by David Archer
All four of them looked at each other, but they all nodded and gave a curt, “Yes, sir.” they talked among themselves for a moment, and then separated to go to different points along the top of the dam and keep their vigils. Dickens handed Sam a small walkie-talkie. “We use these for communication,” he said, “and I figured you might not have one, so I brought a spare.”
“Good thinking,” Sam said. “Let's pray we get this guy before he can do what he wants to do.”
“Amen to that,” Dickens said as he walked off to his chosen post.
It was after five and the sun was getting lower, but it was still hot out on top of the dam, even under the covered walkway that Sam enjoyed at the middle. The concrete itself, one of the largest masses on earth, collected heat whenever the sun shone on it, and it radiated upward like they were standing on top of a furnace. After an hour on post, Sam gave the okay for one of the men to go and get them all bottles of water from the store, and he accepted his gratefully when it came. Dickens had gone personally to get them, and used the delivery as an excuse to talk to Sam.
“Word is,” he said, “that you're on special detail here. You're not HS?”
Sam grinned. “Nope. I'm a private eye from Colorado who blundered into this whole thing. Long story short, I saw something suspicious that let me find one of the bombs, and I knew a man from HS...”
“Harry Winslow,” Dickens said, and Sam grinned again.
“Right. When I couldn't get local police to listen to me, I called Harry, and after we got the bomb, I was so stinking lucky that I managed to capture one of the terrorists behind it all. Apparently he was a big muckety-muck, and what he was doing there is anybody's guess, but it made Harry decide he wanted me working on the case. I got drafted, and my job was to find the cell behind it all, which turned out to be in Denver, and then one of their lower-level members, just a kid, managed to convince me he was a victim, so I trusted him. I had a local cop, a friend of mine, watching the bomb while I went after the cell, and this kid blew his head off and took the bomb. He seems to think he's Allah's chosen vessel of our punishment, and we discovered a paper he'd written about how blowing up a nuke in Lake Mead would destroy America, so here we are.”
Dickens stared. “Holy Geez,” he said. “You did all this yourself?”
Sam thought of Indie. “Actually, it's my wife who figured out what Jamal is up to. She's sort of a computer whiz, and found him on Facebook. Going through his old posts, she found where he'd bragged about getting an A on a school paper and posted it right on his page, so she read it. It was the one about how this would be the biggest disaster we'd ever know. Since he's got his hands on a nuke, and already has this figured it out, it just made sense that this is what he was gonna try to do.”
Dickens shook his head. “Glad I'm on your team,” he said, and then walked back to his own post two hundred yards away.
The four of them watched every vehicle that came across the dam, scrutinizing each driver. They weren't only looking for Jamal's face behind the wheel, but also for any sign that the driver was nervous, scared or under someone else's control. If Jamal had carjacked someone, he might be forcing them to drive, and that person might be afraid to let his or her emotions show in front of the security guards, but there were tourists all over the place. They'd be unlikely to watch their emotions so carefully in front of people who weren't any sort of authority, so one person in plain clothes might see what a dozen uniformed guards wouldn't. That was what they were praying for.
16
Indie was frightened. Her husband of only three days, Sam, was more than seven hundred miles away, chasing a terrorist who was determined to detonate a nuclear bomb in Lake Mead, and since they didn't know how he was traveling or when he would get there, she was terrified that Sam would be too late to stop him, and would die trying. She had just hung up from telling him about Jamal's school report, and the fear was eating her alive.
She hadn't even known he existed only a couple of months earlier; now, she couldn't imagine life for her and her daughter without him, but she knew that he was a man who could never give up as long as there was hope, and until that bomb actually went off, he'd keep trying to save the world. That was who he was, and one of the many reasons she loved him.
The night before, after Sam had found the cell's leaders and had them in custody, he'd come to her and made love to her in ways she had never imagined were possible. Afterward, as they lay together, he told her the whole story of how he had found the boy who gave up his uncle and the others. He'd told her almost every detail, and when it turned out a few hours later that it was that same boy who had killed Dan Jacobs and taken the bomb, Sam had gone after him without a second thought, as she knew he would as soon as he'd told her what had happened.
Since that moment, she had sat at her computer and used Harry's car's wifi to dig into everything she could think of to try to help. When she found the kid's Facebook and spent hours going through it, she'd felt she was wasting time, but that time paid off when she discovered his school paper detailing what he considered the most devastating use of a small nuclear device. That discovery had led Sam to where he was waiting for Jamal, and where Indie was terrified he would die.
She hadn't stopped there, though. When she told Sam about Jamal's latest tweets, she'd been thinking in the back of her mind about any way she could determine how he was doing it, but nothing would come to her. She had wracked her brain, run dozens of searches through hacker sites for ways to track a phone through tweets, but nothing worked. When even the Attorney General couldn't get the information in a timely manner, she'd abandoned that line of logic and gone back over everything she knew, looking for anything that might give her another avenue to locate the terrorist kid.
She'd had his number, and used it to locate him at first, but then Sam had called the kid and he'd pitched the phone out the window. Indie figured he'd only kept it so Sam could call, so that he could gloat over killing Danny, but somehow he was still able to send tweets, and that indicated another phone, probably with a Twitter app, or maybe just with a browser. Either way would let him tweet, even if the phone wasn't actually tied to his account.
The question was, where had he gotten another phone? It could be one belonging to someone he'd carjacked, of course, and if so, then there were no leads she could follow. She thought about whether he had a second phone of his own, but couldn't find any indication of it.
In desperation, she went back to his old phone and got into his account through his carrier. She worked her way through its security until she got to his phone logs, and began looking them over.
Zayan Jamal had made six phone calls that night—three before Sam met him, and three after. He had received four calls, one of which was from Sam; the others were all from the same number, and it took her only seconds to confirm that it was his uncle's phone.
The outgoing calls, though, had been to different numbers, and she began to wonder about them. She opened her hacker program, Herman, and put each of those numbers into fields that told Herman what to do with them, then sat back to wait. Moments later, Herman dinged, and she began scrolling through his report.
The first number was registered to a woman in Lakewood named Donna Jarvis, and lasted four minutes. The next was owned by a man named Robert Kimball, three minutes. Neither name was Arabic, so she discounted those numbers for the moment.
The third was to a phone that belonged to Mahood Al Ravi. It lasted for seven and a half minutes, and she told Herman to run that name through everything he had. It came back as being a student at a local high school, a boy of only fifteen. Possibly connected, but nothing felt sinister, so she went on.
The fourth number, the first call he made only moments after Sam had left him, was only a minute long, and went to someone in Illinois named Raman Zikouri. She ran that name, and then stared at the screen; Zikouri was currently in jail, but not for terrorism—he had been arrested only days before as a major supplier of drugs to Chicago
street gangs. Indie wondered how Jamal could be connected, and whether it was tied to his current activities, but simply saved the information for the moment.
Call number five was to a phone on his uncle's account and lasted for three minutes, but it wasn't the one he'd received calls from earlier. That caught her attention, and she saved that, as well.
Number six was an eighteen minute call to a phone with a California area code, and Indie felt her pulse begin to race. Herman said the number belonged to a Mousif Al Mahdi, and when she ran that name through his searches, her heart almost stopped.
Mousif Al Mahdi was a director of an organization in Riverside, California, called Islam Reigns, which was suspected of having ties to ISIS! How could Jamal even have such a person's number?
She grabbed her phone and dialed Harry's number, and when he answered, she told him all that she'd discovered. He seemed shocked, and then he asked, “Indie, what number do you have for Jamal?” She told him, and he sighed.
“That explains a lot,” he said. “We've been going after the number we had for him from his school activities, and it's a whole different number. None of those calls appear on it at all! I'm getting on this right now, and see if we can get any kind of leads out of any of these people!”
“Oh, God, Harry, I'm sorry! If I'd known, I would have given it to you before now!”
“I know, dear, and so would Sam, but it never occurred to me that Sam had a different number for the little beast! I'll let you know if I get anything!”
Indie sat back and stared at her screen. If Harry and HS hadn't had the number Jamal was using the night before on his terror cell activities, what else might they not have? She wracked her brain for any more ideas that might help her keep her husband safe.
One of the calls he made was to another number on his uncle's cell phone account. She copied the number and went back into the carrier's website to check its activity. Herman did his thing, and shortly she was looking at the call log for that phone.
Strangely enough, the only incoming call it had received in the past twenty-four hours was the one from Jamal the night before, and it had only one outgoing call, made a few hours earlier that day. That call, she noticed with excitement, was to a California area code. She fed the number to Herman and a moment later he reported that it belonged to no one.
A throwaway phone, she thought. I think the little bastard's using that spare phone of his uncle's! Now, let's see who he called!
She went to her favorite phone locating site and plugged the number in. A moment later, the site told her that the phone's GPS locator was not functioning. She grumbled to herself, then plugged in the number of the phone that had made the call. She got the same message; someone had disabled the GPS locators on the phones.
Federal Law Enforcement, however, could turn them back on, as long as they weren't physically broken. She dialed Harry again and gave him both numbers. When she explained what she'd found, the old man told her that he was going to kidnap her and make her work for him!
“I'll get our people on these and see if we can find them. If Jamal's got help from Islam Reigns, he may not be alone, and Sam needs to be aware of that. I'll call him the minute I get anything on these.”
“Okay,” she said. “Harry, if you think of anything else I can do...”
“I'll call you, I promise!” He cut the call short, and Indie went back to staring at the screen.
17
Zayan Jamal was less than two hours away from where Sam awaited him, sitting at a small rest area just off I-15. He had stopped to use the bathroom, and took the time to get a soft drink from the vending machine outside, drinking as he walked toward the motor home.
He smiled as he looked at the big machine. No one would ever guess that he would be driving across the country in such a vehicle, and it was big enough to hide the bomb inside easily. The thing was heavy, and it had been difficult to get it inside, but the couple in the motor home had been glad to help, once they saw the barrel of Zayan's gun staring into their faces. They had worked together to carry it in, while he kept them both in its aim, and when he told the man to drive while the wife sat in the back with Zayan, he had complied after only a moment of begging for their safety. Zayan laughed, and told him that his choice to stop for gas in the middle of the night had been Allah's will, and that he would play a part in Allah's greatest triumph over America.
Then the American had called, and Zayan had tossed out the phone that could lead to him. When the next exit appeared, he had told the man to pull off and he would let them go. There was a gas station at the exit, but he told the man to drive on past it, following a curving road that led up into the mountains. After a few miles, when he had not seen any houses or cars for a while, he told the man to stop.
He had not lied; he had allowed them to step out of the motor home, and then made them walk into the forest, where he shot them both through their heads. He had enjoyed the look of shock and horror on the woman's face, as she watched her husband die, but then the second bullet had ended her grief, and he watched as she fell right beside him.
Death was a beautiful thing to Zayan. Sending these people to their fates in the Abyss of Hell gave him a wonderful thrill, just as killing the policeman had the night before. He had discovered the thrill when he was only eleven years old, and had been taken by an American boy to a wooded place, promised that there was a bear cub there that he would see.
When they arrived, however, there was no bear cub, and the other boy suddenly became cruel, demanding that Zayan do something unspeakable! He threatened Zayan, and brandished a small knife, saying he would kill Zayan if he did not do as he was told, but Zayan was weeping and begging to go home. The boy poked at him with the knife, and the tip of it cut his arm, a small scratch, and suddenly a rage came over Zayan. He spotted a branch that had fallen from a tree, grabbed it and swung it, hitting the other boy in the head and knocking him to the ground. The knife was dropped, and Zayan snatched it up. He laughed as he saw the fear in the other boy's eyes, and as he raised the knife and brought it down to stab into his chest, again and again, and the thrill took him as the boy's screams became weaker and weaker after each new wound appeared.
He'd looked at the dead boy and felt no shame for what he'd done. He was proud of himself, but he knew that others would consider it a bad thing, so he wiped the blood from himself and from the knife. He took off his bloody shirt and stuffed it down into his pants, then went home. When his mother asked him about the blood the next day, he smiled and told her it was not a woman's business to question a man about his work, and she never asked again.
The body of the other boy was found a few days later, but no one had seen the two of them together. No one asked Zayan about it, not then, and not any of the other times.
He went back to the motor home and drove it back to the gas station, parked it behind the building and got into one of the beds to get some sleep, setting an alarm on his other phone to wake him and make sure he got back on the road after a bit of rest.
When he woke, he used the now-dead man's credit card to fill the tank on the big monster, and then got back on the road. He had lots of time to think, and to plan his actions so that Allah would be greatly pleased with him.
He drove steadily through the day, maintaining the speed limit and thinking about the fame and glory that would be his. There would be stories told about him, and Allah would welcome him into Paradise personally.
A part of him, however, did not want to die yet. He kept reminding himself that this was the only way to ensure that he would go to Heaven, to Paradise, for only those who die defending Islam and destroying its enemies were assured of Reward. When he got there, seventy-two young virgins would await him, and their purpose of existence would be only to please him. What could this world offer that would make remaining in it worthwhile, compared to the wonders of Paradise?
He knew that what he was feeling was fear, and that there was no place for fear in the heart of Allah's ha
nd on earth. For a few moments, he doubted whether he could do what had to be done, knowing that his earthly life would end, and so in the afternoon, he took out his phone and called the number that Mousif Al Mahdi had given him the night before. He was to call if he needed help to carry out his plan, and he felt that having someone with him would strengthen him. Two are always stronger than one, he knew.
“This is Muaz,” said a voice on the other end of the line.
“This—this is Zayan Jamal. Mousif gave me this number...”
“Yes, Zayan, I have been waiting for your call. How can I be of help to you, great one?”
Zayan thought quickly; he could not admit to any fear or weakness, could not tell this warrior of Allah that he was afraid that he might not have the courage to complete his task. “Do you know my mission?” he asked, forcing the quaver out of his voice.
“I do, and praise be to Allah for your great wisdom and courage!”
Zayan smiled at that. Already, the legend that would grow around him was being born in the words of Mousif and his people. “The thing is heavy,” he said. “Is there one among you who is willing to enter Paradise with me, and help me to do what I must do?”
“I am he,” Muaz said. “Mousif sent me on my way this morning, so that I might be near to you when you call. Let me come and meet with you, and I will go along and help you achieve your glorious mission.”
“Yes, yes,” Zayan said. “Where shall we meet? I am still driving to the place Allah has guided me to, but it will be a few hours before I get there.”