Quantum Times (29 page)

     When security forces began arriving, the terrorists staged the second part of their plan -- a running firefight into the immigration area that bordered Baggage Claim where hundreds of international airline passengers who had been queued up waiting at Passport Control would be caught in the crossfire. The terrorists with their plan clearly in mind, then reversed back toward the baggage claim area where all was chaotic and tried to flee through the baggage claim exit. So far no more than five minutes had gone by.

     One of the terrorists had died in the immigration area but the other three were still running and shooting at the policemen. They made it back outside to the taxi line where their car was waiting. Their plan failed there as the driving lanes were all backed up and their car had nowhere to go. The airport security killed them with a barrage of bullets as they were stalled in their vehicle, stuck in the traffic jam their actions had created but they had not anticipated.

     That same Tuesday at 5:15PM EDT Jack was stalled in rush hour traffic on Broadway just a few yards away from the Tickets facility in the middle of Times Square. The air conditioner in the ten year old Ford Taurus didn’t work and he was sweating in the afternoon heat. He knew he was sweating because he was nervous but he blamed the air conditioner. He should have stolen a newer car. There was that new Mercedes he could have taken but he knew he wouldn’t have felt right in it. Besides it wouldn’t matter for much longer. For once he didn’t mind being stuck in traffic. And he didn’t mind that the crowds of pedestrians on the sidewalks were cutting between the cars in their hurry to get to wherever they were going.

     He saw a street peddler on a side street with his pile of knock-off purses and wallets trying to get passers-by to stop and buy something. A couple of years ago he had been just like that guy. Only he liked the corner of 5
th
Avenue and 37
th
Street; people there were more eager for a deal, they didn’t care if it was a knock-off as long as the Gucci or Louis Vuitton logo was visible and the quality wasn’t total shit. At first he rather liked selling on the street, but over time he came to hate how everybody treated him like he was nothing. They just saw him as some Middle Eastern immigrant that somehow had got into their country. He would tell people he was Pakistani and their countries were allies but they didn’t care.

     A friend had told him that he should pick an American name because people would treat you better. So he picked ‘Jack’, what could be more American than that? He even worked on his accent. His English wasn’t so bad, he was good with languages, but his pronunciation was a problem. Even after being in the U.S. for eight years, people had trouble understanding him. So he stuck pretty close to other Pakistanis, guys who were even more recent into the country than he was.

     But they liked him. And like him they were passionate in their beliefs. Like him they thought people from India were horrible people and that Pakistan should be treated with more respect because Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons. And they worshipped Islam like he did. And more and more they talked about how that was the center of a man’s life. At first, they were more fervid than he was, but being around them really made things clear for him. He was meant to be a servant of Allah and he would be rewarded for his service. He was not meant to sell fake purses on dirty New York Streets to people who treated him like he didn’t belong there.

     Then just six weeks ago the man who said he should be called Hasan had come into their group. Jack didn’t know exactly how that had happened but Hasan was a man who knew how to do things. And Hasan knew what needed to be done and he made them all realize that it was no longer acceptable to just talk about things they should do. Soon his friends were arguing about who would be the first to really strike a blow. Then somehow he was the one to say he would do it and they all looked at him with more respect. And Hasan explained how to do what was needed and the last few weeks were the most exciting weeks of his life.

     Jack started to feel too nervous sitting in the traffic jam in the middle of Times Square. He thought he saw a policeman looking at him. Then that policeman turned to another policeman standing near him and said something. Then the two policemen looked over in his direction. The plan was to position the car as close to the big Marriott Hotel as possible and then to set the timer on the bomb for one minute and leave the car and walk away quickly but not too fast to draw attention. But everyone had told him that he had to explode the bomb no matter what. He could not fail – not like the fool a couple of years earlier who failed to explode the bomb right about a block away from where he was sitting there in traffic.

     Then he saw the two policemen start to walk in his direction. Jack reached for the device that would trigger the bomb. His hands shook a little bit. The two policemen kept coming closer to his car. And Jack pressed the button. Jack never saw the beautiful blonde girl walking across the street behind him who the policemen were coming closer to get a better look at.

     The blast was huge. Nearby cars hurtled into the air, storefronts were demolished, shattered glass from windows of the overlooking skyscrapers cascaded down like a waterfall onto the streets, and bodies and parts of bodies were shot away from the blast center like grisly missiles. Death and destruction littered the streets. Soon the wailing sirens of police cars and fire trucks and emergency vehicles descended on that iconic center of New York City and there would be no Broadway shows that night.

     Two days later at the Munich Germany train station, Hans Mueller, a tall, thin 23 year-old with blond hair cut short and with a Nazi swastika tattooed on his right forearm took off his knapsack and dropped it into a trashcan at the front of the platform that hundreds of passengers de-boarding the 6 PM express train from Frankfurt had to pass by in just a few moments. He started to walk away when two plain clothed security guards who had spotted him earlier seized him from behind and pinned his arms behind him and snapped on handcuffs. They searched him quickly and found the cell phone they thought would detonate the bomb they suspected to be in the knapsack.

     Recklessly one of the guards pulled the top off the trash can and checked the knapsack. The bomb was there. Other security personnel cordoned off the area around the trashcan and maneuvered the people coming off the Frankfurt train to enter the station through a different entryway that entwined them in the crowd of passengers coming off the express train from Berlin. Dieter Strauss, a pimply mousy haired teenager wearing jeans and a black tee shirt with a fake Iron Cross medal hanging around his neck inside his tee shirt watched Hans being detained. He looked around and observed that no one seemed to have noticed him. He wondered if he could do anything to help Hans and then put that thought aside. He didn’t really like Hans anyway. Hans talked too much and picked on him because of his skin blotches. And Hans was not very smart either.

     Dieter made up his mind quickly. He would explode both bombs. Han’s bomb would now not be very effective but the bomb that Dieter had positioned to target the passengers from Berlin was now perfect to get the Frankfurt passengers too. He watched the police ushering Hans in the direction of the station building, close to where Dieter’s bomb was. He saw Hans look desperately at Dieter as he realized how close he was coming to the trashcan where Dieter’s bomb had been placed. Hans started violently shaking his head and shouting “No!”

     Dieter pressed the key on his cell phone and the trashcan in the middle of the crowd of people coming off the Frankfurt and Berlin trains exploded. Dieter turned away and ran off in the middle of a crowd of people who were fleeing.

  The sun was setting over The Great Hall of the People on the western edge of Tiananmen Square. The meeting place of the National People’s Congress was crowded that evening with high-level Communist Party participants celebrating the 80
th
birthday of one of their most respected ministers. Security was as always very tight, but that evening particularly so because the General Secretary himself was supposed to arrive within the hour. He was running a little late but had promised to come for a few minutes.

     When the General Secretary was just a block away from The Great Hall, the blast of an explosion rocked his car. The bomb blast centered on the East Gate at the center of the huge building and toppled the columns there and engulfed that part of the building in flames. Most of the people in the area where the bomb was set off escaped through the rubble and fire. But not all escaped; the minister whose birthday it was did not survive and several other senior ministers perished with him. In all, over fifty people died there that evening.

     Later there was discovered on an undamaged outside wall of The Great Hall a spray painted statement, ‘A typhoon’s wind blows in both directions.’

     Joan Smithson and her ten year-old daughter Meagan stood in a line; a queue she thought to herself was what the English called it, at Trafalgar Square in London waiting for a double decker bus. They had just seen the towering statue of Lord Nelson at the center of the square and now were headed back to their hotel to meet up with her husband Don. He had just called them and said his meeting was over. Now he was free to join them and play tourist.

     A hesitant sun was now struggling through the morning clouds and promised a sunny afternoon. The first two days of their trip had been rainy and now the idea of riding on the top level of the bus seemed perfect. Meagan had been eager to do it and now Joan liked the idea too. Such a London thing to do. Sure it was a little stereotypical, but who cared; it would be fun. And with the sun coming out it seemed to prove going on this trip had been the right thing to do. They had almost cancelled the trip when they saw on television the news reporting about the massacre at the Paris Airport and then just as they were leaving from JFK details about the bomb at Time Square were coming out. Their apartment was only a few blocks away!

     She had also heard something yesterday about a bomb exploding at some train station in Germany. She hadn’t really followed what happened there; she and Don had been too wrapped up in watching the Times Square news footage. As a New Yorker it reminded her of when the planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Only now it seemed worse somehow. She knew more people had died there but now the terrorists seemed to be hitting everywhere.

     Joan found herself fretting about these terrorist acts as she stood there in the line holding Meagan’s hand. It wasn’t like her to be feeling apprehensive. Her husband was a very successful lawyer at one of the top New York firms. Meagan liked her school and was doing well there and she was busy with the work she did at their church and at the food bank. And she did love the shopping and Don seemed to like that her secret fashionista tendencies were coming out now that they had some money. She had dressed like a mouse when she was working to put him through law school at NYU. So why the anxious feeling?

     She looked at the crowds of people standing around this historic square honoring Britain’s most famous naval hero. Her sense of anxiety increased as she thought about the terrorism. This was the kind of place where terrorists would strike. She shuddered.

     There were about ten people in front of them in the bus queue and she hoped the next bus wasn’t too full, but a lot of people would probably get off there too. Suddenly she just wanted to get back to their hotel and away from the crowds of people. Then she saw the bus pulling up; it was very full. When it pulled to a stop about a dozen people started getting off and Joan figured they would be fine, they’d be able to board the bus. Then she noticed the sun had gone back behind a cloud and the world looked a little greyer. The line started to move forward to get on the bus.

     Joan couldn’t shake the dark feeling coming over her and she gave into it. She tugged Meagan’s hand to pull her out of the line and told her all of a sudden she wanted to walk. The hotel wasn’t that far. Meagan resisted but Joan felt she had to walk. She hustled Meagan away and almost found herself running; then when they were about thirty yards from the bus stop, the bomb that had just been left behind under a seat on the bus exploded. The blast knocked both Joan and Meagan to the ground, breaking Meagan’s arm and giving Joan a concussion. They were among the lucky ones.

     Khalil sat by himself at the same outdoor café in Beirut where he had first talked to the man who called himself Hasan. Khalil had been trying to reach Hasan by calling the cell phone number Hasan had given him and he had left numerous messages but Hasan had never called him back. He didn’t really expect Hasan to just show up at this café but Khalil had been going there every afternoon for the last two weeks anyway.