Monday Night Jihad (19 page)

Riley dropped in front of one player, who had put his helmet back on for protection. “Chris! Chris!”

“What? Oh, hey, Riley,” Chris Gorkowski answered. He had obviously drifted off to some happier place far from the devastation in the stadium.

“Chris, you gotta get up and get out of here!”

“Nah, Riley. I was thinking that I’m probably fine right here.”

Riley slapped the side of Gorkowski’s helmet—probably harder than he needed to—then grabbed the offensive lineman’s face mask. “Listen to me, you big idiot! You have to get to the locker room! Now! See Skid and Bama over there?” Riley twisted the big center’s helmet toward the two other players who were sitting on the bench, then twisted it back to face himself. “You’re going to get those two out of here! Got it? Anything happens to them, I’m taking it out on you!” Riley gave Gorkowski’s helmet one final neck-jarring slap and ran off.

When he looked back, he saw Gorkowski with a handful of both players’ jerseys, yanking them off the bench and dragging them toward the locker room. Riley began working his way back to the center of the field, but it was getting harder to move as more and more terrified people flocked to the grass.

As he looked around, he saw people stacked up at each exit from the field—players and fans alike. He felt the rage building up again. Get ahold of yourself! You’re no good to anyone if you lose control! Riley put his shoulder down and drove himself through the crowd.

Carol Marks couldn’t believe what she was seeing. After the first blast across the field, the eight Buckaroos had remained frozen in their seats like everyone else. Then, as if on some inaudible cue, the whole crowd of people moved at once toward the small tunnels that would take them to the concourse and out of harm’s way. The four couples were nine rows down from the exit and were quickly swept into the wave of humanity.

What little control and order had existed were destroyed with the second blast. The crowd took on a life of its own. Paul and Carol had been seated in the center of the row and held tight to each other’s hand, determined not to get separated. The other three couples were swallowed by the crowd as soon as they hit the steps.

Doug Rawlins turned around as he was being pushed toward the tunnel and mouthed the words Meet at the cars! Meet at the cars!

Paul gave a thumbs-up in response.

At last, Paul and Carol made it to the aisle. But as soon as they hit it, Paul was wrenched away. Carol screamed and stretched for his hand, but he was already out of reach. Paul was yelling back to her, “Just go with the flow, babe! Meet me at the car!”

Carol felt a hit from behind that nearly took her breath away as she was forced into the flow. Her sixty-year-old legs were having a hard time keeping up the pace. A couple of times she stumbled on the steps, but the mass of people was so tight that she had nowhere to fall. Finally she reached the top of the stairs and was funneled into the narrow tunnel.

As Carol entered, her foot hit something soft yet solid. This time when she stumbled, there was more space in front of her, and she went down. While she was falling, she realized what she had tripped on. And as she landed, she realized that she was about to find herself in the same situation as the person whose body had sent her tumbling. Immediately she tried to lift herself up, but a foot in the center of her back pushed her down again, forcing the air out of her lungs.

That first foot was followed by another and another. She struggled to get air, but the continuous flow of feet on her back and her head made it impossible. She tried to scream, but there was nothing there. Her arms were pinned underneath her as she squirmed her body back and forth.

A Sorel Caribou boot landing on her temple put an end to her movement. Darkness began in her peripheral vision and quickly moved toward the center. Her last thought as she faded away was So this is what it feels like to die.

As soon as people started moving, Michael Goff scooped Kevin into his arms and looked for a chance to enter the human river.

Kevin was crying. “What’s happening, Daddy?” He always slipped back to Daddy when he was scared.

“I don’t know, sport. Just hold tight. Got it? Lock those arms around me, and give my neck the strongest Hulk hug you’ve ever given.”

The resulting squeeze almost threw Michael’s neck out of alignment, but he didn’t care. As long as he was in pain, he knew that Kevin was safe.

Michael forced his way into the aisle and down the steps. People were screaming all around him. Then he heard the second blast. Gotta keep a cool head. Down the steps, out to the concourse. Skip the escalator—that’ll be a death trap with this crowd. Ride the wave down the ramps. “I’m gonna get us out of here, sweetheart. Daddy’s got you.”

The force of the crowd was overwhelming. Michael had little control over where he was going. But since everyone was heading the direction he wanted to go, he stopped trying to fight the flow and went with it instead.

The crowd pressed through the entrance to the tunnel. Michael could see people ahead stepping over some obstacles. He thought they must be backpacks that people had accidentally dropped until he stepped on one. The “Ohhh” from below him as his foot fell told him exactly what he was stepping on. He desperately wanted to reach down and help the person he had just walked over, but before he could, he was out the tunnel and into the mass of people in the concourse.

The fourth man was exhausted after being pushed, jostled, and cursed at for the past three minutes. He had been sitting in section 120 and had allowed himself to get caught up with the wave of people. While going through the narrow tunnel to the concourse, he was gratified to feel the give of several bodies beneath his feet.

When he heard the first explosion, he had started the timer on his digital watch. A moment of fear had gripped him when the second man hadn’t completed his mission as planned. But when he heard a second blast from the lower deck, he knew that Allah’s plan would continue in spite of the one man’s failure.

As he looked around, all he could see was people—tightly packed, fish in a barrel. Exactly what they had hoped for. He reached the place where the ramps spilled out to ground level. It was time.

He managed to squeeze his arm up from the press of bodies and watched the stopwatch reach 3:30. Knowing he would never be able to get the football over his head, he cried out, “I am the Cause! Die, infidels! Allahu Akbar!”

Then he pressed the red button on his detonator and joined the flood of souls rushing to meet their Maker.

Michael was nearing the ramp when he heard another explosion directly below. Suddenly the forward momentum of the mass going down the ramp was halted by another mass trying to escape the new blast by going back up. The resulting collision of two immovable forces snapped bones and crushed the life out of scores of people on the seam.

The pressure against his back was almost unbearable, and Michael joined in the chorus of “Go back! Go back!” Finally the momentum of the crowd shifted and the flow started toward the next ramp along the concourse.

“Keep hanging on, sport!” Michael yelled into his son’s ear.

“I’m scared, Daddy!”

“I know, baby. I’ll get you home. You’re doing an awesome job holding on!”

The fifth man had never entered the stadium. He had been spending his time pacing back and forth in front of the bronze sculpture of five mustang stallions, a mare, and a colt. He couldn’t see the game clock from his vantage point, so he had just waited nervously for the first explosion. He was wound so tight that when the blast finally reached his ear, he lost control of his bladder.

He started his digital stopwatch and waited.

Soon people began pouring out of the stadium and running past him. He fought not to get swept into the crowd and positioned himself directly in front of the giant sculpture, in the only pocket free of people. Soon it would be his turn. His job was to get the fleeing people to turn back toward the stadium and into each other.

He kept checking his stopwatch, knowing without thinking about it that he was watching the final countdown of his life.

When the bomb went off at 3:30, he knew his time was short. He stared at the increasing numbers—3:58, 3:59, 4:00.

He stepped out from behind his shelter and shouted, knowing that no one would hear, “I am the Cause! Allahu Akbar!”

The power of the blast knocked the sculpture from its foundation, and the sound of the ball bearings against the bronze was like a thousand marbles being dropped into the bottom of a metal trash can. The giant horses tumbled onto the crowd, but when they landed, they hurt no one. Everyone around was already dead.

The sound of another explosion echoed through the stadium, this one from much farther away. The resulting surge of the crowd again almost knocked Kevin’s dad off his feet.

This can’t be happening, Kevin thought. I’ve got to be dreaming.

Kevin looked back over his dad’s shoulder, watching the people pushing and shoving. As he scanned the faces, he locked eyes with one particular man a few feet away. The man smiled at Kevin, and Kevin weakly smiled back. Then, as he watched, the man raised a football into the air with one hand and a cylindrical object with his other. After clearing his throat, the man shouted, “Hear me, America! I am the Cause! Allahu Akbar!”

With one last nod to Kevin, the man’s thumb depressed the red button on the detonator.

Kevin didn’t feel the shock wave, nor did he see the result of the hundreds of ball bearings exploding from under the leather shell of the football, completely wiping out everyone and everything in a fifty-foot diameter.

Another explosion shook the stadium as Riley spotted Ricci with his hands pressed to the side of Predators running back James Anderson. Riley ran up to him. “Sal, get to the locker room!”

“Can’t. Anderson’s going to bleed to death if I go.”

“Yeah, and you may die if you stay. I’ll keep him from bleeding out.”

“I’m not going to leave you here!”

“Sal, you’ve got a wife and kid! Now get out of here!” Riley drove his shoulder against Ricci, knocking him out of his crouch. Riley’s hands reached into Anderson’s torn, bloody jersey, found the wound, and pressed down to try to stop the bleeding.

“Riley, you call me when this is done! Let me know you’re okay! You hear me? Call as soon as you can!”

“Get out of here!” Riley watched as Ricci ran toward the exit by the field manager’s office and melded into the flow of people. No, Sal! Why didn’t you go to the locker room?

He looked back down at Anderson. “Hold on, Jim! Help’s coming, buddy!” But even as he said the words, Riley knew that Anderson’s time was short. He had seen this kind of wound before, and it never turned out well.

Riley looked around. Tears came to his eyes as he saw the destruction. Smoke poured from all over the stadium. Most of the seats were cleared out by now, revealing the carnage. Body parts were all over. Scattered here and there were people unlucky enough to have been hit by a stray ball bearing. Many family members were holding these dead and wounded, sobbing and calling out for help.

Riley couldn’t believe this was happening here in the United States—in Denver, Colorado! He hadn’t seen this kind of mass destruction even in the military. So many dead; so many suffering. And here he was with his hands inside another man’s body, trying to keep him alive.

Riley had little doubt as to who was behind this attack—the same group of Arab fascists who were behind so many other things that were wrong in this world. Lord, I don’t know if this is a good prayer or not, but make these murderers pay! Make them feel the same kind of terror they’ve—

Another explosion shook the stadium with the accompanying slam of a shock wave and the whistling of ball bearings. One of the trainers five feet from Riley cried out and dropped to the ground. That one was close, he thought as he looked around for the source of the blast.

When he spotted it, his heart sank. Sal! The entire crowd that had been trying to force its way into the tunnel next to the field manager’s office was gone—evaporated, shredded, shattered. There was absolutely no movement anywhere around the exit.

“Saaaaaaal! No, not you, Sal! Saaaaaaal!”

As Riley cried out, he felt Anderson’s heart stop beating under his fingers. “Forget you, Jim! You are not going to die!”

All the control he had been struggling so hard to maintain was lost. Riley yanked Anderson’s helmet off, then violently pulled the man’s shoulder pads over his head. He began CPR on the running back—thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths.

“I’m not going to let you die, Jim! You hear me? You will not die!”

Thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths. Riley continued the pattern, not stopping until a couple of cops pulled him off—long after the attack had ended and long after James Anderson’s soul had left his body forever.

Monday, December 29

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The tinny sound of a personalized ring tone playing Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” emanated from Scott Ross’s cell phone, filling the backseat of the taxi and letting him know that Jim Hicks was trying to get hold of him. When Scott had played the ring tone for Hicks earlier in the week, the older man had seemed less than enthused about being identified with the reaper. However, it seemed that Hicks spent much of his life being less than enthused about things, so Scott didn’t worry much about his opinion.

Scott was about ten minutes away from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He had booked a late-night flight back home to St. Louis after he and Hicks had agreed that Scott’s presence might be needed to spur his team on a little bit. Five days had passed since any significant progress had been made, and Tara Walsh was getting unbearable on the phone. “Sounds like Daddy needs to get home and give the kids a talking-to,” was Hicks’s comment to Scott after the last phone conversation he had with the “overworked beauty queen.”

Scott fumbled for his cell, in the process spilling his Yoo-hoo on the taxi’s backseat. He quickly mopped up the mess with the corner of his canvas jacket before the driver could see.