Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (33 page)

“How about staff?” Kate inquired.

“The largest staffs are in the Constitution Center and Independence Hall. At this time of day, you probably had fifteen in the Constitution Center, ten at Independence Hall and five to six each at LBC and the Visitor’s Center.”

“So, we’re talking significant numbers. Smart move on their part to have them spread across the buildings. Not too large a number to be handled,” Jordan opined.

“The even smarter move is in using kids,” Choufani said. “You can take out adults all day and as long as you don’t use excessive force, you’ll probably be okay. But kids? That’s a whole new ballgame.” Choufani knew that, when the time came, it was going to be his decision. This wouldn’t wait until the Commissioner or any of the other Commanders would return. Action would have to be taken soon. “We aren’t going to have the manpower to take down all buildings simultaneously. We might be able to isolate two of the buildings as we take two down. Any thoughts?”

“Well, it seems the leader is in the LBC, so that might be where you need to start.” Jordan was tracing over the map with his index finger as he talked. “The Constitution Center has the greatest number of people in it, so I think that should be the other priority. This map works, but it sure would be helpful to me to see the actual layout. Can we get access to the roof?”

“Yes. We have a sniper team up there now. The advantage we get with them having their windows covered is they can’t see what we’re doing.”

“Kate, where’s Akmed?” Jordan wondered.

Kate was hesitant to respond.

Stan, saw the potential issue, jumped in. “Jordan, why don’t you and Kate go up to the roof and scout it out with the Commander’s men and, if you and I could find a quiet place, Commander, I need to brief you on a couple of things that may impact this operation.” Stan grabbed Choufani’s arm.

Choufani gave him the typical local cop dealing with a Fed look. “I’m all ears. I think there’s a conference room over there where we can discuss this.”

Stan and Choufani walked into the conference room. Stan shut the door. “The owner of the hardware store is in our custody. He has been our informant and we had to extract him to protect him. Kate couldn’t afford to stay in the store and had no idea that Benny, the employee, was under the control of Mustafa. I’m not sure how much help Akmed, the informant, would be to us, but the boy he raised for this mission is the one who was on the phone. Commander, I’m offering you Akmed if you think it might be an asset to your efforts. However, you must understand we made a deal with him and he’ll disappear after today.”

Choufani looked at Stan. He had no ideas of all the layers that were beneath this incident, nor did he have the time to delve into all of them. The decision Choufani had to make dealt with trusting this legendary Fed and his team or going it alone. “Stan, we’ve got a big problem here and I think we could benefit from your help and assistance. Let’s figure out the best way we can use Akmed, if at all. I want you and your team to have any resources you need. I need your input and advice.” Choufani stuck out his hand to shake Stan’s. “I have one condition though.”

Stan looked at Choufani, not sure what to expect.

“When this is all over, you’re going to take me to Barclay’s Prime and buy me the biggest steak dinner they have and tell me the whole story.”

Stan broke out into a big smile. “You bet, partner. Believe you me it’s a dog gone good story. Now, let’s go get this taken care of and wrangle up these kids.”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

CONSTITUTION CENTER-INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL PARK

Jon Halloran scanned the room and located where each of the children was positioned. It was hard for him to believe that a group of kids — some not even teenagers — had successfully taken over the Constitution Center. They were well trained and disciplined and demonstrated that this wasn’t some last minute effort, but carefully planned. What had transpired was a classic siege strategy to which the kids had quickly adjusted when some of the hostages had resisted. Situations such as this were Halloran’s business, but usually from the outside looking in, since he was a Special Ops officer, and reassured himself that, for every plan, there was a counter. He attempted to find the counter that he and his men could exploit as he sat on the floor, hands bound behind him.

Jon and three of his men had just instructed a survival school at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. On the way back to their home base in Virginia, they had decided to spend a day in Philadelphia and visit Independence Park. They had just entered the Constitution Center, en route to the theater for the next show, when the students took over.

At first, Jon and his men had stayed together and could whisper to one another. When the larger group was broken up, Jon had quickly instructed his men to split up and try to be in each group. They found that, once the groups were moved, each one of them could maintain sight of at least one other soldier in another group. They all had been well trained in the art of signaling each other without others being able to tell, so they could maintain communication. They searched for patterns the children might demonstrate that the soldiers could subsequently exploit in order to get the hostages out of the building. They had already determined there were more than enough exits to rapidly evacuate the forty-five hostages. All Jon Halloran and his men needed to figure out was the best way to get people to follow them. They weren’t in uniform, so nothing gave them away as military, but training and experience had taught Halloran and his comrades that people could be reluctant to act quickly when they have been told to sit still and had seen their captors with guns.

As time wore on, the team began to notice the children had lost their discipline. The kids weren’t paying as much attention to the hostages and some were even involved with the interactive learning systems found throughout the center. The leader didn’t move around as much as he had earlier and was seated at the membership desk. His view was obstructed and would impact his ability to react.

Jon had to weigh when exactly they should move. Conditions had improved their chance for success and he wasn’t sure how much longer those conditions would last. In the past, he’d found these things worked in cycles, that the terrorists would slack off for a while, only to tighten up the control. Then, over time it would lessen again. The key was trying to determine when control was at its weakest, prior to returning to strength.

Jon’s team constantly gave him input and he began to feel they were close to the point where he needed to act. So, he did a quick survey of the room and felt they were probably in the best situation they could expect. He decided they were at the point of no return, so he signaled his man closest to him that they would move in five minutes and watched as the man relayed the message to the next man closest to him.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Mustafa moved through the building, until he found the door he needed. The door had a special lock for controlled access, but he had found out by accident the master key he’d been provided opened this door. On several occasions, after he’d first been promoted to this job, he would sneak in after hours. While many parts of this facility operated twenty-four hours a day, this area was on a day schedule only. Security was not aware that Mustafa had access since they would always escort his team into the room for it to be cleaned and stay with them until it was done. To Mustafa, this seemed like a work room, since it was full of tools and metal working equipment. He couldn’t understand its importance until he began having conversations with Jerome. Through those conversations, he began to understand that this was the most important room in the entire building and the people who worked in this room were the greatest prize of all.

For months, Mustafa planned on how to get both the critical contents of the room and its occupants out of the secure building with its numerous guard stations, locked doors and cameras at every conceivable point in and outside of the building. Mustafa’s work in the building took on a new dimension in regards to how to foil all these systems without raising any alarm. For months, he focused on how to disable the systems and figure out how he could rob the place at night. He fell short. He then thought through a plan in which he would pilfer the things Jerome wanted over time, hoping no one would notice. Again, he couldn’t make the plan work.

The more he worked in the facility, the more he begun to understand how it really operated. As he got to know people, rules became less enforced. He was able to walk into the building without the guard physically taking his ID to check its validity. Doors which, in the past, he would have to call to have opened were now unlocked as he approached. The seeds were planted as to how he might be able to do what Jerome wanted him to do — and right under the all-seeing eyes of security.

His next stroke of genius came to him when there was a lock down drill one day while he was on the premises. He noticed that his role allowed him the ability to continue to move around the building and not get stopped or ordered into a specific area. The only obstacle he could find was the lack of ability to get outside, and possibly back in. The plan ultimately came together when he realized he could use his family’s mission to create a diversion.

So he continued to plan and work with the children, but he subtly changed the training, so the children’s chance of success diminished and the opportunity for their mission to dissolve into chaos was almost ensured. With bedlam happening across the street, it would more than ensure Mustafa’s success in his new mission.

As he walked down the hallway, Mustafa was pleased his men were already at the door, with their carts. They stood in a formation Mustafa had developed, effectively blocking the camera view in the hallway. The camera had been placed to view the door, but also scan down the corridor. Mustafa believed because the door was secured and only a few senior people supposedly had a key, security had assumed the proper precautions had been taken and didn’t need to have a backup. While the security team would see Mustafa and his men at the door, the security people’s vision would be sufficiently obscured that they couldn’t be certain if Mustafa and his men had the proper escort. However, since Mustafa had his key and they would see the door open and the group enter, Mustafa was hoping they would make the assumption, however wrong, that he and his men were indeed under escort.

Mustafa approached the door and inserted his key. There was an on-going program to change the locks on these secure doors and issue new keys, and, if that had happened since the last time he’d been in the room, his key would no longer work. He turned it and felt the tumblers in the lock turn and heard the subtle click as the lock tongue retracted into the door. He opened the door and waved his men in with their carts.

Inside, the employees looked up and, saw it was the cleaning crew, returned to their work. No one noticed the lack of an escort and they seemed oblivious to the lock down as they continued to focus on their tasks.

“What’s going on?” one of the workers shouted as he noticed the four men who had just entered the room donned gas masks.

“Mustafa? What’s happening?” another asked as the men dug into their carts and extracted their sub machine guns.

One of Mustafa’s crew grabbed a gasket-like rubber tube and stuffed it around the frame of the door sealing, all of gaps. At the same time, the other two crew members retrieved gas grenades, pulled the pins and flung them to the floor, releasing a fentanyl derivative, a gas of the type utilized by the Russian Federal Security Service in counter-terrorist operations.

As if a switch had been pulled which deactivated them, each of the workers collapsed, and fell unconscious to the floor. Mustafa and his crew quickly worked to secure the unconscious six men and one woman who worked in the room. They bound them with Flex-cuffs and placed hoods over their heads. One by one, the seven were lifted into the carts that had been rolled into the room. In the carts were bags of used rags and clothes from the production department and they reeked of oil, grease and other solvents and chemicals used in the various processes underway in the building. They opened the bags and would have gagged from the stench had they not still had on their masks. Mustafa and his men covered the bodies with the rags. There was a chance one or more of the unconscious persons might begin to vomit and choke, but there was no way around that.