Tier One Wild (43 page)

In the end, the crossing into the U.S. went off without a hitch. The men in the hot trailer felt the truck crawl up the line of commercial vehicles heading over the border, then it stopped for a while, just long enough for the four men to get nervous.

But then it rolled on, driving for another half hour, until it stopped and the engine was turned off.

The back gate opened and a Mexican stood there, looking in on the sweat-soaked Middle Eastern men. In a heavy accent he said, “Welcome to United States, my friends. We are in Tombstone, Arizona.”

A Ford SUV and a Toyota minivan, purchased by the Zetas, sat in an empty parking lot of an office building that had a large
FOR RENT
sign on its front window. Four Mexicans off-loaded the crates into the two vehicles, six in each, and the Mexicans drove off to the south, leaving American David, Kuwaiti Miguel, Pakistani Jerry, and Iraqi Tim, all alone. Each man had a driver’s license, though they were not their own. Weeks earlier, an AQ cell in the United States stole identification from men attending a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan, taking the IDs following orders from David himself. He had sent a list of ages, heights, weights, and skin colors corresponding to the members of his cell, and the thieves followed this list as they targeted their victims. Some of the faces were more of a match than others, and none were anywhere near perfect, but David felt reasonably certain they would all pass quick scrutiny.

Other than these IDs, the weapons, and the cash each man carried with him, the four men had nothing else other than mobile phones and the clothes on their backs.

David and Miguel shook hands in the parking lot of the vacant building. Tim and Jerry had already moved into the back of the Ford SUV.

Miguel asked David a question he’d been thinking about for the past day. “Why don’t you take one of the men? I do not need them both. You should not travel alone.”

David was in a somber mood, but he managed a smile. He did not like going alone, either. But he thought it would give his plan the best opportunity for success. “It is as Allah wills it,” he said. “The three of you will go to the west, and I will go to the east.”

“But why alone?”

Now Doyle’s smile was real. “I will not be alone.”

“But—”

“Remember, Miguel, it is best that we do not know what the other is doing. We have our missions, and they will work best if they are not coordinated.”

Miguel acquiesced. “Yes, David. I understand.”

“We will not see each other again, my friend,” David said.

“In paradise.”

“Yes, in paradise. But there is still so much work here for us to do. Do not be in a hurry to leave this earth before your work is done.”

Miguel found strength in David’s words; the American al Qaeda commander could see this in the improvement in the Kuwaiti’s body language.

They shook hands again, and then they walked to their vehicles.

*   *   *

Just after ten the next morning David Doyle walked the aisles of a Walmart in Phoenix, Arizona, looking at all the incredible choices.

He was a wanted man. If he was not the most wanted man in America now, he expected he would be before the day was out. But no one took any notice of him.

With a face shaved clean and his brown hair cut and died white-blond in a north Tucson hotel the evening before, and his rugged all-American looks, David was not going to be recognized either through his junior high yearbook photo or any pictures taken of him in Yemen, where his full beard and long matted hair covered his face.

It had been his plan all along that, once he got into the U.S., he would make his way to a discount store somewhere, and he would buy clothing and accessories that would make him fit in perfectly with the men shopping there.

Of course, his original plan did not have his force of operatives whittled down to only three men.

But it did not matter. His first plan had met with resistance, incredible resistance in the form of, as near as he could guess, the same unit of men that had thwarted his attempt to steer the outcome of the Afghanistan war the previous year.

But now David Doyle and a dozen of his missiles were in the United States. He had a few men left to help him with his plan, and he would soon get a few more.

And the United States military could not fucking touch him here.

Doyle knew all about the Posse Comitatus Act. He was comforted in the fact that, once in U.S. territory, he would have law enforcement, municipal and state and federal and Homeland Security, after him. But he would not be up against the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines. Those Navy SEALs or whoever the hell they were who had been after him since the attack on the black site in the Khyber Pass the previous fall, would have to slam on the brakes once he crossed over the border.

And he’d done it.

All along David planned on buying a cowboy hat once in the U.S. so he would fit in. But as he looked around the Walmart at the customers, he saw a few cowboy hats on the heads of Hispanic-looking men, but the Caucasians wore ball caps if anything at all.

He found a Caterpillar ball cap with some sort of phony grease stains and weathering on the bill. It would be perfect, almost as if Walmart were complicit in his disguise. He next picked up a new pair of blue jeans; these also came off the rack looking like they’d been taken from a grease monkey at an auto repair shop. It was early August, so a few rustic and worn T-shirts were thrown into Doyle’s cart, along with tennis shoes and socks.

He next walked past the sporting goods department and eyed the rifles, shotguns, and pistols lined up and ready for sale. Doyle himself did not need a firearm; he had a Kalashnikov and a Beretta pistol in his minivan. But looking over the powerful small arms available for purchase by the general public gave him some concern. The prevalence of weapons in the hands of the citizenry here in the United States was going to have to color his every action. Although U.S. Special Forces could not touch him here inside America’s borders, some do-gooding housewife with a snub-nosed revolver could shoot him dead if she thought he was a danger to her little yard-ape kids.

Infidels,
Doyle thought. He could not wait to bring every last one of these Americans to their knees.

He passed by the guns and purchased a large hunting knife with cash, and in minutes he was out the door and back on the road.

*   *   *

Kolt spent four days in the hospital at Fort Bragg, suffering from three broken ribs and a severe concussion that required observation. He’d been out of it for much of the time, but each time TJ or Digger or Stitch or any of his other mates visited him, the first question he asked was the status of Slapshot. He’d learned little about Slap’s injuries, but everyone assured Raynor that the big man had survived his wounds.

It was not until day three that Digger helped Kolt out into the hall and then down an elevator into the ICU. There they looked through a window at Slapshot, lying unconscious on his bed while Doc Markham finished an examination.

The doctor came out of the room a moment later.

“How’s Jason?” Kolt asked. He never called Slapshot anything other than Slapshot, but looking at him lying there in his hospital bed in his gown, covered with the bandages and with a tube down his throat, he did not look like a tough-as-nails Delta operator.

Markham said, “He’s got seven broken bones, a concussion, contusions, internal bleeding, but he’s hanging on. We’ve got him in a medically induced coma till the swelling on his brain goes down. Probably another day.”

“But he’ll make it?”

Doc Markham replied, “He won’t die.”

“Meaning?”

“Just that, Racer. Anything else that happens is out of my hands.”

Kolt and Digger had both experienced severe injuries with long recoveries. It would be tough on Slapshot, but he was as tough as them, if not tougher.

Before Kolt left the hospital he’d learned that Chief Warrant Officer Wilkins and his crew chief had survived the crash of Texas two-two, but the copilot had been killed on impact. Three other of Raynor’s operators had been wounded in the hit as well, but none seriously.

Kolt was released with instructions to go home and stay in bed until his dizzy spells and headaches went away, but as soon as TJ picked him up at the hospital they drove over to the compound. Here Kolt and TJ both went straight in to see Webber.

Colonel Webber had been dealing with the fallout of the mission on the border constantly since his return from Eritrea, and he barely had time for his wounded major and his nonoperational lieutenant colonel this afternoon. But the two officers slipped by Joyce and knocked on Webber’s open door.

“Do you have just a second, sir?” TJ asked.

Webber invited the men to come in and sit down. “Thought you were sent home, Racer,” he said as he slid back into his chair.

“We wanted to drop in and see what’s going on with the search for Doyle.”

Webber shrugged. “We’ll deal with the hot wash when you get better. For now I’ll say that I’m proud of you for taking forty-five missiles and eight AQ operators out of commission. Especially with all the curveballs you were thrown on that op.” He paused. “But this is not over. Assets are searching Mexico high and low, but if it’s just a couple of guys and a van, we won’t find him. If he’s here in the States, we are out of the hunt. Posse Comitatus Act. They are looking for him here. FBI, Homeland Security, state and local cops on the border.”

“Nothing, then?” Kolt asked.

“Not a sound. The White House is putting out fires with the Mexicans and telling everyone else that there is nothing to worry about, but it won’t be long till it comes out that the skirmish on the border did not totally neutralize the threat. And if a plane goes down in Cincinnati, then word will get out even faster.”

“Anything we can do, sir?” Kolt asked.

“Yes. You can go home, take your meds, and get better. There are other battles for you to fight, just not this one. It’s out of all of our hands now.”

TJ drove Kolt back to his trailer. There was no conversation between the two men. Kolt suspected TJ was disappointed in the opportunity lost. Raynor had had David Doyle right in front of him, and he’d not been able to drop the hammer.

Kolt suspected this, but he did not bring it up with his old friend. Raynor did not want to get into an argument with TJ; he was too worn out from his first day out of the hospital.

He just wanted to go home and get some sleep.

THIRTY-SEVEN

At ten on their second night in the United States, Miguel, Tim, and Jerry pulled into the parking lot of the Algin Sutton Recreation Center in South-Central Los Angeles. The park was closed, but there was no gate at the lot, so Jerry parked the Ford and kept it in idle, while Miguel climbed out of the passenger side and stood in the darkness.

His eyes to the sky.

Los Angeles International Airport was four miles to the west, and tonight’s departure aircraft were flying directly over South-Central L.A. within a couple minutes of takeoff from Runways 7L and 7R.

The park Miguel had chosen was not exactly out of the way—homes and apartments lined the other side of Hoover Street. But traffic at this hour was light to nonexistent, and Miguel knew he could have his vehicle on Interstate 110 sixty seconds after he climbed back into the passenger seat, so he was not terribly worried about being caught.

Still, his heart pounded in his chest and his hands perspired.

Inside the back of the SUV Tim had already opened a case and prepped an Igla to fire. He now sat crouched in the back, pressed tightly between the weapon’s crates and the wall of the vehicle, peering through a hole in black cardboard the men had taped in the windows to mask the view inside the vehicle.

Outside the SUV Miguel watched a massive 747 rise into the air to the west, its lights shimmering in the warm summer night, and he reached behind him and opened the rear door of the Explorer.

A police car rolled by, but took no notice of the vehicle or the man standing by it.

The aircraft was nearly overhead now. Miguel’s training back in Yemen helped him identify the craft as belonging to United Airlines. He had no idea where it was going or how many people were on board, but as a target he found it suitable for his needs.

He turned and opened the rear door fully now, and Tim slid him the big shoulder-fired missile system.

With one last look around the park and the street, Miguel hefted the device, then turned to face the departing jumbo jet.

Witnesses all over the greater Los Angeles area reported what came next: an arc of fire, rising up out of South-Central L.A. and heading directly toward the departing 747, then a flash of fire under the wings of the aircraft. The United flight continued on to the east for several seconds more, but then a massive explosion at the center of the plane’s fuselage illuminated the sky. The crack of an explosion was heard at different times in the different portions of the city, depending on the distance to the catastrophe, but by this time even those who had missed the missile launch stared in horror as the massive jumbo jet turned upside down and broke apart as it fell, sending fire and metal and fuel and bodies twelve thousand feet down.

It was only by some miracle that the vast majority of the wreckage missed the greater Los Angeles population center and instead impacted the desolate terrain in Whittier Hills, killing only eleven on the ground, a tiny fraction of the potential death toll.

By the time the airplane crashed, and the resultant brush fire began scorching Whittier Hills, Miguel, Tim, and Jerry were on Interstate 110, heading north to their next target.

San Francisco.

*   *   *

Kolt opened his eyes at one-thirty in the morning. He’d spent the day popping over-the-counter pain meds for his broken ribs and headaches and it had kept the worst of both injuries at bay, but after a few hours’ sleep his bloodstream had been drained of the painkillers, so he awoke now in extreme discomfort.

He sat up with difficulty, using a chair he’d placed by the mattress on the floor to help him get up and down without using his torso, lest the pain in his side get the better of him. He felt his way into the bathroom and found his ibuprofen, swallowed four pills, and washed them down with tap water that he scooped into his mouth with his hand so he didn’t have to lean over to get it out of the faucet.