Mark watched from behind the stage as Andy briefed a handful of volunteer football players and cheerleaders on the sequence of events. Approximately 125 veterans of various ages were participating. The cheerleaders would escort the older vets to their special seats on the stage, and the players would provide general crowd assistance, their athletic uniforms adding to the festive atmosphere. Andy finished briefing the kids as Mark approached.
“Not exactly dressed for the occasion, but I’m glad you’re here,” boomed Andy.
“I can’t stay—I need to get back to Luci. Just wanted to say hello and wish you luck.”
The two walked to the side of the stage and watched as the crowd started to gather and claim their spots on the grass.
“Wish you could stay, but I understand. It’ll be broadcast on local access if you get curious. I invited a ton of media, but it looks like none of them showed up. This is all about the vets, but I was hoping we would get some coverage as well for putting this thing together.”
“What’s security look like these days for a town event like this? I haven’t seen much,” asked Mark.
“It’s good. The roads around the field are blocked off to keep unwanted vehicles at bay, and there’s a half-dozen or so cops on detail. We’ve never had any issues beyond the occasional drunk, firecrackers in the trash cans, and a few twisted ankles. There’s an ambulance here somewhere. This event is pretty tame. Why, you worried?”
Mark scanned the crowd and shook his head. “No more than usual.”
“So, listen. I’ll keep my opening remarks short, but—”
Mark smiled and chuckled out loud. “Yeah, because you’re not long-winded at all!”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I’m thorough, not long winded. Anyway, in the early days of the town, every male age sixteen and above had to gather on this field every year to recite an oath of loyalty to the British Crown. Their descendants faced that tyranny and fought for independence. Then I figured I’d mention those who answered the call and fought to preserve the republic in the Civil War, toss in a few quick statements about the Mexican War, Spanish-American War, the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, all the way up through Iraq and Afghanistan. Just a bunch of quick hits—nothing too deep. What do you think?” asked Andy.
Mark nodded. “Sounds good. You know what you’re doing, Andy. But I’d say definitely keep it brief—it’s hot out here and you’ll lose people quickly if you start rambling.” He held up his hands. “Not that you ever would!”
“Mr. O’Rourke?” said one of Andy’s football players nearby. “Just wanted to let you know we’re all set. Everyone is lined up and ready to go.”
“Okay, thanks, Matt. We’ll get started in a few minutes once the crowd gets settled.”
Andy turned to Mark. “See that kid? One of our captains. Fullback. Built like a brick shithouse and fast as a jackrabbit. Great kid too. I expect big things from him next year.”
“Well, good luck. That’s my cue to exit stage left and get back to Luci. I’ll try to get her out later, but I don’t see it happening. She’s still pretty shaken up and I can’t say I blame her. She got into the job to help kids, and even though she had no choice, she ended up shooting one. It’s going to be tough for her to get past this.”
“Send her my warmest regards,” said Andy.
Mark started out again at a slow jog and ran around the perimeter of the field. When he reached the far side and started down the street back to Luci’s house, he heard Andy’s voice echoing from behind.
“Happy Fourth of July! And welcome to our special Veterans Salute. We will begin in five minutes—please take your places. You won’t want to miss this!”
Eighty-one
As his body started to warm up again, thoughts of Luci and their future together raced through Mark’s mind.
What can I do to help her? Does she need more intensive counseling? Medication? Does she just need more time? Will she go back to work, or did this end her career? If so, what’s next? Too many questions. Come on, Luci. You can’t let this beat you.
A quarter-mile from Founders Field, he slowed down and jogged in place while waiting for the traffic light. A few other pedestrians were scattered about. On the other side of the intersection, four men sat side by side in the cab of their public works department pickup truck. Mark heard Andy’s voice through the public address system but could not make out the words. He tried going through a mental checklist of things to do around the house, but his mind always came back to Luci.
Some people can compartmentalize emotions and hold off the demons forever while others need to confront them directly before they can move on. Others obsessively second-guess their actions until it consumes them and ruins their lives.
He decided that if she didn’t start showing improvement soon, he would push for daily counseling as a way to stop the spiral.
The light changed and he started to jog across the intersection. The public works truck grinded its gears and rolled in the opposite direction. Mark glanced at the vehicle and its passengers as he checked his watch and picked up the pace.
I’ll be home in a few minutes, Luci.
Eighty-two
Mark decided to take a lazy shortcut through the graveyard on the way back to Luci’s house. It was hot outside and he had completed the run to Founders Field much faster than he had expected; his body needed the break, but mostly he wanted to get back to Luci’s side as quickly as possible.
He knew she needed to get up and moving. Being sedentary invites doom under normal circumstances; add the mental anguish of post-traumatic stress to the mix and you have a potentially deadly cocktail of emotions.
Doc always said that physical movement jump-starts the road to recovery, and he’s right. Take control of your emotions—do not let them control you.
Mark slowed to a trot and let gravity carry him down the steep incline of almost a quarter-mile. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, and his t-shirt was drenched with sweat. It would have felt good to take the shirt off, but the 9mm and small folding knife strapped tightly around his waist would attract unwanted attention. He glanced at his watch, estimated he’d be back at Luci’s in roughly fifteen minutes, and set the goal of getting her out of the house for lunch.
Or at least she could come with me to pick up takeout. Breathe in the fresh air. Feel the warm sun on your face. Move your body, Luci. Fight it.
Mark unconsciously slowed his trot to a brisk walk as his mind started to race. He fought to stay focused on Luci, but the connection flickered like the reception on a vintage television set stuck between two channels. Taking deep breaths with his hands on his head, he tried to think of which restaurants she’d be most amenable to, but his thoughts were being hijacked by intuition. He tried to pick up the pace again, but an invisible force seemed to be holding him back and nudging him in the opposite direction. The little voice inside his head was screaming, but he could not hear the words.
“Listen to your intuition,” both Father Peck and Doc had always said. “It’s usually right.”
I’m listening. What is it?
Then it hit him. The public works truck. The four men crammed side by side into a three-man cab. They had all appeared very young, even though most of the people who landed those positions kept them for years. They all had short hair and clean-shaven faces. Why get cleaned up for a messy day at work? And they were sitting attentively and silently with their eyes locked straight ahead. Nobody playing on his smartphone, no talking, no bitching that they had to work the holiday while everyone else celebrated, no apparent hangovers to nurse. The driver had grinded the gears badly. Was it his first time driving the vehicle, or was it simply in need of a new clutch or transmission? There were many reasons for suspicion, but it was the looks on their faces that Mark found most perplexing. Something was off.
Am I overthinking things? Has Luci’s condition clouded my judgment? Has the recent string of attacks made me paranoid? Should I bring it down a notch and just jog hom
e?
Mark turned around and started back up the hill at his quickest pace of the day.
No, something’s not right.
Eighty-three
“Get out and move the barrier. Do it quickly but do not draw unnecessary attention,” said Amir to the young man sitting closest to the passenger door. “And you two smile and move your lips a little like you’re talking. Pray on the inside.”
He drove through the gap in the barriers and waited for the other warrior to remount the truck. “Everyone, keep breathing deeply as we practiced and stay focused. Paradise awaits you,” he coached as he turned the truck toward the distant, empty side of Founders Field. He considered his words and his blood began to boil.
Yes. Paradise awaits you—but not me. Not yet.
A little boy of three or four wandered carelessly into the vehicle’s path as a frantic young babysitter scurried to catch up. Amir stopped, waved, and smiled warmly at the child standing in the middle of the cordoned street. The young girl took the boy by the hand and waved back. Amir winked at her and blew a kiss. She glanced side to side sheepishly before blowing one back with a coquettish grin on her face.
Whores—all of them.
Driving up and over the sidewalk, Amir slowly maneuvered the truck across the freshly mowed grass to the opposite side of the field from the stage and stopped.
“Get out. Unload the truck and wait here as you were instructed. Eat your food and talk to no one. Do not draw attention to yourselves. Stay focused. Do not open the bags and retrieve the weapons before the blast, and let the crowd come to you before opening fire. And brothers, do not hesitate when the time comes to act.”
The three young men climbed out of the truck, opened the tailgate, and slid the long, heavy canvas bag onto the ground. They paid no attention to the crowd gathered in front of the stage at the other end of the field as they sat on the grass with their three brown lunches. Amir watched the three men and prayed that they could complete the mission.
A total of six brothers had been chosen, but Amir had taken it upon himself to whittle the group down to three. When all the would-be martyrs came together at the rally point in New Hampshire, he lined them up, ordered them to strip, and searched their belongings thoroughly. He instinctively began with the youngest man, who had a crazed and disconnected expression on his smooth face.
“Why did you bring so much with you? Were you not instructed to pack only the necessities?” asked Amir.
The recruit simply looked at him, nodded, and grunted unintelligibly. Amir dumped the contents of the large backpack onto the ground and moved things around with the toe of his boot. The bag contained half a dozen prescription bottles, including psychological drugs and one medication that Amir recognized as an HIV therapy. Given the possibility that he was homosexual, Amir made an immediate decision to drop him from the team.
“Okay, my brother. Take fifteen steps forward,” Amir instructed.
The troubled young man obeyed the instruction and then looked back.
“I did not tell you to turn around!” Amir barked. “Now drop to your knees and do it quickly.”
When he did, Amir drew the Ruger .45 from his holster, took aim, and fired three shots into the young man’s head and back. Normally he preferred to execute up close and personal, looking into the victim’s eyes whenever possible. But this sinner was especially unclean and Amir did not want to come into contact with his contaminated blood. He quickly spun around to address the remaining five recruits, their eyes wide with horror.
“This man was not worthy of your brotherly love and affection. He was not worthy of martyrdom. The rest of you have nothing to worry about as long as you listen and do exactly as I say. Leave your things here and follow me. Your training begins immediately.”
Training. One day to train? One day to train for such a mission? These men are inexperienced and untested—not a warrior among them. And yet they are rewarded with martyrdom? These are the Islamic State’s chosen warriors?
The other two eliminations were made within the first hour. One man proved unable to fire a weapon reliably and displayed a consistent inability to grasp basic warrior concepts. The other made the mistake of asking “Why?” in response to a command. Amir tied each to a tree under the guise of teaching escape techniques should they be captured. They screamed through gagged mouths as he asked for volunteers to execute them. All three of the remaining warriors raised their hands. Amir smiled approvingly and decided to honor all of them as a bonding experience. He instructed them to put down their guns and work together, using their knives to hack and eventually behead the two.
The remaining recruits did not inspire confidence, but they were all he had. Instead of simply training them and sending them to their deaths, he had decided to adjust the plan out of necessity. Amir would play a limited role in the mission himself to ensure success before moving on to Washington as he had been instructed.
He tried to park the truck as close as possible to the back of the stage so that the first casualties would be the American war criminals being honored. The crowd would instinctively run in the opposite direction, toward the area where the three gunmen would be waiting to greet them. An ambulance was parked in Amir’s intended spot so he attempted to park his vehicle next to it, but an auxiliary police officer waved him off and pointed an authoritarian finger toward a spot on the other side of the emergency vehicle. The location would place the ambulance between the blast and the intended target. He considered protesting or negotiating for a better position but quickly dismissed the idea. Why draw attention? Why risk having the bomb discovered?
“No problem,” he replied with a smile.
After rolling up the windows and locking the doors, Amir slung a small backpack over one shoulder and headed toward the only building on the field.
“How’s it goin’?” asked one of the EMTs as he passed by.
“Living the dream! How about you guys?” he answered jovially, making no attempt to conceal his face. Why bother? They would be dead soon anyway.
Once he was behind the building on the far side of the field, he casually glanced from side to side and shimmied up a drainage pipe. With all eyes and ears fixed on Andy’s solemn salute to the town’s veterans, nobody had noticed or cared about the young man standing on the rooftop.
From this vantage point, he had a clear view of the entire field. He counted only a few uniformed officers but had been briefed that even small towns like these were increasingly deploying undercover, plainclothes officers into crowds. No matter. Life in this town was about to change forever. He walked to the edge of the roof, lay in the prone position with a finger on the modified cell-phone detonator in his hand, and glanced at his watch.
Two minutes. Two minutes until three unworthy warriors get what I have worked years for—to strike at the heart of Satan and die as martyrs. Insha’Allah, the girl is in position and smarter than these idiots.
Eighty-four
Although there were many available seats, a heavily perfumed Dominican man with a pencil-thin mustache sat directly across from Fatima in the emergency room waiting area. He oscillated his gaze between the television—tuned to CNN en Español—and the beautiful young woman in front of him. She returned his initial salutation with a polite smile and nod. But when he started staring toward her and looking her up and down, she broke eye contact forever.
I feel like a whore.
“A pious woman like you will feel exposed and sinful without the hijab and modest dress, but you must not let that impact your behavior,” the facilitator had said before she left Montreal. “You must embrace the look and appear comfortable. For you are not a Muslim when you do such things—you are doing Allah’s will.”
As a young woman, she had questioned the pressure to cover herself. Men are not animals, she thought. They do not lose control simply due to seeing a woman’s uncovered hair and nape. But her experience since leaving her medical school dorm room at dawn—uncovered in public for the fi
rst time in years—had been illuminating. With her silky black hair bouncing around her shoulders, tight jeans, a belly shirt, and sandals, she could feel the burning eyes of men from head to toe. Young men and old, even men with girlfriends and wives at their sides all looked upon her lustfully. And it made her nauseous.
“Why Harvard?” the handsome immigration official had asked her at the Vermont border.
“Why Harvard? Because both my parents both went to Harvard. All my uncles went to Harvard. My cousins go to Harvard. I’m about to finish medical school at McGill, but I figure my parents will keep my name in their will if I at least get a master’s degree from Harvard,” she answered cheerfully and earnestly.
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” he added as he stamped her passport, stroked a few keys on the computer terminal, and winked. “Not everyone can go to Boston College.”
“Oh, you’re a BC man? Well maybe I’ll bump into you in Boston sometime and you can show me what I’m missing,” she replied flirtatiously.
At the New Hampshire rest area, she did exactly as she had been told: park at the far end of the lot, leave the car unlocked, and go to the bathroom. When she returned, the backpack had been placed on the floor of the passenger side.
“You will let the first ambulance arrive unmolested. When the second arrives, you will simply reach down and detonate the device by pressing the single red button and holding it down. If nothing happens, let go and try again. If you are unsuccessful after three attempts, you will need to use the small plunger detonator that is attached as a backup. It’s so easy even the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote could do it! Pull the handle out of the box as far as you can and then plunge it back into place quickly like this. Now you try it,” instructed the facilitator as he handed her the detonator mockup.
Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel Page 22