Author Archives: Barry Kelly

Butch Malone, supervisor of the eight to four shift, had just come on duty. He checked in with the traffic cops to make sure only the inbound lanes were being used this morning. Rush hour traffic was backed up for a least a mile coming down Chain Bridge Road, but moving orderly. His crew all had their instructions and he could see he was on schedule. He had a good crew and was proud of their can-do attitude. Many of the workers he had known for at least a couple of years. Butch was checking the Virginia end of the bridge when he saw the head of the cop directing traffic in the center lane explode. Butch had spent some time in the second Gulf War and knew a heavy caliber rifle sound. He dove behind a dump truck. The second shot boomed and the officer, who ran to the aid of the downed traffic cop, went down. She was hit in the chest. A large area of her back was gone. Blood was pooling in a low spot in the center of the bridge.

Butch used his radio to call for help. He yelled to his number to get the workers under cover now. With his cell he called 911 and told the dispatcher, “Gunshots on Chain Bridge. Two officers down. Send help. We are still under fire. Hurry.”

Three more shots had been fired. Three cars moving on the bridge rolled to an out-of-control stop. Cars close to the bridge that could see the growing confusion and damage, sped up to get across the bridge to safety. Before they reached the center point, three cars were hit in their passenger windows and crashed into bridge repair equipment. Others turned right from Chain Bridge Road and raced up Glebe Road, jamming it. The next two shots killed workers on the bridge who hadn’t found a protective place. Two minutes of no firing and people began to stir. Rescue and police vehicles couldn’t get through the jumbled traffic on the Virginia side. The Maryland end was clear and help was soon on the scene. Two of Butch’s workers were dead from head shots. In addition to the two police officers killed, four people in cars were dead and several other commuters were wounded, two severely.

Frank called Jack’s cell and told him to get up on the bridge and look around, find the sniper’s nest and see what we can learn for the next time. He said he would call the right people and for Jack to show his Pittsburgh police badge as an identifier. Jack yelled to Lou to pack up. He ran back to the car and slid to a stop near where he guessed Lou would emerge from the brush loaded with their gear. Lou dumped the weapons into the truck and Jack roared off to the bridge. A Maryland State Police officer was stopping traffic. Jack showed his badge and the officer waved him through. Parking in the first open area he found, they jumped out of the car and ran across the bridge to the Virginia side. Jack introduced himself to the lieutenant in charge. The lieutenant said, “I just got a call about you, telling me to give you anything you want.”

Jack said, “The sniper fired from somewhere downriver. Probably less than halfway down the ridge and no more than five or six hundred yards from where we are standing. I want to see if I can tell the angle of his shots. Then my partner and I will climb the ridge and see if we can find the sniper’s nest. One more thing, please tell your guys not to shoot at two guys in camouflage suits poking around on the ridge up there.”

Turning to Lou, Jack said, “If I remember correctly a trail runs down to the river from this end of the bridge.”

Lou said, “Yeah, I’ve been fishing along here and there is a way down.”

Jack said, “You check this end of the bridge for anything that’ll give us an angle of the trajectory. I’ll check the wreckage in the middle of the bridge. Yell if you find anything. Wait a minute, maybe we have the trajectory data right here. Lieutenant, where was the officer standing when he was hit when the shooting started?”

“Right over there at the nearest blood puddle. He should have been standing with his back to the shooter and facing oncoming traffic. I see what you’re thinking. He was about 5’11” or six feet tall.”

“Lou, stand over here. This is about one yard from the blood marker and you’re about the same height.”

Using his spotter scope, Jack plotted the trajectory to a general area and marked a prominent tree as a location point 425 yards from where the officer was standing. It took them 25 minutes to climb the steep ridge to the tree. Once there, Jack said, “This is an ideal spot. Good cover, a distance that Hasani could easily manage on a routine basis, and a path back up the slope to a Parkway pick up site. Now let’s find the exact shooting spot. He nearly always shoots from a tripod. The tripod marks will have been swept, but he will have left some mark. No one is good enough to clean up everything without leaving some track.”

Moving in ever-widening circles around the marker tree, Lou found a skid mark where it looked like a boot had slipped going up the slope. Using the skid mark, Jack asked Lou to hold his position while he looked for a tripod site that would give line of sight to the Virginia end of the bridge. The shooting site would have to provide space for a prone shooter and firm tripod site or a sandbag. Jack thought it more likely Hasani kept to his M.O. of using a tripod. It only took him ten more minutes to find the site. There were signs of the cleanup attempt and disturbed leaves where the shooter and his spotter had set up. No brass was found.

Marking the location with his iPhone App, Jack called Frank, gave him the GPS data and asked him to check cell phone traffic from the area starting at 8:06 AM. Hasani needed the cell call to set up an exact pickup time. The shooting started at 8:00 and was over within one minute. He estimated Hasani took five minutes to clean up and would need another ten minutes to climb the slope and to cross the Parkway to the westbound lanes, because going that way provided better escape routes than going farther toward the city on the Eastbound lanes. Traffic cameras may show the getaway vehicle, probably a pickup truck. The .50 caliber rifle Hasani used weighed 27 pounds. The spotter probably had a weapon also but not a heavy caliber. They probably carried the weapons concealed some way, maybe disguised as fishing gear. Frank said, “Good work. We’ll get right on it.” Then hung up.

Jack said, “We’re done here. Let’s get back to the house and get ready for the next attack.”

After the attack on the two bridges, Jack and Lou went into crash mode to counter the sniper attack they believed would follow. They could only field one team. Kathy and Kelly weren’t up to going against Hasani now. Jack didn’t like not having the time to sight in and fire his rifle. Frank had his best people sight in the rifles but it was definitely not procedure to ever go hunting a sniper without a very thorough session with the rifle, ammo and sights. Jack accepted that emergencies often played hell with following the proper procedure. After studying topo maps and satellite imagery, they decided that their best chance was to work the Chain Bridge area. A deployment site area was chosen on the Maryland side of the Potomac and upriver from the bridge.

Just before first light, Jack pulled into a parking area at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal park about 300 yards upriver from Chain Bridge. Jack and Lou made their way into a clump of winter foliage and high grasses. With camouflage suits they blended in well. Jack knew the site was not good for watching the bridge, but it did give them good views of the opposite high ridges on the Virginia side. If a sniper was set up on those slopes, Jack was sure they could find him, but probably not until he fired. Dividing the search area into sectors, they began to search the opposite shore line and ridge. When the sun came up, Jack realized that Hasani would have spent hours scouting out the best shooting positions. For early morning shooting on a sunny day, it was better to be downriver from the bridge. Too late now. He could see some sections of the steep slope below the bridge. The distance to any probable sniper sites downriver was over a kilometer from their position and difficult due to the sun angle. He knew from experience hunting snipers took patience and extreme care to keep from becoming the hunted.

Two hours of constant searching turned up nothing. At 8:00 AM, the booming sound of a large caliber rifle fired from somewhere downriver broke through the sound of traffic. Nine more shots followed at almost exactly ten-second intervals. Jack had heard that sound before in Ramadi nearly eight years ago when he had been hunting Hasani and his .50 caliber sniping rifle. Even the interval was the same. After 20 seconds of no firing, Jack told Lou to scan for movement. The shooters were on the move, probably up to the Parkway.

Jack said, “Even if we see them, we’ve no shot. No sense in tipping them off that we have figured out their strategy.”

Jack got his cell out and moving a bit away from Lou, asked for Frank. He came on the line instantly. Jack said, “I’m sitting in the brush upriver from Chain Bridge. A sniper has just fired 10 shots. I’m sure he and his spotter are headed up the ridge to the Parkway for their escape ride. Look for pickup trucks. Check both inbound and outbound lanes starting from the first overlook below the bridge. He picked that spot to avoid shooting into the morning sun.” Frank hung up. Jack knew he was firing off orders to begin the hunt.

Hasani finished briefing the Professor on the car bombing operation. The Professor sat silent for a few minutes. “My friend, things went well. It’s a good start. Our security is intact. There is no trail back to us. The cars and the bodies will reveal nothing. Even the license plates were stolen. Tomorrow, the fools will expect more car bombs. Instead, you will show them the terror snipers can bring to the enemy. I accept your plan. Tomorrow, it will up to you personally. Take a good man with you. I need you. Your martyrdom is not for tomorrow. Rather, your outstanding skills will bring terror to the city Satan built. It is too bad we were not a team fighting the Templars outside of Jerusalem in the 12th century. Now get some rest. You won’t be able to sleep once you get in position.”

Hasani had scouted the possible firing positions he could use to attack the Chain Bridge area months ago. He knew just were to go and how to get there. At 11:00 PM, the driver of the white Toyota pickup pulled into an overlook area on the George Washington Parkway. The truck was stopped with lights out for less than a minute. Hasani and his spotter Ali were out of the truck with all their gear and starting down the steep slope of the Potomac River below Chain Bridge.

Hasani wanted to be east of the bridge to avoid shooting into the sun at the middle of the morning rush hour. His targets were all within 400 meters, a range he couldn’t miss from. They had a long wait. Hasani wanted to have the pickup truck blend into the normal traffic. After midnight the traffic thinned to the point that individual vehicles might stand out, or a patrolling police car might wonder why a pickup truck was stopping on the Parkway when hours before Chain Bridge was under attack. The killing of an officer always increased the vigilance of all security forces. The killing had not been part of the plan.

A light drizzle helped muffle the sound of their movement. Even so, Hasani enforced great discipline on himself and anyone under his command. No talking, smoking or jingling of equipment. Nothing that might reflect light. Their exit used different paths than the incoming. They had practiced moving on the steep slope many times, carrying fishing rods and proper licenses. They carried minimal equipment. His favorite sniping rifle, the Barrett M82A2, was American made, but they know how to make and use weapons. It weighed 27 pounds. He and his spotter carried a maximum of four magazine loads, 44, .50 Browning rounds.

The sniper nest was well concealed. He needed no night vision equipment to find his firing position. They were set up in ten minutes. The light rain and patches of misting fog might make it difficult to see the bridge and its approaches in the morning. He understood the necessity to be patient. He would wait hours for the right conditions. The Professor told him that the bridge might be closed or opened only for limited use, perhaps a lane for city-bound traffic. If it was closed, his targets were the workmen. The tactic wasn’t to maximize casualties. It was to bring the bridge under attack. Spreading terror was the goal.

Jack and Storm were putting the first search plan together when the TV monitor on the wall, tuned to Fox, interrupted programming with a news alert. Jack took one look and called the others over the intercom to come down to the command center. Kathy said, “No doubt the guy we are after is here. I’m only surprised he didn’t hit more bridges.”

In Iraq, snipers were often there to spread the chaos and kill the first responders. What is the plan here? Surely this can’t be the end game.

Kathy said, “We know the mantra is ‘the goal of terror is to terrorize.’ This bridge stuff must be only a beginning or … it’s a diversion.”

Kelly asked, “A diversion for what?”

Storm said, “The vulnerability of all cities is their need for the movement of goods and services. Throughout history, population centers were attacked by shutting off supplies into the cities under siege.”

“Storm, good approach,” Jack said. “The terrorists involved here are led by a man who has a deep historical understanding of warfare and the role of terror. He knows he doesn’t have the resources to block supply routes, there are just too many of them. His aim may be to spread chaos and terror among the people, just as their doctrine teaches. So what can he attack?”

Kathy said, “He can attack the streams of traffic that occur every day in hundreds of places. He doesn’t have to stop the flow of goods and services. He only has to disrupt them. Attacks could be at a different place every day. It would drive the police units crazy. If the attacks could be sustained for a few months, DC would be turned in to a city under siege.”

Lou looked at Jack and said, “You know what I’m thinking?”

“Yes! You’re thinking he can’t use car bombs to put the city under siege and spread chaos and terror through the population, because he couldn’t keep it up. Not enough resources and widespread car bombing is very complicated. Preparations are critical and you need a safe area to prepare the cars and train the people who will not survive the attacks. So you need a steady supply of vehicles and people. They are not reusable. It just so happens that we know the answer. Teams of snipers. Snipers can escape after the attack. There is a need only for ammo resupply and transportation. Targets are everywhere and anywhere. Firing positions 500 or 1,000 yards from the target are very difficult for fast reaction teams to attack. By the time we figure out where the attack came from, the snipers have moved.”

Kelly said, “Makes sense to me. You told us a highly skilled al Qaeda sniper is in the country. Your analysis fits the intelligence we have.”

Storm asked, “But why the car bombs?”

Kathy replied, “Because they wanted to start with a diversion. This guy knows no one could convince the security world that the real attack will come from teams of snipers. Even after the snipers begin, the security people will be worrying about car bombs and will not be willing to switch their resources to counter sniper teams. In a nutshell, that’s why we were asked to take on this mission, because the very smart people tasking us know how security and law and order organizations think.”

Jack said, “Okay. We ignore the car bombs and concentrate on the sniper threat. Storm and I will lay out the first search area. Kathy, wait until Lou and I come back with some lessons learned before you and Kelly work on your search pattern with Storm. Before we all get to work, did you and Kelly learn anything yesterday on your ground tour to the west?”

“Yes, we did. I already was familiar with the terrain but it was all new to Kelly. She can now look at a map of the area and have a better understanding of ground truth. Also, we checked county courthouses for small farm property transactions in the last three years. The badge helped with the record search. The clerks were very responsive. In Loudon County west of Goose Creek, there were 100 transactions. In western Montgomery County, 75 small farms under 20 acres changed hands in the same period. Kelly and I will work with Storm to mark these places on our maps. We’ll need a little luck to get much from a property search. We also need something to narrow down the area. Kelly and I will ponder that problem.”

Meeting over. People turned to their own tasks.

Jack went up to the master suite and called Frank. When he came on line. Jack said, “I know you’re swamped but give me a few minutes to tell you our thinking.”

Jack then gave Frank a full rundown on the meeting consensus.

Frank said, “That’s why I wanted your group up here working the problem. I agree. It will be snipers, probably starting tomorrow. The Professor won’t give us any breaks. He will feast on the chaos he caused today. What are your plans?”

“I believe the sniper attacks will take place in the areas of the two car bombs. I don’t mean the bridges themselves but the resulting traffic pattern from bridge closures or limited use. I doubt he has more than four or five teams. He won’t want any teams captured or killed. So Hasani will plan for long-range shots, probably nothing less than 300 yards. You know the closer the shooter is to the target, the more likely the target will be hit, but also closeness puts the shooters in greater danger. Good snipers are hard to find or train. He won’t want to lose any right now. So he will only want targets that can be hit with long range shots.

“I remember Hasani favored .50 caliber rifles, the Barrett specifically. There won’t be much if any sound suppression. My guess is that he’ll position a team upriver in the Potomac River Gorge where the shooter can be higher than Chain Bridge. Most likely on the ridge below the George Washington Parkway where there is a clear shot to the bridge area. The trees are still bare. Visibility should be good. He won’t want rain or high wind. There will have to be a good escape route. Probably have the snipers climb to the Parkway and get into a vehicle. At least that’s the way I would do it. The attack could shift to the Parkway itself, if Chain Bridge is closed. The same kind of logic fits the area of the Cabin John Bridge or whatever it’s called today. We’ll need to know what the traffic situations on those bridges will be tomorrow. We need to be able to focus on the most likely target.”

“Good. I’ll call you about planned bridge traffic for tomorrow. The entire effort of all the security forces will be to prevent another car bomb attack. When one doesn’t happen, they will say, “See, we stopped the terrorist car bomb attacks. I don’t drink anymore, but they may drive me back to the bottle.”

The Professor and Hasani were going through the plan for tomorrow, step by step. Meticulous detail was the Professor’s signature. He knew the devil was in the details. Get the details right, and the plan will work.

His worry was over the timing issue and the transfer of the drivers of the car bombs to the getaway cars. Hasani ran three practice runs of the target bridges during rush hour traffic at the same time as he planned attacks. The first one was very poor. By the third run, it was much better. The bridge bombs would have been within the allotted five-minute window, and the drivers could have easily transferred to the getaway cars. The bridges would not be destroyed but traffic would be delayed for hours and damage repair would take a few days to a week or so. He wasn’t after damage. He wanted terror in the hearts of every citizen. Let the authorities worry about who was responsible. No phone calls to claim credit from him. Tomorrow morning, a new phase of the war comes to Satan’s Capital.

At 7:15 AM, the car bombs and their escape cars left the stable on the Professor’s mini farm and turned north on Route 15 to the Leesburg bypass, where one set of cars then went east on Route 7 to Route 123 through McLean to Chain Bridge. The second set of cars stayed on Route 15 through Leesburg to Whites Ferry and Poolesville, and then on to the Beltway southbound to the American Legion Memorial Bridge.

The weather, for a day in mid-February, had a taste of spring. A few crocuses were showing their muted blooms in protected areas. An intermittent sun shown through clouds that threatened nothing. John Asker, his wife and their two preteen daughters were crossing Chain Bridge heading to McLean to drop the girls at a private school. After that they were going to have a leisurely breakfast at the local deli and then do some shopping at Tysons Corner for birthday presents for the oldest daughter and Alisia’s mother. It had been a while since they had had leisure time to themselves. They needed the two incomes but little time was left after attending to the essentials of married life with two daughters.

John saw the car coming toward him slow and stop. Wondering what in the world any driver was doing stopping in rush traffic on Chain Bridge, he slowed quickly and the green Ford Taurus tailgating him couldn’t stop and slid into Asker’s rear bumper. Asker thought, hell, a damn fender bender. We’ll be here for at least 30 minutes. Asker got out of his car, telling his wife and daughters to stay inside. No one was hurt, and they would soon be on their way. He saw a man half running from a car behind the one he saw stopping. A police car passed him and stopped beside the stopped cars. The police officer walked over to the cars blocking incoming city traffic. Asker heard an explosion he knew was gunfire and jumped back in his car, with the thought he had to get his family out of danger. A clear lane lay ahead and he accelerated across the bridge. The exchange of insurance information could wait until they cleared the bridge. He was directly opposite the second stopped car when the car bomb went off. The Askers’ car was blown off the bridge into the raging waters of the Potomac River. No one in the Asker car survived. Several cars were blown off the bridge. Others were burning. It was ten minutes before the first help arrived, and the first responders were too few to handle all the casualties and chaos. The Professor’s men died in the explosion. The woman police officer prevented their escape but paid with her life. No one would ever know what she knew when she died. No eye witnesses survived. The bridge wasn’t badly damaged, but it would be at least a few days before its soundness could be officially verified.

Five minutes after the first explosion, the second car bomb on the American Legion Memorial Bridge exploded. The Professor’s men escaped just as planned but several commuters were killed and wounded among the bumper to bumper traffic. It was hours before the mess was cleaned up, and the bridge was closed until it could be certified safe. Commerce and personal travel on the western loop of the Beltway came to a stop. Tomorrow, alternate routes into and out of the city would be jammed for hours.