The driver of the white panel truck looked over and saw something even more horrible—several more soldiers running towards them, rifles at the ready. He picked up his walkie-talkie and keyed the mike button: “All units, this is Charlie, baleet zheeyot, repeat, ‘stomach ache,’ ‘stomach ache.’ Out.” He put the truck in PARK, pulled a pistol from under his jacket and hid it in his front jacket pocket, and got out of the truck. His passenger’s face was blank with surprise when he heard the order, but after a moment’s hesitation he too got out, his hands inside his coat pocket.

Hundreds of frightened people were running hysterically off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge towards the toll booths—some were so scared that they were throwing themselves over the side and plummeting several stories to the pavement below. The police were reacting quickly, trying desperately to restore order. “Stay in your vehicles!” they shouted from public-address loudspeakers. “Do not panic! There is no danger! Stay in your vehicles!”

The two Russians walked quickly amidst the crowds, moving quickly enough to not get trampled but not so fast that it drew attention to themselves. CalTrans officers were emerging from the toll plaza, arms upraised, urging folks to go back to their vehicles so they could be moved. As hard as they tried to avoid them, one CalTrans worker appeared in front of the lead Russian. “Sir, where the hell do you think you’re goin’?” the hefty woman shouted. “Go back to your vehicle, right now! You can’t leave your…”

“Yop tvayu mat!” the Russian said, and put two bullets into the woman. These new gunshots created a virtual human stampede. Terrified drivers ran in every direction, trampling anyone unlucky enough to be trying to head in the opposing direction.

The two Russians followed the surging human tidal wave past the toll plaza, steering themselves towards the north side of the onramp where a new east span of the Bay Bridge was under construction. They climbed atop an immense dump truck at the base of a concrete support structure. Moments later, several construction workers joined them. “What happened?” one of them asked.

“We heard gunshots,” one of the Russians replied in a pretty good American accent. “When we saw everyone else running, we ran too.”

“Shit, man, this is the biggest panic I’ve seen since the Eighty-Nine earthquake,” another worker said. “What did you see?”

“A huge explosion,” the Russian replied. “A huge fireball, as big as those suspension towers.”

“What?” the worker asked. “What are you talking about? I didn’t see no explosion.”

“Oh. Uyobyvat! Are you kidding!” And at that, he pulled out a small cellphone, hit a speed-dial button, then pressed the green “SEND” key—and the white panel truck, loaded with almost two thousand kilos of high explosives, detonated in a massive fireball. The entire easternmost section of the Bay Bridge blew apart, sending hundreds of vehicles flying through the air and crashing down to the edge of San Francisco Bay.

But that was not the last explosion to occur on the Bay area bridges that morning.

When the terrorists’ emergency call went out, a second terrorist team already caught in heavy traffic on the westbound span of the bridge west of Yerba Buena Island in a large Chevy panel van also exited their vehicle, ran through traffic towards San Francisco, and detonated the explosives by remote control when they started to see National Guard troops up ahead in their path.

The Golden Gate Bridge to the northwest was not spared. Another truck filled with explosives detonated in the northbound lane several meters from the toll plaza, and a second truck bomb exploded almost exactly at mid-span in the southbound lanes. The suspension bridge twisted wildly, several of the cables holding the span snapped, and huge chunks of the roadway fell into the straits, but the bridge somehow held.

Market Street in the heart of San Francisco came under attack moments later. Through clouds of smoke wafting in all directions, six Humvees and two large sports-utility vehicles made their way through the debris and craters in the street. Each Humvee had a soldier in regular-looking green camouflage fatigues in the gunner’s turret, manning a fifty-caliber machine gun. The Humvees blocked the intersections of Drumm, California, and Market Streets, deploying two terrorists from each vehicle. The terrorists hid small remote-control explosive devices in trash containers or under parked vehicles, then took up defensive positions on opposite street corners. The fourth Humvee and the SUVs continued down Drumm Street on to a high-rise office building just west of Justin Herman Plaza, overlooking the San Francisco Ferry Building and World Trade Center on the waterfront.