I don’t know if I would have let Jerod squeeze his neck till his eyes popped, but right then with my rage seething like an angry sea, it was an attractive prospect. My fury at what Jose and the terrorists had done to my school was unraveling whatever moral compunctions held such inhibitions at bay. I thought again of the blossoming red circle on Christie’s white sweater and I wanted to choke this sniveling janitor with my own two hands. Perhaps Jose read the anger in my eyes. Either that or he couldn’t breathe and was willing to do anything to get some air. He nodded his head and Jerod relaxed his arm.
After several loud breaths, Jose managed to get out, “Oka-ay. When I left to come down here, Yasseem had them in the cafeteria.”
“Yassim?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s the leader.”
“How many are there?” I snapped back.
“I’m not sure,” Jose started and when the grip started to tighten, his right arm came up to Jerod and tugged. “Let me feenish,” he got out and then breathed again as Jerod relaxed his grip again. “I never saw all of them in one place, but I think there is only four.”
“Four?” Jerod said. “Four terrorists holding five hundred? Come on, Jose?” He pulled his arm back toward him.
Jose clawed at the encroaching arm. “I tell you the truth,” he gasped. “They keep the keeds in the lunchroom with two guns.” Jerod let up as he listened. “You know those automatic guns?”
“You mean AK-47’s?”
“Yes, I heard them say AK-47...and bombs.”
“Bombs?” I said.
“Yes, they say Mustafa has booby trapped schools weeth--”
The staccato burst of gunfire erupted from the end of the hall, just in front of the stairs. Jose’s body slumped beside me, his blood erupting in red jets onto me. I shot a glance down the narrow corridor. Another terrorist pointed an automatic rifle directly at me.
“Oh, God!” I screamed before he fired again.
Chapter 48
“Excuse me again for interrupting, Mr. President,” petitioned the voice through the speakerphone, “but we’ve received another fax from the school.”
“Send the fax through,” commanded the President.
In a few seconds the fax machine whirred. Samson rose from the table, walked over to the machine and retrieved the single sheet of paper. Returning to the oval table, he laid the page in front of President Gregory, who read it aloud.
“TIME IS QUICKLY RUNNING OUT. MR. PRESIDENT. RELEASE OUR BROTHER ASAD AKADI. IF YOU DO NOT, YOU AND THE CHILDREN OF THURBER HIGH SCHOOL WILL SOON LEARN JUST HOW IMPOTENT YOU AND YOUR GOVERNMENT ARE.
Pompous asshole!” Gregory slammed his palms on the table.
“Who do these people think they are?” snarled Dean Settler, pacing across the front of the room. His feet hammered the ceramic tiles on the floor. “We can’t let them get away--” His complaint was interrupted by another beep of the speakerphone.
“Mr. President? Sir, you might want to turn on CNN in there.”
“Thanks, MC,” said President Gregory.
Closest to the bank of large screen televisions, Settler moved to the first and hit the power button. The huge picture sprang to life, showing a talking head with a picture of a second head to his right, the second one Arab. Settler reached up and turned up the sound.
“...and we have just learned that Al Jazeera network has broadcast what they claim is a fax from terrorists holding over five hundred children and adults hostage in a high school in rural Ohio,” the talking head half spoke, half read.
“Oh shit!” snarled Tom Dickson. “The whole Goddamn world will know in about five minutes!”
The talking head on the screen continued while his foreign counterpart spoke in Arabic, holding a copy of the fax that lay on the cherry table.
“According to the Al Jazeera report, these terrorists are holding the hostages in a demand for the release of Asad Akadi, the convicted member of Al Quaida held in a nearby prison. Akadi is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the prison in Hammerville, Ohio in less than ninety minutes from now, at six p.m.”
As CNN carried a close up of the Al Jazeera camera shot of the fax, the reporter read it aloud for the audience. Settler reached up and turned down the volume.
“The whole Goddamn world already knows!” repeated the FBI Director.
“Okay, gentlemen, what do we do about it?” asked the President.
“Sir! This, this terrorist,” stammered Settler, his face red and his slight tick returning to his eye, “this terrorist just called you ‘impotent’ in front of the entire world!”
“Mr. President, sir,” added Dickson, “my SWAT and HRT teams are in place. Just say the word and they can neutralize this bastard.”
“And the hostages?” asked the President.
“Sir, for the sake of the election and for the stature of our country, you cannot even appear to be impotent,” said Settler.
“Well, Dean, I don’t think it will do my election or the stature of our country any good if we end up killing hundreds of teenagers and adults,” said the President.
“Sir, the terrorists may just kill them anyway,” said Garcia. “That is how these terrorist groups work.”
“Jerry, you’re not saying we should give up Akadi, are you?” the President asked, facing him.
“No sir.”
“Well, come down off that ivory tower intelligence mountain. What do you think we ought to do?”
“Sir, with the little ‘intelligence’ we have about what’s going on, I’m inclined to agree with Tom. The worst thing would be to do nothing,” Garcia said.
“Harold?”
Samson felt the stares of all four men on him again. “Well sir, I’m certainly no expert in interpreting these kinds of messages, but it looks to me like he’s trying to goad you into rash action. Not only the rhetoric, but the fact that he released it to the Al Jazeera network.” Harold’s eyes roamed around the table, searching the face of each man. “I believe the email we received is legitimate, sir, and I believe we have a chance to save the hostages. If we rush the school, who’s to say that the terrorists haven’t laid another trap for our assault team, as well as the hostages?”
“That’s exactly what these fanatics crave,” the President said, “to go out in a blaze of glory on network TV.” He went silent, his fingers drumming the top of the cherry table. For almost a minute, none of the other men interrupted or spoke.
Ryan Gregory finally looked up and turned to Dickson, “Tom, tell your troops that they need to move up to within a hundred yards of the school but hold their place. No one in or anywhere near that school yet, and that includes air as well. We can’t have a news copter fly over the school and get shot down live on CNN.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dickson, his thick shoulders straightening at the order.
“And Harold,” Gregory turned back to Samson, the president’s eyes the frozen blue of the sky on a frigid winter day, “get me some communication from that Dee Dee or whomever. We have to have some idea what’s going on inside that school.”
Chapter 49
For the second time in hours, I stared, helpless, into the specter of my own death. Down the hall, a gray-bearded Arab pointed the AK-47 directly at us. The barrel of the gun erupted again, spitting fire.
At the same instant, Jerod grabbed me with his left arm and pulled me behind him, as he backed up using Jose’s body as a narrow shield. Another round of bullets hit the concrete where I had been standing a second before, blasting cement chips into my legs. The next volley slammed into the dead body of Jose, jerking it with each hit, like a gangly puppet on strings. Jerod tried to duck behind the thinner man, struggling to avoid the bullets. Then, with one arm, he threw me sideways through the open doorway into the locker room.
“Get the gun!” He yelled as he dropped Jose’s bloodied body on the concrete and disappeared back into the small office across the hall.
The echo of the terrorist’s boots bounced loudly o
ff the walls in the narrow hallway sounding like the recent staccato of gunfire. For a second, I lay there, sprawled on the locker room floor, stunned.
Where was the gun? I looked frantically around the locker room. Four more hurried steps on the concrete floor outside the door. I scrambled to my feet, scanning the room, and tried to remember. I saw the gun and the intruder’s shadow at the same time. I dove headlong under the bench in the back corner of the room, just as another burst of gunfire sprayed the room. The rounds exploded into the metal lockers in rapid succession. The stink of burning cordite mingled with the locker room smells.
“Hey, Ahab!” I heard Jerod scream from the office across the hall. Craning my neck around the wood of the bench, I dared a look back at the door and saw the barrel of the gun retreat back through the doorway. Jerod’s yell distracted the terrorist. I heard him retreat into the hallway.
Jerod had no weapon. The handgun he had taken off the first terrorist was still lying on the concrete floor in the hall. I couldn’t get to it without being seen. From my prone position, I studied the locker room. It was a good-sized room with blue and white lockers lining each wall and another group, back to back, forming a bay down the center of the room. I saw the automatic rifle across the room just beyond the corner of the center lockers, but I didn’t know if I could work it. I’d never even held one before. In seconds, the intruder was surely going to spray the office where Jerod was.
I willed myself to move and pulled my body out from under the bench and scurried across the room to the other set of lockers. As I crossed the room to get to the gun, I had to go past the open door.
The terrorist was in the doorway across the hall with his back to me but he must’ve heard my footsteps. He turned back toward the locker room, and I saw the barrel of the AK-47 swing toward me.
“Our Father who art in heaven!” I whispered. Even as my hands reached the gun, I turned to see the ugly smirk of the brown jagged teeth staring at me as his finger moved to the trigger. I remember thinking I didn’t have enough time. I can’t get the gun raised up in time.
Jerod had somehow managed to grab onto the frame above the door and hoist himself up. He swung his body in a hard arc at the terrorist like some crazed acrobat. The Arab was concentrating on me, watching me fumble with the gun. He smiled, watching me squirm as he raised the automatic rifle at me. He never even saw it coming.
Jerod’s two swinging feet slammed into his back so hard that the terrorist fell straight down. He struck the concrete floor of the hallway with such force that the crash knocked the AK-47 out of his grasp. I watched the gun slide left out of my view and heard it bang against the far wall. From the sound I guessed it was out of his reach and Jerod’s as well.
Jerod dropped onto the floor and grabbed the Arab, who was momentarily dazed. But the terrorist uttered a guttural yell and turned even in Jerod’s grasp. He lowered his shoulders into Jerod and drove hard. Both men staggered back through the doorway of the office, the Arab on top now. I raised the rifle and had to look down to find the safety and, after fumbling a bit, flipped it off. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t see how I could shoot the terrorist without hitting Jerod, but I had to do something.
When I looked back up, the two men were gone from my view. I heard an unintelligible word in Arabic and a crash from inside the room across the hallway. Gun raised, I edged out the door of the locker room across the hall toward the office. Just before I got to the door, I heard it. One shot exploded from inside the room. Then a scream.
Cradling the rifle with both hands, I stepped around Jose’s bullet-riddled body and the ugly mud-red rivulets of blood and peered through the door into the office. There, on the cement floor lay the two men, the Arab still atop Jerod. Neither was moving. I held the gun at the pair, not knowing what to do. Then I noticed the blood running over Jerod’s sweatshirt and flooding onto the gray concrete. Tears poured down my face and I tried to aim the gun at the terrorist but my hand was shaking.
“”You bastard!” I screamed through my tears and tightened my finger on the trigger.
Chapter 50
Rashid leaned against the huge pillar on the right side of the cafeteria and closed his eyes. Standing there out of view of the others, he tried again to call up the picture of his mother and sister again, but nothing came this time. Desperately, he willed his mind to produce their images, but all he could conjure up were indistinct silhouettes, all fog and hazy details. Except the eyes. He could see their brown eyes clearly, red-rimmed and haunted.
The words of the Sheik came back to him. “I will make it my personal responsibility to take care of them...while you serve our sacred cause. If you perform your duties well, I will make certain nothing happens to them.” The Sheik did not need to say the rest.
Rashid wrestled his attention back and studied the room again. With the damaged, intermittent lighting, all he could catch were glimpses of faces and forms, the rest swallowed up by the darkened patches of the room. As his eyes swept the lunchroom, he saw no cause for concern. The faces he was able to make out were those of defeated adults and teens, clinging to each other, waiting to die. Many of the students huddled together, crying and praying quietly, desperately. As he listened, the voices of the students and teachers receded and merged to a single murmur that seemed to drift around the cafeteria from one group to another like some ominous cloud.
As his glance made the next sweep around the room, he caught a glimpse of a face. His eyes focused on her, a slim figure standing alone about twenty feet away. Like everyone else, she wore the mantle of fear, the features of her face pinched tightly, but beyond that, there was something more. He could not tear his gaze from her face, the shallow light from one of the working fixtures drew a line down the center of her face, leaving half in shadow. As Rashid stared across the dimly lit space, the half-lit face ignited another memory. Her skin was fairer, of course, and her nose smaller, more petite, but the resemblance was startling. Otherwise, he could have sworn that he had just seen Jabirah, the maiden who had attended him in the Cavern of Near Paradise. The same soft lips and the one eye visible, a piercing blue. It was not possible, he rationalized. She was thousands of miles away and this room was hardly the Cavern.
Then, the girl turned fully toward Rashid, the fluorescent bulb bathing the skin of her face in an alabaster sheen. The two blue eyes, deep in their saddened sockets, called to him, pleaded with him. Now, in full light, the lines of fear seemed to tighten around the mouth, forcing the imagined resemblance to fade. He saw her for who she was, just another terrified, helpless American teen. He glanced away.
When he looked at where the girl had been standing, he expected to see her gone, an apparition swallowed by the mist of the shadows in the room. But she was still there, still standing alone, still staring back at him. Even knowing this was no Jabirah, his gaze remained riveted on her and, as he watched, silent tears trickled down her whitened cheeks, glistening in the limited florescent light. Her quiet weeping served only to intensify his guilt.
Was this the Islam his Imam had dutifully taught him, reading each night from the Koran? Did Allah have no regard for these, for ones like the frail weeping young woman? he wanted to ask.
Even remembering the boasting of the Americans and the abuse he had taken, and recalling the tales he had been told in the camp, it was now hard to see these terrified teens as part of some powerful enemy of Islam. Glancing around at the huddled hostages, he pondered the unthinkable for a soldier of Allah: what would their certain deaths accomplish? What would his? He decided he needed to speak with Yassim.
Weaving between the knotted throngs of students, he made his way back up to the front of the room, where Yassim stood, automatic rifle in hand. With a wary look, the cell leader watched him approach.
“You have a question,” Yassim said to the teen soldier, without even taking his eyes off the crowd. “I can see it in your face.”
“Yes.” Rashid stared at the cell leader, an intimidat
ing figure with a pistol wedged into his belt and his arms gripping the AK-47. His resolve evaporated and he said, “The American president is not going to release our brother, Asad.”
“Is that a question or a statement?” Yassim looked at Rashid for the first time. The teen fighter watched his fingers twitch slightly on the trigger.
“A question,” Rashid said quietly.
“And a perceptive one.” The cell leader peered again across the lunchroom. “In a few minutes, I will check the fax, but I do not expect any concessions. To answer your question, no, I do not think President Gregory is interested in releasing Asad. No doubt, his political handlers tell him, it is bad for his image. But the Sheik knew that was a possibility from the beginning.”
“What of these?” Rashid asked, his head nodding toward the crowd of huddled students and teachers behind him.
“The American president’s actions simply prove what we have learned in the camps.” Yassim again stared at his youngest team member, a small smile playing across his face. “He cares a great deal more for his political career than for several hundred American teenagers.”
“And now?”
“Now I am concerned because Mustafa and Fadi have not returned. Perhaps someone remains downstairs. It is possible we may have more problems than we had planned for.”
“Do you wish me to go search for them?”
“No, I cannot afford to lose any more of my soldiers. We will wait for our enemy to come to us.” Yassim paused and looked directly at his younger partner. “It does not matter now.”
“I do not understand, Yassim.”
The cell leader glanced at his watch. “Asad is scheduled to be executed in less than an hour. And, if Mustafa did the rest of his work around the building as well as the front entrance, we will all be meeting Allah at that appointed hour.”
“Is there nothing else to do?”
Leave No Child Behind Page 29
