Day of Wrath

by William R. Forstchen

  Then a long burst of shots sounded, followed by a loud crashing blow. Part of the roof above buckled as a chopper blade cut into the ceiling. Then there was a deafening whooshing explosion. The floor and walls shuddered. It felt like the building was about to collapse all around him. All went still. A trickle of burning jet turbine fuel began to rain down through a rent in the ceiling. From outside came a rising barrage of gunfire. The gunman out in the hall fired long, sustained bursts and shouted over and over the cry that Bob now found so sickening: Allahu akbar!

  Though the national network had cut the feed from Portland, the local affiliate had not. And so the images of the horror played out on the roof continued to be broadcasted to the local community. It was followed by the crash of the helicopter which burst into flames, a final dizzying shot from inside the chopper spun around, then the signal was cut.

  Police had been monitoring the broadcast as well. The dead officers outside the building had created the effect the murderers wanted. They had caused the responders to pause, evaluate, and wait for backup and the SWAT team to arrive from Portland. But the sight of what transpired on the roof had pushed them over the edge. A dozen officers, on their own and with no leadership, broke cover to charge the building. All died on the front lawn.

  Kathy recognized the terrified face of the child. The girl lived, or had lived, just down the street. She was someone who, though a grade younger than her own Wendy, liked to hang around with “their crowd” of girls. That could have been her Wendy and now she, and everyone else in the room, truly snapped.

  The recreation hall became a sea of bedlam, the shock compounded when the concussive blast from the downed helicopter rattled the windows.

  Without the urging of any one individual, nearly all turned to the door and stormed out. There was no leadership, no direction, no plan. Each parent was filled with rage and terror. Nothing, no police line, no reasoning for calm, would stop them now. For that matter, the local police who were trying to maintain some semblance of crowd control while the professional SWAT team from Portland deployed out, were swept up as well. It was their children in there. If not their children by birth, nevertheless they were their kids.

  Kathy ran with the crowd, tripping and stumbling, then was up again. They surged back to the main approach to the school, which was still jammed with stalled and abandoned cars.

  The White House

  “This is definitely the Dies Irae attack that we discussed back at the staff meeting in August.”

  The room was silent with that.

  “A statement will have to be made.”

  There were nods of agreement. The press room down the hall was in chaos, jammed with every reporter who had a press pass and was already on the grounds. In the name of national security, every federal office, including the Capitol and White House were now in full lockdown. No one other than a designated few would be permitted to enter and no one was to leave. Panicked appeals of the staff on Capitol Hill and the White House of the need to get to their children’s schools and get them the hell out were met with the assurance, which was in fact true; that any school in the D.C. area and outer suburbs that had children whose parents were high-ranking officials had already been secured.

  That scenario of protective response, at least for the children of those working the inner corridors of Washington D.C. had, of course, been thought out and planned years ago. The Quaker school, behind its most peaceful façade, was 24/7/365 a heavily armed and protected camp, even at two o’clock on a Sunday morning, to ensure no one could ever slip in to plant an IED. The President’s children had already been evacuated out, airlifted up to Camp David just in case. Just in case there was an additional component to Dies Irae that might involve the White House itself.

  As for all the other children in the various private schools within the nation’s capital and out in the suburbs, the best of highly trained security personnel had already, in some cases, been airlifted in by helicopter.

  The Press Secretary was sent out to calm and reassure and to announce that once the extent of the crisis was fully realized and resolved, only then would the nation’s leader speak.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Near Raqqa, Syria

  “Do we cut it or keep it for this next upload?” the head video editor asked, looking away from his control board to their caliph.

  The caliph looked around the room. It was not his nature to seek the advice and opinions of others, or to have someone publicly question him in such a manner. He felt that his four years in an American prison in Iraq had given him an intimate understanding of his most hated foes. But he could hear caution in the video editor’s voice, the one who had actually gone to America to be educated, had actually married an American-born woman, at least of a Lebanese Muslim family, whom he had divorced shortly after the call of jihad spurred him to return to his roots.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “For our own fighters yes, the footage of the child is priceless,” was his first reply. “Some though, their hearts are not yet as hardened as ours.”

  The way the young man asked the question, he sensed, was carefully chosen. He wanted to make it clear that it did not trouble him; it was an act even sanctioned by clerics of their faith. The child was older than one of the brides of the prophet, and being an infidel, she had no protection under holy law, her rape was legal and an act she deserved. That she was infidel trash placed no sin upon the jihadist who did it. They had discussed doing thus, as their brothers had done on the roof of the school in Chechnya to terrorize the infidel Russians, both Orthodox and atheist. So why this questioning now?

  “Explain.”

  “Our target audience in the first releases of our video reports are of our own faith.”

  His gaze in reply to that response carried a warning. Most of the Sunni were weak in their faith but still, they were Sunni. The Shi’ite, the enemy dating back across thirteen centuries with their false doctrines, were effete Persians who must be subdued.

  “Go on.”

  “What the West calls the moderates, they claim that they are followers of the prophet, praised and blessed be his name, how will they react to this now, today? The footage we have so far, we want them to rejoice, to celebrate in our victory. But this…”

  He pressed a button on a control board for the video editing, winding back to the moment when the jihadist had begun to pull the clothing off the struggling girl before pinning her down.

  “The westernized ones will recoil, infected as they are with the teachings of the West. They will be fearful to cry out loudly in praise of what we are doing today.”

  He pointed to an image of the rape.

  “This might sicken some of their leaders who do not have the faith that we have.”

  “Therefore?” he asked.

  “Leave it out for now. The destruction of the helicopter with an M4 is a coup, along with the exploding trucks on the highways. I have that ready to go with our next upload, but I ask for your sanction not to include this particular scene for now.”

  “Later?”

  “Of course.”

  He was silent for a moment, all eyes of his staff focused on him.

  “Do so,” he announced and turned away.

  Three minutes later the video editor posted up the second release, a carefully edited montage of images and clips, garnered from their own fighters and from the terrified response of America’s media, which was now including hysterical reports that were flooding onto the pages of Facebook and other social media. In less than five minutes, the video montage was going viral.

  Newer images were inundating their bunker complex, including, to their delight, the first reports of Americans venting their anger on innocent Muslims: a report of a drive-by shooting of a sacred mosque in Dearborn, Michigan, an attack on a small group gathered outside a mosque in Washington D.C. A traditionally liberal news media source was already interviewing an “expert” who was proclaiming that their faith was peaceful and attac
ked the racists in America, shouting angrily that he had received a report of a lynching in a Somalian neighborhood in New York and several shops being burned. Of course there was no footage other than that of New York City police protecting the shops allegedly under attack. That didn’t matter, the voice-over with translation would state that the police were killing the owners of the shops.

  The effect that they had sought was already taking hold in Gaza, with thousands pouring into the streets in joyful celebration. Ultimately the celebrations would trigger the Zionists to react, and in so doing provide more video for them to selectively use.

  The impact was infinitely greater than on 9/11. Rather than just final frantic phone calls made to loved ones before circuits jammed up, it was live video feeds recorded only seconds before the one recording it died.

  One video posted to a social media site was particularly effective: the twelve-year-old boy who had started to send it was dead. He had been filming the entryway to his classroom and whispering to his parents that he was still alive and waiting for help. The door burst open and the boy actually recorded the shot that killed him. His cell phone, clutched in his dead hand, continued to film, showing the shattered classroom, the dead bodies, and the sound of gunfire in the background.

  Messages were going the other way as well. Parents reached out to their terrified children, praying with them, and whispered reassurances to darkened closets and hiding places that help was coming.

  In three of the schools, the jihadists managed to herd hundreds of children into the dining area or gym, as was done in Chechnya, and started to open the sham of negotiations, releasing a young child every fifteen minutes or so, and offering trumped-up demands about the release of prisoners in Iraq, Israel and America in exchange for the surviving children. They threatened that if any attempt was made to infiltrate the building, all would be slaughtered. That was the plan anyway, but the Americans always fell for such offers.

  Another part of their plan had worked superbly well: the fake IEDs. They had been scattered at the approaches and doorways leading into the schools. In the three buildings where hostages had been herded together, the terrorists made a big show of mounting small bundles with cell phones duct-taped to them onto exit doors, basketball hoops and overhead light fixtures. The “explosives” were pointed out to all huddled together, lying or sitting on the gym or dining room floor, that if any one made one wrong move, or if any attempt to retake the building was made, the packages would be detonated, spraying the room with hundreds of ball bearings that would maim and kill.

  There were a few who disbelieved the threat, or clearly saw that there were several dozen adults and only one murderer in the room. Their peers subdued any attempt to resist, in one case even beating down and pushing the one who wished to fight back with fearful cries as the jihadist walked up to him, put a bullet into the young man’s head, and announced that he would spare the rest this time, but not again.

  One of the teachers, attempting to be reasonable and understanding, actually told the killer that she would cooperate with helping him keep order in the gym as long as he promised not to harm the children. He, of course, agreed with her while she prattled on about her understanding and respect for his religion. He smiled, saying nothing. This whore would get special treatment before she died.

  Yes, everything was going according to plan. But a storm was now gathering around the schools. At Chamberlain Middle School, the paradigm was shifting, as it did on Flight 93, as the enormity of what was being done was at last being realized and the reaction began to set in, motivated by panic but also by rage.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was a long quarter mile run to the school. Kathy was gasping for air after the first few hundred yards, a flash thought of how, just a few years back, she could easily run several miles a day. Two thoughts drove her forward: the fact that her daughter and husband were still in that school and the searing images of that rape. She still had her Ruger and she drew it out, noticing that several other parents were carrying weapons as well.

  For everyone running toward that building, the rape was what penetrated the full enormity of the attack into their souls. This was no lone psychotic gunman. These were jihadists, news reports were now openly linking them to the murderous ISIS cult. The war that ISIS had promised for months had come to America’s shores, to the classrooms of their children. There was no room for negotiations, no hope that this would be settled and some children spared. A primal urge seized all, to risk all to try and save their children. They realized that the years of listening to leaders telling them to be passive, to let others do the protecting, completely unraveled at the sight of what was done to the young girl on the roof of their school. They would have to fight in the same way they had once heard respected grandfathers talk of distant beaches in a long ago war, though this fight was against an enemy even darker than Hitler’s SS.

  The crowd surged forward.

  Kathy could see the fire on the roof of the school, the blackened helicopter lying on its side, coils of thick smoke rising into the startling blue autumn sky. Another helicopter was circling, far higher up now, but continuing to film. Lines of yellow tape had been stretched across the road, linked among half a dozen police cars. Officers stood, several holding up weapons, and turned to face the surging crowd, one of them stepping forward with a megaphone.

  “Get back. For God’s sake, please get back.”

  But whom was he to address? There was no one single leader in this crowd of nearly two hundred. Something had snapped, the willingness to meekly obey. Kathy could see her new friend Craig at the head of the group, pointing at the school, yelling, and then just tearing the tape aside. An officer tried to block him and someone shouted that the SWAT team was getting set to go in.

  No one listened now. They pushed through and started for the school while the perimeter of officers stood watching, stunned. Only a few minutes earlier a dozen of their comrades had tried to rush the building and had been unmercifully mowed down. They too were sick of waiting.

  The senior officer in charge saw the crowd, then, looking back at the pad an assistant was holding with trembling hands, which was showing a repeat of the horror on the roof, knew that all was going beyond his ability to contain or control.

  That, and emotion and rage had taken hold of him as well.

  “The hell with it. Everyone, we’re going in.”

  The rapist was off the roof, climbing back down the access ladder that he had scaled minutes before. He ran, bent low, to join his brother positioned in the foyer. He actually slipped and fell, the floor carpeted with hundreds of ejected shell casings and slick with water and blood. He got back up and inched forward.

  “They are coming now,” and he laughed grimly.

  These Americans with their Rambo fantasies. The surge was coming forward and spreading out. Both men aimed out the front, firing as rapidly as possible, dropping empty magazines, slamming new ones in, and dozens of parents went down under their hail of fire across the front lawn of the school.

  It was absurdly suicidal, so many coming straight at them. A number had weapons out and were firing blindly back. What little glass remained in windows was shattering. The front of the mob dropped, but the remainder was spreading out to the sides of the building. More than a few in the crowd had combat experience from the Middle East or were grandfathers from Vietnam. Though disorganized, they began to dodge to either flank, going to the rear and side exits of the building.

  The jihadist blocking the main entryway turned to his brother holy warrior.

  “I think several classrooms down that corridor still have vermin in them. Kill them now before it is finished."

  His brother nodded, rising.

  “One of them is armed. I think he killed Ali and has his gun. I think I killed him. Make sure he’s dead.”

  They exchanged glances, smiled, and kissed each other.

  “Tonight in paradise.”

  Bob had nearly drifted off, b
ut the resurgence of gunfire stirred him back to consciousness. He clutched the stock of the M4 for reassurance. If not for what he felt he still had to do, he wished that unconsciousness, even death would come.

  He looked over to Jessica whom he had been reassuring earlier. She was still gazing at him, curled up, clutching her stomach. But her gaze was glassy-eyed. The child was dead.

  He began to weep with grief. If only they had come fifteen minutes earlier, perhaps she could have been saved.

  Someone was moving in the hallway. He tried to blink away his tears. It was difficult to focus; the corridor was filled with acrid smoke and mist, the sprinklers still spraying out water.

  Who was it?

  He could hear sustained gunfire and cries of "Allahu akbar!" Whoever was approaching was doing so crouched down, one arm dragging, as if wounded. He was less than thirty feet away, peering through the gloom. It was near impossible for Bob to tell if he was a friend, a rescuer at last, or one of the terrorists. He felt he should shoot and ask questions afterwards, but old instincts prevailed.

  “Over here,” he gasped, “who are you?”

  The response was near instantaneous. The figure dropped prone and fired several shots at Bob, a spray of water kicking up into his face and a blow striking his shoulder yet again. The figure got up and started to rush toward him.

  Bob raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger over and over, saw the man double over, stagger, but then keep coming.

  The body armor! Damn it, remember they’ve got body armor. Only a head shot will stop them.

  He raised his aim, pumping out more shots, and finally saw the man drop down onto one knee with a strangled cry, apparently hit. The murderer was less than ten feet away, firing blindly. Bob tried to aim, squeezing his trigger again, just one more shot, then the bolt slammed back and ejected a shell casing but did not cycle in another round. He had fired the entire magazine. Was it enough? He began to fumble for the pistol he had taken from the dead murderer which he had laid by his side, but his movements were far too slow. His killer approached but was moving woodenly, staggering as if drunk, knees beginning to buckle.