"Strike at the Giant - First Chapter"

Hasan Azzam stared at the large, shiny clean airplane that was parked on the tarmac, at gate 36, of the Pittsburgh International Airport. A luggage valet rolled by his food service truck and he slouched a bit in his seat, pulling down the brim of his baseball cap. No one was paying any attention to him. They all had their own jobs to do. The planes had to be loaded and sent on their way. He could have looked like Osama bin Laden himself and no one would have paid him any mind. He grinned a little. Could it be this easy? Where was all this Homeland Security everyone had talked about?  He and his cohorts had entered the United States with absolutely no problem. Of course they arrived at different places and at staggered times, but there were no obstructions. They had laughed when they recalled the story of one conspirator who had inadvertently carried a small Swiss Army knife, on a key chain, through customs and had not been stopped.

            Hasan looked around to see if his three friends were in place. This would be simple. There would be no hijackers this time. This would be a statement, pure and simple. One man would transport the package into the plane’s storage compartment, while Hasan and the two other men kept a lookout for airport security. The explosive would be armed and set to trigger long after the men had left the scene…. possibly, depending upon departure time, while the jetliner was in the air. Americans would see that they could be attacked anywhere and at any time. Soon 9-11 would become just another day in a long list of nightmarish days. Hasan was sure the revolution would be victorious. How could it not be? Allah and his legions of faithful were on their side. Soon the infidels would be brought to their knees. It was what he’d been taught, so many years before and it was what he believed.

            Four men, one small cell, were about to strike fear into the hearts of all Americans. Hasan watched as his friend with the package drove another utility vehicle up next to the loading conveyor. He looked so calm, so normal. They all had the proper uniforms and credentials. They had studied maps of the airport and they knew what was behind every door and security gate. They had become explosives experts and were confident in the reliability and effectiveness of their weapon. It would obliterate the Boeing 767 and everything that was on it. But first things first. The bomb would be placed and primed and the passengers would be boarded. The team would leave the airport, individually, and meet again at a small motel a mile or so away. They would change, switch cars, and drive as a group to Cleveland. All the while, they would monitor the news, listening for reports on their devastating attack. In Cleveland, they would take different modes of transportation to Toronto where they would meet at a safe house and wait until things quieted down. It was so simple, so foolproof.

            Hasan had wanted so desperately to be the one who placed the bomb. He wanted to be the lead man, the one to carry the sword. But this time around it was not to be. As a matter of fact, he had drawn the safest position, the one furthest from the plane. This was not a challenge for a man of Hasan’s courage, but he knew that the success of the mission depended upon the cooperation of all the participants. He would have his day, just not this day.

            The point man stepped on to the tarmac and casually eyed his friends. He walked to the back of the vehicle and pulled two suitcases from a rack. He turned and started his walk to the loading belt. With all of their preparation and planning, who would have thought that the man would step directly in front of a passing fuel truck? Suddenly, there was a massive explosion. Everything near the detonation was engulfed in a large ball of flames, including the plane, the man with the bomb, and Hasan’s two other lookout friends. Hasan, however, was far enough away to miss the brunt of the explosion, although his truck was scorched and the windshield shattered.

He sat motionless, unable to comprehend what had just happened. One moment he was a team member, part of a righteous assault group, and the next he was alone. Then the sounds of the real world began to fade in; screams, engines and sirens. He took a cleansing breath, started his truck, shifted into gear and carefully started to drive away. Everywhere he looked he could see flashing lights and emergency vehicles. Police and fire personnel were all around him. He kept going, slowly, deliberately so as not to attract any attention.

The small abandoned access road at the far end of runway 28 left was his escape route. It was remote and surprising unsecured. He pulled the truck into a grove of trees, stopped and shut off the engine. Now what? They had only discussed the possibility of failure once and it was summarily dismissed. Their plan was so simple and so foolproof.  Yet it had failed and the rest of his team was dead. He took a rag from under the front seat and wiped everything on the truck that he thought he and his allies had handled. They had stolen the truck, so there was no other way that it could be traced back to Hasan. He walked another hundred yards to the place where they had hidden their Honda CRV. He found the keys where he had left them, under a nearby rock, opened the driver’s side door and got in.

He thought for a second; the backup plan in the event of failure. He got out of the SUV, walked to the back and opened the tailgate door. He lifted the carpeting and pulled up on the ‘picnic table’ door. Underneath were a small safe and an assortment of weapons, including a high powered, collapsible, sniper rifle complete with carrying case. He examined several keys on his key chain until he found the right one and then pulled the safe box out on to the floor of the car. He scanned the area nervously to see if anyone was approaching. All he could hear was the noise from the activity at the site of the explosion and that was a long way off. He keyed the box and it popped open. He didn’t know what he’d find. No one ever dreamed that they’d need to use it.

It was getting dark and he needed to use a small flashlight to clearly see the contents of the container. What was this? Two large envelopes! He ripped one open and found five thousand dollars. It would be a start, but hardly enough to sustain and rebuild the cell. The other envelope was thinner and contained a few typewritten sheets of paper.

He read them carefully. It was a list of do’s and don’ts. Do not go back to the motel. Abandon anything and everything you left in your room. The planned escape to Toronto was off. He was to drive to the Holiday Inn in Pittsburgh’s South Hills and go directly to room 420. It was already booked and the key was taped to the sheet of paper. He would find additional instructions in a briefcase in that room. It was a bit cryptic, but a place to start. He put everything back, except a loaded 9mm Glock and five hundred dollars. He placed the gun under the front seat and the money into his coat pocket. Then he started the car and headed for the hotel.

Pittsburgh isn’t a big city, but the region’s road system is a mess. The topography is that of steep hills and menacing ridges. One can never anticipate the length of a trip by ‘the way the crow flies’. In most cities, ten miles would take fifteen to twenty minutes, on

a good highway, at fifty-five miles an hour. In Pittsburgh, ten miles might take forty-five minutes to an hour, depending upon traffic and the road conditions. Hasan was new to the area. He had only slipped across the Canadian-US border a few weeks earlier. Now, he found himself questioning why he had made the trip in the first place. When he walked the abandoned logging road that snaked its way into the country he was full of energy and confidence. Now, as he drove away from the airport, he felt doubt, uncertainty and, for the first time since he started his jihad, fear.

It took him nearly two hours to find the Holiday Inn. Hasan pulled into a space directly in front of the older hotel. He turned off the motor and looked at the building. It was so, so American looking. Why had they picked this place, he wondered? It wasn’t convenient to anything, certainly not to the airport. One would have to drive secondary highways to get to a major interstate. If you asked him, this was not a good choice for the rendezvous, but then, no one asked him.

He reached over the front seat and retrieved an overnight bag. He opened it and stuffed the envelopes and 9mm inside. He looked into the rearview mirror, straightened his hair, made sure he looked presentable, got out of the car and walked into the hotel. There was already a room waiting for him so there was no need to stop at the front desk. He had mastered the art of delivering his English without so much as a trace of a Middle Eastern accent, but he still felt awkward pretending to be an American. It felt so hypocritical smiling and laughing with these Americans, when in reality, all he wanted to do,  his sole purpose for living,  was to kill as many of them as possible. He walked to the elevator and pushed the ‘up’ button. A few other guests gathered quietly around him. There he was, smiling and trying to look pleasant. If they only knew, he thought. He was the very thing these people feared the most, a real live terrorist. He was right there, in their midst and they didn’t have a clue.

The elevator door opened and he stepped aside, politely allowing the others to enter first. “Thank you!” one person said.  “Your welcome,” Hasan replied. It was not an express trip. There was a passenger or two for each of the three floors prior to the fourth. But he was the only person to exit on to that floor. The sign in front of the elevator indicated that 420 was to the right, just a few doors down. He sensed an uneasy silence. He had stayed in enough hotels to recognize the hallway sounds, multiple TVs, indistinguishable conversation, and the rumble of the ice machine. When he reached 420, he paused and put his ear to the door. Again there wasn’t a sound. He inserted his room key and unlocked the door. He placed his hand inside his overnight bag and took hold of the Barretta. He pushed the door open but didn’t enter the room. He listened again. Suddenly a door opened down the hall and he turned quickly in that direction. A man and a woman stepped into the hallway, dressed as if they were on their way to dinner. They had no idea how close they had come to being shot. The couple walked by Hasan, hardly noticing his presence. He watched them as they passed and he thought how arrogant, affluent and self-absorbed they looked. He almost shot them for the heck of it.

As quickly as they had entered his world, they were gone and the hallway was empty again. He looked back to the room, held the handgun a bit tighter and stepped inside. He closed the door, took out the 9mm and dropped the bag to the floor. At first glance, the layout appeared fairly standard. To his right was a bathroom. He looked in and saw that the shower curtain was drawn on the bathtub. He entered and pulled it open, anticipating the worst. It was newly cleaned and empty. Other than the bathroom there weren’t very many places for someone to hide. The closet was a recess in the wall with an open cloths rod and no door. The two beds were on floor pedestals so nothing could be placed under them. And there was no one hiding behind the furniture. There was no one else in the room. He was alone. He retrieved the carrying bag and emptied its contents   on one of the beds. He didn’t have much. Besides the envelopes and the Glock, it contained a change of underwear, another shirt, a pair of Dockers, some socks and a thin jacket.

He walked to the easy chair and sat down. Now what, he wondered. The instructions didn’t say what the next step would be. This didn’t surprise the young man. When he trained in Afghanistan, he was told that information was valuable and must be protected. Never tell the group the entire plan and never put to paper the part of the plan that you’re given. You were trained to memorize everything. If it was in writing, you were instructed to read it, learn it and destroy the hard copy. He looked at the information in the envelope again, made sure that he hadn’t missed anything and then tore it into small pieces. He’d flush it down the toilet when he got up. Now he would lean back and close his eyes. He was surprisingly tired and it had been a disastrous day. He thought about his friends who had died. He had trained for death but was amazed at how fast it could take you. One second they were there and the next they were with Allah. How lucky they were, Hasan thought.

Then he thought of the mission and how they had failed. Everything had been going so well. They were only minutes away from success and suddenly it was over! He knew that he had to redeem himself and turn the defeat into a victory before he would be able to face his comrades again. But how? He was alone, with limited funds in a strange city. He needed help. Training had also taught him that no member of the group would be abandoned. He looked out the room’s window. “Ah, but where are you?” he thought. Did they even know he was there? He placed the gun on the nightstand next to the chair turned his head and fell deeply asleep.