True Lies - Redux Ch. 12

Moe and Harry just happened to be coming out of a store - Victoria Secrets actually as Moe decided to do some more personal shopping and NOT for his favorite niece - when Harry noticed that an Arab or Middle Eastern looking man casually exited that "Employee's Only" door, and then met another man who could have been his brother near the railing overlooking the large open space below. They had a duffel bag and Harry was pretty sure that bulge he spotted under one of the men's shirts indicated he was packing. Then they both heard the unmistakable sound of full auto .223 fire. Harry hustled Moe back into Victoria Secrets and called Jeff on his "Secret Service" type personal comms radio.

"There's gunfire in here! Anything going on out there?"

"Nope. And I'm listening to the police scanner and I'm not hearing anything there either."

"We're upstairs midway and close to Victoria Secrets. May need some heavier artillery backup. Come in very carefully, Jeff."

"On my way."

"Shit." Jeff was thinking to himself as he dug his favorite H&K MP5 out of the trunk - and tried to hide it as he entered the mall. Some off duty policeman OR just some pistol packing momma might take him as "one of the bad guys" with gunfire going on. These kinds of situations were worse than going against Islamic fanatics in Fallujah - a time and place he still had the occasional nightmare over.

He moved into the mall and just listened. No gunfire that he could hear anywhere.

The two grenadier terrorists were also getting concerned. The gunfire and the screaming had stopped way too soon - and they could also swear they heard some other gunfire from both directions that did not sound like .223 high powered rifle rounds.

They had decided to drop some grenades on the few people now just milling around in confusion below them and then bug out, when suddenly terrorist number two's head exploded - and as terrorist number one looked around a large man was almost already on top of him and swinging - and the lights went out.

Just then, Jeff came up the closest stairs carefully and saw Harry standing over the now unconscious - but still breathing - terrorist. He opened the bag and they saw the IED's inside.

"Fuck, we can't leave these," Harry said.

Moe came out of Victoria Secrets and said, "Think there are any more of them? Should we stick around and try and take them out?"

"No - cops should be here pretty soon - we'd better bug out. We need to take the explosives though - and what about this guy? Want me to just cap him?"

"How about we take him with us. You think you could control him OK? I'm thinking about Allie and the problems he's had lately. Is this just a coincidence? I'd like to interview this guy before we cap him."

"OK, boss. I can handle him. Moe, you carry the explosives and PLEASE don't drop 'em. Jeff and I can manhandle this guy to the car and still watch for other shooters."

On the way out of the mall's parking lot they dropped the bag of explosives off into a heavy duty dumpster - then used a burner phone to call 911 and tell them exactly where the "possible explosives" were. It was the best they could do. They had no idea just how unstable they were or even if some timer or cellphone controlled detonator was set.

The final toll was 11 innocent people dead - including the three in the security center - and 22 more injured. And five martyrs for Allah and Islamic Jihad shot dead on site - plus the possibility that one was missing - as a couple of eyewitnesses reported. Plus the interesting info it didn't look like the guys taking him out looked like their allies or friends...

Chicago PD put that on the back burner - but DHS - and one DHS investigator in particular - seemed very, very interested in finding these guys. His name was Darwin Moore.

There were two interesting and unforeseen outcomes from this aborted attack. The first was that Moe and Harry were able to extract quite a bit of info from the captured terrorist. Including the name Darwin Moore. Again.

The second was that this was just the leverage Senator Reyburn needed to open yet another official Senate Committee investigation into Homeland Security's utter failure to foresee and stop this attack - added to the San Bernardino and Orlando massacres, and really start grilling and pressuring the DHS Secretary, Jeb Jameson.