Day of Wrath Page 4

  She turned the sound back up.

  “We have live video now from our affiliate in Austin. Police are in a high-speed pursuit on Interstate 35, just north of the state highway 290 interchange.”

  There was no commentary for a moment; someone in the New York studio gasped that it looked like gunfire coming from the vehicle being pursued. It sped past a tractor-trailer, which suddenly jackknifed across the highway, taking out the lead police car.

  “This is bad, it's bad!” someone cried off camera, “It looks like puffs of smoke or something impacting that red car heading southbound… oh no, no…!”

  A southbound car, traveling in the direction opposite the vehicle being pursued, veered off the highway and rolled up onto its side as it slammed into the guardrail. The helicopter camera focused on that crash for a moment, then swung back to the jackknifed truck, a police car tangled in the wreckage. Some of the pursuing vehicles were stopping, others were climbing up around the shoulder and accelerating to continue the chase.

  “There is definite gunfire coming from that vehicle!” It was the morning anchor speaking in a small box to one side of the screen. “You can see the puffs of smoke. There! They’ve hit another car, that white SUV. My God, it looks like automatic fire; they’ve shredded that car!”

  Kathy looked at the clock, it was 11:30. Bob should be on lunch break by now. The news in Syracuse and now this? It made her feel uneasy as she picked up her pad.

  “You seeing the news?” she texted to Bob.

  11:32 a.m., Chamberlain Middle School near Portland, Maine

  As he walked into the faculty lounge his cell phone beeped, it was a message from Kathy. Bob put his lunch bag down on a table in order to pull out his phone and check it. He refused to keep his lunch in the faculty fridge; it was gross. The last time he looked, a bulging Tupperware container was ready to explode. Ed Winston, the eighth grade science teacher, said it was an experiment and if not, a hazmat team should be called in, but no one was volunteering to clean it out.

  He paused to look up at the small television in the stuffy and rather ill-kept faculty lounge. No one spoke; the television was always tuned at this time of day to an inane talk show, not as bad as the one that always wound up in fist fights, but nearly as bad. He checked Kathy’s text. It wasn’t the usual “Love you” message or a report of some antic or complaint about Shelly.

  “Hey, can we switch the channel?” he asked, looking up at the screen. Two of the male faculty, bent over their lunches, silently nodded agreement but kept their heads down, saying nothing. Margaret Redding, as usual, held court here and few dared to cross her. To interfere with her favorite program was cause for a war which she always won. Years ago other faculty who shared the same break time had given up arguing. There was always the inevitable accusation later of inappropriate language, demeaning looks and attitude, or an offense that hinted at heinous crimes, that would have to be dragged before the principal for arbitration or bumped up to the personnel office for the district. It was more hassle than it was worth and never a victory, only another humiliation or, at best, a suggestion that the faculty form yet another committee to decide what should be on the television at which time. Of course Margaret made sure that she ran that committee and that her show stayed on.

  “You know I prefer this program,” Margaret replied coolly, without even bothering to look at Bob.

  Without bothering to ask permission he boldly walked toward the TV, looking for the remote control. He made eye contact with Margaret. The remote was resting on the lunch table, directly in front of her, and if he reached for it, there would be another "incident.”

  “Margaret, I’m getting text messages from my wife that there’s some breaking news. Let's switch the channel.”

  No eye contact, only one word: "No.”

  Bitch. Of course he didn’t say that out loud.

  He stared at the two other faculty in the room for support. Both of the men kept their heads down, ignoring the entire exchange.

  He touched his phone to an internet search and started to type in the address to one of the local stations.

  “Bob, you know policy is that the faculty lounge is a computer-free zone during lunch hours,” Margaret announced as she picked up the remote and made a show of turning up the volume on the television.

  The program showed several women sitting around a coffee table, voices raised in heated argument about whether a popular male star should divorce his cheating wife. She had been caught on a cell phone camera swimming nude and making out with another female star on a movie set in the Mediterranean. The video had been playing over and over on numerous websites for the last day. One of the commentators giggled slyly and suggested that of course her husband would welcome both of them back.

  He ignored Margaret and the asinine television belching out its mindless drivel, and held his phone close to try and read a scrolling text across the bottom of the tiny screen: something about the incident in Austin. It was impossible to see and his frustration was growing. He looked back at Margaret who was putting the remote down so she could take another bite from her sandwich.

  Bob leaned across the table and snatched it. He turned, and, to add insult to her injury, selected the local Fox station which he knew she detested. She exploded with fury, accusations, and then threats…

  11:35 a.m., Portland, Maine

  The five gathered in one hotel room. The weather was cool enough that their long jackets did not look too out of place, but once into their vehicles, the jackets would come off. All were wearing full tactical gear: black webbing with chest pockets holding extra magazines of 9mm hollow points. Kevlar vests were underneath the webbing, protecting them from neck to crotch from anything less than a heavy jacketed armor-piercing round. They would leave in two vehicles, one a standard size American-made car rented the day before by their handler from an agency near the airport. Three would go to their target in that vehicle. The other three would remain in the Tahoe and drive the quarter mile to a nearby fast food restaurant, park in the back, and wait out the final minutes.

  The prayer for those about to become martyrs was short; the five faced to the east-southeast. One of them had placed a small mark with a grease pen on the wall so that they were properly looking toward Mecca.

  That was all, no cries out loud and no chants; that had been done for them the night before they left Syria. The few weeks of indulging in the decadence of their enemies had been merely a diversion without any stain of sin, for those who were to become holy martyrs, all sin would be washed away in the blood of their death as the prophet had promised them.

  There would be no pity now. The playacting of smiling at a child and commenting how cute he was when the toddler had grinned at one of them while they waited in line for a meal, was over now. If any had inwardly blanched at the thought of what they would unleash in little more than fifteen minutes, they had been liberated of that conscience by participating in the spring offensive into Iraq. Each of them had been required to participate in the executions after villages and Mosul were seized. All had been singled out for a few days of training and practice on targets in a Christian neighborhood. The targets ranged from silent grandmothers who prayed as they awaited their fate to screaming mothers begging for mercy to children younger than the smiling toddler in the restaurant awaiting a meal with a toy. Their actions in Mosul had been enough to desensitize them to any aspect of their mission. Their leader had lavished praise upon them and promised the paradise that awaited them.

  Their handler, who had infiltrated America more than a year ago, tapped on the door, signaling that the vehicles were ready and waiting. The five left the room, just a few feet from the side exit. An Hispanic maid saw them advancing down the corridor and started to smile a greeting, but something about their demeanor caused her to back against the wall and stare at them warily as they passed.

  She knew without doubt that she saw with them the shadow of death passing by, a shadow that her grandmother had
often spoken of when she was a child. She made the sign of the cross as they went out the door, then hurried to find the manager, driven by an instinct that something was not right with these men who had kept their room chained and barred during the two days they had stayed as guests, refusing entry even to have their beds made.

  Three heavy canisters were in the back of the black late-model Tahoe. They popped the back hatch and shifted the canisters to the back seat of the smaller American car. The canisters contained six shoulder weapons: three primary weapons of .223 and three backup weapons of personal choice. Two had requested 12-gauge pumps, easily altered to hold six rounds with a mix of anti-personnel and heavier “pumpkin ball” ammunition for breaking down a door lock. The third preferred a short .45 semi auto carbine that could be easily slung over the shoulder.

  The heaviest part of the burden being transferred was the thousand rounds of ammunition for each of their primary weapons, already loaded into thirty round magazines. Packed under the seats of the Tahoe were several thousand more rounds for the ubiquitous AK-47s for the second team, who would stay in the Tahoe. They were the “Sword Two" team who would begin their attack a half hour after their brothers of “Sword One” attacked.

  No explosives were with their “packages.” The wise evaluation of their leader was that there was too much risk in acquiring and moving explosives. This decision had been argued; it was easy enough to buy black powder on the open market, or, with a bit of training, learn how to convert a few bags of lawn fertilizer into explosives. The caliph, however, replied that such a move would be a tip-off and vetoed it with the strictest orders to not attempt any such purchases once in the heartland of the infidels.

  But it was easy and even amusing to assemble a couple of dozen small boxes that looked like IEDs during their final hours of waiting, boxes to scatter in the wake of their assaults and slow to a crawl any response by the infidels sent against them.

  They moved the shipping canisters into the second vehicle, drew the weapons and laid them into the rear of the vehicle for quick access, and readied the satchels for hauling the dozens of magazines of ammunition and fake IEDs, to be instantly grabbed the moment they reached their target. They started to climb into the two cars.

  “Excuse me sirs, are you checking out?”

  They looked up. It was the hotel manager coming out the back exit behind them. He looked Indian or Pakistani, his accent a giveaway. Slender, dark skinned, he was all smiles but obviously nervous. They had seen him looking more than once in their direction as they ate dinner the evening before in the hotel’s small restaurant and bar.

  They had indeed aroused some instinct in him. He wasn’t Hindu; he was a Pakistani Christian who had fled the region near the Afghan border with his family back in the early 1990s. He had raised his children as Americans and was grateful every day for the peace of this land. The sight of these men triggered some instinct of fear. It was their eyes. As a young man he remembered fighters coming across the border during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, recruits flooding into the war zone from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria to become jihadists and kill communists, but happy to kill Christians as well even though the local Christian community ran a hospital for wounded refugees. These fighters had the same dead, shark-like eyes.

  The way one of them turned and faced him told him that even here, in America, in the state of Maine, which all assumed was far safer than places like New York or Chicago, was now as dangerous as the streets of his home village, as dangerous as Mosul, Tikrit and Aleppo. It was the last thought of his life. Though nervous at approaching the men, they did not even give him time for that nervousness to turn to fear.

  Little more than three seconds after he asked the question his brain was shattered by the impact of a single round to his forehead, his conscious thoughts did not even register the flash from the muzzle of the 9mm fired from less than three feet away, nor did he hear the triumphal cry of "Allahu akbar!"

  The two vehicles left the parking lot thirty seconds later. The maid, who had apprehensively stood in the doorway and watched as her friend and manager innocently walked into his death, collapsed to her knees, screaming and calling out to the Blessed Virgin, while another maid, a refugee from the madness of Ethiopia who was far more used to the sight of cold blooded killings, began to fumble a call to 911.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  11:43 a.m., near Portland, Maine

  Kathy looked up from her pad. She had been trying to connect to her friend Mary in Austin, Texas, texting her, while her attention remained glued to the television where the murders along Interstate 35 near Mary’s neighborhood were continuing and the ticker along the bottom of the television reported a second shooting incident in Syracuse. Apparently an accomplice of yesterday's school shooter had been cornered in the parking lot of a shopping mall.

  Kathy heard a siren, a police car racing past on the state highway, one block over from her home. Seconds later a second police car followed.

  It sent a chill down her spine. What was going on?

  A third police car, seconds later.

  Fear. Her heart constricted, beating faster. Surely this was not all interrelated in some way? She and Bob had shared whispered conversations often enough after Wendy was asleep as to the possibility that some horror could indeed happen here and what was their drill, their response? They had talked about it scores of times but were those fears and whispered conversations now triggering her into an overreaction?

  She texted Bob again, “Turn on the news now!” He had not responded so far.

  11:44 a.m., Joshua Chamberlain Middle School, Portland, Maine

  He had made the mistake of setting the remote control back down on the table, a gesture of long habit when watching a program with Kathy who on their second date had accused him of being a typical male because he hogged the television remote control.

  Margaret Redding snatched it back, switched the channel back to the program she had been watching, clutched the remote and glared at him defiantly, all but begging him to try and make a physical grab for it. She had already announced that she was filing a complaint of harassment, that to even try and touch her to get the remote would be a career-ender for certain and she was egging him on to do so. There was a flicker of a smile of the self-righteous professional victim who sensed that she just might have one hell of an excellent case if she could push him just one step further. At the very least, in a few more minutes she would waddle out of the lounge, crying, head to the principal’s office and then take the rest of the day off due to the fear and anxiety he had created by his aggressive, dominant behavior.

  “What the hell?” It was Vince Rossingnol, the quiet, introspective English literature teacher, who, as always, studiously avoided involvement in any confrontation with Margaret.

  Bob thought Vince was standing up and stepping in at last to the confrontation with the “tyrant," as all whispered when she was not present, of the faculty lounge. It’d be a two-to-one vote as to who controlled the television and a witness that he had not physically touched Margaret. Vince standing up might be a crucial point to argue after school when, yet again, he was summoned to the office to answer Margaret’s accusations.

  But Vince was not facing them at all; he was at the window, splitting open a couple of the dust-covered blinds and looking out to the front of the school. A blue sedan had pulled up directly by the walkway entrance, in a no parking or standing zone. Three men were piling out, dressed in black, reaching into the back seats, and pulling out satchels to sling over their shoulders. One of them stood straight up. He was holding a rifle aloft in one hand.

  “What in hell are those sons of bitches doing?” Vince cried, his voice rising and cracking.

  Margaret turned her wrath away from Bob to begin chiding Vince for his inappropriate use of language on school grounds, a definite violation as well, then went silent.

  “Are those guns? They aren’t allowed to do that!” she cried.

  Bob turned away from
the television to look out the window.

  “Merciful God in heaven, it’s happening!” he gasped.

  The three men rushed toward the front entrance. The way the wing of the main building was angled toward the parking lot and main entrance, Bob could see the front entrance, which was less than a hundred feet away.

  Charlie, their elderly security and resource officer, was actually exiting the front door, his only weapon a taser and pepper spray, both of them still latched and buttoned securely to his belt.

  In these first seconds Bob simply could not react. Though the analogy was something from before his time, he remembered reading how some folks described such a moment of frightful shock as being like an old record that kept skipping and playing the same line over and over: this can’t be real, this can’t be real, this can’t be real…

  It became very real when the leader of the group slowed, raised a pistol and calmly put a 9mm hollow point bullet into Charlie’s head from twenty feet away, the old man collapsing like a broken doll.

  “Jesus Christ this is it!” Bob cried but it took several seconds for him to reach into his pocket for his Ruger.

  Margaret started to scream, backing up against the wall, ironically still clutching the television remote control. Vince turned back from the window, gasping, and began to sag against the window frame, sobbing, already in a state of shock at the sight of the back of Charlie’s head exploding from the impact of the round.

  Bob had played this scenario out in his mind hundreds of times. Nearly every day that he walked down the corridor to his office and classroom area he’d ask himself, "What do I do if…? What do I do?" But he had never played this one out in his mind: What do I do if I am in the faculty lounge, it's lunchtime and not one, but three, gunmen storm the building, burdened down with multiple weapons, and blow the brains out of our kind, elderly security guard on the front lawn of the school as their opening move?