True Faith and Allegiance

26

Barbara Pineda and her burgundy Toyota Camry were stuck in traffic, par for the course on a workday afternoon.

As a civilian who worked at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, in the southeastern part of the District, she knew that every commute at the end of the day involved at least a half-hour of gridlock. If there had been no traffic, the thirty-one-year-old would already be home in Vienna, Virginia, leisurely getting ready to go out on a date with the new man in her life, a firefighter named Steve she had met at church.

Instead, this afternoon would be exactly like all others during the workweek when she had important plans. She’d screech onto her driveway late, dash from her car through her front door, fling off her business attire, and take the stairs three at a time to her bedroom in her underwear. There she would dress, rush into her bathroom to touch up her makeup, and come downstairs only at the last moment, if not a few minutes after, when Steve arrived to pick her up.

And on top of all this, this afternoon she had an extra stop to make on the way home.

Barbara was an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she served as an all-source intelligence analyst in the Directorate for Analysis. Before this she had served eight years in Army intel, joining up after high school, and earning both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees online at American Military University while enlisted. She’d done a significant amount of her coursework while serving in war zones, and now that she was out of the Army, working as a civilian at DIA provided her a smooth transition from a decade of near-constant deployments.

During her time in the Army she served in Afghanistan or Iraq, or else she was in training or supporting others deployed in the Middle East. Now she spent her days looking over intelligence matters relating to the U.S.’s fight with ISIS, a perfect match for the important but niche skill set she’d learned in the Army.

Barbara was happy enough with her work. She knew she probably wasn’t going to change the world, but she sure as hell was doing her part for her nation, even at her relatively young age.

Still fifteen minutes from home, she pulled off the 495 and into the suburb of Falls Church, happy to be on the more open residential roads and out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic. She parked on the small driveway of an attractive zero-lot two-story house, climbed out with her purse, and fumbled for the keys.

An old Army friend of Barbara’s who now worked in pharmaceuticals lived here, but she was away on vacation at Disney World with her family, and Barbara had offered to swing by every afternoon after work to water the plants, to feed the kids’ hamster, and to flip on and off a couple of lights to make the place look as lived in as possible.

As she headed up the drive she remembered she also needed to check the mail, so she turned around and headed back down the little driveway, still trying to find the right key for the front door.

A neighbor walking her dog on the sidewalk across the street waved to her, and Barbara waved back as she pulled down the door to the mailbox.

And as she did this Barbara Pineda’s world erupted in a flash of bright light and earsplitting noise.

The explosion had been command-detonated, meaning Fairfax cell members Ghazi and Husam were parked right up the street, close enough to see Barbara at the mailbox. They’d talked at length about waiting until she took the four-pound package containing the bomb out of the mailbox, or else just pressing send on their phone, activating the detonator’s wireless number, the instant she opened the mailbox door. They finally decided on the latter, thinking the force of the blast might be heightened and therefore penetrate deeper into the woman’s body from the mailbox, as if shot out of the barrel of a gun.

It was the theory of laymen with no understanding of their powerful weapon. The mailbox utterly disintegrated in the explosion, so there was no barrel for the explosion to travel down. But it didn’t matter. The bomb had been constructed by Tripoli in the back of the SUV while traveling from Georgia to Virginia for the dropoff of the weapons, and it contained two and a half pounds of store-bought galvanized two-inch nails. When the plastic explosive detonated, it sent the nails in all directions, along with the shock wave of the explosion, large chunks of shrapnel from the aluminum mailbox, and even bits of the brick post. Much of the shrapnel and shock wave slammed into the chest and face of Barbara Pineda.

The thirty-one-year-old woman staggered two steps back into the street, and then she fell onto her side, dropping her purse and the keys as she collapsed, still enveloped inside the massive cloud of smoke.

The woman walking her dog across the street fell to the ground herself, half propelled back by the detonation and half affected by the incredible sound made by the explosion.

When she looked back in the direction of the noise, she saw the woman by the mailbox rolling onto her back, her chest heaving up and down rapidly, and her face all but gone.

Ghazi had pressed the button on his phone that triggered the bomb, and Husam had held his phone on the scene, his camera zoomed in to provide a distant but clear moving image of the incident. The man they called Mohammed had been watching in real time, and he congratulated the men as they drove out of the neighborhood slowly and carefully, and headed back toward their safe house in Fairfax.

They had placed the bomb here instead of at Pineda’s home because the targeting data they received just hours before said she would come here each afternoon to check the mailbox, and Pineda’s condo had tiny mail slots, meaning they wouldn’t have been able to use the device there.

The two men had no idea who was providing the intelligence they used. They assumed their leader, the man they knew only as Mohammed, had teams of spies working in the area.

The cell had discussed simply shooting the woman the moment she pulled into her driveway, but cell leader David Hembrick and Abu Musa al-Matari agreed that the information about the mailboxes gave them the opportunity to use the relatively low-risk remote-explosive option for their first attack. It was crucial that it worked, that the Fairfax cell remained intact, and although al-Matari didn’t say anything to Hembrick on the matter, frankly he was worried Ghazi and Husam would fuck up anything that got too complicated.

The police, fire, and ambulance crews arrived on scene almost simultaneously, but Barbara Pineda had already stopped breathing. She still wore her DIA identification card around her neck, but it was too damaged in the blast to be read. The contents of her purse were retrieved, however, and her name was run through the police system. It took no time at all for homicide detectives to find out that she worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, but this raised no red flags, because it seemed most likely to detectives in those first hours that the actual homeowners had been the intended recipients of the attack, and not the poor woman who had stopped to pick up mail for her friend.

The bombing made the D.C.-area news at eleven that night, of course, but Pineda’s name and employer were not mentioned. The reporter referred to the victim only as a “family friend” picking up the mail of the homeowner.

This meant that the first salvo of the Islamic State’s attack against the U.S. military and intelligence communities on U.S. soil came and went without any immediate recognition of the importance of the event.

The second salvo came very early the next morning, on the opposite side of the country. This was by design, of course. Al-Matari had spent months discussing his plans with the Islamic State’s Foreign Intelligence Bureau, and its crucial public relations division, the Global Islamic Media Front. All his acts were chiefly for the benefit of the GIMF department and their slick propaganda, and both the FIB and the GIMF knew a truly nationwide attack would give them the most impact.

To that end, the team leader of the Santa Clara cell, Kateb, and his wife, Aza, sat in the Starbucks on the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Riverside Drive in Los Angeles, each with a cup of tea in front of them. They’d arrived in town the night before, and they’d slept in their car in the parking lot of a nearby convenience store, waiting till the coffee shop opened at five-thirty a.m.

At five-forty they entered, ordered their drinks, and sat at a table in the far corner of the room by a glass-door emergency exit. Aza had her back to the entrance and the counter, but Kateb could see everything in the store. She carried a purse and he a small shoulder bag, both of which they put on the floor under the table. Inside both bags, loaded Glock 17 pistols stayed within reach.

The couple said little to each other, but they both checked their phones. Aza just wanted to know the time from minute to minute, but Kateb was connected with the man they knew as Mohammed, on an encrypted link that allowed Mohammed to see real-time through Kateb’s camera.

A few men and women on their way to work entered the Starbucks, ordered drinks and food, and left. By six o’clock, however, Aza and Kateb were the only customers in the shop.

At ten after six Kateb saw a large black Cadillac Escalade pull up and park by the front door and a group of five climb out. His dossier from the man he knew as Mohammed told him the Escalade came here every morning, shortly after six, and a man named Todd Braxton would be among the occupants.

Braxton was their target, and while he would not be alone, none of his group should be armed.

Softly he whispered to his young wife. “They are here. It is almost time.”

Aza began breathing shallowly, a show of stress bordering on panic, but her husband saw in her eyes that she was still in control of her emotions.

She was ready, and he was proud of her.

Former U.S. Navy SEAL Todd “T-Bone” Braxton could have played the lead role in the movie about his life, and this was exactly the point he stressed to his agent every time the two men spoke. It was also a point he had hinted at to the producers of Blood Canyon, the actual film being made about his feats of heroism while on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

But T-Bone’s agent didn’t have the juice to make it happen, and the producers said the film needed a well-established star.

Braxton knew he could have nailed the role. Hell, he’d lived it, minus all the artistic flourishes written into the movie. And he sure looked the part of himself. He possessed the confident attitude, a chiseled jaw, spiked black hair, and tats ringing his muscled biceps.

T-Bone served on SEAL Teams 10 and 3, achieving the rank of petty officer first class before leaving the military to write a book about his exploits. The book had been a bestseller, propelled by his numerous TV appearances and paid speaking engagements, and then a screenwriter friend had turned the book into a screenplay.

The Navy had been supportive of both the book and the film, and Braxton had secured himself an advisory role on the set, which basically meant he went to the studio each day, or on location in the Mojave Desert, where he hung out with the actors and filmmakers, and made sure their gear was squared away before the director yelled “Action!”

Although he would rather have been the star of the film, Braxton did have to admit that the studio had found a good actor to play him in the lead role. Danny Phillips was relatively well known for a hugely popular cable TV series he’d starred in, and although he was eight years younger than Todd Braxton, the two men looked like they could have been brothers. Phillips had put on muscle and grown his sideburns into huge muttonchops, just as Braxton normally wore, and Phillips had gone out of his way to wear his ball cap in the same manner Braxton did, even when not shooting.

Braxton and Phillips had become friends over the first two months of filming, but the former SEAL was smart enough to presume that the up-and-coming movie star would move on from this role and they’d probably not be hanging out much after the film wrapped.

The five individuals from the Escalade entered the Starbucks, and immediately Kateb recognized Braxton among the group from his signature sideburns, square jaw, and muscular build. He saw another man, of similar build, in the group, but this man had a clean-shaven face and a short haircut. Along with these two were two women and a big black man with huge muscles.

Four of the five ordered coffee, while the black man stood a few feet away from the others.

Kateb nodded once to Aza and wrote the number 5 on the napkin in front of him with a Bic pen and a shaking hand. She nodded, her back still to the counter and the customers. He then placed his phone on the table, propping it up with the foldout easel attached to the phone’s hard plastic case. He positioned it toward the counter and nodded to his wife.

The phone was centered on the group, and it was broadcasting live to Kateb and Aza’s ISIS leader, who they only knew was somewhere in America.

Aza reached down between her knees and inside her purse, wrapped her fingers around the grip of her Glock, while across from her, Kateb reached into his backpack.

T-Bone Braxton drank his coffee black, and he’d done so ever since he was a teenager. Caffeine was a drug that got him going in the morning, nothing more. He didn’t want to take the time to dress it up into something pretty before he pumped it into his body.

The twenty-five-year-old actor Danny Phillips, on the other hand, always started his day with a venti soy chai latte, into which he stirred several bags of Sugar In The Raw. Similarly, Danny’s two personal assistants, sent everywhere with him by the studio, liked their coffee infused with flavored syrup, sweet and light.

Braxton appreciated that at least Danny’s bodyguard, a big man named Paul who always wore a polo shirt that showed off his massive pecs, delts, and arms, arrived at the hotel each morning to pick up Danny and the others with his coffee ready to go in a stainless-steel mug that he kept in the Escalade.

Braxton ordered his simple beverage and stood there while the barista made all the other drinks to order. It had been like this every day for the past couple of weeks while they’d been getting up early for the ninety-minute drive to the set in the Mojave. He didn’t know why the hell the lady behind the counter couldn’t just draw him a cup of hot coffee and be done with him before she began working on the other concoctions.

He’d almost said something; after a decade of living a life of excellence and effectiveness in the teams, any inefficiency drove T-Bone absolutely ape shit, but today he just stood there with his arms crossed. He had other stuff on his mind to keep him occupied, because this was the day he would make a brief transition from adviser to movie star.

Today was his moment, his close-up. His acting debut. He’d had it written into his contract that he’d get a small action role in the film about him, which he thought seemed kind of dumb, but still, it got him a little shine time and he hoped it would lead to feature roles down the road.

To prepare for his brief time in front of the camera, he’d shaved off his muttonchops the night before; he couldn’t very well act in the movie as a Navy SEAL behind the guy playing the Navy SEAL who looked just like him without making at least some obvious cosmetic changes. He worried that the lack of tan where his sideburns normally were would be obvious in the movie, but he’d been assured by the makeup artists that they’d have his face so covered with movie tan and movie battle grit and grime that he needn’t worry about his skin tone.

Braxton told himself he’d kick ass on screen today, just as he exceeded all expectations on every challenge he ever faced. That was just who he was, and nothing was more important than his positive mental attitude.

Phillips got his drink first. Braxton figured the barista recognized him from TV, and Phillips had just started stirring sugar into his chai latte when the door opened and another group of four customers entered the coffee shop. One headed toward the restroom, while the others stepped up to the counter.

The former Navy SEAL regarded them for a second; it was second nature for him now to check everyone around him to make sure they weren’t a threat, and he’d just told himself there was nothing to see when he heard a sudden shout from the back corner. He’d noted the dark-complexioned couple there when he entered, saw they were fixated on their phones and didn’t give them a second thought, so he swiveled around to their table in surprise to see what the commotion was all about.

Before he’d even focused on the couple, he sensed the bodyguard Paul turning to the movement as well.

And then Todd Braxton saw the guns.

The shout he heard was the couple chanting “Allahu Akbar” in unison, and now they jerked big black Glocks in the direction of the counter and the eight people standing in front of them.

And then cracks of gunfire filled the room.

The two women who worked for the studio screamed. Danny Phillips stood on wooden legs while Paul ran toward him, and Todd Braxton, who carried only a small folding knife, did the only thing that made sense. He took two steps backward and then hurled himself over the counter, knocking the barista working there to the ground, and he shouted for the others to get to cover.

The gunfire was unrelenting, perhaps no one heard him. All T-Bone knew for sure was that no one followed him over the counter.

Braxton pulled his knife, moved down the counter to the end near the front door, as the pops from the handguns continued to snap off. He told himself he’d jump both of the small attackers from behind as they ran out the door, or if they tried to come around the counter to confront him, he’d be ready to launch at them face-to-face. He knew knife fighting from his training in the teams, though he never really thought he’d employ it in a life-or-death encounter in a Starbucks after he left service.

But then the gunfire stopped as quickly as it started.

The baristas lay cowering behind the counter, and T-Bone could hear the two women from the studio crying out in front of the register. Seconds later an alarm went off.

T-Bone had expected to see the shooters pass near his position when they went out the front door, but the alarm told him they’d pushed out the emergency exit. He rose to his feet, stepped around the counter, and saw that the coast was clear.

He also saw a scene of carnage.

Danny Phillips lay dead, shot six times. Paul wasn’t dead, yet, but he’d been shot six times as well, and T-Bone knew enough firsthand about battlefield medicine to know the big man would check out in seconds.

One of the women from the studio had taken a round through the kneecap, and a middle-aged commuter had been shot twice, though he wasn’t critically injured.

T-Bone ran to the window and looked out as the two shooters disappeared through a hedge leading to an all-night pharmacy. He thought about giving chase, but decided he needed to stay behind to do his best to keep as many of the injured alive as possible.

Aza and Kateb were both positive they’d succeeded in their mission. Todd Braxton’s look was impossible to miss, and both of them targeted him from their first shots. For some reason the former soldier had protection; the big black man had thrown himself between the gunfire and Braxton, but Aza and Kateb just kept shooting, killing both men.

It wouldn’t be for another hour that they found out they’d made a mistake. While listening to the radio on their way back to the San Francisco area, they heard that a Hollywood movie star had been killed in Los Angeles, along with his bodyguard, and two others had been injured in the attack.

This news made no sense to them at all, but there was one thing they were sure of immediately: Mohammed would not be pleased.