Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 56

The traffic on southbound I-35 thickened even before he reached the Minneapolis northern suburbs.

An SUV with purple Minnesota Vikings flags clamped into both rear windows cut him off, and Rafiq had to slam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the car. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, taking deep breaths to calm himself. The detonation device in the weapon was ancient, the original gun-type model from the Iraqis. It was possible a collision with another vehicle might be enough to set it off — a theory he’d rather not test. The traffic started to move again and he put an extra margin of safe distance behind the car in front of him.

The new stadium rose into view as he got closer to the downtown area. He checked his watch again. He needed to make sure he was early enough to get a good parking place near the top of a parking ramp, but not so soon that his vehicle would attract the attention of security personnel. Rafiq was sure the local police would have extra patrols out to look for suspicious activity. He’d filled the back of the Whitworth Construction van with assorted tools and the black packing case blended in well.

Patience.

He’d waited nearly a decade for this moment. A few minutes more would not matter.

Killing Chas had felt more like a favor than a necessity.

The man had been drunk, of course, and it was a simple matter to stage his suicide. The only weapons Chas had in the house were a huge Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and a 20-gauge shotgun. The handgun was overkill for the job, but necessary to keep up appearances. The shotgun was on the floor of the van behind his seat.

Rafiq had stripped to his undershorts before pressing the barrel of the revolver into the mouth of his college friend and pulling the trigger. The resulting spatter against the headboard and the wall was spectacular, like a macabre piece of modern art. The beauty of it made his breath catch in his throat. It had been a long time since he’d killed a man. Too long.

Rafiq had considered typing up a suicide note, but decided against it. Anyone who walked through the filth and despair of Chas’s house would conclude suicide before he even saw the body. He only needed a day’s head start anyway.

After a long shower to remove any traces of blood from his skin, he walked through the house room by room, carefully wiping down anything he’d touched during his stay. Rafiq replaced the sheets from the bed he’d slept in. They were in a plastic bag behind his seat in the van. For good measure, he’d even gone outside and retrieved some of the trash to put back in the kitchen.

By the time he’d finished, there was no record of Rafiq ever having set foot inside Chas’s home.

Except for the missing white van.

Rafiq circled the downtown area twice before settling on the parking garage at the corner of Park and Sixth Street, overlooking the entrance to the massive new Vikings stadium. He drove all the way to the topmost covered deck and took a spot on the side nearest the stadium.

He shut off the engine and took a moment to admire the view. Even he had to admit it was an impressive structure. Built to resemble a massive ship rising from the earth, the glass-and-steel bow of the metaphorical craft pointed almost directly at him. Rafiq craned his head to see the tip of the building around the edge of the parking garage roof overhead.

The plaza below him buzzed with people dressed in purple and gold Vikings colors. He knew from the radio reports that they expected a sellout crowd of over 65,000 spectators at this inaugural game against the Green Bay Packers. The radio reporter had also done a segment on the type of glass used to build the sheer face of the stadium front. Apparently, a group of bird-lovers were claiming the glass would confuse migrating birds. Rafiq shook his head. A billion-dollar structure erected in honor of a game and the news media talked about birds.

He would give them all something to talk about.

Rafiq smiled to himself when he saw the vans with television network logos lined up against the stadium. They would have a front-row seat to the halftime spectacle. He closed his eyes and tried to still the joyous hammering of his heart.

It was all coming together. The idea for an attack on the Vikings stadium on the same day as the meeting in Finland… surely this was divine inspiration. What better way to shatter this farce of a nuclear accord than to make a direct strike at the heart of the American Midwest? He looked down at the crowds of tailgaters. In his college days at Carleton, he had pretended to be one of them, drinking alcohol and consuming food to excess, to what end? He wanted to spit down on them from his perch, to rail at their American excesses and wasteful lives…

Today, after nine years of lying in wait, he would do more than talk. While the leaders of the Western world and the traitorous President of Iran met in Finland to sign their meaningless documents, he would turn this place to ash.

And the beauty of his plan is that they would never catch him. Even if they captured Hashem and tortured him, his brother had no inkling of his plan. He smiled at the Vikings logo on the side of the stadium; there was a certain fated symmetry to striking a symbolic Norseman in lieu of an actual Nordic country.

The atmosphere in the van started to get stuffy in the afternoon heat. Rafiq picked his way into the rear of the vehicle and cracked open the packing case. The long gray tube, the size of a fire hydrant, gleamed dully in the light that came through the windshield. He paused. When he considered all the sacrifices that had gone into making this moment possible, the surge of emotion formed a lump in his throat.

To work.

Rafiq fished two prepaid mobile phones out of his pocket. He checked that both were fully charged, and receiving a good signal. He used one to call the other. The phone gave a shrill ring before he silenced it. He stored the outgoing number in memory and slipped that phone back in his pocket. For all its destructive potential, the nuclear weapon was remarkably simple: an explosive charge fires one piece of subcritical fissile material into another, forming a supercritical mass. Although inefficient by modern standards, the bomb had more than enough power to level the stadium and all of downtown Minneapolis.

Rafiq had modified the triggering device so he could explode it using a mobile phone, technology that had barely existed when the Iraqis built this bomb. The small black box he’d glued to the side of the packing case appeared modern and out of place next to the industrial-looking nuclear weapon. He set the counter on the black box to four; an incoming phone call would trigger the device after four rings. Then he attached the remaining phone to the detonator device with a simple connector.

The nuclear bomb was armed.

Rafiq sat back on his heels, tears stinging his eyes.

Oh, my brother, wherever you are, this is a day of days.

One final touch remained. Rafiq hefted the shotgun and loaded a single shell into the chamber. He clamped the weapon into a portable vise and aimed it at the back door. Then he ran a length of wire from the trigger to a large rattrap he had scrounged from Chas’s garage. He set the trap and, holding the hammer down with his foot, wedged a corner of the bar under the back door of the van. He duct-taped the entire assembly to the floor and carefully secured the shotgun trigger wire to the hammer of the trap. Then he covered the shotgun with a light blanket.

He smiled grimly. Hashem, his ever-cautious brother, would approve.

Rafiq exited the driver’s side door and paused to pull a Vikings jersey over his head. Number 22, a player named Smith. A Vikings ball cap and a pair of dark glasses he’d taken from Chas’s closet completed the outfit. He made his way to the street level, joining the pregame throng.

A few blocks away, Rafiq boarded the light rail bound for the Mall of America.