Damascus, Syria
12:19 pm
Kahlil felt the Blackberry in his pocket vibrate. Excusing himself from an Australian couple shopping for an antique Tabriz rug in his shop, he went to the back room and read the message: AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLED AND READY FOR COMBAT.
Kahlil slipped into a closet and uncovered his radio equipment. He sent a coded message: MY INFORMANT SAYS YOUR AMERICAN IS PREPARING DRONES. TARGET MUST BE ISIS.
Washington, DC
9:00 pm
Omar Farok read a text message on his cell phone: ARIANA TO HORMAND: PRODUCT NEAR COMPLETION. NEED GUIDANCE SYSTEMS. $1 MILLION EACH. PLEASE MAKE DEPOSIT.
Farok was a filthy rich thirty-five-year-old prince from the Sudan who traveled around the world, sponsoring terrorism. Small and thin, he had a finely featured, clean-shaven face, framed with black hair, large almond-shaped brown eyes, and ribbon-like lips that barely moved when he spoke, which was always in a soft, silky voice. Farok owned a fleet of Learjets that carried him to whatever country would allow him to enter. Although he’d been suspected and even accused of terrorism, there had never been sufficient evidence to prosecute.
A year earlier, the United States had managed to ban his entry into the country on a technicality. But that was purely a formality for a man of his means. Now, here he was—in the nation’s capitol. If he got caught, he’d be deported or detained. He’d have to be clever and stealthy. Not so much, he thought, sniffing arrogantly as the corners of his mouth curled up in a stiff smile. So stupid, these Americans.
Watson Farm
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Noon
Sandra had become one of twelve “soldiers” when Nicole Banzar had recruited her from the Chicago Al Qaeda splinter group. She was an attractive twenty-one-year-old with long, wavy, bleach-blonde hair. Her assignment for the three days prior to the killing of the farm owner, Billy Watson, was to hide in the woods nearby and simply observe. Nicole wanted to be certain her soldiers would not be burdened by Billy’s friends or curious neighbors.
During the observation period, no one turned into the driveway, and only six cars, other than the daily passing of the mailman, even drove past the property. This was what Nicole wanted—total isolation to do her work. Billy Watson’s farm was the perfect setting.
Sandra, like the rest of Nicole’s soldiers, was now dressed as a farmer. She was sitting on a tractor beside the road when a beat-up Chevy Camaro pulled into the dirt driveway. Sandra started the Ford 8N tractor and drove to block the passage of the visitor.
“Can I help ya?” she called out to the driver.
The man was rough-looking: unshaven, homemade tattoos covering the visible parts of his skin, dressed in a dirty T-shirt and grease-smudged jeans. He looked Sandra over, top to bottom, and focused on her breasts as he spoke. “Naw, ya cain’t help me. I’m Earl. Jes goin’ ta see Billy. Sometimes he needs a little help ‘round here, an’ I need a little money for a carb’rator, so’s I’ll jes run on down.” Racing his engine, he drove around Sandra into the weed-overgrown field and sped to the house. He screeched to a stop, bounded out of the car, and strode up to the front door.
Nicole stepped outside and closed the door after her. “Billy’s sick. He ain’t seein’ visitors today.”
“I don’t want to talk ta you. I jes wanna see Billy.”
Pushing her aside, he opened the door and walked into the room—where a guy dressed like a farmer and carrying an M-16 immediately greeted him. The fake farmer aimed the rifle at Earl’s chest. Wide-eyed, Billy’s buddy raised his hands high over his head. Sweat broke out all over him.
“I don’t mean no harm,” he said. “Where’s Billy? Tell him Earl’s here. I jes need ta say sumthin’ ta him.”
Nicole rushed in behind Earl. “Don’t shoot!”
The soldier lowered his gun to his waist but kept it pointed at the man. “Hands behind your back,” Nicole barked.
She duct-taped his wrists and then his thighs and knees together.
Earl began to cry. “What’cha doin’ ta me? I don’t have nuthin’ ‘gainst ya’ll. I jus’ wanna see Billy!”
“You don’t always get what you want,” she said as she rolled out a large sheet of clear, heavy-duty plastic and shoved him onto it. While the male soldier held Earl down, Nicole folded the plastic neatly around him and taped all the open edges, making it airtight.
Earl kicked and screamed inside his sealed pouch. “Please let me go! I’ll jes go an’ say nothin’ ‘bout all this. Please don’t kill me!” His voice was muffled by the plastic wrap. The more he struggled and cried, the faster his oxygen was being used up. His voice grew weaker and weaker until he went silent, suffocated in his plastic cocoon.
Nicole turned to the soldier. “Stick him in a closet till midnight, then put him in his car and drive it into the Roanoke River outside Weldon. Make sure there’s no tape residue on his body or clothing, and don’t leave any fingerprints. Pour booze down his throat and make this look like a car accident.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kirkuk, Iraq
1:00 pm
COLONEL EDWARDS HAD JUST received an urgent call. A Kurdish spy near Mosul had spotted a convoy of deuce-and-a-half trucks carrying forty ISIS troops. Shar al Sheikh was in the group. Charlie’s Global Hawk was still airborne and within ten miles of the target.
“Damn, they’re bold!” Edwards said. “They think Charlie’s still setting up his station in America and isn’t operational yet. They feel safe, and traveling in the open saves them a lot of time.”
As the drone closed in on the convoy, one of the forensics team watching the monitors stood and shouted, “There it is! What in the hell are they doing, exposing themselves like that? They know we’re looking for ‘em!”
Charlie was already in his control center when an excited Edwards called.
“Charlie! We have ducks on the pond! Four of ‘em, all in a row.”
“What’s the bounty?”
“On Shar al Sheikh, twenty million. But for a convoy, I’ll authorize another twenty, but only if you kill most of ‘em.”
Charlie flopped into his chair and activated the monitors. Screen one showed the convoy of four trucks on level terrain and out in the open. Screen two showed a close-up of the leader, sitting by the driver in the lead truck. The headcount was ten per vehicle.
“Is the identity of al Sheikh confirmed?”
“Yes, sir. His photos are exact matches for the Shar al Sheikh who helped plan 9-11. He’s all yours. There are four Hellfires in the tubes. Blast those motherfuckers to hell.”
Charlie got down to business. His heart beat fast and sweat dripped from his brow. He quickly placed the square on the front truck and centered the X. He wanted to kill all four, but there was one problem: The trucks were spaced fifty feet apart. The cloud of dust from the first missile explosion would obscure his view of the rest of the targets. The men could leave the trucks and disappear before he fired his second shot. He moved the sight back and forth along the path of the trucks and measured the distance between them.
“I’m going for a hat trick plus one,” Alpha Charlie said aloud to the forensics crew in Iraq.
He pushed the trigger button on the first truck and in rapid-fire succession fired the other three Hellfires as he moved the sights along the path of the road.
His forensics team all stood silent, holding their breath. None of the group, including Edwards, had ever seen this done before, and Charlie had done it only in video games. The first explosion would be in ten seconds. Charlie counted: 10, 9, 8, 7 …
When his count reached zero, a cloud of dust smothered the convoy. In the ensuing three seconds, the dust cloud enlarged in a long, linear path. Charlie’s fists clenched as he waited. Twenty-five seconds lapsed before he was able to see through the dust cloud. There were the four trucks, all bombed out.
A cheer arose from his crew in Iraq. Charlie half-smiled and gave a salute.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jackson City Jail
Midnight
I SAT ALONE IN my jail cell, staring at the wall as if in a trance, thinking about my wife. A bitter chuckle rose in my throat, like bile, at the irony of it all. The thing that had attracted her to me had now turned out to be the same thing that drove her away. I was a plastic surgery resident at Duke when Alicia’s mother was mugged and beaten. Her facial bones were shattered and I stayed at her side for four days and nights until the tracheotomy tube was removed and she could breathe on her own.
Though Alicia was courted by wealthy and successful men, she fell in love with me because I was the one who stayed at her mother’s side the whole time. Of course, that was long ago, at a time when small-town doctors actually cared about helping people. Things had changed. Healthcare costs were through the roof, and they were only going to go higher with the sale of the non-profit Jackson City Hospital. Alicia had initially loved me for being so dedicated to my patients, but then over the years, she grew to hate that very same quality.
From jail, I called our family lawyer. After he told me that he had filed papers to prevent me from seeing my two boys and that he was representing my wife in the divorce, he hung up on me. I thought that was very sweet of him. I then called three other lawyers whom I considered to be close friends. They all refused to represent me when they found out that all my assets were frozen and I had no money for a retainer.
Sure, the test for nitrates on my hands was negative, proving that I didn’t fire the gun that killed Wilson—but what good did that do me? Everything else pointed to murder. I’d been at the scene of two killings and an attempt on Keyes’ life in less than forty-eight hours. The judge and prosecutor didn’t care about the nitrate test.
For the first time in my life, I was ready to give up. My head was spinning. What the hell am I going to do? I was so filled with anxiety I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t think at all. I just sat there, dumbstruck and seriously depressed. I was used to adversity, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the troubles confronting me now. I was raised on a tobacco farm and for years worked long into the night doing farming chores to help my aged parents barely eke out a living. My muscles grew strong from the farm work and this helped make me a good athlete. On the high school football team, Herb Waters and I were in the backfield together. Herb was fullback and I was tailback. I was offered a football scholarship but instead chose an academic scholarship at a state college. During the summers, I worked on the farm, and during the academic year I took on a few campus jobs to make extra money for my parents. There was no time for sports. I made high grades in college and med school, and excelled in my surgical training.
I’d trained for surgery under Dr. Jerome Fusco. Under his regime I had to be prepared at any time to quote articles from the thirty or so surgical journals published each month. I had to study and memorize the techniques of each operation in which I was involved, so that if a surgeon on the case fell ill, I could take over. At the same time, I had to provide patient care during killer shifts of “on thirty-six, off twelve” hours. After my paperwork was finished, that often meant zero off hours.
Now all those years of hard work and training seemed to be for naught. I lay on my bed that night thinking about what to do next, but the mental and physical toughness that I’d developed in the tobacco fields was gone. I wished I had the $1.5 million I spent building my surgery center for facial reconstruction. With no surgery on the books, there was no income coming in. I was screwed. I was broke and there was no way I was ever going to make bail. All the extra work I had put into my surgical training seemed like a thing of the past now.
Earlier in the day, one of the guards had read aloud a brief article to me and my jail mates. It told of Herb Waters, who was now the president of Jackson City Hospital, being seen in town having dinner with my wife. My knees grew weak. My chest ached. If I had Wilson’s gun again, this time I’d shoot myself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Watson Farm
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
9:06 am
THE TOP OF THE Mack’s trailer had been peeled back, and the terrorist recruits were assembling the launchers on the truck bed. The four men and two women were dressed as farmers. Nearby, the chief engine mechanic had been working on the deceased Billy Watson’s backhoe for two hours. Ideally, the old vehicle would be used to move the missiles quickly, from the crates to the launchers.
But the old diesel engine just wouldn’t turn over. The chief mechanic wiped sweat from his face with his forearm, smearing grease on his face, and muttered, “Can’t get the son-of-a-bitch started.”
Michelle came into the barn and walked over to fix the truck herself. “I need that machine. Get the fuck outta my way.”
As she approached the vehicle, the mechanic stepped toward her, and as she bent down to take a look, he copped a feel of her ass. Michelle laughed, shrugged, and then hit him in the jaw, knocking him to on the ground. She scowled, “I’ll cut off your balls and shove ‘em up your ass if you even think of touchin’ me again.”
The man held his jaw and apologized. “God, Michelle, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Michelle kicked him in the side with the pointed toe of her Western boot, and screamed, “Don’t fucking touch me!”
One of the other men pulled her away before she killed him. Michelle took the mechanic’s tools and began working on the old diesel engine. Within thirty minutes, she had the engine running.
Michelle had trained in Israel with some of the best weapons experts in the world. She’d worked with missiles confiscated by the border police as well as Scud missiles that had been fired their way but had fallen short. She’d learned how to take the devices apart, piece by piece, and repurpose them. She’d removed the kerosene-propelled motors and converted them to solid fuel engines. She’d added GPS guidance systems to relics of past wars and had made them capable of hitting targets 200 miles away.
Now, Michelle headed up the covert operation in the United States, where, among other things, she was charged with installing automatic target recognition (ATR) guidance systems in the silkworms. Manufactured by General Electric, the ATRs had been legally sold to Israel for the development of its missile defense system. Using money Hormand had sent, Nicole had purchased six of these units at black-market prices from Michelle’s Israeli “friends.”
Michelle had worked through the night trying to get all six missiles ready. In the summer heat, she sweated profusely. Since she never wore a bra, her nipples were visible through her wet blouse, yet no one in the group dared to glance at her chest. Although most of the men were devout Muslims, none objected to Michelle’s revealing attire.
Michelle was in the process of installing the ATRs when she received a package from Hormand containing an attachment developed for naval warfare. In mid flight, the attachment could locate the GPS signal given out by a ship in trouble, and accurately lock on to the distressed vessel. Hormand had sent only one of these devices, which Michelle was to install in the first rocket that would be fired.
When she finally finished, she announced, “The missiles are ready. They’re accurate enough to hit the United States Capitol from here—if that was our target—and they would be powerful enough to flatten the motherfucker! As soon as Celena gets off her ass and locates the real target, our missiles are going to rip this country open.”
Cambridge, Maryland
9:15 pm
At long last, the ISIS chief could send a text to Kahlil: MY MISSILES ARE READY TO STRIKE. AFTER CHARLIE IS DEAD, I WILL AUTHORIZE THE USE OF ALL MY MISSILES TO DESTROY THE CITY. PRAISE ALLAH.
Jackson City, North Carolina
11:30 pm
Celena, Hormand’s operative, checked her texts. THE AMERICAN AND HIS CONTROL STA
TION MUST BE LOCATED AND DESTROYED BEFORE HE KILLS MORE OF MY ISIS BROTHERS. DEADLINE IS ONE WEEK.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jackson City Police Station
11:00 am
HARRIS WAS STUMPED. AND worried. Someone had paid James’ full bail with cash, and it wasn’t a bail bondsman. After more than twenty telephone calls, Harris still hadn’t identified James’ mysterious benefactor. Judge Wilkins refused to give him the name, and nobody at the courthouse seemed to know where the money had come from.
Harris tightened his jaw. Not gonna do it. Not til I have ta.
Harris figured that ignoring the release order might at least buy him some time to track down who was behind this, and it would keep the hospital president, Herb Waters, off his back.
It wasn’t time enough. After making a few phone calls that led nowhere, Harris was nosing around on the computer when a courier delivered a memo from the judge: “RELEASE JAMES NOW OR I WILL CHARGE YOU WITH CONTEMPT OF COURT.”
A few seconds later, his phone rang. Judge Wilkins made no attempt to mask the annoyance in her voice. “Dr. James’ bail has been paid. He’s free to go. The court has sent his release orders. Make sure he understands that he cannot leave the city for any reason. Failure to comply with any of the terms of the release will result in his arrest and forfeiture of the two million in bail, every dollar of it. Tell Dr. James that if he cannot afford an attorney, call the public defender’s office. I’ll see him in court in September. I suggest you get moving.”
A contempt charge came with a $10,000 fine and jail time. Harris dropped his head and shook it. Shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jackson City Jail
1:25 pm
HARRIS WALKED UP TO my jail cell and unlocked the door. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at me. I just stood inside the cage I’d been dying to get out of, staring at the open door. I tried to make eye contact with him and read his expression, but he wasn’t giving anything up.
The Missile Game (The Dr. Scott James Thriller Series Book 1) Page 5