by Rick Jones
* * *
Unlike Mostapa, Kasmi, who held the west side position, was more in tune with his surroundings. Like an animal that sensed great danger the hairs on the back of his neck, like the hackles of a dog, began to rise. Kasmi knew he was not alone. The homegrown terrorist searched his left and then his right. Then he examined the area behind him.
Nothing but immovable shadows, dark and steady.
Still, he continued to feel a presence—could feel eyes locking on him in examination.
Slowly, Kasmi turned with the point of his weapon leading the way, a slow and steady move, the motion silent. Shadows remained, both dark and impenetrable. Nevertheless, he crooked his finger around the trigger and waited.
To his left, a rustle of branches and a rattle of leaves. He turned, homed in, and immediately pulled the trigger, a knee-jerk reaction. He strafed the area with suppressed gunfire. His surroundings lit up with staccato bursts of muzzle flashes, a flicker show of light. Then as he held off with the smell of gunpowder heavy in the air, he used the point of his weapon to move aside the damaged branches.
On the ground was a raccoon, its hide pelted with bullets.
Feeling relieved while pulling away, a hand wrapped around his chin and dragged him into the brush. Kasmi could not utter a sound as he tried to disengage himself from the thing that pulled him inside the cover of the forest—by the troll who had come to claim its victim. But it wasn’t a troll at all. It was something much worse.
Though the figure was as black as pitch, the only thing it was able to offer to Kasmi about its identity, the only thing that gleamed within the Dark, was the white band of a Roman Catholic collar.
Here was his demon.
As Kasmi tried to redirect the point of his rifle, the shape knocked it aside.
When the blackened form dragged the terrorist to a point where even the soft rays of the moon could not penetrate the canopy of trees, Kasmi was left lying on a bed of pine needles. As he tried to get up with his surroundings as terrifying as Stygian darkness, he felt the edge of a knife’s blade slide neatly across his throat as if his skin was as tender as a cake of butter.
Gagging a horrible wetness while stumbling backwards with a hand to his throat, Kasmi set off his weapon, which lit the area up with bursts of light from the discharges. But these flashes of light did not give him a glimpse of what had taken him, the area nothing but brush and trees. Whatever demon had stolen him to the woods was now gone.
Falling to his knees, Kasmi, whose real name was Damien Kershaw who once served dishonorably in the military only to find Mohammad Allawi as his salvation, discovered a darkness that was far greater than that which surrounded him.
* * *
From his position, Farooq Aaziz saw the muzzle flashes from Kasmi’s position. Into his lip mic, he said, “Kasmi.”
Nothing.
“Kasmi, do you read?”
Silence.
And then: “Mostapa.”
Still nothing.
Slapping his lip mic downward in frustration, Aaziz muttered, “So, you are here.”
Farooq Aaziz, once a commander in the military who was dishonorably discharged for black-marketing schemes while serving in Iraq, left his post to confront a greater demon than those he had faced in the Middle East.
* * *
Asad Juma had heard Aaziz call out to Mostapa and Kasmi, only to receive silence in return. “Aaziz.” Juma’s voice was soft but loud enough to make contact. “I’m getting nothing from Mostapa and Kasmi. I’m leaving my post to reconnoiter their positions. There’s a good chance we have company. Right now, I need you to advance on the target site.”
“Copy that . . . And, Aaziz . . . be careful.”
“You know I will . . . Out.”
Juma, with the weight of his assault weapon feeling good in his hands, began to approach the cabin along the beachfront under the faint glare of a crescent-shaped moon.
* * *
Shari Cohen stood within the dark shadows of the cabin; the lights snuffed out long ago. From the panoramic window that overlooked the lake, she could see a figure making its way towards the cabin, the assailant low to the ground. When she saw what appeared to be an assault weapon in his possession, she removed her Glock and checked the round inside the chamber. When everything appeared good, she thoughtfully goaded her attacker. Come on . . . I’ve got something for you.
From her position within the cabin, she waited.
* * *
Farooq Aaziz was a far more advanced soldier than anyone on his team. In a past life he was a leader, someone the military brass looked up to until they discovered his nefarious dealings in the black market, and who was believed to have killed civilians to keep his secret safe from curious investigators who tried to confirm his involvement. The cost: ten years in Leavenworth and a dishonorable discharge. Nevertheless, the lasting humiliation left a sour taste in his mouth for the country he used to love and fought for. Now, as a man who discovered a new path based on anger, which had been nurtured by Mohammad Allawi, Aaziz found a way to vent his frustrations against his newfound enemy without contrition. And the United States, in his eyes, was the enemy. The attacks that Mohammad Allawi was mounting against the U.S. government was something he deemed proper. Moving to the spot where Kasmi once took station, he noticed that the leaves on the ground had been tamped down, no doubt by Kasmi’s lingering presence. So Aaziz listened; waited; and heard nothing; not even the movement of a single leaf, even as a breeze blew. Nevertheless, he knew that something was waiting close by within the shadows. But the wall of Darkness stretched from east to west, an eternity of blackness. I know you’re in there, he thought. Even in his mind the words sounded off with caution.
Then Aaziz took a step forward and listened. Was he the fly crawling into the spider’s web? he wondered. Then he carefully stepped away from the wall of shadows and took cover behind the trunk of a large pine. Peering around the tree, he said, “I know you’re in there, priest . . . I can feel you.”
No response.
“So that you know, the woman, Cohen, she’s about to take her last breath. And as long as I keep you here and force you to maintain your position, then my job is done.”
Still no response.
And then: “You hear me, priest?”
“Yeah, I hear you just fine. But you can’t complete your job,” a voice close by said, “if you’re not alive to do so.”
When Aaziz turned to see a shape standing in front to him rather than in the shadows beyond the trees, his eyes ignited with surprise. How it managed to get so close to him without him knowing was beyond his understanding, the shape simply an arm’s length away. In the end, he considered, he had walked into the spider’s web, after all.
Attempting to bring his firearm up and around, the Shadowman deflected the point of Aaziz’s weapon with the blade of his knife. The emblazoned spark that followed in the wake of metal striking metal was enough to reveal the band of a Roman Catholic collar, and the absolute fury that seemed to launch dramatically from the priest’s eyes. Here, Farooq Aaziz was fighting savageness that was at its best.
Then a hand shot out from the priest and grabbed Farooq by the throat, squeezing. And Farooq, who started to see bursts of light behind his eyes, attempted to bring his weapon around. But before he could align the barrel’s mouth against his target, the priest gripped the assemblage inside the assassin’s throat and yanked hard, tearing out the thyroid cartilage and breaking the hyoid bone. The last thing Farooq saw as he fell against his attacker was the white of the man’s collar, a symbol of pious standing, then he slid against the priest’s body and to the pine-needle floor of the earth, where his eyes blazoned with the surprise of his own mortality.
As soundlessly as the priest entered through the doorway of shadows, he disappeared just as silently.
* * *
Juma was alone on the lake’s shoreline sizing up the cabin. The lights were off. The area was quiet. And Farooq Aaziz failed to
call in over his lip mic when Juma called for an update. Aaziz, Kasmi and Mostapa, had they all been erased from the mission? Juma could only wonder. Moving toward the cabin with the bungalow caught within the sights of his assault weapon, Juma panned the scope of his weapon from side to side, the world a phosphorous green landscape through the lens.
And then the walkway.
The steps.
The invite of the screen door, which was partially open due to a defective hinge. Juma moved quietly and took the stairway. And with every step taken he froze and listened.
Nothing.
Another step.
Another pause.
Step and pause.
He pulled aside the screen door, which thankfully did not protest with a squeal, and grabbed the knob to the door that led into the cabin. It turned smoothly in his hand.
Someone’s waiting for me, he considered. Someone knows I’m coming.
Then with speed and agility since stealth was no longer an option, Juma swung the door wide and dove inside the cabin, the man rolling along the floor before coming up to strafe the area before him with gunfire. From the flashes of light that emitted from the end of his weapon, Juma watched the rounds pepper the log walls, smash a computer screen, shatter vases, and demolish Shari’s shrine of family photos.
But Cohen wasn’t there, and neither was the priest.
Juma took a step forward into the main room. From where he stood by the fireplace, he could see additional doors in the hallway, three by his count, all closed. He went to the first door, aimed his weapon, and set off a burst of muted gunfire. Wood and metal from the locking mechanism exploded upon the bullets’ impact. With a kick of his foot, he knocked the door inward.
The room was empty.
But for good measure, Juma set off a burst into a pair of louvered doors that was the closet, which also turned out to be empty.
That left two rooms.
He moved silently through the shadows, forcing calm.
At the second door in the hallway, he cocked his head to listen.
Nothing.
Shari Cohen was running out of space, this he understood, since he could sense her presence.
Raising his weapon, he repeated his action with a volley of gunfire to the door and locking mechanism. Pieces of wood and metal went airborne as thick smoke filled the air. Then Juma stuck the point of his weapon inside the room and sprayed gunfire, first moving his weapon to his left and then to his right, the rounds stitching across the wood, furniture and smashing windows. As blue-gray smoke hung and drifted in the air, Juma could see that the room was empty.
That left one room at the end of the hallway.
Juma returned to the corridor, ejected the magazine, and reseated a new one.
He started to advance toward the door with his weapon raised, the door looming larger with every step taken.
And then he directed his aim at the door and opened fire. Shards of wood exploded from multiple impacts, the lock giving way and the door swinging wide. He entered the room with his assault weapon blazing, as muted bursts of gunfire wrecked the room and the doors to the closet.
But this room, too, was empty.
Looking to his far right, a window was open with the tails of the drapery flapping through the opening. Cohen had escaped by jumping to the ground below. Exiting the room and entering the hallway to give chase, Shari was standing at the end of the corridor with the Glock in her hand, waiting. She had jumped from the cabin’s window to come up behind him. Since Juma was too involved with the mechanics of going from room to room, Shari had taken a page from Kimball Hayden’s playbook and used the shadows as her ally to approach undetected. Juma, standing idle with the surprise of seeing Shari possessing the advantage, attempted to raise his weapon. But Shari pulled the trigger of her Glock in quick succession as she walked towards him. As every round struck Juma at center mass, though his vest was taking the brunt of the punishment, the hammer blows, nevertheless, snapped a rib. As he fell to the ground groaning, Shari took precise aim and pulled the trigger. This time, a bullet managed to punch through his flesh above the lining of the vest and below his clavicle. Juma, screaming, released his weapon to the floor, which Shari kicked aside.
“Don’t move,” she told him.
Juma, who grimaced against pain that was becoming white-hot, did not see the massive shape that took form at the end of the corridor.
“Nice job,” it said, advancing.
Even in darkness as it approached, Juma could see the white band of a Roman Catholic collar. Then from the shadows, the priest reached down, grabbed Juma by the edges of his vest and hoisted him to his feet. As Kimball Hayden held the man close, even with the marginal rays of moonlight filtering into the cabin, Juma was undoubtedly looking into the eyes of the devil in priest’s clothing.
A moment later, a certain darkness closed over the terrorist, the pain becoming too great for Juma to handle.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Lakeside Cabin, Maryland
A dim light glowed from a lamp, though its base had been broken during the firefight. By the time Juma came to, he unexpectedly became aware of the biting pain beneath his clavicle and cried out. Standing before him with her arms raised defensively across her chest was Shari Cohen. To his right and looking down at him was Kimball Hayden, who also happened to be one of the largest men that Juma had ever seen. “You’re from Allawi’s cell,” Shari said as a statement and not a question. “And right now, I need answers which you’re going to give me.”
“You think so, huh?”
Kimball reached down and jammed his thumb deep inside the bullet hole beneath Juma’s clavicle. “I know so,” he told the terrorist. “Or so help me, I’ll dig my thumb all the way to China, if I have to.”
Juma screamed and tried to kick his legs out, only to discover that they were tethered to the chair.
Kimball removed his thumb. “It doesn’t have to go down like this,” he said.
Juma winced. “I’ve nothing to say.”
“You’ve plenty to say,” said Shari. “Let’s start with Mohammad Allawi, shall we?
Like, where is he?”
“You’ll never know.”
“Wrong answer,” said Kimball, who once again applied his thumb to plug the wound, then gave it a little worming action.
Juma screamed.
“You can scream all you want,” Kimball told him. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one can hear you.”
“All right!”
Kimball removed his thumb.
And then from Juma: “He’s mobile. That’s all I know. He’s never in a spot for too long because he knows that the authorities keep closing in on his locations.”
“How does he know?” Shari asked him. “Is Najm monitoring the intel fields? Is he misappropriating the communication?”
Juma appeared surprised that Cohen knew about Najm. Apparently, the feds knew enough and were tightening the dragnet by the inches. And then: “Yes.”
“And what can you tell me about Operation Herod?” she asked.
When Juma balked at this, Kimball started to offer his thumb once again. “All right! Hold on!” Juma hollered. Then: “It’s an operation that Allawi had planned to be the final and lasting moment of jihad. A legacy to remember him by.”
“Where?” Kimball asked.
Drawing air through his nostrils and releasing it as a sigh, he said, “In National Harbor. There’s going to be a spelling bee. It’s the first annual assembly with 750 contestants between the ages of eight and eleven.”
Shari thought her heart would misfire in her chest. Everyone had focused on the school system, which were too many to protect since they were spread across the landscape. Mohammad Allawi also cited ‘a place of educational learning,’ which steered everyone’s focus to the educational system such as colleges and universities. But the spelling bee in National Harbor was not even a consideration, since it was not something the principals would consider as a ta
rget of opportunity. Though it was ‘a place of educational learning,’ the meaning was a thinly disguised red herring. It wasn’t a ‘school’ of educational learning, but a ‘place’ of educational learning. A venue. Allawi had cleverly disguised the hint, which mislead the leaders to apply manpower elsewhere.
“Of course,” she whispered. “When?”
“Tomorrow. When the president refuses to comply with the demands of releasing the ISIS directors.”
She looked at Kimball. “That’s ten o’clock,” she said.
“Or sooner.”
“What does that mean?” Kimball asked him.
“Whether Burroughs complies or not, this is going to happen. Allawi wants to create a legacy he can carry proudly to the Middle East like a badge of honor.”
“Middle East? Mohammad Allawi’s planning to skip out to the Middle East?”
Juma nodded. “He has plans to pick up a boat from Virginia Beach, a skiff that’ll take him to a vessel disguised as a fishing trawler. Once onboard the trawler, then he’s off to Cuba where they’re supposed to find transport to the Middle East.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, after the explosion, the man who operates the bakery where we were holed up at is engineering the move.” Then he gave the name of Aimu Ababneh, Mohammad Allawi’s sympathizer in Norfolk, Virginia.
“You just said explosion,” Kimball pressed further. “At the venue?”
Juma nodded.
Kimball leaned closer to his ear. “How exactly are they planning to set off the charges?”
“Semtex,” was all he said. “They could be detonated by timer or manually, whichever Allawi chooses given the situation—of whether the operation was compromised or not.”
“Military grade? The same type that took down the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty?”
Another nod from Juma.