until some people recognized the explosion and started yelling, “Terrorists!” Ballplayers ran from the field, and fans stormed the exits, leaping over seats, pushing up and down the stairs, and trampling the slow, the infirm, and the small. The stampede steered away from the destroyed side of the stadium, and there was no thought by those in the outfield bleachers of waiting for a slow ferry-boat to take them back across the bay. Run! They poured across the green field and out through the concrete tunnels looking for a way out, fighting for a place in the mob to reach a front exit, and adding to the panic.
Police warnings were ignored. Arguments flared, fists and elbows were thrown, and several shots rang out and people fell, ignored by those who were still running. Safety was at the end of the tunnels. Just get out of the stadium and everything would be okay. Screams howled behind them, rising from the stands.
Two minutes after the big car bomb explosion, Xavier Sandoval drove his yellow truck away from the vendors’ loading docks at the stadium and stalled it in the path of the fleeing crowd. He ripped out the ignition wires and activated the roof vents and fans, jumped from the cab, and ran for the street. With a hissing sound that could not be heard above the noise, the aerosol spray rose from the poison canisters in the truck bed and spewed into the air, riding the slight breeze into a slow, lazy arc as it settled onto the frightened men, women, and children who were running right into the misty veil that was softly falling across the kill zone.
23
XAVIER SANDOVAL WAS A nervous man by the time he arrived at the apartment complex. He had run as fast as he could for several blocks, ignoring the chaos creeping behind him, until his breath and limbs began to falter. Traffic had slowed, then stopped as drivers gaped in astonishment at the smoke roiling from the ballpark explosion. He punched one, threw the man out of the way, and jumped behind the steering wheel, hijacking the car. A sharp turn down an alley and Sandoval accelerated from the danger zone, his shirt soaked in sweat.
He parked in the apartment lot and sat still, breathing deeply and trying to convince himself that he had escaped the poison gas. Leaving the keys in the ignition as instructed, he staggered up the concrete stairs and found the door that Juba had designated. When it opened, he almost did not recognize the man.
Juba had showered and changed the color of his hair to midnight black. The hair itself had grown ragged around the edges since he had left Iran, and he had not shaved since entering the United States and had several days’ growth of beard, giving him the distinctive look of a foreigner. He wore owlish glasses with round gold frames. If police were profiling suspects to identify suspicious Middle Eastern males, Juba would have fit the image.
Sadoval came inside and locked the door, then sat on a chair and looked up. “The package was delivered. I will never forget this day.”
“You did a perfect job,” Juba told him with a pat on the shoulder.
A television set was on in the corner, showing wide shots of the carnage from a helicopter while reporters who were safe within their studios broadcast the warnings for everyone to avoid the area of the ballpark. It was a poison gas attack, and authorities were saying the material was still in the air. Police had established barricades and were evacuating people as fast as possible. The high camera showed the flashing lights of ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks popping bright colors across a multitude of bodies. Among those fallen at odd angles were the uniformed figures of first responders who had tried to help and transferred the poisonous gel to their own skins. The entire rescue effort had slowed to a crawl until the emergency personnel were ordered into their hazmat suits.
In the apartment, Juba heard sirens wailing, coming to the Saints. “Are you ready?”
Sandoval gulped. “Yes.”
“I have set up this position carefully for you. The rifle is loaded and ready, and you have a clear line of sight. When the ambulances arrive, open fire on the hospital personnel, the patients, the police, bystanders…anyone. We want to create pandemonium in a place that everyone perceives as safe. Keep firing until the clip is empty, then reload and use the second clip, and then the third. Take your time, because no one is going to be coming over here in the face of such hostile action. Then drop the rifle, take the car, and leave.”
“And you, my brother? I do not know about being a sniper, but you do.”
“I’m going to another position higher up and wait until after you shoot. Let them get back to work, thinking the danger is over. That is when I strike. It will be devastating.” He moved to the door as the sirens came closer. “I will be in contact soon. Good hunting, brother. You have done well.”
Sandoval watched a police car roll up, lights flashing, with a bright green fire truck on its bumper, their sirens gliding to a finishing growl. He was hidden in the shadow of the room. The scene was frightening, as everyone was wearing the bulky hazmat suits, some of different colors but moving like awkward ghosts with no faces, helping injured people they had ferried over from the disaster site. Workers in similar protective gear rushed out of the trauma center, facing the problem of working on horribly injured patients without touching them.
Two ambulances came shrieking in, only to find their way to the ER door narrowed by the emergency vehicles. Everything came to a halt for a moment, and Sandoval had his rifle resting on pillows stacked on a small ledge that separated the kitchen and the living area. His eye was at the scope.
Three nurses, an orderly, and a doctor, all in suits, gathered behind an ambulance, and an attendant swung out to open the rear door. A stretcher was pulled free, the wheels popped down, and the doctor leaned over to make a triage decision on a patient who had been lacerated by the car bomb and was bathed in blood. Another patient was taken out of the back of the vehicle, and a second team moved in on him. Sandoval heard more distant sirens.
He pulled the trigger. The first bullet took a nurse in the back and drilled downward from her shoulder, tearing through her heart on the way out the other side. She bounced against the stretcher and slid to the ground. The second bullet slammed into the temple of the doctor and splattered brain matter and more blood onto the wounded patient.
He stopped for a moment. This was easy. Juba had set it up so that he could hardly miss! He ranged over the stunned first responders and shot a firefighter in the throat and another nurse in the stomach.
Then Juba was beside him, pointing a pistol at his head. Xavier Sandoval never heard the explosion of the gunshot that took his life.
Juba left the rifle where it lay, removed Sandoval’s wallet and identification, and walked out the door. The investigating police would find the body, eventually identify it through fingerprints or dental records, and then expend valuable time chasing a false trail toward Mexico.
Juba made his way down to the stolen car. In moments, he was out of the lot, driving north toward Canada.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The command center was in crisis mode, as if it had personally suffered a body blow even though the attack was on the other side of the nation. The United States had finally been attacked again by terrorists, with horrendous results, and everyone in the big room knew that it had happened on their watch! They would be held responsible! They shuffled around or just stood by their desks with their eyes glued to the television screens. All were trained law enforcement personnel, and their sense was to automatically get to San Francisco, get on the ground, and help the victims and find the bad guy. They were stunned and demoralized, and failure clung to them like sweat.
“I can’t believe we let it happen,” said DHS Agent Carolyn Walker, slumped in a chair in the Trident office.
Kyle was at the end of the long table, running his hands back across his head above the ears, frustrated. He could not believe how the civilian professionals were freaking out at the very moment they needed to be at the top of their game. “We didn’t let anything happen, and you cannot undo what has already happened,” he said.
“If we had only moved faster,” Walker said.
“Bullshit,” responded Kyle, growing angry. “Yes, it is a horrible tragedy, and yes, a lot of people are dying, but there is not a goddam thing you can do about it but stay focused. Our job is to stop it from happening again by getting Juba. That goal has not changed.”
Dave Hunt looked across at him, his hound dog face containing even more lines than usual. “And I suppose you
