Inside Threat (26 page)

“I swear, I don't have it!”

The man with the bag nodded to his partner standing next to him. The gunman reached across three people, grabbed Robbins, and lifted him out.

The man with the bag pressed the muzzle of a pistol to Robbins forehead. “What's your name?”

“Robbins. Dennis Robbins. Congressman,” he sputtered.

Khadi saw the two terrorists exchange a glance.

“What's your cell number? And if you give me a wrong number, I'm pulling the trigger!”

Robbins rapidly rattled off a number. Then sucked in a breath when the gunman lowered the pistol and pulled a phone from his own pocket.

The terrorist dialed the number Robbins had given, then held the phone to his side. A mechanical hum sounded in the sudden quietness. The woman who was sitting next to Robbins's empty seat gasped.

“She didn't know it was in there! I swear! I put it in when—”

Robbins's protests were silenced by the stock of an AK-103 coming down across his head. He dropped to the ground. The men began kicking him with their boots, continuing until there was no more movement. The man with the bag knelt down and felt for a pulse on Robbins's neck. Satisfied with what he felt, he nodded to the other man.

Standing back up, he said to the quaking woman, “Give me his phone.”

With trembling hands she pulled it out of her purse and passed it to him.

“Do you swear before God that you had no knowledge of what this man did?”

“I-I s-s-swear,” she said, barely keeping control.

“Very well.” The terrorist popped the battery off the back of the phone. The battery went into his bag, but the phone he dropped onto the tile floor. Lifting his leg, he drove his heel onto the phone, crushing it.

“A warning: do not mistake my mercy for weakness,” he said. Then he moved on.

Why did it matter that he was a congressman?
Khadi asked herself.
Other peopple have been killed without a second thought. But the congressman was just beaten.

Then another thought hit her.

“Oh no,” she said out loud.

“What is it?” asked Gladys.

The man with the bag was now only four rows away.

“I dialed CTD, then stashed my phone in the back of the church. They'll want to know where it is.”

The man stepped forward a row.

“Then take mine,” Gladys said.

“No way. They'll want to know where your phone is.”

“Take it . . . and trust me,” Gladys ordered, putting her phone and battery into Khadi's hands, then wrapping her small fingers around Khadi's, sealing the deal.

The man with the bag moved forward another row and glared at Khadi and Gladys. Khadi slowly raised her hands with the battery in one and the phone in the other.

After collecting all the batteries from the row in front, he stepped next to Khadi. She handed him the battery from her hand, followed by one after another as all the batteries were passed down the row.

“Where is your phone?” he asked Gladys.

“I don't carry one of those gadgets. They're annoying and rude,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“Everyone has a phone,” the man countered angrily. “Give me yours!”

“Listen, young man, I didn't have a phone in my house until after I was married, and somehow I found a way to get along just fine. So, I'll be danged if, just because it's the twenty-first century, I'm going to be tied to one of those devices twenty-four hours a day!”

“I don't believe you! Everyone has a phone!”

“I don't care what you believe! And you watch your tone with me, young man! I didn't make it to ninety years old just to have nasty young punks like you give me sass. Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself! I can hear in your voice that you're American born and bred. If I were your mother—”

The gunman had heard enough. He leaned in and pulled his hand back. Khadi lunged forward and grabbed his arm before he could strike. Her grip was strong, and he looked at her, surprised.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, quickly softening her grip. “My grandmother doesn't always know what she's saying. Please, forgive me. I'll control her.”

Leaning back out of the row, the man said, “You'd better.”

“Control me? You're going to control me? Listen, little girl, I remember putting you over my knee and spanking your bare behind when you were just a tyke, and I'm not afraid to do it again today.”

“Just shut her up,” the bagman said before moving on.

“I will. Thank you,” Khadi said. “Grandma, hush now.”

The men with the bags finished their circulation and returned to the front. A group of them conferenced with the general, then moved to the side wings of the sanctuary. Soon all the people from that seating area began moving into the nave.

Once everyone was in the main sanctuary, the terrorists began a long process of sorting people into groups. Khadi could count three. One seemed to be collecting all the celebrity politicians. Another contained primarily women and the few children that were in the building. The third seemed to be a hodgepodge of those who didn't really fit into either category.

Helpless and frustrated, all Khadi could do was watch.
Please, Scott, come up with something fast. I don't know what they have in mind, but I do know that this isn't going to end well.

But what about you? You need to do something. You can't just wait for Scott while this whole thing goes down! Do something!

Try as she might, Khadi was at a loss. Deflated, defeated, she sagged into her seat. Soon a cold, bony hand opened Khadi's fist and slipped into her grasp. She turned to Gladys and saw her smiling.

“Just give it time, dear. God always finds a way.”

Khadi did her best to smile back. She covered Gladys's hand with her own.
Okay, God, Gladys says you're going to find a way. If you're going to do it, you better do it quickly, or else you're going to end up arriving a little too late, and this party will be over—for all of us.

Thursday, September 15, 10:40 a.m. EDT

Washington, DC

“I don't care about the difficulties, just get me a feed and find her,” Scott commanded Gooey, who was frantically typing on his keyboard.

His words elicited no response from the analyst, nor did he expect one. He was just blowing off steam, and Gooey was the closest one to him. The Danish he'd had for breakfast felt like it was burning a hole in his throat, so he popped a couple of Tums from a roll he kept in his pocket.

He leaned over the media tech's shoulder and eavesdropped on his conversation while watching the dual computer monitors. Gooey was on the phone with Todd Shupe, head of security at the National Cathedral.

Seeing right away the hopelessness of the situation, Shupe had dismissed his entire security staff so they could try to make it off the grounds without getting killed. He, however, had remained behind in the main security office set in the northeast corner of the building.

Shupe had been speaking with the Metropolitan Police when Gooey had cut in. From listening to Gooey's side of the conversation, the MPDC had not been happy about his arrival and demanded he get off the line. But the analyst had quickly decided that it was a better option for the police to go, and had bid them
sayonara
from the call. Now he was walking Shupe through how to give him total access to the cameras and their stored memory.

“Now just type in the password
Shamu the mysterious whale
. . . . No, it's from that U2 song, you know, ‘It's all right, it's all right, it's aaaall right.' . . . Yeah, I know. I've since been informed.”

A small screen popped into a corner of the right monitor. It showed the inside of the National Cathedral. Scott leaned in. He could clearly see movement—people being organized into groups.

“Beautiful, buddy,” Gooey said to Shupe. “Now just hang on while I see if I can . . .” Another small screen popped up. On it was a vertical list identifying
Camera 1
,
Camera 2
, all the way down to
Camera 12
. Gooey double-clicked
Camera 1
, and the same shot came up that was on the other screen, only this one was time-coded three hours earlier.

“Got it! You're the—” Gooey stopped short. “Todd, what's going on? Todd?”

Scott looked at Gooey and saw panic on his usually slack face.

“What?”
Scott mouthed.

Gooey slammed a button on his phone, triggering the speaker.

“Who are you talking to?”
a voice yelled on the phone.

“I told you, I was talking to my wife!”
another voice protested.

“Liar! I'll give you one last chance to tell me the truth!”

There was a pause, then the sound of a scuffle. Then the second voice said,
“I hope you all burn—”

His words were halted by a
whump! whump!
There was some rustling around, and then the first voice, much clearer now, said, “Who is this? Tell me who this is!”

All the analysts had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Scott. Rage filled Scott's heart.
All the good ones—all the good men and women die first!
Every fiber of his being cried out for him to somehow climb through the phone and beat this man to a bloody pulp before finishing him off with a bullet to the brain.
You gotta let it go. Keep it under control. Breathe.

He lifted Gooey's earpiece from the analyst's oily head and held the microphone to his mouth.

“Who are you?” he said through clenched teeth.

“I don't answer questions; I ask them. Now tell me who you are!”

Interesting accent—he's got a little bit of the South in him.

“Okay, you want to know who I am? I'm Scott Ross, director of the counterterrorism division's Special Operations Group Bravo. You'll recognize me as the tall, goateed guy behind the rifle that puts the bullet between your eyes.”

The line clicked dead.

Taking a deep breath, he gently placed the earpiece on the desk. Looking around the room, he saw everyone still watching him. “What? You got nothing to do? Get back to work! Evie, check and see if the ops team is ready to go, then keep working to enhance the audio from Khadi's phone. Joey and Virgil, I still want to know who these people are.” Turning back to the monitors, he said, “Gooey, make these screens larger.”

Gooey didn't move. Scott turned and saw tears in the analyst's puffy eyes.

“Listen, man, I know,” Scott said softly. “I know what you're feeling. It sucks, but it's reality. Shupe's a hero, and we'll make sure everyone knows it. Now it's time for you to be a hero again and help save the rest of those hostages. Got it?”

Gooey grabbed a small ceramic Yoda figurine from off of his desk and hurled it across the room, where it shattered against the wall. He crossed his arms, and the tears began to trickle down his cheeks.

I don't have time for this! Come on, think of something!
An idea popped into his head.

Scott leaned down and whispered into his ear, “You realize you've just defeated a formidable Jedi Master with one swing of your arm. Now, let's find a way to harness that amazing power and use it for good and not evil.”

Gooey turned, and through the tears Scott could see a twinkle back in the man's eyes. The analyst snatched two brown Taco Bell napkins off a stack he kept on a corner of his desk and wiped his eyes. Then he honked his nose with such volume that Scott was sure it threw off the migratory patterns of countless flocks of Canada geese.

Reaching for the mouse, Gooey brought both video feeds up to full screen.

“You're the man, Goo,” Scott said, putting a hand on his moist shoulder. “Let me keep watching live. You cycle through the cameras and give me any that show the sanctuary interior. Then start running through stored video and find me Khadi.”

“Will do,” Gooey answered.

“Ops ready in five,” Evie called out.

“Got it,” Scott acknowledged.

The shot he was looking at showed the front quarter to third of the seating and the chancel area. At the front of the platform stood one man. He seemed to be directing things. There was a flurry of activity all around him—men with guns (he couldn't see how many) and hostages aplenty (again, number unknown).

Then something caught his eye. Amid all the activity, there was one stationary element—an older man, standing back and to the right of the main guy.
Now we see the brains and the heart behind the attack,
Scott thought.
They've got their own junior bin Laden calling the shots.

His screen suddenly divided in half, then into thirds, then fourths, then fifths, then sixths. Each window showed a different angle of the sanctuary.

“These are the best cameras,” Gooey said, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a mouse. He snapped a Bluetooth receiver off the mouse's bottom, and slid it into a USB port on the back of Scott's monitor. “You can resize any window by pulling a corner. Double-clicking will make it full screen.”