“Rick, do you see what NSA has seen coming at us from the south? Maybe from the railroad tracks?” Lester asked while running up the stairs to the roof of the visitors center. All his friends were running with him.
“From a distance, it appears to be Muslim women in black dresses and head gear. Appears they are all about twenty to thirty yards apart. Creepy—they’re walking so slowly—like ghosts or black apparitions dressed in black,” Rick said. “What are they up to and what are they wearing? Lester?”
“I’m guessing here, but I’d say these phantoms have bombs strapped on them. That’s seems to be all these asshole Muslim terrorists know to do—blow shit up!” Lester said, gasping for breath as he finally reached the roof. He then climbed on the roof to look south for the women in black.
He found a pair of binoculars around the neck of one of Rick’s SEALs, who was already hunkered down in a prone position, and asked to borrow them. Adjusting for distance, he pulled the women in focus. Glancing from one woman to the next, he found one thing in common besides the way they were dressed.
“Most of them have their right hands closed—a few have their left hands closed. I’m thinking detonators,” Lester said, as he handed the binoculars to Debi, who in turn shared them with Jordan, Monte, and the other two women. All agreed that none of the women had slim waists—a tale-tale sign the women had suicide vests on or they were all pregnant. The latter though was discarded quickly.
This time it was Lance calling. “Lester, satellite imagines show abnormal body profiles. We think forty-two women with explosive gear. Better take them out before they blow up the whole damn place.”
“Rick, permission to take them out,” Lester said.
“Okay, I hope you guys are right and this isn’t suicide by soldiers,” Rick said and started barking orders to his men to start picking them off.
As snipers started dropping the women, they would explode when they hit the ground. It was obvious there was a dead-man switch on the detonators. The explosions were horrific, suggesting a very large amount of C4 or Emulex® was under their flowing, black dresses. As the women were blown apart, leaving large craters, it seemed the bodies were vaporized, but some distance away their heads would fall to the ground, having been separated at the time of the blast. Blast investigators had found this anomaly for years but rarely did the public know about it. Not that it mattered in this case, but the identification of each of the bombers was practically assured.
The group of six tried to take down the women but found them out of range for their MAC-10s. All fired a complete magazine at several women and only brought down two of them. They put in fresh magazines and waited for them to get closer, then watched as snipers took out several of them while they were walking slowly. They were mesmerizing. Many were beautiful, and their hijabs and dresses flowed in the breeze. The women could be seen smiling as they got closer. Explosions were going off more often now as they fell from sniper fire.
Suddenly, they stopped and sang something enchanting and mysterious. One of the Navy SEALs on the roof who had Muslim relatives explained it was an Arabic Byzantine chant. It was soothing and beautiful. Because of the effect of the melody or the fascination of the whole spectacle, the snipers stopped shooting for a few seconds. Then there came even more bizarre sounds—like yelping or ancient tribal screams with strange tongue movements. The same soldier explained they were called “ululations” or “tongue trills.”
“Sounds like nomadic chants you might hear in the desert before a battle—something like in a Lawrence of Arabia movie or the noises made before the Zulus came to stick a spear in your ass,” Lester said.
The women who were left began running in a zig-zag manner towards buildings on the Miraflores campus, shouting the tribal song. Now everyone was firing at them. Two women were able to run between the buildings and were headed toward the ships in the locks. Several bullets struck them, and they exploded, leaving craters in the grassy areas. Four women ran in a serpentine pattern towards the visitors center; all were shot, but one woman recovered enough strength to run into the lobby. She was Romuald Farouk’s second wife, Zyan, one of the most beautiful women Farouk had ever seen. She had dark, emerald eyes, and would have easily graced the pages of a playboy centerfold, if Muslims allowed that behavior.
Neither Zyan nor her husband expected to return home after this day. They had two sons, ages three and five, who had already been sent to live with Zyan’s parents in Iran. She may have thought about them as she held her thumb above the trigger, entering the mostly deserted lobby of the visitors center. She looked at the marquee above the theater, which stated the next movie about the history of the Panama Canal was to start in fifteen minutes. She blinked a couple of times as tears streamed down her face. Blood was gushing from wounds in her right side and left shoulder. It was time.
She pressed the button on the detonator. Nothing happened. She held it to her face to examine it, but her eyes were beginning to blur. A single blue wire going to the detonator had come loose. She knew the backup plan. She looked at the industrial grade carpet covering the heavy traffic area in the hallway of the visitors center and dove to the ground. The secondary detonators on the interior of her vest clicked loudly when she fell on the carpet. Then everything went black for Zyan.
The structure above the main floor where Zyan detonated her charges were floors dependent on load-bearing columns and cross beams, directly above where the explosion occurred. Two main columns were entirely blown away, along with three cross beams. There was a cracking and crunching sound that got louder and louder. Lester and his team felt the explosion and felt the building shudder.
“Damn, we got to get off this roof!” he said and grabbed Debi’s arm. “Gang, we have to get as far away from the damaged part of this building as possible.”
All his group and the Navy SEALs who had been with them got up and ran to the far eastern part of the building and found concrete stairs leading down. As they flew down the stairs, the building behind them started to implode. The roof shifted to the west and began to collapse with a loud popping and hissing sound as air was pushed out of the compressed floors beneath it. At the second-floor level of the concrete stairs, all the people rushing down jumped to the ground and then ran to the open grassy area. They watched and listened to the roar as the entire building compressed to a large pile of concrete debris. They were lucky to be alive.
In a few minutes, all the forty-two women were dead. They had caused damage to several buildings and injured and killed many of the fighters with bottles of nails and screws strapped next to the explosives, which turned them into flying shrapnel. They had been the wives of the militant Muslims, the helicopter pilots, and those killed at the scud bases. Their children had been sent to relatives in the Middle East a few weeks back in preparation for their mothers’ and fathers’ imminent death.
“Is it over, Lester? Please tell me it’s over,” Debi pleaded. She had been to war and was sick of it. All three women were beginning to get the long stare not unlike veterans of prolonged conflicts. Very few soldiers ever see the combat these three women had experienced, and it was likely their lives would be affected forever.
Lester desperately wanted to tell them it was all over, but he knew there was one more task that had to be completed.
“As far as I know, that’s all the combat you will see. You guys went far above what was expected of anyone. I never thought it would be this bad, or I wouldn’t have let you come along. Too many surprises. Too much killing. Yes, it’s over for all of you.”
“What are you saying, Lester? What else are you going to do?”
Lester was silent for a while as he looked over the three beautiful women who now had smudges of dust and dirt on their faces. Their makeup was now wiped from their lips and cheeks. Mascara had long since left their eyes, but they were all still beautiful. It was obvious each of them had cried at times during the long ordeal. He couldn’t blame any of them and didn’t see it as a weakness. He noticed their eye colors: Debi’s eyes were a warm brown, Maria’s were a pretty French-blue, and Simone’s were a tropical-water green. Lester loved them all and wanted no more violence in their lives.
“It’s nothing for you guys to worry about.” His phone rang, saving him from an explanation that Debi wouldn’t like at all.
“Lester, my dear. It’s Holton. Are you still alive? I saw the building come down.”
“We’re all okay. Just a little shocked by so much gunfire and explosions. What’s going on?” Lester asked.
“Our boat is okay. It left the locks just minutes before the float bombs surfaced. It blew up as the other ship was being lowered down. It made a big splash but was entirely ineffective. I called Captain Polycron, and he said to meet us in Aruba. He has a big party planned to celebrate our victory. He said to bring Jordan and Maria along. Free cabins for them—suites to be more accurate,” Holton said.
“Look, Holton,” Lester said as he walked out of earshot from the group. “I have something else to do and need your help. Askari is still in hiding, and you know exactly where he is. We cannot let him live, or we will be doing this shit all over again real soon. Help me by giving out the coordinates and an outline of his compound in Guatemala. I don’t want them to know I’m going in.”
“You haven’t talked to the SEAL team or to Rick yet, have you?” Holton asked. “If you had, then you would know they are about ready to shove off early tomorrow, and they already have the coordinates for Askari’s compound. Also, Lester, you have done so much—why go put yourself back in danger?”
“So many of the SEALs were wounded. I know Rick needs me. I’m going to call him now.” Lester hung up on Holton and dialed Rick as he walked even further from the group.
“Rick, Lester here.”
“No, you can’t go—none of your people,” Rick said before Lester could even tell him why he was calling. “You’ve done too much, and you aren’t getting paid to do this shit. Go back to the Tropic Queen and snuggle up to a rum punch and Debi—not necessarily in that order.”
“Look, Rick, I know how many of your SEALs were killed or wounded. You need me, and don’t say you don’t. This bad guy will be back to take us out again if we don’t kill him right now. I’m going in if I have to walk to Guatemala.”
“Okay. Be here in front of the visitors center’s ruins tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. You’ll ride in on a Navy Apache. You’ll be issued something more than that MAC-10 peashooter. It’s going to be rough. You might not come back.”
“I understand, and I’ll be here. How many men do you have left for this mission?”
“Eight—counting you—and some of them have wounds. Have you been hit?”
“My vest a couple of times. Bruises and maybe a few cracked ribs. I’m fine.”
“See you then.” Rick hung up.
Lester thought, He didn’t thank me and he was especially solemn.
“Who were you talking to?” Debi asked.
“Holton, who by the way, called me ‘dear’ again. I can’t get used to these gay guys hitting on me. Anyway, there’s a big party planned for us back on the Tropic Queen, which is in good shape and out of the canal headed for Aruba.”
“Where are we going tonight?” Simone asked.
“I understand a bus will pick us up here in a few minutes and take us back to the hotel, along with the survivors of our other partners. A few of those people who came over with us didn’t make it. They’re still pulling bodies out of the visitors center,” Lester said. He wasn’t telling anyone about going on the raid of Askari’s compound. Although he knew she would be mad, he had no intentions of telling Debi about the mission. She would refuse to let him go or want to go herself. Neither option was satisfactory.
“Debi, if you’re nice to me, I’ll let you share a shower when we get back to the hotel,” Lester said, trying to be cute.
“You know, usually I would make you wait until I’m done, but this time you just might win me over.”
“Why don’t we all take a shower together?” Maria quipped.
“The French know how to live!” Simone said. “But I think I want Monte all to myself. He needs special attention.”
“You people are making me horny, and guess what—I get the French girl, and you guys don’t,” Jordan said and laughed. He pulled Maria close to him and kissed her.
A bus pulled up and loaded the wounded first, then all the others. It appeared that everyone had some type of wound, either on their body or in the center of their brain. Everyone was transformed—no one would ever be the same.