Threat Level

by William Christie

  “Eat the hamburger,” al-Sharif told Dawood.

  “I don’t like hamburgers.”

  “Then eat nothing,” Nimri finally snapped.

  Momentary silence. “I will eat his french fries and apple pie,” Dawood announced, pointing to Omar.

  “Fine,” said Omar. “Eat my french fries and apple pie in good health. Next time I’ll kill you a chicken myself.”

  Nimri finally noticed the cardboard cup rack. “Did I not tell you to order the smaller size drinks?”

  “Sorry, brother,” Omar replied.

  “Drink them slowly, at least,” Nimri ordered. “For a change.” I have traveled alone too long, he thought.

  The miles passed. But all of America looked the same beside a highway, Nimri felt.

  He was asleep and heard sirens. He woke up and thought he’d been dreaming. Except he still heard them. Disoriented, he looked back and saw the blue and red flashing lights. “What has happened?”

  “Dawood was speeding,” Omar announced.

  “I told you to drive under the speed limit,” said al-Sharif.

  “I was passing and the signs changed,” Dawood protested. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Shut up,” Nimri commanded. To Dawood he said, “Pull over immediately. Admit you were speeding. Accept the ticket. Do not argue. No one is to do anything. Keep your hands in your laps. Do not make this policeman nervous. Do you all understand?”

  Dawood followed the instructions and pulled the van over onto the shoulder. The white Ohio Highway Patrol cruiser settled in behind them.

  Al-Sharif, in the passenger seat, found the registration in the glove compartment. “Have your license ready,” he hissed at Dawood. “Put your window down, stupid.”

  The van windows were tinted. Nimri watched the trooper come up. He was wearing the strange hat American highway police wore, with the brim that went all the way around. Black pants, gray shirt, black tie. His hand was on his pistol. Nimri prayed that none of the others would do anything stupid.

  The trooper looked closely through the tint to get an idea of who was in the van. Then he was just behind the driver’s window. “License and registration, please.”

  Dawood handed them over.

  The trooper’s head loomed in the window as he took a better look at them. He glanced at the documents. “This isn’t your vehicle, sir?”

  “It’s mine, sir,” said Omar, sitting behind al-Sharif. He leaned forward to pass Dawood his driver’s license. Then had to say, “Give it to the officer,” before Dawood woke up and took it.

  The trooper took the documents back to his cruiser. Nimri looked back. He could see the trooper’s mouth moving. He was talking on the radio.

  “What’s happening?” Dawood asked nervously.

  “Shut up and keep cool,” al-Sharif told him.

  Five minutes passed.

  The trooper walked back up to the van. But Nimri noticed that he did not have his ticket book out. And he did not tell them why they had been stopped. The first thing he said, to Dawood, was, “Where are you headed?”

  And the fool froze. “Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . .”

  Nimri cringed as the stuttering continued.

  Then Dawood blurted out, “Washington.”

  Nimri could hardly believe his ears.

  The trooper said, “Step out of the van.”

  Nimri twisted in his seat, toward Omar, to unsnap the seat belt.

  The trooper saw it and said, “Just the driver.”

  When Nimri turned back the pistol was in his hand. He fired through his window, just behind Dawood’s head. The glass exploded.

  The trooper stumbled back and pulled his pistol just as al-Sharif joined in. Omar bailed out the side door.

  Nimri’s pistol stopped working. He noticed the slide was back and thumbed the button to drop the empty magazine, fumbling at his belt for a new one. Al-Sharif was still firing, leaning over Dawood.

  The trooper fell back on the ground, managed to get up, and lurched back toward his cruiser.

  Just as Omar came around the back of the van, firing.

  The trooper fell back on the ground. Omar, remembering bulletproof vests, closed the distance and kept firing into the head.

  Cars were swerving all over the highway.

  “Get the licenses and registration,” Nimri shouted to Omar, though without sticking his head out the window. He knew the American police cars had video cameras. His ears were ringing from the gunfire. “Is anyone shot?” he shouted.

  “No,” al-Sharif shouted back.

  “You drive,” Nimri ordered.

  Omar found the papers propped up on the computer screen inside the cruiser. He sprinted back to the van.

  “Quickly,” Nimri said to al-Sharif. “More police will be here soon.”

  As al-Sharif stepped on the gas, Nimri kicked the remaining glass from his window, so it would look as if it was open. “Take the next exit.”

  The sign said ZANESVILLE. Nimri watched through the rear window. A red car followed them onto the exit. “Slow down,” he said to al-Sharif.

  Al-Sharif tapped the brake, and the car behind responded in an even more exaggerated way. A man was driving, a woman beside him on her mobile phone.

  “Take the next side street,” Nimri ordered. “Good citizens are following us, talking to the police on their phone.” To Omar he said, “Be ready. We go out the door when I signal. We will stop this conversation. Is your pistol reloaded?”

  “Yes.”

  Another side street, with trees on the corner. “Turn again here,” Nimri said, pointing. “Stop when I tell you. Omar and I will get out. Then you continue slowly. When you hear firing, come back for us quickly.”

  “Got it,” al-Sharif replied.

  As soon as al-Sharif made the turn, and they were out of sight of the street they’d just been on, Nimri said, “Stop.”

  He and Omar went out the door, and the van continued on. They ducked behind the trees, though the two spies would be concentrating on the road. “As soon as they turn, while they are still slow,” he said to Omar.

  The car took the turn and they ran out of the trees, firing through the windshield at the driver. He might have saved them by stepping on the gas instead of the brake, but did not. Nimri was fascinated by how the bullet holes appeared in the glass as he shot. The driver’s head fell back against his seat. The woman threw her phone out the window and screamed, “Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” Nimri moved to shoot her through the open window.

  The van, backing up fast, came to a stop with tires squealing.

  “Go!” Nimri shouted to Omar.

  “Should we make sure of them?” Omar shouted back.

  “Into the van!” Nimri yelled. It did not matter whether the Americans were alive or dead, only that they were no longer following.

  “Quickly,” he said to al-Sharif, as he slammed the side door shut.

  “We need a new car, fast,” said al-Sharif.

  “That I leave to you,” Nimri replied.

  It took them three wrong turns and racing down residential lanes and past a park until they found their way back onto a main street. There was a parking lot behind a business building. Al-Sharif pulled in.

  Sirens could be heard in the distance. Following al-Sharif’s directions, Nimri tore through the green duffel bags in the back of the van. He couldn’t find it in the first. Then in the second there was the small, flat plastic toolbox.

  Al-Sharif found what he wanted, a white Buick with Ohio plates. He parked right behind it, and Nimri passed him the toolbox. “Look now for whatever you do not want to leave behind,” he told the others.

  Al-Sharif bent casually over the door of the Buick as he slipped the Slim Jim into the window frame. He yanked up and the car alarm went off. But there is one sound that absolutely no one pays any attention to, and that is a car alarm in a parking lot. Al-Sharif disappeared inside the car, and a few seconds later the alarm cut off with an abbreviated yelp. A
few seconds more and the trunk sprang open.

  “Quickly, quickly,” said Nimri. They threw the green canvas duffel bags inside. He now noticed the bullet holes in the side of the van. That and no passenger window would attract attention.

  Dawood was picking up empty shell casings from the floor of the van. “Leave them,” Nimri said impatiently. The police already had the description of the van. The cases were meaningless. There would be no trial.

  “You drive,” al-Sharif said to Omar. “Follow me in the van.”

  The Buick seats were comfortable, but the smell of cigarettes made Nimri want one badly. He noticed the short screwdriver sticking out from the steering column in place of a key. Then he studied the road atlas while Omar followed al-Sharif down the road.

  Al-Sharif was clever. He found a parking space against the side of a building, against which he parked the side of the van with the bullet holes and missing window. A sign warned that there was no public parking, and all vehicles would be towed. Nimri prayed that would happen.

  Al-Sharif replaced Omar behind the wheel. Nimri had found where they were. “The police will be waiting for us back on Highway 70. We will take this Route 60 south, until it joins with Highway 77. The police will expect us to go east. But we will go south, into West Virginia and then Virginia. And only then turn north. It will be a long journey, but safer. Are we agreed?”

  Al-Sharif and Omar in the front seat nodded. Nimri paid no attention to Dawood beside him. He gave directions and they pulled out, driving the speed limit. A police car passed them, lights flashing. It did not turn around.

  “Brother Muhammad,” he said, “each new state we pass into, we will need a new car. With license plates of that state.”

  “Maybe more often than that,” al-Sharif said grimly. “We have to keep changing cars.”

  “I leave it in your hands,” said Nimri.

  A helicopter fluttered back and forth overhead. Its sound faded as they turned south, and they saw no more police.

  “God is great, brothers,” Nimri said. “Truly God is with us.”

  “All praise to God,” the others murmured.

  Nimri leaned forward to put his hands on al-Sharif’s and Omar’s shoulders. “You conducted yourselves well, brothers. You kept your heads in battle. And you,” he said to Omar, “blocking the infidel from his car and consigning him to the fires of hell. We are in your debt. And, brother Muhammad, who moved and drove so coolly. Well done.”

  He now turned to Dawood, who was waiting for it. Nimri merely asked a question. “Washington?”

  Dawood seemed to shrink in size.

  “You could think of nothing else?” said Nimri. “Nothing except to tell the policeman that four of the Faithful were traveling to Washington? To visit the Smithsonian, perhaps? The Lincoln Memorial? Mount Vernon?”

  Dawood’s stammer was even worse. “I . . . I . . . I’m sorry, brothers. I couldn’t think of anything. Not one city. Not one town.”

  “When have you ever thought?” said Omar.

  “Be quiet,” said Nimri, cutting them all off. “You have blundered,” he said to Dawood. “But you are also God’s instrument, as He ever tests us. Your blunder allowed us to prove ourselves to Him, and feel His deliverance. But you must not blunder again. You must prove yourself worthy. Will you do this?”

  Dawood was near tears. “I swear before God, brother Abdallah. I swear before God.”

  19

  The Michigan Air National Guard Blackhawk helicopter settled down, without a lot of clearance for the rotors, in a parking lot near the Zanesville, Ohio, police station.

  Out stepped Supervisory Special Agent Benjamin Timmins, his deputy, two assistants, Beth Royale and Paul Moody, and Karen the Spook.

  Beth had been at many of these scenes, and they were all the same. Cruisers from every nearby jurisdiction, all parked with lights flashing. Why? It was policy. It was dramatic. Dramatic for the other half of the equation, outside the line of cruisers. A line of television station mobile vans. One to feed off the other. TV lights going on and off, cutting the darkness as the reporters did their stand-up.

  Closer to the station, a million cops drinking coffee and gossiping with each other until someone gave them something to do.

  Inside the station, the FBI windbreakers getting that look from everyone. Timmins did the grip-and-grin with the local chief of police, who was looking like a deer in the headlights from all the attention. The special agent in charge of the Cincinnati field office was also there. Zanesville was his jurisdiction, even though he’d had to fly across the state to get there. And a major from the Ohio Highway Patrol.

  With the sheer number of people, just the noise of everyone talking in a normal tone of voice was like a dull roar. All the brass and the FBI pushed past everyone else and made their way to the station conference room. A TV and video player were already set up. Karen the Spook immediately appropriated a corner of the room and got her laptop fired up.

  “Chief Gast,” Timmins said to the Zanesville man, “why don’t you take us through the sequence of events?”

  Beth had to give him credit: Timmins was smooth. Treat the locals to a quick hand job; ensure their cooperation; get everything from them—give them nothing.

  Chief Gast was just about to start when the Highway Patrol major shouldered his way in. “At 2047 hours on Interstate 70, Trooper Andrew McLaughlin executed a speeding stop on a blue 2000 Toyota Sienna minivan, Michigan license GVT-8007. He ran the license and registration, which were clean. The occupants, three Arab males and one African-American male, aroused his suspicions. He was informed of the FBI terrorism alert, and backup was dispatched to his location.” He slid a tape into the machine and pressed Play.

  It was the tape from the cruiser video system. Everyone kept their game face on as they watched the trooper die. From Special Agent Weaver’s mug book of Dearborn Islamic militants, Beth recognized Omar delivering the coup de grace behind the van. She’d been counting. The entire gunfight lasted just over twenty seconds. That was typical. After the van drove off the major stopped the tape.

  Now Chief Gast jumped back in. “At 9:06 PM our 911 system received a call from two witnesses to the shooting.” He produced a mini tape recorder and played a copy of the 911 audio tape.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  A woman’s voice, very excited. “We just saw a police officer shot.”

  “Ma’am, what is your location?”

  “Interstate 70. They shot him on the highway. We’re following them now.”

  “Who are you following, ma’am?”

  “The people who shot him.” An unintelligible male voice in the background. Then the woman again. “They’re in a blue van, Michigan GVT-8007. They’re taking the 22 exit.”

  “Ma’am, what is your name?”

  “Betty Adams.” She gave each street they turned on, the operator cautioning her not to get too close.

  Then, “They just turned. I can’t see the street sign yet. I can’t see them. Oh, they’re down at the end of the street.”

  The popping sound of gunshots, and a piercing scream. A noise that sounded to Beth like the phone hitting the ground. The male voice shouting, the woman screaming, “God, don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” More gunfire. A car door slamming. The sound of tires.

  “Dennis and Betty Adams,” said Chief Gast. “From South Zanesville. Both pronounced dead on the scene. They were ambushed as they turned the corner. Same nine-millimeter shell casings as the interstate shooting.” He paused. “All my cruisers were responding to the interstate. This went down ten blocks away.”

  “The van?” said Timmins.

  “Recovered in a parking lot off Main Street. We also had a 2002 white Buick Park Avenue, Ohio BV-2786, stolen off Main Street at approximately the same time.”

  “How far from here is that?” the Cincinnati special agent in charge asked.

  The chief turned red. “Three blocks. All my cars were on the inter
state.”

  “We’ll need every other stolen vehicle,” said Timmins. “Just in case.”

  “That’s every one,” said Chief Gast. “We don’t get many grand theft autos. Don’t get many murders, either.”

  “It’s on the air,” said the Cincinnati special agent in charge.

  The Highway Patrol major added, “It’s possible they got back onto 70, but roadblocks were up at Cambridge and Wheeling, West Virginia, within fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you, Major,” said Timmins. “Thanks, Chief.”

  At that all the FBI agents moved over to Karen’s corner of the room. The chief and the major both looked at each other. It was quite obvious they weren’t invited.

  Karen had already called a national highway map up on her computer. Everyone bent over it.

  “Washington or New York,” said Beth.

  “Or Baltimore, or Philadelphia, or Norfolk Navy Base,” said Timmins.

  Beth shook her head. “New York or Washington, Ben.” She didn’t say anything more about threat levels.

  And neither did Timmins. “They’re going to be stealing more cars. We’re going to have to tie in every report that comes in within twenty miles of every interstate east of West Virginia.”

  “It’ll be a day or more from now before all of today’s even come in,” said Moody.

  Beth inwardly cringed, and waited for it.

  Timmins let him have it. “We’re not going to catch them from stolen vehicle reports. We’re going to use the stolen vehicle reports to determine their destination.”

  “Are you taking this?” the Cincinnati special agent in charge asked, knowing Counterterrorism took priority now.

  “No, this is yours,” said Timmins. “We’re going back to Washington and work it from there.”

  20

  A doorbell rang in Manassas, Virginia. Yasmin Oan came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth. She opened the front door. And froze. He husband always told her to look before answering the door. Today she wished she had.

  “Good day to you, sister.”

  The man spoke Arabic in the Egyptian dialect.

  “You can’t come in,” Yasmin said quickly.