Soft Target by Stephen Hunter
The jihadi emerged from the restroom a hundred yards away, at this distance a small man wiping his hands on a paper towel, well pleased and well relieved with his bathroom work, probably one of the few times he had relieved himself indoors, and it’s good he enjoyed it so, for the next second he stepped smack into the bullet.
It hit him above the right eye and his head jerked as no head in full health could jerk, and he went down with what was presumably a thud, though Ray couldn’t hear it at his range. What he had heard was a kind of wet pop as the potato, accepting the injection of supersonic gases from the muzzle behind the exiting bullet, detonated in a muted spatter, like a potato balloon, becoming atomized pulp in a nanosecond. Potato mist hung in the air.
Ray cranked the rifle back, crunched on another potato, and rebuilt himself the position in replica. This time he cranked over on the jihadi at the balcony, who leaned vacantly upon the rail. That a bullet had just passed by his shoulder and destroyed his partner’s face was a fact he missed entirely, and he only recognized that it was his turn next when his own bullet took his existence from him, without him even knowing it.
“Find me another target,” said Ray.
As it turned out, the Japanese were much less fearsome than the obstreperous Herr Doktor Ingenieur Jochim, and that transaction went well. And so it was that in a very few minutes, Special Agent Neal found himself with a landline receiver, punching in nothing more exotic than an 800 number. Neal had downloaded a modem app to his iPhone and connected that via Wi-Fi to his computer. Thus his phone was sending and receiving the modem tones via the Wi-Fi connection and then via the landline circuitry to the mall. He quickly engaged the Wi-Fi application on the phone and linked it to his desktop PC using a Wi-Fi USB stick.
Meanwhile, the drama around him had attracted quite an audience to his little chamber. Dr. Benson was there, a couple of interns who could be bullied into getting coffee, Holly Burbridge, whom no one had the heart to get rid of, she was that good-looking, and a few other ITs, Computer Service geeks, and special agents.
The phone rang, as it would in any pizza shop in America, and after a few seconds signified an answer by a series of clicks. He had the log-on code from the Japanese, punched in the numbers, and a robot voice informed him that he was “in contact.”
He quickly disconnected the line from the phone and clicked it into the computer, and again in seconds, after some blinking and clinking, a busy menu in Japanese came up.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Anybody read Japanese?”
“Aren’t you an expert on Japanese porn, Neal?” someone asked.
“Yeah, but only the office lady variety, goddammit. No help here.”
But then his iPhone rang.
He picked it up and answered. It was Juko Yamata, the Japanese engineer.
“Special Agent Neal, apologies, I forgot to tell you, our menu styles are very complex on Japanese software.”
“It looks like a map of the universe,” said Neal.
“Go to the third blank box on the right-hand column. That is external links. Punch anything in there, then hit enter, which you can see lower right, red box with just two emblems on it, looking like a flower and a broken ski jump.”
Neal did as he was told and was instantly informed he had accessed MEMTAC 6.2 English language version.
6:15 P.M.–6:55 P.M.
The colonel talked immediately by phone to the governor, then called Renfro and asked him to make an announcement to the press that demands had been issued by the gunmen and that they were being considered at the highest level of state government.
No hostages were shot at six.
“Well, that’s something,” the colonel said. He said it to nobody. The only person near him was Kemp, who had come up with an urgent look on his face to make the expected assault. Renfro had steeled Colonel Obobo for this and so he was ready for it.
“I see your point,” he said, after Kemp had finished his rather overlong argument, “and Special Agent, rest assured I will consider it very carefully. And perhaps, in the fullness of time, that’s the route I’ll choose to go. But it’s important to make these decisions carefully.”
“Goddammit,” said Kemp, “the demand for the freedom of these Somalis proves these bastards are international terrorists. This is an FBI operation and local law enforcement will assist in any way possible. But it’s not up to you to make these decisions anymore.”
“Agent Kemp, possibly you’re jumping to conclusions. Your investigators and mine have come up with no connection of this group to organized terror cells. I heard no evidence of connection to overseas entities. I heard an accent-free young white man. And these prisoners are hardly international terrorists. They’re local bank robbers, petty criminals.”
Kemp was somewhat limited in his argument, because he knew that in a certain way the colonel was right. Behavioral Sciences had done a scan of the colonel’s conversation with the terrorist. Their conclusion was that he was an American-born male, early to mid twenties, with a high IQ and verbal facility. His vocabulary alone—“alacrity” for “speediness” for one, “the narrative demands a climax” for another—would put him in the 790 area of the standard SAT verbal test. They pointed out other things too, such as a penchant for correct parallelism in speech, very rare except among the highly cultured, and a use of sophisticated irony. He used the well-known terrorist cliché Allahu akbar in conjunction with motherfucker, from urban argot, the two chosen for ironic shock value in that they are the last thing one would expect from diction such as his. Whatever Islamic terrorists were known for, it wasn’t irony.
But that wasn’t the real issue. The real issue was strategy.
“Colonel, I am not trying to seize command. I say again, and I speak for the Bureau, I am bothered that you have made no contingency plans to assault and seem inclined not to do so. These guys could start shooting at any second, people could start dying, and we are not ready to do a thing. We have to do something.”
“And just as easily, he could read our contingency preparations for assault as provocation and start shooting. We save more lives by adjudicating than by assaulting.” Another excellent gambit Renfro had come up with.
“We don’t have enough men,” he continued. “We don’t have the equipment to blow the doors simultaneously until the National Guard engineers get here. Any assault will create a bloodbath. It’s much better to cooperate and get this thing over. I cannot in good conscience go any other way.”
“Sir, we have got to be in some kind of posture where we can operate quickly if—”
“I don’t know what is taking them so long to make up their minds, but I am now officially recommending that the terrorists’ terms be met, that those Somali prisoners be removed to the airport and sent to Yemen. Let’s get this thing over, let’s get those hostages out. It’s the only way I can morally proceed. It’s important to keep our moral guidelines intact.”
“Yes sir,” said Kemp.
“Now please, return to your investigation. That’s very important and I’m trusting you implicitly on it.” He tried to sound utterly calm and serene.
Kemp muttered and ran off.
“You handled that well,” whispered Renfro.
“Thanks,” said Obobo, slightly more upset than he cared to reveal. These macho people always wanted to shoot. That was the problem with law enforcement—too many shooters, too many bigots, too many old John Waynes who reveled, even if they weren’t honest enough to articulate it, in the license for violence, had some sort of pornographic obsession with the guns. The last thing he needed was gunslingers screwing things up. Kemp, Jefferson, the same kind of—
But then he had a moment of mortal fear.
Where was Jefferson?
“Where is Major Jefferson?” he barked beyond the hovering Renfro to Major Carmody.
“I haven’t seen him in—”
He was getting himself gunned up, the colonel just knew it.
“Get me Jefferson,” h
Again, no one noticed Mr. and Mrs. Girardi. The people at the press tent lounged around, separated by an impregnable line of yellow tape from the state police Command van a hundred feet or so back, and next to it, the smaller FBI van.
But parked here, at the jerry-built tent where soft drinks and coffee urns had been placed, men and women simply stood and talked, or talked over cell phones. The cameramen, who had to lug the heavy equipment with them, took advantage of the lull to park themselves on the many folding chairs that had been set up for a canteen before the site had been turned into a chaotic press tent by the reporters.
Finally, a man in a suit came over to them. He seemed not to be a reporter, for he didn’t have that sort of scruffy look that most of the reporters affected, and he didn’t have a notebook or a cell phone in his hand.
“May I help you?” he said. “I’m David Jasper, corporal, Minnesota State Police. I’m Mr. Renfro’s assistant. I’m in charge of this facility. Do you have press credentials? You have to have press credentials to be admitted to this area.”
“We’re the Girardis,” said Mr. Girardi. “I don’t know anything about credentials. Nobody asked us for credentials.”
“Well, the officer must have been otherwise occupied. It’s a very tense situation.”
“We’re here about Jimmy.”
“I’m sorry?” he said, as he tried to gently herd them away from the reporters.
“Our son Jimmy. He’s fourteen but small for his age. Today was the first time I let him go to the mall by himself.”
“He hasn’t called?”
“No, sir.”
“Folks, you have to know, it’s a mess in there. It’s total chaos, and nobody’s quite sure what’s happening.”
“We thought you might have a list or something. Of casualties. Maybe he was hurt, maybe he was sent to a hospital.”
“Have you tried the Red Cross?”
“They were the ones who said come over here.”
“Oh, I see, the runaround. Well, I’m sympathetic, but lots of people are in your situation. It’s going to be days before all this is sorted out. Best advice is simply go home and wait for notification. Maybe Jimmy will—”
Suddenly there was a spontaneous whoop from a group of reporters, and at that moment, several broke and rushed to the young corporal, pushing the Girardis aside.
“WUFF is on air saying there’s an agreement, why the hell don’t we have that?”
“Where’s Obobo? We need a confirmation!”
“Okay, okay,” said Corporal Jasper, “let me check.” He turned from the Girardis to grab his own cell phone, and the two watched as the circus moved elsewhere.
The phone rang in Nikki’s hand three thousand feet above the mall in the WUSScopter, and she saw that it was Mrs. Birkowsky, the hiding clerk’s mother.
She punched answer immediately.
“Mrs. Birkowsky?”
“Ms. Swagger, I just got what I think is good news from my daughter.”
Nikki did a little jump in her copilot’s seat, and the sparkly horizon on the plains above Indian Falls seemed to leap with her. Was this thing going to end happily? Could it?
“Please, share with me,” she asked.
“Amanda says the gunmen are all jumping happily and some have shot their guns off in jubilation, she thinks.”
“What could that mean?” asked Nikki.
“Whatever their demands are, I’d guess, the government has just agreed to them. It means that the hostages will be released soon.”
“Yes ma’am,” Nikki said. “Is that all Amanda said?”
“Well, she said there was also a kind of roar from the crowd, she called it a happy roar, a roar of excitement. I’m going to see my little girl again soon. I just had to share it.”
“Mrs. Birkowsky, I’m very happy for you. But please tell Amanda not to come out of hiding until after the police authorities have taken over. With people like this, you never know.”
“Yes, yes, of course, but isn’t it wonderful?”
“It’s fabulous,” said Nikki.
She switched to Marty at the station.
“Okay, is anything going on?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “I mean from our ground people. Has there been a newsbreak? Is there a new presser scheduled? Are there any signs, say, of buses moving up or ambulances getting into position or even the armed men drawing back?”
“Not a thing. It’s still a holding situation.”
“What about gunfire from within the mall?”
“No reports. Nothing, all quiet on the western front. What is this all about?”
“I have a report from inside the mall that the gunmen are celebrating, shooting off their guns in jubilation, and that the hostages are suddenly, I don’t know, happy, or relieved.”
“Is it enough to go live?”
“It sure sounds like the state has met their demands.”
“I don’t know, Nik.”
“Well—wait, wait, I’m seeing buses beginning to feed in.”
“Okay, that’s it, let’s go with it now, on air.”
“You got it.”
Jim the cameraman leaned in, supporting himself in the bulwark, turning his camera light on. She heard her vocal wired into the main feed, heard the ridiculous dit-dot-dash bullshit intro music, and heard Phil Reston’s syrupy, staff-announcer voice say, “Breaking news from WUFFnews, the WUFFcopter, over America, the Mall, where terrorists are holding a thousand hostages as the Crisis at America, the Mall, goes into its fourth terrifying hour. Here is Nikki Swagger, WUFFnews.”
“WUFFnews has just learned that inside the mall, gunmen have fired weapons skyward in jubilation and that hostages themselves are relieved and excited. Some believe these factors indicate that the state government has agreed to terrorist demands, as yet unspecified, and that the terrible crisis might reach a peaceful conclusion, and that freedom for the hostages might be imminent.”
Though she couldn’t see him, she knew that the shot had cut to the anchorman, who now said in his best Ted Baxter profundo, “Nikki, can you confirm a timetable for this terrific news?”
“Reports here are still preliminary,” she said, “and we will be following developments as they occur and—”
“Nikki, Nikki, I’m getting word that the state police superintendent and incident commander Colonel Douglas Obobo is about to make a statement, we’re going live to Incident Command headquarters.”
She stared off into space, and, no monitor being available on board the WUSScopter, simply listened to the audio feed.
The colonel’s voice was calm and reassuring. “Less than an hour ago a man calling himself the commanding general of Brigade Mumbai communicated with us from within the mall where he and his colleagues hold approximately a thousand hostages at gunpoint, many of them hurt and in need of medical attention. He demanded immediate transfer of three brothers, Yusuf, Jaheel, and Khalid Kaafi from the state penitentiary, where they are imprisoned for bank robbery, to the airport, where they are to be put aboard an Air Saudi airliner bound for Yemen. He gave us an hour to begin compliance or he would begin to execute hostages. I have just received word that his demands will be implemented, that indeed the prisoners are en route to the airport.”
One of the cameramen poked Nikki, then held up one finger, signifying that she had it first, that she was number one, goddammit, and this was the scoop of all scoops. Didn’t matter that she was only ninety-odd seconds ahead of the announcement: she broke a worldwide story!
“When they have cleared American airspace, the hostage taker says, all hostages will be released unharmed. That is all I have for you at this time.”
Nikki heard a thousand questions launched and not a one of them answered, and imagined the pompous goat turning and exiting smartly stage left.
“Great work, Nikki. Baby, you own this story. You will be in New York before the week is over, I swear.”
“I just got
The chopper suddenly dipped sideways, falling about ten weightless feet, until Cap’n Tom got his two rotor blades back in synchronicity. At that same second, a black shape slid by, uncomfortably close, before it too leveled off.
“Bastard,” said Cap’n Tom. “Man, learn to fly before you come up here into crowded airspace.”
“WUSScopter almost got clipped!” said one of the cameramen, unsettled.
“You ought to report him, Tom,” said the other cameraman.
“Ah,” said Tom, “he’s just a traffic amateur, he’s not used to being in formation or a jammed area. Still, what a jerk.”
But Nikki had watched the craft slide by, so close, and her insides were still roiling. It occurred to her, Yes, you could die up here.
“Tom, really, someone’s going to get hurt. Call it in.”
“I’ll make a formal complaint tomorrow,” said Tom, meaning, of course, he wouldn’t.
But something else nipped at Nikki.
“I saw his emblem. He was from that all-traffic crowd, POP.”
“Like I said, an amateur. His idea of flying is holding stable over a highway.”
“But I thought they had run into hard times. I don’t know who told me, can’t remember, but I heard they were grounding their chopper and buying their traffic from a big outside vendor.”
“I heard that too,” said one of the cameramen.
“Maybe so,” said Tom. “Whatever, he’s gone now.”
And he was. Whoever POP was, he’d shot up high and she couldn’t pick him out in the dimly lit skies above.
_______________
The message came to Major Mike Jefferson, huddled with his surreptitiously collected shooters, in a parking lot near the entrance to the system of heating ducts that would eventually lead to the chamber beneath the amusement area concession stand. He had put this little operation together on the QT. Hanging around Command was only going to get him demoted. So he thought, I’ll just get some people and move into the area.