Barry Kelly | Facts and Fictions

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.

When Storm, who was doing the navigation, saw the Brandon McLean house, she said, “Dad, what kind of people are they? Look at this house. I’ve never even been inside a place like this. Have you?”

“Only at a crime scene. Notice they never act or talk as if they have real money. Jack is still a Marine and cop and Kathy is a spook. They are very good people, but hard. Jack and Kathy look like they’re the all-American couple but they can kill easily. Kelly is now almost there. She killed two professionals in a 15-foot shootout. That is just not natural. She has her mother’s DNA whose trade was killing on the field of battle. She was better than Kathy and equal to Jack. I do okay, but in a rare moment of honesty with my daughter, I’m not in Jack’s league.

“Remember, they’ll never make us do anything. We can always say no. The pay is very good. I believe we are on the side of the ‘white hats’ and we can contribute.”

They had only been sitting outside for a few minutes when Shadow came bouncing out and put his huge paws on the car’s roof. Storm took one look and said, “Dad, I think he wants you to come out first.”

“Sure, Shadow and I are old friends. That dog is smarter than most people.”

Lou got out and was greeted warmly by a sitting Shadow lifting his right front paw to shake hands. Storm said, “Do you think he knows I have a problem with huge black dogs?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? Shadow come on over and say hello to Storm. She’s a bit afraid of you. Maybe you should sleep in her room tonight.”

“For God’s sake, Dad, don’t tell him that.”

“Why not? A dog that big sleeps anywhere he wants.”

Kelly came out and said, “Lou stop scaring her. Shadow hasn’t bitten anyone yet this week.”

Storm said, “That’s not a bit funny, Kelly.”

“Well, it’s true. Come on in. Kathy’s expected by dinner time. I’ll show you to your rooms and give you a chance to freshen up a bit. Jack’s downstairs in the gym doing an incredible workout. You can join him if you want a workout. He’s been helping me with my Hapkido.”

Storm said, “No thanks. I’ll pass for now. A hot shower is what I want.”

“You may change your mind. All the guests’ baths have deep soaking tubs with jacuzzi options. Follow me and I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Looking around her bedroom and attached bath, Storm thought I could get used to this. The entire house looks like it came out of a House Beautiful magazine. Storm was still exploring when Mrs. Minh said over the intercom, “Miss Kathy is here.”

While the Minhs were putting her light baggage in the master suite, Kathy ran downstairs to the gym. Jack had just finished his third set of 20 pull ups, when Kathy burst in and threw her arms around him. “I couldn’t wait to get here. You can’t believe how much I missed you. First, take me up to that beautiful master bedroom place and then walk me through the house. It looks like Lee has done a marvelous job.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to work out first?”

“Come with me now! No stops for a shower.”

After one of the Minh’s superb dinners of curried chicken, a Vietnamese noodle soup with shrimp and a dash of nuoc mam, and steamed rice, Jack said, “We’ll have coffee in the new command center. I haven’t shown the center to you yet. We’ll run our new operation from there.”

Kelly said, “Tell me, what was that sauce in the noodle soup? It was super. Did the Minhs make it or buy it?”

Jack laughed and said, “Nuoc mam is notorious. People either love it or can’t stand it. The Minhs bought it. The sauce is the result of a long process of distilling fish and that’s as far as I go.”

The command center was a 30-foot by 15-foot room with several flat screen monitors on the walls. Three stand-alone iMacs with quad processors, i7 intel cores and 27-inch monitors lined the far wall. When everyone had gathered around the table with fresh-brewed Colombian roast, Jack said, “I’ve accepted a very difficult mission. Some background. An al Qaeda senior leader is now running operations in the United States. The car bombs in Charleston, the burning of churches and the attacks on infra-structure targets in South Carolina are his doing. We now believe he is in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

“This man is skilled in the deployment and management of sniper teams. He honed his skills in Iraq. On a few occasions, I was part of a counter-sniper group to clean out the snipers operating in the Sunni Triangle. I don’t believe this al Qaeda leader was operating in the field as a sniper. A highly talented sniper, who was the leader of the sniper teams in Iraq, is now in the United States. There is no guesswork here. Surveillance cameras and other information confirm their presence. Kathy was the first to spot this high ranking terrorist in Charleston. She saw and photographed him leaving the rug shop a few weeks before we destroyed it. So far, nothing I’ve said is conjecture or speculation.

“The rest of this brief is at best projected analysis of the above facts or conjecture based on experience. Make no mistake, the threat is very real. The man who sometimes provides our missions believes there will be attacks in the Capitol area within the next few weeks.

“Our role is to identify probable sniper targets, locate shooting points, and develop plans to deny the snipers success within an area extending from a few kilometers outside the beltway to the Capitol. Questions?”

No one said anything. They all just stared at Jack. Finally Kathy said, “There are only five of us. The search area is huge, and there is very little time. There is one more fact. I think we have a clue in the cars our terrorist picked to drive. In Myrtle Beach, he drove a Cadillac CTS. He left that car in Myrtle Beach and drove a Passat north to Richmond. His car choices were made to fit in with his cover and pattern of movement. He did not want his car to call attention to him. Guess what he deliberately bought in Richmond? A used white Ford 150 4×4 pickup truck. He is not going to locate in an urban condo or in a downtown apartment with a pickup truck. True to his own internal security commandments, he bought the truck to blend in with his new environment.”

Kelly said, “You mean this guy is going redneck on us and live in a rural area?”

“I don’t know about the redneck part, but I’ll bet he’s now located in some relatively isolated rural area. Remember the four-wheel drive capability. He doesn’t want to be blocked by road conditions, and we are now in an area where snowstorms can shut down travel as late as mid-March. We need to search for the white Ford 150, as well as sniper nests.”

Jack said, “Excellent point, Kathy! You and Kelly allot some of your time to searching likely rural areas for the truck. The place would likely be within an hour of DC and I think to the west, areas like Leesburg and Poolesville, Maryland. He won’t want to be caught east of DC because of the natural barriers to car travel. That logic also makes south and north of the city less attractive. Now to the resources issue.

“I’m sure there will be other teams working the problem. Our job is to limit the area to patrol and come up with innovative approaches to foil multi-sniper attacks. We’ll have logistical and analytic support and special equipment. A helicopter for our sole use will be positioned at the Leesburg Airport tomorrow or the next day. There must be more questions.”

Lou said, “I’m sure you have an approach. Tell us your ideas and our questions can be more to the point. So far the mission is overwhelming.”

“You’re right, I’ve got a basic plan for beginning, but I’ll need help to flesh it out.”

For the next hour Jack laid out his initial approach. A lively discussion period followed. Before midnight they had a plan that gave them a blueprint to start.

Jack designated responsibility areas. He and Lou made up one search team. Kelly and Kathy, the second one. Storm was given the responsibility for running their command room, coordinating intelligence, integrating search team reports and keeping track of searched areas. Jack and Lou would assign search priorities. They could sleep in tomorrow, but after that, breakfast would be served at 6:30.

The next morning breakfast was over by 7:30 and all, except Storm, were out of the house. She was in the command center getting familiar with the equipment and setting up databases to handle the incoming information and channel it into files to organize and retrieve search results. Jack and Lou left to pick up the equipment Frank promised Jack from a local storage unit business. Before going to pick up the material, Jack stopped to rent a pickup truck. He thought the Professor’s logic made sense. For their search activities, pickups would blend in far better. He planned to get a number of magnetized signs to change the truck’s appearance from time to time.

After checking for anyone following them, Jack drove back to the house and they off-loaded the equipment into the garage. The box of maps and declassified images were carried into the house for Storm to sort and store. Kathy and Kelly, following Jack’s lead, also rented a pickup truck. Following Kathy’s hunch about the Professor using a remote rural area for his headquarters, they checked the records in the Loudon County courthouse in Leesburg and the Montgomery County, MD, records. Moving from Leesburg to Montgomery County, Kathy crossed the Potomac River at Whites Ferry. Kathy gave Kelly five dollars and told her to hold it out the window for collection. Kelly couldn’t believe a ferry, dating back before the Civil War, was still the site for a major river crossing. Kathy pointed out the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal just east of Whites Ferry.

Kathy said, “Look, kid, while we’re here I’m going to give you a bit of area knowledge. It will help put things in context tomorrow when we begin a serious search. Just ahead on Whites Ferry Road is a town called Poolesville. For a period in the Civil War, it was occupied by Confederate troops. We can get a quick lunch and then I want to browse a really good antique store, called Hearthside. The couple who run it know antiques. In my single days, I bought some things there. I was always treated well and never overcharged. Anyway, I like to mix a little fun and pleasure into our work. The man who owns the shop also does some work in real estate and may know if anyone bought a remote small farm in the past year or two.”

Storm was swamped with the maps and DVD images Lou and Jack handed off to her. She asked Mrs. Minh to please bring her a sandwich and coffee. She didn’t want to leave the windowless room Jack called the command center. She had now mastered the technology and swiped topographical maps, images and text from the iMacs to a series of monitors along the wall. She was ready to get on with the first search when Jack gave the word and selected a target.