by Jace Killan
Several of his men fell to the ground wounded but others took their place.
They’d been in firefights before. They knew what to do. They took cover and approached with caution. The event wasn’t unlike the attack Raiya had made on the embassy in Benghazi. Only now he had more men and better weaponry.
They pushed forward, blasting rounds inside the front entry. The return fire slowed then stopped altogether. Either the guards retreated inward, or were overtaken.
At the front door, two of Raiya’s men, brought up what they called the radio in a large plastic case. One of Askari’s contacts had constructed it from plans they’d stolen from the Americans. When set up, it looked like a submarine, round about the edges and oblong, weighing nearly a hundred kilos. They positioned it on the front porch and turned it on.
Raiya and his men withdrew their phones. The radio synced with an app so Raiya could see with near perfect accuracy, anyone inside and outside the building within a kilometer radius.
He zoomed in on the immediate surroundings. The fires appeared to push people to the back of the White House. Alarms sounded from all over and sprinklers sprayed from the ceiling in rooms where the fire had reached. Some people made their way out and across the South lawn. Raiya smiled at this. The cowards ran from their castle.
Raiya sent two teams to try and turn off the sprinklers. He wanted the house to burn down. Still the water might do a nice job destroying some history, too.
Outside the rain had stopped. The heat of the fires caused Raiya to sweat despite the damp cold. He lifted his ski mask and motioned for his men to overtake the White House, ensuring its destruction. Using the app, more than two hundred soldiers entered and spread throughout the White House and its adjoining buildings. Raiya watched the whole thing unfold on his phone. His men advanced, taking out people here and there, some armed and others not. They were all killed.
Raiya left a small battalion of ten or so to guard the front entry until the National Guard arrived. Little they could do now to stop the fire.
Raiya took a self-guided tour. On the wall, hung portraits of past presidents. These, he shot, or smashed or pulled from the wall. Nothing would survive. No artifact. No history. The US cared little for Raiya’s heritage, and he would spit on theirs. He did spit. As big a loogie as he could muster, nailing Teddy Roosevelt about the nose. Then he withdrew a lighter and ignited the canvas. He added a few more paintings to fuel his new fire.
Down a long corridor, stood marble columns hosting busts of presidents past. It wasn’t difficult to push these handmade sculptures onto the floor, leaving them battered and broken.
One room held an array of dishes displayed behind glass on wooden shelves. Raiya lifted a bench and chucked it at the wall, shattering glass and plates. He broke off a bench leg and used it to beat in other showcases and ensure that every dish met a similar end.
The extravagance sickened Raiya. The Americans and their need for things. No wonder Allah had charged their demise.
Raiya found a liquor cabinet. He threw the bottles on the floor soaking an intricate red rug. He lit it on fire and soon the room filled with smoke.
He returned to the front door and readied with his men for a fight against the National Guard when they came.
Joaquin waited in a room not far from where he and Spencer had entered the White House on the side. Alarms blared and the lights had shut off. He took out his phone and texted Spencer. No reply. He texted Kristin next, “I love you,” but he didn’t send it. He needed to let her go. He was just being selfish.
Joaquin heard explosions earlier and now what sounded like gunfire. He opened a door to distant screams and the rattling pops of automatic weapons. Fear overtook him. Why had he insisted on tagging along with Spencer. He’d spent years imagining what Chorch had gone through. Both Joaquin’s father and his brother had died in firefights. That thought eased his fear. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad way to go. He could die here, a hero. And if he was going to die anyway, why not make the most of it? Take as many terrorist bastards with him as he could. A chill of excitement caused his mind to flare. He needed a weapon.
He crept down the hall, using his phone as a flashlight. Joaquin checked the rooms as he passed. In one, room he found a woman, older, sobbing beneath a conference table. Joaquin turned the phone light on his face and held up a finger to his mouth, hoping she’d quiet her cries. She didn’t. He closed the door and started creeping again. He killed the light and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
His phone rang. He quickly silenced the buzzing. Jared. He sent it to voicemail. If he survived, he could share stories with Jared later. If he didn’t, Jared could read about it on the news.
His phone rang again, while receiving a simultaneous text, “Spencer’s been taken. Are you okay?”
Somehow Jared knew. But he didn’t have time for a text. He ducked back into the room with the sobbing woman and dialed Jared. “Dude, where’s Spence?”
“Oh good, you’re alive. Are you inside?”
“Yeah.”
“I was talking with Spencer when he was shot, I think. He said they were taking him and to call you.”
The woman stopped her wailing. It had calmed to quiet trembling.
“Listen, Jaqui, a news chopper is out front. I’m going to text you an app. Download it. The terrorists are using military technology I investigated last year. It can see through walls. This app will let you see what they’re seeing.”
“How the heck can you know that?”
“It’s on the news. I’m looking at the radio they’ve got set up by the front door. They can see you. They can see everyone inside.”
Joaquin received the text, downloaded the app in seconds though it felt like hours, and pressed on the button reading “Dollhouse.” It showed a 3D image of the White House, like looking at a set of blueprints though black walls on a white background. His app illuminated a pulsing red dot where he hid. In the center of the room showed another dot marking the scared woman under the table. Other dots scattered about the graphic, some stationary, some moving, most red, some green.
Joaquin wondered if the military used this technology in the field. He wondered if Chorch had something similar or maybe this could have saved his life. How the NIS terrorists got their hands on it or how Jared knew and recognized it baffled him. But Joaquin would use it just the same. He determined that the green dots were friendly, meaning they were terrorists. The red dots indicated everyone else, including him.
Joaquin texted Jared, “How does the app know who’s friendly and who’s hostile?”
Before the reply came, he tapped on one of the red dots. The app zoomed in, highlighting a reddened outline of a person, huddled in the corner of a room, near motionless. To the side, the software portrayed information about the person: Gender-Male, Estimated Weight-197 pounds, Estimated Height-Unknown, Armed-Yes, Weapons-Glock, Pocket Knife on right leg.
Fascinating. In a blink, he remembered reading about Chorch who dove onto a live grenade to save his friends. This tech might have prevented that. They could have known about the grenade and not relied on anyone to pat the woman down.
At the bottom of the profile was a box, next to it were the words: “Make this Friendly.” With a tap of his forefinger, Joaquin probably saved the huddling man’s life, changing him from red to green.
His phone buzzed with a text from Jared explaining what he’d just figured out.
A couple more taps and Joaquin changed his own marker and the woman near him to green and two of the green hostiles to red. That might confuse the attackers for a moment, but wouldn’t save him when being shot at.
He needed a weapon, not that he was a good shot. Actually, he didn’t know. He’d shot a lot as a kid with his father, but that was years ago. There were dozens of hostiles and more than twenty red dots, still alive. Hopefully one of them was Spencer.
On his phone, two hostiles lit as green, approached a corridor where two others he’d lit now red, pa
ssed room to room, growing ever closer to his location. He could only hope that they considered him friendly until he had a chance to surprise them. But how? He found a bronzed bust on a shelf. It might do the trick if he could get close enough without getting shot.
A barrage of bullets blasted down the hall followed by angry shouting. A black “X” replaced one of the red-lit hostiles on the app. Looking closer, Joaquin saw half a dozen similar marks dotting the dollhouse. He couldn’t make out the muffled words, but it sounded Arabic.
Three dots huddled closely in the center of a hallway, near the black x. Joaquin turned off the phone and closed his eyes, giving them a minute to adjust to the darkness. He crept out into the hall, leaving the still trembling woman. He came to a stretch of hallway with a row of paintings, most of them toppled or torn. Joaquin crouched low following the wall, making no sound. At the end of the hall he found a fallen secret serviceman. He risked a little light that helped him locate a pistol nearby. He searched the body and found a spare clip.
Joaquin peeked around the corner, pistol raised to the ready, aimed at the three men staring at their illuminated phones. Smoke filled his nostrils and he fought a cough. They were burning the place down.
One hostile lifted his gaze and pointed toward Spencer, “There’s one of us,” he said in English, though his accent sounded Slavic. He wouldn’t see Joaquin down the darkened hall after having stared at his lit screen. He just assumed Joaquin was friendly because his phone said so.
Joaquin fired, unloading his clip at the men’s heads, fifteen yards away until the pistol only clicked with each trigger pull. One cried briefly, though all three dropped to the ground, their phones illuminated nearby. His ears rang from the barrage of explosions. It sounded like he’d ignited a dozen M-80s. Nerves, adrenaline, excitement, fear, and the realization that he’d just killed someone, maybe three someones, all of these manifested in a chuckle.
Maybe he was a good shot after all. When he’d go to the range with his father, they’d wear ear protection. He didn’t figure he’d live long enough to worry about hearing loss, but the sounds disoriented him. He needed some way to muffle them. Then he remembered a little trick his father would do sometimes. He found a couple spent shells lying nearby and placed the brass into his ears. That would work.
Joaquin switched out the clip and crept to the hostiles. He sunk another round into each of their heads, just to make sure they were dead. He’d seen too many movies where assumptions had cost lives.
The terrorists smelled of smoke, BO, and rancid curry. Each man had carried a firearm. He gathered them all and as much ammo as he could find. He also discovered a radio attached to an earpiece. All of this he carried into a nearby room. A round room with three long windows on the far end that glowed faintly from the light outside. This was the oval office.
He didn’t have time to sightsee. He placed his newly acquired weapons on the large desk then crouched underneath it before withdrawing his phone.
Smoke made his eyes water. He tried to blink away the burn. He fought the urge to cough. On the screen, two green dots hurried down a corridor and around the corner toward the hallway where he’d left the three men, dead. Over the radio, a man barked orders to collect as many people as possible so they might be executed on live television.
Joaquin killed his phone. He needed night vision goggles or something. Each time he looked at the phone it cost him time to readjust his vision to the dark. He examined the rifles. They were each identical with a long curvy clip extending from the center. He found where to eject the clip but couldn’t tell how many rounds it still held. He knocked it back in place and pulled the action, loading a round in the chamber. Two men appeared in the hallway, toting cell phones, speaking accented English.
“Hey, you okay?” one asked.
Joaquin answered by pulling the trigger. The rifle jerked as it shot a few three-round bursts that shook his head. The sound, though dampened by the brass in his ears, still surprised him.
One man fell to the floor. He fired another three round burst downing the second. Then he fired again for good measure though the reality was, adrenalin had shot the last round. He waited a moment to ensure the two were dead before returning to the hall to take their weapons.
Raiya tried to make sense of what he viewed on the phone. In the West Wing, he’d lost several men, but the app didn’t indicate the source of their trouble. One of his men, hunkered in the Oval Office, near five fallen bodies.
A team of six returned with two secret servicemen in tow.
“Over here,” Raiya said, retreating further into the White House.
He found a room with no furniture, though the walls held dozens of memorabilia on glass shelving, dimly lit by the fiery glow down the hall. This would work. He directed his men to secure their prisoners in the center of the room, having them lay face down. He called for Felipe to come film the execution while indicating that four of the men should help rescue the guy in the Oval Office from a threat not shown on the app.
Felipe arrived and launched his Facebook live video stream; his phone’s flashlight illuminated the two prisoners’ heads.
Raiya zipped up his gray jacket and pointed a desert eagle at one of the servicemen.
Felipe nodded.
In Arabic Raiya said, “Allah has sent us, his soldiers, to remind the dogs of their masters. You disgrace this world with your arrogance. You have murdered our people. You have slaughtered my brothers. You have bombed our children. And this,” Raiya held out his hands, “this is Allah’s wrath. He will take your houses as he has taken your White House. He will kill your soldiers as we will kill these.”
With several shots, he fired into the prisoners’ backs and heads. He paused a moment after to allow Felipe time to film the carnage. Blood soon soaked their suits, though the video wouldn’t show it well enough. He should have removed their jackets first. Red blood on a white shirt was a powerful image.
Raiya pulled the men over, and smiled. Their white shirts were saturated in blood. He returned his attention to the camera. “You have insisted on a holy war.” He coughed. The fire had advanced and smoke now filled the room. He crouched low to the men. “It is time that the infidel be removed from this earth. We call upon Muslims everywhere to rise up against your oppressors. It is Allah’s will, as foretold by the prophet Mohammed. The caliphate is here. Allah is great.”
Relief came when Joaquin noticed dozens of red dots appear on his app, out in the front lawn. Then hundreds. The National Guard? The Marines? D.C. Metro? Maybe all of them. Hopefully, Spencer was still alive.
Four green dots, moved cautiously down the hallway toward his position. He’d gathered other weapons and had readied his arsenal of rifles, AK-47s per the app, that he’d lined up on the president’s desk. Several backup pistols sat on the floor next to him. He’d stuffed a sheathed buck knife into his pocket. He’d even found a grenade on one of guys he’d killed thanks to the app.
Three of the four approached while one hung back around the corner of the hall. Joaquin pulled the pin and let the grenade fly out the doorway, ricocheting it off the far wall so it would bounce toward the men. He readied an AK-47 as a deafening explosion shook the ground.
He trained his sites on the doorway. After a few seconds he stole a glance at the dimly lit app, noting two dead from the explosion. One green dot didn’t move, most likely wounded, maybe unconscious. The fourth that had stayed back slowly approached.
Joaquin heard muffled conversation. The green dots met, so Spencer took the opportunity. Crouching he crept to the doorway, extended his AK around the corner and pulled the trigger for several seconds.
“We’re on your side, idiot,” a French accented man cried out.
Joaquin laughed, “Say hello to my little...” he didn’t finish the sentence, just pulled the trigger again and again.
Jared wished he could be there, fighting against the terrorists who’d overtaken the White House. CNN showed the building ablaze. Hopefull
y, the president hadn’t been captured or killed, though Jared cared more about his friend Spencer.
As soon as he’d sent the app to Joaquin, he called Dr. Thomas Moore, its inventor, several times. Eventually he picked up.
“Dr. Moore, this is Jared Sanderson, do you remember me from Northern Investments?”
“Jared, yes. What’s going on? It’s pretty late.”
“Sorry, but I need your help.”
“After your firm passed, we found another investor. If you’re still interested you should call...”
“It’s not that, Dr. Moore. Your technology was stolen by a group of terrorists. They’re using it on the White House as we speak.”
Silence followed.
“Dr. Moore?”
“How do you know it’s my technology?”
“I have a man inside the White House. He’s with the FBI. So am I actually.” That felt good to say, a bridge connecting his old life to his new. “He’s logged into your app right now. We need to help him. He’s way outnumbered.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“They’re here,” one of Raiya’s men yelled from outside the execution room, barely audible over the screeching fire alarm.
“Fine.” Raiya looked at his phone. “Bring more prisoners.”
Also on his phone, Raiya noted that the four men he’d sent to rescue his guy in the Oval Office had died. The guy now made his way across one of the conference rooms. But it wasn’t his guy, was it. The app had mislabeled him, costing Raiya a good number of soldiers.
He swore. He’d just sent four more to their death.
One of his men arrived with two women in pantsuits and a man in a striped shirt, no tie.
Raiya coughed. “Good. Set them there,” he said in Arabic, pointing at the two dead servicemen. “Execute them for Felipe to film. I have to deal with something.”
He left the room to Felipe and the other soldier, then located a group of six more that he ordered to follow him.
