Soft target rc-1

by Stephen Hunter

  That done, the imam walked among them, handing out tribal scarves, which he demanded they wrap about their necks but stuff low, inside the collars of their shirts, the idea being to pull them out at the moment of action, making each boy easy to identify by the others. He also gave them radio headsets with little throat microphones, through which, during the operation, he would address them.

  He bade them sit. He nodded to Andrew, who slid a blackboard in front of them and spun it on pivots to reveal a map. The smartest among them recognized it instantly as a cross section of the very structure in which they were present, as viewed from the top down. It revealed a somewhat lopsided pentagon, with the two bottom sides slightly concave. The center of this odd structure appeared to be open, though it was latticed with walkways and at each corner, a larger box bore an odd name, in English, which some could sound out as Nordstrom, Sears, Macy’s, and Bloomingdale’s. Four corridors-strangely marked Colorado, Rio Grande, Mississippi, and Hudson-led from the outermost ring to the center area.

  He spoke in Somali.

  “Today, my brother pilgrims, is the day we strike the beast of the West in his lair. In a few short minutes, I will release you. You will be fully armed with your guns, your knives, warriors of the Faith, here to slay and ravage and rampage as is commanded by the holy text. You will rest tonight in paradise, my pilgrims, attended by a fleet of win-some virgins, who will bring you wine and dates and carnal pleasure and glory unto eternity. Let me show you the path to glory.

  “But first let me warn you. We have shielded you thus far from the seductions of the West. You were chosen for your purity, your innocence, your devotion to faith. As you move along, you will see wondrous things that only a decadent civilization can conjure, clothes and toys and foods and other trivial but colorful delights. You must be strong. You must resist. This is a day of jihad, not vacation! Moreover, you must not be tempted by the shameless flesh of the West. You will see it everywhere, and in its beguiling licentiousness, it has brought many a true believer to ruin. I have chosen you because you are strong in the mind and in the heart. You can look upon such filth and spit in disgust. You will not be tempted, swayed, weakened, or in any way turned from duty.

  “And that is as follows: You will smartly progress to the elevators as marked. Your rifles, hidden under your coats, will not be visible. Your earphones are common in America and the infidels will take them for the cell phones that dominate their lives. Each team of two will take the elevator to the first level. There, each team will progress to the corridors marked by the names of rivers, Colorado, Mississippi, Hudson, and Rio Grande”-he pointed them out-“and at the given hour, as I signal, Maahir will shoot the king of the infidels atop his throne, here, and you will hear the shot, pull your scarves up over your heads, shout ‘Allahu akbar’ so that the infidels will know who has come to slay them in their sanctuary, and you will open fire, moving down the corridors toward this.”

  He pointed to the intricate pattern of roadways in the center.

  “This is a Western playland, full of absurd contrivances that give them the safe joy of speed. You will drive them into this area by gunfire, killing as you see fit, drive them forward into the playland, where all will commingle and halt in progress. Maahir and his three will receive them. There you will command them to sit and you will commence to guard them.

  “An hour, perhaps two, will pass, while I and my friend here make demands upon the infidels to help our cause. We mean to order them to free our three brothers unjustly imprisoned, so that they too will return to glory and the West will know our unquenchable will and that no bars can ever truly imprison a jihadi warrior prince.”

  At last it was time for the guns.

  Andrew had checked each for functionality and distributed them with confidence. For the young men, new guns were like an aphrodisiac to the sex of violence. They crowded in, hungrily, to touch, to hold, to caress, to possess a new weapon. The usual orgy of rifle love took place, as each newly equipped and wide-eyed gunman tested bolt and trigger pull and sight alignment and heft and feel and pointability. Some of the more immature aimed, issued copious, phlegmy machine-gun sounds, and mimed the shaking of the instrument on full automatic, as deployed in fantasy genocide against Jews or, if Jews weren’t available, mere infidels, equally worthy of death but somehow lacking in the pizzazz of a Jewish kill.

  “Yes,” said the imam, “it is play now, but soon, my young, fearless jihadis, it will be real, as will the blood that you spill, including, in martyrdom, your own as you make the trip to be loved by Allah.”

  “Allahu akbar!” someone shouted, and the others took it up, until it grew alarmingly loud, and Andrew elbowed the enthusiastic imam, and that gentleman came to his senses and ordered silence.

  The young men drew a single orange banana clip from the pouch they wore on their chest and now pivoted it into the well of the AK-74, almost in perfect syncopation, as if on drill, so that the sound of twelve clicks snapped through the space. To some ears, it was music.

  Finally, each of the young men was handed a large overgarment, cheap blue gabardine overcoats formerly issued to Czech draftees that had been picked up by Andrew, XXXL, at a local surplus joint. They were easily big enough to swallow the young men and the rifles they held cradled tight across their chests or down along their sides, hands nesting on pistol grips. To look at them in this condition was to see little that suggested lethal intent: young Somali men, each handsome in that Somali way of which Somalis were so justly proud, with high, fine cheekbones, chocolate skin, a fine pelt of frizzed hair, and bright and vivid eyes, each wrapped in some garment indistinguishable from the garments worn by others of the age and cohort, Somali or whatever, pretty much the world over.

  “When the Kaafi brothers are released,” the imam concluded, “then you will have your killing. No one will interrupt you, as the infidels are cowards. If they cannot bomb from afar or fire missiles, they lack the will to fight. They do not like the sight of blood or the damage a bullet may do. But you, my young lions, are hardened in battle. The destruction to flesh which you bring to them, the lakes of blood you spill until it is thick upon the floor, all of that is your contribution to the Faith and the vessel of your glory. You will avenge Osama!”

  Asad thought, Who was Osama?

  7:55 P.M.-8:01 P.M

  Any reports from the mall?” asked Colonel Obobo, himself bathed in the glow of the TV monitor in the dark of the Incident Command trailer, as the same imagery of loading, sealing, and then taxiing was playing out.

  “All quiet, sir.”

  “Great,” said the colonel.

  Then he felt a presence; it was Mr. Renfro leaning in quietly.

  “I haven’t seen Jefferson lately,” whispered Mr. Renfro. “I don’t trust him. Maybe he’s up to something crazy. Better check on him.”

  “Tell me, where’s Major Jefferson?” the colonel asked loudly.

  “Sir, I haven’t seen him.”

  “Commo, get me Major Jefferson.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The colonel put on his earphones and throat mike, just in time to hear the channel one request, “All personnel, this is Command, where is Major Jefferson? Major Jefferson, please report in, ten-four.”

  The silence was ominous.

  As the colonel watched, the jet began the pirouette that would place it on the proper vector for takeoff.

  “Ah, Command, sorry, Jefferson here, checking in.”

  “Major, where are you, please?” asked the colonel.

  “Sir, I’m with the Mendota Heights SWAT commander, trying to adjudicate an argument he is having with Roseville in regards to the coffee situation. Nothing I’d thought to trouble you with, though if you want, I can return ASAP when I get it settled and brief you.”

  “No, no, you handle it, Mike, I trust your judgment, you know that. If you can, get yourself to a TV and watch these bastards fly away home. Then get ready to receive the hostages.”

  “Yes sir,” sai
d Jefferson. “I’ll do that.”

  “Okay,” said Cruz, “you are the wizard of America, the Mall. You know games, I don’t. You get to be the intelligence officer; I’m just the grunt. I’ll find another way.”

  “Thank you, Ray,” she said.

  He thought quickly.

  “You got a cell?”

  Of her age and generation and culture, who didn’t have a cell?

  “Sure.” She took out her Nokia.

  “Write the number down on my wrist.”

  She did, with a Bic she had in her jeans pocket.

  “I’m going back. I’ll get up there by some other way. I’ll figure it, don’t know how yet.”

  But she knew how. There was only one way. He had to get back to the atrium overlooking the amusement park and risk climbing from the third-floor balcony to the fourth. Somehow, some superhero USMC goddamned way.

  “When I’m ready, you go to the door and fire five or six rounds into the door jamb next to the lock, like we did before, push it open. If Geniusboy has his gunners out there waiting, they’ll run to the door to pop you coming out. Only you won’t be coming out. I will be, from some other place. I will do the popping. Then we move on to the store where he’s running this game and we get ready to deal with him. Got it?”

  “I won’t let you down, Ray.”

  “That’s the one thing I know for a fact.”

  “So, the plane is at the runway,” Marty told Nikki over the radio. “It’ll be off in a few seconds, a minute or so at the most.”

  “Got it. I don’t like it. To me, we’re trusting these guys to keep their word like, I don’t know, they’re bridge club ladies or something.”

  “The Frabjous Obobo has decided. Anyhow, I have a great shot in mind. Oh, you’ll like this. This’ll get me to New York too, Mary Tyler Moore.”

  “Mary Tyler Moore doesn’t have room for moochers or slackers in her organization, Marty,” said Nikki. “What’s this shot you want?”

  “Well, it’ll get me a local Emmy, that’s for sure.”

  “You want an Emmy, Marty? Buy some more tables at the banquet.”

  “So young, so cynical.”

  “Go ahead with your Gone with the Wind shot.”

  “When the planes take off, I want you to have Cap’n Tom, assuming he’s still sober-”

  “Hey, Marty,” cut in Tom, “I haven’t had a drink in at least three minutes.”

  “Tom drops down and hovers over the big entrance there on the east side.”

  “Got it.”

  “You should get dramatic shots of hostages pouring out and heading toward the buses and climbing aboard. Some’ll be limping, some’ll be being helped, there’ll be crowding, but also joy and thankfulness.”

  “Got it.”

  “Get me faces, I want faces.”

  “Faces.”

  “Then the camera op pulls back, comes in tight as he cranks focus way in, and sitting in the doorwell of the WUFFchopper is new star Nikki Swagger. Ms. Scoops-R-Us herself, reporting on the hostage release. In one continuous shot. It’ll be terrific, and maybe it’ll go national.”

  It was a good idea.

  “Gee, you’re wonderful, Mr. Grant,” she said.

  Cruz made it out the doorway and slid down the Rio Grande hallway toward the balcony over the atrium. He went prone, slithered to the metalwork, and saw, two stories down and through the screening of possibly artificial trees, the spread of hostages on the walkways of the amusement park, and the gunmen standing all around. He got a good look, through a hole in the trees, of Santa. Still dead.

  He picked up his phone.

  “Sniper Five, go ahead, Cruz.”

  “They’ve set an ambush at the stairwell, we think. I’m going to go around it, but there’s no easy way. No nearby escalators, all the stairwells are locked. So I have to climb in plain sight from this level to the next. Can you see me?”

  A pause, as McElroy worked his binoculars, and then found the marine lying on his back just off the balcony.

  “Got you.”

  “I need a recon. See any bad guys?”

  “No, they’re all downstairs, I have no movement on any of the upper levels. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Do you have a better one?”

  “Man, I don’t have any. But that’s a long exposure and, if they see you, an easy shot, and if the bullet doesn’t kill you, you land on your back or head and break something important and permanent. And maybe that queers the hostage deal.”

  “You forget the best part. I’m scared to death of heights.”

  “All right, I’d relocate about fifty feet to your left. There’s a support beam between the balconies. Looks like it’s decorated with some kind of phony turn-of-the-century-according-to-Disney shit. Maybe it has enough hand- and footholds.”

  “Good work.”

  “Do you have buds for your phone?”

  “Yeah. In the box at home.”

  “Okay, I can’t talk you up. I’ll watch and-”

  And what? There was nothing McElroy could do but watch.

  “Good luck, Marine. Semper Fi, all that.”

  Ray put the phone away and low-crawled the fifty. He knew he didn’t have much time. He knew he couldn’t make any noise. He knew he couldn’t sweat, grunt, breathe heavy, swallow, anything. This was just pure acrobatics against a lethal height in front of an audience of killers, who, he hoped, weren’t in the habit of looking up. Fortunately, since the happy architects of Silli-Land had planted the grounds with those interfering trees, direct vision across or up was always impeded by the fluffy weaving of artificial leaves. One word: plastics. That might help.

  He pulled himself up, made a last check.

  None of the Somali guards was in a particularly alert status. They lounged, gathering in little groups-probably against their general orders-and seemed somehow quite happy. If any wondered where pals A through D had gone to, they weren’t showing it.

  Okay, he told himself, go.

  I don’t want to go, his self answered.

  What was it Molly always said with a smile on her face? Too bad for you.

  First he pulled himself up to the balcony railing, securing himself by hand to the pillar, which was itself about six inches wide, the same sage green as everything else in this green metal universe. Then he planted his foot on a nub of scrollwork, a filigree to the conceit of New Orleans balcony wrought iron overlooking Bourbon Street, and indeed, it held, and he hoisted himself up, aware at the same time that his entire weight was supported by just a stub of fake wrought iron. He rose by pulling, felt secure enough to free his off arm, and reached up. Once a tremor came to his foot; he slipped but somehow managed to check himself before he went by getting ahead of the slippage and jamming the foot in hard. He stabilized, holding tight, then brought his other leg up, searching for a foothold with his toe.

  Where the fuck was it? God, there wasn’t one. Meanwhile, his twisted fingers, all that were between him and the serious intentions of gravity, began to cramp in pain. They slipped too, costing him a little purchase, so that if he wasn’t on by fingertips quite, it was only the last joints of one hand that secured him.

  Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

  Ray stabbed again with his free leg, like a show horse stomping out its age in the dirt, one-two-three, higher each time, until almost at full extension, it lit on something just big enough to hold him, and he hoisted again.

  Very quickly this turned into a bad career move; he was supported in his two-hundred-pound entirety by the leverage of about a toe and a half, wedged against the meekest of protrusions, and with a hand he reached high, searching for a grab-on, aware that his purchase was slipping, slipping, slipping, and in the second before he knew he’d go, swing inward, and torque his support hand free and send himself into outer space, his fingers closed on some kind of steel tube, clamped hard upon it, and this stretched him a little further into extension and his foot also found a mooring point, and up
he shot.

  He rested, still, feeling the tracks of sweat running from hairline to eyes and nose, down from his armpits, the breath coming in hard gusts, even as his primal fears of falling expressed themselves vividly and he saw himself as in a ’60s movie’s crummy special effect, spinning laterally, getting further from the lens as he descended until at last he plunked hard to earth, broken, like a doll or a toy. And then he heard a scream.

  That’s it, he thought. I’m dead. He tensed against the shot that would hit him and bring him down.

  It cannot be discovered who first saw him. But it is known that Esther Greenberg, sixty-nine, stockbroker, mother of none, mentor of many, supporter of dozens, was the only one who figured out what had to be done and had the stone guts to do it.

  Someone poked her and leaned close.

  “They’re here,” came the whisper. “Commandos. Cops. Somebody.”

  She nodded, frozen, suddenly overwhelmed by this new reality.

  “Up above,” came the whisper.

  Slowly, as if she were merely stretching, she elevated her head, and she saw him. At first she thought, It’s one of them. But then she thought, No, it can’t be. He’s trying to move slowly, he’s not black, he’s one of us.

  She looked over and saw two of the gunmen jabbering, until they grew uninterested in each other. The tall one was the dangerous one. He disengaged from his buddy and began to look around innocently, the way a young guy will let his eyes roam out of boredom. He looked left, right, and then began to look up and “Noooooooo!” she screamed. She stood up. “I can’t take it anymore,” she yelled as if there were one thing on earth that frightened her. “Please, please, let me go.”

  She ran at the tall boy with the gun, who watched her come with lightless eyes, even as other hostages tried to grab her to stop her from suicide. But she made it to him, and he smashed her in the head with his AK-74 between puffs of his cigarette.