Mack had just one last question. “Benny,” he said, “what would happen if that guy did go back to the bus. If he did see the active red light, found it our little gift, and their expert tried to dismantle it?”
“That wouldn’t be good,” said Benny the Bomber. “Not for them.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I booby-trapped it good,” replied Meir Dagan’s right-hand man. “Anyone lays a finger on that device, the whole lot will go up like Nagasaki—bus, barn, and farmhouse. No survivors. Probably better for everyone.”
“Perhaps,” said Mack, “But not really. Because if that happened, the police would be out looking for a culprit. If our plan works they will not do that. Because the terrorists will plainly have suffered a malfunction in the course of their evil actions. Blew themselves up by mistake, eh? It’s happened before.”
IBRAHIM SPREAD OUT the school floor plan and, as an afterthought, called Ben al-Turabi over and checked he had locked the barn. He knew the Palestinian was a very focused killer, but matters he considered trivial were inclined to go by the board.
“You lock up after you left the barn?”
“Wasn’t locked, boss. I left it like I found it.”
“What do you mean, not locked ? I did it myself when we left. With the key.”
“I didn’t see the lock,” said Ben.
Ibrahim thought al-Turabi was a kind of a whacko much of the time. And he just said, “Asif, go and check the barn’s locked up, will you?”
And three minutes later, the former bin Laden hit-man, now living in the United States, was back.
“Barn’s locked, chief,” he said. “Regular chain and padlock, like always. Couldn’t open it. No problem.”
Ibrahim glanced around for Ben al-Turabi, couldn’t see him, and rolled his eyes heavenward. “And stay out of the pastry tin,” he called out. “You’re getting heavy.”
Back at the Nissan, Benny fired up the computer, shoving the special plug into the Titan’s electric socket. The radar screen came on, and two small lights flashed to confirm the satellite connection. Three miles away, and Benny could “see” the bus as if it were right in front of him.
“You beautiful little thing,” he muttered, as the radar sweep began. Mack backed out of the woods and onto the dark, deserted lane. They crept back into the hotel about ten minutes later, transporting their gear in the boxes.
There wasn’t a sound in the sleepy hotel as Mack opened the back door and they crept along the upstairs corridor into their rooms. They would shower and change, but there would be little sleep for anyone this night. They needed to keep track of that atom bomb of a school bus every minute. While Mack did not expect it to move much before 10 a.m., this was a chance he could not afford to take. They would work two-hour shifts, with two on duty while the other one slept. All the while they would keep an eye on the radar and on the GPS locater.
Mack and Johnny took the first shift, watching the screen until 4 a.m. They observed no movement on the farm. The radar scarcely varied except for the occasional automobile on the road. When Benny took over for Johnny, there wasn’t much to see either. At 6 a.m., Mack finally rested for a couple of hours, until breakfast was ordered and delivered to the room.
All the while they watched the screen, and the bus never moved.
BY NINE THE NEXT MORNING, all ten of Ibrahim’s soldiers were ready. Most were armed with automatic pistols, which had arrived with the ammonium nitrate. But every one of them was armed with an AK-47 slung across his shoulder like a Mexican bandit. Ibrahim lined them up in the barn, in military formation, two rows of five. Each man wore regular civilian clothes, shirts with a collar and a tie. But each man wore a long, dark blue work-coat, with a name stitched on to the left-chest pocket in white letters. An American name, like Skip, Fred, Charlie, Frank, Ray, or Richie.
The assault team leader, now with a full black beard and full authority, spoke to them formally, and he told them their plan had been prepared and strategically perfected very brilliantly. So far there had been no major problems, and it was the will of Allah that they would go in with their courage high, and carry out the attack, which may very well drive the Great Satan out of the Middle East for ever.
“To you alone will there be glory on this great day,” he said. “You alone will be remembered in all of our history. School children in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, will learn of your triumph for decades to come.
“You will be remembered as the Holy Warriors who followed in the teaching and footsteps of the Great Osama. You will touch Allah with immortality. For there is but one God. And that God is Allah . . . ”
And all ten responded, “Allah is Great. And He alone will lead us to the light.”
“Gentlemen,” said Ibrahim, “many of us have spent long years in captivity. Many of us have been tortured and humiliated. Our religion has been kicked aside, our beliefs scorned, our faith challenged. We have borne witness to the insults made against the Prophet, and to the Koran, which contains his sacred words.
“But today is the Day of our Revenge. Allah has decreed this shall be our Day. American blood will be spilled, as ours has been spilled. Allah has sworn that revenge shall be ours: that our enemies shall lie dead at our feet. Allah has given us THIS DAY!”
And Ibrahim’s voice rose as he bellowed: “DEATH TO THE INFIDEL! DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!
And the Holy Warriors raised their AK-47’s above their heads, and they chorused together: “DEATH TO THE INFIDEL! ALLAH IS GREAT!”
Ibrahim paced in front of them and began to speak more calmly. “My brothers,” he said, “when this mission was planned, we had hoped it could be modeled on the great triumph of the departed Islamic commander Shamil Basayev, he of the immortal brotherhood of the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance.
“Never forget their mission was financed and trained by al-Qaeda, and they held the great Russian army at bay for three days in their own town of Beslan. They stormed and then dominated the school, and then the town. No military operation since 2001 ever brought such endless glory upon our jihadist revolution. Or such world attention.”
Ibrahim allowed the words to sink in. And then he said, “We had thought it a dress rehearsal, that we might one day copy the plan. But increased U.S. security has made that impossible. Today we must fight as a smaller, yet equally well-armed force. We could not place a reconnaissance team in the school, and neither can we storm it.
“But much has been learned and perfected. It was the high explosive that conquered Beslan. And the high explosive will bring down Canaan.
“The objective, as before, is the total destruction of the school and everyone in it. Students, teaching staff, and parents. All of them will be Americans, many of them sons of the great Wall Street financial families. As an added bonus, most of them will be Zionists.”
Ibrahim pointed out that the mission was a little more than an hour from start time. And he added, “As before we have selected the day when the school will be most crowded. In Beslan it was the first day of the autumn semester.
“At Canaan Academy, it will be Abraham’s Day, when the Zionists honor the founding father of Israel. You have all studied the operational plan, and you all know the two entry doors we will use. The school bus will not look in any way suspicious, and we will pull up on the edge of the circle with the bus facing down that north side of the school.”
At this point, for emphasis, Ibrahim flourished the school architectural plan and pointed to the wide concrete area that led to a double swing door at the side of the school.
“This one is always open,” he said. “But the second door, about fifty feet further along may be shut. Not locked, but closed in cold weather. Like now. Our first handcart, with two crates on board, will go straight to that door, pushed by Fred and Charlie.
“The second handcart, pushed by Joe and Skip, will have three boxes on board. They will go directly in through the first door, and turn right down that co
rridor. At the end they will find the dining room, walk straight across it to the serving area on the left, and unload their three boxes. They will place one box under the back stairs, and the other two, labeled “Flour” and “Sugar,” outside the kitchen door.”
Someone asked if there was any possibility they may be challenged?
“Absolutely not,” said Ibrahim. “You look like delivery men, and you will be acting like delivery men. And anyway, the entire faculty at this time will be in the assembly hall for the start of the morning choral concert.”
“But what if someone asked where the hell we thought we were going? What if some parent gets suspicious and calls security?”
“That, my dear Ben,” said Ibrahim, “is the beauty of this operation. Like most American schools, there is no security. That is why the Great Ones chose this place.
“However, each of you will have your rifle tucked into your belt beneath your left arm, barrel pointed downward. Should you be challenged, you will draw it, and shoot down the person instantly. Remember they will all die anyway.”
Abu Hassan Akbar, aka “Joe,” liked that part. He raised his Kalashnikov and confirmed their creed, “DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!”
Ibrahim, despite his calm and calculating demeanor, wanted to tell the ridiculous little killer to shut up, but at this stage that might have seemed sacrilegious. He nodded only an affirmation of Abu’s natural aggression.
“You will have noticed,” he continued, “that we differ from Beslan in one very special way. Shamil Besayev felt the need to storm the school and capture it. That got them world headlines. But it was the destruction of the school, the enormous death toll, which earned them immortality.
“Changing circumstances in America’s national security have forced us to refine our plan. But the Great Ones may have reached those conclusions alone. Thus our mission is sharp-pointed, focused. And our aim is clear—the total destruction of the school.
“We have dispensed with the more colorful aspects of Beslan, the recce team in School Number One all summer, the spectacular forced entry, the glory of watching the Russians squirm before us, the stand-off where our Muslim brothers held all the cards.
“No, my brothers. We do not require any of that. Just the elimination of more than a thousand United States citizens. That will bring us all the glory we need.”
Ibrahim called for questions. And there was only one, from Yousaf Mohammed. “I accept that the first two handcarts will go into the school without causing attention,” he said. “But will it not seem strange to see seven more cases being unloaded from the school bus, right outside the building, by a group of men all dressed the same?”
“It might,” replied Ibrahim. “But there will be no one outside on that north wall. Any late arrivals will be hurrying in through the front door. We will have four men on the carts, four more will enter the school to help with our unloading and box-placement. Our final two men, ‘Joe’ and ‘Fred’ will be pulling the crates out of the bus.”
“And should anyone stray down that north side?” asked Yousaf.
“Shoot them, on sight.”
THE BUS HAD NOT MOVED one inch by nine o’clock, and Johnny Strauss was about ready to leave. It had long been agreed that the two Special Forces men, Mack and Benny, would operate the business end of the operation, and that Johnny Strauss, New York terrorist hunter, would make a photographic dossier of everyone involved. At the end of the mission, Johnny wanted to know precisely who was dead and who was alive. He wanted pictures of suspects. He wanted clear prints of everyone who came to Mountainside that morning, and everyone who left. Not to mention those who came back.
His weapon of choice was a thirty-year-old Canon given him by a newspaper photographer friend. It had a fabulous Long-Tom zoom lens, not too big and easily focused. Johnny’s buddy swore to God he shot the Jerusalem Post’s front page spread of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981 on that very camera.
Right now the Canon, loaded with a new black-and-white film, was in its leather bag in Johnny’s SUV. He would develop the pictures himself in the basement of Banda Fine Arts.
They shook hands before he left and wished each other luck, and then Johnny was gone, directly to the wooded entrance of Mountainside Farm, where he would conceal himself in the dense trees across the narrow road. The other two had another cup of coffee and kept on watching the screen. The bus still had not moved.
Mack and Benny were ready, organized to the smallest degree. The Nissan was waiting in the parking lot, and the portable detonator was on a hair-trigger once it was switched on. Just so long as that little red light on the other detonator kept flashing under the yellow school bus.
INSIDE THE ACADEMY there was a kind of controlled chaos. Everyone understood where they should be, where they wanted to be, and where their offspring wanted them to be. Sometimes these three separate objectives came together as one. But mostly not, and the school corridors seethed with activity as parents and students made for the assembly hall and the school staff did what they could to guide their gigantic flock.
The school secretary, Ms. Marie Calvert, had already been in touch with the Torrington Police Department, to check the arrival of the cruiser that customarily parked at the main gate. This was mostly to prevent traffic queues, but also to check out arrivals, and to direct obvious commercial traffic to the school’s east gate, across the playing fields.
Officer Tony Marinello was already ensconced at the entrance with a checklist in his hand, informing him that all attending parents would have little green stickers featuring the Star of David on their windshields. All three of the school’s yellow buses would be arriving, two of them with visiting choirs, and one of them from the Yale Choral Society, which was shortly coming in from New Haven.
There was no foot traffic, and Tony was directing newcomers straight up the school drive, where the playing fields on the left near the main building were being used as run-off parking lots.
All school festival days attract heavy traffic, but a big country boarding school where so few of the students have parents anywhere near the place brings another dimension to the word travel. Hundreds of people were arriving from miles and miles away, tired, irritable, just wanting to park, get out, and find a cup of coffee. Some arrived early, before 8:30 a.m. Others thought they were running late and that events would start without them. And in the middle of all this, Officer Marinello had his work cut out to keep a semblance of order.
Two of the school buses were in before 9:15, and the Eli’s showed up ten minutes later. Tony Marinello waved them through, acknowledging two of the drivers he saw quite often locally. Right now he was sending a big white laundry van around to the east gate. Along the road there was a line of cars building, waiting for him to remove the single red traffic cone he was using for flow control. Tony took his duties very seriously, no matter how small, or insignificant, they may have seemed.
At the age of twenty-eight, he was one of the most ambitious police officers in the entire state, and his diligence had already been noticed by his local commanding officers. He read the newspapers assiduously, and, unlike many of his colleagues, he understood the true significance of Canaan Academy. Tony understood, because he had made it his business to find out. He had that kind of mind, the kind all police officers should have, the kind that would surely take him right to the top of his chosen profession.
What he had seen when first he had passed this way was a grandiose entrance, the black iron gates, the stone lions, the manicured lawns, and beyond, a building that looked, from here, like a summer residence for King Henry VIII and all his wives. Tony, who was, at the time, in the process of certification from the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden, swiftly worked out that somewhere, somehow, millions and millions of dollars were required to run this place. And he researched the life out of Canaan Academy, in the end understanding that this was the nursery for great Wall Street minds.
Future heads of
legendary Wall Street investment banks were in attendance here. Sons and grandsons of men who had run fabled banks like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Lazards, JPMorgan, and the New York Stock Exchange, were studying at the end of that long, tree-lined drive.
By the time he was through, Tony Marinello appreciated precisely the meaning of educational establishments like Canaan. And his further general knowledge of the international situation was also impressive. He understood the threats and hatreds that were often directed at the Israeli nation. He’d read the words of that maniac who somehow ran the Islamic Republic of Iran. And he knew there were many Arab countries that wished Israel would cease to exist.
To Tony that meant a lot of extra vigilance whenever he was dealing with anything with Jewish connotations. He believed there were dangers lurking everywhere. And he was a United States police officer, serving in the Great State of Connecticut, the Constitution State. It was his duty to be alert.
To many of his colleagues, this early morning task in the middle of nowhere would have been regarded as nothing more than a pain in the ass. To Tony it was an honor. Here he was, in command of the main gate to the academy, trusted by the school and by his superiors to guard the students and protect their interests. Tony Marinello took it all extremely seriously. He moved the traffic cone and he waved the automobiles through, and he watched the windshields for the stickers.
IT WAS AFTER 9:30 and as of yet, no vehicle had left Mountainside Farm. Johnny Strauss was stationed in deep thicket, camouflaged by an autumn-red bush, surrounded by undergrowth and trees. It would have taken two men with three tracker dogs to find him.
The trusty and historic Canon with its zoom-lens was protected in its soft-leather case, and Johnny was scanning that wide, wooded area on the opposite side of the road all around the rough entrance to the farm, watching for vehicles making their exit. But he was also sweeping the area, checking for human presence in the trees. He was already on his guard, but he needed to know if he had an enemy right across the street. So far he had seen nothing.
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