Cody expected to be shot at any moment, but he hoped the Lord would let him live to see what came next. But to those standing around the checkpoint, having watched Jadhari take possession of his new truck, Jadhari’s cries were the cries of delight and joy. Every person standing there, cheered; but Cody ran in the opposite direction. The soldiers watched with excitement as their boss drove his truck furiously and dangerously down the smooth driveway towards the mosque.
In less time than it took to count to ten, the truck, traveling at a speed of no less than fifty miles per hour, impacted the mosque. It passed through the glass doors easily and plowed straight into the crowd of worshippers, scattering their shattered and broken bodies like dolls being thrown by a child.
Cody never saw the explosion. When the hundreds of pounds of C-4, all of it hidden beneath boxes of sheet metal screws in the back of his truck, detonated, he was across Greenland Drive, lying in a ditch behind what was left of an old, brick house.
The earth rumbled beneath the blast; and the shock wave, like ten years’ worth of thunder all rolled into a few seconds, shook everything for thirty miles in every direction. Cody, curled up in the ditch, with his hands pressed tightly over his ears, bounced and shook, and he thought he would die.
Three minutes later, after the rumbling had stopped, Cody was up on his feet, slightly disoriented, looking up at the sky. Debris, most of it small, was falling all around him; and a huge white cloud rose upwards into the heavens. It had already begun forming into a small mushroom cloud by the time Cody stood up. Chunks of the mosque, mixed with the flesh and bone of almost four thousand Islamists, began to fall from the sky; and the grayish white gravel surrounding the mosque seemed to Cody to have a pink cast to it.
Cody took off his cap and ran his fingers through his dirty, oily hair, and he trembled. He saw that his hat was dusty, and so he beat it against his leg.
What was left of Bashar’s Islamic Front Army – some of his men had been left behind on the square, others at checkpoints around the city and county – would be coming. And there were other units, too. Tracy had spoken of them. Units coming in for the final push on Chattanooga. But for all intents and purposes, the ISA’s finest outfit no longer existed.
Maybe Cody would wait for ISA. Tell them he’d spent these last three years building their mosque just so he could destroy it in less than ten seconds. They wouldn’t believe it.
Funny, he thought. He’d just killed more Muslims than any single American had since the war started, but nobody was here to see it. And who would believe him if he’d told them? Not the Army of Tennessee. Not even if he’d had a video of it.
Cody heard the sound of a motorcycle, and it startled him. Or maybe he heard the sound of several, but the noise was subdued, and it seemed to be growing louder. He put on his hat and hurried around the side of the old, crumbling, brick house. When he came to an old trellis covered thickly with morning glory vines, he stopped and listened. The noise continued growing; and it was coming in his direction.
Scattered gunshots rang out, all of them coming from his left. He hurried through the weed-strewn rubble and headed towards the road. Above him, high in the sky, the cloud from the explosion continued to climb, covering the area in a deeper afternoon shadow, blotting out any light that may have been left in the sky.
He looked across the road towards what remained of the mosque, and a four wheeler with two riders drove up and stopped in the road across from it.
Cody recognized the soldiers, and he hurried out the meet them. The man on the back of the four wheeler turned; and Cody recognized David, who quickly jumped off the back of the four wheeler.
David turned to his right and waved, and several other four wheelers, eight in all, came speeding up the road. Then he ran to meet Cody, and he said, “Reconnaissance unit working out of Tullahoma. Our guys told me you were gonna do it, but I didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off!”
“Did everybody get away?” Cody asked. “Lisa and her group?”
“You can ask Lisa,” David said, pointing to the lead four wheeler just pulling up. “What about Tracy – I heard she stayed behind. She and Vernon.”
Cody shook his head.
“Dang,” David said. “I’m sorry, Cody. But you just have to know that the payoff is---”
Lisa removed her helmet and came running, jumping into Cody’s arms with nearly enough force to knock him down. She hugged him as tight as she could, kissing his dirty face over and over again.
Cody held her tight; and he smiled.
“I was worried – I mean, I was really, really worried that you wouldn’t make it out of here!” Lisa said with tears of joy in her face.
“Without you, I wouldn’t have,” Cody said. “Over these last two years – you wouldn’t have guessed it – but you’ve kept me alive. I don’t know what I would’ve done had it not been for---”
“Well, I’ll be a holy moly SOB!” a soldier on one of the four wheelers said, pointing across the road. “Will you look at that!”
Clouds were moving out of the west, dark and deep, and a cool breeze, as sudden as lightning, swept the street. The cloud of smoke and dust sitting over the site of the mosque began to drift away, hurriedly, driven along by the wind. And through the light colored haze, little by little, almost as if some child was carefully unwrapping a box to reveal the gift inside, a dark object began to appear. Every eye watched.
“Vernon’s cross,” David said.
Cody shook his head slowly and reflectively. “No, David. That cross belongs to all of us – and we to it. If only we would all---”
“Mount up,” one of the soldiers yelled. “We’re moving out – heading south. This fight has only just started!”
One of the soldiers gave up his four wheeler to Cody and Lisa. He doubled up with someone else.
Cody sat down on the four wheeler, and Lisa jumped on behind him. She put her arms around him tightly and squeezed him again, excited to be with him.
“What’s next for us?” Lisa asked. “I mean, for you and me?”
Cody smiled and turned so Lisa could see his face. “Freedom,” he said, nodding up at the cross. “The real kind.” He kissed Lisa, and she kissed him back. He put the four wheeler into gear, took one last look around, and took a deep breath. “Lighten the darkness!”
And he and Lisa sped away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thank for reading Spikes Donovan’s The Last Infidel. Would you please leave a review for Spikes at the place where you purchased it? Every review helps! And be sure to go to spikesdonovan.com and sign up to receive notices for new books on the way! And yes, he reads his own email and will actually answer you! [email protected].
If you liked his book, be sure to check out this one! You can find it at spikesdonovan.com.
Time Clock Hero
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[i] My attempt at John Le Carre’s sentence structure and style found in The Constant Gardner. For whatever it’s worth – it’s his style. And I credit him with this sentence.
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