busker’s boots while he lay on his back on the ground, his feet propped up in the air, four additional people had suffered bullet wounds, one of them dying immediately, dropping toward the ground to hang over the single-strand cable that separated the people from the grass-enclosed park area in front of the RSL Club and the Veteran’s Memorial.
Further up the avenue, near the Tiki Village resort, the two men entered their rental car, made the ten- minute drive inland, and pulled in to the parking facility at Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, the largest indoor/outdoor mall in the area, packed with thousands of tourists and sightseers. In the next hour, nine more people would die from gunshot wounds in the mall or parking area, one of whom was not discovered until the following morning, slumped in the back of her van.
Although the three attacks-at Cavill Mall, Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, and the morning’s air assault on the Royal Australian Navy vessels in the Brisbane River-were coordinated within an hour of each other, they escaped the immediate recognition by authorities, at least as far as public announcements were concerned, that they were possibly related. It was not until later that evening, when the news stations received a recorded message from an organization calling itself World Jihad, that the Office of the Prime Minister publicly acknowledged the relationship of the attacks.
From the sketchy and unsubstantiated attack plans that had been outlined by the captured weapons dealer, Wolff, and the conclusions drawn by Trojan in their analysis of impending disaster, Queensland, Australia, fourteen hours ahead of Washington D.C., was the first to learn about the validity of the threat.
As Easter Sunday rolled around the world, the fear of further terrorist attacks took on new meaning as Muslim extremists unleashed a new order of terror against predominately Christian populations in the Commonwealth nations and the United States of America. Innocent Australian citizens were the first to shed blood in the latest round of terrorism. Great Britain would follow some ten hours later. And America was to be next, but on a far broader scale.
Chapter 16
Turner Field
Atlanta Georgia
Easter Sunday, March
(The Next Day, USA time)
The Atlanta Braves took the Sunday afternoon game 6–3 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a nearly packed house. William Foster and his wife, Shari, made their way down the exit ramps on the west side of Turner Field, along with nearly 36,000 other happy Braves’ supporters. Another winning season was underway, and the Damn Yankees had better get ready for the next World Series.
The owner of a miniature golf course and driving range about twenty miles north, Foster had lived in or near Atlanta all of his forty-four years. He’d met and married Shari eighteen years earlier, and they had three children, all of whom were distraught that they hadn’t been allowed to attend the game, but Foster had been adamant: “ The Easter Sunday game is traditional for me and Mom.”
Easing through the exit, shoulder-to-shoulder with several hundred other patrons headed for the west parking area, Foster was at first confused by what appeared to be his wife’s stumble. He tried to grab her elbow to keep her from falling, but he was unable to support her weight and she dropped to the pavement, with the crowd trying to step around her rather than halting their progress. He knelt to speak to her as people continued to jostle around them as they pressed ahead. He spoke to her, but her eyes appeared confused, disoriented. The fans continued their relentless surge to get to their cars and to head home.
At Safeco Stadium, Seattle, Washington, the story repeated itself. Not to be outdone by his Ford Motor Company competition’s “Employee Appreciation Day” the previous month-a chartered fishing vessel into Puget Sound with 125 employees on board-Ralph Tunston, owner of four Toyota dealerships located along I-5 from Seattle to Portland, had purchased 136 tickets to the Easter Sunday game, pitting the Seattle Mariners against the visiting California Angels. There was to be a picnic dinner following the game at Northwest Fantasy, the new theme park developed west of Puyallup.
Three chartered buses were waiting at the southern entrance of Safeco Stadium and everyone had been advised to be on their bus by 4:15 or find their own way to the picnic. The only person to not make the bus was the boss, Ralph Tunston. As the buses pulled away from the stadium, Ralph was being lifted into an emergency vehicle for transport to Seattle’s Emergency Trauma Center, one of the finest in the nation if the victim arrived within the ‘golden hour.’ But no trauma team on earth could have saved Mr. Tunston, who was shot in the back. He was pronounced dead on arrival. Cause of death: a gunshot wound through the rib cage, entering from the back and exiting the chest, after tearing a hole through the heart.
Helen Clark was essentially a ‘plank owner’ in Busch Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri, having attended the first game, a twelve-inning marathon against the Atlanta Braves, after completion of the new stadium in 1966. She’d attended hundreds of games since. Her ten-year-old niece, Shelly Liston, and their German Shepherd, Gus, remained in their vehicle in the parking area of Busch Stadium for over an hour after the stadium had emptied out. One shot to the head of each of the women and one to the chest of the dog had left them quietly in their van until later that afternoon, when the clean-up sweepers began to scour the lot.
America’s favorite pastime had taken on a new dimension, and a lazy afternoon at the ballpark had forever changed.
Chapter 17
Reston, Virginia
Easter Sunday, March
Pug Connor sat near the open door of the balcony of his three-bedroom, three-storied townhouse in the suburban community of Reston, Virginia, a slight breeze playing against the curtain on the first truly warm day of the late arriving spring.
Pug nibbled at the second slice of homemade pizza from the previous evening as the fourth and final round of the Honda Classic Golf Tournament was being broadcast on ESPN. Chad Sorensen, a thirty-one-year-old club pro from Southern California, who had regained his touring card the previous year, was leading the event by two strokes. Immediately after Sorensen teed off on the fifteenth, the Breaking News logo scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
11 dead or wounded in multiple shooting incidents at sports arenas throughout the nation. Further information to follow.
Off and on throughout the day, highlights of the burning frigate in Brisbane and the shootings in Surfer’s Paradise had been reported on network television. Pug felt as if he were waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as yet, nothing had transpired in America, and he’d received no notice of action related to a response directed at Australian terrorists.
Pug clicked the remote and shifted channels to Fox News. Weekend anchors Jonathan Sharp and Leslie McWilliams sat behind the joint presentation desk, their normally well-groomed appearance and calm demeanor disrupted by what appeared to be slight tension. Leslie was speaking.
“… not only that, Jonathan, but literally moments before the top of the hour, the Fox News desk received an unidentified claim that the shootings were planned and directed by…” she paused, looking at a small slip of paper in her hand, “… by a group calling themselves World Jihad. For those of you who have just joined us following announcements on other networks, throughout the past ninety minutes we have been receiving reports of multiple gunshot injuries at various locations throughout America. At last report, thirty-seven people have been shot in nineteen separate locations, primarily at professional baseball stadiums after the close of the games when crowds
