First Strike

by Ben Coes

  Or had he? The sun splashing off the glass was wreaking havoc on his ability to see.

  The spotters were equally perplexed.

  “Are you sure there’s someone shooting?”

  “Yes,” said Kulka.

  “Why hasn’t he hit anything?”

  “He doesn’t have the angle. Now stop fucking talking.”

  Thud thud.

  There it was again. Desperately, he scanned the building. For some reason, his eyes shot to the seventh floor. Nothing. Was it the eighth?

  Then he saw the boy step to the windowsill on three—and above it, on six, the black appurtenance.

  Thud thud.

  He listened to the scream without looking, knowing that the student had been hit. Kulka remained focused, tilting the rifle ever so slightly. He acquired the outline of the gunman just as the suppressor was pulled back in, disappearing.

  Kulka pulled the trigger and fired.

  A loud, dull boom exploded across the cavern between the two buildings, combining with the sound of shattering glass as the slug obliterated the window and, behind it, the gunman.

  Kulka fired another slug into the room, in case someone else was there, then another.

  “Man down,” he said into his commo. “I got that little motherfucker.”

  * * *

  As Sirhan reached the sixth floor, he heard the boom of the gunshot he knew had come from a sniper rifle, then the shattering glass and a pained grunt he knew was Fahd.

  He got to the hallway outside the room, kneeling. When Tariq caught up, he held up his hand, making him wait. Several more gunshots echoed from the distant sniper. Glass shattered, and the wall above Fahd was gutted with big holes.

  Sirhan looked at Fahd. The bullet had hit him squarely in the chest. Blood flooded down onto the floor of the bedroom. Fahd’s eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, but life was gone.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” Sirhan said.

  He looked at Tariq, Fahd’s older brother.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Tariq was quiet. He stared at his brother for several seconds, then looked at Sirhan.

  “We are all going to die today,” said Tariq.

  “Yes,” said Sirhan, his eyes glued to Fahd’s destroyed chest. “Now it’s their turn.”

  50

  CARMAN HALL

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  Daisy sat upright, against the wall. Andy and Charlotte both had their heads on her lap.

  The room was packed with people. There were many students who were alone. There were also family members. For a long time, Daisy stared at a man who wore a light blue baseball cap with the Columbia logo on it, his arms around his son, who sat in front of him, leaning against him, as if he was just a child. For some reason, the image gave her strength.

  It also distracted her, and she needed that.

  As horrible as her own predicament was, thinking about it was preferable to thinking about her father. Every time her mind flashed to the phone call—and then Josh Brubaker’s words—she felt as if the ground might open up and swallow her. It was a feeling of helplessness and futility. How could she be with someone one day and then have it all disappear the next?

  Please, God, please protect him.

  A smile creased her lips. For whatever reason, she pictured her father from some Christmas morning, so many years ago, and a Barbie dollhouse. It was all she wanted. She and he had spent the day carefully putting it together. Three floors, purple and pink, with a miniature hair dryer that sounded like a hair dryer and, if you pressed the doorbell, the most annoying but, at age eight, wonderful song ever.

  Andy suddenly looked up.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I am,” said Daisy. “I have a good feeling about this.”

  51

  JOHN JAY HALL

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  Damon Smith, the FBI’s in-theater commander, stood inside a large room on the first floor of John Jay, another Columbia dormitory on 114th Street, with Butler Library, Columbia’s main library, in between it and Carman. The room Smith had commandeered was the dormitory’s common room on the ground floor. It now served as crisis command center.

  Tables in the room were occupied by young FBI and NYPD analysts with laptop computers, tied into Homeland Security’s mainframe. The walls were lit up by high-definition plasma screens. There were eleven in all, displaying a variety of real-time activity in and around Carman Hall. Every side of the building was displayed by cameras that had been put in place since the hostages were taken. The roof was shown from a chopper overhead. Cameras also displayed the entrances to the dormitory, now mostly empty and quiet. Other screens displayed coverage of the scene as it happened on the various local, national, and international news channels.

  The room was crowded with law enforcement: FBI agents, Homeland officers, and NYPD’s antiterrorism group were everywhere. So too were high-level staffers from the Pentagon and White House. The governor of New York and the mayor of New York City, as well as several members of their staffs, were also present.

  Smith stood at a table on the far side of the room, near an unused fireplace, behind a set of glass French doors. Four other agents were with him: Moore, Calder, Francisco, and McNaughton. Each had a specific category of responsibility. Each had a wireless headset on, with live connection to a CENCOM operator, whose job it was to make calls, receive calls, and patch the men into real-time commo from on-the-ground operators.

  Moore was in charge of perimeter security, including the management of all street-level access points and security teams, along with the establishment and, if necessary, amendment of rules of engagement. He was also in charge of air rights—making sure non-law-enforcement helicopters didn’t get too close.

  Calder was in charge of external affairs, which was mainly managing the press corps, keeping them in line and not in the way, answering their questions, and utilizing them for the purpose of managing whatever message the FBI wanted out there.

  Francisco’s job was managing the various nonoperational constituencies—families, university officials, politicians and staff, and other VIPs—and keeping them happy.

  McNaughton was Smith’s in-theater strike force commander. It was Dave McNaughton who, along with Smith, had handpicked the team on the ground near Carman, manned them with communications and weapons, and who would now implement whatever tactical design Smith came up with for freeing the students.

  Smith knew the key to successful management of the hostage crisis was being able to think and react to events as they occurred. The chaos would quickly overwhelm his ability to act and react, to take advantage of potential mistakes made by the terrorists, and, at some point, to attempt to free the students. Moore, Calder, and Francisco were there to free Smith from the time-consuming and ultimately purposeless aspects of dealing with what had become a major crisis, not only in the United States but also abroad. Of the five hundred students inside Carman, more than one hundred were from foreign countries.

  Calder, Moore, and Francisco did the things Smith didn’t need to do, so that he, with McNaughton’s help, could somehow figure out a way to save the students, whether through negotiation or violence.

  Smith was a veteran, the FBI’s top on-the-dirt crisis manager. He took a disciplined approach to everything he did and it showed. Usually, he was a picture of calm. But right now he was livid. He rarely showed emotion, but he couldn’t hide his anger.

  The reason why he was so angry appeared at the entrance to the room, surrounded by several aides. Judith Talkiewicz, the NYPD commissioner, who had sent in an NYPD helicopter which the terrorists had shot from the sky. Talkiewicz entered the room. When her aides started to join her, Smith held up his hand, signaling them to stay out.

  “I want them with me,” said Talkiewicz.

  “Tough,” said Smith as Calder shut the door. “Let me explain something to you, Commissioner: that was a bullshit stunt you pulled. There are five hundred hos
tages in that building. This is not PR time. You cost the lives of seven people, including a twelve-year-old girl who got hit by part of that fucking chopper. Six men in the chopper, employees of yours.”

  “I’m aware of the situation, Lieutenant,” said Talkiewicz. “Obviously we didn’t expect them to have MANPADs.”

  “You didn’t? Then you’re a bigger fucking idiot than I thought.”

  “Is that why you brought me here?” asked Talkiewicz, taking a step toward Smith, unafraid. “To ream me out?”

  “Partially, yes. But the main reason is that I want to make something crystal fucking clear. This is an FBI operation, got it? I expect full cooperation from your officers, access to any and all NYPD assets and information, and I expect your people to do exactly as I say. Am I clear?”

  “We’re both after the same thing.”

  “The difference is, I know how to do it. You’re a politician.”

  “I heard you were a megalomaniac,” said Talkiewicz.

  “I don’t care what you heard,” said Smith. “I implement strategies, that’s all. Someone much higher than me is going to make the call on what we do here. But I can’t do that if I have a police commissioner making unsanctioned operational moves that haven’t been vetted, discussed, or approved. Got it?”

  Talkiewicz stormed out.

  Smith glanced at McNaughton. “Was I too harsh, Dave?” he asked.

  “No,” said McNaughton quietly. “I will say this: that chopper did force them to waste one of their SAMs. I can’t imagine they have many more. Also, we broke down the video from the chopper. The roof is wired. Looks like they have five or six IEDs. Munitions thinks it’s Semtex. They’re exactly the same as the ones on the stairs.”

  “What about the tunnel in the basement from the library?” asked Smith.

  “They wired it,” said McNaughton. “It’s identical. Semtex. They’ve also tied up four students just behind the door. Even if there wasn’t a bomb, opening the door into Carman would kill all of them.”

  “What kind of detonators?”

  “Trigger buttons. The ones on the stairs, like the ones on the roof, are balanced on some sort of wire web. Unless they’re fake, we’re talking about a very dangerous situation. Frankly, we’re lucky the NYPD minigun didn’t hit the wire. If that thing breaks, they all fall. One of ’em is bound to explode. And when one explodes, all the others will too. It cuts off any penetration opportunities from above.”

  “And if the stairs are set—” Smith didn’t need to finish the sentence.

  “It’s a big suicide bomb,” said Francisco, seated in front of one of the plasmas. “Whatever they want, whoever is behind this, they have the leverage. It’s scary how asymmetrical the situation is. They have five hundred hostages, an impenetrable fortress, and a pack of suicide bombers. We’re looking at the next nine-eleven. I don’t mean to be so dark, but that’s what we’re looking at.”

  Smith stared at Francisco. He was his closest friend in the FBI. He couldn’t remember all the times they had been together at the beginning of a tough operation, but Smith knew that Francisco was usually right about these things.

  A low beeping noise sounded in Smith’s ear, over a Tic Tac–size earbud connected live to CENCOM.

  “CENCOM one four one, Commander Smith, please hold for Director Kratovil.”

  Smith put his hand to his ear. He looked around the table, holding up a finger, indicating he needed to take the call. He stepped to the corner.

  “Hi, Damon.”

  “Mr. Director.”

  “What’s the status?”

  “It’s the same as last hour. Everything is stabilized. We’ve seen no activity.”

  “What about your perimeters?”

  “Perimeters, manpower, tactical control are now live and functional. Team communication protocols are aligned. We’re ready to implement any directives from CENCOM.”

  “Well, it sounds like an improvement over an hour ago.”

  “An hour ago one of my snipers killed one of the terrorists,” said Smith. “I’m not sure how you improve on that, sir.”

  “You know what I meant,” snapped Kratovil.

  Smith was silent. He knew what Kratovil meant. He didn’t appreciate it.

  “Director, are we negotiating with these guys?”

  Kratovil paused. “That’s still being worked out.”

  “What’s the delay? Every minute that passes cuts off opportunities. If we’re negotiating, it doesn’t matter. But if we’re not, the sooner we design and stage an assault, the better our odds for minimizing casualties.”

  “This thing is not simply a hostage crisis. There are a number of parties at the table: Langley, the Pentagon, the White House. We’re trying to keep it from becoming a turf war, but the president wants to make sure we have the … well … the team that will give us the best chance of limiting casualties and saving those kids.”

  “Of course,” said Smith. “I understand. But until that happens, I’m flying a little blind here. What if our best shot to take the dorm is right now?”

  “They have five hundred hostages in there,” said Kratovil. “They have strategic advantage. They’re also jihadists. If they’re willing to die, no assault is going to matter. They’ll simply blow the building. Whoever is behind this wants something. That negotiation is under way.”

  “What do they want?”

  “This is top secret, Damon, FYEO. No one in that room is authorized to know.”

  Smith was quiet.

  “We stopped a shipment of arms to Syria in the Med. They want it. That’s what this thing is all about.”

  “And the president doesn’t want to do it?”

  “Of course not. But the alternative is worse. If he lets it go, ISIS will have enough guns, ammo, and missiles to finish the job in Syria and possibly Iraq. We’re talking about a container ship. Almost a billion dollars’ worth of weapons.”

  “Billion with a b?”

  “Yes. The president is in an impossible situation. Damon, you need to assume you’re going to be asked to design and execute a plan to take over the dorm in a way that minimizes casualties and allows the president to stop the shipment.”

  “What time frame are we talking about here, George?”

  “Hours. This needs to happen soon. I have a feeling they’re not just going to sit and wait for a response.”

  “You mean—”

  “Polk thinks they’re going to start executing students,” said Kratovil.

  “Jesus,” said Smith. “Okay. I’ll get to work. Do I need official approvals and whatnot?”

  “Yes. But obviously everyone including the president is standing by.”

  “I understand.”

  “Listen,” said Kratovil, “the main reason I called is to see how you’re holding up.”

  “I’m all right,” said Smith. “But my men are spending half their time entertaining fucking VIPs. The governor, the mayor, senators, you name it. It’s getting in the way.”

  “Delegate it.”

  “I did. But you try to tell the governor to stay the hell away. These assholes are interfering with my ability to calm things down so that we can properly watch, analyze, and make clear tactical decisions.”

  Kratovil cleared his throat. “Then you’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s someone coming to see you,” said the FBI director.

  “Who?”

  “He’s a former Ranger, like yourself, Damon.”

  “There’s lots of former Rangers.”

  “He also spent some time in Combat Applications Group. He’s high level. He was part of the team that stopped the nuclear bomb a few months ago.”

  “Why?” asked Smith. “Am I being taken off this?”

  “Chill the fuck out,” said Kratovil, “or you will be taken off it. I’m not the one sending him in. The president of the United States is the one sending him. Got it? You might consider
having an open mind. He’s there to help. I know him. He’s not a talker. If he can’t do anything, he’ll tell you.”

  “Fine. What’s his name?”

  “Dewey Andreas.”

  There was a momentary pause.

  “I know who he is,” said Smith, calming down. “That’s fine. Look, that’s more than fine. You’re right, he might have some ideas. I hope he does.”

  Smith tapped his ear, cutting off the call. He looked at McNaughton.

  “I want three scenarios. You have fifteen minutes.”

  McNaughton nodded and walked into the next room.

  Andreas.

  Smith stared at the table, thinking back.

  Winter School. Rangers. Smith was in the same class. He knew Dewey, or knew of him at least. Andreas didn’t talk much. He didn’t have any friends. All business. But Smith used to watch him. He shocked everyone when he won the boxing championship. But it was more than that. It was as if he wasn’t meant to be there, confined by the uniform and the rules and the need to rely on others. He was different. Everyone knew it. He wouldn’t have won a popularity contest, but every Ranger in that class feared him. He was the real deal.

  Smith got Francisco’s attention. “We have a visitor coming.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His name’s Andreas. When he gets here, bring him in.”

  “You got it.”

  52

  AIR PEGASUS HELIPORT

  WEST THIRTIETH STREET

  NEW YORK CITY

  An hour later, after a smooth flight from D.C., the CIA-owned Sikorsky S-76C landed on the small helipad at West Thirtieth Street, Manhattan.

  “Thanks for the ride,” said Dewey, leaning into the cockpit.

  “No worries,” said the man on the left. “SPEC OPS Group briefed us on the way up. We’re gonna refuel and stay here, in case you need us.”

  Dewey opened the cabin door and stepped quickly down. He took the stairs from the helipad and walked to the street. A black Suburban was idling.

  The front passenger window slid down.