MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (45 page)

He took the picture and saw immediately what she meant. It showed a man on crutches wearing a cap, which obscured his face somewhat. It could very well be Khalid, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

Rebecca waved her hand and, immediately, the commander came over. She listened to what Rebecca had to say and picked up the photo to take a look for herself. Then she walked over to the nearest computer terminal and gave the picture to the man behind it. She motioned for them to come as well.

The man squinted and read the tiny letters and numbers printed just below the picture. He fed them to his computer, and almost immediately they were looking at the video recording.

“It’s him!” Rebecca and Robert yelled at the same time.

Broerse had materialized out of nowhere and was studying the footage as well. They watched together how Khalid got his crutches back and walked out of view. The screen showed that he’d entered the ArenA over forty minutes ago.

The technician grabbed a large piece of paper and looked something up. He fiddled with the keyboard, then they saw Khalid going up some stairs. It was easy to follow him on the camera, because people gave the man with the broken leg the room he needed. Another camera had him going into a restroom. A full five minutes passed before he came out again. He was no longer on crutches, and the plaster was gone.

“Gun,” Broerse said. “Damn!”

***

The time was 20:41. The opening ceremony was drawing to its end. The two teams were lined up, listening to the familiar hymn of the Champions League.

Four minutes later, a lot of things happened at the same time. Ajax kicked off to the deafening roar of the crowd, eager for a good result of the home team.

A plain clothes police officer fished several pieces of hard white plastic out of a waste bin at the restrooms of section hundred twenty-four. The cast on Khalid’s leg hadn’t been made of plaster after all.

With fifteen people dedicated to the search who knew exactly what they were looking for, six more people entering the stadium on crutches had been identified. Two were female and one was an elderly man. Three were males in the right age range. The study of other footage in which they appeared was about to commence.

The most spectacular development was the swift way in which the perimeter of the stadium was sealed off. There had simply not been enough time to mobilize enough police to do the job, so the army had been brought in. Unbeknownst to the fifty thousand people inside the stadium, over a thousand soldiers were deployed within ten minutes. Most jumped out of green trucks that had been arriving for the last hour, but had been parked out of sight until now. Others disembarked from a swarm of transport helicopters that seemed to come out of nowhere. Nobody in the stadium heard the sound of rotors over the singing and the chanting.

At 20:58, just when the ArenA erupted in cheering at Ajax’ first goal, the perimeter was declared safe. Two rings of roadblocks and barricades now encircled the brightly lit stadium. All exits on the nearby motorway had been blocked, and all train traffic had been diverted. By that time it had been determined that all of the three suspects were indeed with the terrorists. They had all followed the same routine, going to a restroom shortly after arriving at their section, and leaving it after some minutes without the crutches and the brace. Identical plastic casings had been retrieved from nearby waste bins.

The four terrorists were in range of no less than thirty-one cameras. Even their tiniest movement was observed in the truck and in a special studio inside the stadium. Extra police officers had been positioned in and around the sections where the terrorists were. In the conference room of the Board of AFC Ajax, the briefing of several SWAT teams had just begun. Meanwhile, snipers began looking for spots that provided the right angles.

~~~

Chapter XL

At
21:01, Muhammad al-Moutti felt a buzz in his pocket, indicating an incoming text message. The team was using cheap mobile phones with prepaid cards tonight, the kind that could be bought for twenty Euros at any store. While he was reading it, he received another message. It held exactly the same information. Even though his face remained impassive, his adrenaline level tripled in the few seconds it took to fully digest the information. The area around the ArenA was crawling with military and police. Their getaway cars couldn’t even get close to the stadium.

He stood from his seat and started to move sideways past the other people in his row, smiling and apologizing. Meanwhile his mind was racing, going through all the options open to him. He had to assume they were the reason for the massive turn out of the law. That also meant he had to assume that they knew who they were and that they might be watching him right now.

He reached the broad steps that led to the restrooms and also to the stall that sold drinks, sandwiches, and candy. A Steward in one of those bright yellow tricots stepped aside to let him pass. Still maintaining a relaxed posture, he joined a short row of people waiting to be served.

The reason they hadn’t been apprehended yet was obvious to him. It wasn’t easy to control a mass of people of the magnitude gathered here. If they acted too rashly, panic could easily break out. They would want to try to control circumstances as much as possible. They didn’t know how heavily armed they were, and the authorities would want to avoid civilian casualties if possible. For the moment, he was safe. But time was running out.

The girl behind the counter smiled at him, and he ordered a Coke, paying with the requisite plastic card. He turned away and walked slowly in the direction of the toilets. He spotted two men trying too hard not to look at him.

It all came down to the question if he wanted to live or not. He could give the order now, and eight hand grenades would explode in the densely packed stands. It would be followed by the fire of compact machineguns. They had four clips of ammunition each. They would kill many, and the inevitable hysteria would kill even more. Their most conservative estimate was that two thousand people would be killed in the inevitable stampede that followed the explosions and gunfire, squashed to death by a hysterical mass.

They would certainly be killed in turn. Their escape plan was based on confusion and panic on the side of the police. If they were forewarned and prepared, he wouldn’t get out alive. Going out in a blaze of glory might have its attraction to some people, but he wasn’t one of them. He was prepared to die, but only if there really was no way out. His gut told him there was.

He made his decision. He would escape and live to fight another day. He would bring out his team as well, God willing; all but one, because he needed a diversion. There was no doubt as to who was responsible for this disaster. One had failed him miserably. One of their team had brought this down on the others. With a grim smile, he brought out his mobile and sent off three short text messages. All possible scenarios had been rehearsed, and this was just one of them. They would know what to do. Just as in WoW, mobility was the key. It was time to start moving.

***

Rebecca and Robert were standing hand in hand in the crisp night air. The ArenA loomed ahead, lights blazing, like a galactic battleship out of a science fiction movie. By the roar of the crowd, they could guess at what was happening between the chalk lines. Just now, a concert of angry whistling carried to them, no doubt in response to an adverse decision by the referee.

They had witnessed the events of the evening enfolding first hand. The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on him. People were going to die tonight, that much was certain. He shivered and leaned into Rebecca. In response, she squeezed his hand. Suddenly, they heard raised voices in the truck. Someone shouted.

“Something is happening,” he said.
Dear God, please protect those innocent people from the beasts
. “Shall we go and see?”

She sighed. “I just hope this is the end of it.”

They entered the truck again. Nobody challenged them, in fact nobody took any notice. His eyes immediately went to the uppermost row of monitors. He saw at once that something was amiss. On three of the cameras, the terrorist’s seat was empty. Only Khalid was still in his place. He was looking at his mobile phone.

“My God, it’s starting!” Rebecca said.

***

Khalid read the message for the fifth time. Again, his eyes searched out the spots where his friends had been sitting until a minute ago. What was going on? Where were they going? Why was his heart hammering in his chest like that? It seemed as if every nerve in his body was on edge. His instincts were trying to tell him something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

Until now, he hadn’t considered this mission to be more dangerous than any of the others he had been part of. True, there was a certain risk in the fact that it was going down in such a public place, in the midst of so many people and police. But there was also something like safety in numbers. There was no better cover for their escape than fifty thousand panicked people who wanted to get out of a confined space. The police would be aware of the cause of the mass hysteria, but they would have no other option than to open up every single exit. Rule number one in crowd control in case of an accident was to let the mass disperse as soon as possible. The first focus would be on damage control, not on identifying the cause.

Their plan was based on
four
different sources of panic. That way, the confusion would be spread over the entire stadium. If there was only one hot spot, there was a serious risk that the area would be quarantined instead of opened up. He would never be able to get out.

His recent orders said the timing had been changed. The first grenade should now go off at 21:14, instead of in the last minute of the official playing time of the first half. That specific moment had been chosen because many people would already be on the move, going to the toilets and getting drinks. The aisles and galleries would be choked with people, adding to the confusion and making their getaway easier.

He looked at his watch. 21:12, he had only two minutes left. His fellows of the Hammer of Righteous Justice still weren’t back in their seats. It dawned on him that they weren’t returning either. He was going to be the only one.
What the hell was going on? Was their operation compromised?

There was only one way to find out. For the first time since his recruitment, Khalid disobeyed an order. His seat was directly at the concrete steps, so it took no time at all to reach the exit of section hundred twenty-four. He walked quickly to the restrooms. Luck was with him, as there was no one else around. He reached into the waste bin where he had deposited his plastic brace earlier. It was gone.

Cold sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead. He could feel the vein in his left temple pulsing heavily with dull thuds. Suddenly, all the pieces of the puzzle fell in their right place. Yes, their operation had been compromised. Muhammad al-Moutti had given the order to abort. But they needed something to distract from their flight, and that something was to be him. He was being sacrificed!

He looked in the mirror and studied his face. Would this be the last time he saw his own reflection? He gently touched his cheek, then pinched it. Would that flesh be on a cold concrete floor in five minutes, in a puddle of his own blood and brains?

He looked at his watch. The time was 21:14. It was now or never. He made his decision.

***

The tension in the truck was so thick, that it was almost like a physical substance. Tight faces were staring at monitors that didn’t show anything. All four terrorists had disappeared into a restroom, although Khalid had been minutes later than the rest. Now, there was nothing to look at but four doors. They were up to something, but what?

It would have been a perfect moment to strike at them, but the SWAT teams weren’t in place yet. Broerse was muttering all kinds of ugly things about that.

Robert had been watching Khalid mostly. Because he had known the man for quite some time, he thought he could read him a little. There was no evidence to support this, of course, but his intuition told him that Khalid was under a great deal of stress. Since he had gotten up just now, he looked like a man in fear, not like a man about to sow fear. It was in the way he moved and in the way he held his head.

“They know their cover is blown,” he said out loud.

The commander looked at him for a full second. Then she turned and started to talk into her tiny mouthpiece. She and her team were the eyes of the entire operation. It was her job to share each and every development and observation. Behind her back, on three of the four cameras, terrorists stepped into view again. Two had changed their appearance, a fact reported immediately. Only Khalid was still inside his hiding place.

***

21:14 had come and gone. The disobedience of Khalid was a surprise, but something to be tucked away in the back of his head for later contemplation. Now, survival was all that mattered. Mobility was the key. Muhammad al-Moutti had known that for almost as long as he lived. From the moment he stepped out of the restroom and into the gallery, he was in a fluid motion, like a dancer on stage.

There were four people outside. He shot the two men he had marked earlier within the space of five seconds. Tap-tap, two shots to the chest each, and they went down. Years of surviving by violence told him that to his right, near the stairs, was another threat. He turned and fired before the man between him and the stairs could even get his gun out. He glanced at the fourth man, who was dressed in a red and white Ajax training suit, gaping at him with open mouth, eyes bulging. He disregarded him, turned, and lifted his gun at the security camera on the ceiling. It shattered at the first shot. Behind him, the Ajax supporter finally bolted. Now he was alone. Not for long, because he heard many running footsteps approaching.