Soft Target 01 - Soft Target
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What? Oh, yes. Yes it is.” Muktar replied without stopping to continue a conversation. As far as Muktar was concerned, Hank was just an old man in a cowboy hat. “I was just being friendly,” Hank said after the man. ‘Strange foreign type’, he thought.
Hank was sixty years old today, and this trip to the Canyon was a birthday present from his wife. His wife of forty years, Lizzie, had died six months earlier; the cancer that had ravaged her body finally defeated her after an eight-year struggle against the disease. Hank had worked around farms and horses all his life, a true wrangler, and his ambition ever since he was a little boy was to ride down the Canyon to the Colorado River on one of the mule trains, but Hank and Lizzie never seemed to have the money to pay for his dream. In 1997, Lizzie had started collecting their waste aluminium cans with a view to selling them as scrap metal sometime in the future. After she had passed away, it had taken Hank four days to crush the cans and bag them up, he bought his wife a modest head stone with some of the money that he received for the scrap metal; the rest of the money he had used to take him to the Canyon on his sixtieth birthday. He had made it at last, and as he looked out over the natural wonder he felt sad that he was experiencing it alone.
He missed his wife terribly. They had argued very little during their forty years together, Lizzie had been his sweetheart, lover, and his best friend. “I wish you could have seen this, Lizzie,” Hank said to himself. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek. Hank looked skyward at two black Californian Condors that circled the rim using the thermals of warming air to float effortlessly. The huge birds flew down beneath the canyon’s edge and landed on the outcrop of rock which was situated below the lodge. They looked like feathered guardians perched looking over the canyon. “Sure is some sight, Lizzie.” Hank turned and headed down the path toward the mule corral.
CHAPTER 8
Special Emergency Reaction Team
Trooper Bob Duncan parked the Hummer in an empty space on the car lot that serviced the Flagstaff Police Headquarters. There were officers from a myriad of different departments arriving at the same time. Bob spotted a large black van that would be carrying officers from the local SWAT team; the abbreviation was painted on the side of the vehicle in bold white letters. He entered the busy building and headed for the office where his men would be gathering, as an emergency call had been made to every available officer earlier that morning.
What’s the situation so far, Lieutenant?” Trooper Duncan asked as he walked into his squad room. The alarm call had gone out to all relevant response teams at 0300hrs that morning. All Special Emergency Reaction Teams; or SERT had to report for duty. America was under imminent threat of terrorist attack.
Ok, Men, listen up, we’ve received reports of at least three dead terrorists in Orlando, along with at least a hundred civilian casualties. We may also have a live one. One bomb failed to explode, but it did ignite his clothing, so he’s burned pretty badly.” A chorus of sarcastic comments rippled around the room. The men were edgy and their nerves were jangling. “Keep it quiet. From what we know so far, the terrorists are of Middle Eastern appearance, possibly al-Qaeda affiliates. We think that they are linked to a terror cell that fell off the radar six months ago. The surviving terrorist, we’re calling him, the duck, for now, was wearing a suicide vest rigged with explosives and ball bearings. It was a typical home-made system that’s been used against the Israelis in the Middle East for years. The local guys down in Florida have pulled a wallet off the surviving terrorist, which had a credit card in it that links him with an extremist group known as ‘Axe’. These people are linked to bombings worldwide, they are well funded, well trained and well organised.” A second murmur spread across the gathering, as snippets of information about the terrorist group were shared. “Okay, quiet please. We have two possible links to these terrorists; one is a cell phone message that was sent from a marked SIM card in Las Vegas. NSA electronic surveillance specialists have been tracking this cell phone for two weeks now. We know that the phone was purchased with money from a suspect bank account. The National Security Agency has agents on the ground in Las Vegas as we speak. They are trying to trace whoever used that cell phone, right now. The other link that we have is a credit card that was used to make a call from a phone bank at The Bright Angel Lodge in the Grand Canyon village. This means that we have a possible terrorist cell operating in the Grand Canyon right now, and that is our problem. The targets do not know that we are watching their bank accounts and phone records. The bank accounts are linked to an Iraqi national called Yasser Ahmed, the leader of the Axe group. We have information that links Ahmed with several suicide bomb attacks, some here in America and others abroad.”
The mention of Yasser Ahmed brought more ripples of consternation from the elite law enforcement officers in the meeting. He was a well renowned terrorist suspect. “The Bright Angel Lodge is our objective, that’s where the telephone calls were made. This resort is on the edge of the Canyon, and following the pattern of the attacks overnight, Washington thinks that tourist areas are their targets. We have two choppers en-route to pick us up. I want full body armour, and full weapon dynamics. If you see these bastards, you shoot on sight.” The Lieutenant clapped his hands together and his officers responded by checking equipment; the volume in the room reached fever pitch.
What do you think, Trooper?” The Lieutenant asked Bob Duncan as the other men dispersed to begin their preparations. The Lieutenant had completed two tours of Afghanistan with Bob Duncan and he valued his opinion. They had dealt with many combat situations over the years, and their service in the Army gave them the experience they needed to lead the police SERT. The trooper was revered as one of the best snipers in the world.
During their last tour of Afghanistan the Lieutenant and Trooper Duncan had been leading a search and destroy mission into the mountains of the Helmand province. Their scouts had sighted and identified a Taliban warlord who was high up on the most wanted list; he was responsible for the manufacture of the majority of Improvised Explosive Devices that were commonly used to attack coalition personnel carriers; the blood of over thirty Marines was on the warlord’s hands. When he was located and identified he was eating an evening meal with his followers, sat around a camp fire one and a half miles away from where the Lieutenant’s squad were located. Trooper Bob Duncan had shot the warlord dead - using a sniper rifle and telescopic sight - with a single shot to the head, from over a mile away. The sniper shot that killed the Taliban warlord had become the stuff of Army legend.
The trooper rubbed his goatee beard as he contemplated the threat of a terrorist cell operating at the Canyon. “Well I think it’s busy up there at the Canyon at this time of year, but the crowds are dispersed. Maybe one or two men could place a couple of car bombs at some of the main viewing platforms like Hopi point.” Bob pointed to an area on the map that two SERT team men were looking at. “This is the main viewpoint that most tour companies use. There are coach loads of people coming and going all day long. If someone decided to use a car bomb here, there would be no way of spotting them until it was too late.”
Trooper Bob was a combat veteran, and he had a sixth sense when it came to guessing the enemies plans. It had saved his life and the lives of his troops many times. “I remember a guy in Chicago in 1984. He went on the rampage with a Kalashnikov machine gun. He took out fourteen people with the gun and then headed for the hills. We chased the son of a bitch in helicopters. The problem was, this guy was not impressed by all our equipment and hardware. The helicopters did not intimidate him and he was an accomplished marksman. He could shoot the spot off a domino. He was in good shape and motivated, and he kept on running through the woods up there. He shot three of my men down before we got him. We don’t know what the terrorists have planned, but what I’m saying is that if I was a terrorist at the Grand Canyon, all I’d need is a rifle and a good spot to shoot from.”
CHAPTER 9
Liverpool
Yes, I’ve been following it on the radio all morning. Have we had any Intel from the boys across the pond?” Tank asked. Communications between American and British secret services had improved since 9/11, but he wondered how much could be known at this early stage. “The boss has got a file of information on this terror cell already. They seem to think there’s a European connection. It could possibly be connected to the Madrid and London incidents. He’s waiting for you to arrive before he briefs the troops.”
Tank drove out of the car park and headed for the dock road that ran beside the River Mersey. He glanced to his left at the dark bricks of the Albert Docks across the road. The docks were built in the seventeenth century, when Liverpool was the busiest port in Europe. The city became the stop-off point for the human slave trade ships that carried Africans from their homeland to the Americas. In the 1970’s it was closed to shipping and the dock fell into disarray, leaving dangerous derelict buildings. Their riverside position and long maritime history led to them being restored in the 1980’s. The Albert Dock buildings were built entirely from cast iron, brick and stone, with no structural wood, they cover over a million square foot of land on the banks of the River Mersey. They were now a busy tourist magnet full of restaurants, shops and hotels.
The car park that serviced the docks was filling up already, with tourists who came from all over the world to visit the historic site. The docks had become the home of The Beatles Museum; Liverpool’s most famous sons still attracted thousands of visitors of all ages. The docks and the Beatles museum were a tourist trap nestled on the banks of the River Mersey. It was similar to any other tourist hotspots that attracted large numbers of people. They were all potentially ‘Soft Targets’.
Tank had been stationed in Liverpool with the Terrorist Task Force since 1991. As a younger man he had completed a six-year stint in the British Army and was almost immediately sent to serve in Northern Ireland, where he was quickly selected for a position with Special Forces before joining a mixed taskforce that combined military personnel with civilian law enforcement officers. Tank joined the armed services as a seventeen year old boy, just out of high school. He was always a well-built young man, naturally bigger and stronger than most the boys his age, and he was picked for the army boxing team. Tank was a fit young soldier and he quickly became a talented pugilist. In his first competitive bout he had come up against a much older opponent from the Paratroops Regiment. British Paratroops have a fearsome reputation and the men that serve in those divisions are fiercely proud of their regiments. The boxing matches that were organised between different regiments hold a lot of kudos, and regimental pride is always at stake. Despite his strength, Tank was not expected to win, because his opponent was bigger, stronger and more talented. The fight was held over six, three minute rounds and Tank had stood toe to toe with his bigger opponent every round, not appearing to feel the blows from the heavier man. No matter what combinations the talented paratrooper hit Tank with, he couldn’t make any headway against the younger soldier. “It’s like firing a pea shooter at a tank! I’ve hit him with my best shots and he’s still standing.” His opponent had said after the third round. That was it. The nickname stuck, Tank.
The nickname suited him more now that he was older than before. Tank had become a keen martial arts exponent, trained in Thai-boxing and Brazilian wrestling. The effects of combining the powerful kicks and punches of Muay-Thai kickboxing, with the lethal chokeholds and lock techniques of Brazilian Jujitsu were devastating. John Tankersley was a one-man demolition squad. He had lifted weights three times a week religiously since leaving school and had increased his muscle mass since joining the Army. His shaved head and muscular physique had an intimidating effect on most of the criminals he encountered; his Glock 9mm scared the rest.
Now he was lead officer on a joint taskforce known as the TTF or the Terrorist Task Force. They were based at a huge police station overlooking the docks on the River Mersey, where the civilian force that policed the city of Liverpool consisted of over four thousand uniformed officers. The building was designed to act as a fortress in the event of public unrest, and its windows were tall and narrow, resembling the arrow slits of a medieval castle. It did not blend in with the city’s historic buildings; it looked like a square concrete castle.
Tank parked in the car park and headed into the elevator using his taskforce pass key to activate it. He stepped out onto the top floor of the police station where the taskforce was based. The floors below buzzed with the daily activities of uniformed policing, and the uniformed police were always busy in a big city like Liverpool. The top floor was exclusively the home of the Terrorist Task Force. When the doors opened and he entered the room, the office had a sombre feel to it. People were quiet, only nodding hello as he went by. ‘Nervous anticipation,’ Tank thought. This was the calm before the storm. The events that had taken place in American holiday resorts overnight would have a resounding impact on security forces the world over.
There were thirty-two people assigned to the taskforce at any one time. Twenty-eight were here, two were on vacation and two were involved in undercover operations elsewhere. “Be quiet, please!” Stanley Timms the taskforce director shouted across the office. A large remote screen started to descend down the wall next to where Timms stood. “We have satellite link-up with our people in the States. Now it seems to me that they have more information on the suspected perpetrators than we usually have at this stage of an investigation. Pay attention to what the FBI Agent is going to tell us. Jade please could you record the communication and make sure everyone gets transcripts of it today?” Jade nodded. Everyone else made themselves comfortable and got ready to listen to the communication from American security services. “At this point in the investigation the only stupid question, is the one you later wish that you had asked. Patch us through to Quantico, please.”
Director of Operations, Major Stanley Timms rolled up his sleeves and stood back a little to see the screen. A man with perfect hair and a dark suit appeared on the digital screen, he adjusted a small microphone in front of him. Special Agent Galvin introduced himself briefly as the coordinator of an ongoing operation involving the FBI and the NSA. “The story so far as we have it, Guys, is as follows. We have a dead Iranian national who failed to detonate his device in the Disney incident. This suspect is not in our system however, he had a credit card on his person that was linked to a group of bank accounts that we have been watching since 9/11. We also have a dead Iraqi national; we will refer to him as body V, for now, who was shot in a parking garage beneath a Las Vegas hotel. He was shot resisting capture by officers of the NSA, and they were alerted by a text message that was sent from Vegas to a cell phone that we know was last used in Florida. Body V also had credit cards on him that are linked to the suspect bank accounts, and he had checked into the hotel using a fake passport. We have recovered three sniper rifles from the boot of the victim’s car, and enough ammunition to start a war. In addition to that we have a Special Emergency Reaction Team heading to the Grand Canyon national park area. We have traced a call that was paid for through one of the accounts that we’re monitoring, and it was used at a resort called the Bright Angel Lodge. We are anticipating some terrorist activity in that area. We do not know what type of attack, if any, is planned but we must play on the safe side.” Agent Galvin opened a thin manila file
and looked at the information that was contained in it.
Thirty minutes ago we started receiving reports of a truck bomb that has exploded at Pier 39 in the San Francisco bay area. We have no definitive proof they are linked to the other attacks, but we have to assume that they are. The other problem that we have at the moment, and the reason we are being so forthcoming at this stage, is that the last purchase made from this bank account before we froze it was an airline ticket. A woman called Yasmine Mina Ahmed, an Iraqi passport holder, made the purchase. She flew into Manchester, England this morning.” The room stayed silent as Galvin finished his summary.
Why were these bank accounts that you have been monitoring not frozen sooner?” asked Faz, she was never one to stay quiet for long.
We need to know where these terrorists and their suspected affiliates are at any one time. We have been following their movements undetected using this financial information since 9/11. These people think they are invisible. Therefore, we freeze some accounts and pretend that we don’t know about others in order to track the movement of suspects.”
What information do we have on Yasmine Ahmed?” Major Timms asked the FBI agent.
We know that she is related to Yasser Indri Ahmed, his file has been e-mailed across to you. This guy is big trouble with a capital T. We have suspected him of sponsoring religious training camps in Somalia, Pakistan, Iran and Syria. He has also spent time in the Sudan and Afghanistan. This guy has been linked with most of the top Islamic Militant groups. We think he is the brains behind the group ‘Axe’. All our intelligence on the Axe organisation is with the Ahmed file that I have sent to you. The strange thing is that we have Yasmine Ahmed listed as dead. We believe she died two years ago in an American military air strike in Iraq.”