Damn. And double damn. “Call in Whitson from NCTC. And Jackson from TSC if he’s not already there. Have a desk free for me when I arrive. I know the Houston police chief and the U.S. Marshals boss. We’re going to need lots of bodies for this scene.” He stood up. “Does the field office have a sniper among their agents?”
Richardson shook his head. “They do not. But one of the HPD SWAT teams includes a marksman rated Superior at firing an M82 Barret .50 caliber. The county sheriff’s office might have a sniper-rated shooter or two. We also have Army troops within an hour’s reach. The Air Force is close by at Ellington Field. But there’s a problem with putting a shooter up on the top level of the stadium.”
He grabbed the iPhone and headed for the door to the rest of the seventh floor. “What problem?”
“The jihadists have forced the marching team members to form a thick circle around them. The six are sitting on the 50 yard line, with 303 young men and women arranged around them, standing up, in concentric circles,” Richardson said. “The six are broadcasting what they’re doing by a live link to YouTube. They say they have the means to shoot down any helicopter that gets close. One of the stadium security guards is an ex-Marine. He told our Houston people one of the jihadists was holding a Barret .50 with bipod. The bipod was braced against the shoulder of a band member who formed the inner protective circle.” Richardson looked to the side as Yamaguchi arrived, then back to his phone. “That’s why the guard did not shoot at the terrorists. He only had a .38 revolver. The distance from one of the team field entrances was bad. And he was afraid killing one guy would make the other five shoot the marching team people.”
Andrew walked out into the hallway, turned right and headed for the elevator. “What are their demands?”
“The usual stuff from the other attacks. Freeing of all jihadists in US prisons, a withdrawal of our military from the Middle East and a disavowal of any support for Israel if it is attacked.”
Andrew walked into the empty elevator, touched the fifth floor button and waited as the doors closed, feeling impatient. “None of that is going to happen. Any threats from the six?”
“Yes. They said on YouTube that they will kill one hostage each hour, on the hour, until the prisons release their buddies. They made specific mention of Khan and Alkoury and the folks we’ve grabbed in the other cities.”
“Crap.” Andrew realized Sunday was going to be a harder day than usual. “When does the first deadline happen?”
“In fifty-three minutes,” Richardson said. “With 303 captives they have plenty of people they can add to the bodies they killed earlier, in their arrival attack.”
“I’ll be there shortly. Tell the Houston agents to deploy snipers on both the north and south seating stands of the stadium. We may lose some of the band people, but if they start killing people one by one, I will order them to be taken out. By whatever means possible.” A thought crossed his mind. “Does the Air Force have a Cobra attack helicopter fueled and available to assist us?”
“I’ll find out, sir.”
“Do so.” The elevator door opened onto the fifth floor. “I’m heading your way. Out.”
Putting the iPhone into his coat pocket, Andrew realized he had a personal stake in the outcome of this terror attack. One of his wife’s nieces, Mira was her name, played the clarinet in the Cougar Marching Band of the University of Houston. She was almost certainly among the 303 captives being held by these bastards. Which meant he dared not call Martha until this hostage scene was resolved, one way or another.
♦ ♦ ♦
I like Sundays. I usually go to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Fe for its morning service. Located at the junction of Galisteo and West Barcelona roads, it’s not a far ride on my bicycle. And I like the woman minister and the 150 people who regularly attend. They are a diverse group of folks, including plenty of families with kids. While I don’t mind small kids, screamers I run away from.
I looked down at the journal I was writing in. Was there a point in doing this? There was no one I could ever show this journal to. Still, it felt good to write stuff down. I applied my ballpoint to the journal’s lined paper.
Going to the UU each Sunday is something I liked doing even after graduating from high school. While it was something of a family tradition, I mostly went because the people and minister welcome people of every spiritual background. That includes Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even an occasional Creationist who came and seemed surprised that he was not talked down to. Since I’m still pursuing my own spiritual journey, it’s nice to be around folks who accept that not everyone can be slotted into a ‘standard’ faith or church or whatever.
Today I had dressed up in my blue suit, with my white-striped blue tie, white shirt and black leather shoes. My only decorative element were the two turquoise rings on my left hand. They fit the Southwest casual manner of most people attending the UU. Some guys wear turquoise bolos, while others arrive dressed in Hawaiian shirts, even in winter. I’d kept the suit on even after coming into my apartment and kicking off my shoes. Now, feeling comfortable in my recliner, I didn’t feel like getting up, going to the bedroom, undressing, and changing into jeans and a t-shirt. I glanced down at the coffee table. The magazines were still there. And my bookcase held more than a hundred books of both fiction and non-fiction.
While I could have looked over, caught sight of my favorite travel book that includes loads of pictures of Amazon jungle trees and wildlife, and then mentally told it to “come to me”, I resisted the impulse. The drapes only partly covered the sliding glass doors that led out to my porch. Someone in the café parking lot on the other side of St. Michaels might be aiming binoculars at the apartment complex, hoping to catch a view of a woman changing clothes inside. No need for them to see a book floating across the room to me. Instead, I looked at the TV above the fireplace, reached out with my mind to ‘feel’ the flow of electricity, and told the current to flip the switch to On. The phrase ‘Breaking News’ filled the top of the screen. As did the CNN logo.
“Terrorists have taken captive the entire marching band of the University of Houston at TDECU stadium, after shooting dead at least twenty people and wounding at least 60 more people,” said a red-haired woman whose byline name was Carol Henderson, senior financial reporter. Behind her appeared a file photo of the football stadium. It consisted of an open air stadium with two seating stands on either side of the football field, with lower seating rows at either end, and a jumbotron screen at one end. Beyond the jumbotron rose the skyline of downtown Houston. “We go now to a live report from Jack Wilshire, our senior terrorism reporter who is outside the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Jack?”
Damn. Another one. And it was taking place at a location I had visited with my parents, five and a half years ago, when I was checking out possible colleges to attend.
Behind the anchor woman there appeared an image of Wilshire, the stocky guy in his forties who seemed to be CNN’s Go To guy for terror stuff. The man was standing outside the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance to the FBI building.
“Hello Carol,” Wilshire said, looking up from a tablet or iPad he held in one hand. “There has been no official announcement from either the FBI or from the Houston Police Department. However, my source inside the agency says both the FBI and the HPD are evacuating the 40,000 people who were there for a Cougars football game. Ambulance first responders are trying to reach the wounded. My source says the terrorists are sending live video of what they are doing to YouTube. Which I’ve just accessed.” Wilshire looked down, then up. “The YouTube page says six jihadists have captured the entire Cougar Marching Band of at least 300 people and are holding them captive in the center of the football field. The page says the terrorists will kill one hostage every hour until fellow jihadists are released from federal prisons. They specifically demand the release of the St. Louis terrorists and other jihadists captured in FBI raids in San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and Miami. Carol,
back to you.”
The anchor woman frowned. “Jack, how soon does the first hour expire?”
“In fifty-two minutes,” he said, looking worried. “Do you have anything from one of the Houston stations? Have they got a helicopter up?”
The Carol woman looked down at her announcer desk, squinted, then touched her right earbud. “Yes, Jack, we do have contact with Houston station KTRK, an ABC affiliate. Jane?” She looked up at the camera. “My producer says we are receiving a live feed from the KTRK helicopter that is flying toward TDECU stadium. We are now sharing their live streaming broadcast with our viewers.”
I leaned forward, wondering what might happen when the helicopter came into view of the green grass field of the stadium. While such copters normally reported on traffic snarls in big cities, they also covered natural disasters like floods and hurricanes. Now, this copter was being sent in to cover a situation where live gunfire had happened. Would the jihadists fire on the copter?
The CNN screen half-filled with an image of the southeast side of Houston. Dark clouds were moving in from the north, maybe carrying rain. I recognized the ground view as an elevated highway came into view. It was Interstate 45. The copter passed over the interstate and headed for what I recognized was the campus of Texas Southern University, a close neighbor of UH. The view shifted as the helicopter turned. The white concrete and gray metal frame of the outside of TDECU came into view. The copter was approaching the western side of the stadium, the portion with the jumbotron. The big rectangle of the jumbo rose above the upper seating level at that end of the field. As the focus tightened, I saw a cluster of hundreds of people dressed in red jackets with white trim. They were gathered in a group of circles. In the middle of the circle were a group of darkly dressed people. A yellow flash appeared in the center of the crowd.
“Jake!” yelled someone holding the camera, which now jerked. “They’re shooting at us! That bullet just missed us!”
“Take us lower,” called a low male voice.
The helicopter view carried by CNN now shifted. The copter went down to just above the rooftops of the buildings below, maybe 400 feet up. The camera image shifted but grew more distinct. The cameraman caused the image to enlarge as he worked to focus in on the stadium interior.
Red-streaked bodies showed on the two sides of the field, lying draped over the bench seating. A few wounded people crawled toward a concourse opening that might let them escape from the view of the terrorists.
“How close are we?” called Jake.
“A half mile out,” called someone else. The voice sounded like that of a woman. “I flew copters in Iraq. We can get closer if you want.”
Another yellow flash showed. Then a second yellow flash.
“We’re hit!” yelled the woman pilot. “Our tail rotor is spinning down. I’m heading for that open space down at Texas Southern before we crash!”
“Do it!” growled the voice that belonged to Jake.
The camera image showed the copter turning to the right and going lower to put the south side of the stadium wall between it and the terrorist shooter. The tops of bushy green trees rose up. Then the camera angle changed to a forward look. I recognized it as the grassy yard in the middle of Texas Southern. People in the yard looked up, then began running away. The ground came up quickly.
“Brace for impact!” called the woman pilot.
The camera image went dark.
The CNN anchor looked up, her expression shocked. “We hope everyone on board the KTRK helicopter is alright. Jack, do you have any idea what kind of rifle was shooting at the helicopter? They were a half mile away.”
The inset screen image of Wilshire frowned. “Carol, an AK-47 cannot reach out a half mile. It has to be a larger caliber rifle. Maybe a .308 hunting rifle or perhaps the Barret .50 caliber rifle. That has a range of a mile. And its slug could seriously damage anything it hit.”
“Thank you, Jack. Let us hope the police find a way to rescue the band members out on that field. We go now to a CNN reporter in Houston, who is standing at the Scott Street Metro station. It’s close to one stadium entrance. The Metro light rail station is one of the major evacuation points for stadium attendees. Jocelyn?”
With a thought I shut off the TV.
Should I?
I stood up, turned and walked into my bedroom. Sliding open my closet door I got out my vest. It was a Monarch MR01 soft ballistic vest that included a 5 by 8 trauma plate front pocket. The pain I’d felt from yesterday’s AK-47 bullets had motivated me to teleport back to the Army-Navy store where I’d bought the vest so I could find an insert for the front pocket. I’d found a Protech Ceramic Multi-Curve hard plate. It was Class III rated and should stop all rifle rounds. It had gone into the Monarch vest with some shoving. I took off my suit jacket, pulled on the vest, wrapped the Velcro patches around to make a tight fit on my waist, then I put the coat back on. It felt tight. I didn’t care. So what if I looked like a businessman with a gorilla chest? While I could mind-block most bullets fired at me, my mental shield that caused bullets to fly off on a diagonal vector was not perfect, as witnessed by the two blue bruises that showed on my left side ribs. The people I was going after were well-armed, based on the images of dead students lying on stadium benches. And at least one of them carried a heavy-duty rifle able to reach out and hurt a helicopter. That meant I had to get to the stadium un-noticed, then get quickly under cover before I carried out my plan. And the minutes were counting down. I guessed there were 45 minutes left before the first hostage was shot.
The nightstand next to my bed yielded my .45 semi-auto, while my green bandana came with the vest. The box of green surgical gloves on the nightstand made me think hard. To do what I hoped to do meant I should not have any metal on my body. I pulled off my two rings and put them on the nightstand. Today I would do without gloves. I would not be touching anything when I carried out my rescue plan. I put the bandana on. Heading out to the living room I squatted, grabbed my shoes, then sat on the couch. It was hard bending over to put on my dress shoes. But I managed. Feet covered, I stood up.
Closing my eyes I focused on my memory of the stadium as I had seen it years ago, with my parents. Mom had liked how the big UH emblem was emblazoned on the center of the football field. Dad had liked the two rows of stadium lights that shown down from the north and south stands. I had thought the jumbotron was a bit garish, its giant red screen filled with white words that said Cage Rage. Slashing across the words were three black claw marks, as if some giant cougar had swiped the screen. What mattered to me was my memory of the metal screening that covered the support frame for the jumbotron. That screening was five feet thick and contained the really big speakers that sat on either side of the red screen. If I ported to the third level of the enclosure, I could hide behind the red screen and look around its edge. The screening was the standard type that kept out people but allowed air to pass through easily. That meant no one else would be inside the support frame when I arrived.
It was time. I thought “I wish to be there.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“The copter is mostly intact and not burning,” called Richardson. “The pilot and TV folks are in one piece.”
Andrew sat back in the basic chair that was his seat in the middle of the SIOC room. Video screens covered all the walls of the room. On them were the CNN feed, the KTRK feed from the copter’s approach, an image from some first responder’s smartphone as he looked out from a concourse opening on the north side seating stand, and a shoulder camera feed from the lead agent of the Houston field office, who was walking up an interior stadium concourse with an HPD SWAT team and four other agents, all armed with MP3 semi-auto submachine guns. He knew the agents also carried Sig Sauer semi-autos in shoulder holsters under their coats.
“Who’s in charge of the Houston agents,” he asked.
“Alice Kimberly. She’s good. Has fifteen years in the agency. Took over the field office two years ago,” Richardson said.
“Who’s with her? And does the SWAT team include the sniper guy?”
“The agents with her are Yamamoto, Stern, Heckler and Yang. And yes, the SWAT team includes the sniper guy with his Barret,” Richardson said. “There’s a second SWAT team heading up the north side stands.”
“When will they be in position to take out the jihadists?”
“In five minutes, I think. Kimberly is heading for the top level of the south side stands. They should come out just below the westernmost light stand. It will be above them. If the lights are switched on, the glare might make it hard to see our people.”
He thought about that. Ordering the stadium engineers to turn on the stadium lights might give his team some cover. And cover for the north side SWAT team. Then again, it might cause a reaction among the jihadists. The football game they had interrupted was being played under the afternoon light of fall in Houston. There had been no need for the lights to be on in the early afternoon. Which was what the time was, considering it was now three p.m. in D.C. That made it earlier in Houston. Then again, he noticed the sky above the stadium had begun to darken as storm clouds moved in.
“Hold off on the lights. Let’s wait until Kimberly tells us she is ready to move out of the concourse and onto the bench seating. That will give them an elevated view of the hostages and the shooters. Should be the right angle to allow the sniper to avoid hitting the band people.”
Superpowers 1: Superguy Page 20
