Day of Wrath (3 page)

The gun? Why the gun?

He did not buy the years of administrative instructions, coming from "experts" in the main office, while day after day he looked into the eyes of his students and inwardly asked, “What do I do?” if the nightmare came to Chamberlain Middle School. He did not buy the counterintuitive logic that if there were a gunman in the building, to lock the door, lie on the floor, and pray. Well, not actually pray, for after all this was a public school, but he could at least insist upon a moment of silence as they waited to get shot.
 

In whispered conversations with only a few other teachers and Kathy, the conclusion returned again and again to the same point. Up until 9/11 all were drilled that if on a hijacked plane, sit back, relax, take a Xanax, listen to those in charge, and all would be well. (Unless you were Jewish and the hijacker a Muslim. If so, ditch your passport and say your name is Smith.)

And then there was United flight #93: the fourth hijacking on that black day of days. The cell phone calls informing the passengers on that doomed flight that it was time to fight back. They fought and died, and in so doing likely saved thousands on the ground.
 

After that day, he believed that it wasn’t just the billions spent on security that had resulted in not a single hijacking in American airspace since 9/11. It was the fundamental realization that if anyone tried to take a plane, two hundred ordinary Americans on that plane
would fight back
. That, more than any other factor, deterred the enemy who now sought other targets, in the same manner that so many had once learned that rather than whine about a bully in an elementary school yard, the final and most convincing answer was to fight back on the spot. A comparison of the hijackings in the thirteen years prior to 9/11 versus after 9/11, to Bob, was proof enough of how to respond.

So he broke federal and state law this morning: the law that experts had said for years was the only answer. To be defenseless? To lock a door, to wait and pray? He could no longer believe that argument. In whispered conversations with others he argued that he was a teacher, and, above all other considerations, his first duty was to protect his students no matter what. If need be, he would face prison for doing that duty. Better that than to be passive as a sheep and watch as the lambs in his charge get slaughtered.

He had not taken his decision lightly or in a cavalier manner as some macho idiots would do. He had legally purchased the weapon and taken the required course to carry a concealed weapon (though of course it was illegal to do so on school property). Kathy had as well, for she was a teacher at the time they had made the decision. They then took the advanced courses offered by a local firearms store regarding safety and how and when to use the weapon he was about to carry into the school in violation of the law. In his mind, it was a moral choice. If ever the children in his charge were threatened, he believed that the first responsibility of a teacher, transcending all other responsibilities, was to protect.

He popped the magazine, double checking that no round was actually chambered in the weapon, slipped it back in, and pocketed the gun. It carried six hollow point rounds and resided in a holster pocket that Kathy had sewn inside the right pocket of his jeans. That done, he exited the car, opened the back hatch for his book bag, and, in what was now an unconscious gesture, ran his hand down his right side to make sure the weapon was properly holstered and not visible.
 

He walked into the school, ignoring the warning signs posted on all school doors that Joshua Chamberlain Middle School was a gun-free zone, and smiled a genuinely warm and friendly greeting to Charlie, the sixty-year-old security and resource officer who smiled a greeting in return. The two paused as Charlie asked about “Miss Kathy” and they joked about the diaper he had avoided changing. He then traveled the short distance to his classroom and office in the IT wing, kids rushing past him laughing and locker doors slamming. It was the start of another typical day at Joshua Chamberlain Middle School just outside of Portland, Maine.

8:45 a.m., Portland, Maine

They had driven up from Atlantic City, New Jersey, the day before and stayed at a fairly upscale hotel just off the Falmouth exit of Interstate 95, arriving just after eight in the evening the day before. They had been admonished repeatedly in their training to make sure they had a good eight hours' sleep when the final hours came. But none had done so. Regardless of their faith, how could one sleep soundly when knowing it was the last night they would spend on this earth, and, come the following day, they would die as holy martyrs?

Regardless of all they had seen in their years of holy war, regardless of just how many they had killed, from putting the round of a Kalashnikov into the forehead of a grandmother who had closed her eyes in the final seconds whispering a Christian prayer as she waited for death, to a screaming woman who knew her fate after being raped, to an infant whose throat was so easy to cut when asleep in the cradle, this they knew for certain: their own time had come. The last hours of life were drawing to an end, their fears stilled by the promises of their caliph of what awaited them in paradise.
 

How painful would death be? They had seen men and women burned alive and the first time they had witnessed that, even though it was an infidel, there was a moment of flinching and wondering how one’s own flesh would smell if fate determined that they would die trapped in flames? How intense would be the pain? The caliph promised them that if trapped in fire as a holy martyr, the flames would feel as cooling as a mountain stream as they winged to paradise.
 

Some had even driven the nails to crucify Christians, a most fitting death for those of that absurd faith. The infidels were too weak to do the same to them but the thoughts did linger about the moment of their death. Would it hurt? Rather than pain would it become bliss unlike any they had known upon earth, and be a foreshadowing of the eternal bliss given to one who died in jihad? All pleasures denied to them on earth would at last be theirs: pure women, ever virgin for their desire to never be taken before them and thus soiled by another man. If the woman given to them was not pleasing and submissive in all ways, they could be cast into oblivion at any time, for such women in paradise existed solely for the pleasure of holy jihadists. Awaiting them would also be boys with soft pliant bodies and the faces of angels to be used as desired. There awaited every fruit to feast upon and fountains of strong drink as promised by the prophet and his living envoy, the caliph. Such thoughts now strengthened their hearts for the task ahead and stilled their fears, filling them with the joy of anticipation.

The journey had begun six months ago starting with a container ship out of a Middle Eastern port. No one involved in this plan had traveled by air. Thus they avoided the random chance of a database check, face recognition software, or a capture. Instead, over a hundred jihadists had departed their homeland on random dates, never in a group, using a roundabout journey to finally arrive at Vera Cruz, Mexico.
 

With all of the attention focused on airlines, the obvious alternative was container ships where chances were less than five percent that the ship would even be checked. During the spring offensive of ISIS into Iraq, over half a billion in hard currency had been captured: not just useless paper but actual gold. Bin Laden had boasted that his day of glory had been purchased for little more than half a million in American currency. What could half a billion buy? Most certainly the cooperation of the drug cartels of Central America to help pass along, at a cost of two million each, the jihadists from the port of Vera Cruz to the “mules” and “coyotes” who would take them across the porous border of America. Half the fee on signing, half on delivery to their handlers in America. And, unlike some financial deals engaged in by the cartels, even they were fearful of the wrath of ISIS if there were a betrayal or a failure.
 

Only two conspirators had been waylaid while traveling through Mexico to the border. To show their good faith to the Middle Easterners, the cartel had cut the throats of those responsible, along with the “federal police” who had refused to accept the bribes to look the other way.
 

All electronic chatter was to be silenced except for the final moments. All of the jihadists had their plans, their marching orders, their pickup points, their transfers, and their final missions. They knew whom they would link up with and where all was laid out and memorized before leaving the training center in eastern Syria. Nothing was in writing. Nothing was transmitted. All had absolute faith in their leader, that they would bring their vengeance to America. Those who had doubted, those who had voiced concerns, or who had tried to back away once initiated into the secret, were already dead and buried in unmarked graves in the desert.
 

For nearly thirteen years there had been hundreds of boasts by other groups, other so-called jihadists, but no successful attack had been launched within the United States since 9/11. The few attacks planned and initiated had been intercepted because of their own foolish mistakes.
 

But the boasting had served a purpose. It had lulled the enemy. It had lulled those who kept watch but were not allowed to tell the American media of their successes. Even more so, it had lulled the sheep of their society. The absence of a successful attack in more than a decade had lulled them to believe they actually were safe.
 

Even if the enemy did see something suspicious, it had been drilled into them for years not to be rude, to be politically correct, not to point and shout a warning, out of fear that they would be called phobic or racist.
 

At the same time, the jihadists had learned from the mistakes of the once-respected bin Laden and those who followed him. They learned from the victories of their enemies, because those victories often resulted in a repeating of the same actions over and over. Yes, they did have strengths with all of their technology: their drones and their cell phone call intercepts. Therefore, infiltrate the target as low-tech as possible. Approach with utmost stealth, like a shadow in the desert at night, and not brazenly, walking under the noonday sun.

In the preceding months, the way paved by money looted from the successful offensive into Iraq, there were careful transfers of each jihadist across the border.
 

All fighters had been carefully screened and selected for the mission. Thousands of foreign fighters had joined the ranks of ISIS, some of whom were frustrated with the increasingly conservative ways of Al-Qaeda. The leader’s main criteria for selecting his jihadists for this mission: their willingness to die in jihad, a rigorous vetting back to their birth, and numerous references to ensure that not one of them was an agent or traitor infiltrating from the West.
 

They had to demonstrate a near-perfect ability to blend into the western world. It amazed him how the attackers of 9/11 were, upon reflection, far too obvious. That risk would not be run this time. Their command of English had to be near flawless. They had to be able to put on a business suit, walk through a crowd, and no one would take a second look. If need be, they could even mimic adherence to an infidel faith and speak warmly of their love for Jews. This was no violation of faith, of course. The renowned scholar Al-Bukhari explained such logic when he commented on sura 3.28 of the Koran that, “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” And, of course, there was sura 3.54, which declared that the best deceiver of all was Allah himself. Such words were armor for the hearts and souls of his jihadists to infiltrate the evil heart of the West.

Those who actually at some point in their lives had lived in the belly of the beast, the world of the infidels, attending western schools, he personally checked as to their faith and willingness to die as holy warriors. They had to show him their ability to fight and kill without second thought or mercy. During some of the thousands of executions in Iraq, he had made sure that those being considered for this attack took part in them: they were required to wield the knife for beheadings and drive the nails for crucifixions. No double agent would do this. If they blanched, they were no longer considered. Those who failed the tests were dead before the sun set.

They were required to shave their beards, their clothing tailored by experts, learn to speak in the latest dialect of decadent America, and drill relentlessly on their created identities. In public, they would gossip about the latest game or whorish starlet, even drink a beer with dinner in a barbecue restaurant. If offered forbidden food, they were to eat it without hesitation. He reinforced the rulings in the Koran that those on jihad were exempt from all sins. Only in the privacy of their heart would there be prayers, until the final hour before the assault began. Until then, blend in with your foe so adroitly that he will not question. If there is a question, he will fear to ask it because that is their culture.

None of the targets was within fifty kilometers of a major city. That was another strength of their plan: to avoid the major cities where the random chance of passing someone on a street might trigger a recognition by someone trained well enough to recognize the wolf moving silently amongst the sheep. The caliph reinforced that the slightest failure or lapse in the United States would result in damnation and execution and, if shown to be egregious, their families would pay the price as well.

Of course there was always the random chance of something going wrong: a traffic accident, a drunk driver, perhaps an American veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq who just might take a second look. And such an event did happen. An angry American veteran claimed he recognized a jihadist. The jihadist left the fast food restaurant with his American handler, the vet following and shouting a challenge. The handler reacted brilliantly and as trained, shouting back that the American was a racist, even as he thanked him for his service to our country. His cries of racism prompted those who were standing nearby and watching to back off and to even offer apologies, warning the veteran to leave the two innocent men alone.