by Roger Hayden
“Yes, sir,” she said, knowing that she would soon be out of a job or worse.
He said, “I have to go now. I’ll see you soon.” With that he hung up before she could say anything more.
She felt as though she hadn’t accomplished anything. There had to be other people at the station she could call. People who would take her seriously. But who? She had only been a Border Patrol agent for a year. The closest relationship she had was with Captain Martinez. Then it dawned on her what she had to do. Martinez could help her. That was, if she could get in contact with him.
He and his family had been placed under the protective watch of the FBI. The same service hadn’t been provided to her own family in time. As a result, her husband was dead. The FBI had lost her trust, and she didn’t want them involved. Martinez, however, was the key.
She called him immediately while glancing at a fried chicken place across the street. The girls were fast asleep, but they would be hungry in the morning. As the line rang, Angela faced concerns over her whereabouts being discovered. Martinez’s phone was obviously on the NSA’s radar, along with any conversations that transpired.
His phone, like Burke’s, went immediately to voice mail. Just an automated message repeating the number and saying it was not available. “Damn…” she said to herself.
There was little to do but sit on the information she had hidden in a desk drawer inside the hotel room. Perhaps she was overreacting. She then dismissed the idea. With Salah Asgar on the loose, anything was possible. She searched the news on her phone and saw everything Drake had told her as the lead story. The headlines made this clear enough.
Massacre at Garland Mosque
Assailant Described as “Young White Male”
Over 14 Dead in Horrific Shooting
She read whatever details she could about the incident but found them to be scant. As horrific as the shooting was, she feared more terrible news to come, more mayhem than she could even comprehend, and she felt completely unable to do anything about it. She stuck her cell phone in her pocket and went inside to lie with her girls.
Travis Durant’s vehicle was surrounded by flashing police cars assembled in the derelict parking lot of a vacant mattress warehouse. To Durant’s way of thinking, he had fought the good fight, and expected at some point soon to be caught, though he had given the authorities quite a chase. Several of the police were outside their cars and positioned behind their open drivers’ doors with pistols drawn. They weren’t taking any chances.
One officer was shouting at him to get out of the car. He wasn’t surprised that his time on the road had been cut short. People must have seen him leave the parking lot of the mosque. They had a good description of him and his vehicle—a black Honda Accord. It was strange, surreal even, to hear the news on the radio of a crime he himself had committed.
Soon his face would be all over television. They would look into his past and find multiple posts and comments on websites of all kinds, decrying Muslims in the U.S. and how he was going to “do something about it.” His family—they would never understand. Part of him felt for them. All the pain they would surely experience in the days, weeks, and months ahead. He would be vilified as a monster, and the media would be right to do so. It was all part of the plan. He’d had to put aside his personal feelings and concerns for others to do what was right. He was part of something larger than himself. And he was prepared and ready to achieve the final step toward martyrdom.
A thin haze of smoke from his engine passed over the windshield. Skid marks ran across the parking lot, ending at this vehicle. He’d pushed his car as fast as it would go. End of the line. The phone call to the 9-1-1 operator had bought him some time. He told her that his car was rigged to explode and if the police came any closer, he would detonate it. The police were forced to stand there and shout at him to exit. He imagined it wouldn’t be long before they got one of their sharpshooters to take a shot at him. In fact, he was counting on it.
He called his mother and told her that he loved her. She begged and pleaded with him to turn himself in. He turned the conversation to his younger siblings. “Tell Elise and Darren that I love them too. This was all me. I wanted to do this. Now I can achieve true peace.” Fearing that he was running out of time, he ended the call, despite his mother’s anguished sobs.
An officer crouched low to the ground was steadily approaching Travis’s car from the front, and he could see two others zeroing in on him from behind. Their vehicles formed a complete circle around him. It was pretty clear what needed to be done.
He would be lying to himself to say that he wasn’t nervous or scared. He feared death as much as anyone else. Part of him wanted to live. All he had to do was surrender. He flipped through his cell phone and quickly made another call, pressing the phone tightly against his ear. Sweat dripped down his forehead even with the air conditioner running. His body was burning up, true fear beginning to settle. Would he be able to do the right thing?
“Hello?” he said, near frantic, as soon as the call went through.
“Where are you?” a man’s voice said immediately.
“I’m sorry, my leader. The police have me surrounded and there’s no escape.”
“That was indeed a possibility. Now you know what you must do.”
“That’s correct. But, Mr. Asgar. What if the cops don’t shoot me? What if they use non-lethal measures? Then I’ll be caught and they’ll force me to say everything.”
The man turned strict and demanding. “Then you will take those measures in your own hand. I assume there are plenty of rounds left, correct?”
“Yes, but suicide. Isn’t that against Allah’s will?”
The man nearly laughed on the other end but contained himself. “Death in the service of his cause is greatly rewarded, regardless. Those Shia Muslims you killed were worse than the infidels with their false interpretation of our Prophet’s message. He commands their slaughter. Even better, it will keep the Americans preoccupied. Our attacks will come as a response to the mosque shooting, and the cycle will continue until it destroys them all.”
Travis nodded his head and looked onward nervously as the police officers continued their careful approach. “I’m scared, Salah. I’m scared.
“Of course you are. But the time is now. Our hideout was attacked earlier. Many men killed. I barely managed to escape.”
Travis gasped. “What? How?”
“The Americans are closing in. All attacks have been pushed up. The infidels won’t know what hit them.”
Travis swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. He wiped more sweat from his eyes while glancing at the pistol on the seat next to him. “I just… I don’t know if I’m ready. If they caught me, I wouldn’t tell them a thing. They’d never find out about you… about this.”
“I’m sorry, Travis. It would compromise the mission.”
The police officer in the front of the car was getting dangerously close. “Get out of the car!” he shouted. Travis was running out of time.
“Your service is crucial to our cause,” the man said.
“Okay,” Travis said, clenching his eyes shut. “I’m ready.”
“As-salamu alaykum,” Asgar said. “Paradise awaits you, brother.”
Travis took a deep breath and said goodbye. There was no one left to call and no one else to talk to. Asgar was right. He had to speed things up before he changed his mind. He had been a weak boy once, and the boy he had been before being recruited by ISIS would most definitely have leapt from the car, pleading with the police not to shoot. But he was a man now. An eternity of paradise in exchange for a few seconds of pain. He said an Arabic prayer under his breath and reached for his pistol as the police approached his car from all sides. If they weren’t going to shoot him then, he was prepared to change their minds.
“Last chance!” the officer shouted.
Travis opened his eyes and went for his pistol. “Allah, give me the strength.”
He raised the
pistol and fired through the windshield. The crew-cut police officer hit the ground, but Travis didn’t know if he had shot him or not. The fresh cracks in his windshield blurred any views ahead. Mere seconds later, a barrage of gunshots came from behind him, blasting through his windows and tearing his car apart. He felt the bullets’ sting in his shoulder, back, and side, but they had not killed him yet. The sound was deafening and relentless. His mind and body were going. More shots came, vicious and violent, and then everything went black.
4
Restless
Angela was in bed with her daughters, when her cell phone vibrated on the nearby nightstand. An infomercial flickered on the television screen in the otherwise dark room. She sat up, dazed and trying not to disturb her two sleeping daughters who lay on both sides of her. She reached over Lisa and grabbed the phone, eager to see who it was. The number was clear, and she felt her heart race. It was Burke. She nearly fell off the bed in relief and swiped the screen as fast as she could to avoid any chance of missing his call.
“Burke?” she said quietly. “Is that really you?”
She could hear traffic over the line. A loud, blaring horn, and the roar of a semi-truck passing by.
“Yeah! I’m here. Hold on!” he said, shouting.
She carefully lifted one bare leg over Lisa and climbed out of the bed in a T-shirt and underwear. The bright light from the muted television had her shielding her eyes as she hobbled to the bathroom in the corner of the room. Fortunately, she hadn’t woken the girls. They had been soundly sleeping for a while, and that was fine with her. Once inside the bathroom, she flipped the light switch on and quietly closed the door. She sat on the toilet lid, listening, but hearing only static over the phone, but no Burke.
“You still there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, now with a clearer signal. It would seem that they both had adjustments to make.
“Where have you been?” Angela asked. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“Don’t be. You know I can handle myself.”
“I heard gunshots before we left. What happened?”
“Found a guy hiding under a cot in one of the rooms I was clearing. Sent him to join his friends, when another guy comes out of nowhere and fires at me. Took him out too.”
“What about Salah Asgar?”
“I can only assume he got away. Remember that trap door we found? There’s simply no opening it.”
Angela felt a rush of panic overtake her. The impending attacks were still in the works, and she hadn’t been able to do anything to stop them. “I called the Border Patrol and tried to warn the chief of what we found. He wasn’t very… convinced. He says all targets, soft and hard, are at their highest alert anyway.”
“You make it across state lines?” Burke asked.
“Yes,” Angela answered. “We’re in New Mexico right now. A town called Las Cruces.”
“Got it. You may want to keep moving. There’s no telling how far these attacks will spread.”
Angela gripped the phone tightly, nearly beside herself. “I’m not running from this. Not when there’s millions of lives at stake. I thought we had an understanding on that. A deal.”
“Remember the drone strikes?” Burke asked, not engaging her just yet.
“Yes,” Angela said, trying to lower her voice. Burke certainly knew how to press her buttons.
“Well. I’ve heard that they’ve already hit a series of low-key targets. Rural areas. Not many people around. The underground compound was one of them. I made it out just in time.”
Angela gasped. So it was true. The president’s drone strikes had already gone into effect. Good, she thought, but it still enraged her that her daughters had once been in the cross hairs of one of those strikes.
“It’s a done deal, Angela,” Burke said frankly. “As far as the government is concerned, they neutralized the ISIS cells, and they very well may have.”
“They’re underestimating this enemy. We have to do something. We have to—”
“We’ve done enough, don’t you think? How much more are you willing to sacrifice?”
Angela stood up. She had never felt so confused and disoriented. At least not in the past couple of hours. To simply sit on their information and hope for the best wasn’t an option. They had a responsibility to do something about it even if the entire government discounted them.
“I think it’s safe to say that I don’t have a job anymore,” she said with a sigh. “And I’m not going to put my daughters’ lives in any more danger. But I do have a plan and I need your help.”
“There’s something I need from you first,” Burke said.
“What’s that?” Angela asked.
“I need you to pick me up at a rest stop off of Interstate 10, just past the Texas border into New Mexico.”
Angela thought to herself. That was at least an hour away, and it was the middle of the night. She found herself extremely torn.
“How did you get there?” she asked Burke. It seemed a reasonable question.
“I hitched a ride from a truck driver. But he could only get me so far. Had to stash my weapons quite a ways back. We’re going to have to get them.”
She was willing to make the trip but wanted to reach a compromise first. Even though she was well aware that she had his car. “I’ll pick you up on one condition,” she said, knowing that she was holding the cards. Most of them, anyway.
“What’s that?” Burke said, sounding exhausted.
“That you help me stop this thing. You know we can do it. It’s the only way.” She waited for his response. Burke could be unpredictable, as she had learned, and she had no idea what motivated him beyond vengeance.
After a long pause, Burke responded. “Just come get me. We’ll talk about it then. I can’t guarantee anything until we figure out a plan.”
“I told you. I have a plan,” she said.
“We don’t have much time. So save your breath and hit the road.” Burke then said he had to go, and she heard a tinge of paranoia in his tone. It wouldn’t be long until the government came looking for him, he claimed. He told Angela to keep a low profile, drive the speed limit, and stay out of trouble.
“They’ll get you too,” he said.
Angela found the idea ridiculous. “I doubt we’re on the government’s radar with all that’s going on.”
“You’d be surprised what they consider a priority at times,” he said. With that, their call ended, leaving Angela with only one option. If she wanted his help, she had to leave the confines of her hotel to get Burke. Sometimes they didn’t see eye to eye, and their current situation was no exception. In a way, she got where he was coming from. Burke had already lost everything. His family was gone. Self-preservation was all he had left. Angela was insisting that he jump back into the fire. Convincing him was going to take effort.
She walked out of the bathroom and approached the bed where Chassity and Lisa lay. She grabbed her dusty jeans hanging over a chair and pulled them on, trying to not to make too much noise. As she pulled the chair out and sat to get her shoes on, she glanced at the television. Her heart seized when she saw the images of a crime scene from earlier that day.
The mosque shooter, identified as nineteen-year-old Travis Durant from Austin, Texas. They flashed a photo of him, taken from one of his social media accounts. He had short blond hair and deep blue eyes, hollow and empty.
They then cut to an earlier scene in the parking lot, where Durant had been surrounded by police and subsequently killed in a shoot-out. A dizzying array of police lights filled the parking lot, followed by Durant’s Honda Accord riddled with bullets, shattered glass everywhere.
Angela reached for the remote control and turned the volume up just a hair. The reporter’s voice continued as the news recap displayed images of the mosque surrounded by crime scene tape, a collection of officers on the scene, juxtaposed against the parking lot where Durant’s life came to an end.
“Authorities are referri
ng to this senseless murder as a ‘hate crime to the highest degree.’ Travis Durant, an Austin local and US citizen, followed a dark road into white supremacy and religious hatred. According to his multiple social media postings, he railed against Muslims and people of Middle Eastern decent. This morning, his bigotry turned fatal as he entered the Masjid Quabba Mosque, feigning interest, and soon after began firing at members, men, old and young alike, killing fourteen and injuring a dozen more.”
Angela placed both hands over her mouth in shock. She couldn’t believe something so horrible had happened not too far away. The reporter went on to say that authorities were investigating any links to white supremacist terrorist groups and looking to determine whether it was a “lone wolf” attack or not.
“This is bad,” Angela said softly to herself. She interlaced her fingers against her forehead and looked down with her eyes closed, speaking between heavy breaths. “What am I going to do now… how can I stop this?” She understood that ISIS could and would justify further attacks against the US based on the mosque shooting. The attack also took the focus off of ISIS.
Suddenly, Chassity lifted her head from her pillow and looked over at Angela, who was still muttering to herself, distraught.
“Mom?” she said, rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Angela’s head went up as she startled. “Oh. Nothing, honey.” She quickly muted the television and changed the channel to an old 1970s rerun.
“I have to take a little drive,” she said, rising from her chair. “It’s important that you stay here with your sister.”
“I want to go,” Chassity said, sitting up fully. Angela knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“You can’t. Now look, I won’t be gone long. Probably be back before your sister wakes up. You two aren’t to leave this room. You don’t answer the door. Nothing.” She approached Chassity’s side of the bed and crouched down, brushing back her daughter’s dirty-blond hair. “Do you understand?”
“Yes…” Chassity said with a blank expression. There was a subtle change in her that Angela noticed. Almost as though her harrowing captivity had matured her by several years.
