Black Friday

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes, and the president is not happy.”

  “Neither are the director and the attorney general. I’ve been on the phone with both of them in the past few minutes. They want this resolved.”

  “That’s not actually up to us, is it?” The woman looked at Graham, her dark eyes curious and hostile at the same time. “Who’s this?”

  “One of our agents, Walt Graham.” Zimmer nodded toward the woman and went on, “Agent Graham, this is Yolanda Crimmens, assistant director of the Department of Homeland Security.”

  Graham would have put out his hand, but instinct told him she would ignore it. Her eyes narrowed as she said, “Graham . . . You were part of that debacle down in Texas a few years ago.”

  “A nuke going off in the middle of the country would have been more than a debacle,” Graham said.

  “Officially, there was no nuclear device involved in that incident.”

  Graham shrugged. There was no point in arguing with anybody who spent most of their time in Washington, D.C. Might as well just ask them what color the sky was in their world, because they sure didn’t understand—or care about, for the most part—the rest of the country, except for Wall Street and Hollywood.

  “What are you doing here, Agent Graham?” Crimmens asked.

  “I don’t really know. I was just told to come. I’ll help any way I can.”

  “Just stay out of the way unless we need you,” Crimmens said.

  Graham was tempted to point out that he didn’t actually work for her, but he didn’t see what good it would do so he didn’t say anything. Crimmens turned to Zimmer and went on, “We still don’t have any word as to the identities of the suspects?”

  “That’s right,” the SAC said.

  “We need to identify them as soon as possible. The press corps is hounding the White House for a statement. The president would like to reassure the American people that this is just another case of workplace violence, you know, some disgruntled employees perhaps stressed out by the pressure of Black Friday—”

  Graham couldn’t stop the scoffing sound that came from his throat.

  Crimmens fixed him with a baleful stare and said, “You disagree with that assessment, Agent Graham?”

  “There have been phone calls and texts from people trapped inside the mall saying that the shooters are young, Middle Eastern males. I suppose the mall might employ a few workers who fit that description, but not enough for them to be able to take over the whole place. These suspects don’t work here, and we all know it.” Zimmer had called him blunt, and Graham supposed he might as well be. “They’re terrorists. Whether they’re al-Qaeda or ISIS or Hizb ut-Tahrir or some other splinter group that’s sprung up recently, it doesn’t matter. They want to kill us.”

  Crimmens’ chin lifted angrily as she said, “Where are you normally posted, Agent Graham?”

  “The Kansas City office, ma’am.”

  “Then I suggest you go back there—now. I don’t want you on this scene.”

  Zimmer said, “All due respect, but Agent Graham works for me, not you, Assistant Director Crimmens, and my boss wants him here.”

  Graham appreciated Zimmer standing up for him like that. It was out of character for the guy, who was very much from the “go along to get along” school.

  Before the argument could continue, a man in the uniform of the Springfield Police Department came up to the little group and said, “Excuse me, Agent Zimmer?”

  “What is it, Chief?”

  The officer, who was evidently the chief of police, held out a phone and said, “This call was forwarded to me by the local nine-one-one dispatcher.”

  “Who is it?” Zimmer asked with a frown.

  “Guy who says he’s the leader of the Sword of the Prophet. The group that’s taken over the mall.”

  * * *

  As much as Habib enjoyed the thought of the Americans suffering from the uncertainty of what was going to happen next, he knew the time had come to put an end to that. He walked through the food court toward the glass doors, although he stayed close to the wall and didn’t move up far enough toward the entrance that he could be spotted easily.

  He kept an eye on the burner phone’s display. All the metal in a building like the mall sometimes interfered with wireless service, and the phone was a cheap one. The signal looked good where he stopped, though, so he thumbed in 911.

  He figured the dispatchers might be overloaded with calls so he was prepared to wait for a while. However, the call went right through, and a brisk female voice said, “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

  “The emergency is that the United States and the rest of the decadent West has defied the will of the glorious and divine Allah,” Habib said. “They have spread their sin and evil across the world until the planet is drowning in a cesspool of immorality. Islam is the only thing that can save it. The world must be washed clean in the blood of the unbelievers.”

  “Sir?” The woman sounded utterly baffled. The fact that a female would be in such a position of power was yet another slap in the face to Habib and his holy cause.

  Deliberately, he said, “My name is unimportant. I am a servant of Allah. My brothers and I call ourselves the Sword of the Prophet. We have taken control of the American Way Mall as a demonstration of Allah’s mighty power.”

  “Could you, ah, stay on the line, sir?”

  “There is no need to trace this call. I have told you where I am, and as a devout follower of Islam I am always truthful, even with unbelievers. Please allow me to speak with whoever is in charge of the authorities surrounding the mall.”

  “Yes, just . . . just hold on, okay?”

  “Okay,” Habib said with exaggerated politeness.

  He turned to look back along the food court while he waited. Tables and chairs had been shoved aside to create a large open area in which hostages were packed in like sardines as they sat on the floor. Habib thought there were under a thousand infidels in this group. Ten guards stood along the walls, five on each side of the food court, and five more were near the wrecked elevators, cutting the prisoners off from the rest of the mall.

  The Americans had been split up into five such groups spread out through the mall so that Habib’s men could control them with the menace of the machine pistols. Taken by surprise, shocked and stunned into submission, disarmed and in mortal fear for their lives, the prisoners were like sheep being driven to the slaughter, cooperating freely in their own doom. They could have risen up against their captors, but they were too craven to do so. Many more would die if they did, and none of them wanted to be in that number.

  They still clung to the hope that some of them would survive.

  Most of the Americans looked terrified. Many of them were crying as they held tightly to each other, trying to draw strength from loved ones or, in some cases, strangers caught in the same trap.

  A few wore angry, defiant expressions. As Habib held the phone to his left ear with that hand, he strolled toward one of the prisoners glowering at him, a stocky man with iron-gray hair. A blond woman sat on the floor next to him, holding tightly to his arm.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Habib said to the man.

  “Ken, no—” the woman began.

  Her husband—Habib assumed they were married—cut her off by saying, “No, I damn sure don’t.”

  “I don’t want to harm you.”

  The woman plucked at the man’s sleeve, but he ignored her as he said to Habib, “You’ve got a mighty funny way of showin’ it.”

  “You don’t have to die today,” Habib said. “Just renounce your sinful beliefs and embrace Islam. Accept Allah as the one true god.”

  “Go to hell, you damn—”

  Habib fired a three-round burst from the Steyr into the man’s face, blowing his head apart and spraying blood, bone chips, and brain matter onto the woman, who screamed hysterically. Habib put three rounds into her chest, knocking her backward and silencing her shrieks. The prisoners crowde
d in around the two people Habib had just executed cried out and cringed, trying to get out of the line of fire if he continued shooting.

  But at that moment, a man’s voice said, “Who is this?” in Habib’s ear. He swung away from the prisoners, the couple he had killed already forgotten.

  “I am the leader of the Sword of the Prophet,” he said. “We strike in the name of Allah to cut away the disease that infects your country.”

  “Listen, mister—”

  “No, you listen,” Habib interrupted him. “We have nearly a thousand hostages. We can kill a hundred of them every hour for the next ten hours. Is that what you want?”

  “What do you want?” the man asked.

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  “I’m Richard Dodson, the chief of police for Springfield—”

  “Chief Dodson, I’m sure you’re not the highest ranking person out there. By now the FBI is bound to be on the scene, along with perhaps other representatives from the federal government. I want you to find the person who’s in charge and let me talk to them.”

  “I can handle any negotiations—”

  “Chief,” Habib said, “I’m going to kill five hostages right now if you don’t—”

  “Wait, wait!” Dodson cried. “Just hold on. I’ll find who you’re looking for. It’ll just take a minute. Don’t hurt anybody.”

  “Go on, then. You’ve got a minute.”

  Habib hummed to himself as he waited. He didn’t bother counting off the seconds or anything like that. When he felt like enough time had passed, he would shoot more of the infidels.

  “Hello? This is Special Agent in Charge Brendan Zimmer.”

  “Really?” Habib said. “In charge of what?”

  “The Chicago field office of the Federal Bureau of—”

  Before Zimmer could finish, Habib heard a woman’s voice saying, “Give me that.”

  Zimmer said, “You can’t just—”

  Habib heard some faint sounds and realized the two people were struggling over the phone. He laughed at the ludicrousness of the Americans.

  Then the woman’s voice spoke again, louder this time, which meant she had won the battle.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “This is Yolanda Crimmens. I’m the assistant director of the Department of Homeland Security, and I’m willing to listen to your demands.”

  “I don’t deal with women,” Habib said coldly. “Give the phone back to the FBI man.”

  “Now, listen—”

  Habib lifted the Steyr, and the Americans started screaming again. That was enough. He didn’t even have to press the trigger.

  “Wait, wait!” the woman cried. “Don’t—”

  A man’s voice abruptly replaced hers, but it didn’t belong to the FBI man. It was deep and resonant and sounded like a black, Habib realized.

  “Take it easy,” the man said. “My name’s Walt Graham. I’m with the FBI. Let’s see if we can figure out a way to end this without any more bloodshed.”

  There wasn’t a way to end it without bloodshed. There never had been. Blood and death were vital components in what was happening here today.

  But the Americans didn’t have to know that yet. Let them hope, so they would suffer all the more when that hope was dashed.

  In the meantime, Habib could accomplish some good for the holy cause of jihad. He said, “Listen carefully, American. These are our demands . . .”

  Chapter 31

  Herb Dupont led Tobey and the other men behind several more businesses, then the service corridor made another ninety-degree turn. When they came to the next door, Dupont stopped and said quietly, “This should open into the department store on this side of the mall. I can’t be sure, though. I’ve never been back here in this part. I’m just going by what I can figure out from where we should be.”

  “I understand,” Tobey said. “You’ve done great getting us this far. I guess I need to just have a look.”

  He motioned for the other men to remain silent, then held the Steyr in his right hand while he carefully used his left to depress the latching bar on the door. When he felt the latch disengage, he pushed gently. So far, nothing had made enough noise to draw any attention—he hoped.

  The door swung outward. Evidently its hinges were well oiled, because they didn’t make any sound, either. Tobey was thankful for that. He eased the door open a couple of inches and peered through the narrow gap.

  The first thing he saw made him stiffen with shock and anger. A woman and two children under the age of ten lay on the floor not far away, their bodies covered with drying bloodstains where bullets had ripped through them, killing them. That wanton slaughter made fury well up inside Tobey. He controlled it and shifted slightly so he could look elsewhere.

  He saw other bodies, but no one who was alive. He didn’t hear anyone moving around or talking, either. The grim hush of death hung over the store.

  He turned his head and said over his shoulder to Dupont, “I’m going out to have a look around.”

  “Be careful.” The man swallowed. “Not to be a pessimist, but . . . what do we do if you don’t come back?”

  “That’s up to you,” Tobey said. “You can carry on with what we planned, or you can go back to the store and defend it with the others.”

  “And hope that we’ll be rescued before those bastards kill everybody?”

  Tobey shrugged.

  “Life’s a crapshoot, Herb,” he said. “It always has been, and it always will be.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Just take care of yourself, that way I don’t have to make the decision.”

  Tobey gave the man a curt nod, then opened the door wider and stepped out into the department store with the machine pistol gripped in both hands now.

  Everywhere he looked, corpses littered the floor. Men, women, and children, gunned down indiscriminately, their bodies twisted in grotesque attitudes of death. Tobey felt both anger and sickness and couldn’t tell which one was stronger. Both fueled his determination to find some way to end this before any more innocent people died.

  In all likelihood, that wasn’t going to be possible. More killing lay ahead. More blood would be spilled. But Tobey would do everything in his power to see to it that it was the terrorists who bled and died.

  He stayed low, moving in a crouch through the aisles of merchandise so he wouldn’t be spotted as easily if any of the terrorists walked past in the mall and looked in through the store’s broad entrance. The leaders of this atrocity probably had patrols out, sweeping through the mall on the lookout for anyone who was hiding.

  He didn’t hear any shots at the moment, which was good. That meant they weren’t attacking the sporting goods store right now.

  Or else they had already overwhelmed the defenders and captured the place, but Tobey didn’t want to think about that.

  He didn’t look too closely at the bodies when he stepped over them, or else rage would have blinded him and obscured his other senses. He needed to be as alert as possible right now. He worked his way toward the entrance into the mall, and after a few minutes, he was close enough to see that two armed men stood just outside the store, evidently on guard.

  Tobey didn’t spot anyone else alive, although scores of murdered shoppers were sprawled on the floor of the mall itself. Clearly, the terrorists had just gone through the place on a killing spree, mowing down anyone who had the bad luck to be in front of their guns.

  The death toll, Tobey thought, might stand at upward of a thousand already. That was almost inconceivable. He had a hard time wrapping his mind around such evil.

  The two terrorists didn’t seem to be paying much attention. The killing was over for the moment, so they were bored, Tobey supposed.

  Close by, a rack of blouses had been overturned. From the looks of things, the dead woman who lay next to it must have grabbed the rack as she was falling after being shot. Tobey bent, reached down, and picked up a plastic hanger that had slipped out of one of the blouses.

  He str
aightened partially and whipped out his arm, flinging the hanger across the store. It spun through the air for a long way, propelled by the powerful throw, and finally came down with a clatter.

  The two guards responded instantly, stiffening to attention and swinging their machine pistols in the direction of the sound.

  They couldn’t see anything, of course, since nothing was moving in that part of the store. Tobey stood stock-still, peering through a gap between garment racks at the terrorists as they talked urgently and quietly to each other. Tobey didn’t have to be able to hear them to know that they were trying to figure out what they should do.

  Finally, one of them stepped into the store and started reluctantly toward the area where the hanger had landed. Tobey could tell he was nervous by the way he hunched forward a little and thrust the Steyr out in front of him. He swung the gun from side to side as his head swiveled back and forth.

  That terrorist didn’t know it, but he was in no danger at the moment . . . because Tobey had started creeping up on the other one. The second man was focused on watching his comrade search for the source of the racket, and he never even glanced in Tobey’s direction.

  Tobey stopped just inside the store entrance. The second terrorist was about fifteen feet away from him, just outside the opening between store and mall. Tobey could have killed him easily with a burst from the machine pistol, but he didn’t want the attention that was bound to attract. Instead he waited, gambling that his quarry’s nerves would get to him.

  Sure enough, after a few more moments, the man stepped into the store, still with his back to Tobey, and called out to his companion in a foreign language. Tobey understood just enough of it to know he was asking his friend if he saw anything over there on the other side of the store.

  The first man turned, glared, and made a sharp gesture for the second one to be quiet. Then he went back to his search.

  Tobey was like a ghost as he came up behind the second man. The Steyr was tucked behind his belt now, so he could strike with both hands.

  His left arm went around the man’s neck and jerked back, snapping shut like an iron bar across his neck to choke off any outcry.