happens to Muslim
He reached within eyesight of the market and saw a crowd of about five hundred. Eighty meters away rested the raised platform the guests would use. A wall of security was checking everyone that entered into the inner ring. He recognized the security perimeter for what it was: standoff protection from a conventional man-packed explosive device. The distance was certainly good enough to thwart his blast, but the perimeter would provide no help at all against his poison.
Knuckles dug out the safe house phone from his backpack.
I said, “Don’t answer it. That’s got to be him.”
Once it registered with a number, Bull began working to find its location with his special phone. Wthin seconds, he had a grid. Plotting it with a GPS, he said, “He’s downtown.”
I pulled out a tourist map, marking the location, then found the Markale Market. “He’s in that area. He’s going to hit the ceremony.”
Knuckles said, “Maybe. Maybe not. If we go in right now and get compromised, we may spook him into using the device. Maybe we should wait and see if he beds down tonight, then hit him with his guard down.”
Knuckles had a point. We could make this a self-fulfilling prophecy if we screwed up. We now had a way to track him, as long as he kept that phone. It would be much, much easier to take him down in a hotel room than on a crowded street. On the other hand, any moment could bring a mushroom cloud.
101
Bakr surveyed the wind patterns of the open air market. The entire area was covered by a high overhead roof of galvanized steel, but a slight breeze could still be felt coming out of the east. That is where he would set the weapon off. He moved around the crowd until he was situated as close as he could be to the security perimeter without gathering any undue curiosity. He stood for a few minutes, trying to appear as if he were just passing the time, when he noticed one of the security personnel glance his way a third time. He began to walk away, looking for somewhere he could wait that was close enough to allow him to get in position rapidly. Finding nothing, he kept moving. Eventually, he came upon a public restroom. It wasn’t nearly close enough, but would have to do as a staging point. He was sure he would be able to hear the announcements when the ceremony began. Moving into a stall, he sat down and locked the door, waiting to hear the Great Satan’s secretary of state taking the stage.
In the end, the potential for a massive amount of civilian deaths — at a ceremony commemorating the murder of civilians from a previous heinous act — made up my mind. The symbols of power from the United States and other European countries provided a target for Carlos to use, but as always, it would be the innocents who paid the price.
“We need to take him out. Now. It’s a risk, but I don’t think he’s going to wait. The target’s too juicy, and he’s on the run.”
Knuckles nodded. I knew he would see it my way. “Let’s load up.”
We drove along the river toward downtown Sarajevo, then cut in north to the grid of Carlos’s last-known location. We were only allowed to go a short distance before hitting a roadblock, with all cars being turned away.
“Should’ve expected this,” Knuckles said. “No way are they going to let a potential VBIED near the ceremony.”
“At least they have some sort of security going on. Turn around and park it on the river. That’ll only be about three blocks south.”
After we had parked the vehicles, while Bull worked to get a new grid for Carlos, I said, “What about Lucas?”
“What about him?”
“We can’t leave him alone. He’s no pushover and a slippery bastard to boot. Someone needs to cover him, or he’ll screw this whole thing up.”
“I agree,” he said, “but we can’t afford to leave a teammate to babysit his ass. We need every man on this.”
“Call the pilots. Get one of them to come here and swap cars.”
Knuckles grimaced. “Pike, I can’t do that. I can’t risk the cover of the bird. Those guys are pilots, period. You know that.”
“Shit, man, that guy’s running around with a damn bomb on his back! Fuck the damn rules.” I stopped, holding up my hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell Jennifer to come get him. She can switch cars and take him back to the 427. The pilots can guard him until we get there. Can they at least do that?”
“Yeah, they can do that.”
I called Jennifer and gave her instructions, a little piqued at Knuckles’s rigid adherence to procedures.
By the time I hung up the phone, Bull had pinpointed the new location. “He’s just south of the market. Maybe one hundred and fifty meters away from it.”
I looked at the map and said, “That’s straight north from here. He’s about two blocks up.”
Knuckles gave final instructions, splitting the team into two-man elements. “Bull, you and Retro come in from east to west. Pike and I will come up from south to north. The rest of you box in from west to east. Hopefully we’ll pin him in. Everyone, remember he’s got a WMD. Whatever you do, don’t hit the pack or his chest. If you have to shoot, go for the head.”
The problem with the cell phone track was that it only gave us a snapshot in time. We couldn’t do any real- time tracking, so whatever we had was only as good as the time we had it. Knuckles and I began walking up the sidewalk to the north, scanning the crowds. The other men were quickly lost from sight as they began their part of the mission.
Without any traffic, the streets were teeming with people going toward the ceremony.
Bakr heard the announcer droning on and on about the significance of the day, first in Serbo-Croatian, then in English. Bakr waited, straining to hear any announcement that the dignitaries had arrived. He couldn’t afford to leave and return. The man from Guatemala was somewhere close. He could feel it. When he left this bathroom, it would be straight to the eastern corner of the security perimeter. Once there, he’d continue on, past any demands that he halt. Only when someone drew his weapon would he trigger the device.
He heard a different voice, then the words he was waiting for: the introduction of the guests of honor. He squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent prayer. Pulling the detonator from his pack, he conducted a self-test of the system. When it registered green, he opened the door and stepped into the light.
He was shocked by the number of people who had shown up in the time he had spent in the bathroom. He would have to fight his way through the crowd to get close enough to ensure a successful strike. Setting off the device this far away would kill a lot of people but would most likely miss the targets, as they would vacate before they were hit with the downwind hazard. Pushing his way east, he continually scanned for anyone not focused on the stage. His confidence grew as the crowd cheered the speaker, with no threat in sight. He saw the perimeter
