One Hit

by Jack Coughlin

  Omar Jama was soon settled comfortably in a luxurious home that had the appearance of a small stone castle and was located on two acres of private grounds in the exclusive Lowry Hill enclave of Minneapolis. It spread over eleven thousand square feet, had seven bedrooms, nine baths, and a staff of six. The old mansion was more than a century old and currently was the principal residence of a wealthy and creative entrepreneur who went by the name of E-X. The talented performer had found early success as a rap music star and then traded on his flamboyant style and quick wit to create an empire of entertainment, fashion, and television-production companies. He was extremely wealthy, but was best known and envied for being the husband of Fatima, a tall and exquisite supermodel from Somalia who frequently graced the covers of popular magazines.

  Fatima and E-X were not political people. They had fled Minnesota temporarily, not to avoid controversy but to get away from the cold by attending a film festival and cruising in warmer climates. The only full-time resident of the big house on the hill in January 2014 was Fatima’s brother, Abdullah, who made up for their political apathy by being an activist with strong connections in the Somali crime world. The Cobra made himself at home.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  The al Shabaab assassin Abdifatah Farah slept late at the motel in the crossroads spiral that twisted about near Albert Lea, Minnesota. But he awoke resolute and eager to go to work, to start his holy mission. Breakfast was cereal and milk and some fruit he had purchased the day before, and he made tea from hot water straight out of the faucet. He felt good and spiritually lifted, as if Allah was guiding him.

  Farah wrapped the guns in the bed’s blanket, then pulled on his gloves, from which he had snipped off the fingertips. The deep pockets of the down-filled coat would keep his hands warm. Farah doubted that he would live through the day, but he had no intention of freezing to death.

  The small SUV roared to life without so much as a groan when he turned the key. That was still another sign that God was with him. The heater had the interior toasty within a few minutes. He arranged the loaded weapons conveniently on the seat beside him. The cell phone had been broken apart and would be scattered from the window along the highway, where it would be hidden by snow and perhaps recovered in the slush next spring. Farah took a deep breath, exhaled, and set out to hunt along the highways.

  The roads were not as bad as Abdifatah Farah had feared, and his Toyota RAV4 gripped the pavement with authority. Eighteen-wheelers and people in big cars and pickups went hurtling past, rocking his smaller vehicle. He let them go. Road rage was not on his agenda this morning.

  There! A black Ford F150 with a plow mounted on the front was clearing the parking lot of a box store. The strong truck had scraped much of the snow into mounds along the edges of the lot and was methodically giving final scrapes to the lanes between. He worked alone. A few cars were already parked, and their occupants were inside the building.

  Farah turned off the highway and drove into the lot toward the moving snowplow, lowering his window and waving his left arm for attention. The truck driver stopped directly beside him, and the driver also rolled down his window, although somewhat reluctant to let any warm air escape from the cab.

  “They ain’t open yet, friend,” he said. The man wore a purple wool watch cap with a Vikings team insignia. “Doors open in about twenty minutes.”

  Farah had the Glock in his right hand as he nodded in agreement with the man’s comment, then smoothly brought the weapon up and sighted it. He fired three times at the large target no more than four feet away. The truck driver was hit once in the shoulder and twice in the head and slumped back against the seat. The noise from the highway sucked up the gunfire.

  Farah put the gun down on the seat, rolled up his window, and drove away. The truck remained where it was, as if the driver were taking a break from pushing the snow around. The Somali decided to drop by a fast-food restaurant a mile back down the road, get a sausage and egg sandwich, and shoot whoever handed it to him at the pickup window. His day was just beginning.

  THE BUS

  THURSDAY MORNING

  MINNEAPOLIS

  THE CELL PHONE WENT ding-dong in Kyle Swanson’s pocket. It did not surprise him. He was up and dressed and was finishing his coffee when he turned on the midmorning television news to catch the updates from the Wisconsin shooting only to find that another slaughter had taken over the airwaves. Another Somali Muslim had killed six people and wounded four in southeastern Minnesota this morning before being shot to death by police after a high-speed chase that ended with a highway wreck and an epic gun battle. Authorities found proof in his motel room that he was a member of al Shabaab

  The call was from his new boss, Marty Atkins, the CIA deputy director of Clandestine Service, who sounded flustered. A task force was being assembled to deal with the attacks, which apparently were coordinated strikes, and the involvement of al Qaeda and al Shabaab automatically slopped things onto CIA turf. A conference with representatives of all affected agencies was scheduled at noon at the FBI building in Minneapolis, and Atkins told Swanson to be there.

  “You will be the CIA liaison,” said Atkins.

  “This is no clandestine operation, Marty,” Swanson protested. “Surely you have somebody more experienced with agency matters up here.”

  “Unfortunately, no, Swanson. You are the only CIA agent in Minne-apolis on this fine January day. Believe it or not, the agency does not maintain staff in every city in the United States and abroad.”

  “Shit. Well, what do you want me to do?”

  “Just be our eyes and ears for a day. An administrative team will arrive tomorrow and take over. Anyway, the FBI will do the heavy lifting on this one, so you can keep a low profile. Call me if you need anything,” said Atkins. “Better yet, don’t call me. Call my assistant, Tracy, who can actually get things done that those people might want. I’m going to be running around for some conferences back here. The White House has eyes on it, and Capitol Hill is all atwitter. Obviously, nobody thinks this is just a coincidence.”

  THURSDAY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Two mass murders by a Muslim gunman in as many days in the heartland crashed to the front of the news headlines. They could not be ignored or covered up.

  At the Hoover Building, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Director James Hamilton was briefed in detail by the Twin Cities agents, and then he repeated what he knew at a follow-up meeting at the White House. A somber president and his entire national security team listened in silent shock, then asked questions, and finally settled into the frustrated realization that they might be facing a nightmare scenario if these attacks continued.

  “There is no doubt, Mr. President, that one of the attackers was connected to al Qaeda and the other was a member of al Shabaab, the newer incarnation of terrorism in Africa. Both gunmen came from the large Somali community in Minnesota,” Hamilton said. “I wish I could say otherwise.”

  “Do you have everything you need to deal with this?” the president asked.

  “Yes, sir. We have the manpower and the support and are doing everything in our power. The law enforcement agencies throughout the Midwest are on high alert.”

  “I will have to issue an official statement, of course, but I don’t want to use the T word.” He passed a meaningful glance at his press secretary. “We don’t want to sow panic nationwide.”

  The president checked around the table. The entire National Security Council remained mute. Terrorism had struck on their watch, despite the billions of dollars that had been spent building an impenetrable security apparatus. Two men with guns had raised the specter of 9/11 all over again by killing average Americans in places thought to be safe.

  “Is it over, or are there more of them out there?” asked the chief executive. He was the most powerful man in the world, but felt almost totally helpless. There must be something he could do, but ideas were few at the moment.

  “We don�
��t know, sir,” Director Hamilton responded, trying to be accurate but not wanting to go too far. His neck was on the political chopping block. “Our people and the local police are trying to find that out.”

  “Dig harder.”

  “Yes, sir. One side thing before we move on with the meeting,” the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said. “A minor point about the regional task force conference being held in Minnesota.”

  “What about it? Why bring that to my attention?”

  “Sir, the CIA representative there right now is Kyle Swanson. Only man on the scene until a full admin team gets there. He was up there on a personal visit.”

  The president turned in his chair to face his deputy national security adviser, General Bradley Middleton, who blinked in surprise, and said, “I didn’t know about this, Mr. President.”

  The president gave a little sigh and shook his head. “Be sure to strike his name from all reports and keep him the hell away from the media. We’ve got enough problems without them catching scent that Swanson is involved. They would drop that whole Task Force Trident private-assassin subject on us again, and there is no telling what the conspiracy crowd will create on the Net. General Middleton, I had hoped that we were through with that, but Swanson seems to stick to me like a patch of hot tar.”

  “I didn’t even know he was up there, Mr. President, but perhaps it is not a bad thing. Kyle Swanson can bring a lot of experience concerning terrorism to that table. Sir, I recommend we keep him there, quietly, of course, until this thing settles down, but under tight rein.”

  “On a very, very tight leash, General.” The president looked over at the CIA chief. “The sooner your support team gets there, the better. Meanwhile, tell Swanson not to kill anybody.”

  THURSDAY NOON

  MINNEAPOLIS

  Following lunch of fresh fish and vegetables, the Cobra retired to his bedroom in the big house on Lowry Hill and closed the door. It was much warmer and quieter up here, and he liked being able to look out over the snow-covered grounds of the private estate and not feel cold. He enjoyed having servants. He was quite pleased with the progress being made. If this was a soccer game, the score would be two-nil, against the home team.

  There was a light knock, and Hassan entered the room, carrying a sheaf of printouts of news stories that he had downloaded from the Internet. He handed them to Omar Jama. “It is working,” he said. “Just as you promised and planned. Congratulations, my friend.”

  The Cobra leafed through the papers and put them aside. “When do you leave?”

  “In about one hour. Is there anything more that I can do before I go?”

  “No. We are on schedule.”

  “I assigned some boys to keep track of the old woman, Deqo Sharif. Do you have any special orders there?”

  “No. These other things must come first.”

  Hassan Ahmed took off his wire-rimmed glasses and polished them. “I don’t want to leave. You might need my services here. Police attention is growing all around town.”

  “Thank you. A few more days, and I will be done here. And we will rendezvous as planned. You need to go and make the final arrangements. It actually is better this way and does not disrupt our plans.” The Cobra smiled at his friend. “The sheep are frightened, and we will not slacken the momentum. Anyway, you are known to them, so you must leave. Go.”

  “The two boys who brought you over will take care of anything you need,” said Hassan. “I will see you in Cuba.”

  “Safe travels,” said the Cobra, and Hassan departed.

  Omar Jama sat and thought in silence for ten minutes, then used another new, disposable cell phone to dial a number from memory and issue another order. He spent a few minutes to become familiar with the remote control that worked a huge curved-screen television that hung on the wall, for he intended to watch the Timberwolves game later.

  THURSDAY NIGHT

  The special task force hammered at the problem all day. Men and women of the various agencies from several states were jammed into a large conference room at the FBI Minneapolis field office in Brooklyn Center, most of them law enforcement types carrying badges and guns, but also some big fish from the political seas and government lawyers. The conference had become a pyramid of concerned voices, people demanding to be heard and put on the record. Kyle Swanson rested against the wall at the rear of the auditorium, and he thought, Clusterfuck!

  There was little to be done that was not already being done. The routine cop work and forensics analysis was still under way, surveillance was being increased throughout the region, and the usual suspects were being questioned. So far, there were no real leads. To Swanson, the long meeting was akin to rearranging the deck chairs on a torpedoed ship: if the ship foundered, then all of these proper, posturing, and patronizing people would have life jackets. The little people would do the dying.

  Hugh Brooks, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the office, ran the meeting. He was a middle-aged white man with a wide round face and a slight belly who had conducted many similar conferences and was not bothered by the bureaucrats. He let everyone have their say, within reason.

  Swanson was next to Lucky Sharif and Janna Ecklund, both of whom had taken some sharp criticism because the al Qaeda man they had been watching had been the one who stormed the little restaurant in Wisconsin. They just had to sit there and take it. No one had yet been picked to be the sacrificial lamb of blame for the al Shabaab shooter in Albert Lea, but that one certainly did not fall at the feet of Sharif or Ecklund.

  It seemed to Swanson that everyone was struggling not to label the incidents terrorism, or even to officially say that they were related. That was absurd. If it was not a coordinated terror attack, he wondered, why were all of these smart people sitting in the FBI headquarters discussing it? Did they think the American people would miss seeing that obvious link?

  Another thing that was being raked over in detail was the fact that both of the attackers had come from the local Somali community in Minneapolis. It was an uncomfortable point, for the Twin Cities did not want a valuable community of immigrants torn apart while authorities researched the backgrounds of a few bad apples. A heavy-handed investigation could easily backfire into a wave of xenophobic racism, and the response might be a riot.

  Finally, when all the words had been said and all the promises had been made, the meeting ended. Kyle, Lucky, and Janna took a long dinner break. The T-Wolves game was just finishing when they left the restaurant.

  • • •

  BUSES WERE LINED IN neat lanes outside the Target Center when the basketball game ended, curls of exhaust smoke rising into the night. The drivers were ready to return fans to parking lots outside the city. The Wolves had laid a lopsided victory on the Jazz, and the fans were in great spirits. A young Somali man joined the queue, his bulkiness not an uncommon sight because everyone was huddled in heavy jackets. He paid the three dollars’ fare to board, edged down the middle aisle, and found an empty seat at a window halfway to the rear. An old man settled in next to him, and they ignored each other, although the old man thought it a bit strange that the youngster had not unbuttoned his jacket. The bus wasn’t all that cold.

  The suicide bomber said nothing at all, for offering a prayer might draw attention. He had already made his peace with Allah and had practiced his role a thousand times. His right hand was in his pocket and wrapped around a triggering device for the hidden vest that was crammed with explosives. He took a final look out the window at the milling crowd of passengers, at the sky, then pressed the little plunger to close the circuit.

  A spark jumped from a small battery, and the detonation blew out the windows and tore off the roof, evaporating him, his seat mate, and everyone else inside the doomed bus. The thin skin of the large vehicle was instantly transformed into razored shrapnel that preceded a spreading, rolling blast and fire.

  • • •

  KYLE, JANNA, AND LUCKY had returned to the FBI building and gone upstairs
to the private office of the special agent in charge. Hugh Brooks was still at it, working the phones. He was the one catching heat from Washington, where important people were demanding answers he did not have. He popped the plastic top on a bottle of antacid pills, gobbled two, and then asked, “Did you see anything we missed out there tonight, Swanson?”

  “I think every possible base was touched several times.” Kyle scratched his neck as he spoke. “I’m not trained as a crime fighter, but you guys just don’t have much hard information yet. I just know that the Wisconsin thing wasn’t the fault of these two agents.”

  “Ah, shit. I know that. The press jumped all over it, so everybody started joining that chorus, not knowing what they were talking about. Janna and Lucky are still running the investigation on this end. You stick with them.” Brooks folded his hands behind his head, stretched, and leaned back. “By the way, I was told by my boss to keep you out of range of any reporters.”

  “No worries there. You guys have a question where the CIA can help, I’ll get an answer. Other than that, I’m just an onlooker.”

  Brooks looked at a note on his desk. “Janna, how’d that search warrant on the investment place turn out? Did it get served this afternoon? Any luck?”

  “A team and some locals went over. The guy we were looking for, Hassan, is in the wind. Our forensic people are working on the office. They found a small living quarters right behind it, but we’re waiting for the reports.”

  “Damn. He has to be involved somehow.”

  “I agree,” she said. “He lied to us about only meeting briefly with the al Qaeda shooter, just long enough to turn down some business. That would have taken maybe fifteen minutes at the outside, but the surveillance log shows their meeting went at least forty-five minutes. And why was a little-league financial hustler even open on a Sunday night?”