Sleeper Cell

by Chris Culver

  “That sounds like a pretty good plan to me,” said Paul, already taking a few steps back. I climbed down and gently stepped off the rear bumper, taking my first couple of breaths. I waved my arm in the direction of the garage’s exit.

  “Everybody get back. We need to close off the area and wait for help.”

  Everybody but Chief Reddington started walking. He was already on the phone. When he looked at me, his face was almost white. Then he started waving his arms frantically.

  “Everybody out of the building,” he said. “We’ve got to go. Right now. We’ve got explosions all over the city.”

  For a moment, nobody moved. Then something inside the truck started beeping. I had been holding a nervous energy inside me for hours. Finally, I let it go and sprinted. The team ran beside me. As I neared the exit, I grabbed Chief Reddington’s arm.

  “How many people are upstairs?”

  “More than I care to think about.”

  The last time I talked to my wife, I’d told her I loved her and asked her to hug our kids for me. If I kept running, an awful lot of people would never get to see their kids again. They’d never wish their spouses goodnight again. They’d never get the chance to tell their loved ones how much they meant to them. I, at least, got that chance.

  My footsteps slowed and then stopped. There were probably hundreds of people in that building. I was a police officer. I swore an oath to protect people. I didn’t put on my badge to run when others needed me.

  “Ash,” said Bowers, slowing and then stopping in front of me. “What are you doing?”

  “My job,” I said, turning back into the building. Almost instantly, I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I didn’t care. I reached the truck within seconds. The device in the back kept beeping. I didn’t know what that meant, but I assumed it wasn’t good. My hands shook, but that was the least of my worries. Bowers pounded to a stop beside me.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “There are people inside the building. We’ve got to move the truck,” I said, pulling the door handle. The door was locked, but the window was broken, allowing me to reach inside. Bowers climbed onto the running board on the other side. The moment I got in, I unlocked his door. The bombers must have stolen the truck because the ignition wires were already cut. That saved me some time.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked Bowers.

  “Reaping the benefits of a misspent youth,” I said.

  With the plastic panel beneath the steering wheel torn and the wires cut, getting the car to start was a simple matter of twisting the correct wires together and then sparking the ignition. The entire process took about ten seconds, but with a giant bomb in the back, it felt like a year.

  The truck started with a rumble, and I threw it into gear.

  “You stole cars when you were a kid?” asked Bowers.

  “No, I took autoshop in high school,” I said, pressing the gas pedal. The big truck jumped forward. “I wanted to be a mechanic. My mom had other ideas.”

  Bowers nodded but didn’t say anything. He had his eyes closed, and his lips were moving. He was praying. Probably wasn’t a bad idea.

  It took us another thirty seconds to leave the garage. When we burst into the light of the street, it seemed almost impossibly bright. A car to my left honked. I didn’t care. I didn’t let off the gas. I just floored it out of there and hung a right, blowing through a stoplight.

  “You know where you’re going?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Parking lot. When I stop, get out and run.”

  Bowers nodded. In most cities, natural barriers—rivers, lakes, oceans, harbors, etc.—forced developers to go up. They built skyscrapers and massive multistory parking garages. Indianapolis didn’t have that same geography. Here, our relatively flat landscape allowed developers to take a more relaxed approach. They used every inch of space we had, but instead of putting up an eight-story parking garage, they might just put in one giant surface lot.

  Like the one catty-corner to my building.

  “Hold on, Mike,” I said, pressing on the gas hard. The big truck didn’t jump, but it sped up as I turned the wheel. There wasn’t an easy way into the parking lot, so I made my own entrance. I hit the curb hard and almost flew out of my seat. Thankfully, the truck had enough momentum to keep going. The front of the truck smashed into a minivan and pushed it out of its spot. Then I hit a sedan and tiny two-seater before coming to a stop several rows deep in the lot. A lot of people were going to be pissed when they got home from the mall, but hopefully they’d forgive me.

  “Get out,” I said, already opening the door. Bowers and I jumped out of the big truck and ran hard for about three hundred yards to a row of oversized concrete planters built into the sidewalk across the street. When I reached them, I slid on the ground and felt the asphalt tear through my sweatpants. I didn’t care as long as I had something heavy and stable between me and the truck. Bowers came to a stop beside me and tensed. Neither of us breathed for a moment.

  And nothing happened.

  I glanced at Captain Bowers and chuckled a little, a quick release of tension. Then I heard Bowers beside me exhale a long sigh of relief.

  “You know,” I began, “in the movies, the truck would have—”

  An explosion ripped through the air before I could finish the sentence. The shock wave hit us first. Even with a concrete planter between us and the blast, it was a visceral blow to every part of my body, like being punched by God himself. The ground shook hard enough that had I been standing, I would have been knocked down. A split second later, the sound hit. It was raw noise that assaulted my ears and overcame my senses so that it was all my brain could process. Instantly, dirt and glass and pieces of metal started slamming into the planter and raining down on the ground around us. A thick cloud of debris enveloped us. I held my breath.

  For a very brief moment, the world became a very small place for me. All I knew was noise and dust. Eventually, I blinked grit out of my eyes and breathed again. The smoke was pungent and sharp, like something from a refinery. As my senses gradually returned, I found that my body didn’t hurt. That seemed like a good thing. As I leaned forward, dirt and glass fell from my shoulders. Something had cut my right hand, but it looked superficial. I was okay.

  “You all right, Mike?”

  I could barely hear my own voice above the ringing in my ears. Bowers looked at me and blinked and then pointed to my hand.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  His voice was even fainter than mine. Since he could talk, he was probably okay. The two of us stayed still for another minute as the world gradually came into focus.

  Then I stood on wobbly legs and looked around. It was an odd scene. The sky was bright blue to the west and north, but it was marred by a massive plume of smoke from the south. Every car on the street had broken windows, and if I listened closely, I could hear car alarms all around me. The parking lot in which I had stashed the truck was a hellscape of black smoke and flame. There was a massive crater where there had once been a truck.

  I pulled out my cell phone. The screen was cracked. I didn’t know whether that was from the blast, or whether I had fallen on it. Either way, it didn’t work.

  Captain Bowers stood beside me. He had blood on his chin and right cheek.

  “You all right?” I asked for the second time. The ringing in my ears wasn’t quite as intense as it had once been, but it hadn’t subsided completely. Bowers looked at me and nodded.

  “I think so. You?”

  “Fine,” I said, walking around the planter to the side that had taken the brunt of the blast. Several pieces of metal had become embedded in the concrete, and shards of glass littered the ground. The gingko tree the city had planted was little more than a stick at that point, but the planter itself took the impact with little visible damage. I knew without a doubt that it had saved my life.

  I rubbed dirt from my face and sat down. Bowers sat near me. People were starting to come out o
f the nearby buildings. Most looked shocked. A few were in tears. Bowers patted my shoulder and pointed to our left. There was a man running away. Seemed a little late for that.

  “Weren’t we looking for a sixty-year-old Arab guy?” asked Bowers.

  I focused on the runner. He looked as if he were the right height, and he had graying hair. He had the right skin tone, too. I couldn’t see his face, but he sure looked like Saleem al-Asiri from behind. My mind must not have been working at a hundred percent because it took me a moment to realize that I probably should have been chasing him.

  I stood and took off. Saleem was about a block ahead of me on Washington Street, but he was an old man who had just weathered a massive explosion. It didn’t take long to catch up to him. A younger suspect, I probably would have tackled and held down. Saleem, I grabbed by the arm and pushed against the glass window of a mortgage processor.

  “Were you hurt in the explosion?” I asked.

  He bent over and put his hands on his knees but didn’t say anything.

  “If you’re thinking about catching your breath and running, I wouldn’t.”

  He nodded and eventually stood straighter.

  “You can’t arrest me,” he said. “I have diplomatic immunity from the Syrian Arab Republic.”

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed so that he faced the window. Then I ran my hands across his chest and legs to search for weapons. He had a cell phone in his pocket with a string of text messages in Arabic. I skimmed them and then looked to Saleem.

  “I will see you in paradise, my friend,” I said, roughly translating his last text. “God is great. Your sacrifice will be remembered.”

  Saleem turned around but didn’t respond.

  “I’m guessing you were supposed to die in the explosion,” I said. “You were probably supposed to take this phone with you, too.”

  “If you arrest me, I’ll die in prison,” he said. “You can’t do that. I’m a Muslim. You won’t do that to one of your own.”

  I slipped his phone into my pocket. “You tried to murder hundreds of people. You’re not one of my own.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know,” he said. “Just let me go.”

  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m not the one who makes deals. Now shut up. You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter 43

  There were one-hundred and forty-seven people in the City-County Building at the time of the explosion. All but one, a social worker putting in extra hours on a Sunday morning, survived. The woman who died had a heart attack upon hearing the blast. Paramedics tried to revive her, but there was nothing they could do.

  Seven people—two bad guys and five civilians—died at Monument Circle. Another eight civilians and two state police officers died when three teenage gunmen opened fire at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Those three teenagers along with three other gunmen at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway were shot and killed by our tactical teams. The race went off without further hitch. Most of the fans probably didn’t even realize something had happened.

  In addition, two gunmen were arrested at the zoo without incident, one was arrested at the Botanical Gardens after firing several errant shots at a docent, two were arrested in the Circle Center Mall before they could fire a shot, and one was arrested crying in the men’s room at the Art Museum.

  The terrorists didn’t just go after human beings, either. Three houses exploded around town when the natural gas in them ignited. Our tactical teams and the Indianapolis Fire Department managed to vent four others without incident.

  In total, fourteen civilians, eight misguided young men, and two police officers lost their lives. We arrested six teenagers the day of the explosion and charged them with dozens of crimes. It took a couple of days, but thanks to Saleem al-Asiri’s phone and contacts, the FBI tracked the group’s ringleaders—Hashim and Hamza Bashear—to a small town in Texas near the US-Mexico border. When Border Patrol agents tried to make an arrest, Hashim and Hamza pulled out pistols. Both men were killed before getting a shot off.

  Saleem al-Asiri disappeared from federal custody shortly thereafter. Whether he got a deal or whether the CIA had taken him to a secret prison in Thailand for further questioning, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. He wouldn’t hurt anyone again.

  Dalia Bashear, Hamza Bashear’s young wife, was arrested in Italy a couple of days later, trying to make her way to Afghanistan. I didn’t know what would happen in that case. The US government wanted her to stand trial for the same charges as her husband, but the Italian government refused to extradite criminal suspects if those suspects were to be tried for crimes for which the death penalty was a potential punishment.

  Considering she was accused of murdering the president’s wife and family, that one was going to get ugly. It made me glad I didn’t have a more important job. I felt for her kids. They had lost everything in an instant. I hoped and prayed the system worked for them. Maybe they’d even get adopted by a nice Italian family. If so, they might be able to escape living in a society that knew them only as the children of people who had killed the beloved wife of a former president.

  For my actions that day, Chief Reddington nominated me for a Medal of Valor for heroism, and Captain Bowers nominated me for IMPD’s Medal of Honor, the highest award the department could give. The review board agreed unanimously on both medals and scheduled a special award ceremony to take place in five months. As much as I appreciated being recognized for my service, I didn’t feel heroic. Supposedly, my work had saved hundreds of lives, but a lot of people still died. If Hannah let me, I planned to call in sick that day.

  When Kevin Havelock had approached me with this assignment, I had thought I knew what this investigation would cost me. I’d hurt people I cared about. My community, my friends, my family. I didn’t have a damn clue about the cost, though. Now Kevin Havelock was dead. Three other FBI agents were dead. Eight civilians were dead. Six boys too young to understand the world they had stepped into were dead. Kim Peterson and her boyfriend were dead. Six young women from Syria were dead. Jacob Ganim was dead.

  Now I knew the cost of my investigation. It wasn’t time or money, but lives. The thing that scared me the most, though, was that I’d do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant stopping something worse from happening.

  All of that passed through my head as I carried eight pounds of marinated boneless skinless chicken thighs to my grill. A week had passed since the bombing, and I had spent it writing and reading reports and researching my case and the people involved. I had answers to most of my questions now.

  I wished I didn’t.

  Nassir wasn’t charged with a crime, but US Marshals seized the assets of Safe Haven, LLC, claiming the holdings company had clearly become involved in matters of domestic terrorism. The onus, then, was on Nassir and his attorneys to prove that his camp and its assets weren’t involved in criminal activity.

  They had filed paperwork, but I think Nassir understood his idea of a summer camp for refugees would never happen. Maybe his heart was in the right spot, but he and his friends had made mistakes. After losing his summer camp, Nassir moved home to his house in Indianapolis. My sister moved in with me for a couple of days while she and Nassir figured things out. That was okay by me. With our lives falling apart around us, I liked having an eye on her.

  “Hey, Dad,” called Megan from the lawn as I put chicken on the grill, “can we put up the badminton net today?”

  I closed the lid to keep the temperature high.

  “Sure. Uncle Paul and Miss Emilia are on their way. When they get here, just ask them for help.”

  It was a perfect day for a backyard barbecue. The sun was high overhead on a cloudless spring afternoon, bees were buzzing from one spring flower to another, and my kids were playing well together in the sandbox in the backyard. I was surrounded by the people I loved most in the world, but I couldn’t relax. I had a lot on my mind.

  Rana, my sister, came out of the back door and onto th
e deck. She had her hair down, and she wore a flowing green dress and black leggings. She sipped at a coffee mug. She looked more comfortable and relaxed than she had in a long time. I guess that came with not having Nassir around.

  Rana put her coffee mug on the top rail of the deck and sat on a chair near me.

  “You’ve really got to talk to your wife about her coffee,” she said, looking into her mug. “This can’t be healthy.”

  I cleared my throat and looked at my watch to time the chicken. Since the meat was boneless, I gave it six minutes a side.

  “Hannah makes me coffee every morning, and I’ve kept my mouth shut for almost twelve years now. I love her, and I love that she’s so thoughtful that she makes it for me,” I said, looking from Rana to the kids. I lowered my voice. “God has given us all gifts and natural talents. I hope yours is discretion.”

  “My lips are sealed,” she said, picking up her coffee mug again and watching the kids play. At six minutes, I flipped the chicken. At twelve minutes, I took the meat off the grill, covered it with aluminum foil, and took it inside to rest. Emilia Rios knocked on the front door as I was in the kitchen. She had brought a salad, and once she put it down, Hannah gave her a hug. Paul came a few minutes later with a pot of baked beans, which Hannah put in the oven.

  After that, Rana and Hannah started talking about Hannah’s newest book in the kitchen, so Paul, Emilia, and I went outside to the deck. It wasn’t a party. The occasion was too somber for that.

  “So did you go to Kevin Havelock’s funeral?” asked Paul.

  I shook my head and looked over the lawn. Megan and Kaden had started playing soccer with Emilia.

  “Agent Russel made it known that I wasn’t welcome. I paid my respects at his grave this morning.”