The Assassin's Trail (23 page)

Fayetteville, AR

Thursday

Aazim Abbas strolled the grounds of Razorback Gardens watching with interest the activity around Bud Walton Arena. There was a heavier presence of law enforcement and more security than in prior years. Four years ago, he had purchased shares in Walmart stock and had attended the meetings ever since, each year making notes of security and access points. This year the security preparations for the meeting seemed more intense.

Despite the increased security, he would not abandon his dream. Too much had gone into the preparation and execution. Too many men had given their lives so he could realize his goal of striking at the heartland of America. He would know in twenty-four hours if all of the years of devising tactics, securing the needed funding, formulating contingency plans and recruiting would pay off. Abbas wanted the sleepy, unconcerned, naive middle of America to feel the wrath of jihad.

As he approached the parking lot where his rental car was located, he turned back toward the arena and smiled. Regardless of the outcome, the United States would soon realize no part of their country was safe.

Sitting in the car and watching the activity around the arena, a nagging concern returned. Of the three men the Imam had sent, he was certain two would carry out their assignments. The man he had introduced as Darren was staged in a town called Miami, OK. The man called Chuck was south of Fayetteville in the small town of Van Buren, AR. Both were at small privately owned motels, places used to the coming and going of anonymous men. Each man knew when to leave their hotel on Friday morning. Abbas had made the drive several times from each motel and knew exactly how long it took.

He did not know their real names, nor did he care. They were tools, nothing more. Tools to use as weapons. But he was confident each of these two men were committed.

The man he called Barry was an unknown. Stoic and quiet, Abbas did not believe he had the nerve or the will to go through with his instructions. With each passing moment, Abbas grew more concerned about the third driver. Leaving the parking lot, he headed toward a town on the Oklahoma border. Siloam Springs, AR.

Barry was there with his van, waiting like the others.

***

JR stared at the computer screen. Sweat formed on his lip. The server in Spain was resisting his efforts to hack into its operating system and files. The computer had an unusually well-designed firewall, easily defeating his efforts to get subtly past the safeguards. At 9:22 p.m. on Thursday, he said to hell with it and crashed through. He was out of time.

As he suspected, the server was a central routing location for the communications between Ortega and the man they had first found in Dallas. Charlie had been able to provide JR with several IP addresses discovered on Ortega’s computer.

He figured it was 4:22 a.m. in Barcelona, so he had at least thirty to forty minutes to find the files he needed. He would be gone by 5 a.m. Spain time.

At 4:54 a.m., he found the data he needed and copied it. Before exiting the server, he downloaded a virus. It was one of his more malicious programs and would cause the entire system to crash as soon as he was gone. If he couldn’t be subtle with his intrusion, there was no point leaving evidence he had been there.

Now with the data from Spain residing on a laptop hard drive, he started dissecting the file. He discovered a series of emails to the person in Dallas coming from a computer located somewhere in Iran. All were in Pashto and were quickly run through a translation program he liked. 

After reading through the emails, he sat back in his chair. As he read through them a second time, he took a deep breath and said, “Oh shit.”

He grabbed his cell phone, found the number he needed and hit the call icon. His call was answered on the second ring.

“What’s wrong, JR?”

“Sean… Oh man, I think I found the information you need.”

***

It was midnight before Kruger finished making the calls. When he finished, he sat in his hotel room in Fayetteville and took a deep breath. Maybe, just maybe, JR’s discovery would help them get through tomorrow without the loss of thousands of lives.

***

Abbas knocked on the door to room 161. It was on the back side of the hotel facing away from Highway 412 in Siloam Springs. No response. Frowning, he knocked again. Silence. He took the second key card he had asked for when he rented the room and opened the door. It was empty. The man he knew as Barry was gone. His duffel bag, clothes and toiletries were also gone.

He rushed out of the room and paused. The van was still in its parking spot, exactly where it had been since checking Barry into the room. He checked the doors on the vehicle; they were locked. Returning to the room, he searched for the keys and found them on the nightstand under a folded piece of paper. There was no writing on the paper, just folded and laid on top of the keys.

Taking a deep breath, he sat down on the bed and slowly exhaled. So be it, he would drive the van in the morning. It was too late to back down. He knew he would not see the aftermath of his plan, but Allah willing, it would be glorious.

Fayetteville, AR

Friday morning

It was 5 a.m. when Kruger arrived at Bud Walton Arena. Sleep had eluded him even though Stephanie had agreed not to attend the shareholders meeting. After repeated attempts to have the meeting cancelled, Walmart management refused, stating they had faith in law enforcement to prevent anything tragic from occurring. Kruger was starting to understand Stephanie’s frustration with Walmart management. Reality was not their strong suit.

He was dressed in khakis, blue polo shirt with an FBI emblem on the left breast, black Reeboks, and dark aviator sunglasses. An FBI windbreaker concealed the Glock on his right hip. Three extra magazines were clipped to his belt above his left leg for quick access.

Kruger had just completed walking around the perimeter of Bud Walton arena when Tom Stark approached him. “When do the shareholders start arriving?”

Glancing at his wrist watch, Kruger said, “Meeting starts at seven, it’s a little past six now. We should see the bulk of the crowd start arriving in thirty minutes or so.”

“Sean, I know we discussed this last night, but what are we looking for?”

“Well, Tom, I hope we don’t see anything. With luck, the vans will be stopped before they get here. We have both the Arkansas and Missouri Highway Patrol looking for them, plus all the county sheriffs’ departments between Van Buren, Arkansas, and Joplin, Missouri. If our plan works, the vans will be intercepted a long time before they get here.”

Stark looked toward the west and said, “What if they don’t stop them?”

Kruger took a deep breath. “Then it’s up to us.”

“I was afraid you would say that.”

“Get back to your post. I’ll walk the perimeter one more time to check on everyone. Don’t worry, Tom, with as many law enforcement personnel looking for these guys as we have, there’s little chance these vans will get through to our location.”

“Where will you be?”

“I’ll be here at the west entrance.”

Stark nodded, turned and walked back to his post on the south side of the complex.

As he rubbed the back of his neck, he jumped when his cell phone vibrated. He accepted the call on the forth ring.

“Kruger.”

“Everything in place?” It was Alan Seltzer.

“Yes, Alan.”

“The director is with the President this morning. He wants regular updates.”

“Who do you want to provide these regular updates Alan?”

“You, of course. You’re our eyes and ears on the scene.”

Kruger shook his head, not believing what he was hearing. “Alan, I’m in the middle of a potential catastrophic terrorist attack. You want me to stop every five minutes and give you an update?”

“Yes.”

“Geez, Alan. When did you turn to the dark side?”

Kruger took the phone from his ear, pressed the end call icon and took a deep breath. His decision to retire from the agency after this was over was correct. It was correct, if he survived.

***

Abbas stared out the front windshield of the Chevy van as he started the engine. The sun was just peeking over the horizon. As the engine idled and warmed, his thoughts turned to the other men. He was confident they would fulfill their destiny this morning. He praised Allah and released the parking brake. As he pulled forward, a thought occurred to him. He stopped the van and took out his cell phone. Utilizing Google Maps, he checked alternate routes and smiled. No point in taking chances. There would be plenty of time to meet the deadline.

***

By 7 a.m., the number of people filing into the arena was too many to count. Kruger stood several feet south of the sidewalk leading to the west entrance. He scrutinized each individual. Some stared back, but most totally ignored him. At ten after 7, his cell phone vibrated. He accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear as he walked farther from the sidewalk.

“Kruger.”

“Sean, this is Charlie.”

“Hey.”

“Just got a report from the Missouri Highway Patrol, they’ve been following a vehicle matching our description for the past twenty minutes. Right now it’s six miles south of Anderson near Pineville. They think it’s one of the vans. They have a roadblock set up two miles from the van’s location with tire spikes stretched across the road.”

“Good, are you listening to them live?”

“Yes, so is JR. He’s here with me.”

Kruger smiled slightly. “Keep me posted.”

“Hold on, we’re getting a lot of radio traffic.” The line went dead for at least a minute.

“Sean, the van tried to run the barricade and ran over the tire spikes. Ten seconds later, it exploded. Early reports are the highway has a huge crater in it.”

“Charlie, keep monitoring. The attack is real.” He ended the call and glanced at the clock on his cell phone. At 7:15, he decided to call Seltzer.

The call was answered on the second ring.

“Thought you weren’t going to call us?”

“Whatever, Alan. The Missouri Highway Patrol has apparently stopped one of the vans north of the Arkansas border. That leaves two to find.”

Silence was his answer. Eventually, he heard, “Find the other two, Sean.”

Kruger closed his eyes and shook his head. He wanted to say something, but decided the time was not appropriate. “When I know, I’ll call.”

Placing his attention back to his surroundings, he watched as more and more attendees filed into the building. If this was the scene at each entrance, the casualty count would be horrendous if any of the vans got through.

Five minutes later, Charlie called again.

“Sean, the van out of Van Buren was spotted and chased by the Arkansas Highway Police.”

“And?”

Charlie hesitated. “It detonated inside the Bobby Hopper Tunnel.”

Kruger pressed his free hand against his forehead. “How many civilian casualties?”

“They’re not sure. There was one patrol car right behind him when the tunnel collapsed, and several vehicles were spotted heading south. It could be days before they know.”

“Shit. Any word on the one in Siloam Springs?”

“Nothing so far. The Benton and Washington County sheriffs’ departments have Highway 412 covered, but there hasn’t been any radio traffic from them about a sighting.”

“The van should have been spotted by now.” Kruger was quiet for several moments. “Call them and make sure they have the alternate routes covered.”

“What if we’re wrong and he comes from a different direction?”

“Pray we aren’t wrong, Charlie. It’s too late to change tactics.”

The call ended. Stretching his neck by rolling it from side to side, Kruger took a deep breath. With two vans accounted for, their odds of preventing this incident from happening increased. The third van bothered him. He took the cell phone and hit redial. Seltzer answered halfway through the first ring.

“Talk to me, Sean.”

“They found the second van on the highway from Fort Smith. There was a high speed chase and…”

“What?”

“The van detonated inside a tunnel that cuts through one of the mountains in this area. One patrol car was caught in the collapse, possibly civilian traffic as well.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Any word on the third van?”

“No, Julie Bergman said she found transmission fluid on the floor of the warehouse. There could have been a mechanical issue, the guy backed out, or…” He paused as he noticed something toward the south on MLK Boulevard. “I’ll have to call you back.”

He glanced at his watch. It was now 7:31. The crowd flowing into the arena was down to a trickle, with only a few stragglers remaining outside. He figured the auditorium was probably packed at this point considering the number of people who had entered the building.

What had drawn his attention was a white van traveling at a high rate of speed heading toward Razorback Road. The distance did not allow him to see any details, but he watched as it made the turn north and accelerated toward his location.

He keyed his radio. “This is Kruger. Possible van sighted heading toward my position. Need back up…”

He dropped the radio and immediately reached for his Glock. The van had jumped the curb, purposely avoiding obstacles between his position and the street. Taking a Weaver stance,  he raised the Glock and started firing at the oncoming vehicle. It continued coming.

When his slide locked open, he ejected the spent magazine and slammed another into the gun, all in one fluid motion. He aimed at the driver side of the van again and started pulling the trigger.

Just before the blinding flash of light and the concussion of the denotation hit him, his last thought was of Stephanie.