Leave No Child Behind

by Randy Overbeck

  “What are they doing?”

  “He can’t tell. Harry, he’s almost half a mile away, and even with those powerful binoculars he can’t make out that much. John said he thought he saw one or two of the students with guns, but he said he wasn’t sure.”

  “You know this guy. Is he reliable?”

  “He’s been with us from the start and yes, he’s been reliable.”

  “Jim, I hear a but in your voice.”

  “Well, I went up to his station in the watchtower and looked myself, but I couldn’t make anything out that far away. But my eyesight’s a whole lot worse than John’s.”

  “What did they say at the school?” Samson said.

  “That’s the problem. We’ve called a couple of times and all we get is a busy signal.”

  “Did Chief Barker get a car out there yet?”

  “He was going to, but I don’t know if that’s happened yet,” responded the warden.

  “Have him get a car out there now and then get back to me,” ordered Samson without waiting for confirmation.

  “Can do, Harry.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Dickson spoke up for the first time, his voice strong. “You got an Agency copter on the helipad, a Bell Jet Ranger, don’t you.”

  “Yes, we do, until the execution,” said Cromer.

  “Fire it up and fly it over there and get right back to us!” Dickson ordered.

  “Yessir, Mr. Dickson,” Cromer said.

  “Okay, Jim, as soon as the pilot has a look, call us back,” said Gregory, his tone softer. “Just keep everybody calm down there, okay?”

  “We’ll do our best, Mr. President.”

  Chapter 34

  Yassim spoke little as he and Mustafa left the main hallway and turned the corner to the main office, their steps brisk. Yassim’s stride was strong and purposeful as befits a man in charge, in control. Now, he was here, he thought, finally to the destiny Allah had called him to. He thought again of Fatima and Jamal and the long, tortuous road that had brought him here and he sighed with resignation. His heart ached anew as he realized his son, with those searching, brown eyes, would never reach the age of the youngest of these spoiled American teenagers. Today, though, it was Allah’s wish that Jamal’s death, and the deaths of thousands of other Muslim children whose final vision in this life was of some fiery American bomb, be avenged and the Sheik had chosen Yassim as the instrument of that revenge.

  As the empty rooms flashed by in quick succession, he again scanned the open doorways, ensuring that everyone had been rousted into the cafeteria. In the classrooms they passed, he noticed a few possessions of the students, no doubt left behind in the rush to comply with the principal’s order. An expensive book bag strewn on the floor, a tattered camouflaged jacket hanging over a chair, a crumpled hat with a sports logo--all reminders of the students and adults whose fate was now in his hands. If it was Allah’s plan that these American children were to be sacrificed to avenge Jamal and his Muslim brothers, so be it, thought Yassim.

  The two terrorists went through the office door and Mustafa removed the chair wedged against the door handle. Yassim flung open the door. They found Principal Thompson at his computer, typing furiously at the keys. The tall, thin man halted suddenly as the terrorists came in through the doorway and his gaunt face went ashen at the sight of the two guns. Yassim opened fire and a stream of bullets shattered the monitor. Thompson screamed “No!” and dove to the floor, hands to his face. The shooting stopped as abruptly as it began and the room got deathly quiet. Smoke hung visibly in the air pungent with cordite. Flying shards from the disintegrating computer had cut holes in Thompson’s sleeve and lashed his right arm. Blood stained his shirt cuffs crimson. The principal grabbed his wrist and winced.

  “Get up! We must go!” shouted Yassim.

  Still holding one wrist, the principal struggled to lift himself up and Yassim motioned with a shake of his head to Mustafa. With one massive hand, the second terrorist grabbed Thompson’s good arm and yanked the thin man up into a standing position. Startled, the principal threw a quick, terrified glance at Mustafa and started moving toward the door. Both terrorists followed.

  None of the men spoke as they traversed the empty corridors, the only noise the sound of their shoes on the linoleum and the slap of the automatic weapons against the terrorists’ bodies. As the threesome turned into the hallway to the cafeteria, Yassim asked, “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what? I don’t hear anything,” explained Mustafa.

  “That’s what I mean.” The cell leader accelerated his pace to a trot. Mustafa, pushing the principal, had to speed up to make sure they both kept up. In seconds, they had covered the distance and arrived at the rear of the lunchroom. The room was empty now, partially darkened and eerily quiet. Yassim’s eyes darted around the room, taking in the overturned tables and chairs, the shattered glass littering the floor and the splattered drops of blood.

  “Where are they?” Yassim shouted, his question aimed at his partner, his eyes on fire.

  “What have you done with my students?” demanded a startled Thompson.

  Yassim raised his rifle butt to silence the principal and Mustafa yelled “There!” as he pointed to the glass doors at the other end of the large, rectangular-shaped room. Yassim peered in the direction of the second terrorist’s outstretched hand. At first he could make out nothing in the gray light outside the glass and then he saw some movement. He marched across the cafeteria toward the glass doors. His right hand on the weapon, he used his left forearm to push the bar and force the door open and stepped out onto the deck.

  Immediately the howling wind struck his face and he had to briefly shut his eyes against it. When he opened them again, partially shielding them with a hand, he could make out clumps of students and teachers huddled together everywhere across the large wooden expanse. Even though he couldn’t see him through the crowd, over the wind he could hear Jesus’ voice somewhere at the opposite end of the deck. He stomped in that direction, shoving groups of teens and their teachers out of his way.

  Guns raised, Jesus and Fadi were standing next to the rail bordering the water. Next to them were two large male students, one on each end of a tall, limp body. Yassim strode toward the other terrorists and yelled, his words lost in the wind. Obviously, his fighters did not see or hear him, their attentions fixed on the students next to them. As the cell leader approached, he saw the two male students, pale with fear or effort, swing the body toward the building and then back. As the body came up in the swing, Yassim could see it was a large, adult man with brown hair and blood on his temple. Before he could reach the group, the two students used their momentum to swing the body back over the railing and, at the highest point in the arc, released him. The cell leader came up to the edge of the railing just in time to see the body slap the freezing water.

  “What is going on here?” Yassim barked at Jesus.

  Jesus slid his foot off the railing and stood upright. “Yassim, you are back. Great!” he exclaimed.

  “Jesus, what is going on here?” The cell leader’s hard green eyes indicated the water, where the bubbles were just subsiding from the splash.

  “Oh, that,” said Jesus. “That, that is nothing. That was a man who tried to interfere in our plan and will do so no more.” He grinned and waited.

  “And this?” Yassim pointed to a pool of red on the wooden slats.

  “That was an impertinent woman who also tried to stop us. I have taken care of her as well.”

  Yassim’s glance went back to the water and then to the crowds of students and teachers standing, shivering on the deck. He looked at Jesus again and asked, “What are you doing out here?”

  Jesus smiled broadly. “It was such a beautiful day!”

  “Jesus!”

  “Well, to be honest, leader, I thought I needed to teach these arrogant young Americans a lesson.”

  Yassim glanced around the deck, taking in the students and adults cowering toget
her closer to the building and shouted above the wind, “The lesson is over. They could die out here. They are no good to us dead, at least not yet.” The cell leader turned and stared through the gray mist rising over the white-capped waters. He knew precisely where the prison that held another of Allah’s soldiers was, but he could see nothing of it in this weather. “Besides, if anything happens, we are all too exposed out here.”

  Yassim gestured over to the huddled crowd, “Let’s start moving this crowd back into the building.” Glancing around again, he asked, “Where is Rashid?”

  “He is over there, cowering with the rest of them,” said Jesus, pointing to the left side of the crowd. “I spoke with him and he said you wanted him to remain among the students.”

  Yassim nodded and looked in the direction Jesus had indicated, but couldn’t locate Rashid among the huddled students. He turned back and his steel gray eyes met the gazes of Jesus and Fadi. “Get these students and teachers back into the building.”

  Jesus and Fadi yelled into the wind, “Okay, get moving! Everybody inside!”

  The freezing Americans needed little encouragement as the crowd immediately turned toward the doors and tried to hurry, though with cold, numbing limbs, it was difficult for many. Then he turned back to Mustafa and his prisoner.

  “What about him?” Mustafa called above the wind, indicating Thompson.

  “Take him back inside...” Yassim stopped, his ears cocked in the direction of the lake.

  “What is it?” Mustafa asked loudly, seeing the sudden shift in the cell leader.

  “Quiet!” screamed Yassim, straining to hear the noise over the movement of the hostages back inside. Then recognition dawned on his face and he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everyone inside now!” and he fired several shots into the air. The crowd lurched forward, knocking each other down, cramming into the doorways.

  Yassim scanned the sky over the lake and then shouted, “Mustafa, get the RPG! Quickly!”

  Mustafa bolted for the doors, forcing students out of his way and disappeared inside. Yassim’s gaze alternated impatiently between the sky above the waters and the doors where Mustafa had gone. In less than sixty seconds, Mustafa was bursting back through the doors. A large metal cylinder in hand, he ran to the edge of the deck where Yassim still stood. He pulled up alongside Yassim, knelt and then lifted the rocket launcher to his shoulder.

  “Not yet, my friend,” Yassim placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let’s wait to see who our visitors are.”

  Eyes to the sky, both men remained motionless. Behind them the students struggled through the open doors, the collected bodies like moving streams into an open drain. The sound from the sky grew louder and more distinct, though they could still see nothing because of the cloud cover. Yassim was sure what it was. A helicopter, probably a Bell, he thought, and no doubt from the prison. The sheriff wouldn’t have anything like that. As they stared at the sky, the blue shape of the helicopter materialized out of the gray mist. The first thing visible was the large letters “FBI” on the side.

  Yassim smiled and said, “Mustafa, as soon as you get a sure shot.”

  Mustafa nodded, adjusted the long, black cylinder on his shoulder and focused through the eyepiece, studying his target. The flame shot from the barrel. His eyes quickly shifted to the sky where the helicopter was hovering over the water still several hundred yards from the deck. In a few seconds, a fiery ball exploded in the gray sky where the copter had been. Still fascinated, he watched as it hung briefly in the air.

  Then, just as suddenly, it dropped from the sky and slammed into the water, the fires releasing steam as the shell of the helicopter descended into the lake. Mustafa stood up from his crouch and let the end of the launcher lean on the deck and together they watched the water. No figures emerged from the water where the wreckage disappeared.

  “Now it has begun,” Yassim announced.

  Chapter 35

  Rashid clutched the sweater of the small girl in front of him, as the student throng shoved through the too narrow opening. Freezing and terrified, they had bolted for the three sets of doors as soon as Yassim had given the order, stampeding out of the cold like a herd of terrified animals. That was what they had become, Rashid realized. He held tightly to the other student because he wanted, needed to stay on his feet and get into the lunchroom. In the wilds of Afghanistan he had witnessed what could happen to animals that didn’t move with the herd in a stampede and he wasn’t about to let himself be trampled by these cowardly American children.

  So he held onto her, he thought her name was Brittany. He wasn’t sure; there were so many girls named Brittany, he got them confused. She was a skinny rail of a girl, and he held on until they were through the doors and into the surprising warmth of the cafeteria. Rashid didn’t know if Brittany, or whatever her name was, noticed that he had a hold of the back of her sweater, but she helped to get him through the frightened, pulsing throng. He let go and walked a little way off by himself, trying to edge into the partial darkness of the huge pillar on the side of the room.

  Surreptitiously he tried to keep an eye on the students and the only teacher nearby. Obviously anxious and nervous, the fat American teacher--he thought her name was Mrs. Striker--and the scared students were whispering quietly to each other. They seemed concerned with consoling each other and didn’t seem to even notice him. Dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a “No Fear” shirt, Rashid looked like just any other teen, except for his olive skin. But the students and teachers around seemed both relieved and terrified and they all were too self-absorbed to even give Rashid a thought. He was glad; that was as he had planned it.

  When Rashid received his orders, the cell leader had been clear. “You are to stay hidden among the students. Go to school and do not call attention to yourself.”

  Rashid sighed. He realized that he had gotten lucky yesterday. If Jesus had not warned him, Jerod would have found him and he would have had to answer some difficult questions. That could have led to problems just a day before the exercise, though he hadn’t known the day then.

  Why had Yassim not thought he could tell him the day? Was he not to be trusted? He bent down and picked up the backpack he had hidden behind the pillar and checked to make sure it had not been bothered. Looking around to be sure he wasn’t being watched, he made a quick inspection of the contents. Satisfied, he zipped it back up and laid it back next to the pillar again.

  “On the day of the delivery, you will be treated like all the rest of the students,” Yassim had said in that hotel room.

  When he did not go on, Rashid had asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay among them. Watch them. Listen to their talk. You will know if you need to contact one of us.”

  “Is that all?” Rashid had asked.

  “No!” the cell leader said. “You have been trained like the rest of us. We will need you...when the time comes.”

  “How will I know when you want me to act?”

  “Watch for my signal.”

  The young fighter knew better than to ask more.

  Rashid moved around the pillar so he had a clear view of Yassim and the other terrorists who had reentered the cafeteria. The four men, the AK-47 automatic rifles draped across the front of their bodies, stood like sentries across the front of the lunchroom. His eyes roamed the crowd of teachers and students and noted, with some satisfaction, the paralyzing fear etched into the faces of the hostages. His stare landed on Yassim’s face and he thought he noticed the slightest of recognition, a brief flash in the eyes. Surely the cell leader had not given the signal, Rashid assured himself.

  In his head he repeated the names of his fellow fighters, a mental exercise, in case he would need to pull them up quickly. Yassim, Fadi, uh, Mustafa, yes, and, of course, Jesus.

  He did not understand Jesus. Even though Miss Sterber, like all Americans, was an enemy, what he did to her was not necessary. Jesus’ treatment of her was not what he had been taught in h
is lessons in the camps.

  Of course, Jesus had been right, it is not a woman’s place to correct a man and it is true that she attempted to demean him in front of these captives. Yes, she did twist the words of the prophet from the Koran to fit her meaning, trying even in this to better Jesus. But Allah would not approve of demeaning any woman so, Rashid thought. He had been taught that if your enemies embarrass or ridicule you, you may take the sword to them, but you do not humiliate them. At one point, it even looked like Jesus was going to force her to commit an obscene act, right there in front of the students. If he intended to execute her all along, her humiliation was not necessary, he thought. Since Miss Sterber was so strong and would not yield, it only made Jesus look to be the weak one.

  Or, Rashid pondered, perhaps he felt this way because Miss Sterber was one of the only teachers who seemed to actually take an interest in him. He got the feeling that he was not simply a curiosity to her, that when she was asking about him, she was truly concerned. Of course, he could not have anyone asking about his family or his background so he had dismissed her questions, but he had to admit it was comforting to have someone interested in you just as you are, not for what they can get from you.

  She did correct him also in class, he remembered, but even then she did not allow the other students to abuse him, at least when she could control it. And she had even allowed him to accompany her for the interview of Asad. He knew that Miss Sterber was suspicious of why he wanted to go to the prison and surely the others students must have been very upset with her selecting him over them, but still she allowed him to go to HBE to deliver his message.

  Rashid shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to think. Besides, his concern is too late; she was dead now.

  The detour of his thoughts was jolted back to the front of the crowded, noisy lunchroom. In one of the few remaining bright lights, automatic weapon ready to fire, Yassim was yelling again. “Everyone listen!” Rashid did.