Blinding Fear

by Roland, Bruce

  This elaborate thievery was not going to deter him from claiming what was rightfully his!

  Chapter 10

  The music of mariachi-legend Vicente Fernandez, with his unique mix of vocals, trumpets, violins and bass guitars, played softly through the Dodge Ram Van’s sound system. Adelmo Garza took one final slug of the last Cucapa beer that his good friend and co-conspirator Paul had given him. The brand was considered by beer aficionados to be the best Mexico had to offer. For Paul to have gone to such great lengths to track it down in the Boston area proved how much he liked Adelmo, appreciated his student’s mastering of the mission and how much confidence he had in him.

  It was just after 2:00 a.m.. Adelmo sat alone in his delivery van, in the darkened, empty parking lot of a small market and cafe on the corner of Huron Street and Concord Avenue in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  He and his employer had shared a 12-pack not long before in celebratory anticipation of Adelmo successfully completing the mission. The empties littered the passenger foot well. Although Adelmo hadn’t counted, he guessed he’d drunk most of the beers and was feeling quite happy. He wouldn’t say he was drunk, just slightly buzzed—then again perhaps more than slightly.

  Before leaving him alone, Paul had provided very specific instructions on exactly when to start his approach to the target. He’d told Adelmo the next clandestine meeting of the conspirators plotting against the life of Pope Francis would begin at 2:30. Through his informant he’d learned they were to gather in the basement of the Center for Astrophysics building just around the corner from where he waited in the van. Then they would finish their plans for the assassination with the assistance of the supercomputer.

  He looked at the digital clock in the dashboard and saw that it was 2:19 a.m.— nearly “go time.”

  The 360 cubic-inch Magnum small block V-8 rumbled quietly, providing heat inside the cab against the cool autumn night. For a moment he paused, listening. Something was different about the motor; something he’d initially noticed driving to the cafe’s parking lot earlier. It seemed to be idling too high. Normally factory-set to 800 RPM, as he looked at the tachometer, blinking away alcohol-induced fogginess, he could see it was now around 1,500. He chuckled to himself. It was just like his cost-shaving boss to let vehicle maintenance go. Then, of course, something much worse would happen causing costs to go sky-high. No matter, he wouldn’t have to worry about this van’s maintenance ever again!

  Adelmo reviewed for the umpteenth time what he was to do and why; drive down Concord and turn left on Madison Street. Go one block and turn right into a parking lot, accelerate to around 30 miles per hour and crash the van into the three-story brick facade of the hundred-year-old, unreinforced brick building that housed the Center for Astrophysics. Adelmo was obviously skeptical but Paul had assured him that the building would easily collapse. He said it would be like running into a hay stack because of the poor, early twentieth-century construction techniques. He added the three-ton mass of the van and its reinforced cab would provide all the protection he needed. Paul did warn him to make certain his lap and seat belts were tight and to push back against the steering wheel so his head and back were supported upon impact. He said the seat belts and air bag would keep him from injury, although he might be slightly stunned. The impact would send that side of the building crashing into the basement, destroying the computer and killing or seriously injuring the plotters.

  Immediately after the crash he would climb out of the van, sprawl himself out on the grass strip near the entrance to the building and wait for first-responders to arrive. He would feign a head injury saying while taking a shortcut across campus some unknown mechanical defect had forced the van to accelerate on its own causing him to lose control. He would refuse transport for medical treatment and fully cooperate with police who would likely call his boss because Adelmo would be too “shocked” to do so. His boss would almost certainly take him back to his apartment. There he would “recuperate,” refusing any other efforts by law enforcement to interview him until his “lawyer”—Paul—arrived to assist.

  Paul told Adelmo he was anticipating a big investigation and said he’d gone to great lengths to protect him from prosecution or even suspicion. Paul refused to tell him most of the behind-the-scenes planning, only saying it would protect Adelmo and their cause, in case of or during police questioning. One thing Paul did reveal was that he would hack into a mechanical engineering lab’s computer the night of the conspiracy. He planned to create a fake order for three canisters each of methane, acetylene, oxygen and hydrogen for Adelmo to deliver in the early morning hours. He’d learned one of the professors there had been working on a graduate-level project. It involved several students who were developing a new gas to replace oxy-fuel used in metal cutting. The students had been pulling all-nighters trying to develop the right mix. He’d also made certain the route Adelmo used to get to the lab would pass the astrophysics complex, further solidifying his story.

  He remained nervous about what he was about to do but still felt confident, even elated. Thankfully, Paul, in his obvious concern for Adelmo’s welfare, seemed to have thought about every negative possibility and provided an answer.

  Now, he was about to do God’s work for the good of the Holy Church, the Blessed Virgin and, of course, the world. And he was getting paid $10,000! His mother and family would be proud and would greatly benefit from the cash he would send.

  He looked at the clock again and saw it read 2:25.

  Time to go. He released the parking brake, put the gear selector into drive and slowly eased out of the parking lot and headed down Concord Avenue; the twelve heavy canisters of compressed gases gently clanking against each other in the back.

  Chapter 11

  A block away, in the parking lot belonging to a local Catholic church, Quinten Gnash sat in the back of a late-model Ford Transit van. Decals on its side identified it as belonging to the church diocese. He was carefully watching a 32-inch HDTV monitor that showed an aerial view—from 500 feet above—of the Center for Astrophysics and its surrounding neighborhood. The image was being transmitted to the video equipment in the van from a commercial-grade drone equipped with a high-resolution, telephoto, thermal imaging camera. It could relay in crisp detail everything that was happening on the ground in real-time—although in ghostly shades of gray.

  He was looking forward with great anticipation to what was about to transpire, given the many weeks of painstaking preparation and tens-of-thousands of dollars of “black” government money he’d invested in the operation.

  If the contagion was to be contained, this operation was critical to its overall success.

  As he watched the Dodge van pull out of the market’s parking lot he also had to admit to some regret that the operation was about to come to a conclusion. He deeply enjoyed the intricate process of planning and execution that all of his operations entailed, even when collateral damage to civilians resulted—planned or otherwise. When they ended he felt a void that he knew could only be filled with the next undertaking.

  Working with—although he knew the best word for what he had done was “manipulating”—Adelmo Garza had proven to be a challenge on many levels. Although he had a rudimentary, severely deficient education, the man was more intelligent and wary than anticipated. This had required Gnash to build a much more elaborate framework of deception to persuade Garza to take the bait. Although the extra thought and work were a bit bothersome, he had eventually enjoyed the additional challenge and solutions he had achieved.

  Again he checked both of the remote controls sitting on the small desk in front of him, making sure all digital signal data links were in the green. One controlled the drone, although at the moment it was in full-autonomous mode and simply hovering. He was thankful he’d paid extra for the quiet “Silent Running” model. He could see from the battery life indicator he had at least another 10 minutes before he needed to press the recall button that would send it automati
cally back to his location—more than enough time to complete its surveillance.

  The other remote could, and in a few moments, would control the essential functions of Garza’s van, in addition to a few strategically selected mechanical features.

  Modifying the van had proven to be a simple task for his three-man, tech-ops field team. Over the years he had called upon them to make necessary mechanical, electronic and digital modifications to every conceivable type of conveyance known to man. They were very good, very fast and very, very expensive.

  The van had been parked as normal in a supposedly secure garage overnight along with the other delivery vans and vehicles belonging to Garza’s boss. They’d been able to break into the garage shortly after business shut down for the day, easily defeating the alarm systems in less than a minute, and make all the modifications to the van itself in less than an hour.

  He’d also tasked the team to make precisely engineered, virtually imperceptible changes to the gas canisters, pre-loaded that day for Garza’s late-night delivery. This work had taken another hour. Although not necessarily within their realm of expertise, they’d agreed to the extra assignment only after he’d agreed to pay their extortionist fee increase.

  The final part of their work had been to “re-appropriate” Garza’s new cash from his room with him napping in it. They’d done so with ease.

  Now, as his heart rate began to climb, the beautiful, minutely planned, carefully orchestrated operation was about to unfold before him.

  Chapter 12

  Adelmo slowly drove down Concord Avenue. He struggled to stay at exactly 25 miles per hour—the speed limit on that stretch of the street—because of the engine’s strange, excessive power and behavior.

  Paul told him to obey every driving law to the letter, just before his final dash into the building, in case a Cambridge police cruiser happened to be in the area.

  The old, dim, headlights barely illuminated the deserted street and numerous trees just beginning to show seasonal changes. The Vicente Fernandez cassette tape that Paul had so thoughtfully managed to buy, gently serenaded him.

  He came to Madison Street, successfully making the left-hand turn without incident, in spite of the growing affect the alcohol was having on him. The closer he got the more excited he became about completing his Godly mission. Although he was still concerned about the actual crash, Paul had on many occasions, including this night, reassured him that he had nothing to fear.

  ‘You’re a strong, young, virile man,’ he’d said. ‘You will handle the crash with ease.’ In addition, Paul told him the alcohol would help him relax, further reducing the potential physical trauma.

  On Madison he came to the parking lot entrance, turned right into it, and stopped, the multi-building astrophysics complex with its observation domes coming into view out of the darkness. He knew the building directly in front of him was his target. He was to aim the van at the wall to the right of the small door set into the brick.

  Unexpectedly he noticed that there were no other cars in the parking lot or anywhere else he could see. He wondered how the conspirators had gotten to the site. For a few moments he began to have second thoughts, then brushed them aside. He thought instead of the smiles of undiluted joy on his mother and siblings faces when they saw the multiple thousands of American dollars he would send them.

  He pushed back into his seat, his heart rate soaring, checking his seat and lap belts, steeling himself for the next few moments.

  Chapter 13

  With his right-hand thumb hovering above the large, green “Start” button on the van remote control, Gnash watched his monitor as Garza’s van came to a stop at the outer edges of the parking lot. He had little doubt his 20 year-old human puppet was having second thoughts. Unfortunately for him the puppeteer was about to take total control.

  He waited briefly to make sure the van was pointed in the right direction and then casually pressed the button.

  Depressing “Start” initiated a series of commands contained within Gnash’s remote control that were instantly transmitted to the van’s now-reprogrammed engine control module, or ECM. Within a split second the engine roared to maximum RPMs with a ferocity and power for which it had never been engineered, thanks to the specially formulated, high-octane, gasoline power booster his ops team had poured into the van’s gas tank. What had once been regular, 87-octane, unleaded gas became 110 octane, high-performance drag racing fuel. Instead of 360 cubic inches producing a modest 240 horsepower at 5,300 RPM, the engine now screamed out 390 HP at 6,900 RPM. The engine and rest of the drive train would tear themselves apart within 20 seconds at such levels, but Gnash knew he only needed them to work at full-throttle for 10 or so to get the van to the building.

  Even from inside his own van a block away, Gnash could hear the howl of the engine and squealing tires as it came to life under his command. He knew Garza would be so startled, even stunned by the nearly explosive burst of noise and acceleration he would be nearly incapable of doing anything to stop the van.

  Gnash watched on his screen as the van virtually leaped across the parking lot. He guessed it would reach close to 60 MPH before it smashed into the building. With Garza’s blood-alcohol level somewhere well north of the legal limit Gnash knew Garza would not have enough time or where-with-all to even attempt to brake. Even if he did, he would discover they were of no use due to the sudden, catastrophic leak in the “pre-stressed” brake lines his ops team had seen to. Nor would trying to steer be of any use. The power steering would also fail completely under the extreme pressure of the high-RPMs in conjunction with the tiny nick in the hydraulic line running from the fluid reservoir to the power steering pump.

  Unlike the lie he’d told Garza, he knew the building was extremely well-constructed, which was why he had had to make certain the van reach high speed before impact.

  He could easily see in its final moments that it had.

  The van quickly crossed the 200 feet of the parking lot, slammed into the concrete parking blocks in front of the building and became airborne for a millisecond. It bounced once on the small section of grass and plowed into the brick structure, imbedding itself nearly to the rear axle with an earth-shaking, virtual explosion. Shards of brick, mortar, wood and glass erupted in all directions inside and out of the building.

  The front windshield, bumper and all other parts of the front of the van were smashed and then “accordioned” back into the cab. The airbags did not deploy, nor did the seat belt hold—both sabotaged by his team. The twelve compressed gas cylinders, each weighing more than 120 pounds, easily broke free from their chain restraints and flew forward at nearly 60 MPH to meet the front parts of the van essentially moving backward.

  Adelmo Garza, caught between the mammoth opposing forces, died instantly; his last, brief thoughts, a split second before the impact, of his mother and family.

  A second before the van hurtled into the building, a series of mechanical events, controlled by the ECM, began inside the engine compartment. A newly installed, very small, very simple device began spitting out sparks. At the same instant, a pre-stressed fuel line ruptured in precisely the right place, sending gasoline vapor toward the sparks.

  Another fraction of second later, as the gas canisters violently slammed forward, the valve mechanisms on one canister of oxygen, hydrogen, acetylene and methane—now engineered to fail under just such an impact—simultaneously fractured, allowing a deadly cloud of ultra-high explosive mist to spray and mix within the remains of the van’s interior.

  The total time from the moment Gnash pushed the start button to the moment of impact was approximately six seconds; but he knew the best was yet to come. He waited a heartbeat, saw a gas cloud begin to form around the van and then quickly pushed the recall button on the drone’s remote control. He hoped it would get away in time.

  Inside the van’s engine compartment, the sparker ignited the gasoline which an instant later touched off the gas cloud pouring from the canisters
.

  Gnash knew he had pulled together all the right elements to create what the military referred to as a “fuel-air” explosion. It worked to perfection.

  A massive, multihued fireball, thirty feet in diameter, lit up the night for blocks around, enveloping and further pulverizing the van and surrounding pile of already-damaged building. A giant thunderclap of noise startled tens of thousands of Cambridge residents awake from their night’s slumber.

  The other compressed gas canisters not tampered with by Gnash’s team failed under the enormous pressures, heat and high-velocity fragments spewing out in every direction, their gases then adding to the blast. The rest of the building, not already damaged by the van, was blown to pieces, sending shrapnel of every size and kind, hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of feet in every direction.

  The drone, which had started its return journey to Gnash’s van, staggered from the shockwave but managed to recover and continue its short flight.

  Gnash’s van rocked back as the shockwave hit. He grabbed the TV monitor as it started to topple over. He could hear bits and pieces of debris raining down on the van’s exterior.

  Within a radius of half a mile or more, he knew windows would be blown in, buildings damaged, untold numbers of occupants of those structures cut by flying glass or injured in other ways—perhaps even killed.

  He also knew the two copper observation domes in the immediately adjacent buildings would be caved in and nearly blown off their mounting structures. The buildings themselves would be so severely damaged they would have to be torn down.

  He finally noted with great satisfaction that the remains of Adelmo Garza would be strewn to every corner of the complex and beyond. Some of the pieces would be recovered by horrified residents who would turn them over to investigators. They, in turn, would discover, through microscopic analysis of the dried blood, that the “illegal alien” from Guatemala had been legally drunk.