Night of the Cobra

by Jack Coughlin

  Kadyrov reloaded the shotgun, then went around the room to kick the plugs from every electrical outlet. The place went dark, and its computers buzzed and flashed and failed. Within four minutes of receiving the “sword” order, the likable big kid from Chechnya had stopped the heart of the mall’s security operation.

  Other security guards were separated and isolated out on the floors, without comms or leadership, and the arriving police would now have to come in blind because all surveillance feeds had been terminated. Soon, someone would come to the security office, and Pavel Kadyrov would be waiting there with an arsenal that he had barely tapped.

  Kadyrov wondered how the assault was going elsewhere in Mall USA, because it had never been practiced with all of the participants. There were others, he knew, and each person had a specific task. The explosions from the food court indicated that his comrades were already at work. Kadyrov concentrated on carrying out his own assignment and thought about the money he was being paid.

  * * *

  NOW CAME THE EMPTY time between attack and response, the difference between law enforcement and military, slow versus aggressive defense. The series of explosions was easily heard in the parking lot, and as he approached the east entrance, he also heard the boom of a shotgun not too far away.

  With the M-16 in the crook of his arm, he called 911. “A confirmed terrorist attack has begun at Mall USA. My name is Kyle Swanson, and I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I am armed and about to enter from the east.”

  “Sir. We already have help on the way to that location. Don’t go in there.” The dispatcher was curt and spoke with authority.

  “I am five-foot-nine and have long brownish-blond hair. I’m wearing a black armored vest with my shield pinned to it and jeans.”

  “Sir. Listen to me!”

  “I am carrying an M-16 and a sidearm.”

  “No! Wait for backup and SWAT! You can’t do anything alone.”

  Kyle took a deep breath. “There has been a rolling explosion, and I hear gunfire. People are dying in there. I don’t have time to wait.” Having given confirmation of the attack and the description of himself, he signed off, unlimbered the rifle, and picked up his pace, heading for the sound of the guns. He would have to first push his way through the thick crowds that were crushing together as they made for the doors.

  “Make a hole!” he shouted as he elbowed through, holding his rifle up high. “Make a hole, dammit! Get out of my way!”

  From the midst of the panicking throng, a white shirt appeared and a tall security cop stepped into his path. The guard raised his canister of pepper spray, and Kyle butt-stroked him across the face. The man went down. As people surged around, Swanson grabbed him by the shirt and hoisted him back to his feet. “Listen!” Kyle shouted. “I’m a federal agent, and I’m going after the shooters. You guide people out of here and set up a triage area outside. Help is coming.”

  The skinny young man was wobbly, his bright blue eyes bulged, a purple bruise was forming on his cheek, and his thoughts were scrambled. The lack of training was obvious. “But it’s cold out there,” he protested in a strangled cry.

  Kyle shoved him. “Go!” The popa-popa-popa-pop rattle of a machine gun opened up from high overhead, deeper into the mall. He found a stairway but was making only plodding progress because so many people were headed the other way. There must have been at least ten thousand people shopping in the mall when this thing started, he thought. It was a vast free-fire shooting gallery filled with human beings gripped in panic. He could not possibly save them all. His best option was to stop the killing at its source and bring down the people on the guns.

  Another automatic weapon opened up deep in the mall, the unique rip of an AK-47. How the hell did they get automatic weapons in here? That was a question to ponder later, for bullets were striking and people were falling. Swanson found some free room and raced up the nearest steps two at a time, passing the second floor at a full run, ascending toward the top gallery. Screams filled his ears. Everywhere he looked, people were running for their lives, crouched into hiding places, or lying dead or wounded on the floors and being trampled by others. Glass shop windows crashed into dangerously sharp splinters as bullets sheared them like scissors.

  He wanted to reach the uppermost floor, as in any battle: take the high ground and attack from the top down. A stuttering machine gun was close, and Kyle ducked lower as he ended the sprinting climb. Peering to his left, he saw that a man was kneeling and facing the other way, working an RPK light machine gun that was resting on a bipod braced on a solid stone bench. From that position at the end of the hall, the shooter had an unimpeded sight line that covered an axis that prevented anyone from trying to reach the stairs to descend. Bodies were strewn on the floor beyond him and well-dressed store dummies had spilled out from the shattered display windows of the adjacent upscale Cannes Clothing store. The victims looked like broken mannequins. The gunner was doing damage.

  Kyle lifted his M-16, steadied up, and did a triple tap that paced up the man’s spine, from kidneys to between the shoulders and then between the ears. The pulverized terrorist slammed forward hard against the bench, and the front of his destroyed skull emptied into a flower display. Kyle listened. That takedown had stopped the firing here, but there was more elsewhere. Another explosion as a grenade blew up in the playground far below.

  Swanson pushed the body away and took over the well-chosen tactical location himself, gaining a view all the way to the far end of the corridor. From this point, the sniper could reach out and touch someone else. He noticed the dead gunman wore a blue denim shirt that was stamped with the distinctive logo of Cannes Clothing. Obviously an employee. A white strip of cloth was tied around his head.

  After a quick scan around, Kyle unloaded the RPK and threw it aside, then phoned Lucky Sharif.

  “We’re on the way,” the FBI special agent barked above the noise of the siren. “Coming in, everything we’ve got. How bad is it?”

  “About as bad is it could be,” Kyle answered truthfully. “Terrorists are slaughtering everybody they can. They control the mall. Bunch of bodies already down.”

  “Where are you?” Sharif recognized that the voice of his friend had tightened. He was in action.

  “I just took out a bad guy with a drum-loaded RPK, up on the third floor. A Slavic-looking piece of Eurotrash. Unknown number of shooters are still active. They haven’t realized I’m up here with the altitude advantage.”

  “Roger that. An RPK? How did that get inside?”

  “You guys figure that out down the line. Also, I just heard a grenade go off. Talk to you later. I’m busy.”

  “Good hunting, Kyle. Hold on. I’m coming.”

  * * *

  HIS M-16 WAS AN older A2 model, but it could slam out a 5.56 × 45mm NATO bullet at a muzzle velocity of 3,050 feet per second, with good accuracy up to 550 meters. Swanson had expended only three rounds, so he had twenty-seven still in the box magazine, with another full thirty-round clip in his pocket. From a kneeling position, he brought the rifle to his shoulder, turned away from the chaos and the dead and the cries of the wounded, and tracked his aim around the third floor: top to bottom, side to side.

  At the far end, a swarthy young man with a short beard had leaned over the railing and was showering down wild bursts with an AK-47. He was not aiming, just shooting, almost as if in celebration. Swanson took a line on him and squeezed the trigger with the gentleness born of practice. The first bullet hit the exposed left rib cage, and when he jerked around with the impact, Kyle plunged a second bullet into the soft belly. The terrorist screamed and fell backward with his own trigger still depressed as the AK continued to fire, moving under its own recoil to trace bullets up the nearest wall and into the ceiling.

  Swanson realized that one also was wearing a white strip of cloth tied around his head, so it was probably a crude recognition signal. Did they even know each other? He could use that. He snatched the bandanna from his
first target and fitted it around his own head. It was stained with blood but still had enough white showing to give a moment’s pause to other terrorists, which would be a fatal flaw.

  Kyle jumped up and ran into the destroyed Cannes Clothing store. That had been the machine gunner’s easiest target because he apparently worked there, and he had shot the hell out of it. Swanson drove hard through the dress racks, leaped over debris and bodies, circled the cashier counter, and charged like a bull through a small storeroom and out the rear exit.

  Everything changed as soon as he was through the portal. All of the glitter was gone, and this was the work area, the warren of hallways and storage spaces that made the mall tick. Banks of long fluorescent bulbs provided pale and stark illumination, and the bare floor was unpainted concrete. Wiring and ductwork ran overhead to allow carts and clothing racks and machinery to move about freely. Unfinished drywall was stenciled with signage that told which doors led to which shops.

  Kyle stopped and was looking both ways for threats when he noticed a wide chunk of drywall that had been roughly torn away from the back entrance to the Cannes store, a hole made so recently that the bits and pieces still clung to the tape and were scattered on the floor. The hole was ragged around the edges. On the floor, a heavy canvas duffel bag yawned open and empty beside a sheet of plastic that reeked of gun oil. That had been where some weapon, probably the RPK, had been hidden, out of sight until needed. The gunner knew precisely where to find it.

  Swanson turned left and moved into a fast jog down the empty hall, noting the locations of the cargo elevators and staircases as he passed. He wanted to reach the far end of the hall before cutting back out into the mall itself and coming in from a new angle, but he had to be cautious. If he could move freely back in this unseen web of corridors, so could the bad guys, who would know exactly where they were. He did not lower his guard. He did not know how many people were on the attack team, but that did not really matter. Two were already off the board, and he would just kill the rest of them one at a time, until there were no more.

  25

  THE FIRST HOUR

  SATURDAY, MIDDAY

  THE COBRA HAD SPENT the sheikh’s funds wisely, for it was not unlimited. A top priority, even before traveling the world to enlist his assassins, was to set up primary, secondary, and tertiary escape routes from the United States for himself. Becoming a dead martyr was not in his plans.

  Within an hour after leaving the mall, Pierre had driven them past Burnsville and Lakeville and was approaching the town of Faribault on I-35 as the radio reported that terrorists were attacking the Mall USA.

  Traffic was sparse going south on the broad road, which had been salted and plowed. The BMW’s front wheels threw a stutter of grit on the undercarriage, and the wipers stayed busy slashing at the collecting snow. The storm pushed on the car’s boxy rear like wind billowing a sail. Minnesota received only about nine hours of sunlight during the day in late January, and by four o’clock, darkness was already clamping down. Headlights brightened the falling snow, and Pierre piloted as much by following the red taillights of other cars as he did by watching the dark ribbon of highway that was bordered on both sides by hefty banks of snow and ice. There were no roadblocks on the southbound lanes, but law enforcement vehicles blazed up the interstate’s northbound corridor beneath flashing halos of red, blue, white, and orange.

  Omar Jama was settled and quiet on the open road, for he had no advice to help Pierre drive in such weather. When they saw the illuminated green signs for the town of Faribault, Omar Jama consulted the GPS app on his cell phone and guided Pierre onto the local streets of the small community. They went less than three miles before finding a darkened brick building that housed an enclosed long-term parking garage. The Cobra recited the four-digit entry code, Pierre punched the buttons in a little box, and the folding storm door obediently rolled up. They drove inside, and Pierre was told to park the filthy BMW in a slot adjacent to a clean Lexus.

  Omar Jama climbed from the SUV and stretched, pleased to find the temperature in about the sixty-degree range. “This place is winterized, so my car should start, but you may have to give me some help,” he said. The garage door, on a timer, automatically lowered itself after forty-five seconds and shut out the noisy wind. Pierre remained in the driver’s seat. Clinton stepped out, walked to a steel support post, turned his back, and urinated.

  The lights brightened when the door closed, and the Cobra unlocked the Lexus. He adjusted the driver’s seat to accommodate his big body, fixed the mirrors, and turned on the heat, spending a few moments to study the controls. Omar was not a car guy, but this vehicle was extremely simple. He got it running, then left it idling in neutral and got out to give it time to warm up and for the oil to circulate.

  “I will be changing to this Lexus now and continue on by myself. You both can return to Minneapolis and disappear. I thank you for remaining by my side during the time of crisis. It has been a pleasure to meet you. Would you like to come with me and be my bodyguards? I can promise plenty of money, excitement, girls, and power when we get to Africa.”

  Clinton shook his head and laughed at the thought. “No, thank you, sir. Africa is too far from home for us. We would melt in that heat.”

  The Cobra laughed with him. “I understand, but wanted to make the offer. So, good fortune to you both, my friends. May Allah bestow his blessings.” He withdrew a Glock 19 pistol from a deep side pocket of his overcoat in a single, smooth motion and shot Clinton in the mouth, then fired twice through the open SUV window and hit Pierre in the neck and head. As the driver collapsed onto the seat, a kill shot was put into Clinton’s head. It was unfortunate to have to eliminate such loyal men, but they were all expendable. He had offered them a chance, and they refused, leaving him without a choice. He would not take a chance on either being captured alive.

  He put the pistol away, opened the driver’s-side door, reached in, and triggered the rear hatch’s latch. It was hard work to wrestle the body of Pierre down below window level, then wrestle Clinton’s corpse into the wide rear-cargo area without getting his clothes bloody. He shut down the SUV engine and locked it. It should remain undiscovered for hours, probably until late morning at least—maybe days. The Cobra peeled off the overcoat and threw it into the back of the Lexus. The interior was toasty, and he wasted no more time. He backed out of the parking slot and drove to the exit door, then tapped his code into the security box while keeping his other hand over the left side of his face to stymie the surveillance-video camera. When the door was open, Omar Jama pulled out into the weather. The door closed behind him and the cold, still night consumed the garage.

  His escape route was set. Maybe a drive-thru restaurant would be open on Highway 60. The Lexus shouldered bravely into the darkness as he headed west toward Mankato, where a chartered jet was waiting to take him away, boring up above the storm and away from this wasteland of ice, snow, and eternal cold. Within a week, he would be home in Somalia, to be hailed worldwide as the new hero who had struck America a savage blow.

  SATURDAY

  Swanson made a quick peek around the corner and found the path clear. The door into the rear of a store that sold athletic gear hung open, and he went in with a quick roll that ended with his back to a wall. People whimpered nearby, and he wiggled over and found them huddled behind some cardboard cartons. A man on his knees was bandaging the bleeding shoulder wound of a sales clerk. “Shhhh,” Kyle said, finger to his lips. “I’m a friendly. Stay put.”

  He low-crawled out into the sales area, through the debris, the sharp shattered glass, overturned tables, two dead customers, and another wounded clerk, whose bright yellow golf shirt was smeared with blood. A steady hiccup was popping just outside, and Swanson recognized that it was a pistol. Looking over a display case, he spotted a man with the telltale white bandanna sitting on the floor with his back to a bushy planter, concentrating on reloading a handgun. The shooter was black and slender, built like a Somali, a
nd wearing the gray twill uniform of a maintenance crew member. Swanson had an easy aim with his M-16, waited for the reloading process to be completed, then gave a low whistle. The gunman looked around, and Kyle popped a single round into the heart area, rupturing the vital organ. The body went into the spasms of a death dance. He fell, the body braced against the potted plant.

  * * *

  “YO! FRIENDLY! BACK HERE! Hold your fire!” A hushed male voice came from the stock room. Quiet and calm with no accent.

  Kyle pulled his M-16 around to the sound. “Who’s that?”

  “I’m a friendly, too. Ernie Harrison. Ex–navy corpsman.”

  “Come out on your belly, hands first, so I can see you,” Kyle growled.

  Empty hands appeared in the door, followed by broad shoulders and a square face. It was the guy from the back room. The man had Minnesota-blue eyes, pale skin, and short, sandy hair. He was about thirty years old, and his long-sleeved shirt had dark stains. He squirmed forward, as if he had a lot of practice in staying low under fire. “Can I get in this fight?”

  “No, but you can help. Stay here for a second. I’ll be right back.” Kyle waddled like a duck out of the door and scooped up the fallen pistol, a Smith & Wesson MP9L with a fresh clip of seventeen rounds, then yanked the white cloth from the man’s head and replaced the stained one he wore. Returning inside the store, he handed the S & W to Harrison, who had pulled the wounded clerk in the yellow shirt to safety and was probing his wounds. “This pistol has a full clip. You work with the injured, Harrison, and check down the hallway for others. I know there are some back in the Cannes Clothing store. If I find more, I’ll send them back. The cops are on the way.”

  “I can help you. I pulled a tour in Fallujah,” Harrison said, expertly checking the clip and putting the safety on.

  Kyle ruefully shook his head. “You can help more by staying out of my way and dealing with the injured. The whole mall is a slaughterhouse right now, and there are a ton of casualties out there, Harrison. You may be the only person here with any medical training, so do what you do best. But if anyone with a gun comes around, remember that these tangos all are wearing a white bandanna around their foreheads, so use that as identification and an aim point. Shoot, don’t talk.”