“Or someone killed him, left the gun on the floor, and it’s just lying there, showing nothing.”
“Call him,” said Andrew.
The imam spoke in Somali. “Number six, Hanad, are you there? Hanad? Has anybody seen Hanad?”
The imam listened to the return messages and then reported, “Hanad went up on the second floor with Feysal.”
“Which one was he?”
“Number eight.”
He looked at number eight. Hmm, it seemed okay, just more blur and dazzle as the muzzle bounced about, pulling the camera with it.
“Asad? Where is Asad?” asked the imam. “I sent him to get the babies an hour or so ago. Where is Asad?”
Asad was number three. They both looked at that image and for a second it seemed to show nothing much, just the same blur and dazzle. But then it stabilized. It seemed to show a door. Then it went up to the ceiling and a man’s hand reached around from the left and both the imam and Andrew watched as something large and irregularly shaped was crushed over the muzzle until it was held secure.
Andrew almost laughed. It looked like a potato.
Then the muzzle was lowered and it reacquired the door, settling just over the computer-controlled lock. The muzzle leaped, the irregular object-it was a potato! — dissolved in a blast of mist, and the doorjamb was blown out of the door frame, freeing the lock bolt. Hmm, interesting. The shooter had known not to fire into the lock itself-unbudgeable-but into the door frame, which was wooden and vulnerable to high-velocity energy. This fellow-was he a professional? It was like the moment when Dirty Harry leaps onto the school bus roof from the rail trestle, driving Scorpio nuts!
On the monitor, the muzzle dropped to the floor, displaying a pair of New Balance cross-trainers, and Andrew was aware that the owner had just moved through the door he had shot open and begun to climb some steps.
It suddenly made sense. Somebody in the mall was hunting his people. Some vigilante had killed Asad silently, gotten the rifle, and then improvised a suppressor from the potato-that was straight out of Marine Field Manual MC-118-341, “field-expedient suppression techniques.” Now that person had shot his way into one of the locked stairwells and was headed upstairs, that is, upstairs toward him, Andrew. Was it Bronson, the young Eastwood, Bruce Willis? Or was it some clumping cheese eater who had disobeyed the mall’s privately imposed law and brought a carry piece inside and now waged war?
No. He knew how to blow the lock; he was a professional. Maybe Delta, maybe SEAL, maybe some real good FBI HRT guy.
He hadn’t counted on that, but at the same time, instead of being scared, he was exhilarated. This is really interesting. Oh, this will be so cool in the final document. Every story needs a tragic hero; this guy would be it. This would also give the story another narrative strand to twist in and out. It revved him way up.
He realized he must have, in his voluminous recording stick, the actual moment when the mystery man took out Asad and Feysal and Hanad and whoever else he’d taken out. He also realized that the hunter was now carrying the rifle, not having yet figured out that it was camera-equipped.
He went to his software screen, found the elevator on switch on the menu, and turned the elevators back on.
“Tell Maahir to send two guys up to the fourth floor by elevator and set up in a storefront across from us. They’ll be getting visitors soon. Oh,” he continued, “this is going to look so cool in the game!”
“There it is,” said Renfro. “That’s it, that’s the ball game.”
He and the colonel stood in the Command trailer, watching the network feed from NBC. It showed the three Kaafi boys bounding up the stairs into the Air Saudi plane. Joy pulsed through their limbs and loins, three young men who two hours ago faced ten years of incarceration in an antiseptic, dreary Western prison, now able to dream and plan and feel freedom and anticipate the softness of a woman’s flesh, the awareness of Allah’s approval, the congratulations of imams and mullahs, and, eventually, another chance to strike and bring death to the infidel beast and vengeance for the murder of the Holy Warrior.
“You did it,” said Mr. Renfro.
“You did it,” said the colonel.
“We both did it,” said Mr. Renfro. “And now, look out, world, here we come.”
“It’ll only be another half hour before they clear airspace and they’re home free. Our people would never shoot them down and the Saudi pilots would never obey orders to turn back. The hostages will be freed, the Kaafi brothers will be in Yemen and shortly Mogadishu, and I think I’ll let the mopping up devolve to my good friend Mike Jefferson, who likes the bang-bang stuff so much, he can go in and have his little gun battle with the bad guys. They’ll all be punished that way, my hands are clean, and as you say, look out, world, here we come.”
“Colonel, you have a one-on-one now with ABC. It’s the only major you haven’t hit yet. Oh, and Fox-”
“My good friends at Fox,” said the colonel.
“Even they will kowtow to the colonel on this day.”
“Okay, let’s-”
But like a bad dream, someone stood between him and the doorway, beyond which lay the ABC team, with its lights and camera and love.
It was the FBI hotshot, Will Kemp. “I thought he was off running the investigation,” the colonel muttered to Mr. Renfro, but as Kemp drew within hearing distance, he blossomed into his wise, cool public personality and said, “Will, your people were unbelievably fast and proficient on the Andrew Nicks ID, really, and that’s such a help once we get those citizens out of there and go in and take the little bastard down.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Kemp.
“I’ll be sure to tell the director how well you and your team operated and under what great pressure. I’m sure he’ll be pleased, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased.”
“Yes sir,” said Kemp, “but if you’ll forgive, I want to discuss something else.”
“Will, I’m on my way to a media thing, unpleasant but, unfortunately, it goes with the territory.”
“Yes sir, but just let me express myself quickly, if I may.”
“Sure, Will, shoot. But please make it snappy.”
“Sir, I’m wondering if it was wise to pull the SWAT people so far back. Equally, I’m worried that it was unwise to give these people in the mall so much operational freedom. I mean they start shooting hostages, we’re a good five to six minutes away from confronting them with force, and they could do a great deal of killing in that time. Our intelligence says they have at least ten thousand rounds of ammunition in there and sixteen fast-firing assault weapons.”
“Will, you know, that troubles me too. Troubles me immensely, in fact. But the truth is, you have to take some risks in operations. I decided to take this one. I think the Muslims will be content with their propaganda victory, hollow though it is. I mean, these are basically thirteenth-century minds we’re dealing with, and they’re easily distracted. The glory that awaits them in this life, the chance to be heroes to their coreligionists, that’s too much for them to give up on.”
“Sir, it’s not them I’m worried about. It’s this goddamned white kid, with his crazy nihilism and bloodlust, his love for Eric Harris and Seung-Hui Cho, he could do anything, anything. I’d feel so much better if we had a sniper put a bullet in his head.”
“Will, your concern is well placed and admirable. But by now, if we move SWAT back into place and authorize the rooftop snipers to get through the glass, I’m worried that we’ll set him off. So my judgment is to stay passive, just a little longer. Then we’ll let the SWAT boys off the leash and teach this kid a thing or two.”
He turned, smiling, and went out to face the ABC cameras.
Up they climbed, up the steel steps in the unlit shaft of the stairwell, slowly, Cruz in the lead, tough little Lavelva behind, from the second floor to the third.