Dead or Alive

KERSEN KASEKE left his house at four a.m., drove two blocks to an all-night gas station, and bought a large cup of coffee. On whether coffee was in fact haraam-forbidden to Muslims-Kaseke had yet to find a definitive answer; until that time, he would allow himself the indulgence. It was his only, after all. He neither smoked nor drank nor let his eyes linger too long on the relative nakedness of the women here.

He got back into his car and drove to Open Heart Congregational Church. The streets of the city, rarely crowded anyway, were especially quiet. It had been raining since mid-afternoon, and now the only people moving about were those who had no choice in the matter: early-morning workers, delivery drivers, police… Of the latter he saw no cars, a sign, he believed, that Allah was with him.

He circled the church once, then parked a couple of blocks north of the church in a video-store parking lot, then hefted his backpack over one shoulder and got out. Out of habit, he did not walk directly to the church but took a circuitous route. Finally satisfied he wasn’t being followed, Kaseke cut across the church’s front lawn to the hedges bordering the entrance steps, where he knelt down.

From his pack he withdrew the first mine. Officially known as the M18A1 and colloquially as a “Claymore,” it was designed for use as an antipersonnel/area denial weapon. Shaped like a convex rectangle, the Claymore’s guts were uncomplicated: a layer of C4 plastic explosive supporting a layer of seven hundred steel ball bearings, each the size of #4 buckshot, embedded in a layer of resin. Upon detonation, the C4 sprays the seven hundred fragments outward at four thousand feet per second. As instructed and as trained, Kaseke had the previous night removed the Claymore’s outer casing and carefully sprinkled six ounces of rat-poison pellets amid the ball bearings. The poison’s active ingredient, Difethialone, an anticoagulant, would with luck keep even the smallest of wounds from clotting. It was a tactic his Palestinian brothers had used to great effect in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It hadn’t taken Israeli first responders long to catch on, but during that all-too-short grace period, many dozens had died, bleeding to death from what would have otherwise been minor lacerations. Having never seen such attacks before, paramedics here would face the same horror and confusion.

Once satisfied the pellets were evenly distributed, Kaseke sealed the poison in place with a thin layer of candle wax, let it harden, then reassembled the Claymore’s outer shell. The manual had recommended tissue paper coated in a sheer layer of spray-on fabric adhesive, but the wax would work just as well, he knew. Next he checked each screw in turn, then the gapping, to ensure the shells were properly fitted. The manual had been explicit about that, too: If the outer casings were misaligned, the explosive force may be diverted. This instruction he followed to the letter.

Now Kaseke extended the mine’s scissor legs. He then made sure the label-front toward enemy-was pointing toward the entrance of that church that would in a few hours be bustling with activity, then jammed the legs into the soft earth inside the hedges. He got down on his belly, crawled through the hedges, then turned around and peered through the open sight affixed to the top of the mine.

Good. He’d chosen the perfect location. The blast would encompass not only the entrance and the steps but part of the sidewalk as well.

He checked the mine’s clock against his own watch. They were synchronized. He set the countdown timer, pressed start, and watched a few seconds tick off before getting up and walking away.

As was their custom on weekends, Hank Alvey woke up early on Sunday morning and quietly got their three kids out of bed, fed them oatmeal and blueberry waffles, then got them settled in front of the TV-the volume turned way down-for cartoons. The previous night’s rain clouds had moved on, leaving behind bright blue skies. Sunlight streamed through the living room windows and across the hardwood floors on which the kids now sat, entranced by the TV.

Shortly before seven, he made Katie her sourdough toast and coffee, and woke her up with breakfast in bed. The tire shop he managed was closed on Sunday, so this was the only day he could relieve his wife of what would otherwise be a seven-day-a-week job. Taking care of the kids so she could sleep in an hour was, she frequently assured him, so romantic, and so sexy-and on most Sunday nights after the kids went to bed, she showed him exactly how much she appreciated the gesture.

But that was for later, Hank reminded himself, pouring the coffee, which went on the tray next to the freshly buttered bread. Most mornings he was able to almost reach their bed before Katie rolled over and gave him a sleepy smile. This she did now.

“What’s for breakfast?” she asked, smiling.

“Take a guess.”

“Ah, my favorite.” She sat up and shoved pillows behind her back. “What’d you do with the kids, lock them in the closet?”

“They’re watching Yo Gabba Gabba! I think Jeremy’s got a crush on Foofa.”

Katie took a bite of toast. “Which one’s that?”

“The pink flower bubble thing.”

“Right. Are we going to church?”

“We’d better. We missed the last two Sundays. We can hit the nine o’clock, then take the kids to the park afterward.”

“Okay, I’ll make myself pretty.”

“Done,” Hank said, and headed for the door. “I’m going to let them out of the closet now.”

Katie was down the stairs, dressed, her hair and makeup done, even before Hank was ready for shoes. Their oldest, Josh, could tie his own, but not so with Amanda and Jeremy, so Hank took one and Katie took the other, and then they were up and moving, looking for their coats and car keys, making sure the back door was locked…

“We’re going to be late,” Katie called.

Hank checked his watch. “Not quite a quarter till. We’ll be there in five minutes. Okay, kids, let’s get a move on…”

Then they were out the door.

Half a block north and west of the church, Kaseke was sitting on a bus bench, sipping his third cup of coffee of the day. From this angle he had a perfect vantage point of the front steps. There. The front doors opened, and people began emerging. Kaseke checked his watch: 8:48. Now from the path leading around the church to the rear parking lot came a line of nine a.m. worshippers. Leading the group was a young couple with three children, two boys and a girl, all three holding hands as they skipped ahead of their parents. Kaseke squeezed his eyes shut and asked Allah for strength. This was necessary. And the children, small as they were, would be killed instantly, so quickly that the pain wouldn’t have time to register in their minds.

The incoming group reached the end of the path, where it joined the common area around the steps.

Kaseke checked his watch. Less than a minute now.

A hundred yards from where he’d planted the mine, he could not see that his plan was unraveling, and it would only be later, after he was captured, that the police would explain how he’d failed.

For the past five hours, as the Claymore sat first in the rain and then in the early morning sun, the candle wax Kaseke had used to cement the rat-poison pellets to the ball bearings and their resin base began to crack. This alone wouldn’t have interfered with the mine’s function, but what Kaseke didn’t know was that this particular Claymore mine and eight others were more than two decades old and had spent the last eight years improperly stored either in a wooden box in a damp cave or buried in the sun-baked soil of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

As the candle wax cracked inside the casing, the resin, far past its effective lifespan and as brittle as a fortune cookie, also cracked, but only a few millimeters. It was enough, however, to loosen the sockets in which fourteen of the ball bearings rested. With overlapping metallic tinks that no one on the church steps would hear over the babble of voices, the fourteen ball bearings broke free and dropped against the shell’s lower