by Roger Hayden
Hopper, Lynch, and Thaxton climbed in and sat in one row in the back as Sutherland held the door.
“I don’t have a vest,” Angela said to him before getting in.
Confused, he leaned closer to her. “You don’t have a mess?” His breath smelled like coffee.
“A vest!” Angela repeated. “Bulletproof vest!”
Sutherland nodded in understanding. “Don’t worry! We should have a spare on board!”
She thanked him and climbed inside, hunched down and moving toward the row across from where the agents were sitting. There was no denying the lack of room.
As Angela sat down, she already felt constricted and nearly out of breath before Sutherland climbed in and shut the door. The agents buckled up, placing their backpacks at their feet. Angela followed suit and strapped herself in just as the helicopter lifted up in the air, rising high above the Border Patrol station.
She watched as the top of the building got smaller and smaller. Gravity pushed against her, and she could feel a sinking sensation in her stomach, reminding her again of Panama.
Rolling desert hills and sporadic patches of forest came into view as they ascended. She could hear little except the thick reverberation of the engine that kneaded the back of her seat like a massage chair. Her disposable earplugs were pressed tightly inside, and she could hear nothing of what the agents were saying to each other through their headset mikes.
For Angela, the mission ahead was unclear. And as they flew west, with El Paso an hour away, she hoped they would be able to bring her partner back quickly and that she would see her family by the end of the night.
***
Salah Asgar sat at a desk in a small, dimly lit underground room with his personal confidants, Bosra and Nabil, standing by, weapons at the ready. With their beards and bulky builds, the two men looked remarkably similar, but they weren’t related.
The small room and its concrete floor and walls were nearly empty aside from Salah’s table desk, a military-style cot, and a fully-loaded AK-47 machine gun against the wall behind him. The sound of Salah’s fingers flittering across the keyboard of his laptop was the only thing to be heard.
The light from his MacBook glowed on his thin, bearded face. His dark eyes scanned the screen, carefully looking over a set of blueprints from an encrypted file sent to him just hours prior. He studied the floor plan with great interest, scanning the various floors of the Dallas Nuclear Power Plant, one of the two plants located in the state of Texas.
He scribbled on a pad, noting the specific locations of the plant’s reactors. The rush of excitement he felt was immeasurable. They were very close to launching a major attack, years in the making.
“This is wonderful…” he said to himself.
Bosra and Nabil kept their eyes forward, paying Salah little mind. They rarely said anything, and when they did, it was generally to shout orders at one of the men under them. Bosra pulled a USA Today from his jacket pocket and unfolded it, reading the day’s latest.
There were other rooms within the underground facility stocked with weapons, food, and supplies. As the primary leader and strategist of Texas ISIS cells, Salah spent most of his time twenty feet belowground. Several of his lieutenants were positioned throughout the state along with recruits who, unlike Salah, lived in homes or apartments, blending in with their neighborhoods the best they could.
When called, lieutenants, advisors, and other ranking fighters would meet up in the desert, far from potential spies or the authorities. At one time, such a meeting house and resupply point was their hideout in El Paso, Texas, one of three clandestine locations throughout South Texas. Salah now operated out of this main hub, completely underground, its location known only to a few.
For three years he had been building his network, constructing the hideouts, establishing their perimeters and means of communications. Many of the tunnels and underground rooms had already been hollowed out and constructed decades ago by various cartels. But all of that had changed with the arrival of Salah Asgar.
As his terror network gradually embedded themselves throughout Texas and along the southern border, the message to the cartels was clear enough: territory claimed by the Islamic State belongs to the Islamic State.
A lieutenant of the Mexican Knights of Templar cartel named Juan Manuel Marquez had once been dispatched by his bosses to kill whoever had taken over their smuggling tunnels. But Salah was ready. A dozen suicide bombers had descended upon Marquez’s house and on many others belonging to Knights of Templar cartel members in the city of Juarez. It was over before the cartel even had time to assemble against the ISIS invaders. There was a new army in town.
As Salah continued taking notes, someone knocked at the door. He stopped writing as Bosra and Nabil exchanged glances and came to attention. Bosra folded his newspaper back up and went quietly to the door, as Nabil pointed his rifle ahead. Bosra asked who it was.
“Mohammed,” the voice outside the door said.
“Mohammed who?” Bosra asked with a booming voice while peeking through the tiny door slot.
“Mohammed Abdelslam. The driver,” the man said.
Bosra turned to Salah for approval. Salah looked up from his notes and nodded. Bosra unlocked several deadbolts set into the thick, metal door and then pulled it open, revealing a man wearing a striped flannel shirt tucked into tight blue jeans and cowboy boots. His jet-black hair was disheveled and the mustache had been trimmed into a perfect arch.
He was hesitant to walk inside until Salah waved him in. Mohammed thanked Bosra and sheepishly walked toward Salah’s corner workstation to the right. Salah’s eyes went back to the screen as the man stopped ten feet away, arms folded in front of him.
“Did you get it?” Salah asked, typing.
Mohammed hesitated while shifting around uneasily with his head lowered. Salah quickly caught on that the news wasn’t good.
“What happened?” he asked.
Mohammed raised his head, and a stricken look crossed his face. “I don’t know. We had trouble. American agents. They interfered.”
Salah’s eyes widened as he slammed his fist onto the table, startling Mohammed in the process. He then stopped and backed away from the desk, scraping the legs of his chair against the concrete floor. He looked past Mohammed and began rubbing his forehead in frustration. “How many times have I told you to stay alert for the Americans? You have to plan your meeting spot days in advance. You have to check it first. Have I not said this?”
“Yes, my leader. I don’t know where they came from. They—”
Salah stood up, cutting Bosra off. “Where are you parked?” Salah asked.
“In the port,” Mohammed answered.
“How did you get here?”
“Assad drove me in the Gator.”
Salah nodded and then signaled to his men, who went to the door. Bosra unlocked the bolts and opened it. Both men stepped out, scanning the area.
“Let us go,” Salah said.
Mohammed turned and nervously faced the door. “I am sorry, my leader. We had no control of the situation.”
“Tell me once we get there.”
He guided Mohammed to the door with a hand on his shoulder. They stepped outside the room, where a long tunnel, six feet high and ten feet wide, waited them. Several doors were arrayed along both sides of the corridor. There was a gas-powered Gator mini-truck parked to one side with Assad, the driver, at the wheel, staring down the long tunnel, where a single ceiling bulb provided light every twenty feet or so.
Assad wore a black robe with white taqiyah cap. He turned around slightly to notice Salah’s approach as Bosra and Nabil sat in the Gator behind him and started the engine. Salah went to the passenger side of the Gator and sat next to Assad. Behind them was a small, flat cargo bed that Salah pointed to while looking at Mohammed.
“Climb in,” he said.
Mohammed nodded and hoisted himself in back, holding the sides as Assad started the engine and pulled out.
They reached a double-door entrance at the very end of the tunnel, both doors made of thick steel and only accessible through a concealed combination lock. Assad served as the watchman between entrances. In time, Salah hoped to build a larger security team, but at the moment, he needed his men spread out as far apart from each other as possible. That way, they would be harder for the authorities to find.
Assad stopped in front of the doors and stepped out of the Gator. Salah patiently waited, satellite phone in hand, eager to get to the bottom of whatever had gone wrong with the pickup in Del Rio. He had yet to grill Mohammed. He wanted to speak with both men and get the full story. Mistakes happened, that much Salah understood, but what he did not have patience for was carelessness. Such lapses were often met with swift and brutal retribution.
Assad spun the combination wheel back and forth until he heard a gratifying click. He then pulled open the creaking doors and walked inside. The car port had an extremely low ceiling, just high enough to fit a standard vehicle. Crates lay about the room under the low light of a few ceiling bulbs powered by several energy-saving generators, which made the underground dwelling livable.
A pallet of fuel cans sat in the corner of the room with another pallet of MREs, meals-ready-to-eat, across from it. Salah had been living off the grid for some time. It was necessary for operations and not much different than his conditions in Syria, where he had commanded rebel teams in similar covert surroundings.
He saw a station wagon parked in the center of the port with Hakeem sitting on the hood in his cowboy outfit. He felt even more simmering rage than when Mohammed had entered his room with a pathetic look of shame across his face.
Bosra and Nabil approached the station wagon with their rifles slung around their shoulders, staring Hakeem down and then taking positions at the rear of the vehicle. They never left Salah’s side for any reason, it seemed.
Hakeem jumped off the hood and greeted Salah as Mohammed stood to the side with his eyes down, full of dread. Two large green military-issue generators hummed on both sides of the car port, in rhythmic unison in the otherwise dead silence.
Salah offered only a deep stare in return to Hakeem’s friendly greeting. The tension was as obvious as it was regrettable, and both Hakeem and Mohammed seemed to feel unjustly blamed and at a loss for words.
“So, tell me now,” Salah began. “What happened?”
Both men looked at each other, hesitant to speak up. To this Salah smiled. “Relax, brothers. Whatever it was, Allah will show us the way.”
“We were ambushed,” Hakeem said. “Two American agents. Maybe more. They came out of nowhere and just started shooting at us. Sayed was hit. Hussein next. They would have killed us. They would have killed us all if we didn’t get out of there.” He spoke fast, running over his own words, eager to shift the blame. “I don’t know what happened. We were exactly where we should have been. I didn’t pick the location. Neither did Mohammed. We did the best we could. We’re sorry, my leader. We’re very sorry.”
“Relax,” Salah said calmly. “Did you get the material?”
At that question, Hakeem froze, but the worried look on his eyes told Salah everything he needed to know.
“You didn’t…” Salah said, answering his own question.
“Please forgive us,” Mohammed said, speaking out of turn.
Salah turned to him with a stern, serious expression. “You were both armed, were you not? Why run? Why not stay and fight?”
“Because… because, we…”
“You didn’t want to die,” Salah said.
“Yes, my leader,” Mohammed said.
Salah took a step back, examining the dust-covered station wagon. He began to walk in a slow circle around the vehicle, crouching and looking underneath as Hakeem and Mohammed stayed in place.
“They saw the vehicle, yes?” Salah asked them with his back turned.
Hakeem looked at Mohammed, urging him to answer.
“We-we left right when they fired at us. I’m certain they didn’t get the license plate.”
Salah turned around and approached the men slowly as Bosra and Nabil stared them both down, hands on their rifles. “And you drove it all the way here. Right to our main operations hub?”
Neither man had an answer. Salah raised one arm and leaned against the passenger side of the car. The sleeve of his white robe swayed in the air. “Too many mistakes. And I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the Americans triggered the explosives in the vehicle.”
Both men’s eyes widened as Salah smirked in disbelief. “Surely, if I’ve heard the news living twenty feet underground, both of you are aware if this, no?”
“The car has no radio,” Hakeem said. “And we’ve had little signal on our cell phones out here.”
Salah nodded. “I appreciate your honesty in coming here empty-handed, despite the fear you must have felt for your failure.” He paused and held a finger to his bushy chin. “That is why I will only make an example of one of you. I’ll let you decide who deserves it more.”
Both men glanced at each other in panicked desperation.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to decide who that may be,” Salah said. Suddenly the satellite phone affixed to his pistol belt buzzed, its digital screen glowing. “Excuse me,” Salah said to the men, walking away and holding the phone to his ear.
He answered the phone to an urgent voice, crackling through the static. “What is it?” he said, not prepared for more bad news.
“We captured an American,” the voice said.
“What are you talking about?” Salah asked.
“About a mile from the safe house in El Paso. He was all alone. Maliki thinks he was trying to find our tunnels.”
“Who is he, FBI?” Salah asked.
There was a pause. “Border Patrol. All alone. Just him. He was on a dirt bike.”
Salah felt his heart beating rapidly. One American there, and who knows how many at the pickup site. They were closing in. “Find out what he knows,” Salah said. “We may have to push operations up. Unleash Phase One before more come.”
“Yes, my leader,” the man said. “By the time I’m done with him, he’ll tell us everything he knows.”
The Fury
Angela stared out the window into the night sky, where a blanket of tiny lights flickered forty thousand feet below. They had been in the air for nearly an hour, and El Paso was in close range. Rattling vibrations shook both bench seats in the back of the helicopter, and everyone on them. A red bulb above illuminated the hatch with an ominous glow.
While the agents continued to communicate through headset mikes, Angela hadn’t said a word, and even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered. The helicopter’s rumble, combined with her earplugs, made it difficult even to hear herself think. She did, however, have plenty of time to do just that.
Her cell phone was almost dead and losing signal, but she managed to send some messages to Doug telling him that it would be a late night. She observed the tight-knit FBI team around her, wondering what had happened to some of the others, Special Agent MacLachlan among them. She did feel a certain acceptance from them but wondered just how much they expected of her.
Thaxton had this air of guarded mystery around her, a face that never gave anything away, and a motive not clearly known. The presence of lights below was fleeting. They were flying deeper into the rural desert bordering El Paso. Shadowed mountain ranges came into view, eerily reminiscent of any Middle Eastern landscape.
Fort Bliss, one of the state’s largest military bases wasn’t too far from their current location. Angela could understand why military reserve units had often mobilized there during the height of the Iraq war. The extreme heat and cold mirrored the climates of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the mountainous terrain.
The boldness of any terror cell setting up camp within the vicinity of a major military base was something to grapple with. Then something struck a nerve in Angela. Fort Bliss could very well be one
of their strategic targets.
Captain Martinez’s words came back to her. He had mentioned the safety of his family as well as hers as one of the reasons they needed to be vigilant as border agents. It seemed as though terrorism had always been a part of Angela’s life, whether during her four years as a civil affairs officer or her first year with the Border Patrol.
But after two long wars, it seemed that there were more terrorists than ever. It was a new normal in the vein of crime statistics and traffic jams. Though the FBI agents around her appeared to be hell-bent on doing something about it.
Sutherland, seated next to her, turned and spoke loudly while holding his hands up, fingers spread. “Ten minutes!”
Angela nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. She would have been lying to claim she didn’t feel nervous. Martinez seemed to have stumbled onto something big, and for whatever reason, he didn’t want the FBI involved. But the very fact that she was with a high-ranking FBI team in pursuit of terror cells had her convinced she was on the right side.
As the helicopter descended slightly, Angela felt the push of gravity against her insides. She turned around to see the back of the pilot’s helmet. His dashboard was fitted with dozens of lighted gauges and tiny glowing bulbs. In front of the empty passenger seat, Angela noticed a ten-inch screen displaying a thermal image of the land below, labeled with coordinates and radar tracking. She was curious why no one sat up front but then saw the agents glued to the screen of Lynch’s open laptop as it rested on his knees.
Angela turned around again to look at the screen near the pilot. The grainy image displayed a white land mass, with shades of gray and black indicating mountains, canyons, and hilltops. The body heat of anything living was yet to be seen, but she watched in anticipation nonetheless. The helicopter descended another couple hundred feet. Angela turned around to see the FBI team huddled together viewing the laptop, pointing and talking.