The Team

by David M. Salkin

  “Shit,” said Franklin.

  “What?” asked Cascaes.

  “They ain’t done.”

  The other EOD opened the top of the box and looked inside. He gently removed whatever snacks were inside until it was empty. He stared at it for a second confused, and then realized what he was looking at. “False bottom,” he announced.

  “Okay, everyone move away. We need to take the bottom off; it may be booby-trapped,” said Franklin.

  “What about you?” asked Cascaes.

  “It’s what we do. Move away.”

  Cascaes motioned with his chin to head over the section where four of his guys were still trying to grab the food vendor. A few went down the same aisle again in case the guy had doubled back, and the rest headed to the other side of that section.

  Franklin dropped his pack of tools and began slowly disassembling the bottom of the box. “Tommy, I’m opening the cover.”

  The two of them held their breath as Mark slowly lifted the aluminum plate. Beneath it was a Sarin bomblet wrapped in cushioning, attached to a cell phone that was lit up and waiting for a call.

  “Bingo,” he said calmly. Mark calmly pulled the wire lead from the phone, removed the phone from the box, and turned it off. He looked up at Jeff Krekeler. “Tucker and Cody think there’s more.”

  “Yeah. Now what?”

  Mark studied the bomb. “If they’re all like this, they’re all waiting for a call. As long as the Prowler’s flying, we should be cool. The only way to detonate this manually is to take it apart, unwrap the bomblet, and break it open.”

  “Yeah, but how many more are inside?”

  Mark shook his head. This was bad.

  He stood up and looked over at Cascaes who was standing close enough to have been killed anyway. “Hey, Chief, I got good news and bad news.” He explained what was going on.

  Cascaes thought for a minute before speaking. “I’ve got an idea, but we’re going to need a lot of help and someone who speaks better Arabic than me.”

  A young blonde woman appeared out of the stadium and saw Cascaes and the K9 units. She asked the two Qatari soldiers in Arabic what was going on. As soon as Cascaes heard her speak, he jogged over to her.

  “Hey! You!”

  The woman stopped in mid sentence and stared at him. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “You’re American?”

  “I asked you what’s going on. Should this place be evacuated?”

  “Look, lady, I need your help. You speak fluent Arabic?”

  She put her hands on her hips and stared as Cascaes. “Did I stutter? I asked you a question!”

  “There may be bombs inside this stadium. We cannot allow the crowd to panic, you understand? If the bombers know we’re on to them, they can detonate poison gas. I need your help—your language skills!”

  The woman, named Patty, worked for an American oil and gas company in Qatar, and lived and worked in Doha. She spoke fluent Arabic. She took a deep breath and tried to be calm. “What is it that you need me to do?”

  Cascaes looked at his watch. It was quarter to eight. “Look, I need for you to explain to these guys that they have to radio every cop and soldier in this stadium and instruct them to locate all the food vendors. We have no idea how many other bombs there are, but there may be a lot. I think they’re using the food vendors to scatter the stuff around the crowd. They need to move casually to wherever these vendors are and get fairly close. At exactly eight o’clock, they’re to grab these guys and make them put down the boxes. Exactly eight o’clock, okay? We have to try and get these guys all at once. If they realize they’re being grabbed, they may be able to detonate these things in the crowd. You understand?”

  The woman’s face had gone from a healthy tan to corpse-white. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “Focus! Listen, I need you to help me. Explain everything I said nice and simple to this soldier.”

  She nodded, worrying about her husband inside the stadium with their friends. There were almost fifty thousand people inside. Her mind was racing and she felt sick.

  Chris grabbed her arm and gently moved her closer to the Qatari soldiers. Patty began explaining, in a slow calm voice, even though she was sweating. The soldiers nodded and listened, and the n spoke rapidly to each other and then back to her. Patty looked at Chris and said, “They said it’s impossible; there’s hundreds of food vendors all over the stadium.”

  “It’s not impossible. There are thousands of troops and cops all over this stadium. We just need to locate the vendors walking around with these boxes. Tell him he has to do it.”

  They argued back and forth a little bit and, finally, one of the soldiers began speaking into his radio. It was dead.

  “Son of a bitch. The Moon Dogs are jamming all the frequencies,” said Chris. “This won’t work.”

  As Chris stood feeling helpless, Ernie P. ran over. “Hey, Skipper, we got the hajji that tried to run.”

  Cascaes looked at the woman. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Patty.”

  “I need you to help again with your Arabic. Come on.”

  They ran over to the other side of the section, where Jon and Raul were holding the bomber. “Ask him how many bombs there are in the stadium.”

  Patty spoke to him in Arabic. He spit at her, but missed. Chris responded with a knee directly into the man’s groin. If not for Jon and Raul holding him by his arms, he would have hit the deck. Cascaes smacked his face a couple of times and then held his gun against the man’s forehead.

  “Ask him again,” he said to Patty.

  She asked, but the man was praying and preparing to be shot. “He’s not going to tell us anything,” said Patty.

  Cascaes grabbed the man by the throat and walked him to the Qatari soldiers. “Here,” he grunted, and shoved the man towards them. The Qatari soldier held him at gunpoint. The members of the team began assembling near Cascaes, and he called them in closer.

  “Fellas, it’s just us. The Qatari radios won’t work with jammers working, and we can’t tell them to turn them off because of the bombs, so that’s it. It’s just us. We need to go through the stadium, one section at a time, and inconspicuously take the vendor boxes.”

  The American woman was listening from nearby. She walked over to the group. “I can spread the word to the other Qatari police.”

  Chris thought about it. He nodded. “Okay. That helps. Just explain to them they have to be subtle. No shooting. Just quietly get the vendor or the box out of the crowd.”

  “Can I get my husband and two friends to help? We all speak fluent Arabic.”

  “Go. And thanks, Patty.”

  She ran off towards her seats in the deafening stadium.

  “Okay, this is it. One section at a time. Let’s try to live to the end of the day boys. Fifty thousand people are counting on us not to fuck this up. No pressure. Half of you with me clockwise, other half work around the other direction. See you on the other side of the stadium.”

  “What do we do with the boxes when we get them?” asked Jon.

  “Bring them up the stairs and just put them in stacks against the walls. Grab Qatari cops or soldiers and just have them watch over them. If the bombers can’t detonate by phone, they have to take them apart by hand and break the Sarin bomblets. If they try that, we’ll probably see them.”

  “And we catch them trying, we cleared to fire?” Asked Pete.

  “Yes, but only if you have to. And for Christ sake don’t hit any civilians. Now go!”

  The team broke in half, and Cascaes took off with Lance, Jake, Raul, Ernie P., and Smitty. Cory, Ryan, Jon, Pete, and Ray headed off in the other direction. Each team took a K9 unit with them.

  Chapter 45

  Upper Deck

  One section at a time, the team moved throu
gh the crowd. The first two food vendors that Chris approached were clueless, and gave up their boxes, which were hustled up the stairs of the section, outside to the open hallway. The K9 unit sniffed around and didn’t get a hit, so they continued. The third vendor saw them and tried to get away, but he couldn’t get through the cheering crowd. Two of the men grabbed him and escorted him to the top of the stairs, where the dog confirmed the bomb. The man’s wrists were zip-tied behind his back, and he was given to the Police officers who were now starting to get the word from Patty and her group.

  “This is going to take too long,” said Ernie P. to Chris as they ran to the next section.

  “As long as the signals can’t get to the triggers, we’ll be okay. Just keep your eyes peeled. We miss one box, and it’ll be thousands of casualties in a crowd like this.”

  On the other side of the stadium, the K9 unit pulled hard against his leash. “Work, Cody! Work!” commanded Jeff. The dog froze and eyed a food vendor who spotted the team and the K9 unit up in the hallway area outside the stadium seats. Cody sniffed at the air and barked. The food vendor looked terrified. He dropped to one knee and reached into the box, trying to pull the bottom off and get to the Sarin bomblet.

  Jon aimed his M4, the red dot on the bomber’s forehead, and fired a single silenced round. The man slumped over the box, dead instantly. Inside the stadium, the cheering crowd never heard the gunshot.

  Ryan yelled, “I’ll double-check this section. You guys take the next one and I’ll catch up.” The other five men took off to the next section with Cody, and Ryan sprinted down the aisle steps scanning for food vendors. There section was clear, so he ran back up. For most humans, sprinting up and down stadium steps might have been brutal. For the members of the team, it was just another day at the office.

  Patty and her group had split up and were finding police officers and Qatari soldiers, relaying what was happening as fast as they could. She also explained, as Chris had explained to her, why no one’s radio was working—the Americans were jamming the signals to prevent the bombs from being detonated. That seemed to backup her story, and even the most reluctant policemen began searching for the food vendors.

  Twenty minutes later, there were sixty-three Qatari police and soldiers helping the team track down food vendors. And while there were numerous scuffles, tackles, fist fights, and foot chases, only three other bombers were killed with gunfire. Fortunately, the soccer match was so intense that the crowd was screaming wildly at the game and was oblivious for the most part. Seeing security grab people and drag them away wasn’t note-worthy at a Man U – Spain game. By the time the team was reunited at the other end of the stadium, they had secured seventy-one rigged vendor boxes. The men were slightly winded and soaked with sweat.

  Cascaes wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Okay, upper level is clear. I have Qatari cops stationed at the four corner escalators looking for any vendors that might try and come up from downstairs. Time for us to head down and do this all over again on the first level. We’ve got a lot more help now—it should go faster, but the game’s almost over. These bombers have to be wondering what’s going on. They gotta know something’s up. They get desperate, they may try and just cook them off manually, so move fast and shoot if you have to. Move out!”

  Chapter 46

  Lower Deck

  The team was running down the escalator with dozens of police and soldiers running after them. Patty and her people had gotten the word out, and they were still bravely running all over the stadium finding help. Upstairs, dozens of would-be bombers were zip tied and held in the security offices, with soldiers stationed at vendor boxes awaiting disposal instructions.

  Cascaes reached the bottom of the escalator and ran to the first section. He stuck his head in to see the remaining game time. Less than fifteen minutes.

  Almost impossible to find them all, even with all the extra help.

  And then a change in luck.

  Tucker began whining, and EOD Franklin let him run. Cascaes and his men ran after the dog, who was the most excited he’d been since he’d started working. They ran around the bend in the wall at the far end of the stadium and found themselves looking at double doors that led to the vending area. The dogs were barking and straining to get through the doors. Chris and the team sprinted to the doors and opened them up, finding themselves staring down into the eyes of a dozen bombers, all of them on their knees working feverishly to take apart their vendor boxes.

  Earlier, the bombers had realized something was wrong and had started finding each other, looking for some type of guidance. Eventually, one of the men suggested they detonate the bombs manually, but that meant taking the boxes apart and pulling out the bomblets. They couldn’t do that inside the stadium with the crowd watching, so they had decided to go to the small room were the boxes had originally been stored to pull apart the metal. The team ran right into them.

  “Freeze! Nobody move!” yelled Cascaes as he realized what he had stumbled upon. The dogs were barking wildly, but now they sat down and stared.

  One of the bombers pulled his box apart and managed to get the bomblet out and separated from its cushion. He stood and cocked his arm to throw it. Three two-round bursts from three different weapons hit the man in the face and chest. He dropped the bomblet with a loud pop as the glass broke.

  Chapter 47

  Al Udeid

  Dex was on the phone with Moose. “The guy you grabbed is Abdul Aziz, the leader of the New Wahhabi Jihad! You hit the jackpot, Moose!”

  “Good news. Any word from the Skipper yet?” he asked. He was worried and hated being away from his guys when there was trouble.

  “Not yet. Mackey is still in the air jamming the stadium. The team is on site, but we don’t have any word from them, and we won’t as long as the Prowler is jamming signals. We just have to wait. In the meantime, that phone you pulled off of Aziz has plenty of numbers. He called someone in Riyadh. As soon as the team gets back, you’re taking down that address.”

  “You’re pretty optimistic, considering there’s some giant poison gas bomb in the soccer stadium, and we haven’t heard from our people in hours,” exclaimed Moose, obviously agitated.

  “Moose, you know how good your team is. If there had been any type of explosion, we’d have heard about it by now. Just sit tight and wait.”

  “This Aziz guy wouldn’t tell me shit.”

  “And he won’t. Leave the interrogation to the professionals. We have methods for these things. You did your job.”

  Moose made a face. “Yeah, but if I could get this piece of shit to talk, maybe we could help our team.”

  “I understand your position, and I’m sure the urge to kick his teeth in is overwhelming. But he won’t talk just because you smack him around a little.”

  “Who said it would be a little?” asked Moose.

  “You’re to stand down and await further instructions. That’s a direct order. He’s in a secure area?”

  “Yeah, the brig, with two guards posted watching him.”

  “Perfect. He can’t kill himself, and you can’t kill him, either. My people will take him apart at the appropriate time. You completed an important assignment, Moose. This wasn’t just some two-bit bad guy—this was the guy trying to wipe out an entire soccer stadium full of civilians and an American airbase. It was a huge catch. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up.

  Ripper sat across the table with Hodges.

  “So now what?” asked Ripper.

  “We wait. I don’t like it any more than you do. But we have to just wait.”

  Moose and Ripper spent the next twenty minutes staring at the phone, pacing around the small office like caged animals. When they couldn’t take it anymore, they pulled their duffle bags and began cleaning weapons, sharpening combat knives, and changing batteries on night vision equipment—anything to stay busy, and be prepared for
a call they prayed would come swiftly.

  Chapter 48

  Soccer Stadium

  The shots echoed through the hallway and prep room, and everyone froze as the bomber dropped his bomblet of Sarin. When it hit the concrete floor, the glass pop was audible. For a split second, time stood still. A dozen bombers…a dozen Special Operators…just stared at the round glass bomblet as it lay broken and hissing on the floor. Upon contact with the air, the clear liquid foamed and vaporized, expanding quickly as it fogged the room.

  In the next split second, Cascaes sprinted forward and slammed the doors shut. Realizing what Cascaes was doing, Jon raced forward and slammed against the doors as well. The rest of the team members joined them and, as they held the doors closed, the bombers inside began screaming and pushing from the other side. The tug of war on the double doors lasted for maybe thirty seconds, and the agonized screaming inside was horrific. The noise died down, leaving the team holding the doors closed against very weak pushing. They could hear coughing and gagging inside for another few seconds, and then the pushing against the door stopped altogether.

  “Everyone back!” screamed Cascaes, afraid that the mist might start to leak out from under the doors.

  The team pulled back and took up firing positions in case anyone made it out of the room. There were a few more coughs and a muffled cry, and then silence from the room.

  “Karma’s a bitch,” said Jon quietly.

  The men stared at the door. Even for seasoned combat veterans, it was maybe the most horrific thing they’d ever been a part of—they were all thankful they hadn’t actually seen what was happening on the other side of the door.