Authors: Nathan Goodman
24
Within hours, three sets of surveillance teams took up position. One was assigned to the Jamaican. Another was situated outside the walk-up apartment of Waseem Jarrah, the suspected terrorist. And a third camped across Peachtree Street from the Thoughtstorm building. All three subjects were somehow interconnected, and pressure mounted on Agent in Charge David Stark and his team to find out everything.
Stark placed a flash message to Washington, signaling he was sitting on a case of epic proportions. The safety of the American people was highly compromised, and national security might be at stake. Washington responded and responded with vigor. One hundred and seventy-five agents were flown to Atlanta over the next eighteen hours. This was to become the single highest priority for the FBI as the bureau now faced off with a terror cell that had slipped into the country and apparently pulled off eleven bombings. Up until now, nothing was known about who was behind the spate of attacks. These weren’t the large-scale attacks of 9/11 which took years of planning, a huge, unencumbered budget, and dozens of jihadists. In recent years, with all the work of the FBI, CIA, NSA, US military forces, and intelligence services all over the world, most organized terror groups had splintered. It was much harder for them to obtain large-scale financing without attracting attention. Now the jihadists regrouped under a new plan: to bring the US economy to a crawl through the use of small-scale terror attacks. These attacks were easier to pull off and required far fewer resources and manpower. And yet, since the American media swarmed on any terror attack, every man, woman, and child in the country would be made aware. And if Americans were afraid to leave their own homes, the repercussions to the economy would be catastrophic.
The effectiveness of these attacks could further be magnified if the terrorists followed a predictable pattern. After that precise pattern and timing became common knowledge, the media would propagate a nationwide countdown to the next attack. People would be terrified as the countdown neared. Not only would they be afraid to leave their homes, they would have no idea where the next strike would occur. And, since each attack occurred sooner than the last, the anxiety of the collective consciousness would intensify.
Since May, there had been one bombing each month. The body count was piling up. People were afraid, angry, and they wanted action. The attacks hit different targets in different cities of different sizes. Some were in major metropolitan areas like Chicago, where a bomb detonated in a crowded shopping mall. Then there was the smaller town of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where a bomb ripped apart a city bus. Bombs had detonated in each corner of the country. And each time, although the bombs were small-scale, they targeted the highest number of people possible.
Americans began to feel they were not safe anywhere. Subway trains, ball games, hospitals, schools, restaurants, theatres, and airports had all been targets. And the epicenter of the entire case seemed to hinge on Atlanta. The FBI hadn’t had a single break in the case until now. They’d exhausted every avenue of investigation, but each bomb had been different from the last. The explosive materials were different, the casings were different, the targets were different, the time of day was different. Nothing seemed to match. And this last bombing in Tucson was different as well. The explosive was laced with toxic residue, which meant anyone with even a superficial wound was dead within hours. The use of toxic residue was highly advanced and required significant training to implement.
At the highest levels of government, concern was immense. The president ordered a full-court press. The CIA began leaning on its sources in the Middle East for information about Waseem Jarrah, and information flowed in. The two other subjects, however, were drawing a blank. No one had any information about the Jamaican. The bureau didn’t even know his name at this point. Making matters worse, the FBI could not identify the subject in the photos taken by Agent Jana Baker. His face was visible in the enhanced photographs, but facial recognition software had failed to come up with a match. He was the proverbial riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
The president was already being briefed daily by the FBI on the bombing investigation. But with each event, his mood darkened. He was determined that no bomb would go off on his watch ever again. To that end, under an executive order, the president directed the NSA to do something illegal—they were to spy on an American company. Not since the days of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had a government agency been authorized to use this level of investigation on American citizens. Every Thoughtstorm employee would be scrutinized. Every home phone, business phone, cell phone, or VOIP phone was wiretapped. Every social media account like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more were tracked. All e-mail addresses, both work and personal, were hacked. Every one of the over three thousand employees in Thoughtstorm’s Atlanta office was under the microscope. In the name of terror, everything in their lives became known to the government.
25
A crowd gathered in the dusty little field just north of Shelby, Montana. The Lake Shel-Oole campground was a small, flat place whose only notable feature was the distinct absence of grass—or anything green, for that matter. The grayish soil was beaten and barren. Old wooden fence posts leaned in different directions lining Highway 15, each held upright by the light tension of wires adjoining them. Across the road from the entrance to the tiny park was what appeared to be a Gomer Pyle-style barracks building. It looked like a giant barrel, about forty feet long, that had been cut in half and laid on its side. It had been there since the 1960s, but the shoddy tin structure held its shape well. For snow country like this, a half-barrel-shaped building was ideal in the heavy winters. Several farm trucks were parked nearby with nothing under their wheels but the burnt earth, trampled under years of wear. A few small buildings stood adjacent to the old Highway 15 and 67 North sign markers.
The sky was big, and the flat landscape rolled, bleeding into the distance. A sparse, yellow light leaked out from the last few street lamps that terminated this far north of town. The street lights were dimmed by the burnt glow of the setting sun, having just dipped below the horizon, like the melting of an ice cream cone. The evening was crisp, and the last vestiges of daylight were giving up their fight and yielding to a darkening eastern horizon. The mild breeze too gave up its efforts and became quiet.
But the campground was anything but vacant on this particular evening. Dozens and dozens of cars and trucks parked neatly along the small roadway. The event was known as the largest annual bonfire in Montana; its golden orange light brightly illuminated the crowd of smiling faces.
Toole County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Norton was working traffic at the entrance to the park. He turned his cruiser’s strobe lights off and walked over to the activity where the smell of home-cooked food and laughter hung in stark contrast to the night air. The steady stream of traffic coming to the cookout had slowed, and Deputy Norton was joined by several other sheriff’s deputies.
“Hey, what gives?” said Norton. “I thought the old lady put you guys on town patrol tonight.”
“Well, she did, but then she told us to come on up and join you. She didn’t want you eating all the food,” laughed Deputy Tom Watkins.
Most everyone in town was already there. It was Shelby Township’s annual “Welcoming of Spring” cookout. Having been cooped up in their homes for much of the winter, third- and fourth-generation Shelbians gathered each year to mark the beginning of the growing season. But mainly they were here to just have a good time. Men gathered in large groups around the fire, backing away as the bonfire grew hotter and hotter. Women busied themselves around folding tables, stretching blue and red plaid tablecloths of shimmering plastic across each one, alternating the colors. Others arranged the abundance of covered dishes, sorting where each should be placed, and even fussing over whose homemade pie would get front billing on the dessert tables.
At the far left of the long span of tables, mountains of barbequed beef brisket lay nestled in large, disposable aluminum trays. An entire cow had been dedicated by the county for the event. The middle tables were weighed down under all manner of glass dishes filled with coleslaw, barbeque beans, corn, green beans, and snap peas. Half of one of the tables was covered in store-bought bread, stacked five loaves high.
Four boys, all wearing worn jeans, blue jean jackets, and baseball caps that advertised farm equipment of one type or another, spread out on opposing sides of the great fire. A football flew between them high across the top of the bonfire, the flames licking the old, cracked leather before being caught by a boy on the other side. They dared each other to catch the hot ball, each believing the other would chicken out.
“Johnnie is a chicken, bok, bok, bok, bok,” said Tommy Randall.
“Am not! You just throw that ball, and don’t let it get stuck in the fire, neither!” belted Johnnie.
A mother arranging loaves of bread yelled, “Now, you boys stop that throwing. Someone’s gonna get hurt.”
“Aw, let ’em be, Delores. They aren’t hurtin’ anyone,” said a man from beneath the brim of his worn John Deere baseball cap.
The town mayor, Harry Bonderman, was dressed in his best baby blue leisure suit, his wide smile illuminated in the firelight. He shed the baseball cap that had been perched on his head, revealing his bright, shiny baldness that he attempted to disguise under a bad comb-over. His temples were dented from the constant presence of the hat, which he now crunched in his hands. A grin painted a childlike expression on his face as he took the bullhorn. The sound of the piercing loudspeaker squawked, and everyone covered their ears, wincing.
“Folks, can I have your attention? Sorry about that, folks. Everyone gather round. We’re going to bless the food.”
“You boys git over here and quit that throwin’,” said the same father who had earlier told the boys to continue. “And take off them hats.”
About a quarter of a mile away, at the corner of Deer Lodge Avenue and Silver Bow Street, stood the Toole County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Doris Thompkins was the only person in the one-story tan building. The sheriff’s office looked small next to its large radio tower silhouetted against sparse, jagged clouds now disappearing into the darkening sky. For a town as small as Shelby, Sheriff Thompkins was pleased with the support she received from the county. She grinned to no one in particular, thinking back to earlier in the day when she’d given the deputies a tongue lashing about maintaining their town patrol shifts tonight, even during the annual feast. Then, not two hours later, she’d capitulated and sent them to the bonfire. They all wanted to be there. In fact, she wanted to be there. But, being the sheriff had its responsibilities, and someone needed to man the fort.
Stepping outside through the glass double doors of the front entrance, the crisp night air worked its way into her lungs. On the top step of the portico, she peered to the north, the glow of the flickering bonfire visible on the horizon. She thought for a moment about all the families that would be there and about her six young deputies who would surely give her grief tomorrow morning about first playing tough, then letting them go to the gathering at the last minute. In the distance, she could hear low, audible voices and laugher and the mayor’s voice on that old bullhorn of his. Although his words were not clear, she assumed he was saying a prayer before the big feast.
Well, maybe my boys will bring me a plate, but perhaps that’s too much to ask. They are boys after all
.
After a few moments of praying, the mayor’s voice quieted. Doris could almost hear a collective “Amen,” and all the voices went quiet. Then, out of the bleak silence, an enormous white-hot flash of light erupted, engulfing most of the night sky. Doris’s mouth dropped as her eyes squinted into the shattering pulse of light. Half a second later, the concussive blast slammed into her body, followed by an eruption of noise whose volume was so much louder than anything in her experience, it was almost beyond comprehension. The shockwave rocked her backwards, slamming her shoulder blades into the glass doors, which shattered behind her as the ground rattled underneath. Her drill-instructor-style hat flipped to the ground as all manner of debris and shrapnel rained down, pelting the building, slamming into the cement walkway, and crashing into the metallic roof of the building across the way. Doris’s pupils, still dilated from the bright flash, were shocked once more as a piece of sizzling metal sliced through the air with a whirring sound and tore the flesh from her cheekbone to her ear. The scar it would leave on her face would become symbolic of the one that later etched itself onto her soul. Doris collapsed at the base of the glass doors in a crumpled ball, then rolled down the three stairs, spilling onto the lush grass lawn, now strewn with raining debris.
The realization of what had happened was yet to be comprehended. The sheriff struggled to her feet, wobbling as she rose, her arms and hands held out to catch herself if she fell. She could hear nothing over the cacophonous ringing in her ears. She looked around with hazy eyes as confusion painted itself across a deepening look of horror. She first began walking, then running towards the scene. It didn’t occur to her to get in her patrol car; she simply ran towards the danger.
The once enormous bonfire was reduced to shards of little glowing embers, the logs splintered across great distances. The once happy flames had been extinguished by the blast, which consumed all nearby oxygen. Debris was everywhere. Doris tripped over something and collapsed in a heap on the pavement. Glancing under her feet, it looked like the remnants of a car bumper. Under wobbling knees she rose with her left hand bleeding from the fresh scrape. The acrid smell of burnt hair layered the area like a fog, and Doris’s stomach soured. Stumbling forward, terrified of what she might find, Doris again began to run. The ringing in her ears was deafening.
She screamed out, “Boys, boys,” after her young deputies. Even if they had been able to respond, she wouldn’t know. What her ears would not reveal were the low, muffled cries coming from the few that had survived the enormous blast. In the coming minutes, the cries would silence, and nothing would move.
The landscape had transformed. No longer were buildings standing nearby. Everything had been leveled. Even the fence and lamp posts were nowhere to be found. It wasn’t possible to distinguish the once modest entrance to the camp. Doris gazed at the scattered debris—shattered wood, glowing embers, twisted metal, food items, car parts, and broken glass. There were other things strewn in the debris as well. These were the things Doris would never speak of. To her it looked as though human blood and pieces of flesh had fallen from the sky and covered the ground like raindrops.
She sank to her knees. Her weeping was that of someone whose soul had been irreparably torn. With hands on her lap, she raised her eyes to the sky and found the only normalcy in the hellish scene. Quietly shimmering above, in the same place they had been a few minutes earlier, were the stars and a silvery glow from the rising moon. Nothing in them decried the abomination that surrounded her. Doris would never be able to verbalize what she had seen that night. It was a burden she would carry with her to her grave.