The van bumped along a pitch-black road, eventually stopping at a large, neglected wooden gate placed across the road. In the harsh glare of the van’s headlights, the gate looked ancient, yet formidable. Rising six feet high and joining the thick forest on either side of the van, the fence looked out of place for such a remote location. A simple fence would have drawn less attention, but Julius had to remind himself that it would be highly unlikely for anyone to stumble on this location by accident.
The driver lowered his window and turned on the interior lights. Julius glanced back at their precious cargo. Twenty canisters, seated in two specially designed crates, were hidden in compartments nestled underneath several pallets of bottled water. He felt exposed in the light, presuming that a camera was confirming their identities at this very moment. Several seconds later, the rickety barrier in front of the van started to slide out of the way. He suspected that there was more to the fence than rotten wood. His nervousness started to give way to excitement at the prospect of being exposed to more of True America’s plan for “The Rising.”
The van’s rough transit smoothed out just past the gate, and they travelled for several minutes until Julius could see lights ahead. He leaned forward and watched as they approached a long, one-story, flat-roofed structure. From what he could tell, this was the only structure within sight. The sheer darkness surrounding the building swallowed up the meager glow cast by a small light fixture to the right of a single loading bay. The van pulled up to a point roughly ten feet from the building. When it stopped, the loading bay door rolled open, exposing the inside of the facility.
Through the window, Julius could see several hundred pallets of water bottles stacked inside the bay, which appeared much deeper than he had initially estimated. Based on what he saw, the building must extend at least a hundred feet back. A few men appeared in the bay and hopped down from the concrete loading platform. He could barely believe he was now a part of an even more secretive arm of True America.
“Everyone out. They’ll take over from here,” the driver said.
Julius opened the van door and was immediately greeted by an intense glaring Caucasian man he had never seen before. In the faded light, he could see that the man had a military-style tattoo on his right bicep, partially visible underneath a black polo-style shirt.
“Mr. Grimes, my name is Michael Brooks. Head of security. Your identity has been compromised, so it looks like you’ll be joining us here. This site will be extremely busy over the next few weeks, and we can use another set of hands.”
“How long will I have to stay? I was told that my family might be able to join me; I didn’t really have this in mind,” Julius said.
He was starting to feel like more of a prisoner than an elite member of True America’s militant arm. He could be stuck here indefinitely without seeing his family.
“We know that your family is under surveillance. Since the FBI hasn’t approached them, we can only assume that they are waiting for you. We suspect that you may be their only lead at this point. Consider yourself lucky.”
“Lucky? To be imprisoned here indefinitely?”
“To be alive. Work hard, and keep your mouth shut here. You won’t be given another warning. Understood?”
Julius thought about the pistol he still had tucked into his jeans. Nobody had suggested that he surrender the Beretta, so he’d kept it near him at all times. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if they asked for it.
“Understood. Where exactly am I?”
“At our lab, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Let’s head inside and get you situated.”
Julius followed Brooks to a door on the right side of the loading bay. Two more men jumped down onto a concrete strip below the bay’s lip. The security man opened the windowless door, exposing a well-lit room. He gestured for Julius to enter and stood back a few feet. A small set of concrete stairs led Julius to the door and into the room. When he saw his team leader standing inside the empty space, his heart sank. He knew exactly why they had brought him to the middle of nowhere. He remembered back to the beginning. One of True America’s key tenets was “we take care of our own.” The saying had more than one meaning. He had been constantly reminded of this in the early phase of his recruitment, when the question of his loyalty had yet to be fully answered.
He turned and leapt out of the doorway, landing on the moist, root-infested dirt with two feet. He reached for the Beretta secured against the small of his back and started sprinting toward the darkness. If he could make it to the woods, he could hide until he figured out his next move. His only thought at the moment was to just survive. He cursed himself for not trusting his earlier instincts.
Looking around as he ran, Julius extended the pistol toward Brooks and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He faltered in his run, pulling the pistol’s slide back to chamber another round. He did this flawlessly, watching the unfired bullet eject from the pistol before he depressed the trigger again. Brooks stared at him and shook his head. Julius stopped running in the middle of the dirt field. He repeated the process, aiming at Karen Nadeau, who had appeared in the doorway, blocking most of the light from inside. The hammer fell, but the pistol failed to discharge.
“We took the liberty of replacing your Beretta while you were deep in a drug-induced sleep at the safe house!” Brooks yelled.
Julius tried one more time, aiming at Brook’s head. He wasn’t sure how they drugged him, but sleep had come easily enough. He had no reason to doubt what the man had said, so he tossed the pistol to the ground.
“This is your version of gratitude, Mr. Grimes? Fuck up one of the most important jobs we can give you and shoot your way free when the terms of your punishment aren’t acceptable?” Brooks said.
“Should I have dug my own grave for you too? Or is a pre-dug hole part of the ‘we take care of our own’ motto.”
“Grave? Kathy’s not here to kill you, Grimes. I took your entire team out of circulation to minimize the damage. Ward Young is here as well. I can’t take the risk of the possible connections.”
Both of his teammates stepped down from the building and stood near Brooks. He whispered something to them, and they started walking over to the loading bay. Julius stood there, stunned by the revelation.
“Now I have a real problem, Julius. I can’t trust anyone on this team anymore.”
Kathy Nadeau and Ward Young stopped in their tracks and turned their heads toward Brooks. Before either of them could protest, suppressed automatic weapons fire erupted from the loading bay and smaller doorway, puncturing their bodies and dropping them to the recently cleared forest floor. Aerosolized blood mist from their exit wounds lingered in the air above them, illuminated by the door’s light fixture.
“Go fuck yourself. I get the distinct feeling nobody is going to leave this compound alive. Good luck to the rest of you! This is how True America rewards loyalt—”
A single gunshot passed through his head, putting an end to a line of reasoning that Michael Brooks didn’t want him to continue in front of too many people.
Chapter 13
12:08 AM
Masjid (Mosque) Mohammad
Newark, New Jersey
Aleem Fayed sat in a chair they had dragged down from the classroom attached to the prayer hall. He faced Hamid Abdul Muhammad, who sat unharmed on a small wooden stool they had found in the basement. His hands and feet were tied to the stool, to prevent him from doing anything more than hurt himself if he should try to stand up. The basement had proved to be the best possible location they could have secured on short notice. They could have rented a hotel room by the hour in one of the seediest sections of town, where strange noises and even screams wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Or they could have used the rental house that had been secured this morning in an equally questionable part of town. The house had a basement and might become their only option if the Imam proved resistant to their accelerated mental and physical torture routine.
He suspected
that they would have more success with physical torture. The Imam had grown soft in America, having expanded his waist at a rate that must have alarmed his handlers in the Middle East. When he arrived to preach hate and recruit terrorists eight years ago, he looked slim and fit in his traditional white garments. Now, he more closely resembled a bearded version of the late John Belushi. His white prayer robes must have gone through several alterations to cover the man sweating in the chair in front of them.
They hadn’t spoken a word to him since finding him jammed into a cabinet in his upstairs office. He had left the basement door open, hoping to trick them into hastily plunging down the stairs, but Tariq had noticed two formidable slide bolts on the back of the door. If they had thoughtlessly rushed into the basement, Hamid could have easily barricaded the door and tried to escape. The single, bare light bulb in the basement was controlled from a switch inside of his office, which would have compounded their problem. They would have been locked inside an unfamiliar, pitch-black basement with the success of their mission now hinged upon the three technicians sitting in a van two blocks away. Sanderson would have never forgiven them if they had lost the Imam.
Tariq called down from the office above. “It looks like we’re ready to go.”
Aleem smiled at Hamid and started phase two of their plan to get him talking quickly. He hoped to have this wrapped up in under two hours. The silent treatment was just a short tension builder. Done properly, they would isolate Hamid for as long as it would take to get him to initiate contact. Tonight, they didn’t have that kind of time.
“Imam Muhammad, As-Salaam Alaikum. You’re in a deep pile of shit right now. You understand that, right?”
Hamid didn’t respond in any way. His expression remained the same, and his gaze focused on an indeterminate point beyond Aleem. Tariq descended the stairs with their black duffle bag and walked behind the Imam. He dropped the bag to the ground and unzipped it.
“Eventually you’ll talk. They all do.”
Silence penetrated the room, and the Imam didn’t waver. Aleem nodded imperceptibly to Tariq, who had removed a can of hair spray, a lighter and a black cloth bag. Less than a second later, Hamid Muhammad’s head was engulfed in flames from the aerosol can. He immediately panicked and screamed, trying desperately to stand. Tariq had anticipated his sudden movement and forced the black bag down over his head, pulling down on the sides of the bag.
The bag served two purposes. The first was to extinguish the flames and the second was to keep him from tipping over. Tariq held the bag in place while Aleem beat the sides of the hood to ensure the fire had been stopped. Hamid stopped thrashing and started to recover his composure, just as Tariq pulled the bag’s drawstrings tight.
The calmness slowly morphed back into desperation, as Hamid struggled to breathe what little oxygen had slipped into the bag. He gave it another twenty seconds for him to take in the stench of his own burnt hair and singed skin before giving Tariq the signal to remove the hood. When the hood was yanked off his head, the Imam’s smug look was gone, replaced by sheer panic. Besides some burnt hair that still smoldered, there appeared to be little physical damage from the fire.
“Do I have your attention now, or do I need to light your head on fire again? This time I’ll start with your beard.”
“You’re not the police!” he gasped.
“No. I’m about as far from the police as you can get.”
“Then who are you? Mossad?”
“You might wish we were the Mossad at some point tonight. Even the Mossad has a few rules,” Aleem said.
Hamid regarded him with a concerned look, which gave Aleem some hope that they might be able to wrap this up quickly. They had quickly broken the impassive wall the Imam had erected to stall them.
“You have a big problem, Hamid,” Aleem said.
“And what might that be?”
“You betrayed your own cause. Shameful really. An entire network of Al Qaeda sleeper cells wiped out because of your greed and immorality.”
“What are you talking about?” Hamid said, trying to glance behind him.
“Let’s not fuck around here. We know that the European network shipped fifty-eight canisters of a very nasty virus to the United States. Originally, there were several targets in Europe, but the Russian scientist went rogue and panicked your colleagues overseas. Forty of them went directly to your cells and eighteen went to True America, who then turned right around and betrayed you. Two of your cells survived, but one was just slaughtered trying to deliver the virus to their target. America is on high alert. The only targets you might have left are a few lemonade stands in your very own Muslim neighborhoods because I think the tolerance level for sweaty Arabs in most neighborhoods just hit an all-time low.”
Hamid looked surprised at the level of information provided by Aleem. “What does this have to do with greed?”
“You’re the one that fucked over your own people. How else could the FBI roll up the conspiracy so quickly? Facing charges of collecting and disseminating child pornography, you tried to strike a deal with True America to finance your disappearance to a comfortable compound in Mexico. In exchange for the remaining virus canisters, three million dollars appears in a Cayman Islands account with your name on it, but is suddenly seized by the same agency that made the deposit. Surprise. You made the deal with undercover FBI agents posing as members of True America. Imagine the FBI’s surprise when suddenly confronted with Al Qaeda’s conspiracy to poison U.S. cities. And they just thought you might be running some kind of child trafficking ring with domestic extremists. This is going to be a hard story to explain to your colleagues in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Especially with all of the sordid details we can selectively leak into your cell block.”
“The True America pigs are the ones that betrayed me. This is a fact,” Hamid spat.
“Fact. Fiction. Details really. We can make this look like whatever we want. We have all of the addresses for your sleeper cell network. We’ll publish this list. Trust me, your friends will wonder how in the hell we could have acquired this. Of course, the cell responsible for shipping the virus in Frankfurt disappeared without a trace, as they had no doubt been instructed.”
“It won’t matter. The faithful will never believe what you throw into your false media.”
“You’ll spend so much of your time explaining these amazing circumstances that I doubt there will be any time left for your duties as an Imam. You’ll meet some of your former recruits, who will remember you as a defiant firebrand Imam. Imagine what they’ll think when you show up to join them. They’ll see you as a soft, corrupted traitor that capitulated to Western excess and sin.”
“When my plan succeeds, I will be hailed as the greatest hero. The one who struck the most vicious blow against the Great Satan. You have no true idea how many canisters are still in circulation. Your government can’t protect everyone.”
“Would you like me to show you the actual list? I have a picture of it on my phone. It’s a little hard to read. One of my operatives cut it out of Naeem Hassan’s stomach. He swallowed the list. Can you believe that? Completely unexpected. This left us wondering how many other Al Qaeda operatives carried secrets to their graves. Disembowelment and an invasive stomach search is now part of our standard operating procedure. You can thank Mr. Hassan for that.”
Hamid sighed, which Aleem knew was a subtle sign of resignation. Aleem had been watching him closely.
“Hamid, eight out of the ten sites were taken down by True America. Turn on the news and you’ll see what happened to the ninth team. Give me the tenth team and any information related to your contact with True America, and I will arrange your immediate transit to Saudi Arabia, where you can start over. You have been betrayed by True America. Frankly, we don’t know their motivations for stealing all of the virus. I need links to the group, contact information. Some kind of way to set up a meeting to deliver the remaining virus canisters. I need the last cell to make this happ
en. I need their identities so we can pose as this team and resurface. I also need to be able to report to my people that we are only facing one threat. You’ll have to sacrifice this team.”
“I’ll never betray my brothers,” Hamid said.
“They’ve already been betrayed. If you don’t help us with this, you’ll go to Guantanamo as a filthy child pornographer and traitor to your own cause. We’ll put together a scenario that will be impossible for you to explain. Trust me on this.”
Hamid remained silent.
“This will be easy for you. You’ll report that the ninth cell was killed trying to accomplish their mission and that the final cell has been killed by True America. We’ll make it look like the other attacks. Nobody will know the difference, and you’ll vanish, only to reappear at some later date. We’ll keep you hidden from the government until we can verify your information. Once verified, we’ll start the process of getting you out of the country. Wherever you choose.”
“It won’t be that easy. I can’t just go running back to the mosques in Saudi Arabia. It would make no sense. And I can’t simply appear in Pakistan or anywhere for that matter. If the plan failed, they’ll be looking for me.”
“That’s not my problem. I can only guarantee to get you to your chosen destination.”
“How do I know you won’t shoot me in the back of the head after I tell you what you want to know?”
“I swear by Allah.”
“And your friend?”
“I swear by Allah as well,” Tariq said.
“This is no coincidence, Hamid. I’m not the most faithful Muslim, but I am a Muslim. The Prophet has given you another chance. Before we arrived, you had nothing. Your last remaining operational cell is useless given the circumstances. All is lost, and I guarantee there is no way you could escape the country without our help. Maybe you’ll disappear and never be heard from again, or maybe you’ll continue the fight. That’s not for me to decide. It is His will, and we are all given different paths.”
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