“You really need a girl, Warner,” Tonia said. “Then you’ll understand.”
“If you say so.” Warner held up a sheet of paper. “But rather than talk about your desperate sex life, we need to find this guy.”
“I'll have you know my sex life, and or any related desperation, is none of your cyborg-autobot business,” she huffed. “I bet you’ve never even seen female anatomy that wasn’t in a textbook.”
Warner shrugged and held out a paper. Tonia snatched it from his hand and looked at it. “Damn, that man is hairy. Is that even a man, or is it a skinny-assed Sasquatch?”
“Kharzai Ghiassi is his name,” Warner said.
Tonia's expression sharpened. She stared diligently back at the page.
“He’s the one Tony was calling about,” she said. “He’s gone rogue or something.”
“Yeah. And he’s out for revenge.”
“Well, with all the security we’ve got on that park, I can’t imagine anyone getting a shot off.”
“When I was in Afghanistan the second time, there was a story some of the Special Forces guys told about a guy named Seirim Al Gul. The name means Hairy Demon. He was supposed to be a CIA plant who made it all the way up the chain in one of the al-Qaeda splinter groups. He was known to appear all a sudden in the middle of a group of soldiers, give them some really useful information, then vanish without leaving a trace. One time, he popped into the FOB — that’s a Forward Operating Base — unannounced and left a package for the SF commander then disappeared. When they opened the box, it was the head of one of the ten most-wanted Taliban fighters in the country, with a note saying ‘Happy Yom Kippur.’”
“Happy Yom Kippur?”
“Yeah, the captain was Jewish and it was the holiday.”
“So you think the Hairy Demon is this same guy?”
“When I saw the picture, I immediately thought of him,” Warner said. “That guy sure looks like the image I had from their description of Al Gul.”
“Well, if that’s what he still looks like,” Tonia held out the picture and circled his face with her finger, “it should not be hard to find him in a crowd.”
“Let’s hope.”
Chapter 26
All along the Delaney Park strip area, maintenance workers labored to clear the park in preparation for the following morning's gathering under the watchful supervision of highly visible members of the Anchorage Police, Alaska State Troopers, FBI, Secret Service, and National Guard Military Police. At the west end of the strip, a group of young men who looked like college students all wearing thigh-length soccer-style shorts and matching neon green T-shirts with black-and-red lettering declaring their group as the Hornets complained to a police officer.
“Come on, dude,” said one of the young men. “You've seen us out here practicing on the same day every week. The citywide Ultimate Frisbee tournament is next weekend, and we need to be ready. The guys we're up against are killers!”
“They've got a pro from New Zealand, and two dudes from Hawaii on their team,” said another of the jersey-wearing men. “We really need the practice to beat these guys.” Several of them held up their professional-grade Frisbees and nodded vigorously as punctuation to the statement.
The officer held his hands up, palms forward in placation of their complaint. “Sorry, fellas, nothing I can do. The strip is closed so we can get ready for the president's visit. Try Kincaid Park or Valley of the Moon instead.”
“But Team Thor is practicing at Kincaid, our rivals with the bloke from New Zealand. We can't practice on the same field as them.”
“Try Valley of the Moon park,” the officer said.
“Valley of The Moon is too crowded with little kids. It’s not safe for us to fling these bad boys around civilians, man,” He held up the heavy-duty professional disc. Noticeably larger and thicker than a kid's Frisbee, thrown from a strong player's hands it could break a child's bones or cause an even more serious injury if it hit them in the head.
“Nothing I can do, fellas. Play elsewhere — I’m not making any exceptions. Unless you want to bring it up to those guys.” He pointed to the top of an office building. The players glanced up and their mouths dropped open as they watched an FBI sniper team set their rifle on its bipod and scope out the area.
“Whoa, dude,” said one of them, squinting toward the shapes moving on the roof, “is that for real?”
“You really want to find out?” asked the officer, a smirk on his lips.
“Just like Call of Duty Urban Warfare®,” another said.
“Yeah,” the officer said, “except this ain't a game, and if you screw up, there's no respawning for a do-over.”
“Let's try West High's football field,” their leader said. “It shouldn't be too busy.”
“Good thinking,” the officer said with a wink.
As the young men made their way to a Jeep parked in one of the spaces that ringed the periphery of the grassy park, they noticed for the first time just how many police officers, dog handlers, and men in black suits and sunglasses milled around, checking and re-checking seemingly every corner of the field, the houses and buildings next to it. One of them pointed to a pair of officers coming out of a small brick hut that led to the underground accesses.
Unknown to them as they moved away from the Delaney Park Strip and left for the West High School football field was the consternation of those in charge. The Frisbee team glanced back toward the open space and noted a group of men in suits and uniforms near the half acre rose garden. The seriousness of their demeanor seemed to mar the quiet beauty of the manicured green bushes, their red flowers making the team leader think of blood. One of the men in the group was pointing at something then turned his head and shot a look at the team. The tall red-haired man’s expression seemed to be a not so subtle encouragment to keep walking.
Caufield and his Secret Service and law enforcement counterparts stood around a table next to the rose garden. Birds chirped and sang from within the thorny tangles that walled off the semi-private area of the park. The area was frequently used to host weddings, formal parties or other ceremonies. Today it was their temporary command post as the park was being setup for the President. The men and women in the group were acutely aware of the threat and all of them were equally frustrated by their seeming inability to turn up any clue as to its embodiment. No explosives had been found. No unexpected electrical signals appeared on scanners. No suspicious radio frequencies came up in the tests. Were it not for the fact that the mere presence of both Kharzai and Farrah were evidence of a likely and imminent threat on its own strength, Caufield would have dismissed the whole thing as ludicrous. As he listened to a National Guard captain detail the positions of Military Police stationed around the outer perimeter of the field, Caufield’s eyes followed a large, bright yellow butterfly as it fluttered past, landing on a rose flower and extending its proboscis into the center of the Everything seemed just too peaceful.
Sniper teams and counter sniper teams settled in residence on the tallest buildings, viewing the vast majority of the area. Thanks to the open layout of the thoroughly modern downtown Anchorage landscape, few areas were out of their view, and those that were also unusable by a potential shooter. The teams would stay in position until the president and his guests were safely out of the area the next day.
The young men walked past a pregnant Asian lady who strolled into the park from which they had just been evicted.
“They probably ain't gonna let you through, lady,” one of them said to her. “They're being real jerks about it all being off limits for the president's visit tomorrow.”