When the day came, they found the minivans unlocked and parked behind a grocery store, just as the instructions had said they would be.
Each of Javad’s men wasted no time putting on the heavy protective vests that they were each to wear. A phone was strapped to each one of the vests, facing outward so it could record and transmit everything. Javad assumed that someone in Iran would then weaponize the footage, putting it out to the media and on social networks.
The vehicles also contained firearms. One semiautomatic long gun for each of Javad’s men. Boxes of 5.56mm ammo. And several plastic five-gallon gas cans, each one filled.
For operational security, Javad hadn’t told his men exactly what their assignment was until they were ready to execute. They only knew to be prepared for bloodshed.
When he told his team what they were to do, they grew excited. A few had fear in their eyes, but Javad quickly spoke words of confidence to them. At exactly the right time, just before rush hour, he sent the three vehicles away to complete their mission.
He drove a fourth vehicle. As he turned onto I-495, the Washington, D.C., Beltway, he wondered if there was really a God. After all the time he had spent in America, he now knew that the Americans were not the demons his government made them out to be. If there truly was a God, he wondered if He would forgive him for what he was about to do.
Chase kept looking forward through the windshield of the Ford Mustang.
“What is it?”
Chase’s instincts were honed from years of experience on battlefields around the world. To the uninitiated, the sputtering of a motorcycle or the crack of fireworks might sound an awful lot like gunfire. But Chase’s fine-tuned ears were the first defense of a highly trained operative.
“Stay here. Get in the driver’s seat,” he said to his brother. “We’re in the outer lane, so if you see someone coming, drive off the road and get the hell out of here.”
David looked aghast. “What are you gonna do?”
Chase opened the door and shut it behind him, walking forward with his arms extended, his weapon pointed toward the ground.
His eyes scanned down the lanes of traffic as he weaved in between vehicles, searching for the source of the gunfire.
A wall of black smoke rose up about fifty yards ahead. A few people honked their horns. Then he heard some screams, and more of the loud, unmistakable cracks of semiautomatic weapons.
The left side of the highway was a five-foot-tall median barrier. On the right side of the road rose a sloped area of grass. The grass ended at a twenty-foot wall — a sound barrier, separating the busy highway from suburbia. There was nowhere for people to run.
When the gunfire erupted and the screams began, Chase could see car doors ahead of him flying open, the passengers fleeing to either side of the stopped traffic, running away from the black smoke. A heavyset woman in heels ran right by Chase as he jogged toward the noise. She was panting and saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” tears rolling down her red puffy face.
Chase side stepped to the left side of the highway and began making his way forward, faster now. He brought his weapon up, scanning the horizon by tracing the gun sight along his field of view. A yellow school bus motored in place a few cars ahead. He needed to find the shooters before…
Target.
The man wore blue jeans and a dark grey vest, and held what looked like an AR-15. He walked toward Chase along the highway shoulder. The same section of the road that Chase was using. Every few steps, the man fired into the traffic. A few more seconds and he would be at the school bus.
Chase opened the rear door of the bus and found himself staring at a group of middle schoolers. “Come on, hop down!” He called. A large man appeared next to the kids. Chase asked, “You the bus driver?”
The man nodded.
A woman in a sedan next to them saw what he was doing and got out of her car to help. Chase looked at her and the bus driver and said, “Help get everyone out the back door. Bring all these kids that way, away from the gunfire.” He pointed back in the direction he had come from.
The woman and the bus driver nodded and started helping the kids hop down and run away from the screaming.
Chase left them and headed towards the gunfire.
Lena stood in the back of the room, watching the operation unfold. Chinese satellites were still effective. The ARES cyberattack had only affected US satellites — GPS and military birds, mostly.
With David Manning and Henry Glickstein escaping, she knew that there was an increased level of surveillance on the island. But now that the US network of reconnaissance satellites was inoperative, that greatly reduced the information they could obtain.
The biggest threat to the secrecy of this operation was US submarine and aerial reconnaissance. US Navy EP-3s and Air Force RC-135 aircraft routinely flew through the area. But the island had received several upgrades — electronic countermeasures, mostly — that would help shield their work. This island was still the best place for her. While Jinshan’s power and connections protected him from the political scrutiny he faced after Dubai, she was a different story.
Officially, Lena Chou was not, and had never been, a citizen of China. She was an American, despite what the US intelligence agencies were now saying. That it had taken them ten years to realize her true identity was a testament to her ability, and the professionalism of Jinshan’s operation.
“Ms. Chou?”
She looked at the Chinese military intelligence officer that was in charge of the room. “Yes?”
“Ma’am, it’s time. You can now see our satellite feeds from over Washington, D.C., on screens one through three.” He pointed to a set of displays strung out along the ceiling.
“Thank you.”
The resolution was, surprisingly, good enough for her to be able to make out individuals. The video all came from a single Chinese intelligence satellite, in a permanent geosynchronous orbit above Washington, D.C. It was used to eavesdrop on the US government agencies and officials who ran them. But it also had great cameras.
All three screens showed different sections of the circular highway that ran around the capital of the United States: I-495, the Washington, D.C. Beltway.
She looked at her watch and did the math in her head. It was time. The afternoon rush hour was picking up. Exactly what they wanted. Maximum impact. Maximum casualties.
“Teams one and two have begun,” said one of the Chinese intelligence personnel.
She saw two of the screens zoom in on the highway. Each showed similar scenarios unfolding. A minivan stopped on the Beltway, slowing and eventually blocking traffic. Then the third screen showed that the last of the teams had done the same thing with their minivan. At each location, men from the minivans got out and began pouring gasoline across lanes of traffic. Then they stepped back and lit the liquid, transforming it into a flaming barrier. The smoke distorted some of the overhead view, but it was still good enough for Lena to decipher what was happening.
In each scene, three men spread out across the highway. One man on either side, and one in the middle of the major road. Then they raised their black semiautomatic weapons to their shoulders and began firing into traffic.
She checked her watch. Right on time.
Lena heard a few muffled gasps from the Chinese personnel in the control room. She took a mental note of who seemed the most disturbed. She would have to give their names to the duty section head.
Loyalty and dedication were very important at this stage of the operation. Everything they did was still highly confidential. If word of their operations were to get out to the wrong people now, it could ruin everything.