| |
After leaving the motel, Stickman had stopped at first opportunity and bought two disposable phones. He was fine with using a phone once or twice and tossing it, minimizing the danger of a call being traced, his location being jeopardized. He reached Assiri and Foster in Chicago and kept the call short. They were hunkered down with sympathetic jihadists in a rental house on the city’s gritty south side. Stickman urged Assiri and Foster to destroy their phones, and to call him back from another part of the city on a new phone. They moved fast, calling back later in the day as Stickman continued driving east. He asked if they would join him on another mission, time and place to be determined. They agreed. Okay, he said, start putting together another crew.
––––––––
When Stickman pulled alongside the trailer house it felt like home. Weird, he thought; he had done nothing to make this place a home. But given the stress he had been under since leaving, the quiet tin shell at the edge of the woods was a welcome haven.
Maple came out and they fist-bumped. “Guess I know where you’ve been. All over the damn tube, flashing your damn mug shot – and mine – though the FBI isn’t making a connection with the embassy, at least not publicly.”
“Things didn’t come down like I wanted, our dead I mean. And my damn bomb not going off. Otherwise, not bad.”
“Not at all bad, indeed. That was a hell of a hit. I want to hear about it, and I also have something to tell you.”
After Stickman kicked back with a cup of tea, Maple told him about April, concealing nothing.
“Do you think she’ll stay under?”
“No guarantees, but yes. I do think we should get her stuff and her car out of here. So far no one has been snooping around.”
They watched the evening news. The mall attack had claimed two more of the injured. Swale, Dog and Kobeisi had been publicly identified as among the attackers. The FBI was interrogating all of Swale’s people. At least three terrorists remained at large, with news reports giving no hint that law enforcement knew where to look. Mall of America had tightened security.
“No shit,” said Maple.
“When I said that was a hell of a hit, I meant it, and I’m hoping it has legs. But the government is so huge, I worry that they can take these body blows for a long time. Hate to say it, Mr. Stick, because I don’t want to be a martyr, but we’ll probably come to a bad end.”
“You’re probably right.”
“But what if I’m wrong? What would you replace the government with if you had the chance?”
“I’ve thought about that, but I really don’t know. I’m more a tactical guy. But the thing is, anything would be an improvement. Big time.”
––––––––
They cleaned out April’s trailer the next day, loading all of her clothing, art supplies and other personal effects into her car. Stickman followed Maple on the drive to Pittsburgh International Airport. In a remote corner of long-term economy parking, Maple found an empty space, betting weeks would pass before April’s car would be checked out.
Stopping on a quiet street as they left Pittsburgh, Stickman used his new phone to call Assiri. Though he and Foster had been in Chicago only a few days, they could see the mall attack was having a profound effect. “We have hooked up with a few brothers and, man, they are kissing your feet!” declared Assiri. “You can’t believe how hyped they are. They have totally bought into you being the dude who did the embassy, too. I don’t know if you like that, but man, this is a big deal. You are becoming a big deal.”
Stickman was taken aback, not sure he wanted that much notoriety among radical jihadists. He assumed he had Assiri or Foster or both to blame. But no sense yelling at them. He was going to need their help. Also, he had to admit liking the flattery, although he didn’t know how to respond. Except for his computer prowess, he had done little in life worthy of notice, let alone compliments. He wondered if the brothers knew it was his bomb that didn’t explode. Probably not. Assiri and Foster may well have forgotten who was assigned to Theater 3. In any case, he wasn’t going to bring it up.
The personal attention made him uncomfortable and he decided to ignore it, try to at least. The important thing was whether the scale had been tipped, or at least tilted, whether others would pursue violent jihad. He had used the argument of inspiring others to pump up the Swale people at Mall of America. He thought about what Maple had said the previous night and had to admit the likelihood of an emerging movement remained well in the future.
“That’s, that’s very encouraging,” he finally said. “You and Foster need to be proud of what you accomplished. But success means increased risk, so be careful not to attract attention. Let me ask you, is anyone actually doing anything?”
“Well, a few of the brothers here are talking kind of crazy, like wanting to shoot up a ball game or a parade.”
“Listen to me, you must tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not easy, it is not glamourous. It is dangerous. Look at our operation. I thought it was pretty well planned. We had success but three of our six are dead. The FBI and the others are not easy to fool. Their resources are much greater than ours. We cannot afford loose talk.”
“I hear you, but I’m not sure I can control a couple of these guys, and no doubt there are others. There may be a lot of them, all around the country, guys we don’t know anything about.”
“What happens around the country is the whole point and it’s beyond our control. I just don’t want your local hotheads putting you and Foster in jeopardy. Please, Assiri, do nothing until I have another plan. I don’t know when that will be, but I will need your help, no doubt. Please keep your head down until then. If things start looking too shaky there, you and Foster may need to find another place.”
Having developed a phone phobia – justified or not – Stickman tossed the one he was using and bought another. When making purchases now, he and Maple used a simple disguise of sunglasses, false mustache and ball cap. Photos taken at a check-out counter might not fool investigators, but at least they wouldn’t have one better than what was being splashed on the news.
Stickman and Maple took their own advice to go low profile, and monitored with satisfaction reports of militant incidents. Some were committed by Muslims, others not. Some reports suggested without attribution that radicals had been inspired by the mall and embassy attacks. There was no way to know.
In Boise three days after the attack on the mall, a lone gunman walked into a supermarket and opened fire with a 12-guage shotgun. Seven people died before an off-duty police officer, interrupted in his search for garlic-stuffed martini olives, fatally brought down the shooter. Investigators learned the man, born in Iraq, belonged to a mosque in the upper Midwest and had visited Pakistan the previous year.
The next day an out-of-work plumber walked into the headquarters building of the Transportation Security Administration in suburban D.C., pulled two handguns from his jacket as he approached the magnetometer and shot and killed three officers. Running deeper into the building, he came to a cafeteria and emptied both guns, killing four customers and wounding two. Building security officers who were eating breakfast gunned him down. Investigators found no connection between the plumber and Islam, let alone any terrorist organization. That didn’t keep conspiracy theorists from loudly pointing out he had twice visited the Mideast several years earlier.
At the University of Missouri, Columbia, a student from Syria calmly walked into a men’s locker room, pulled a handgun from his gym bag and shot two fellow students dead before he was overpowered by members of the wrestling team.
Nearly two weeks after the mall attacks the tone of the violence shifted when the son of Iranian immigrants attempted a suicide mission in a sold-out playhouse in northwest Des Moines. The would-be bomber suffered second degree burns when he detonated an improvised explosive device that was defective. No one else was injured. The young man had visited Turkey the previous year and the CIA found indications that he taken a side trip to Afghanistan for several weeks.
A well-organized operation surfaced a few days later, the kind authorities feared would be inspired by the attack on Mall of America. In Houston, four assailants clad in black and wearing pullover masks stormed front and back doors of a large restaurant hosting a wedding party. Firing AK-47s, they killed employees and guests at point-blank range. Then, two attackers kept firing while the other two threw homemade bombs among the trapped guests. The bridesmaid managed to grab one of the bombs and threw it back, killing an assailant who turned out to be female. When another of the terrorists stopped firing to reload, members of the wedding party charged him and beat him unconscious. The other attackers retreated by the back door and escaped. The two who did not get away, authorities concluded, were in a cell of homegrown militant jihadists. Raids on cell members resulted in arrests and the seizure of a large cache of weapons and explosives that, the investigation showed, had been stockpiled for more than two years.
In Los Angeles, several young men wearing masks took a page from the Boko Haram playbook, grabbing two Hispanic girls as they walked through a slum neighborhood after dark. The girls, in their early teens, were blindfolded and gagged and taken to a house where they were repeatedly raped over the next two days. Each was made to watch as the other was violated. The men made clear their allegiance to radical jihad, declaring “God is good,” “Death to all infidels” and other slogans. Again blindfolded, though now so submissive that gags were not needed, the girls were driven to a dangerous neighborhood and dumped in an alley. They began wandering and luckily were spotted by a Good Samaritan. Except for several DNA samples, authorities said they had no leads for identifying the rapists.
––––––––
Wilbur and Violet Banks were watching the ten o’clock news from their bed when the story of the Hispanic girls aired. “That is just awful,” said Violet.
“Yes it is, Mama,” Wilbur agreed. “If I were a young man again I’d be glad to go after those animals, just like I went after that Jap machine gun nest at Guadalcanal. I had no choice. The Japs had my platoon pinned down.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call them that, Wilbur. They’ve been our allies for a long time now.”
“Today they’re Japanese. Back then they were Japs. Remember all the newspaper headlines after they bombed Pearl Harbor? Even General Douglas MacArthur called them Japs when he pinned on my Silver Star.”
“You got your purple heart when you were still in the hospital, Wilbur. Well deserved, too. Mickey Ailes got the Silver Star.”
“That was really somethin’, signing up for the Army with Mickey after we graduated from high school and then goin’ through the whole damn Pacific together. Two Silver Star winners from one little high school.”
“Wilbur ...”
“Course I didn’t get mine right away like Mickey did. Got stuck in that damn hospital with malaria. It was worse than takin’ a little shrapnel.”
Other news followed, as did weather and sports, but Wilbur’s mind kept wandering to the virility of the young men, while stepping around their despicable abuses. It put him in a time when he and Violet sometimes enjoyed each other more than once a night rather than seasonally. Getting up, he went to the bathroom and then to their office before returning to bed.
“Well, Violet, seems like somethin’s going on,” he said, eyeing the sheet over his lap that had taken on tent-like contours.
Violet peered in his direction. “Oh my, yes,” she said. “Wilbur, have you been looking at that porn on the computer again. I jus’ hate it when I turn on the computer and all those porn sites come up. We’ve got to get that machine cleaned up and keep it cleaned up. You hear me Wilbur?”
“Why are you looking a gift horse in the teeth? I declare we best not tarry ‘cause it’s not going to last forever, don’t ya think?”
Violet’s eyebrows went up. “My, yes,” she agreed, reaching for the light switch.