Inside Threat (2 page)

Four days after that, a young Islamic man on a helicopter tour over Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, pulled the pins on a couple of M67 grenades. According to witnesses on the ground, it looked like the pilot had yanked the chopper to the left just before the explosions. As a result, the wreckage crashed into a field rather than the intended crowd that had gathered to watch a Civil War reenactment. Even so, four were killed, and seventeen were wounded by the flying debris, including a five-year-old who was blinded by a severe head wound and a three-year-old who would never walk again.

That's when the reality of what Abdur-Razzaq was about to do set in. And the following day Malik Abdul-Tawwab walked into the police station. That was three days ago.

“Foxtrot One, this is Foxtrot Three. You still awake?” Gilly Posada asked through Scott's earpiece.

“Yeah, Foxtrot Three. Ready and raring to go.”

“You sure? 'Cause I've got you in my scope, and you look like you're in happy, happy dreamland.” Posada was one of two snipers Scott had positioned in the vicinity of this bench.

“I told you I'm awake. Now point that thing somewhere else before you put someone's eye out.”

Gilly Posada was one of seven “Foxtrots” Scott had scattered near the reflecting pool that stretched between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The
Foxtrot
moniker itself was Scott's idea and had much less to do with the NATO phonetic alphabet than it did his favorite album by the band Genesis, whose 1981
Abacab
Tour T-shirt he was currently sporting under a heavy, green army trench coat.

Alongside Posada was his spotter, Ted Hummel. Matt Logan was manning a second sniper rifle, with Carlos Guitiérrez spotting for him. And Kim Li and Steve Kasay were on a bench across the pool from Scott, battling away on a plastic chess set.

According to Abdul-Tawwab's story, he had seen a map of the planned attack that showed Abdur-Razzaq coming along the reflecting pool toward the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Once there, he would seek out a tour group, then detonate an explosive vest. That was plan A.

Abdul-Tawwab also claimed that they were having trouble putting the vest together, since none of them had done it before and they were mostly working off Internet sites. So if the vest turned out to be a no-go, plan B was to open up with an automatic weapon and take down as many people as possible—not quite as effective as the vest, but effective enough.

Back at SOG Bravo headquarters, Scott's team of analysts had been monitoring cameras at the four key entry points of the reflecting pool plaza. Each possible suspect was quickly scanned through facial recognition software. So far, though, no hits.

Patience was not a virtue that came naturally to Scott, and his antsiness was starting to burn off the groove he was getting from the sun.
Come on, hajji wannabe, show yourself. I want to get home in time to put James to bed.

It was nearly two years since Scott had sustained multiple fractures of his leg during an operation to stop an electromagnetic pulse bomb. While in the hospital, the infatuation he had for his lead analyst, Tara Walsh, soon turned into mutual admiration and, finally, love. These two examples of opposites attracting were married eight months later.

Soon after, Tara discovered she was pregnant—a fact that inspired Scott to insist for the next six weeks that everyone at the office call him Captain Testosterone, much to Tara's chagrin. Then, six months ago today, little James Gerald Ross was born—James for Scott's former boss, killed in the line of duty, and Gerald for the late father of Scott's best friend, Riley Covington.

Seriously, if this waste of oxygen makes me miss my boy's—

“Foxtrot One, this is Base. I think we've got him,” came the voice of analyst Evie Cline.

Scott fought hard not to react. “How sure are you?”

“I'd say 85 percent. This facial recognition software is crap.”

“I need better than that. Where is he?”

“We just got the hit, and he's already about to pass you. Sorry, Foxy, but as I said, this facial recognition software is slower than—”

“Don't need a metaphor, just a description,” Scott said, as, with a groan, he slowly spun his feet to the ground. As he did, a young African American man in a black jacket and a black cap turned quickly toward him. Scott stared at the ground and scratched his marriage-expanded belly.

“He's an African American male, black jacket, tan pants, black baseball cap.”

Swell,
he thought as he peripherally watched the suspect slide past. The young man was still watching him, so Scott loudly hawked up a large wad of phlegm and watched it slowly drop to the ground.

“Ewww,” Evie said, along with at least three of the Foxtrots.

Scott got up and stretched, then casually started following Abdur-Razzaq. The easiest thing would have been to let Posada or Logan send a 7.62 full metal jacket into this fellow's cranium. However, he needed better than 85 percent to give that order.

Besides, I want to talk with this idiot.

“Foxtrot Six and Seven,” Scott said softly to Li and Kasay, “start arguing over the chess game. I want him looking somewhere other than back at me.”

Suddenly, a string of profanities echoed across the reflecting pool. Li was standing over Kasay and pointing at the board.

When the would-be terrorist's head was turned toward the ruckus, Scott quickened his pace, making up quite a bit of ground.

Now, Kasay flipped the board off the bench and stood up chest-to-chest with Li.

“Careful, boys, we don't want DC's finest stumbling in on us.” Scott had purposely chosen not to inform the MPDC of the details of this operation as a protection against heroes and leaks—both of which could get a lot of people killed.

As they neared the end of the pool, the number of tourists began to grow. Scott quickened his pace. Abdur-Razzaq had just moved into a crowd at the base of the steps leading up to the memorial, when he turned around. His eyes locked onto Scott's, and Scott knew he was burned.

“Put your hands up,” Scott commanded, quickly drawing his harnessed Bushmaster assault rifle from under his jacket. “Put up your hands! Now!”

But rather than surrendering, Abdur-Razzaq clenched his arm around the neck of one of the now-screaming onlookers and placed a pistol to her temple. “Drop your weapon, or I swear I'll blow her head off,” Abdur-Razzaq yelled.

Part of Scott was relieved that this homegrown terrorist cell's apparent incompetence in all things explosive had kept him from being diced into small morsels. The other part was ready to kill this weasel.

“You drop your weapon,” Scott yelled back for lack of a more creative option.

“You drop yours!”

“You drop yours!”

The voices of Li and Kasay joined in as they finally pushed their way through the fleeing mass of bodies. “Drop your weapon now!”

Instead, Abdur-Razzaq pushed the barrel of his pistol harder against his hostage's head. “I'm going to put a bullet in her, man! I swear I will! On three she's going to die! One! Two!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Scott called out, moving his weapon out perpendicular to himself. This situation was way out of hand. “No one needs to die today.”

Slowly, he lifted his rifle's harness over his head and laid the weapon on the ground. “See, weapon's down.”

“Now those two,” Abdur-Razzaq said, motioning toward Li and Kasay.

“Wrong-o, wingnut,” Li answered. “How about I give you until three before I put 115 grains of lead into that empty brain cavity of yours?”

Still looking at Scott, Abdur-Razzaq answered, “Tell him to drop it! I'm not messing with you!” Sweat was pouring off the young man's face, and Scott could see scared determination in his eyes.

“Agent Li, hostile attitudes like yours don't fully meet with our government's new kinder, gentler policy toward whacked-out terrorist nut jobs. Put your weapons down,” Scott said, his voice growing firmer with the last sentence. “Now!”

Li and Kasay obeyed.

Turning back toward Abdur-Razzaq, Scott said, “So, the weapons are down. What now?”

“Now? Now I die a
shahid
, and I take you American pigs with me,” he said, still clutching the woman tightly but pointing the gun at Scott.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Scott said, lifting his hands up. “What do you mean ‘you American pigs'? Dude, you're as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and government-owned motors! Don't be giving me ‘you Americans.'”

“Shut your mouth! You don't know what you're talking about! I don't belong to this nation of infidels! I belong to the nation of Allah's warriors!”

“And I belong to the nation of tall, goateed fat guys,” Scott said, trying to buy time, praying for Abdur-Razzaq to make a mistake and give him an opening. “Allah's warriors? Give me a break! I've seen your file, man. Your real name's Byron, for the love of—”

Scott felt the bullet strike his chest even before he realized Abdur-Razzaq had fired. As he fell backward, two sounds echoed in his ears—the report of Abdur-Razzaq's gun, and the
thwip-pop
of the head shot coming from one or both of his team's snipers.

Scott landed with a splash in eighteen inches of water. As he lay there groaning, two thoughts played in his mind—
Thank God for the inventor of Kevlar
and
I'm going to be hurting for a good, long time.

Saturday, September 10, 3:40 p.m. EDT

Cleveland, Ohio

“FM, no static at all . . .”
Donald Fagen sang through the earbuds. Walter Becker picked up the guitar riff, which ultimately led into Riley Covington's favorite part of the song—Pete Christlieb's smooth sax solo. It transported him to a warm Southern California night, the lights of the city stretched out below him, the sweet, rich smell of jasmine thick in the air.
Yeah, that's—

The sound of air brakes popped Riley back into reality.

“Cleveland,” he grumbled to himself as the team bus came to a stop in front of the Hyatt Regency, “the ‘Well, she's got a nice personality' of American cities.”

“What are you mumbling about over there, Pach?” tight end Don Bernier asked from across the aisle.
Pach
was Riley's nickname from his time playing with the Air Force Academy Falcons and came from a comparison to the fast, hard-hitting Apache attack helicopter.

“I was just saying how thrilled I am to be back on the beautiful shores of Lake Erie.”

“Come on, buddy, it's no different than any other city. It's got a hotel and a stadium. Beyond that, who cares?”

“True enough,” Riley said, as he dropped his iPod into a small duffel and stood up to go.
Another city, another game—maybe we win, maybe we lose—another flight back to a city that's home but not really home, all to start another week of practice to prepare for another game. It's all feeling so . . . what's the word? Not monotonous . . . Meaningless. That's it; my life is starting to feel meaningless.

Getting back into football had been a difficult decision for Riley. Two years ago, when New York City was rendered uninhabitable by an EMP attack, Riley had abandoned the rest of the football season in order to aid the refugees who were waiting their turn to be transported to safety. It had taken nearly two months to evacuate the last of those who wanted to leave the city. But finally it was time for the replanting of the Big Apple to begin.

Riley, his bodyguard and constant companion Skeeter Dawkins, and his friend and former teammate Keith Simmons were each faced with a decision—should I stay or should I go? There was plenty of work that could be done helping out the thousands of workers that now were descending on the city. But their hearts had really been drawn to the victims of the attack. Becoming part of the rebuilding support staff didn't have that same sort of emotional pull.

After a few evenings of debate, the friends decided to part ways—Riley and Skeeter to Riley's home in Kenai, Alaska, and Keith back home to Denver. As the months went on, their paths continued to diverge even further. While Riley and Skeeter took the time to collect moose and bears and very large salmon, Keith took his time to collect kids—NYC refugees, to be precise. By the time he was done, nine of the ten bedrooms in his house had little munchkins sleeping in them; he was sleeping in the tenth.

More than eight thousand children had been left parentless as a result of that terrible day. There were some whose parents had been killed, but there were also some whose parents just hadn't been able to locate them. Sometimes it was because the kids were too young to be able to communicate who they were; others were just too traumatized. For a time, the reuniting of a parent with his or her child was almost a nightly story on the evening news—two came from Keith Simmons's own house. But soon, the reunions trickled to weekly, then monthly, and now they had almost stopped.