Gather The Seekers (Challenged World Book 3)

by Milam,Vince

  Yet three holy warriors had fallen. They must be replenished, replaced. The three, stopped by ordinary Americans, now rested in paradise. A loss, a minor setback, and one enacted by common infidels who had demonstrated the unexpected. They had fought back.

  The caliph wished the effort to continue full-force as the attacks had spectacular effects. The power and reach of the caliphate caused the West to tremble. Each passing day was a tremendous victory over the infidels as they cowered under the mighty sword of holy war. Mewling and hand-wringing, the Western leaders squabbled among themselves to find answers and craft responses. There was but one response—succumb to the inevitable, fall to their knees, and pledge allegiance to the caliphate.

  ISIS warriors in Syria and Iraq exalted at the victories on US soil and clamored to join the effort. They wished to travel to America and wage jihad on the enemy’s land. Masih refused them. ISIS had a deep pool in America from which to draw. The three would be replaced from that reservoir.

  The Telling came, firm and strong and sure. The deep orange glow permeated Masih’s surroundings. Dark vibrant energy flowed and caressed his soul. The voice soothed and reassured. Worry not, the Telling said. Worry not, my brave warrior.

  Chapter 35

  “You ready?” Check asked as he worked the laptop computer. A warm Diet DP filled a glass nearby and he’d ensured sufficient ambient noise to prevent eavesdropping. The open sliding glass door of his upper-level Turkish apartment allowed the Mediterranean breeze to rattle the vertical blinds. The AC blasted unneeded cool air, and the ceiling fan whirled on high.

  “Roger dodger,” Nadine replied.

  “So here’s the deal,” Check said. “Before we get started, I understand I’m going to accept something from you—a virus—to download on a bunch of flash drives. These flash drives, thirty to be exact, currently contain tourist photos.”

  “So let’s rock and roll.” Her voice was ebullient, excited.

  “And doing so, I’m exposing my personal information to you.”

  “Well, yeah, but you have my word it’s a pass-through,” Nadine said. “Straight to the flash drives. Besides, your stuff is encrypted.”

  Check took a sip of DP and emitted a light belch. “Don’t give me that encryption crap. It means nothing to Nadine May. Your word, on the other hand, means a lot.”

  “Check, you have my solemn word. Let’s load those puppies up.”

  He took another sip and leaned back in the chair. The Mediterranean Sea blinked the sunrays of a new day. Street traffic noise drifted to his third floor patio. Giving Nadine access to his personal computer system broke every CIA protocol. They’d have his ass—or a bullet to the head—if they found out. What the hell. Let’s do this.

  “Alright, listen up,” he started. “I’ve loaded photos on each one. Arabic families, smiling kids, landscape shots of one shitty desert scene after the next, famous structures—the usual crap. A lost set of vacation photos from a Syrian family. Those have to appear when they plug one of these flash drives into a computer.”

  “No worries. My little package works completely in the background.”

  “How long to inject the virus if they plug it in?” Check asked. He’d ascertain all he could about Nadine’s viral package until satisfied. Then, and only then, he’d let her access his computer.

  “About twenty seconds. It’s a big chunk of computer code. I’ve included location algorithms, both GPS and triangulation, just like you asked. It’s a robust software package. You should have a physical location for every computer on their local network once the virus does its work.”

  Check nodded to himself. That’s the big prize, as far as I’m concerned. He and Nadine had different objectives with this tactical systems attack, although his heart did go out to his stateside countrymen. Random killings, every day, and no end in sight.

  He’d do whatever he could to help. Still, Nadine’s objective was secondary to finding the ISIS honchos in Raqqa. The eighteen American jihadists would be found and stopped at some point—maybe by more John and Jane Does. Check took a certain pride in knowing at least a percentage of his civilian countrymen still clanged when they walked.

  But the organizational heads of ISIS remained his focus. There was one viable attack plan—the Predator drones he controlled, each with two Hellfire missiles. Given the appropriate accurate coordinates, he could drop those bad boys through an office window. The Company and an oversight committee had given him full control of the Predators several years earlier, and had made it clear they didn’t necessarily need to hear about their use. In fact, all the better if their fingerprints weren’t anywhere near the pinpoint-accurate explosions. Suits me just fine, Check had thought, when presented with this cover-your-ass factoid.

  “So describe what else is in the package, besides location software,” he said. He pulled the operational strings, and he required a complete understanding of the virus’s capabilities.

  “It’ll suck up anything interesting on their network, particularly phone numbers, as well as any documents or maps that contain specific keywords. If we acquire the phone numbers of the remaining eighteen terrorists, we’ll track them down and capture them.”

  “Don’t capture. Shoot them and be done with it.” Check paused to take a sip of warm DP. “I mean it. You capture them and have a trial, ISIS will make martyrs out of them.”

  Check saw it as cut-and-dried, and any screwing around with courts and lawyers opened the door to sympathizers and more terror recruits. Find the American jihadists and end it—just end it.

  “Above my pay grade,” Nadine said. “We’ll see how it plays out, if we pierce their network.”

  “Once this virus collects, how does it send?”

  “Over the Internet via Wi-Fi. Zipped then burst feed. Done in seconds. No doubt they’ve disabled Internet connectivity to many of their local network computers. But there will be one, two, or several with unused Internet capability. Probably unused because their leader will kill them if they do. That’s a pretty effective system firewall.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. What about indicators on the computer itself? Lights, beeps, the usual happy horseshit?”

  Nadine would have likely taken care of this issue, but he wanted assurance. Check had survived his decades in the Middle East by being thorough—damn thorough. He took another sip of DP.

  “Taken care of,” Nadine said. “The virus disables every indicator. That includes control panel functions and keyboard lights. They can turn the computer off—and I mean shut it down—and it will still collect and transmit in the background.”

  “Shithouse mouse, Nadine. Does the thing wash dishes, too?”

  She laughed over the phone, an element of pride coming through. And why not? That little girl kicks ass eight ways to Sunday.

  “So, we ready to rock and roll?” she asked. “And how do you move the flash drives into Raqqa?”

  “Magic carpet.” He’d helped smuggle her, the cowboy, and the priest over the mountains and into Syria from Turkey. She knew he’d see the flash drives delivered to the capitol of ISIS. It was classic Nadine, rooting around for more information. “I’ll have them there twelve hours from now. All you need to know.”

  He gave her access to his computer, and thirty flash drives were loaded, one at a time, with the virus. It took less than an hour.

  Once they’d finished loading, Check said, “One last thing. More quid pro quo.”

  Silence. She had worked with him enough over the years to know this ploy. Check visualized her as she waited and painted her toenails or did a weird yoga stretch.

  “The minute you receive the upload from your virus—and I mean that literally—you grab the location coordinates and give them to me. I’ll take it from there. Otherwise, these little beauties you just loaded don’t leave my apartment.”

  “Check, you know I can’t do that. I mean, I’ll do it, for sure, but not immediately. We have to catch the eighteen here first. Confirm they’re the killers
. If there’s a discrepancy, the virus will send more data to us. I’ve programmed it to do a second sweep twenty-four hours after the first.”

  She had a point, and to find the eighteen killers and confirm who they were would take time. True enough, and too damn bad. The ISIS leaders in Raqqa moved around. He needed those location coordinates pronto, so a Hellfire missile could be delivered up their ass before they moved to an outlying town or changed offices. The task force would request all the information she’d received and Nadine wouldn’t refuse a direct request. That opened the door to, God forbid, the bureaucratic pissants deciding what to do about the coordinates.

  “Nope.”

  “Come on, Check. You know it takes time. Eighteen. We gotta make sure.”

  “Nope.”

  “Find them, capture them, and confirm them. What if we sweep the wrong set of phone numbers? Or what if some of them changed phones and their new number is still buried in the ISIS system? And the first virus sweep missed it?”

  “Nope. And we’ve gone over that capture crap. Bullet to the head.”

  “Come on!” Nadine said. “People are being murdered, here.”

  “Nope.”

  He increased the cell phone volume, smiled, and listened for the irritated Nadine triplet foot tap. She delivered as expected.

  “You’re making this a one-chance deal, Check,” she finally said. “I know you. You’ll send a well-guided explosive warhead through office windows as soon as you receive the locations.”

  “Hmmm.” She knew it, he knew it, but there was no point admitting it.

  One, two, three. One, two, three. The irritated foot taps came louder over the phone. He smiled widely, took another swig of DP, and gave a mighty belch.

  “Nice. Thanks for your feedback, Check.” The triplet taps continued. He remained silent.

  “Okay. Okay,” she said, clearly exasperated. “You have my word. You really piss me off sometimes, you know it?”

  “Love you, Nadine,” he said, signing off. He meant it.

  A long pause, then a still-excited but resigned voice. “Yeah, you, too, Check. You, too.”

  Chapter 36

  Walid drove his taxi through the empty streets of Raqqa. The darkness was pervasive; streetlights had not functioned since ISIS had taken over his city several years before. Those sons of donkeys couldn’t change a tire, much less keep the electricity running. Idiots.

  He knew the location of many ISIS administrative buildings, although he had no idea of the internal functions of each. Not a worry, it had been explained by the courier who’d arrived in the afternoon with thirty of these small devices. “Sprinkle them around all the suspected buildings,” the courier had said. “At entrances and parking lots.”

  Walid hated the intruders, the barbaric savages of ISIS who now occupied his town and polluted his people and his faith. But Walid took the long view. For thousands of years various tribes and civilizations had marched through this small area of land, and ISIS, too, would pass. Anything he could do to hasten the process would be done as long as it didn’t endanger him. And this task carried little risk. Plus, they paid him to do it, with US dollars.

  He stopped at a suspected ISIS administrative building, parked, and stood to stretch and light a smoke. A typical scene—a tired taxi driver taking a break and stretching his legs. As he meandered near his taxi, he dropped the small devices at doorways and in adjoining parking lots. A few here, a few there.

  Walid had seen such gadgets before. Some sort of computer device. He assumed them a product of the Americans, for they represented all things technical. He had no fondness for the Americans—a tribe far distant but global in their reach—yet held no great animosity, either. He had a niece in some place called Iowa. A dentist, she seemed happy living in such a faraway location.

  Walid drove around Raqqa and repeated the routine, tossing the final small device to the ground near another ISIS building. Then he returned home to spend the evening with his wife behind closed doors and isolated from the human pollution now inhabiting his home city.

  ***

  Abdul-Baqi climbed out the back of the Toyota pickup that had transported him and several fellow ISIS administrators to work. There was much to do, and as a member of the production team for ISIS websites, yesterday’s beheadings of three aid workers made fine fodder for another video production.

  The day shone glorious, and his comrades joked and traded barbs as they crossed the office parking lot. Near the left rear tire of a parked car, a small object caught the early morning light. Abdul-Baqi strode over, recognized the item as a flash drive, and pocketed it before he headed into the office building.

  Much to do, much to do, and he would formulate a plan to get around Adib’s objections of showing too much gore, blood, and struggle from yesterday’s beheadings. Adib could not be more wrong. The screams and struggles of the tied-up victims added courage and passion to the warriors who viewed the videos. The three aid workers, Canadian Muslims and apostates all, had provided much in the way of howls of terror and pain. He could not edit out such beauty. He would make Adib understand.

  At midmorning the refreshment cart moved down the hall and served piping hot coffee and small cookies. Time for a break, and as Abdul-Baqi leaned back in his office chair, called into the hallway for his coffee, and lit a smoke, he remembered the pocketed flash drive.

  The coffee break afforded a good time to check it out. He plugged it into his laptop’s USB port and opened the contents. Photos. Photos of a family, possibly from Raqqa, along with humdrum scenery shots. Now those people knew nothing of visual production. He chuckled, accepted the cup of coffee, and commented with the coffee-server on the fine spring weather and the fourteen-year-old sex slave he had recently purchased. With a final glance at the photos, he removed the flash drive and tossed it in a wastebasket. Stupid photos. Nothing more. It was time to get back to work. The wide-angle lens had been a nice touch at yesterday’s beheadings.

  Chapter 37

  Palo Alto’s high tech community, muted and cowering, surrounded Will McPherson. It wrapped him without meaning, purpose, or allegiance to anything but money.

  Well paid as an employee of one of the tech companies, Will lacked for nothing, except a quenching of his desire to see his surroundings burn to the ground. An Internet forum nourished his beliefs, and the ISIS community found there welcomed him, empathized with him. They understood his anger and congratulated his insights.

  Will had purchased a Quran and quickly devoured it. He inquired further about the religion among his new Internet friends. Revelations washed over him—an understanding of the wrongs perpetrated against Islam by the West. The removal of honor and justice for a righteous people through Western influences and culture. Injustice committed and enforced by the people around him, those he worked and lived with.

  He ventured into Silicon Valley’s underbelly and bought an illegal pistol. To carry arms, the Internet forums informed him, was an obligation, a duty. Will had considered changing his name to a more appropriate moniker for immersion into Islamic culture, but he’d been advised against doing so by a fellow spiritual traveler he’d met with, face-to-face, in Palo Alto. The brother-in-arms had left simple instructions on social media with a place and time. They used no names or further electronic contact.

  His new comrade had proven a true friend, welcoming and warm. A man who understood. A man who talked of change and honor and justice. A man who spoke of war and retribution.

  They met several times over a period of weeks as Will’s passion and commitment grew. They always met in person, without any electronic communication, with the next meeting agreed upon verbally.

  His new comrade had disappeared when war against America started, and Will sorely missed him. An opportunity lost, and Will considered initiating his own personal jihad.

  The deaths of the three American jihadists came as a disappointment, a feeling alleviated when his absent comrade made contact that same day. He answere
d a knock on his apartment door to find both his friend and a glorious mission awaiting. Will McPherson would replace one of the fallen warriors! The mission established, he walked the near-empty streets of Palo Alto and gathered his thoughts.

  His favorite coffee shop was closed—the cowardly owner huddled at home—so he looped back toward his apartment, prepared to fight, to wage a personal war. A voice calm and soothing and filled with compassion called him off the sidewalk. A dark figure stood shadowed within an alley. The stranger, a fellow warrior who knew of his newly established holy mission, comforted him and whispered of glory and rewards. A force, powerful and hate-filled, fanned the flames of his desire. A desire to destroy all that surrounded him—decadence and frivolity without soul or meaning or spirit.

  The stranger spoke to Will of his first victim, his first blow for the caliphate. Subsequent attacks at random, Will was instructed, but the first was to be a specific individual. The dark stranger described her, an abomination, and provided her location.

  “And the first righteous blow, William, shall be most special. Most special indeed,” the stranger said.

  “Yes. Yes, I am ready.”

  “A true representative of our enemy. One who preaches of the book. An infidel. And a lowly woman.”

  Will smiled with acknowledgement at the description of his special target. Yes, a preacher. To demonstrate no one is safe!

  “Hair of purple?” Will asked. “One who preaches? Such disrespect! A joy to eliminate her.”

  “Eliminate her?” the stranger asked and waited for a more appropriate answer.

  “Kill her, my brother. Slaughter her.”

  The stranger chuckled low and resonant. “Magnificent, my warrior. Magnificent.”