On the Heels of Evil

by D. E. Daum

  “Let me talk to whoever is in charge.”

  “That would be Commander Grady. I’ll get him.”

  Kelly waited while Santani located Grady. He glanced at his watch. 5:30 P.M. time is running out. After at least ninety seconds, a gruff voice said, “Grady here.”

  Chapter 8

  “That’s enough, Haman,” said Jane. “We don’t want to kill him.”

  Aaqid Safah had endured much. One of his eyes was shut, his nose appeared to be broken, and two of his fingers were bent at odd angles. It didn’t seem like he was ready to break. Jane perused his file. “Let’s go over this one more time. You were to take part in the attack planned for eight o’clock tomorrow in the casino of the New York, New York Hotel. Is that right?” He nodded, “So, you were going to essentially throw your life away. Is that right?” He nodded once more. “Tell me, Aaqid, does Na'eemah know of your plan to throw your life away?” Aaqid looked up. Good, that got his attention. “How about your five-year-old Ghanem and your three-year-old Marvina, do you think they would approve of losing their father at such a young age?”

  Aaquid shook his head, a remorseful look in his eyes. “What do you want?”

  * * * *

  Kelly looked at his watch, 6:06 p.m. The video feeds were in place, and Kelly was watching both rooms on a split screen. In Abul Hasim’s room he watched two men who were sitting at a small round table. One was concentrating on a laptop while the other seemed to talk non-stop on the phone. Kelly figured the former, a Semite, was probably Hasim. The latter, a Caucasian, seemed familiar, very familiar.

  In the other room were several Middle Eastern types and various deadly weapons. These were all soldiers waiting for the appointed time.

  Jimmy knocked on Kelly’s door and walked in. “Saleem, Dar wants me to tell you he thinks the attacks are set for midnight.”

  Kelly was leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk while he watched the screen. He put his feet down and leaned forward. Rattled, Kelly said, “That’s less than six hours. What makes him think that?” Kelly didn’t mention that Jane had come to a similar conclusion and had gone to Nellis to see the captives once more.

  Jimmy didn’t answer at first. “Dar says it’s nothing overt. Just a general feeling from the little bit of chatter he’s picking up. I’m getting a similar sense. One party said, ‘Look for a big splash on the morning news shows.’”

  “But Hayden said our captives at Nellis told him it was going to be 8:00 p.m. tomorrow.”

  “Maybe they lied. Hey, isn’t that one of those Nazi guys?”

  “That’s it! That’s why he looked familiar! It’s Dieter Bosch! You’re right again Jimmy. Send Reynolds in here, will you?”

  * * * *

  “You need me, Boss?” asked Reynolds.

  “Sit down, Phil. What else have you found out at the various hotels?”

  “Well, Saleem, as you might suspect, there are dozens of occupants in each hotel with Muslim sounding names. Unlike the ones you have up on the TV screen, they aren’t acting strangely.”

  Kelly’s phone rang. It was Santani. “I’m glad you talked Grady into allowing us to interview Rhamati, at least. Colin wasn’t very cooperative at first until I told him that his buddies, Hamadi and Ali, had plans to blow up L.A. If his girlfriend hadn’t been killed and had made it back here, she would have been vaporized along with him and about two million others. He softened up. The bottom line is his attack was scheduled for midnight tonight!”

  “Good work, Nick. Gotta go. Things to do.”

  Reynolds looked like he wanted to say something, but Kelly cut him off and dialed Jane. “Starbird, Saleem. Santani got the lowdown from Rhamati. Attacks are set for midnight. You and Haman get back here. We need you.”

  “Yes, Safar just came clean as well. I was getting ready to call. Midnight it is. We’ll be there as quick as we can.”

  “And before you go, guess what? Dieter Bosch is in one of the rooms I have under surveillance”

  “I knew it! I’ll bet that bastard Eckert is involved too. Just make sure you save Bosch for me.”

  Directing his attention back to Reynolds, Kelly said, “So, there are no more obvious targets. That’s not what I wanted to hear. Listen, Phil, they’ve scheduled the events for midnight. That’s only four and a half hours from now. We can’t wait much longer. We need to be proactive. Let’s pull the feeds on the two rooms and gas the occupants. Then we’ll go in to see what we find.”

  * * * *

  Kelly didn’t think he’d find anything revealing among the eight Jihadists, and he was right. However, the laptop of Hasim and Bosch contained a cornucopia of information. Kelly was scrutinizing the computer when Jane and Haman walked into the hotel room. Reynolds had handcuffed Hasim and Bosch who were still unconscious. When Bosch grunted from the kick that Jane delivered to his ribs, Kelly looked up. He said, “Made pretty good time, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t forget we took the helicopter. Is there anything in there?”

  “Actually, more than I’d hoped. By that I mean there is more going on than I had expected. From what I can determine, this is a joint venture between four terrorist organizations – Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Saddam Brigade, and Hezbollah. Therefore, the whole operation is bigger than anyone, with the exception of Dar, suspected.”

  “It sounds like we need to get going. It’s already 7:35. That doesn’t leave us much time.”

  Kelly stared at Jane. Jane said, “Wha . . . what’s the matter?

  “The attacks are supposed to take place by two methods. One, a frontal assault with guns and grenades. We appear to have taken those bad puppies from here and the NYNY out.”

  “Go on.”

  “There are two more assault groups and several suicide bombers, four or five in each of the remaining major casinos.”

  “How many casinos, in addition to this one and the NYNY?”

  “Ten on the strip and two downtown.”

  Jane was frantic, “Kelly, you mean there are seventy or so shooters and suicide bombers out there? How are we ever going to stop them? We can’t question every dark complexioned tourist in those casinos. If we did and it was a bomber, he’d just set the bomb off and blow our men up with everyone nearby.”

  “Jane, we aren’t totally unprepared. We have options. I need to think.”

  Chapter 9

  The information available in the computer gave the hotel and room number for each terrorist. Kelly called Santani and told him to locate two dozen tranquilizer dart guns along with two hundred darts and bring them to him on the fastest plane he could find.

  Kelly had twenty agents and a hundred well trained, heavily armed Special Forces personnel from the various services under his command. He met with the agents and gave them instructions. They were to split into twos and take control of the ‘special ops’ at each hotel. Kelly would call the ‘ops’ to let them know the agents would be there. The ‘special ops’ that were at non-target hotels would be reassigned to the nearest target.

  At 9:40 p.m., Santani brought in the tranquilizer guns and Kelly distributed them to the agents. Kelly sent his men out. It was dangerous to make assumptions, but under the circumstances, the deadline fast approaching, they assumed that the suicide bombers would target the casino of the hotel where they were staying. Another assumption was that since it was warm at the end of May, the bombers would stand out, wearing heavy or loose clothing to hide the weaponry or explosive vests.

  The plan was simple. They were hoping the assailants and bombers would stay in their rooms until the last minute before heading out to kill. The agents would apprehend or kill them in their rooms. If not, the agents and ‘ops’ were to fan out within the casinos hoping to find the terrorists before they detonated themselves. They were to incapacitate any suspicious individual with a tranquilizer dart, then check for explosives. If they were terrorists, good. If not, they would worry about the consequences later. Mariam, always thinking, had earlier suggested that they bri
ng in bomb-sniffing dogs and Kelly put dark glasses on their handlers to make the dogs appear to be Seeing Eye dogs. Unfortunately, they only had four dogs—all they could get on short notice.

  After all of the agents had left for their respective assignments, and only the women and Santani were left, Kelly stated, “We’re going to take the downtown hotels. We’ll take the helicopter and land in area behind the Plaza Hotel. Starbird, I want you and Nick to take the Plaza Hotel. Mariam and I will take the Golden Nugget.”

  After landing, Kelly requested Santani to watch out for Starbird, who was not yet at one hundred percent. Kelly smiled when he heard Nick, who had a propensity for aggrandizement, finished the story he had started during the helicopter trip, telling Jane about the difficulties of getting the tranquilizer guns.

  As he and Mariam entered the Golden Nugget, Kelly received a call from Reynolds. They had captured or killed the two remaining assault groups and the suicide bombers in their rooms, in six of the hotels. This was good news, but it also meant that four groups of bombers were on the loose and that didn’t count Jane’s or theirs.

  At 11:05 p.m., Kelly and Mariam met with their ‘special ops’ contingent. There were eight of them—all SEALs. They wore body armor and carried suitcases with the objects of their craft—deadly weapons, other gear and modified helmets.

  They took the elevator to the seventh floor, where the bomber’s room was located. Kelly was about to turn off his radio/phone, so it would not ring and warn the terrorists, when he got a call from Bishop. His assignment had been the Venetian. “Saleem, can you talk?”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  “We had a situation here. The bombers are wearing long robes.”

  “Yes, they’re called thobes.”

  “Yeah, well, these guys are wearing thobes and one of our Seeing Eye bomb dogs started barking at one of the perps, who panicked and ran. Somehow, he ended up outside by the pool area and blew himself up. Luckily, no one was around the pool this late. We had captured a couple of his confederates earlier, but the two we hadn’t found yet heard the explosion and detonated. They killed or wounded a couple dozen people, but again we were lucky because the dumb shits were among the slot machines, which blocked a substantial amount of the shrapnel. Anyway, the reason I called is the dogs are a good idea, but because they may give us away, I suggest we proceed without the dogs.”

  The elevator doors opened, and four Catholic priests waited to get in. “Sounds like a plan, Bishop. I gotta go. Handle it, will you?”

  As they disembarked from the elevator, the four priests waited patiently for the elevator to clear. They never knew what hit them. The SEALs had them hugging the ground, with neoprene flex-cuffs on their wrists, in five seconds flat. Sure enough, under their black coats they wore suicide-style explosive vests. The bearded one with manic eyes looked straight at Kelly. “You, The Chosen One, what are you doing here?”

  “Keeping you, my friend, from going straight to Hell.”

  Chapter 10

  Jane’s bruises were fading and her bandages were covered with a scarf. She was encouraged by the ease of success in Kelly’s operation and was hoping for the same, but fate was not cooperating. The perps were not in their room, nor did they appear to be in the casino or restaurants.

  Is the information wrong? It hadn’t been wrong about anything else.

  They had met up with their ‘special ops’ personnel, who were badass Delta Force troops, seven of them. One of them, Sandy, she knew. He had been a Marine, and she had been his drill sergeant. He was a toughie then, so she wasn’t surprised he was now Delta Force.

  Jane addressed Santani and the others, “They don’t appear to be here. Anybody have any ideas?”

  Everyone shook their heads, but Santani spoke up, “Maybe they switched rooms.”

  Jane shook her head, too. “Nah, it’s 11:45. Even if they switched rooms, they would have been down here by now, getting positioned for their big event.”

  Sandy spoke up, “I think they may have decided to walk up Fremont Street.”

  “Fuck, if that’s the case, they could be anywhere.”

  Jane called Kelly and told him what was happening. He suggested Santani and the ‘ops’ start canvassing Fremont Street, and he would send his SEALs down to help.”

  “Wait a minute. Why not have Santani stay here and I’ll go?” Jane entreated.

  “Because you shouldn’t even be along that’s why. You experienced a trauma forty-eight hours ago. You went through surgery and have a concussion. I’ll bet you’re still dizzy.”

  He was right, she was dizzy. “But Saleem—”

  Kelly cut her off, “I only brought you along as a partner for Santani. Stay there and that’s an order. Keep one of the ‘ops’ too.”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Let’s not get facetious now, Jane.”

  Jane said to her entourage, “The Chief wants all of you but one to canvass Fremont Street. He says he’ll send down his boys to help. Anyone want to stay here and guard little ole me?”

  Sandy said, “Yeah. I’ll stay, we can catch up on old times.”

  They didn’t get to catch up on much. Five minutes after the others left and two minutes before zero hour, the bombers appeared. They were wearing maintenance crew uniforms. Jane knew they weren’t regular employees because all were Middle Eastern types and had revealing bulges under their shirts.

  Jane said, “Jesus Christ, Sandy! There are the fucking terrorists, and we’re alone.”

  A familiar voice from behind her said, “You don’t need Jesus Christ. You need The Right Hand of Allah!”

  Jane grinned and turned around. “How . . . where did you come from? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “I’m not sure. For some reason, I can tell if you or Mariam are in danger. We have about sixty seconds until nails and shrapnel start flying. Start shooting your dart gun, kiddo.”

  The bombers were splitting up for predetermined locations. Jane shot the closest one with a dart, and he collapsed. She shot the second closest one, but it only partially disabled him. He staggered around and started to reach into his pocket, most certainly for the detonator.

  Jane saw this and like a quick-draw artist drew her nine-millimeter Walther. She drilled the terrorist in the forehead. The other three saw what happened, and two of them started to reach for their pockets. Jane drilled one and Sandy the other, both headshots. By now, the shots had spooked the public, and like stampeding cattle, they headed for the exits, effectively blocking any shot at the last bomber. Kelly must have had a premonition, because he started heading for the last one before Jane had drilled the second one. Kelly’s luck was holding as the terrorist, instead of detonating the bomb, chose to run with the others for an exit.

  Kelly was thirty yards or so behind the culprit and gaining. He yelled for the bomber to stop. He did and turned around. Kelly came to a halt roughly twenty feet away with his gun trained on the man. Kelly studied the suicide bomber. Wide eyed, like so many, he was young and scared, not unlike Jamal. People from the casino were running by, not realizing they were running toward, instead of away from trouble.

  Kelly spoke to the young man, “Do you speak English?” The perp’s mind was in turmoil. He nodded. “You must give up. All your brethren are dead or captured. Do not give up your life in vain for an ignoble cause.”

  “Ignoble cause?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you know of ignoble causes? You help the ignoble Americans who help the Jews exterminate the Palestinians.”

  “Are you Palestinian?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then why give up your life for Palestinians?”

  He spoke excitedly spittle flying from his mouth. “The Americans are committing genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have troops stationed on holy soil.”

  “The Americans are helping the Iraqis and Afghans. They may be clumsy, but they mean well, and troops are stationed in Saudi Arabia at the request of the royal family. I know because I’m a Saudi. Do
you know who I am?”

  Eyes narrowed, he stared at Kelly. Finally a glint of recognition filtered into his gaze. “Are you The Chosen One?”

  “I am, I have counseled with Allah and killing and maiming in his name disturbs him. Allah has no enemies—only children. Men have enemies and it makes him sad. What is your name?”

  “Hilial.”

  “Hilial what?”

  “Ashogan. Why?”

  “So I can tell your mother and father what a fool their son was.”

  Hilail smiled, knelt, and put his hands on his head.