by Mike Brogan
When he finished, he stood and walked toward the door.
Then he stopped.
Walking toward him were two Belgian federal cops.
Stahl eased behind a tall magazine rack as they passed by. The tall cop showed the cashier a photograph and appeared to ask if she’d seen the person. She stared at the photo, then shook her head. The other cop, short and muscular, strolled through the tables, checking the men.
Stahl squatted down to the lowest magazine rung and started paging through Auto Magazine. The tall cop walked over to the other side of the magazine rack.
Head down, Stahl continued flipping through the pages.
The tall cop stepped closer, so close Stahl could see his own face in the cop’s shiny boots.
The short cop started to walk over.
“You see Stahl?”
“Yeah!”
“Where?”
“He’s behind this magazine rack!”
Stahl couldn’t believe his ears. He gripped the Glock hidden in his coat and prepared to pump bullets into their heads.
The short cop hurried over. “Where?”
“Here! Behind the magazine rack. See - his poster on the wall!” The tall cop laughed.
“Smart ass!” the short cop said.
Stahl relaxed his trigger finger.
Moments later, the cops walked out.
He waited until he saw their car drive off. Then he stood and looked at the wall poster that contained two photos of him. He saw the same two photos on the front page in De Standaard newspaper on the news rack. One with a full beard, one beardless. Both with light brown hair. He resembled neither photo.
He left and drove off toward the Grand Place.
Thirty minutes later, he sat in the crowded smoking section of a noisy bar just three blocks from the Grand Place. His face stung a bit from the collagen injections, but his facial makeover and the bar’s thick smoke made him completely unrecognizable.
He sipped his beer and dabbed foam from his tender lips. He was pumped up, excited, actually felt blood coursing through his veins. He was about to change the course of human history. Never before had the eight most powerful leaders in the world been assassinated en masse. Never again would the eight most powerful nations forget their heinous crimes against Islam. Never again would Muslims live with the shame of being occupied by non-believers.
Never again would people forget his name.
Even the people sitting around him now. Most were glued to the big screen television covering the imminent Grand Place ceremony. Their country’s big moment in the sun. Soon to be shattered. On the television a brunette reporter jabbered on about how the Grand Place security was impenetrable.
Stahl had to force the smile from his lips.
Watching the screen, he easily located the hundreds of white-helmeted security police on the square. They were positioned strategically at the corners and throughout the large square. Even the undercover agents in the crowd were pathetically obvious. They were looking for someone, looking only at tall men, looking up at the windows, looking up at the ancient rooftops. Subtle as neon lights.
He watched the television, enjoying its irony. By giving him live instant visuals and updates on the leaders – television was his partner in jihad today.
The Grand Place was filling up with thousands of people. He checked his watch and smiled. Time to go to work. He placed money on his bill and stood.
As he walked out, the TV announcer said, “In just minutes, the big event begins.”
You have no idea how big!
THIRTY TWO
Will these ancient cobblestones soon be drenched with blood? Donovan wondered, as he, de Waha and Maccabee walked across the Grand Place.
He looked up at the hundreds of gilded windows gleaming in the late morning sun and felt his muscles tense. Despite the massive security, despite the guards at each building, despite the numerous room searches, he feared Stahl might be behind a window, looking down on the G8 leaders’ grandstand, mocking their efforts to stop him, counting the seconds until he unleashed his weapon.
Donovan scanned the windows for any hint of a face. He watched for a curtain shifting, a shadow moving. He saw nothing, mostly due to the sun’s reflections.
He looked up at the Hôtel de Ville’s 310-foot spire. On its top, stood the statue of Michael the Archangel, his foot crushing the head of a demon.
There’s a new demon in town, Michael! And if you’re not busy, we could use your help…
They walked inside the 14th century Maison du Boulanger building and entered the G8 command center. It reminded Donovan of a NASA control room. More than twenty specialists sat at keyboards linked to flat-screen monitors scanning every foot of the Grand Place.
Their leader, Pierre Dumon, worked the main control console. Donovan knew Dumon, an information-technology wizard. He’d worked with the thin, forty-year-old man with intense blue eyes and red hair tied in a ponytail. He waved Donovan and the others over.
“Check this out!” Dumon said, pointing to a 103-inch, high- definition monitor. The screen replayed Maccabee, de Waha and Donovan walking across the Grand Place. The picture was so sharp, Donovan saw a razor nick on his chin and the detail of Maccabee’s silver bracelets and tear-drop earrings.
Donovan placed his hand on hers and nodded toward the screen, “You look like an innocent tourist.”
“Moi? Innocent? After last night?”
Donovan smiled and flashed back to last night’s passionate lovemaking. Miraculously, it had ignited something in him that he feared he’d lost and would never again regain. The courage to love a woman again… and the magic of two people becoming one. He was amazed at how quickly the feelings and emotions had re-emerged in him. He’d thought they might be extinguished forever. But they weren’t. And he was blissfully happy that they had rekindled.
“Each screen,” Pierre Dumon said, “can zoom in on a suspect. We then compare his frontal and profile facial composition to Stahl’s. If our facial recognition software scores high enough comparing eye-width, ear, nose and mouth to Stahl, we move in on the guy. They eyes are the big thing. Their dimensions don’t change.”
“How long for the comparison?” Donovan asked.
“Our new units give us a preliminary comparison in about thirty seconds.”
“You’re covering the entire Grand Place, right?”
Dumon nodded. “We’ve divided it into thirty-three sections. If we see Stahl in section B-6, officers surround him and close in fast!”
Donovan nodded. “What about all the windows?”
“Each window is scanned every thirty seconds. As you know, no one has been allowed inside the Grand Place buildings since last night at six p.m. Since then, over two-hundred armed guards have blocked all building entrances, front and back.”
“But what if you see someone in a window?” Donovan asked.
“We identify the person fast. If we can’t, and he’s holding a weapon or something that looks like a weapon, we take him out.”
“How?”
“Anti-terrorist teams are just outside all buildings. They’ll enter and break into the room.”
Donovan nodded. “But what if the team can’t reach him in time?”
Dumon pointed at the roofs.
Donovan saw a row of snipers and remembered they were Belgian’s best special ops snipers and among the world’s best.
“Were all rooms searched this morning?”
“An hour ago,” Dumon said. “And we’re checking them again now.”
Donovan nodded. “Who’s checking the checkers?”
“We are. All checkers must report for roll call outside on the Grand Place, and all their weapons must be accounted for, five minutes before the ceremony begins.”
Down on the square, Donovan watched people move through metal detector arches at the six street entrances to the Grand Place. Once they passed through the metal detectors, they stepped into full body scanners. Next, they were sniffed fo
r biological and chemical toxins. Overhead, Geiger counters sifted the air for the radioactive isotopes of a dirty bomb.
People seemed in a festive mood and not too bothered by the extensive security measures.
The security measures reassured Donovan, but he knew Stahl had anticipated them and planned for them.
Donovan walked over in front of the team. “Last night,” Donovan said, holding up Stahl’s photo in front of them, “we learned Stahl dyed his hair black. By now it may be blond or red or gray or he may be bald. Or he may wear a beard. Go by height. He’s one-point-nine meters tall, six-three, he weighs one hundred kilos, two hundred twenty pounds. He has powerful arms and shoulders. But he’s a genius at disguise. So check everyone that height, anyone older, fatter, a policeman, a doctor, a man in a wheelchair, a tall nun, a Hasidic Jew, a monk, a one-legged man on crutches. Look for anyone paying special attention to our security.”
The group nodded.
“And above all look for these eyes,” Donovan said, pointing to the black eye sockets on Stahl’s face. “Lenses can change their color – but not their intensity - or how deep-set they are. He knows that, so he’s probably wearing sunglasses.”
* * *
Directly below him on the Grand Place, he listened to the crowd noise grow louder. He peeked out the ancient window of the secret storage room and was pleased to see people filling the square and crowding close to the grandstand. The more the better.
Just minutes now, he realized.
He took off his sunglasses and saw sunlight pouring into the small room. He followed the rays of the sun back to the middle of the room where they bathed his beautiful rocket launchers in gold. The launchers were armed and ready. So were the brothers operating them.
He looked down at where the leaders would soon sit – the large grandstand.
On that grandstand, I will avenge the loss of my family and the slaughter of my Muslim brothers and sisters… On that grandstand we will repay Israel and the infidel nations for their occupation and desecration of our sacred lands.
Earlier, wearing their police uniforms, they’d entered an Arab food shop two blocks from the Grand Place. In its sub-basement, they removed the loosened concrete blocks, crawled into the ancient, abandoned sewer and walked through it to the cellar of the Grand Place building. There, they then climbed to the third floor and stepped into room 3C where they moved the large armoire aside and entered the secret storage alcove. They inched the armoire back in front of the door, sealing themselves inside the alcove. Everything had gone smoothly.
And still was.
One second later, it wasn’t.
He heard floorboards creak in the hallway. The kind of creak caused by human weight. Someone was walking this way.
Finger to his lips, he alerted the brothers.
In the hallway, he heard men checking rooms, shouting commands. Moments later, they stepped into room 3C with the large armoire beside him. He heard a dog sniffing around the armoire.
“The dog’s acting strange,” a man said.
“Where?”
“Over near this armoire.”
“Probably some food in there.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on, let’s keep moving. We got more rooms to check. And we gotta get down to the Grand Place.”
“No – something’s in this armoire.”
The dog scratched at the armoire, then began to growl.
“Open it for chrissakes.”
He heard the armoire’s door squeak open.
The dog scratched harder.
“It’s filled with huge stacks of magazines and papers and shit like that. Probably food or a dead mouse underneath.”
“No. This dog is trained for explosives.”
“So wave the explosives sniffer around in there.”
“Dogs are better. They can sniff what sniffers can’t.”
“Wave the damn sniffer anyway. Hurry!”
Seconds later. “Negative readings. Absolutely nothing.”
“Okay. Check behind the armoire!”
“What? This thing’s flush against the wall! And heavier than Napoleon’s tomb!”
A phone rang and a man said, “Yeah, okay, we are hurrying!” He hung up. “We got our arms-check roll call outside in two minutes! Let’s go!”
The men hurried out of the room and hustled down the hall.
When he no longer heard the men, he inched up to the window, lifted his sunglasses and peeked outside. He saw the sun-drenched grandstand below where the G8 leaders would sit in just minutes. A nine-foot-high bulletproof Plexiglas wall surrounded the grandstand.
An excellent wall, except for one thing. No roof. His rocket grenades, four powerful thermobaric fuel-air explosive warheads, the most powerful and deadly in the world, would easily sail over the wall and explode.
And obliterate everyone on the grandstand and beyond.
The leaders would be identified by their teeth.
If teeth could be found.
THIRTY THREE
Donovan saw a big problem. Big Belgian men. Too many of them. He watched them entering the Grand Place through the metal detectors, and realized many were Stahl’s height, size and age. And many had the same brown-blond hair as Stahl.
De Waha’s phone rang. He answered, listened, hung up and spun around toward Donovan.
“That was him!” de Waha said, excited, his eyes wide.
“Who?”
“The informant who called last night.”
De Waha hurried Donovan over to a window and pointed. “He says Valek Stahl and his team are in that building with the gold trim over the window.”
“Where in the building?”
“A secret storage room on the third floor.”
Donovan looked at the third floor windows and saw no hint of a person, no shadows behind the lace curtains.
“When do the leaders arrive?”
“Six minutes,” de Waha said. “Let’s go!”
Donovan started to leave and felt Maccabee touch his arm. He saw her concern.
“Don’t worry. The anti-terrorist team will handle things.”
Donovan and de Waha hurried outside and met up with a Belgian ESI anti-terrorism team behind the building. The team wore black FN P-200 bulletproof body suits and riot helmets. Each man carried an HK MP-5, two gas grenades, flash-bangs, and a handgun. One man held a Steyr semi-automatic rifle that Donovan knew could fire six hundred rounds per minute.
The team leader, Willi Ridder, a muscular thirty-year old, unfolded a sketch of the building’s third floor.
“Here’s the room! The building manager says it’s an unused storage alcove that connects to room C3. The door to the alcove is hidden behind a large armoire.”
“You’re positive someone’s in the room?” Donovan asked.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Not sure.”
“Jean, can we use thermal imagers to detect the number of body heat profiles?”
“The thermals are twenty minutes away at the Congo Museum.”
“Our listening devices have picked up men whispering,” Ridder said.
“Language?”
“Arabic.”
“What’s your plan?” Donovan asked Ridder.
“We’ll move into the room next to them and attach special location-listening monitors to the wall. Try to determine how many men and where they’re located. Toss in a flash-bang grenade and go in fast.”
Donovan nodded agreement, then pointed up at the tower of the Hôtel de Ville. “Jean, can your people in the tower see down into the alcove window? Maybe see how many men are in the room?”
De Waha phoned to find out.
Donovan turned to Ridder. “What’s your back-up plan?”
“Philippe’s team.”
“Where are they?”
“Climbing up to the roof above room C3 now. If for some reason we can’t break inside, Philippe’s team will drop down and enter throu
gh the windows.”
De Waha waved his hand for attention. “Our guy in the tower sees a tall man wearing sunglasses near the window and some other men in back.”
“How many men all together?” Ridder asked.
Pause. “He’s not sure, but he thinks maybe… four.”
“What weapons do they have?”
De Waha asked, then lowered his head. “Awww shit!”
“What?”
“Rocket launchers, maybe surface-to-air missiles!”
Donovan cringed at the potential devastation. “We might have another problem.”
“What?” Ridder asked.
“When you break in – they might fire the rockets and kill hundreds, maybe thousands of people near the grandstand. Claim a partial victory.”
“But if we flash-bang them fast,” Ridder said, “they shouldn’t have enough time to recover, then move the launchers up to the window, turn the safeties off, grab the pull tabs, aim and fire.”
“True,” Donovan said, “but just to be safe, let’s start moving people away from the grandstand. Tell them we need more room for the limousines.”
“Agreed.”
De Waha took his phone from his ear. “The men in the room are wearing Brussels police uniforms.”
“Any chance they are police?” Ridder asked.
“Absolutely not!” de Waha said, obviously angry the terrorists were defiling police uniforms. “No one should be in that building now!”
“Where’s the motorcade?” Donovan asked.
“Four minutes away.”
“Slow them down,” Ridder said.
“But not so slow,” Donovan said, “that they become easy targets for other assassins who might be out there.”
De Waha gave the order and handed his headset to Ridder. “Our guy in the Hôtel de Ville tower will tell you if they’re getting ready to fire the launchers.”
Ridder nodded, put on the headset, then he and his team disappeared into the ancient building.
Donovan saw the fire in their eyes, like all Special Ops men he’d known. They trained and lived for these moments. To charge into the face of danger despite the personal risk to themselves.
He felt an overwhelming urge to go with them, a long-held, burning desire to look Valek Stahl in the eyes… and repay him for killing Emma.
