American Radical by Tamer Elnoury & Kevin Maurer

Author:Tamer Elnoury & Kevin Maurer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

The Bridge

Chiheb climbed into the passenger seat of my rental car the next morning. On the way to Jaser’s apartment, I worked the American sleeper into the conversation.

“Do you think he would want to meet me eventually?” I asked.

“Without a doubt, without a doubt,” Chiheb said. “I mean, once he talks with me.”

“How do you make this meeting happen?” I asked. “Do you have to call someone? Do you have to send an e-mail because you don’t have his number?”

“When I go back to Montreal I will start making contacts with the brothers, God willing, to make arrangements to make the plan for the meeting with the brother.”

“Beautiful,” I said.

Jaser was waiting for us and jumped into the front seat, forcing Chiheb into the back. Chiheb put up a fight, but Jaser insisted. He knew the way. Like a human GPS, he spent the whole drive barking out directions.

We were headed to the Highland Creek railway bridge in Scarborough. The Maple Leaf, a train line jointly operated by VIA rail—the Canadian train service—and Amtrak—the American rail service—travels over the bridge en route to Penn Station in New York.

We parked in a lot next to a water treatment facility. A trail ran near the train bridge. I saw a few bikers riding away from us as I got out of the car. Jaser had his leather jacket over his white robe, and Chiheb wore his bin Laden jacket. Both Chiheb and Jaser wore kufis, knit Muslim prayer hats. There was no mistaking we were Arabs.

Chiheb led the way as we walked toward the bridge. We cut through a thicket of trees and walked along the edge of the tracks. A commuter train heading toward Toronto passed us. I could feel the rumble of the cars in my chest.

“That was nowhere near the size of the target,” Jaser said.

Soon, the steel bridge came into view. It was a one-hundred-foot drop off the bridge into very shallow water. A steel railing ran the length of both sides of the bridge. A footbridge ran underneath for pedestrians. Before we got on the bridge, I stopped Chiheb.

“Are you sure about the train schedule?” I said.

Once we were on the bridge, we were stuck. There was no place to go if the train came.

“Positive,” he said.

There were two sets of tracks on the bridge separated by about four feet. Chiheb got on all fours to inspect the rail. The scientist in him took over. He looked at the attack like it was an experiment. He estimated the thickness of the rail and talked about the different ways we could cut it.

Blowtorch.

Jackhammer.

Jaser suggested a military-grade laser, which we all knew was impossible to get.

It was clear a blowtorch was never going to cut through the rail in time. Explosives were probably the only course of action, something Jaser had pointed out in an earlier discussion. Chiheb was thinking out loud as he tried to figure out if two hours was enough time to cut the rail. He was yelling out his ideas in Arabic.

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