Veil of Civility

Chapter Seventy-Three

Ruslan Baktayev held up a hand signaling the sixteen men behind and around him to stop. He held his head high in the light breeze for a moment as the trees rustled slightly around them. Battle was coming. He could feel it in the air and it energized every fiber of his being. He had lived for this moment and only this moment for a week now. His enemies were dead and even the last attempt, the last gasp of the Americans, had fallen before him with the defeat of the punk kid who had dared to challenge him. Sharpuddin, he thought as he scowled and spat.

With their vehicles well hidden along an old railroad bed, now a hiking trail, that ran through the woods behind the school, everything had gone as planned. They had arrived in Victoria with plenty of time to spare and would be firmly entrenched by the time the faculty began to arrive shortly after dawn. First, they would take each of the teachers and administrators as they arrived, forcing them to conduct business as usual while unloading the school buses that were scheduled to begin arriving at exactly 8:15 a.m. None of the few parents who dropped their children off at the front doors would think anything was out of place as Anzor Kasparov greeted them and ushered the children into the building. He had been doing that same thing as the facility's custodian for years.

Headlights washed over the trees momentarily and Baktayev turned around, focusing as his men each sank to one knee. Three car doors closed quickly but quietly as they watched, Kalashnikov rifles held across their chests and at the ready. Dressed in jungle fatigues and military boots, the men blended into the dense green forest at the edges of the school's property. Even their heads were covered in camouflage dew rags, with the exception of the few, including Baktayev, who had chosen instead to wear their black Islamic taqiyahs. After all, this was a mission of God and they were his soldiers.

Slowly, Baktayev wrapped the shoulder strap of his AK-47 around his hand and brought the rifle up into position as three men approached, each of them obviously armed. Waiting until the men were in the midst of his squad, he stood suddenly and barked an order in his native tongue, his men following his lead and standing with him.

Triumphant growls sounded as the three newcomers dropped their guns and held their hands up high in the air. Baktayev smiled as he looked at the blood on their clothes. "It is done, then?"

The nearest of the three men smiled and nodded. "It is done."

The three men had left separately from the rest of the group in a smaller vehicle and had been dispatched to the home of the town's school resource officer who would be the quickest link the school would have to the local police. Now the man, and his family as well, were in no condition to respond to anything. They were dead. With the officer not expected at his post until the start of the school day, it would be hours before anyone noticed he was missing and by then it would be too late.

Baktayev waved a hand motioning his men forward. Slowly they cleared the trees and moved out into the overgrown field a hundred yards from the back of the school's gymnasium. Keeping low and moving fast, they reached the building and lined up against the high brick wall. Though Baktayev thought they had little to fear from any of the townspeople, he wanted precision and stealth from his men. This was the most critical phase of their plan. If they were spotted here by anyone with enough sense to pick up a telephone then all of their planning, all of their preparation, would be for nothing. They would be forced to flee and the glorious death each of them had been praying well into the night for would be a fleeting dream.

Taking position ahead of his men at the corner of the building, he leaned over and looked down the row of them. He motioned to Anzor Kasparov to join him at the lead. Kasparov was the man with the keys and their ticket inside the building. "Are you ready?" Baktayev said, as the man arrived at his position. Kasparov jangled the keys in one of his pockets and smiled, resting his rifle on his shoulder. Baktayev turned back to the corner of the building and readied his rifle. He waved his hand and rounded the corner, staying low and creeping up the side of the building towards a courtyard twenty yards ahead of them. He held up his hand in a stop command as he reached the corner of the courtyard and looked out into the enclosed breezeway that connected the school's gymnasium with the rest of the building. In the center of the breezeway was a door, their planned entry point. Kasparov would have two minutes to make his way to the front of the building and disarm the building's security system as the rest of them fanned out around the building. Having cleared the courtyard of any surprises, Baktayev moved back behind the building and pressed his back against the wall.

"When you hear the door open, General," Kasparov said, "wait thirty seconds and then move into the courtyard. I will prop the door open with a rock, as the teachers do in the warmer months, before I go in."

The night seemed to grow quiet around them as if nature itself was waiting breathlessly for their victory. Baktayev tightened his grip on his rifle as he nodded his understanding. Kasparov withdrew a bulging set of keys from his pocket, picking through them quickly until he found the correct one. He pumped his fist in a victorious gesture and turned the corner into courtyard.

A loud crack echoed across the school yard and Kasparov's head exploded, covering Baktayev and the two men closest to him in rufescent gore. Baktayev furiously blinked the blood away as the remaining four and a half feet of Anzor Kasparov collapsed onto the ground, the keys in his dead hand jangling as they fell loose. Slowly registering what was happening, Baktayev dropped to his knees and then to his stomach as a deafening clatter filled the air around him.