LA_MERC_LaTech
March 24th, 2004, 12:28 PM
Prologue
Amanda woke with a start as the alarm clock beside her bed rang.
Slowly, she sat up and through bleary eyes surveyed the weather through her bedside window. Snow gently fell against the windowpane and was slowly building into small mounds on her windowsill. She gazed past the ever-increasing piles and noticed that sometime before her alarm clock woke her, a snowplow had passed her apartment building and had shoved a fair amount of snow alongside her car.
“Going to have to give myself just a little more time this morning to dig my car out,” she joked to herself.
She got out of bed and began her morning routine of showering first, and then making breakfast. While sipping her coffee, she hunted through her apartment for her keys, which she had misplaced the night before. After finding them on the nightstand, she put her coffee cup in the sink and left her apartment, headed for work.
“Have good day, Ms. Amanda, ” Petya, Amanda’s next door neighbor said as she locked her door.
“Spaciba Petya!” she replied. Her Russian wasn’t very good, but with her new assignment in Moscow, she figured it was going to get better one way or another.
As she pushed open the door to the building, the cold Moscow air hit her full in the face chilling her almost to the bone. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” She smiled as she tightly wrapped her scarf around her face to keep the bitter Russian wind from touching her skin.
After digging her car out of the snow, she started it up and began her morning commute to work. Moscow traffic was notoriously bad, but having grown up in Chicago, she was used to the noise and the bustle.
She finally pulled up to her new place of work, and stopped at the guard shack located outside the main gate.
“Ma’am, may I see your identification papers please,” the Marine located within the building said.
She handed over her papers and turned the heater up on her car. It amazed her how quickly her car had cooled off after just barely rolling down the window.
“Here you go, Ms. Jacobsen. You may proceed around the building and park in the parking area designated for you. Have a good day.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she replied and drove forward as the gate opened up.
Slowly, she drove past the building in which she was going to work for the next couple months. It was a three-story building constructed of brick with a glass and steel façade that faced the main road from which she had just come. There were a number of trees that were placed along the driveway, and several other small shrubs along the building itself. The driveway continued on to the right side of the building, but Amanda turned and followed the left side, passing the face of the building. It was just as she passed the center of the building that she noticed three men running toward her from the guard shack with a dog that looked like a German Shepard.
It was at this moment, when there was no hope for saving her that the plastic explosive bomb that had been placed in the undercarriage of the car detonated.
The bomb ripped through the undercarriage of the car with enough force to blow the roof completely off the car and into the top of one of the trees that was twenty feet away. Sharp pieces of metal flew through the air in all directions, shredding whatever got in their way. Two of the Marines were knocked flat on their backs due to the blast, but not before large pieces of flesh were ripped away by the flying metal. The concussion wave slammed into the façade of the building, instantly shattering the glass windows and sending those pieces of glass into the foyer. The receptionist sitting at the desk was impaled by a large piece of glass and was dead before she hit the ground.
The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the old city while in the distance, sirens began to wail as they approached. As the smoke began to clear, the lone Marine that survived the blast entered the building. His eyes were immediately drawn to the blood splattered seal that was on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk -- the seal of the US Ambassador.
CNN Center, Atlanta
“In the third terrorist attack this month in Russia, four people were killed and twelve others were seriously wounded when a bomb, believed to have been hidden under the car of a worker at the embassy, exploded just outside the US Embassy in Moscow. Russian police refused to comment on those responsible for the blast, but inside sources point to Russian fundamentalists as the source of the recent bombings. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was asked today to comment on the apparent targeting of American interests in Russia. “It is a sad state of affairs when political allies are targeted on foreign soil. We will not rest until those responsible are apprehended.”
In other news…”
Amanda woke with a start as the alarm clock beside her bed rang.
Slowly, she sat up and through bleary eyes surveyed the weather through her bedside window. Snow gently fell against the windowpane and was slowly building into small mounds on her windowsill. She gazed past the ever-increasing piles and noticed that sometime before her alarm clock woke her, a snowplow had passed her apartment building and had shoved a fair amount of snow alongside her car.
“Going to have to give myself just a little more time this morning to dig my car out,” she joked to herself.
She got out of bed and began her morning routine of showering first, and then making breakfast. While sipping her coffee, she hunted through her apartment for her keys, which she had misplaced the night before. After finding them on the nightstand, she put her coffee cup in the sink and left her apartment, headed for work.
“Have good day, Ms. Amanda, ” Petya, Amanda’s next door neighbor said as she locked her door.
“Spaciba Petya!” she replied. Her Russian wasn’t very good, but with her new assignment in Moscow, she figured it was going to get better one way or another.
As she pushed open the door to the building, the cold Moscow air hit her full in the face chilling her almost to the bone. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” She smiled as she tightly wrapped her scarf around her face to keep the bitter Russian wind from touching her skin.
After digging her car out of the snow, she started it up and began her morning commute to work. Moscow traffic was notoriously bad, but having grown up in Chicago, she was used to the noise and the bustle.
She finally pulled up to her new place of work, and stopped at the guard shack located outside the main gate.
“Ma’am, may I see your identification papers please,” the Marine located within the building said.
She handed over her papers and turned the heater up on her car. It amazed her how quickly her car had cooled off after just barely rolling down the window.
“Here you go, Ms. Jacobsen. You may proceed around the building and park in the parking area designated for you. Have a good day.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she replied and drove forward as the gate opened up.
Slowly, she drove past the building in which she was going to work for the next couple months. It was a three-story building constructed of brick with a glass and steel façade that faced the main road from which she had just come. There were a number of trees that were placed along the driveway, and several other small shrubs along the building itself. The driveway continued on to the right side of the building, but Amanda turned and followed the left side, passing the face of the building. It was just as she passed the center of the building that she noticed three men running toward her from the guard shack with a dog that looked like a German Shepard.
It was at this moment, when there was no hope for saving her that the plastic explosive bomb that had been placed in the undercarriage of the car detonated.
The bomb ripped through the undercarriage of the car with enough force to blow the roof completely off the car and into the top of one of the trees that was twenty feet away. Sharp pieces of metal flew through the air in all directions, shredding whatever got in their way. Two of the Marines were knocked flat on their backs due to the blast, but not before large pieces of flesh were ripped away by the flying metal. The concussion wave slammed into the façade of the building, instantly shattering the glass windows and sending those pieces of glass into the foyer. The receptionist sitting at the desk was impaled by a large piece of glass and was dead before she hit the ground.
The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the old city while in the distance, sirens began to wail as they approached. As the smoke began to clear, the lone Marine that survived the blast entered the building. His eyes were immediately drawn to the blood splattered seal that was on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk -- the seal of the US Ambassador.
CNN Center, Atlanta
“In the third terrorist attack this month in Russia, four people were killed and twelve others were seriously wounded when a bomb, believed to have been hidden under the car of a worker at the embassy, exploded just outside the US Embassy in Moscow. Russian police refused to comment on those responsible for the blast, but inside sources point to Russian fundamentalists as the source of the recent bombings. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was asked today to comment on the apparent targeting of American interests in Russia. “It is a sad state of affairs when political allies are targeted on foreign soil. We will not rest until those responsible are apprehended.”
In other news…”