Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (36 page)

“Hi, Johnny! This is our last load. Okay for us to go out, like last time?”

“I don’t know, Mustafa; I didn’t know you had another trip to make. We’re still in lock down.”

“I understand. We can leave them here and get them later, if you want us to. I just don’t want you to have to deal with the odor.”

“I know. I know. It’s just that a couple of Federal Agents just showed up and wanted to look around. I don’t want them to come by while I’ve let you out. You know what I mean.”

“I see.” Mustafa tried to keep his composure. What did it mean that agents had come there? Maybe nothing, but it would be best for Mustafa and his men to get out immediately. “We’d just be a minute.”

“I don’t know, Mustafa. If it was up to me, I’d let you.”

“Well, what if we just rolled the carts out and put them on the dock. We won’t load the vans.”

“Hey, that’s an idea. That will only take a minute, won’t it?”

“Sure. We’ll be out and back in before you know it.”

Johnny grabbed the phone and called out to the guard shack. “They’ve got more carts to bring out.” Johnny hung up the phone. “Okay, but be quick about it.”

“Thanks, Johnny.”

Johnny opened the door. Mustafa walked out and guided the men, as if he were going to show them where to place the carts. When they were out and Johnny closed the security door, Mustafa pointed his men to the vans. “Be quick.”

The other guard walked out the doorway of the shack. “How are you, Mustafa? Looks like the SWAT team just went into the Constitution Center. This might all be over soon.”

Mustafa almost lost his composure. He looked out across the Mall and saw the police had moved in and around the building on the Mall. He didn’t know what could have happened and how it had happened so quickly. “Did they go in and get the hostages?”

“No, the hostages came out about fifteen minutes ago. It looks like they escaped.”

“Really?”

“Yep, now they’re just going in to get whoever was holding them. Maybe I’ll get home for supper.”

“Yes, maybe you will.” Mustafa glanced over at his men. The last of the carts was being rolled into the vans. “Well, that should about do it.” Mustafa reached into his jacket for the small stun gun, drew it, fired, hitting the guard’s neck and worked the trigger.

“What the …,” the guard gasped as he fell into a crumpled heap. His body convulsed with each pull of the trigger.

Mustafa didn’t even wait for him to hit the ground as he stuck his hand inside the guard booth and hit the button to open the gate. The vans had already started to move forward. He turned and leaped off the dock and ran to his van. One of the men had already started it. He threw it into drive and quickly moved through the gate, as it began to close. As he headed out, Mustafa took one last look at the Constitution Center, only to see the SWAT Team emerge with the children.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chaos reigned in the Independence Mall Visitor’s Center. It wasn’t the hostages who created the havoc, but the hostage takers. They had witnessed what had happened in the building next to them — the hostages escape and when the SWAT Teams had entered the building — panic had set in among the children.

Everyone spoke at once. “What are we going to do?”

“It’s only a matter of time before they come here!”

“We need to leave now. This wasn’t the plan.”

The leader, who had the radio call sign “Three,” walked over to the group of children. He wasn’t sure what had happened either, but he wasn’t about to allow his team to panic and create more problems.

“I need all of you to listen to me! This is not over. I don’t know what happened at the Constitution Center. They made mistakes and they are now paying for them. Let’s make sure we don’t make the same mistakes. We still have control of the other three buildings. Aziz is still leading us. We will succeed.”

“We don’t agree, Feroz. The situation is changing,” one of the boys challenged. “Look at the power they have. They aren’t afraid of us, as Mustafa told us they would be. They don’t care that we’re children. They only see us as terrorists.”

“I don’t agree,” Feroz interrupted. “They made mistakes. They let their hostages get away. We still have ours.”

“But what’s to stop them from doing the same thing? We only have two guns. The male hostages are bigger than most of us. Lucky for us they didn’t see what happened.” Omid interjected, the oldest female in the group.

“We’re better organized. If we stick together, we will be fine. Uncle Mustafa told us what we need to do. We stick to the plan, until Aziz or Mustafa tells us differently.” Feroz countered

“I don’t agree. If we stay we will die or be captured. I think we should leave now.” Nouri joined the conversation.

“How would we do that?” Feroz demanded. “If we walk outside, we will be captured. They will know we’re kids. We can’t just walk out.”

“We can go out through the underground parking garage. Remember, we saw it on the plans where we first were told of the mission. We can go down there and as the hostages leave, we can use the distraction to run out of the garage and away. Once they have the hostages, they might not worry about finding us.” Nouri pointed to the door leading to the garage.

“I doubt that. They will keep looking until they find us,” Feroz advised.

“Either way, we’re captured. Going to the garage gives us a chance.” Omid pleaded.

Feroz had had enough of this. “I’m in charge. We stay here and complete what we have been trained to do.”

One of the older boys came up to Feroz. “Maybe you shouldn’t be in charge any longer. I think one of us should take over.” Sanjar stood face to face against Feroz.

“That’s not the plan!”

“We need a new plan.” Sanjar countered.

“Yeah, let’s vote on it.” Nouri moved over and stood by Sanjar.

Feroz was beside himself. “We aren’t going to vote on anything. We do what I say we do.”

“Not anymore.” The voice came from behind Feroz. It was Payam, Feroz’s second in command. “Things have changed, my cousin. We need a new plan. I believe we should leave. I’ll take those that want to go with me. If you wish to stay, you can remain with anyone else who wants to stay. I don’t think many will.”

“I can’t believe you would do this to me! We have been through so much!” Feroz insisted. “We can still succeed!”

“No, we won’t be successful. Where is Uncle Mustafa? Ask Aziz if he has heard from him. I suspect he hasn’t. We have been left here,” Payam declared.

“No. No! Uncle would not do that! He has too much invested in this. He wants it to succeed.”

“He dropped us off. That was never part of the plan. He never told us he would leave us. He hasn’t come back. He’s done something else.” By this point, all of the children had gathered around Feroz and Payam. Those that didn’t understand what had happened either quickly figured it out or quietly asked one of the older children. “Who wants to leave with me?” Payam turned and put his arm up in the air to signal others who wanted to leave with him to do the same.

Only Feroz and two others didn’t raise a hand.

“I’m going, Feroz, and these cousins seem to want to come with me. Everyone who’s going with me go over by the door.” He turned and pointed to an access door that was marked “PARKING.”

“This is a mistake, Payam.” Feroz grabbed his radio. “One! One! This is three. We’ve got a problem.”

“This is One. What’s the problem, three.”

“Most of my team wishes to leave.’

Aziz couldn’t believe it. What was going on? “Three, they can’t leave. They must stay until we’re directed to leave.”

“I’ve told them. But they are ready to leave. There will only be three of us left. I don’t think I can keep them here.”

“You must!”

“We’re leaving now, Aziz!” Payam had grabbed the radio from Aziz. “This is over. We’re heading out.” Payam threw the radio down. It broke into pieces, the batteries skittered across the floor.

Payam returned to the group. He opened the door and the group moved down the stairway and into the garage.

Feroz stared at the broken radio. The second radio had stopped working about an hour ago. He had no way to communicate with Aziz. He knew the only way to save himself and the other two who had stayed with him was to end this. He walked over to the main entrance door and undid the chains. He opened the door slightly and gestured for the hostages to leave. He knew what he had to do. He grabbed his gun and walked to the center of the building.

Chapter Seventy-Four

“I can’t believe a bunch of kids did this. Who would have ever thought?” Jon Halleron, his team with him in the Command Center, told Stan and Max.

“I know we couldn’t believe it when one of the fathers first told us the story. It’s been in planning since the oldest kids were infants.” Max related what they knew to give Jon and his team the context of the situation. In most hostage incident, one didn’t have the opportunity to have someone on the inside that was trained to understand terrorist behavior. “Iran definitely decided to take the long term view.”

“However, I’ll tell you, for the amount of training it seems they had and their indoctrination, they didn’t exhibit the level of discipline I would have expected. Matter of fact, based on what you just told us, I would say they were sloppy. It’s possible you can exploit that element with the remaining teams,” Jon suggested.

Stan had called Jon’s commanding officer and apprised him of the situation. Stan got the reply he’d hoped for and Jon’s team was ordered to assist in any way possible. Choufani’s group had of secured the proper gear for the team, along with credentials which would allow them access throughout the Federal Building and all of the secured sites that surrounded the Mall.

“The Constitution Center is secure,” one of the officers in the Command Center reported. “They have seven in custody, all kids. They’ll be bringing them out in ten minutes.”

“Great news!” Choufani walked over to where the officer was seated. “Tell the team great work.”

“Will do, sir.”

“One down, three to go,” Choufani stated as he walked over to where Stan and the Special Ops team were talking.

“Once they sensed resistance, everything just broke down. The Leaders were easy to identify and take out. We only saw two guns and two radios. When we had the two armed kids out of commission, the rest just stood around. The evacuation was easy.” Jon wrappedg up his briefing.

“How do you think they would respond in a SWAT Team breach?”

“If you didn’t have the leaders identified prior to the breach, you could have some problems. I’m not convinced they wouldn’t shoot a hostage. There was no effort to communicate, so no bonds were being built.”

“But, I don’t think they’re expecting a breech,” one of Jon’s men chimed in. “I think they’ve been led to believe that, because they’re kids, the police won’t try to come in. You know, don’t want pictures of the big bad SWAT Team taking out thirteen-year- olds. I think they’re betting on that. All you might have to do is let them think you are coming in and it might cause the breakdown in their structure. It fell apart immediately when we began our action. Frankly, we could have just walked out and not had any resistance from the kids.”

“That’s an interesting theory. If we thought that might work, maybe we could use uniformed officers instead of SWAT.” Choufani mulled over what he had heard and thought out loud. The more he got to know Stan and his team, the more he was glad they were on site.

“It could work,” Jon agreed. “I think any show of authority would work. Your risk is low with only two guns. We got a quick look at the explosives and, at least from where we were, I don’t believe they had been armed yet. The kids may have been waiting for a signal.”

“So, someone is directing this from outside. Aziz isn’t in charge?” Another of Jon’s men mused.

“Commander, we have something happening at the entrance to the Visitor’s Center.”

Choufani and the group walked back over to the monitors. “Can you bring it up here?”

“Yes, sir. Coming over now.”

The screen flickered. The screen was split in thirds, three cameras showed the front and two side angles of the entrance. The door had been pushed slightly open, and left just enough room for someone to walk through. Nothing happened, just the door open but, in the next instant, the door flew open wide and people started poured out. Radios came alive, various personnel relayed what they saw.