The Secret Corps

by Peter Telep

  At once, pandemonium struck as though a klaxon had sounded. Commuters stormed like a barbaric horde across the platform, screaming as they shouldered and shoved each other toward the exits, some falling to be trampled, others literally clinging to the travelers in front of them and dragged forward by the wave.

  “They bombed Woodside,” cried a man from somewhere in the crowd. “We could be next!”

  Mirsab trembled. He tightened his grip on the detonator. His thumb drew circles over the firing button. He swallowed, his gaze flicking left and right as more infidels burst from the train cars and swooped by him.

  And there he was, standing ramrod straight and immobile.

  Scared out of his mind.

  He craned his head to the left and saw an MTA officer about two cars ahead. The cop jogged toward him with a middle-aged man in tow. The gray-haired commuter resembled ex-military with his crew cut and square jaw. The officer hollered for Mirsab to freeze and raise his hands. The commuter cursed and referred to him as “Mohammed.”

  A tremor ripped through Mirsab’s torso, and for a moment he thought he had accidentally pushed the button. He wailed inside against the sharp claw of fear tightening around his neck. How could he be such a coward when Zehna had been so brave? How could he shame himself before Allah?

  He gritted his teeth and glowered at the MTA officer and barking man beside him. He remembered his profound hatred for these infidels, for their Godless society, for what they had wrought upon the world. He would not be weak. He would fight like Zehna had. He would join her. After a deep breath, he screamed at the top of his lungs: “Allahu Akbar!”

  “No!” the cop shouted—

  But he, along with hundreds of others still on the platform, was too late. Mirsab lifted his head toward Allah and triggered the detonator.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Those heroes who stood up and answered the call didn’t think twice. They leaned toward the danger—because they had courage, commitment, and sacrifice in their blood. Let me ask you something. Would you answer the call?”

  —Johnny Johansen (FBI interview, 23 December)

  Talib Wakim had piloted his houseboat close enough to the Hoover Dam so that he could spy the four intake towers through a pair of binoculars. A half dozen or more police cars had just pulled up along the top of the dam, their lights twinkling in the predawn darkness like a string of crimson beads. Despite these new guests, Wakim would trigger the detonation at exactly five a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

  To fully appreciate the elegance of Al-Saif’s plan, one must first understand the Hoover Dam’s operation. Water from Lake Mead entered via the four intake towers and was channeled through four gradually narrowing tunnels or penstocks carrying a rapid flow controlled by a sluicegate. These penstocks funneled the water down to the powerhouse located at the bottom of the dam. The intakes provided a maximum hydraulic head or water pressure of 590 feet, enabling the water to achieve a flow rate of eighty-five mph. In effect, the entire flow of the Colorado River was channeled through seventeen main turbines and two additional station-serviced turbines which provided power for plant operations.

  The water’s force on the blades of the turbine spun a rotor—a series of magnets—which was the moving portion of the generator where a magnetic field was created. The stator was the stationary part of the generator comprised of coils of copper wire. Electricity was produced as the magnets spun past the stationary wiring of the stator. This concept was discovered by scientist Michael Faraday in 1831 when he found that electricity could be created by rotating magnets within copper coils. The dam generated, on average, four billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power each year for use in Nevada, Arizona, and California—enough to service more than two million people. Anything that inhibited the flow of water into the generators was a dire threat to the dam’s electrical output.

  And therein lay Wakim’s avenue of approach.

  As part of his research, he learned that in January 2007, quagga mussels were discovered at a marina in the Nevada area of Lake Meade and two other lakes on the Colorado River: Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu. An inspection funded by the Bureau of Reclamation found quagga mussel infestation in the Hoover Dam, the Davis Dam, and the Parker Dam. The mussels were roughly the size of an adult human's thumbnail and were known as aggressive biofoulers. Juvenile mussels would attach themselves to external and internal dam structures, grow in place, and begin to inhibit water flow. Acute fouling would occur when a large buildup of shells, alive or dead, became detached from upstream locations and flowed into piping systems to clog them.

  It was this idea of a tiny mussel threatening a gargantuan structure that intrigued Wakim. If they could not destroy the Hoover Dam, then they would destroy its ability to produce electricity by shutting down the flow of water, which meant attacking the intake towers—towers that were much more vulnerable than the 660-foot-thick wall of the dam itself. At this very moment, each tower was surrounded by one thousand pounds of slurry explosives planted midway between the midlevel water intake gate and the lower water intake gate.

  The type, placement, and quantity of these explosives had been confirmed by Nazari’s own graduate students back at the University of Northern Iowa because he had provided them with an extra credit test problem:

  An abandoned industrial chemical plant is about to be revitalized into a community college campus. Cost cutting includes refurbishing and repurposing the original buildings. The cooling tower adjacent to the main building is an eyesore, has no utilitarian value, and the tower construction materials have significant monetary scrap value.

  Task: A) Demolish the tower without damaging any structures in the immediate vicinity.

  B) Determine the type, placement, and quantity of explosives necessary to drop the tower within its own footprint.

  Tower specifications: 395 feet high; diameter 82 feet at the base, 63 feet, 3 inches at the top; 93, 674 cubic yards of concrete; and 1,756,000 pounds of reinforcing steel rods.

  While Nazari and Wakim had already formulated solutions themselves, they marveled over the creativity of the answers put forth by the students and felt reassured by the many confirmations they received.

  With a nod at the young divers around him, Wakim counted down and triggered four separate remotes.

  One after another the towers erupted in a gurgling rumble similar to those produced by depth charges. The water churned and boiled into fountains and amorphous petals as Wakim closed his eyes and imagined what was happening beneath the surface:

  Inside each tower was an upper and lower cylindrical water intake gate that was thirty-two feet in diameter and eleven feet high. The upper gate was located about midway down the tower. Each gate weighed 1,473,000 lbs. At this very moment, the upper gate had been blown apart and was descending with tons of concrete rubble. That gate would crash onto the lower gate, destroy it, and plug the mouth of the intake tunnel at the base of the tower.

  When he opened his eyes, the concrete walkways that connected the towers in pairs to the dam proper were breaking apart like stale bread, sections tumbling with an unreal slowness that suggested zero gravity. One by one, the towers plunged straight down to remain in their own footprints, as though some unseen giant were pulling blocks in four distinct games of Jenga.

  Lights around the dam flickered and died, while the water continued to foam and bubble with swells. Wakim and his men cheered and thanked Allah for granting them the courage to fight in his cause and complete their mission.

  They had effectively shut down the Hoover Dam for years, and the loss of power in the region would be catastrophic to the economy.

  Wakim smiled, bowed his head toward the young men, then activated another detonator.

  Those police officers on the dam would observe a small explosion in the distance, a rather inconsequential camera flash and faint timpani roll when compared to the destruction before them.

  By sunrise, the flotsam of fiberglass and flesh would span the lake, w
hile Wakim and his dive crews would rejoice at Allah’s shoulders.

  * * *

  While en route to the Bright Tree Learning Center cited on the target list and located only ten short minutes from his daughter’s home in Charleston, South Carolina, Norm Mack called the police and issued a bomb threat. By the time he arrived at the daycare, administrators and teachers were escorting children out of the building and across the parking lot toward a strip mall located on the other side of a tree-lined median.

  Norm had “borrowed” his son-in-law’s Sig Sauer P227, a .45 caliber pistol with a full magazine of expanding critical defense rounds coined as “manstoppers” in the marketplace of self-defense. He shoved the gun into the deep pocket of his winter coat, then exited his rental car. Several parents were pulling up and hollering toward the groups, their expressions twisting with confusion.

  An SUV parked beside Norm’s rental car. A dark complexioned man climbed out. He was dressed similarly to Norm in a heavy down jacket. Was this the bomber? Norm tensed, about to confront the man, a capacity for violence never far from his heart, born during the Vietnam war and smoldering for decades.

  He turned, opened his mouth, then hesitated. His target opened a rear door and unbuckled a toddler from her car seat. He carried the little girl toward the crowd, crying, “What’s happening?”

  Norm swore under his breath.

  Two police cars with lights flashing rumbled into the parking area, and behind them came a black BMW assumedly driven by another parent en route to drop off a child. As the police split up, one unit heading toward the median, the other parking in a handicap spot near the front doors, the BMW stopped in the middle of the lot.

  The car door flung open, and a Middle Eastern woman with a black burka masking all but her eyes bailed out of the BMW and jogged toward the crowd, waving.

  But she was only waving one hand.

  Norm squinted toward her other hand, where something red flashed near her thumb and a wire snaked up the side of her wrist and into her jacket sleeve.

  He tugged the .45 from his pocket, lifted his arms, and took aim at the woman, even as a man from somewhere behind shouted, “He’s got a gun!”

  From the hollows of Norm’s heart came a whisper: what if you’re wrong? What if you’re seeing things? Are you prepared to kill an innocent woman?

  But he could not be wrong—because it had all been preordained: his life after the war, his becoming a book buyer, his befriending Daniel Johansen, and, finally, his meeting up with Johnny and informing him of Daniel’s suspicious activity. Johnny had gone way up river and returned with a staggering truth and a monumental call to action. His was a call that no Marine could ignore, and this woman must be the bomber because there were no coincidences in this world. God had allowed Norm Mack to survive the Battle of Lost Patrol and live out his life for a reason—so that he could face this woman, knowing what he had to do, acting without hesitation, understanding that the evil in her heart was as cold and hard as the gun in his hands, and that her desire was to murder as many young families as possible, all in the cause of Allah.

  Had Norm not made his call, she would have walked into the daycare and blown herself to smithereens, taking countless young lives with her. Now she was exploiting the chaos to pursue her prey and join the crowd, where she could still carry out her heinous act—and for just a second Norm imagined a flurry of tiny severed limbs tumbling end over end through the air, pink flesh glowing in an undulating blast wave.

  But that would not happen. This bitch was unaware that Norm Mack, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, ‘D’ Company, 1st Platoon, along with his brothers and sisters across the United States, had returned to their posts.

  “Hey!” Norm shouted.

  The woman turned—

  And the malevolence in her eyes distorted the air between them, the periphery bleeding away so that Norm saw only her in his weapon’s sights. He had never been more sure about taking a shot in his entire life.

  He squeezed the trigger, his first round a surprise, as it should be. He caught her in the neck, the wound masked by her burka. His second shot hammered her left cheek, kicking her back, onto the asphalt.

  Bending his arm and ducking, Norm winced, expecting her to detonate and take him with her. But her hand had fallen away, the detonator hanging limply from her sleeve. Adrenaline carried him to her, where he dropped to his knees so he could unzip her jacket. The flaps fell back, but not before the police wrenched him up and away.

  A hush fell over the parents behind him as they gaped at the suicide vest strapped to the woman’s chest.

  The dark complexioned man clutching his daughter stared in wonder. “There are bombs going off all over the country right now! She was another one. She was going to kill us all.” He glanced more emphatically at Norm. “You saved us—but how did you know?”

  * * *

  With anchors from CNN reporting explosions at the Woodside and Jamaica Railroad Stations in New York, nearly everyone on line at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter was either glued to a phone or the flat screen televisions—

  Everyone except the young man standing a few rows back from Clive Gleeson, the one he had been eyeing for the past minute. As a drill instructor for over two decades, Gleeson had honed his ability to read the unseen, untapped potential—or lack thereof—in young men who desired to become Marines. He could sense from a man’s demeanor, his comportment, and even his gait how difficult it would be to transform him into a first class warrior, an instrument of destruction. Was he a loner or a team player? Did he understand the entirety of his training? Did he have a high threshold for pain? Could he lead other men to their deaths?

  Sometimes the answers were obvious. Sometimes not. But Gleeson was a master at reading the twitches on faces, the tremors in fingers, the tightly shut lips of men holding their breaths. The slightest quaver in a recruit’s tone set off alarms. In that regard, Gleeson was an unusual man jammed into an atypical crowd of holiday shoppers—

  And one jihadi.

  Since he was a Marine, Gleeson was incapable of being shy, and so he drifted out of line, circled around the ropes, and slipped up behind the young man in question. Why was this kid’s left hand tucked up into his sleeve? Where was his phone? Was he trembling?

  “As-salam alaikum,” Gleeson said, recalling his Arabic.

  The young man whirled to face him, his eyes bugging out.

  Gleeson seized him by the neck with one hand, while patting down the kid’s chest with the other. He felt the vest. The explosives.

  The kid glanced down at his own hand, which had popped out of his jacket to reveal the detonator.

  Gleeson raised his voice. “Let’s see if your bomb can get past me—one big, fat motherfucka Marine!”

  With that, Gleeson tackled the kid to the floor, smothering him, even as the son of a bitch jammed down the button.

  * * *

  As Carmen Guzman opened her purse, she blamed the institution for putting her in this position. St. Paul’s administrators had recently cut back on the number of off duty cops they had hired and was now providing a local security force whose qualifications, experience, and reliability were sorely lacking. The emergency waiting area’s lone guard was currently outside, sneaking another cigarette, while the flat screens mounted from the ceiling flashed with news of bombings in New York, Arizona, and Orlando.

  The awkward man she had been studying all morning bolted to his feet and lifted his arms, with something clenched in his right hand. His crazed expression drained the color from his face. He opened his mouth, as if to shout something—

  But Guzman was ready. The compact .45 she kept in her purse was tight in her hands, and the 4.4 pounds of single action trigger pull was simple to manage. Her first shot caught him in the chin, and her second struck his head as he was falling backward.

  She had given him no time to announce how great his God was. She had claimed that time for herself so that she could make a statement on behalf of the Uni
ted States Marine Corps, whose officers and enlisted had trained and inspired her.

  As her ears rang loudly from the gunshots, the other nurses began screaming, and the useless security guard from outside came stumbling through the doors.

  “You shot him?” the guard cried.

  Trembling, Guzman lowered her arms and grimaced from the smoke wafting into her face. The guard rushed to the man, spotted the detonator hanging out of his coat, then glanced back. “He’s wearing a bomb!”

  “I know,” Guzman said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  One of her colleagues arrived at her shoulder. “You brought a gun to work? They’ll fire you now.”

  Guzman cocked a brow and shivered. “You think I care?”

  * * *

  Mentu Sekani had ordered his men to anchor their skiffs directly below the northbound span of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London, Connecticut. The men understood the reason behind this order, and not a single diver had borne even the slightest misgiving in his eyes. Above them, the traffic had thickened because the speed limit had dropped from 55 to 25 mph due to icing on the roadway. Sekani estimated that at least six hundred commuters were present when he gave the order to detonate the charges.

  The explosions came in a rolling, baritone rumble that ripped up and through their boats, shaking the gunwales. The water heaved, and the footings of the southbound trusses splintered apart, rupturing from beneath the surface. Steel trusses creaked and squealed; rivets popped free and clanged; and great fissures appeared in the concrete beneath the roadway. Sections of bridge between the crumbling footings broke off and plummeted toward the river. Cars, commercial vans, and tractor trailers flew off both ends. Reinforcing beams swung like mangled limbs, slicing through clouds of smoke and jets of salty water. Even as these sections smacked into the river in a chain of echoing booms, chaotic cracks of thunder emanated from the footings of the northbound span. These second charges resounded like the misfiring beats of a diseased heart until the footings shook, cracked, began to disintegrate, then gave way.