Chapter 60

The TV news announcer was telling the camera what a beautiful day it was going to be, with no thunderstorms in the forecast and great beach weather, if anyone could find a beach.

Looking at the clock told me it was five in the morning. That was reasonable as it was six at home. I felt nasty having slept in my clothes with my leg strapped on all night. I stripped, hopped to the bathroom, and after covering my wounds with waterproof bandages, took a long shower, washing off the grime of the world. After shaving and taking care of all my morning duties, I quickly dressed and packed as always and headed for the restaurant. Having breakfast while reading the local paper is always a good way to start the day. I was having a second cup of coffee when Sandy came in and sat, waving at the waitress to bring him some coffee too.

"Sleep well, Chuck?"

"You bet, Sandy, with a full belly too. Should have exercised this morning, but I was too lazy. Any word from the team executing the search warrant?"

"More than expected. They have found bomb making training videos, propaganda videos to entice men to blow themselves up for Allah, a whole arsenal of guns, and from early estimates, about five hundred pounds of explosives and detonators. The eight tons of nitrate fertilizer is interesting, since they don't have any farm land, and the six fifty-five gallon drums of diesel fuel are also interesting, as they don't have any diesel vehicles out there."

Sandy took a drink of coffee and said, "The dogs found something I wish they had not. My clean up guys are out there right now exhuming bodies. So far they've dug up seven, but haven't gone very far or broadened the hole that much. We've taken everyone that was out there into custody including their holy man or Imam. I didn't get that much sleep considering my phone kept ringing, but at least my wife knows I'm safe."

I looked up at Sandy and asked, "This is big, should we get the D.C. investigative team out here? Should we ask for the strike team to come back us up?"

Sandy said, "I was wondering about that. We might do that so we get another couple of prosecutors out here. I haven't heard from the Bureau yet this morning, but I'd bet we have something before we go to court. When you're done, we'll go to the office and check with the Bureau. By the way, your being here is helping the Bureau and us get along. We need to work together, just like your memos suggest. Hopefully this dual investigation is the beginning of future cooperation."

We went to the office and stopped in the Bureau station. The Chief was there looking over some reports. He looked up and said, "That's some gruesome shit out at that camp. Christ, who'd have suspected stuff like that? I'm just looking over the research my men have done overnight on our favorite prosecutor. There are only two flags. One, the man has made some healthy bank deposits, and has bought some luxuries for cash that are interesting. None of that is against the law if he can tell the IRS how much he's received, where it came from, and pays taxes on it. The other flag is, the man is married to a Muslim woman whose parents are very militant. The parents are Lebanese immigrants who live in Kansas City and just happen to be down here right now. We don't know what's going on, or if there is even anything illegal happening, so we can't bring charges or even bring him in for questioning. We will watch him. I'll give the judge this information and see how he handles changing prosecutors."

We had some coffee in the station before heading to the courthouse for the early hearing. We stopped in the judge's chambers before court to advise him of what had been found out at the camp and what had been discovered about the prosecutor.

The prosecutor from Oklahoma City was in the judge's chambers looking over the evidence we had against the five men. He said it was more than enough to keep the men in custody and he would handle the citizens' side of the case. "I've already heard this morning of some craziness out at a couple of Muslim retreat camps where explosives and weapons have been found. This thing is getting out of hand and we'll let you guys in law enforcement crack down out there. Keep us safe."

A couple of deputies had been sent to intercept the prosecutor so he couldn't get to court on time. Their excuse was to take him to the houses that had been searched the previous day. They kept him all the way through noon just to be safe.

The defendants had four attorneys from a large firm located in Oklahoma City and St. Louis. When the prosecutor laid out the evidence against the men, the judge remanded them to isolated custody as was the policy for terrorists.

When that case was cleared, the fourteen men from the camp were brought in for arraignment. The terrorist evidence was documented in detail and the bodies were itemized, but had not been identified. When they were asked if they wanted counsel, none spoke. When asked how they pled, none spoke. The judge said, "The law will appoint an attorney for you if you don't have one. If you have attorneys, please state who they are so we may get them for you." They just stood there without speaking.

The judge finally spoke, "You are to be kept in isolated custody until trial. If any of you should decide you want an attorney, please advise your jailer. Bailiffs, please take these men away."

As the men were being led out of court, the four attorneys came rushing back into court. One rushed up to the judge and said, "Your honor, we've just found out these men being led from the room are our clients. We want to register as their attorneys and plead them not guilty with a request for bail."

The judge just looked at them. "You're a little late. They didn't plead, so after looking at the evidence against them, I feel they should be kept in custody until trial. Since there may be additional capital charges, they are being considered dangerous and therefore isolated. Do you have any questions, gentlemen? If not, see my clerk before you leave."

They looked among themselves and went to the judge's clerk. The judge looked at Sandy, the Bureau Chief, and me and nodded toward the door.

In the judge's chambers he said, "Those are some high priced attorneys. I don't know them personally, but I've heard of them. So far you boys have played the game the way it's supposed to be played, so stay clean, stay sharp, and protect your evidence. Now get, I have a golf game at noon."

The three of us left for the Bureau office and stopped in the ATF office to talk to the Chief there. He said he had a team out at the camp north of town and had just sent a team with dogs out to the camp near Muskogee where more explosives had been found. We made sure he knew how important that the chain of evidence was.

We left the ATF office and said goodbye to the Bureau Chief. While on the way upstairs, Sandy said, "From what I'm told, this isn't a normal trip for you. No shoot 'em ups, no dead bad guys, I hope you're not bored."

"Actually, I'm very happy nothing went bang so far. I don't really like to be involved in gunplay, it just seems to find me most of the time."

I wrote my reports of the previous day's activities and the hearing. I felt better knowing the Bureau, ATF, Homeland Security, and Marshal's offices were working together on this. I asked Sandy, "Can we get the leaders of the local Mosques together for a short meeting? I want to tell them what we've found, and how we found it, so they know we're not picking on them."

Sandy said, "I'll try, they might listen. It won't hurt to try."

An hour later Sandy said, "We're meeting at three at the Northwest Mosque. The senior Imam in the area presides there and wanted our meeting to take place within his community." We gathered up stacks of photographic evidence, including the photos of the bodies being found at the camp. The body count was now up to eleven and still counting.

Sandy and I had a leisurely lunch and arrived at the Mosque at two forty-five. We were courteously shown into a large conference room with several other men dressed in traditional attire. Most were pleasant and smiled. Sandy and I introduced ourselves and sat where directed.

The senior Imam came in and all present stood in honor of the man. When he bowed to us, the others all bowed in response, so Sandy and I did a little bow as well.

The Imam said, "You wish to address us as to your actions yesterday. We are very concerned that you took our people into custody yesterday and have withheld information from the news media. Can you explain?"

Sandy looked at me, so I began by describing the initial contact with some men who advised us of three imminent bombs that were going to explode. I described that we had been fortunate to have found all of the bombs and were able to disarm them. I passed out the photos of the bombs and the individual devices. The last photo was of the two cell phone detonators.

I then described how we were able to track down the caller to the two cell phones when someone tried to set off the bombs remotely instead of by their original timers. This was how we came in contact with the men taken into custody. I explained that we captured the men as they were exiting a house that contained a large amount of explosives, and that the original houses they had been in also had explosives stored in them. Again, I showed photos of the evidence.

"Now, gentlemen, we have another problem you may not be aware and hopefully you will want to make sure this never happens again. The camps supposedly used for retreats north of here and near Muskogee both warehouse a great deal of explosives and have been used for terrorist training. You may not feel that is so serious, but we've found several bodies buried on the grounds and are still digging them up. If you've lost track of someone in the past year or years, you might want to give us information on that person. This is a serious matter and goes beyond plain terrorism. Look at these photos and think of anyone who isn't here anymore, who dropped out of sight all of a sudden?"

I looked at the shocked Imam and said, "If I were to have let the news media get the information that real bombs were planted in shopping centers where mothers and children would be shopping, what kind of retaliation would you be able to withstand? The Federal Building is one thing, but other civilian targets? I hope you can withstand the anger of your neighbors if they should find out. They will eventually find out when these men go to court. At that time, you will all need to be making big signs of peaceful coexistence to everyone in the community."

"Now, Sir, do you understand?"

You could tell the Imam was disturbed and didn't know how to respond. I added the photographs of all of the men captured yesterday and out at the camp. "These are the men who could have brought you the wrath of protective parents and family members. You should know whom to blame. If there are more of them that you know of, get them out of the country or turn them in to the Bureau, the FBI. They will know how to deal with them. Gentlemen, I'm sorry to have brought you this information, but it was necessary."

I passed my card to the Imam, along with Sandy's, and stood. I sort of bowed to the Imam who was still sitting, stunned from the information. Another man escorted us out of the Mosque.

When we got to Sandy's car, something looked funny. I put out my arm, stopping him from using his keyless entry system. I pointed at the passenger seat that was tilted forward a little. We looked into the backseat and there on the floor behind the seat was what looked suspiciously like the bomb at the first mall yesterday.

I pulled Sandy away from the car so we were on the side of the Mosque and shielded by the building. "Call in for some help, Sandy. I'm not sure whether the ATF is going to be able to help. And wouldn't you know, my clothes are in your trunk along with three full magazines."

Sandy called the ATF, then called his station to request assistance. He said to me, "We're getting pretty thin on men, perhaps the strike force would be a good idea."

We were crouched down on the side of the building when Sandy said, "We have to tell those people not to come out. Christ, the whole building could collapse if that bomb goes off."

I said, "Tell you what, stay here and keep watch. Check everywhere constantly. I'll go to the door and if I'm lucky it won't be locked. I'll tell the men to be careful and to leave by the back door so they won't be caught in an explosion. I'll come around from the back. I'll yell at you so you'll know I'm coming."

"You sure you want to expose yourself?"

"Somebody's got to do it. Watch, everywhere, stay here under cover, be careful."

I slithered along the wall in the front of the Mosque, looking at the car and hurried to the door. I was in luck, the door was open. No one was visible inside, so I went to the conference room and found the men still there. I said, "All of you must leave the building for your safety. Someone has planted a bomb in our car in front of the building. If it goes off the whole building could collapse. Please, humor me and leave by the back. Hopefully, that's where your parking lot is."

The men were suddenly fearful as I was obviously trying to help them. As we were heading to the rear of the building, the old Imam said to me "Thank you, I will do all in my power to make us a peaceful community."

When we were out the door I said, "Give me a telephone number where I can call you when the danger here has passed."

The older man gave his number and asked for mine, which was on the card I gave him. When we had them written, I headed around the building to get to Sandy. I was about to yell at Sandy when movement off to the right caught my eye. My hand automatically went for the Glock as I tried to identify what I had seen. A man was crouched behind a large transformer that had some decorative bushes around it. I could see Sandy kneeling down up front, looking around and trying to stay concealed.

I picked up a rock and threw it at Sandy. It landed next to him and he jumped, startled. He looked at me and I waved him down and with hand motions pointed to where the man was crouched. When he nodded, and while looking at the man, I yelled, "Hey, Sandy."

The man looked at me and knew he was seen. He stood and fired at me with some kind of semi-auto handgun. He fired about five rounds before I shot at him. He staggered back, but didn't go down. When I was about to shoot again, something hit me on my side that was hard enough to knock me off my feet. I was stunned. I looked up and Sandy was in a kneeling firing position, aiming behind me. He fired multiple times before I was able to look where the original man was. He was trying to do something with a cell phone when "BOOM" the bomb in front of Mosque exploded. He picked up his gun and aimed at me, but I didn't miss his head this time.

I had rolled to the side of the building to get some protection and kept looking around for more danger. Christ, this was getting ridiculous. Every time someone took a shot at me lately, they were hitting me. My side really hurt. Must have been another .45 or something like that.

Sandy hollered, "Chuck, are you okay?"

"I'm okay, I got one off to the side of us."

Sandy answered, "I got the one behind you. Sorry, I didn't see him until he shot. Did he hit you?"

Sandy came up and helped me up and looked at the back of my suit coat. He said, "Looks like your nice suit got ruined. Hey, you're bleeding somewhere. Let's get the coat off."

I took the coat off and Sandy had me take off my shirt. About that time the senior Imam came up to us and said, "Thank you for watching out for us. The front of the Mosque is destroyed. We could all have been hurt. Oh, you're hurt, let me help."

We finally found where I was bleeding. The round had pinched the flesh where it hit and moved sideways tearing the skin. I had Sandy tear off the tail of my shirt so I could hold it over the tear. Sandy used his phone to call in an incident and to get a clean up crew out. Meanwhile sirens were coming from at least two different directions.

Sandy and I joined with the Imam and the other men who had been in the conference room in the front of the Mosque to look at the damage. It was amazingly extensive. What was left of Sandy's Ford was twisted junk. I looked around the wreck for my clothes and found the little gym bag with the three magazines further down the street, along with my suitcase that was torn open. Lying on the side of the road was my briefcase with my laptop in it. Wonder if that was going to work?

When a fire truck and two police cars pulled up, they got out of their vehicles to look at the damage, trying to determine what had happened. Sandy and I showed our badges and IDs. We said we were in charge of the crime scene and that our team was on the way.

A duty car pulled up with a team that came out quickly. While Sandy was briefing the duty team, the cleanup crew came with the CSI team from the Bureau. I showed them the two downed men and walked back up to where Sandy had one of the firemen get a first aid kit and clean up the skin tear and bandage me. The tear shouldn't require anything except a butterfly bandage. The fireman cleaned me up, put the butterfly on and bandaged the area. He said I should go see a physician and noted my stitches on the left arm.

I put my shirt back on with my vest over it just for safety. Because I didn't know what else to do with it, I put my coat on too. I had to give statements to the CSI team and the local detectives. When we were finally done, I asked Sandy, "Take me to a Sears or Penny's. I'll get a pair of khakis and a shirt. Everything else is in shreds. I think my toiletries are okay though."

He said, "You know, I'm done too. Are you going to stay overnight or just go home? Oh yeah, you're flying yourself. Are you going to be able to fly with,,,, say you need an x-ray on your ribs. You probably have some broken or cracked ribs. Let me take you to the hospital real quick. I'll make them check you out right away."

I couldn't talk Sandy out of it so we went to the hospital where in all their speed, it still took them three hours to look at my skin tear, and finally get me x-rayed. The report was as expected, another cracked rib. It was now after nine o'clock. Sandy said, "We'll swing by Wal-Mart. You can pick up a cheap pair of pants and shirt along with anything else you need. Stay overnight and fly back in the morning. You need to call in the strike team for me too. Is that okay?"