Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (31 page)

PHILADELPHIA POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Commander Choufani was in his office when Lieutenant Hall knocked and entered. “We may have an issue developing, Commander.”

“What’s going on?” Choufani sat up in his chair. Not only was he in charge of the funerals, but, since the burials were in two different locations, the entire Command structure of the Philadelphia Police Department was divided between the two burial sites. Since Choufani had to remain at the Basilica to wrap things up and needed to coordinate both processions, the Police Commissioner had designated him the Acting Commissioner while he was out of the jurisdiction. Choufani had been hoping for a slow day. It seemed like that was not to be.

“Two officers on foot patrol on Market Street were stopped by a family who reported that several of the buildings at Independence Mall had suddenly been closed. They proceeded down to the Mall and ran into two Park Rangers – one of them the H.S. guy — as they headed toward the Federal Building. They said they needed to open up the command center and that there was a hostage situation at the Mall, but they didn’t have the details. The two officers joined them and called in as they went with the Rangers. We dispatched two more units to the Mall. They should be arriving any moment.”

Alice walked in. “We just got a priority one call from the Park Service. This Mall thing is for real. Some group has taken over the Visitor’s Center, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Constitution Center. They are mobilizing at the Federal Building and they are asking for the Commander in Charge to report there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! This is not the day for this.” Choufani stood up. “Get my car. Alice, send out a system wide priority call. I need the Senior Operations team in the City to respond to the Command Center. Activate the SWAT unit and the Homeland Security Task Force and Tactical Teams. Have them mobilize one block west of the Federal Building. Get as many patrol units as you can down there and make sure the Mall is evacuated and the area blocked off. Let’s go, Lieutenant.”

Choufani and the lieutenant ran down the stairs and out to the street. They were only five minutes from the Federal Building with lights and sirens. As they reached the car they heard the dispatch regarding an officer needing assistance in South Philly.

“Damn, when it rains it pours!” Choufani yelled as he scrambled into the car. He pulled out his cell and called into the dispatch center. “This is Choufani. What’s going on with the officer needs help call?” He listened intently as the car sped away from the curb. “A federal agent at a hardware store. What is going on?” He didn’t get an answer and hadn’t expected one. “How many units are responding?” He got an answer on that. “Okay. Keep me posted. Show us enroute to the Emergency Command Center at the Federal Building.” He hung up and looked over at his driver.

“This is one crazy day. Now we’ve got a Fed at a hardware store that has shot a suspect and is requesting medical aid and assistance. No one has any idea what it’s all about.”

His cell phone rang. He looked at the caller I.D. It read “PD Dispatch.” He clicked the button. “Choufani.” He listened intently. “What do you mean no one’s there but a man who’s been shot and cuffed?” No answer. “They searched the entire building?” There was an answer in the affirmative. “Is there a ranking officer on site yet?” He paused to hear the response. “Okay, when the district commander gets on site and gets up to speed, have him call me. Thank you.” He clicked the off button. “I can’t believe this. The first officers on the scene observe a man on the floor with his right elbow smashed by a bullet, bleeding of course and unconscious. God, that must hurt. The one officer knows the guy’s the store clerk and there’s a 9mm Glock on the floor. There’s no Fed around, but they find a .40 S&W shell casing on the floor. They searched the whole store and the apartment upstairs – belongs to the owners. Nothing. Not a damn sign of anyone. They don’t know what’s going on down there.”

His phone chirped again. He looked at the screen it was Alice. “Hi, what’s going on?” He listened intently and it wasn’t good. “Can they get to him? Are the paramedics there? Okay, you call the Command Center. Make sure they’re up to speed tell them we’ll pull up outside in about two minutes.” He added, “And, ahh, Alice? It’s going to be a long day — even longer then we imagined. So, thanks in advance.” He clicked off. “We have a man down in front of Independence Hall. No one knows if they can get to him or not. Maybe they can. The initial word is these are kids holding the buildings and no one saw any adults with them. This is getting stranger by the minute.”

The car came to a halt behind the Federal Building. As Choufani stepped out, all he could hear in all directions were sirens on vehicles in response to the scene. He knew they would only have about a third of the manpower an operation like this required. He had no idea what the outcome in South Philly would be and how much in resources he would have to dedicate there.

They quickly moved through the lobby of the Federal Building where there was an elevator to take them to the third floor and the Command Center at the center of the building. As they entered the room through the security vestibule, Choufani immediately noticed several people whom he did not recognize, persons who seemed to be in command of the team, the team including several of his officers. He came up beside them and announced. “I’m Deputy Commander Choufani with the Philadelphia Police Department, acting as Commissioner until full command staff is returned to the city. Your turn. Who are all of you?”

Everyone turned to look. Jordan glanced at him, murmured, “Hi,” then returned to the computer screen he watched. “Can you get a closer image of the building?” he asked the technician.

“Hold on a second! You don’t give commands here!”

Stan stepped between them.

“I’m Stan Kershaw, Acting Director of the FBI. My associates here, Max, Jordan and William, are with various Federal agencies, the initials of which don’t really concern us now. What you need to know, Commander, is you have the best and the brightest in handling terrorists and they’re right here in this room. So, we can pull the bulls tail about turf for the next forty-five minutes, or we can put that aside and get down to the business at hand. It’s your call.”

Choufani was taken aback. He knew the name and reputation of Stan Kershaw. When it came to Kershaw, who in law enforcement didn’t. He’d heard story after story of Kershaw. The image had always been of a “James Bond” type. Choufani glanced over to one of the local FBI agents he knew.

The agent laughed as he saw Choufani’s expression. “Yes, it’s really him.”

“Okay, sir. I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Choufani told Kershaw.

“Yeah, I always get that. They think I should be taller. Here’s what we’ve got, Commander. Four buildings have been taken over by a sleeper terrorist cell. They’re holding about one hundred hostages in total. There are some of the perps who are armed. We don’t know any numbers on that. They have yet to make contact, so we don’t know what the demands are going to be.”

“Sounds pretty straight forward for SWAT and the Critical Incident team.”

“Well, it does until I tell you the kicker. Your terrorists in those buildings, they range in age from eleven to seventeen.” Stan looked straight in Choufani’s eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Kids had taken over the buildings and shot a man? “Okay, what else do we know?”

“Jordan. Can you come over and brief the Commander?” Stan waved Jordan over.

Jordan shook the Commander’s hand. “I’m Jordan Wright.”

“Really?” Choufani asked.

“It’s me.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you. My Homeland Security guys think you’re the sole reason we don’t have more attacks.”

“You’ve got a good group, sir.” Jordan led Choufani over to the map of Independence Mall. “We followed four groups into the Mall this morning. We didn’t have enough intel to know exactly what they had planned. For all we knew, the kids could’ve been on a field trip. A man named Mustafa Alfani dropped them off. He’s the leader of a group of families who, over the years, emigrated from Iran. One of the parents of one of the boys approached us several days ago. In our interview, we felt he gave us credible information. So we did surveillance of his store in South Philly. It’s a hardware store.”

“South Philly Hardware?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“We had a call there twenty minutes ago. An officer needing help but, when my team got there, they only found an employee shot and no one else.”

“That would be me.” The whole room looked over at the door as Kate entered. She walked up to Choufani. “I’m Kate Woolrich. I’m with the Central Security Service, part of the NSA. I was extracting our informant when the suspect was about to kill him. We need to trace the last call the suspect – the guy I shot — received, because I believe he was given the order to kill just as I entered the store.”

“Okay, okay.” Choufani needed to draw this conversation back to what he needed to know. “How involved has my department been in this?”

Jordan, Stan and Max all looked at each other and then at Choufani. “Since we came to Philadelphia five days ago, we worked with your terrorism task force.”

“Yeah, okay. Let me explain. I’m the administrative commander. I haven’t been in Operations for several years, so I tend to fall out of the loop. I’m senior today because of the two officers being buried.”

“We know and we have additional information on their deaths we need to share. Payoff in their deaths, along with the other five, are connected to what’s happening now.” Stan stated. He looked over at Kate and gave her a meaningful eyebrow shrug.

Kate nodded and began to fill Choufani in on what her team had found about the police murders, the suspects and the large payments to the families.

“So they did that just to take over the Mall?” Choufani said, incredulous.

Stan jumped back in. “We don’t know for sure. This may be a diversion. They know we’ll waste a lot of time trying to figure out a strategy, since kids are involved. They’re playing to our emotions. The real target could be elsewhere.”

A phone rang in the command center. “It’s the phone at the security desk at the Liberty Bell Center.” A technician took the receiver in his hand. The lead negotiator for the Incident Command unit looked at Choufani.

Choufani looked at Stan. “Should my guy take the call?”

“I think that’s the right move.” Stan nodded.

The negotiator moved toward the phone.

“Hello, this is Carl. Who’s this?” He waited for a response, got one. “So, hello, Aziz.”

There was a grunt.

“How old a young man are you and why don’t you tell me what’s going on in there?”

Chapter Sixty-Four

INDEPENDENCE MALL ONE HOUR AGO

Aziz lined up the children once they had made it through the entryway of the building housing the Liberty Bell. Since he’d visited the building so many times, he knew the layout well. Off to the side, before the security checkpoint, was a small janitor’s closet, to which Mustafa had provided a key. The previous day, when Mustafa was checking in on his crew, he’d placed a box inside that closet, as he had hidden similar boxes in each of the buildings.

Aziz opened the door and inside were two of the handguns from the store room at the hardware store. Aziz took both of them and tucked them into each of his jacket pockets. They were bulky and noticeable, but that would not be a problem for long. Spare magazines for the pistols went into his pants pockets. Also inside the closet were two heavy cables and large padlocks, which would be used to secure the doors. The last of the children moved through the security checkpoint so Aziz stood by the entrance door and pulled the cable from beneath his coat, strung it through the door handles and secured the looped ends into the lock.

“Hey kid! Get away from the door! What do you think you’re doing?” The guard who’d just spoken made his away from behind the security desk and walked determinedly toward Aziz.

Aziz pulled out one of the pistols and used it just as he’d been taught. He shot the guard twice. The guard took the bullets in the stomach and fell back to the floor as the visitors inside turned toward the noise.

Aziz went up to his group. “Everyone knows what to do. Stay with your partner and carry out what was instructed. Everything is going to work out.” The children paired up and went to various parts of the exhibit. The oldest children approached the adults and families in the facility and guided them to the center of the room. Other children started to emptied their back packs.

Within minutes, they took the PVC pipe and pieced it together to make a frame while others unpacked canvas sheets and attached them to the frames. The frames were stood up at points in the building perimeter and curtained large expanses of glass, so it would preclude anyone being able to see inside. Several of the other children placed electronic devices in various locations around the building and included several next to the Liberty Bell itself.

Aziz addressed the hostages. “We mean you no harm as long as you cooperate with us and do as you are told. We’re here to make a statement for our beloved homeland of Iran and our beloved Allah. We brought our fight here to demonstrate that your so-called liberties mean nothing to the rest of the world. We will bring your country to its knees and it will beg forgiveness from our Ayatollah. In a short period of time, your country will respect Iran and the other nations of the Islamic world as the true super powers and the countries which all other nations must respect!” Most in the crowd stared, bewildered and in shock that their planned day to visit the birthplace of the United States had placed them in the middle of this terrorist act.