by Gavin Reese
Rocky, who couldn’t hear the dispatcher, simultaneously answered Alex. “I work overnight shift, midnight to noon, why?” He felt like an asshole when he again had to hold up his right index finger to let Rocky know he would respond in just a moment.
“David-33, let Phoenix P-D and Phoenix Fire know our bombing suspect from the BOLO is in American Bank Tower, presently around 23rd, say again, around the 2-3 floor. White male, dark brown mullet haircut, heavyset, light blue security guard uniform, carrying a tan backpack, break.” He released control of the radio for a moment to allow the dispatcher to catch up, and waited for what seemed an appropriate time for her to type everything he’d just said. Alex tried to remain calm as he wrestled with the harsh, imminent reality of an overhead bomb and the hundreds, or thousands, of lives that would be saved or lost as a direct result of what he and his colleagues did in the next few minutes. Depressing the mic button, he resumed his radio transmission. “The suspect vehicle is parked on Central Ave just north of Washington Street, D-P-S is en route there now to secure the area. I’m going to start evacuating American Bank Tower momentarily, and I’ll need P-D and Fire resources staged outside to respond to a potential blast, unknown number of devices. Only one large backpack seen in the suspect’s possession, maybe one-to-two cubic-foot device, break.” He allowed five seconds to pass. “David-33, notify David-41 to redirect task force assets to this area to assist with investigation and witness interviews, break.” Five more to think about what else he needed. “David-33 back, ask Phoenix PD to assist to evacuate the surrounding high rises, along with the streets, for about a two-block radius because of potential for flying debris. Have Phoenix establish an inner and outer perimeter and be aware of potential for secondary devices, over.”
“David-41, David-33.” Berkshire’s sounded abnormally strained.
“Go ahead, 41.”
“We have to expand that evacuation and blast radius outside all of downtown. Your photo states that six towers are coming down today. Repeat, all of downtown will have to be evacuated. I’ll notify task force, but I expect no one else is going to come inside those buildings until bomb squads can declare them safe.”
Alex stood there, suddenly overwhelmed by the unexpected news. They had looked at this as a conspiracy from the beginning, but not of this magnitude. He and Ron hadn’t realistically considered the possibility of multiple targets, which also meant multiple devices. Taking six towers down meant multiple devices in each building, assuming that each building had been targeted with personnel-sized IEDs. Now they had to consider vehicle-borne IEDs, semi-tractor traffic in the area, and air traffic overhead. That morning’s efforts to locate and stop the Alero had already been sufficiently stressful, but now this had the potential to become a truly catastrophic event. Alex realized just how much unused adrenaline his body still had to give. We have an unknown, small amount of time to try to save tens of thousands of people from six imminent detonations!
“33, did you copy?” Alex heard Ron and knew he had to answer, but he felt momentarily, intellectual paralysis while his brain sought a solution to this new and unique problem, as though he were shuffling through a mental Rolodex and coming up empty. Finally reaching the end of his known, trained, and practiced responses, the universal cop question re-emerged: what’s important now?
“David-41, I copy, evacuating all of downtown Phoenix, thank you. I’ll begin evac here and try to direct people north and away from high-rise towers. David-33, radio, inform D-P-S and Phoenix P-D as well, break.” Another five second pause. “David-33 back, advise Lincoln-4 we need to take precautions to reroute large vehicles and aircraft away from this area, it’s possible there may be vehicle-sized devices involved in this.” He paused and looked up at the guard desk. Rocky had grown pale and terrified, while McNealy stood facing him, still awaiting a kill order, and donning a desert-brown sling-style backpack. He met McNealy’s purposeful stare and imagined the kid might be incredibly useful if he had a tactical background.
“David-33, dispatch copies.” Now even the dispatcher’s voice is shaky, I guess it’s alright that mine is, too, Alex thought, and returned to speaking with the guards. “What does it take to evacuate the building?”
Without further prompting, Rocky and Tom each sprang into action. Rocky tried to leap up from the rolling chair, but managed to overturn both the chair and himself in the process. McNealy ignored the train wreck next to him and efficiently reached for their protocol book and a Motorola radio.
“Stop!!” Alex yelled as he reached over the top of the desk and grabbed McNealy’s hand. Rocky froze in place on the ground, still tangled in the chair, as though Landon had been speaking to him. “No radios, Reggie will either know the gig is up and set it off early, or his radio may trigger the device itself.”
“Sorry, sir, that’s basic shit. We can probably just pull the fire alarm, instead.”
“Will that turn on the sprinklers in the whole building, or just the alarms?”
“Just the alarms,” Rocky offered while still tangled in the chair, “the sprinklers only come on if a smoke or heat sensor’s set off, and even then, only in the specific areas.”
“Is there a way around that?”
“Yeah, there should be, I think we can do it manually from a control panel in the back office.” Rocky still fought to free himself from the chair, but remained in the conversation. “I can go find it, I think.”
“Do you know what he’s talking about, Tom?”
“Yessir, I think so, hang on a sec.” He thumbed through the security protocol manual, and soon found what he needed. “Yeah, here it is, ‘Full Fire and Charged Sprinkler System Remote Activation.’”
“How long will that take?”
“Maybe a minute or two, three at most, I think.”
“Okay, Tom, since you’re mobile, can you go do that, and Rocky, can you keep an eye on the cameras to see if Reggie leaves 23?”
“Yeah, sure, I hate running anyway.” Liberated at last, Rocky remained at the desk while Tom sprinted to a distant security office without another word. “I’m more of a stay-close-to-the-exits kinda guy,” he sheepishly admitted after McNealy ran off.
“As long as you can tell me if he leaves 23, that’ll be enough for today, Rocky.”
Alex used a momentary lull to again call Berkshire. He had to update someone with what he knew, in the event that he didn’t survive to tell it himself, about the apparent efforts Reggie had made to blame Rocky, Jonathan, and, apparently, Islamic extremists. Berkshire answered after the first ring and started speaking absent any pleasantries.
“The note in your photo reads, ‘Today these six towers came down. They are just the beginning of One Great Day. What will tomorrow bring to America? Allah Akbar.’” Berkshire paused as though awaiting Alex’s feedback. “This investigation is messy as hell, Alex, but we gotta deal with the public safety issues first. Any idea which other towers this asshole could be targeting?”
“No, Ron, I don’t know of any other connection…wait, call SSH Security offices and find out where else this guy worked. Maybe that’s the common denominator, that he works at the places he’s targeted.”
“That’s a good start, I doubt they’re open for business yet, but I’ll see what we can do. You should also be aware that Rudiger, Dobbins, and dispatch have notified the media outlets, all the other area police and fire agencies, and they’re working on diverting air traffic now.”
“How long’s that gonna take, Ron? I doubt this clown’s gonna give us all morning to get ready.”
“Dobbins had Sergeant Templeton call over to Luke Air Force Base…”
“Oh, shit, yeah, that’s right, he’s a reserve pilot, right?”
“No, he’s a light-Colonel in the Reserves and navigates on black ops mission, but that doesn’t matter.” Alex remembered that Berkshire knew a lot more classified information than he did. “He got the powers-that-be over there on board, and they’re scrambling
four F-22 Raptor fighter jets to secure the airspace over Phoenix and the rest of the squadron will be immediately called to the flight line and placed on ‘ready’ status. The hold-up is that he can’t scramble jets into the air until the civilian airports ground outbound flights and divert all their inbound traffic. The Air Force pilots are going up with orders to shoot down any non-compliant aircraft, so the Air Force has to have some assurance that all the innocents are out of their battlespace first.”
“Okay, makes sense, so, what’s the hold-up?”
“You have any idea how many airfields there are in this area? I think the Air Force will scramble once we have confirmation the biggest four or five have contacted all the aircraft in their patterns, but that’s not gonna be done immediately.”
Alex paused, frustrated and searching for the right words. “It doesn’t make sense, Ron, how long did it take to scramble jets after 9-11?! We may have a chance to prevent this!”
“Yeah, but that order came from the President and Joint Chiefs, Alex, this is a request from a local police sergeant who happens to play weekend warrior in his spare time. Doesn’t matter how legit it is, the base commander isn’t going to send armed warplanes with kill orders over American soil without some degree of assurance he won’t kill the wrong people and be court-martialed over it.”
“You got any actual good news?”
“Dobbins already has confirmation from most of the regional airports and airstrips to ground and divert all their aircraft. Skyharbor Airport’s about to close, so their flight patterns over downtown will soon be vacant, and they’re working to divert hundreds of flights to Tucson, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Yuma, L-A-X, and Burbank.” Berkshire paused, as though deciding what other, if any, good news he had. “Oh, yeah, you won’t be the one answering media questions after all this, even if you do make it outta there.”
“That, sir, is truly good news. Seeing as how you and I have no ability to stop a rogue aircraft from diving into the downtown high-rises, whaddyathink I can do from here? I hear a whole lotta sirens coming into downtown, but nobody’s getting real close, and no one else’s coming in to help.”
“No surprise, I’m sure Phoenix PD told their guys not to follow you in. They’re probably counting on phone calls, PA speakers, and fire alarms to evacuate most of the buildings, which is exactly what you should be doing. Without knowing which buildings are targeted, it’s a better idea to use technology and word-of-mouth instead of sacrificing officers and firefighters. I expect Phoenix fire personnel will keep their trucks about a half-mile outside the downtown perimeter, and you should spend the next four minutes running real fast to get behind one.”
“I can’t argue with your logic, Ron, but my heart’s not in it. We know this building’s a target and there’s still thousands of people on the floors above me. I can’t evacuate them without alerting the suspect, so sounding the alarm might inspire him to detonate early and kill everyone he can.”
“Maybe, but he’s most likely trying to survive and escape.”
“That’s just it, Ron, this guy’s gone to a fuckload of trouble to make sure he gets away and someone else takes the blame. I don’t know if I can just leave, especially while I know he’s still in the building. I doubt he’s here to kill himself, he wants to get away, like, he’s got plans for tomorrow. If he’s still here, I think I’m safe enough to go after him.”
“Goddammit, Alex, you don’t know that, and you have no idea what he has in mind!! He could be a radicalized Muslim himself, he could be suicidal but wants to make sure his life insurance pays. He could just be plain-vanilla crazy, Alex, and you’re betting your life on it. Get the fuck out, man, live to cuff ‘em another day!”
Alex pulled the phone away from his face for a moment to again speak with Rocky. “How high up is he?”
“He’s never left 23, I’ve checked all the cameras at 24 and 25, twice, and both elevators, he never went above 23 and he’s not on camera coming back down.”
“David-33, radio,” the dispatcher said into Alex’s ear.
“33, go ahead,” he responded and wished he had that second cop on-hand.
“David-33, Lincoln-4 is requesting E-T-A for evac from American Bank Tower. Phoenix P-D duty commanders in the area report insignificant outbound traffic from your location.”
“33, I’m told two or three minutes, over.”
“David-33, back. Lincoln-4 is also ordering you out of the building after evacuation starts.”
Before Alex could key up the mic to respond, he saw Jonathan McDougal run into the lobby and approach the security desk. In all the commotion, Alex had forgotten that he had likely been standing near the Alero all this time. His presence at the active crime scene surprised Alex, who still had no direct proof that Jonathan was not involved in this plot. He felt confident, however, his gut and the circumstantial evidence allowed him to trust the man.
“What are you doing, Jonathan? You need to get out of here before this thing gets worse.”
“Jay Davis asked me to say ‘hi.’ I stayed at the Alero until he showed up, and then he was kind enough to put me in handcuffs until I could explain who I was and what I was doing. We took a, uh, kinda ‘proof of life photo’ you should have by now.” Jonathan pointed at Alex’s cell phone and smirked at his own comment.
Alex briefly returned the phone to his ear to address Berkshire. “Can you hang on a second, Ron?”
“No, lemme call you back, Landon.”
After disconnecting the call, Alex looked at the phone’s large display screen and saw a notice that Davis sent him a text photo. After opening the photo, he saw it showed Davis and McDougal both giving him ‘two thumbs up’ next to the Alero’s broken driver’s window.
“Did you break that?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t get a good angle to take a legible picture and the passenger door was rigged to blow. I didn’t touch the note or the Quran, or further contaminate your crime scene, and I never left it unattended until Davis rolled up to take control of the area. He’s a good guy. Says you should get the fuck out.”
“You’re both fuckin’ lunatics.”
“Yeah, and you’re intentionally standing underneath a fuckin’ bomb. So, what are we doing, Detective?”
“We’re about to evacuate the building, and, if you’re willing, you’re gonna help lead the civilians north to the other side of the fire trucks, and then you’re eventually gonna have to testify about your involvement with the evidence found inside the Alero.”
“No. What’re we really doing, Detective?” Jonathan’s even, jovial tone almost sounded to Alex as if this wasn’t that big a deal, and he assumed that having spent the majority of his adult life getting shot at and blown up on foreign soil had made days like this disproportionately routine for Jonathan.
“We’re about to evac the building and the rest of downtown. That note says six towers are coming down today, not just this one, so this is bigger than we imagined. What’re you doing here, anyway?”
“It seems that I guessed right that no one else is willing to stay in here with you, and, I had to say thanks.”
“For what?”
“David-33, did you copy?” The shaken dispatcher’s voice unexpectedly returned to Alex’s left ear, and he worked hard to ignore her for the time being.
“For believing me,” Jonathan said. “And, for not arresting me on-sight.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the warrant today, Jonathan,” he explained, “the D-A can worry about getting his re-election votes later.”
“So, I assume you’ve got a plan. Let’s hear it.”
“There’s not much else to do, Jonathan, we evacuate the building, hope to survive whatever is about to happen, try to help the ones who get hurt, and hopefully find Reggie when that part’s over.”
“David-33, status check.” Alex didn’t want to respond and lie, or directly disobey the lieutenant’s evacuation order on a recorded frequency, but his effo
rts to ignore dispatch were escalating the issue. What does it matter if I’m alive, injured, or dying right now, he thought, I wouldn’t want a group of cops to run in here to rescue me and get themselves killed in the process.
Alex keyed his mic. “David-33, I’m as Code-4 as I’m gonna get.”
Sergeant Rudiger interrupted before dispatch had a chance to interject further. “Sam-7, David-33, I just hung up with security company H-R, Reggie Page is a fictitious identity. He used fake I-Ds and employment documents to get the job. I’m sorry, Landon, but no such person exists.”
Seventy-Seven
23rd Floor, American Bank Tower. Phoenix, Arizona.
Kneeling in front of the fifth, central vertical support column, sweat cascaded down Duke’s face despite the air conditioned environment. He had secured the last two pressure cookers against opposing sides of the largest, central support column and finished connecting them to the 25-grain PETN daisy chain. He tied an electronic timer, sans batteries, to an ignition source, and then connected the source to the far end of the det cord near the central support column. With that task now complete, Duke leaned away from his handiwork and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his left hand. Careful not to drip, he thought, forensic labs are far too effective to be reckless now.
Duke intended for the timer to serve only as a back-up initiator should he fail, for any reason, to remotely detonate the daisy-chained series of IEDs by cell phone. Despite rationally understanding the timer would not initiate the devices until its countdown sequence concluded, Duke left the timer turned off and its batteries out for the time being.
He stood and walked along the strand of green 25-grain det cord that would provide a heat-and-compression ignition source and almost simultaneously detonate all ten pressure cooker IEDs. As he examined his devices and connections one last time, Duke imagined the detonation: he pictured the initiator cell phone’s screen illuminating with his burner phone’s caller ID, its ringtone audible for only the briefest fraction of a second as its internal electricity initiated the trigger. The PETN contained within the det cord would explode at a rate of almost four-miles-per-second and would almost simultaneously ignite all ten IEDs, so a bystander on the street below would see only a single, massive explosion from American Bank Tower’s twenty-third floor.