Dead shot, p.22
Dead Shot, page 22
The pistol was snug in the waistband of his jeans, beneath the floppy T-shirt, but he needed the contents of a plastic bag that he had left in the bathroom and the big gun that was hidden in the air-conditioning vent of his room.
It was difficult to buy a good weapon in the People’s Republic of San Francisco, but back in the late 1980s, American law enforcement had turned a blind eye toward al Qaeda representatives who had made many open purchases at gun shows around the country. Those guns were believed to be for export to Afghanistan and the war against the Soviets, but a number of them went into secret caches such as the one that had been stored in northern California. He had picked up an Armalite civilian knockoff of the famous.50 caliber Barrett, which had been purchased from a gun show in Sacramento. There was a little.22 Bushmaster, too, but Juba wanted the big kick.
He dumped his drink and circled the block to approach the motel from a direction that could not be seen by the front desk, sauntered up the single flight of stairs, and was quickly into the corner room. The maid had already been by to clean up and prepare the bed, and the room had fresh towels and the smell of pine aerosol. He stole the towels and pushed them into the plastic bag with the box of Clairol Nice’n Easy hair coloring, then unscrewed the wall vent with a tiny screwdriver on his army knife and pulled out the Armalite in its carrying case. Four minutes after entering the room, he was out. Time mattered now, and he still had chores to do.
A hospital located twenty miles from the baseball stadium was commonly known as “the Saints.” It had been founded by Mormons as a business and charitable venture; the Latter-day Saints sold it to the Catholic Church in 1993, and it was renamed St. Mary’s Hospital. Sick people did not care which saints were in charge as long as the doctors and nurses took care of them. The Saints encompassed four floors of a modern building and had earned a reputation as a top-rated trauma center.
The previous day, Juba had picked out an apartment about two hundred yards away from the Saints, and now he drove there and parked in an empty space behind the low building. He went up the inside stairwell and needed only thirty seconds to pick the lock. It was the middle of a sunny afternoon, and the dead bolt had not been engaged by the young mother watching television. She only had time to turn in surprise when she heard the door open; Juba shot her before she could scream. He carefully went through the apartment and found a little boy playing in a bedroom. The kid looked up just before the trigger was pulled. Juba pulled the dead woman into the light blue bathroom that smelled like daisies and dumped her in the white bathtub. Her four-year-old son was placed atop her body. The gunman dipped a washcloth in the boy’s blood and wrote his name on the tile: JUBA.
In the refrigerator, there was some leftover chicken in a covered bowl, which he heated in the microwave and brought into the living room with a dish of cold potato salad. As he ate lunch, he studied the unobstructed view from the window: a large white sign with EMERGENCY ROOM printed in large blue letters and a concrete ramp that jutted into the driveway to allow ambulance drivers to back right up to it and wheel their gurneys smoothly from the vehicle and straight into the trauma unit.
Then it was back to the garage.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“About seven hundred and fifty million passengers flew on some eleven million flights from U.S. airports last year,” said Lieutenant Commander Freedman, surging around the Internet. “That’s a lot of faces for the computer to look at, and they won’t find anything if he rented a car and drove somewhere.”
“Damn, Liz. Don’t even think like that,” said Sybelle Summers. The Trident group was bored. They liked answers crisp and quick. The coffee was stale and so was the air.
“We have people on it down in Florida,” said Carolyn Walker. “If he’s there, we’ll find him.”
“That means Juba has split our resources yet again,” Kyle said. “First Boston and now Tampa-St. Pete.”
“Not much down there,” said Walker.
General Middleton looked up from working the New York Times crossword puzzle. “Right. Nothing at all. Just sunshine and MacDill Air Force Base and the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve jacked security to the max around them.”
The doorknob turned and Special Agent David Hunt came in. “He is still on the move. Flew from Tampa to Denver.”
Middleton swept the newspaper from the table and stood up. “Oh, fuck,” he growled. “That’s Cheyenne Mountain. Lizard, get me a secure voice link to the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon so they can lock ’em down.”
Walker knew the incredible importance of the system that was the electronic heart of the nation’s defenses. “That facility is buried two thousand feet underground. It’s heavily guarded and can be completely sealed off. Those people are totally safe from any gas attack.”
Kyle Swanson grimaced. “Their families aren’t. Even so, I can’t see that as the attack point. Not a big enough crowd, and the security level is always high throughout that area.”
“Then where is he going to hit?” asked Walker. “What is drawing him to these places?”
“Think about targets,” Kyle answered. “Juba wants a huge splash, something bigger than London. We don’t see it yet, but he does. He is not moving at random.”
SAN FRANCISCO
Xavier Sandoval found the garage address without difficulty, stopped the yellow Diablo Gourmet truck, and honked his horn. Juba pushed a button inside and the main garage door rolled back. Sandoval steered the truck inside and parked beside a huge SUV.
“Welcome, brother,” said Juba, embracing the man as a friend. “How do you feel after such a long drive?”
“Tired, but not too bad. I have grown to hate talk radio.” Sandoval laughed. He drank from a cold bottle of water offered by Juba. “You are aware of the police bulletins that are out with your name and description.”
Juba pointed to the little television set. “I have been watching most of the day. My parents have been arrested, but the Crusaders still have not figured out what is going to happen. We remain in control, but we must hurry. I hope you have a few more hours of work left in you.”
“That is why I am here, brother.”
They put on coveralls and stacked four fifty-pound sacks of ammonium nitrate fertilizer across the width of the SUV cargo compartment, which could handle up to a ton of payload. A small fork lift was used to hoist a single, heavy fifty-five-gallon drum of liquid nitromethane and carefully nudge it forward against the barrier of bags; then they packed four more sacks of fertilizer along the near side of the drum. Their work was fast and silent, and they moved with determination, climbing inside the Excursion to secure the deadly pyramid of explosive components with strong fabric straps. A blue and white striped awning, common at tailgate parties, was arranged over the stack and anchored by several plastic picnic coolers, lawn chairs, and a folding table. The forty-four-gallon gasoline tanks were topped off with a series of five-gallon cans. Then both took quick showers and washed off the stink and any residue from the dangerous mixture.
Once Juba and Sandoval were clean and dressed in fresh clothing, they pulled a rug from the little office area and spread it out, knelt down facing toward the east, and offered prayers to Allah. Two hours until game time.
Juba tested the circuit of a digital detonator, set it for four hours, and plugged it into four bricks of C-4 explosive that were tied together.
“Let’s go to the ballpark,” he said. The big door rolled up, and Juba drove away in the Excursion, followed by the Diablo Gourmet truck. The smells inside the SUV were overpowering and forced him to crank up the air conditioner all the way. He sprayed a couple of cans of air freshener back over his shoulder. Even that wasn’t enough, and he reluctantly opened the front windows for circulation, but not the blackened rear portals.
At the stadium, he joined one of the lines entering the parking lot, and the nineteen-year-old cash collector twitched her nose at the odor coming from the big SUV. “Gosh, mister, that’s some kinda smell!”
“Uh-huh. I run a lawn service,” said Juba. “Ordinarily I would have cleaned it, but I wanted to get here early to set up the tailgate. Me and my buddies got seats right by the Yankee dugout.” He smiled at her. “Hey, you looking for another job? Pay you good wages to muck out this truck every day.”
She took the money and gave him a ticket to put on his dashboard. “No way. Not with, like, that smell. You ain’t got that much money. Enjoy the game.”
He followed the striped lines until he found a parking spot near the edge of AT &T Park, where he got out and closed and locked the door. The truck had an American flag decal on a heavily tinted window, and a green bumper sticker proudly announced: MY DAUGHTER IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT TURNER MIDDLE SCHOOL. Juba considered those signs to be urban camouflage. The Excursion weighed seven thousand pounds, was almost nineteen feet long, and stood six and one-half feet tall but would not draw a second glance in any parking lot.
Still an hour before the first pitch. Beautiful evening. Sellout crowd.
Instead of entering the stadium, Juba walked across the parking lot and found a taxi heading out after dropping off a passenger. He gave directions to go to the apartment building across from the Saints. When he was in position, he called Xavier Sandoval, who was parked about a mile from the ballpark. The game was about to begin.
“A NOTHER MATCH ! H E’S HOPSCOTCHING all over the place,” said Dave Hunt. “He went out of Denver on a flight to San Francisco. Anything of great military value out there, General?”
“No, not anymore.”
“We are scrambling the West Coast people to check the hotels and motels, and the cops are getting a readout that he might be in their area. Maybe he’s just passing through there, too.”
“Could he be going after some other government installation, say, a courthouse, like in Oklahoma City?” Sybelle didn’t believe it but was just throwing out ideas.
“Every city has government buildings. He would not have to keep moving around so much to attack one.”
“Maybe a big mall? A theme park.”
“Anywhere in the U.S.A., but none that are unusual or noteworthy in those three cities.”
Kyle Swanson was barely listening. There was nothing he could do but wait and try to think like a sniper stalking a target. He picked up the sports section of the Times. The newspaper was great at covering the rest of the world but totally hometown oriented when it came to sports. The lead story was the pitching rivalry for today’s game between the Yankees and…Tampa-St. Pete. Denver. San Francisco. The cities tumbled around in his brain like dice in a cup, and when spilled onto a table, dice always form a pattern.
Stalk the target. Forget a hit on any military installation because the word was out and the guards were alert. Tampa-St. Pete. Denver. San Francisco. What do they have in common? No huge conventions going on. No presidential visit. Vacation time in the summer and people in a laid-back mode. Old people in Florida, modern cowtown in Denver, political antiwar nutcakes in San Francisco. Nothing remotely connecting them there. Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, and Tampa Bay Bucs in pro football, but in separate conferences because they were spread across the country. The Devil Rays, the Rockies, and the Giants in major league baseball. Big stadiums. Can’t-miss targets. Yes. That’s what I would do.
Swanson poked his finger onto the newspaper story. “The game. I’ll bet that he’s going after the baseball game between the Yankees and the Giants. More than forty thousand people will be there, sitting around peacefully in neat rows, waiting to be killed, with hardly any security to protect them.”
The room went silent for a few heartbeats as they stared at each other. Then Carolyn Walker and David Hunt crashed out of the door and started yelling orders to their people.
T HE BOMB IN THE Excursion exploded during the third inning, raking the parking lot and shattering the broad edge of the urban ballpark, collapsing part of the wall into a pile of bricks. The first thought for San Francisco residents was that it was an earthquake, a feeling that lasted only a moment, until some people recognized the explosion and started yelling, “Terrorists!” Ballplayers ran from the field, and fans stormed the exits, leaping over seats, pushing up and down the stairs, and trampling the slow, the infirm, and the small. The stampede steered away from the destroyed side of the stadium, and there was no thought by those in the outfield bleachers of waiting for a slow ferry-boat to take them back across the bay. Run! They poured across the green field and out through the concrete tunnels looking for a way out, fighting for a place in the mob to reach a front exit, and adding to the panic.
Police warnings were ignored. Arguments flared, fists and elbows were thrown, and several shots rang out and people fell, ignored by those who were still running. Safety was at the end of the tunnels. Just get out of the stadium and everything would be okay. Screams howled behind them, rising from the stands.
Two minutes after the big car bomb explosion, Xavier Sandoval drove his yellow truck away from the vendors’ loading docks at the stadium and stalled it in the path of the fleeing crowd. He ripped out the ignition wires and activated the roof vents and fans, jumped from the cab, and ran for the street. With a hissing sound that could not be heard above the noise, the aerosol spray rose from the poison canisters in the truck bed and spewed into the air, riding the slight breeze into a slow, lazy arc as it settled onto the frightened men, women, and children who were running right into the misty veil that was softly falling across the kill zone.
23
X AVIER S ANDOVAL WAS A nervous man by the time he arrived at the apartment complex. He had run as fast as he could for several blocks, ignoring the chaos creeping behind him, until his breath and limbs began to falter. Traffic had slowed, then stopped as drivers gaped in astonishment at the smoke roiling from the ballpark explosion. He punched one, threw the man out of the way, and jumped behind the steering wheel, hijacking the car. A sharp turn down an alley and Sandoval accelerated from the danger zone, his shirt soaked in sweat.
He parked in the apartment lot and sat still, breathing deeply and trying to convince himself that he had escaped the poison gas. Leaving the keys in the ignition as instructed, he staggered up the concrete stairs and found the door that Juba had designated. When it opened, he almost did not recognize the man.
Juba had showered and changed the color of his hair to midnight black. The hair itself had grown ragged around the edges since he had left Iran, and he had not shaved since entering the United States and had several days’ growth of beard, giving him the distinctive look of a foreigner. He wore owlish glasses with round gold frames. If police were profiling suspects to identify suspicious Middle Eastern males, Juba would have fit the image.
Sadoval came inside and locked the door, then sat on a chair and looked up. “The package was delivered. I will never forget this day.”
“You did a perfect job,” Juba told him with a pat on the shoulder. The man’s courage is slipping. “Almost finished now.”
A television set was on in the corner, showing wide shots of the carnage from a helicopter while reporters who were safe within their studios broadcast the warnings for everyone to avoid the area of the ballpark. It was a poison gas attack, and authorities were saying the material was still in the air. Police had established barricades and were evacuating people as fast as possible. The high camera showed the flashing lights of ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks popping bright colors across a multitude of bodies. Among those fallen at odd angles were the uniformed figures of first responders who had tried to help and transferred the poisonous gel to their own skins. The entire rescue effort had slowed to a crawl until the emergency personnel were ordered into their hazmat suits.
In the apartment, Juba heard sirens wailing, coming to the Saints. “Are you ready?”
Sandoval gulped. “Yes.”
“I have set up this position carefully for you. The rifle is loaded and ready, and you have a clear line of sight. When the ambulances arrive, open fire on the hospital personnel, the patients, the police, bystanders…anyone. We want to create pandemonium in a place that everyone perceives as safe. Keep firing until the clip is empty, then reload and use the second clip, and then the third. Take your time, because no one is going to be coming over here in the face of such hostile action. Then drop the rifle, take the car, and leave.”
“And you, my brother? I do not know about being a sniper, but you do.”
“I’m going to another position higher up and wait until after you shoot. Let them get back to work, thinking the danger is over. That is when I strike. It will be devastating.” He moved to the door as the sirens came closer. “I will be in contact soon. Good hunting, brother. You have done well.”
Sandoval watched a police car roll up, lights flashing, with a bright green fire truck on its bumper, their sirens gliding to a finishing growl. He was hidden in the shadow of the room. The scene was frightening, as everyone was wearing the bulky hazmat suits, some of different colors but moving like awkward ghosts with no faces, helping injured people they had ferried over from the disaster site. Workers in similar protective gear rushed out of the trauma center, facing the problem of working on horribly injured patients without touching them.
Two ambulances came shrieking in, only to find their way to the ER door narrowed by the emergency vehicles. Everything came to a halt for a moment, and Sandoval had his rifle resting on pillows stacked on a small ledge that separated the kitchen and the living area. His eye was at the scope.
Three nurses, an orderly, and a doctor, all in suits, gathered behind an ambulance, and an attendant swung out to open the rear door. A stretcher was pulled free, the wheels popped down, and the doctor leaned over to make a triage decision on a patient who had been lacerated by the car bomb and was bathed in blood. Another patient was taken out of the back of the vehicle, and a second team moved in on him. Sandoval heard more distant sirens.
