and central Texas. Chip was also allowed to deploy Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to the Washington D.C. area as a precaution against a possible attack in the nation’s capital.

  As with the 9/11 attacks, Katrina, and the gulf oil spill, a relief effort of this size was a logistical nightmare. What had been a fire involving two ref
ineries had grown to three refineries, and then to a fourth in a series of spectacular explosions approximately forty minutes apart. As the fire grew, speculation that the fire would completely engulf the Port and City of Houston rose. Disaster coordinators openly prepared for the possibility that the City of Houston would burn to the ground as the flames continued unabated through the city’s industrial underbelly.

  Most of Pasadena City, where the refinery technically was located, and the City of Houston’s on-duty firefighters had been in the first wave to respond to the first refinery fire. After the sewer explosion, there had been little if any communication with them, making the coordination of the firefighting efforts extremely difficult.

  It was feared that four hundred men and women of the Houston Fire Department, including all senior command members, had been killed in the secondary explosions and subsequent fires. At present, all off-duty firefighters in the Houston area and its suburbs, plus all the firefighters that could be spared from every fire district within a five hour drive of Houston, had responded to the call for help. Civilian causalities hadn’t even been considered yet, though it was speculated they would be in the hundreds.

  After the third refinery exploded, Texas governor, Betty Sue Wilcox, called out the National Guard and asked the neighboring states of Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico to send help under the reciprocal agreements normally used in hurricane or tornado relief efforts. She then called on the president to declare Marshall Law, and to designate all of Southeastern Texas a disaster zone.

  Immediately, President Starks had declared the greater Houston area, which included the area from Texas City to the western edge of Houston itself, as a disaster zone and FEMA had sprung into action. He was never apprised of the request for martial law because Jason Combs decided that was going too far when dealing with a simple fire.

  It was only after the fourth refinery had exploded that a gasoline tanker was discovered at a nearby propane storage facility that was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. A local police officer thought it was odd—a gasoline tanker sitting inside a propane storage facility. Especially since it was tucked tightly up against a 200,000 pound propane storage tank. He checked the front gate and discovered that the lock had been cut off which prompted him to contact his dispatch.

  By sheer luck, the officer happened to be a Gulf War veteran who had been part of a mobile demolition team. He’d spent three tours in Iraq defusing IEDs—Improvised Explosive Devices. It had been hard and dangerous work, but what he had found on the truck taped to the diesel fuel tank just behind the driver’s door had frightened him more than anything he had experienced in the war.

  There was an explosives package taped to the fuel tank with duct tape. It utilized a watch as a crude timer, and it was only one minute and thirty seconds from detonation. He knew instantly that he would never be able to drive far enough or fast enough to escape the blast when the 200,000 pounds of propane exploded, so he took the only course of action that was open to him.

  His military experience gave him the confidence to quickly remove the bomb and toss it into a nearby shipping canal bordering the facility. After sinking to the bottom of the canal, the device exploded sending a plume of water over five hundred feet in the air, causing a mock torrential rainstorm for hundreds of yards around. But the gasoline tanker and the propane storage tank were left intact, averting a major disaster.

  Later, he would admit it had been a foolish thing to do, but he had no choice. There hadn’t been time to call the bomb squad or even to escape to a safe distance. So, he did the only thing he could. He would be credited with not only saving untold lives but for also discovering that the events of the day were not an accident but an act of terrorism.

  Within minutes of his discovery and the successful intervention, another tanker truck was found and defused by the Deer Park Police Bomb Squad. The bomb had been placed at the Port of Houston, dockside to an LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) tanker ship. If it had exploded, it would have dwarfed the fires already burning and destroyed not only the port area, but quite possibly the entire city of Houston.

  As the firefighting efforts continued throughout the day, military transport planes, C-130s, began ferrying in military firefighting equipment and the men trained to operate it. They landed at Ellington Air Force Base, part of the NASA complex, just twelve miles south of the first refinery fire. Other cargo planes began arriving at George Bush International to the north of the raging fires. The transports not only brought in needed food, water and temporary housing, but FEMA medical supplies, medical personnel, tents and mortuary supplies.

  Initially, the casualty list included several hundred firefighters that were either injured or killed while battling the blaze, but it would take days, perhaps weeks, to establish the true death toll. The first death toll estimate by local authorities was in the neighborhood of six thousand. The federal authorities, however, downplayed the numbers and gave an estimate of approximately twelve hundred. A large number in the first wave of the injured suffered massive burns that would eventually claim their lives, and many of the dead were so severely burned that identification was impossible without dental records. Complicating the situation was the fact that it would be days before the refineries would be declared safe enough to make a thorough search for the dead.

  The helicopter pilot who had performed the daring rescue live on television, was fired for jeopardizing company equipment and violating FCC regulations by swearing on the air. The pilot, in return, granted interviews with every other news outlet in town and nationwide, provided they didn’t share it with his old station or their parent network. He became an instant national celebrity. Steven Howard had the man immediately hired on the hush to fly helicopters for Kilauea Corp. at double the salary the station had paid.

  General Clarett knew it would be several days before blame would be placed. In the meantime, every political hack would fight to get on the air with his or her version of what should have been done to prevent the attack and who should pay politically for it. None of the bickering would be worth a damn and none of it productive, except to pump up their individual base of constituents.

  Despite the fact that no one from the administration had addressed the public, the media was already acting as though the attack was over and all that was left to do was to clean up and place the political blame. General Clarett’s gut, however, was telling him that this attack was far from over, even if there were no more explosions in Houston.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Yousef and his driver sat quietly in the TV lounge of the Pilot Truck Stop outside of San Antonio, Texas. The dark gray clouds that covered the sky to the northeast were the telltale sign of the raging inferno that was consuming the eastern side of the Houston metroplex. Yousef and his driver watched intently for any reactions from the other men and women who wandered into the TV lounge to watch the breaking news. Most stayed only a short time before shaking their heads and leaving to go about their business.

  Yousef found it strange to watch the reactions first hand. He had thought that when he was recruited by Hamas, five years ago, he had been chosen to be a martyr and that any attack carried out by him would have meant he would watch the aftermath from Heaven. He marveled at the lack of concern that most people showed until after it was discovered that it was a terrorist attack and not just some horrible accident.

  When Yousef and the driver first arrived that morning around ten a.m., the truckers who wandered into the lounge watched the reports of the growing firestorm with mild concern. After it became clear this was a terrorist attack—around three p.m.—the truckers became agitated by the news.

  Some became angry, hurling around belligerent insults regarding Muslims and their mothers as if they might be heard on the other side of the planet. At about four o’clock, Yousef told his driver to go to their room and try to get some sleep. He reminded him they needed their rest for tomorrow and the second stage of their mission. As he left, Yousef told him he’d join him a
fter he made a phone call.

  An hour after the driver had gone, Yousef made his way to the pay phones in the back hallway by the showers instead of the phones by lounge. They provided more privacy since there were few truckers using the showers this early in the evening.

  The hallway leading to the showers was devoid of people which was perfect for his needs. He chose the pay phone in the middle of the row of phones that lined the hallway outside the showers, further reducing the chances that someone might hear his conversation.

  Just as he dialed the phone, two very large, white men who were obviously Cowboy Truckers came walking down the hallway leading to the showers. They were wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots, blue jeans and checkered shirts, smelling of sweat and putrid tobacco. As they passed Yousef, the larger of the two rudely shoved him against the back of the small alcove in which the phone was hung. In response, Yousef glared coldly over his shoulder at the men as they continued towards the showers.

  The larger of the two who was dressed all in black took note of Yousef’s dirty look. He quickly turned towards him and snarled menacingly in a deep Texas drawl, “You got something to say, turd?” Yousef quickly lowered his gaze, knowing he’d made a mistake by reacting as he had and did his best to ignore the cowboy while continuing to dial the phone. He really didn’t have the time to waste on the son of a whore.

  “Let the spic be,” the other cowboy trucker stated while reaching up to straighten his yellow wicker hat, allowing the eagle feather sticking out of its blue rim band to stand at attention.

  “Did you see the look that wetback gave me? That little fucker thinks he has some rights around here. Hell, I bet he’s an illegal; stealing a job from a real American.”

  “Fuck him! We’ve got a schedule to keep,” the smaller man growled at his friend.

  “Shit, they’ve closed the damn border! We got lots of time to teach a wetback some manners,” the larger one in black bellowed as he glared at Yousef. The big cowboy’s companion put his hand across his chest and pulled him towards the shower room, not wanting any trouble right now.