Day of Wrath Read online

  The frenzy would build. The planners had calculated it well and had laughed over it. Thus it now unfolded and the time to launch Sword Two had come.

  There was no need to send the final message, all who were trained knew the exact moment, but in his arrogant delight he ordered the message to be sent anyhow: "Sword Two." After sending the message, the transmitting phone was left active in the corner of a captured Christian church near Raqqa, the messenger laughing as he drove off.

  Sword Two had already begun in some places such as Austin, Syracuse, and near Portland Maine, ahead of schedule. Attack teams began to pull out of hotel parking lots which, in less than a minute, put them on the American interstates, highways built as copies of the German autobahns, ironically ordered as a defense measure in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

  Sword Two was made up of teams of two to three jihadist martyrs. There was a driver, armed with a 9mm pistol for a final defense, and one or two gunmen armed with AK-47s, each with thirty or more clips of jacketed rounds. Simply get on the highway, swing alongside cars, preferably those with a number of passengers, and shoot the driver. Tractor trailers were sweet targets: drive up, send several shots through the door, then speed on, hoping the truck jackknifes. Even better if it is carrying petrol or some hazardous material.

  The team that roared onto Interstate 40 near Knoxville headed east for the connection to Interstate 81 and hit their jackpot in the first two minutes. A tractor trailer hauling petrol swerved out of control, the holy warrior laughing that he had hit the driver in the head with his first shot. All of the mayhem that ensued was created by a single 7.62 round fired from a Kalashnikov. That opening move proved how simple the plan was, how effective it was, and it created joyful anticipation of all that they could accomplish in the next few hours.

  The truck crashed through the flimsy highway barrier into the westbound lanes, rolling over, gasoline spilling out, bursting into flames and seconds later exploding. Two more trucks were taken out by the Knoxville attack team in less than a minute, one on each side of the highway, sealing the road off in both directions.

  Two hundred miles further east, on I-40, a Sword Two unit was now working in cooperation with the Sword One unit that had stormed an elementary school several miles to the west of Hickory. From the highway they could see that the school was burning and traffic was backed up on the exit ramp. The American parents were in complete panic; apparently an accident occurred at the top of the ramp blocking the exit. Vehicles were swinging on to the grassy berm to get around the bottleneck, but since it had rained heavily the night before, many were bogging down, wheels spinning.

  The team of three actually broke their trained procedure for the moment, so rich was their target now. Coming to a stop, one of the killers shot the driver of the car behind them and triggered a chain reaction accident involving several dozen cars.

  The jihadists then exited their vehicle and stood along the side of the road, calling on their god, laughing as they turned the traffic jam at the exit ramp into target practice, one ordering the other to take aimed single shots and not waste ammunition on such easy targets. Several dozen frantic parents were slaughtered in little more than a minute. It was almost too easy, they thought, as they got back into their car and pressed on westward.

  Nearly all of the other teams stuck to their training in those first minutes. On Interstate 287, the outer ring of New York City, thirty cars were taken off the road in the first five minutes. At a jammed exit ramp near the school under attack in Bakersfield, California, nearly as many parents were now dead as students in the school.

  In reality, the casualty rate in the schools was just now beginning to soar as captive children were herded into the gym, to drag out the agony of what the response team thought would be negotiations. All negotiations were a sham of course; a knife could kill quietly, even gruesomely, while those surrounding the building outside heard nothing from the locker rooms where the slaughter was taking place, and thought they were talking their opponents into laying down their weapons.

  Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Wheeling, West Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, Little Rock, Arkansas, Crete, Nebraska, Salt Lake City, Utah, Phoenix, Arizona, and along remote stretches of highway such as south of Valdosta, Georgia, and northward along I-77 into West Virginia, the thirty-plus teams of Sword Two were unleashing death. The roads were packed with parents bent on reaching their children, most not even seeing death racing up behind them or about to pass in the opposite direction.

  Only one team of Sword Two had been completely stopped in those first minutes due to a random encounter with a county sheriff in an unmarked car near Kingston, New York. It was one of those “one in a million” moments, but all plans, even the best laid ones, are prone to a random factor. The officer had served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with a military police unit. He, like nearly every police officer in America, was racing to secure a community school in the minutes after Sword One was unleashed. As he approached the entry ramp over the interstate, which at this location was part of the New York Turnpike, he saw the attack vehicle with its two gunmen who were heading to the Turnpike to start their attack.

  A flash of recognition.

  What drew his attention were the windows of the vehicle. All of them were down and the day was chilly. He looked closer. Could the man in the passenger seat actually be that particularly troublesome bastard from the prison near Baghdad, one who had taunted him back in 2009, when the administration decided to release thousands of such prisoners, that they would meet again, in America? There was a brief instant of eye contact and the way the man reacted caught him now as well. Even innocent folks would do a bit of a double take if they suddenly realized that a police officer was staring at them. But guilty of something? They would either try to brazen it out by staring back with an “I ain’t done nothing wrong so why in hell are you looking at me,” look or a quick furtive turning away of the eyes, acting as if they had not seen him, but then catching occasional sidelong glances to see if he was still studying them.

  This one started the nervous sidelong glances, then turned to say something to the driver of the car, looking back over his shoulder as their car sped down the entry ramp. They were wearing black and it looked as if there were shoulder straps for vests, the type of vests used for combat gear.

  Procedure as a county sheriff was to call the Turnpike police, but to hell with procedure on this day! He swung his vehicle about and raced onto the Turnpike in pursuit. They were already speeding up. Only months earlier, sitting up at two in the morning, he had watched the video released by ISIS showing them blowing cars off a major highway while music in praise of their god played. It was expert video, filmed with Go-Pro cameras, with laughter and taunts as background noise as they machine-gunned carloads of refugees.

  And now the slaughter was about to happen here. It was confirmed by puffs of smoke, followed by a car that they were passing swerving off the highway, fragments of broken glass spilling across the road. He radioed in the report, what he was going to do, and, without throwing on his lights he accelerated quickly, ramming the back of the attacker’s car.

  He eased back on the gas for several seconds; his car was loaded with a lot more horsepower than the jihadists', and then swung to their left. The gunman leaned out the open window to shoot him, but the former MP knew his game, ducking low as a couple of shots shattered his windshield. He floored the gas pedal, advanced to near parallel with the killers, cut hard across, and rammed the side of their car. The two vehicles spun out of control. The three jihadists and the sheriff were dead a few seconds later.

  It was the only complete failure for ISIS in the opening minutes of Sword Two.

  Near Portland, Maine

  The incessant ringing of her cell phone finally jarred Kathy Petersen out of her hysteria. She had been leaning on the horn of her car for several minutes, cursing the driver in front of her for blocking the entry ramp to the interstate. The overpass t
o the entry ramp was packed with stalled traffic. The phone call was again from her friend Mary Browning; she ignored it, looking up to realize that the driver she had been swearing at was out of his car, walking back to her.

  Instinctively she reached for the pistol tucked into her jeans pocket. Was he one of them?

  She held the pistol up and the man slowed, raising his hands, actually appearing to smile nervously as he stepped backward several feet then slowly motioned for her to roll her window down.

  “Hey look lady, don’t blame me, the road ahead is blocked. Can you back up so I can get out of this jam?”

  He again motioned for her to lower her pistol, which she did, then pointed forward, repeating his appeal.

  He was right, cars were backed up across the entire approach to the interstate. A state police car, just out of sight until now, blocked the road, lights flashing.

  “I have to get to my daughter and husband’s school!” she cried.

  “Which one?”

  “Chamberlain Middle.”

  “That’s where I’m heading too. Can you back up?”

  She got out and looked to the vehicle behind her, the driver staring at her and shouting for her to move. Kathy went to try and talk to her but the woman refused to roll her window down, screaming at her to move it.

  It was gridlock. And then she heard it, sirens approaching fast from the southbound side. They rocketed under the overpass bridge that she was standing on, one of them skidding to a stop while the other pressed on, banking his car across two lanes to block traffic.

  Someone pointed to a plume of smoke that suddenly ignited a mile or so away, screaming that it was the school on fire. She knew the school was more to the right, on the south side of the highway, not the north side, but the hysteria took hold. Whatever was burning was on the highway.

  Sirens again. The state trooper who had stopped down on the highway was out of his vehicle, carrying a rifle, bracing it across the hood of his car. Southbound, cars were moving fast, driven as if every driver were drunk. Flashing blue lights became visible and a dark blue sedan appeared, swerving across two lanes, moving to pass a green SUV. A crackle of gunshots sounded and the side window of the SUV shattered, the car swerving into a sideways skid, the blue sedan racing past it at over ninety miles an hour. The cop down on the highway opened fire, tracking the sedan, but his half dozen shots apparently had no effect. There was only gunfire flashing from the sedan’s rear passenger window in reply.

  Those around Kathy ran to the other side of the overpass, shouting that the sedan was getting away, screaming impotent curses at it while down on the interstate the trooper who had stopped was back into his car, driving through a cut across into the southbound side, joining in the procession of a dozen police cars still in pursuit.

  The shot-up SUV was on its side, crashed into the grassy berm. No one was stopping to help, if help was possible.

  “You still for Chamberlain Middle, lady?”

  She looked back at the middle aged man, dressed in typical “Mainer business”: a blue blazer and shirt with no tie, chinos, and boat shoes.

  “Yes.”

  “My son is a student there. Seventh grade. Let’s see if we can get around this on back roads.”

  She got back into her car and tried to back up but there was less than a foot to spare. She backed up as far as she could until bumpers hit. It gave the man in front of her just enough room to start squeezing his small Fiat back and forth before breaking free of the gridlock, turning about to head in the opposite direction. He actually drove with two wheels up on the walkway as he squeezed between two stalled SUVs similar to hers.

  She sat in her car, not sure whether to wish him good luck or curse him for the way he was taking off. But he stopped, rolled down his window, and motioned for her to get in.

  Without a second thought she abandoned her car, leaving the keys in the ignition so someone could move it if the road was ever cleared. She ran to the passenger side of her benefactor’s car and squeezed in.

  “Never thought I’d like this car, wife insisted we buy it to save on gas,” he offered as she buckled herself into the narrow seat.

  “If it gets us through this, I’ll buy one.”

  “I'm Craig Sullivan, my boy John is at Chamberlain.”

  “Kathy Petersen, my daughter Wendy is in seventh grade, my husband Bob teaches there. We’ve got to get there now.”

  “I know Bob, my son thinks the world of him.”

  There was a moment of silence as he squeezed around a stalled dump truck.

  “Could you switch on my pad so we can check the reporting from the school?"

  She had forgotten to bring hers as she had rushed out the door and was glad to have the link. She picked up his pad from the floor, switched it on, and found the website of a local news station.

  “To repeat the latest news: The governor of Maine has just announced that all schools in the state are in lockdown mode. He has appealed to parents to not approach any school to try and retrieve their children at this time. I am asked to repeat that. Parents are not to try and go to any school within the state. All schools are in lockdown. No one in, no one out. The governor stated that law enforcement have been scrambled to every school, public and private, throughout the state and the children within are secured and safe. No child is to be released until it is felt that the situation is firmly under control.

  “We have several reports now, one from Sanford, Maine, others from outside the state, of parents being mistaken for terrorists and shot. The situation, needless to say, is tense. If you are going to your child’s school, please stop and go home. Your presence can do nothing to help protect your child and might actually hinder our law enforcement and emergency personnel.”

  She lowered the volume and looked in inquiry over at Craig.

  “Screw that,” he snapped. “Chamberlain is in the middle of this and under attack. I told my son that if the crap ever hit the fan, he was to get out of the school and to hell with what any teacher or administrator said.”

  He looked at her, realizing as he spoke that her husband was one of said teachers and that his comment might provoke an angry retort.

  She nodded her head.

  “Agreed. We go to the school,” and she turned the volume up to monitor the news while Craig pressed in the direction of the school.

  The rapidly escalating national panic was fueled even more when one over-excited, self-aggrandizing reporter, who had nearly created a debacle in New Orleans during Katrina when he hysterically reported a total descent into anarchy in the emergency shelter established in the “Superdome,” was now crying that he believed that the attacks were spreading to dozens of schools and that thousands of children were being slaughtered across the nation.

  His pronouncement quickly morphed into a report of fact as it leapt to the social internet sites, causing millions more to give way to their fears and ignore the logical warnings of state governors.

  There was a time when a public official might actually have been trusted, such as the voice of Franklin Delano Roosevelt the day after December 7th, and again Rudy Guiliani in the hours after the World Trade Center had been hit. But whom was actually trusted now?

  Who was trusted when, every day yet a new scandal was revealed? Even before the killing started on this day, public trust in public officials was at its lowest in the history of the Republic.

  Easy enough for a governor to say stay at home, was the first response of millions. His kids are in private school with 24/7 armed security around them. Members of Congress on up to the President? Their kids were in the most expensive Quaker school in the country in an upscale neighborhood of D.C. Few commented how ironic it was, that a religion devoted to complete non-violence, even in the face of this kind of attack, was the most heavily armed and secured school campus in the country, with security posted there round the clock, even in the middle of the night. Any attacker would face a firestorm of steel, complete with helicopter support, w
ithin seconds.

  Who are they to tell us to stay home when our children are dying and theirs are protected?

  And so the roads continued to fill up.

  To add to the irony of it all, the news feed switched to Washington D.C., with a long-distance shot of a helicopter landing on the front lawn of that upscale school in Washington, a flurry of movement around it, heavily armed security forming a perimeter, a reporter announcing that the children of the President were thankfully safe and being airlifted “to an undisclosed location.”

  Kathy watched the brief clip, incredulous at the insensitivity of it all. Never, ever would she wish harm upon that man’s innocent children. But it was an aloof display of the arrogance of power, as if she was to feel relief that at least his children were well protected, while at this very moment, her daughter could be wounded or dead, her husband, wounded or dead. Neither had a swarm of Secret Service agents, marine-piloted helicopters and, undoubtedly at this moment, attack helicopters and fighters, circling over Chamberlain Middle School.

  She was jolted out of her resentful thoughts as Craig slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel. They were driving through a residential neighborhood, flanking the interstate, where traffic was at a complete standstill. The smoke plume they had seen in the distance was now visible, a multi-vehicle pileup on the roadway.