by Ben Coes
Fahd continued to weave the wire back and forth across the stairs, working his way up, moving the duffel with each step so that it was above him. Halfway up, he stopped and put down the spool of wire. He looked up. The second floor was clear. No more students were coming from that floor. Not that it mattered. He reached into the duffel and removed an IED.
The device was the size of a loaf of bread. Three-quarters of the device was made up of rectangular blocks of black material, taped together with blue duct tape: Semtex 10, designed for the destruction of concrete and metal. A cluster of objects was taped or wired to the end of the Semtex, including the detonator, a battery, and a trigger—in this case a firing button which, when pressed, would set off the bomb.
Fahd gingerly attached a green wire to the battery. This meant that the IED was live. If somehow the firing button—sticking out from the side of the device—was pressed, the block of Semtex would explode. Very gently, Fahd placed the IED on top of a section of wire so that it was elevated above the stairs. He picked up the spool of tungsten wire and continued weaving a web across the stairs. When he reached the landing at the top, he stopped and looked down. The IED was sitting on top of the silvery web, halfway down. If anyone cut the wire, at any place in the wire, the IED would fall to the stairs and explode.
Over the next hour, Fahd set IEDs in the first-, third-, and fifth-floor stairwells, all utilizing the same tungsten web. Omar did the same on the opposite side of Carman. If any one of the IEDs went off, the concussive power of the explosion would almost certainly cause the other bombs to detonate.
With the elevators destroyed and both stairwells wired for massive explosions, there was no way to get up to the tenth floor.
There was also no way to get down.
* * *
On the third floor, Ramzee stepped out of the stairwell a few seconds after Mohammed had moved on the second floor. Ramzee moved down the hallway, AK-47 in both hands, pointed in front of him.
Doors to student rooms lined both walls, and people poured into the hall, alarmed by the gunfire from below.
Soon, the hall was filled with panic-stricken students and parents. Ramzee stood at the end of the hall as if studying the scene. No one noticed him for at least a dozen seconds. Then a girl sensed Ramzee behind her and turned. A dazed moment of shock followed, then she screamed.
Ramzee fired. The bullet ripped into her neck and kicked her back and down.
Gunshots sounded somewhere above.
As the girl tumbled to the carpet, the third floor erupted in hysteria. A woman fainted.
A male student was kneeling and had his cell phone aimed at Ramzee, taking a video. Ramzee fired a bullet at him. The slug hit the cell phone before it ripped into the young man’s head.
“No cell phones! No videos! That’s what happens!”
Ramzee fired again—a short burst of slugs into the ceiling. For good measure, he dropped the muzzle and let one more volley fly at the crowd, injuring several people and killing several more. A boy with glasses and curly hair was still alive; the slug had hit him in the shoulder. He was on his stomach, moaning in pain, trying to crawl forward. Ramzee fired again, spraying the student’s back with bullets, putting him out of his misery.
“Go! The other stairs. If you want to live, go right now,” Ramzee warned loudly. “No talking! No phone calls! Up to the tenth floor. Now!”
The remaining students and parents didn’t hesitate. Amid soft sobs, they filed down the hallway toward the stairs. Ramzee followed, looking in the rooms to see if anyone was trying to hide, listening as, somewhere above, more gunfire mixed with muffled cries.
Ramzee heard footsteps behind him. He turned, but it was too late. A middle-aged man was charging. Ramzee tried to swing the rifle around, but the assailant caught the muzzle. The man dived at Ramzee, the barrel of the gun in one hand, his other hand finding Fariq’s hand on the stock. He was a big man. His hands were larger than Ramzee’s and he was powerful. He pushed Ramzee backward and tackled him, then slammed the rifle across his neck.
* * *
Ramzee punched the man, just as steel slammed against his neck. He tried to look up and see. He was American, with short brown hair and a savage look. Ramzee swung wildly, kicking whatever he could, but the pressure on his neck was unremitting. Students ran to help. Ramzee felt hands on his arms and legs, holding them down. He couldn’t do anything.
Ramzee felt as if he was watching TV. It all happened so abruptly, and he was barely a participant.
The man grunted and Ramzee heard a dull snap, which, in the moment before he went black, he realized was his own neck.
* * *
On the fourth floor, Ali waited for several minutes. He watched his floor through the window in the stairwell door as screaming and gunfire came from both above and below. It was an eerie sight. With each howling cry from another part of the building, students poured into the hallway. Many were crying, hugging each other. Many were on cell phones, calling for help. For a brief moment, Ali imagined what it must be like to be a student under attack. Or to be a student at all. To live in such a building and not have to fight, hate, kill. His father had attended university in Toronto. He remembered his father telling him stories of what it was like. The dances. The dormitory. Teachers. The papers he wrote.
The memory flashed through his mind over a pregnant moment, then was gone.
He pulled his ski mask down and opened the door.
“Move to the stairs at the other end,” he said calmly, the rifle in his right arm, aimed at the ground, pointing with his left hand. “No talking.”
A tall man with neatly combed gray hair pushed through the students. He was angry.
“Who are you?”
Ali pointed again with his left index finger.
“If you want to live, turn around and start moving.”
The man came a little closer to Ali. He stopped when he was just ten feet away.
“This is a dorm, for God’s sake,” the man said, trying to remain calm. “They’re kids! Let them go. You can keep me. Keep the parents. They’re children. They have their whole lives in front of them!”
Behind the man, the throng remained still.
Ali moved his left hand to the rifle, raised it, and pulled the trigger.
Bullets flew down the hall. The crack of automatic weapon fire was joined by screams and by the sound of footsteps, yelling, and desperate cries as the people fought to get away from the fusillade.
Ali held the trigger until the mag was empty. He popped it out and stepped over the dead man, whose chest was a riot of crimson.
“I warned you,” said Ali to the dead man. He threw the empty mag at the man’s head and pulled another from his vest, slamming it in.
The hallway was littered with bodies. Ali counted seventeen dead as he made his way to the far stairs.
* * *
Jack Sullivan looked at Ramzee for several moments. He picked up the dead terrorist’s gun.
The floor was silent. All eyes were on him. To reinforce the silence, Sullivan held his finger to his mouth. He waved everyone toward the middle of the hall.
“Daddy,” came the whisper of his daughter, sobbing as she stepped toward him.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” he said. “Go in the bedroom. Everyone, get in these two bedrooms. Hurry. We only have a minute or two.”
He continued to wave his arm, calling everyone in. He clutched the carbine, watching both ends of the hall, his head swiveling back and forth, looking for more terrorists. He waved everyone into a room.
“Hurry!” he whispered impatiently. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
They crowded into two rooms as Sullivan stood in the hallway, guarding the doors. When everyone had packed into the rooms, he spoke.
“Look out the window,” he said. “Is anyone out there?”
“Some people who look like soldiers. SWAT.”
“How far away? Are they moving in?”
“No.”
Sullivan looked at his daughter.
“Now everyone, listen. I don’t need to tell you these men are terrorists. They’re going to kill everyone. But you are all going to escape.”
“How?” asked someone.
“It won’t be easy,” said Sullivan. “We’re on the third floor. That’s low enough to jump and not die.”
“We’ll break our legs.”
“You might, but staying here is not an option. You have a better chance of living if you jump. A broken leg will heal.”
A low rumble of whispers and sobbing spread over the crowd of students.
His daughter hugged him. “I love you, Daddy.”
She pushed through the crowded room. At the window, she looked out, then unlatched and opened it. The entire room watched.
She looked down. The street was empty. Directly beneath her was concrete.
“Let your legs absorb the landing,” said her father. “Go, sweetheart. For me. I love you.”
Tears streamed down her face. She looked at her father one last time, turned, and jumped.
* * *
Daisy took Andy and Charlotte each by the hand and pulled them to the corner of a room. They were both hysterical. Charlotte was on her cell phone, sobbing to someone. Daisy put her hand over the speaker.
“Come with me.”
“Dad, can you hold on?”
“You need to hang up.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t have any answers and right now you need to focus on staying alive, not talking on the phone.”
Charlotte nodded as tears flowed. “I love you, Dad,” she said.
In the corner, against the wall, they huddled together and held hands.
“We’re going to be rescued,” Daisy whispered. “You have to keep thinking that. But until then, we need to stay strong. That means no eye contact, no crying, no talking, pretend you’re invisible. We’re going to do what they say. Okay?”
“What are they going to do to us?” asked Andy.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Daisy. “They obviously want something. To get it, they’re going to kill people. It’s not going to be you.”
Andy sobbed louder.
“Be thankful they’re after something,” said Daisy. “If they weren’t, they would’ve blown up the whole building. Come on. I can’t do this without you two.”
Charlotte looked up.
“I can’t do it without you either,” she said. She grabbed Andy’s hand. “Or you. We can do this.”
Gunfire ruptured the din of crying and whispers on the floor. Daisy squeezed harder. She looked at them with a fierce look.
“We can do it,” she said calmly, forcing a smile. “I know I’m going to die someday, but I’ll be damned if it’s because of some fucking terrorist.”
43
NEAR IRHAB, SYRIA
Dewey kept the ski mask on as he drove away from Aleppo. He kept the rifle and the handgun on the seat next to him. For several miles, his breathing was fast and nervous, his heart racing. He expected to see ISIS gunmen guarding the road at the outskirts of the city. But he saw no one except a few teenagers wandering in the road, climbing over collapsed buildings, staring at him as he drove the truck slowly by.
Soon the destruction of Aleppo—blocks of rubble where homes used to be, roads pockmarked with craters, bodies still lying on the ground weeks after being killed, a visible, acrid-smelling haze of dust—disappeared. The air grew clear. He took off the ski mask and put it on the seat next to him.
The highway was little more than a two-lane paved road. It cut straight through vistas of brown flatland and clusters of small homes and dilapidated buildings. Soon there was nothing except empty brown land in both directions, with the occasional swath of green where a farm was. Broken-down cars sat just off the road by the dozens. After an hour of driving, Dewey had seen only three vehicles, all of them cars that passed him heading north, away from Aleppo.
After an hour or so, Dewey slowed and took a left onto a dirt road. He checked to make sure he still had cell coverage so that the Israelis could track him. Every so often another small dirt road cut off from the one he was on, leading to farms and homes in the distance, barely visible. He drove for twenty minutes. When he had gone for several miles without seeing any roads, homes, or signs of life, he stopped, turned the truck around, and drove back for a mile, then went right, rumbling off the dirt road onto the open land.
After a hundred feet, he stopped the truck and climbed out.
He ran back to the road. He inspected the tire tracks. They weren’t deep, but they were clearly visible.
Dewey took off the T-shirt and whipped it down at the tracks, sweeping the lines away from the dusty dirt. He waved the T-shirt left and right, swatting the land, brushing away the evidence of his departure from the dirt road. He walked all the way to the truck, erasing the tracks. When he was done, he scanned the horizon in every direction, seeing nothing. He climbed back into the truck and drove.
After a half mile, he turned off the engine.
The cell phone showed one bar.
He climbed down from the cab of the truck, taking the mask and guns with him. Looking around, Dewey couldn’t see anything other than flatland and, far in the distance, a low ridge of hills.
He was thirsty. He searched the truck from the passenger’s side door to see if there was anything to drink, coming up empty. He walked toward where, in the distance, the sun was close to setting, always checking the phone to ensure that there was coverage. After more than a mile, he sat down. As thirsty as he was, his mind flashed to the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of the dead gunman in the basement of the hospital.
He lay down and put his left arm beneath his head, the rifle next to him, the handgun tucked inside his belt in front.
Soon the sun was gone and the orange sky turned purple and deep blue. He relaxed as a wall of clouds swept in from the west, darkening the sky. His eyelids were heavy and he let them fall shut. He fell into a deep sleep, lying there in the middle of nowhere.
* * *
He awoke and sat up quickly, grabbing the gun.
He’d been dreaming.
Much of the time, his dreams were vague and terrible. Images from his past he couldn’t remember. Feelings of terror as he ran from something, or unbelievable guilt because of what he’d done. But now he felt only warmth as he sat there in the cold dark. It had been a dream about someone, and he tried to claw his way back into the dream to find out who she was. But he couldn’t find it. Nevertheless, he let the warmth inhabit him for a little while.
And then he saw what had stirred him.
Far in the distance, headlights twinkled across the blackness. Dewey watched as the vehicle moved right to left. It was obviously on the dirt road. More than likely, it was just some random Syrian, out for a drive, yet he couldn’t help feeling anxious.
They couldn’t have tracked him. It was impossible. The route he’d chosen was in the opposite direction of what Garotin would expect. His exit onto the dirt road was random, not to mention his cut into the open plain.
Still, he watched with a sense of foreboding. As the vehicle continued to move, its lights grew larger and more defined. It was still on the dirt road and coming closer. For the first time, he noticed bright lights separate from the headlights.
Searchlights.
Dewey was grateful that he’d wiped away the tire tracks. But what if they had night optics? They would be able to see the truck.
He looked up at the sky. There were no stars. It meant the detection range of the optics would be limited.
“Keep driving,” he whispered.
Where the hell is Kohl?
He listened for the sound of helicopters.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he hit the cell.
He dialed Meir. The signal went from one bar to none and back again. For more than a minute, the phone tried to dial … but it didn’t go through. A moment later, the cell shut off
, its battery dead.
In the light, he could see his footprints.
Dewey cursed himself, recalling the tracking abilities of various groups indigenous to the Middle East, including Syrians. He’d fucked up. Dusting the tracks was irrelevant if they could see the truck and his footprints. He should’ve dusted the ground between the truck and where he was now.
The truck stopped.
Dewey dropped to his hands and knees and started frantically to dig. The earth was gravelly and his fingertips were soon raw. He stopped after less than a minute, realizing that he wouldn’t have time. The headlights were now aimed in his direction and getting bigger.
He should’ve kept going. He could’ve made it to Turkey.
Stop thinking about what you should’ve done. It’s irrelevant. What are you going to do?
The oncoming vehicle went dark as they killed the lights.
Dewey took the handgun from his waist and put it on the ground. He got down on his stomach, placing the AK-47 in front of him. The moon-shaped magazine was the lowest point to the earth and it made the gun, in this firing position, unstable and hard to keep still. He dug a small hole that allowed him to stick a few inches of the mag down into it, then got comfortable, putting his cheek against the buttstock. With his right index finger, he moved the fire selector to semiautomatic. He reached for the muzzle, feeling for the sight. A small piece of the sight flipped up. This was a luminous dot for improved night fighting.
The rifle had a thirty-round mag, but Dewey had already fired off several rounds. More important, he didn’t know how many rounds the terrorist he took it from had already spent. The biggest problem was the gun’s range. At most, it was effective to around four hundred yards. In the dark, with no night optics or scope, Dewey assumed his effective range would be half of that at most.
Dewey remained on the ground, waiting, his finger on the trigger. He couldn’t see or hear anything. He would get few opportunities to target the killers—and perhaps none.
