Monday Night Jihad (8 page)

We’ll have a touchdown, touchdown, Indians!

And raise the Green and Gold!

Saturday, December 20

CTD North Central Division Headquarters

Minneapolis, Minnesota

6:00 a.m. CST

“I can’t believe those idiots aren’t going to shut down the mall,” Scott Ross said as he threw his half-full bottle of Yoo-hoo Lite into the trash can, swearing he would never again touch that perversion of perfection. His head was still spinning from the whirlwind trip that had brought him from discovery of the Mall of America as the likely target: grabbing his always-packed bag, hopping a CTD jet with Tara Walsh, flying through much of the night, and finally making their way to the North Central Division headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. “Don’t they realize what’s about to go down?”

“Their exact words were, ‘We’re not going to shut down the mall during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year because of some guy’s hunch,’” a disgusted Jim Hicks responded. “We’ve even taken it to the governor, who—spineless wonder that he is—backs the mall folks’ decision. I can’t believe I’d ever long for a return to the days of Jesse Ventura.”

“Didn’t Secretary Moss try to convince them?”

“Come on, you’ve been around long enough to understand Moss. He only likes to scare people when he needs more funding for Homeland Security.”

“Well, isn’t that just ducky? We can’t get backed by the wuss or the weasel,” Scott grumbled, sitting down on the corner of Hicks’s desk that just happened to hold the remaining half of the man’s onion bagel.

Hicks laughed as Scott contorted himself, trying to cleanse his posterior regions of cream cheese. “Let me tell you what I need from you, Ross. I need names. I need faces. I need anything I can get that will help me pick out the needles that are looking to blow up the rest of the haystack.”

“Believe me, we’re working on it as hard as we can. Tara’s on the phone right now with my team back home. They’re processing through the facial pics that our cameras snapped at all the border crossings in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. We’re filtering first on Canadian rental cars, based on the vehicle what’s-his-Yemeni-name was driving.”

“Kurshumi.”

“Gesundheit,” Scott said, providing his own rim shot.

Hicks’s glare made it clear that he felt the time for jokes was past.

“You know, Jim, with that evil eye, you and Tara are going to get along just fine. So, anyway, we’re starting with the rental cars; then we’re adding a little dose of racial profiling—that’s our little secret,” he whispered with a conspiratorial wink. “We’re running all those pics through our facial recognition blender and hoping something comes out of the mix. Do we have any idea how many evildoers we’re looking for?”

Hicks shook his head. “No clue. Kurshumi was really information-deprived.”

“When we get you the faces, what’s your plan at the mall?”

“We’ve been able to talk the governor into securing us fifty cops—just enough to cover his backside in case this thing does go down. I’ve brought in the CTD ops teams from Northeastern Division and Western Division, plus the folks you brought along. That gives us sixty-six agents. Even with that many good guys on site, we still don’t stand a chance without more info.”

“Keep the faith,” Scott encouraged as he carefully checked the corner of the desk before he sat down again. “We’ll give you something. They don’t make them any better than my gang.”

Saturday, December 20

North Central United States

7:10 a.m. CST

Aamir and Abdel al-Hasani prayed with their hands cupped at their chests, then wiped them across their faces before rising from their knees. Fajr—the sunrise time of prayer—was now complete.

The blessed words still echoed in Abdel’s mind. All greetings, blessings, and good acts are from you, my Lord. . . . O Allah, be gracious unto Muhammad and the people of Muhammad. The thought struck him that today would be the first day in many years that he would complete only one of the five required daily prayers of the salat. Hopefully the next time he spoke to Allah it would be face-to-face. Then he could affirm to him in person that he was the only God, and that Muhammad was his prophet.

“Are you ready, mighty warrior?” his brother asked.

“I will be there with you on earth and in heaven, Aamir. That’s all I can say.”

“Are you still having doubts about—?”

“Stop!” Abdel thrust his hand in front of his brother’s face—a clear sign of disrespect, but he didn’t care. “Don’t say any more. I told you I would be there with you. Leave it at that! Now, let’s prepare ourselves.”

Abdel pretended he couldn’t see Aamir’s darkening face as he crossed the room to where the vests were stored. I’m just frightened, he told himself. There’s nothing wrong with that. Even Muhammad was frightened after Gabriel first visited him. As he walked back carrying the first of the vests, he reassured Aamir, “I love you, my brother. There is no one else I would rather be entering glory with than you.”

Abdel briefly met his brother’s eyes, then quickly looked away as Aamir took the vest from him.

“Turn around,” Aamir softly commanded him. Abdel obeyed, and Aamir lowered the dark green vest over his head. The nylon material rested on the new white T-shirt that covered Abdel’s upper body, which, along with the rest of his body, had been shaved completely hairless during a ritual cleansing process they had both participated in prior to their predawn prayer. Aamir reached around to the Velcro straps in the front and pulled them tight around Abdel’s back.

In the closet hung a red and green flannel shirt that Aamir now brought over. While Abdel held the detonator in his hand, his older brother helped him slide his arms through the sleeves. He was very careful not to snag the long wire that connected to the vest. Before buttoning the cuffs, Aamir used surgical tape to attach the detonator to Abdel’s forearm. They would cut the tape prior to walking into the mall.

As Abdel repeated the same process with Aamir, the silence became heavier. Both men were lost in their own thoughts. Abdel visualized the plan over and over. He thought through all the possible contingencies. What would they do if they were stopped at the doors? What if one of their compatriots failed to complete his mission? What if he froze?

“All good acts are from you, my Lord,” says our prayer. Is this a good act? Or could what I’m doing actually be wrong? The ninth sura of the Koran says, “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace” and “Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and his apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth.” We do not have the power to fight them with tanks and planes, so we use what we have. Is that not just?

Again the sound of the ball bearings and the screams of the people drowned out his thoughts. The smell of blood filled his nose. He closed his eyes and saw the bodies of children—innocents. But are they really innocent? Will they not grow up to be infidels? Again he saw the tiny faces covered in blood. Yes, they will probably grow up to be infidels, but for now . . .

Aamir’s grunt at the pull of the tape on the sensitive skin of his recently shaved arm snapped Abdel back to reality. My course is set. My destiny awaits me. Allah, if what I am doing is right, give us success. If what I am doing is wrong, please forgive me. Abdel looked into his brother’s eyes, and this time he held his gaze.

9:15 a.m. CST

“JIM!” Scott Ross’s voice rang through the cubicles and echoed into the offices on the outer rim of the second-floor CTD headquarters.

“Haven’t you ever heard of intercoms?” Jim Hicks grumbled as he came running to the workstation Scott had taken over. He couldn’t help taking a glance at the striking Tara Walsh standing right behind Scott.

“I didn’t know where you were,” Scott absentmindedly apologized.

“Yeah, who would have ever expected me to be in my office?”

“I tried to tell him,” Tara said.

“Okay, okay,” Scott said. “Just shut up and listen. Tara and my team came through! We’ve got names, and we’ve got faces!” Scott stared at Hicks, waiting for a reaction. After ten seconds things got uncomfortable.

“Are you going to tell me or what?” Hicks growled.

For a moment, Scott’s mind flashed through many of the “or what” responses that were available to him. He mentally selected one that had to do with Hicks’s eternal destiny, very hot places, and French Canadians, allowing it to blend into his internal monologue. A slight grin at the corners of his mouth was the only evidence of what for Scott was a very rapid and very satisfying exercise.

Scott spoke as Tara passed pictures to Hicks. “We’ve got four names. Each one may or may not be involved. Iskandar Bogra from Pakistan. . . . Here’s your boy, Kurshumi. . . . And the last two bring an interesting twist—Aamir and Abdel al-Hasani, Saudi brothers who first popped onto our radar screen at a bad-guy training camp in Pakistan.”

“Have we seen anything of these men since the border crossing?”

“You ask the right questions, my friend,” Scott said, picking up more photographs from his desk. “Here are two pictures taken within four hours of each other. Do you recognize the guys? Here’s Mr. Bogra, and here’s brother Aamir. Now for the punch line: these were both taken at the Hawthorne Avenue bus station right here in Minneapolis. If I’m not mistaken, the Hawthorne station is where you found one of Kurshumi’s packages.”

Hicks hit the intercom and called the ops teams together for a briefing in five minutes. Looking at Scott and Tara, he said, “Thanks, you two. You may have just saved a lot of lives.”

He turned to go back to his office, but Scott grabbed his arm. “Jim, I want in on the op.”

Hicks’s face took on a condescending air. “I hate to burst your bubble, sport, but this isn’t like shooting pellets at the birds in Granddaddy’s backyard. Go back to your computer screen and let the big boys handle ops. This is real war with real bullets and real blood.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, sport,” Scott spat out as he tightened his grip on Hicks’s arm just enough to make him wince. “I spent six years with AFSOC, two of them hunting hajjis in Afghanistan. I’ve drawn blood and I’ve lost blood, and the only reason I’m still standing here today is that I drew more than I lost. I found these guys, so let me finish the hunt!”

Hicks and Scott locked eyes, both waiting to see if the other would flinch. Finally Hicks shook his arm free and said, “Air force special ops, huh? I thought you guys were just glorified weathermen.”

“Why don’t you try me and find out.”

The older man smiled, then chuckled. “Pretty rough talk for a guy with a pooch,” he said, patting Scott’s stomach. “Okay, c’mon, tough guy. We’ll get you geared up.”

Scott smirked to himself as he followed Jim down the hallway. From what he had heard of the man, he might have been the first person to have caused Jim Hicks to back down since before the Nixon administration.

Saturday, December 20

Mall of America

Bloomington, Minnesota

3:20 p.m. CST

The wait since gearing up this morning had been terribly long. But now that they had arrived, Abdel felt a surge of excitement and destiny. A thin layer of ice crackled under the tires as Aamir pulled the rented Dodge Stratus into a space in the south surface parking lot at the Mall of America. Snow was falling, and the wind was blowing. Allah truly does control the weather, Abdel thought as he wrapped his dark blue knit scarf around his face.

He undid the snap on the sleeve of his jacket and waited for Aamir to cut the tape. The scissors had been sitting on the dash, and the cold metal touching his skin sent an icy surge of adrenaline through his body. When it was done, he held the small red-button-topped cylinder in his left hand. He then mirrored the process with his brother, cutting the layers of white tape, being very careful not to catch skin.

Only one thing was left to be done. Inside Aamir’s shirt, Abdel felt a small metal box attached to the hidden vest. He gently flicked a toggle switch on the box, arming the vest. Aamir did the same to his.

“Remember, we will part ways at the escalators,” Aamir reviewed. “You will go to the fourth floor and position yourself by the escalator across from the cinema. I will get in line at the Timberland Twister roller coaster. At exactly 3:30, I will go to be with Allah. Thirty seconds later, one of our brothers will join me from the second floor. Thirty seconds after that, you come to meet me in heaven. Together, we will watch from on high as the last martyr joins us from the entrance to the east parking garage. Abdel, my dear brother, remain strong and show no mercy to those who deserve no mercy. And, whatever you do, when you hear the first blast, don’t look down; it will only steal your courage.”

Their final hug was extraordinarily long. Neither brother wanted to let go of the other for the last time. Finally, after looking in each other’s eyes, they separated. They zipped their jackets, pulled on their gloves, and stepped out into the icy black slush. Together they crunched their way from the car. There was no need to lock the doors.

Scott Ross’s bladder was screaming. He was really beginning to question the wisdom of having taken up a position next to Healthy Express. In his hand was his third mango smoothie since arriving here just before 10 a.m. That was about five and a half hours ago. He shifted his legs back and forth, trying to ease the pressure. Across the way, he could see Jim Hicks standing in the window of American Eagle Outfitters. He knew that if he asked for a potty break, he could pretty much kiss any respect from Mr. Navy SEAL good-bye.

Although police or CTD agents were covering the many entrances to the mall, Scott had picked the south entrance on a logical hunch. It was one of the four main entrances, which would allow the perps to blend with the heavy foot traffic. He knew they wouldn’t be coming in from the east or west parking garages; the protection from the elements that the parking garages provided would go directly against their desire to bundle up as much as possible. The decision for south over north had basically come down to his preference for smoothies from Healthy Express over frozen desserts from Freshens Yogurt. I guess too much frozen yogurt could have created a whole different set of problems.