American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (26 page)

His two recruits couldn’t believe how easy it was. Flashlight batteries, timer or cell phone, an easy explosive concoction made with hardware or drug store ingredients, and something to throw when everything blew. In the course of an afternoon, they made thirty different bombs ranging in size from a knapsack to a trashcan.

And it was a good thing they were in a remote area where it had poured the previous day. One of the bombs they built created a crater thirty feet in diameter and ten feet deep. The still-soaked greenery was the only thing that kept the compound from going up in smoke.

Casey made a phone call. “We’re ready.”

“That’s great. So are we,” answered the familiar female voice. “Head north on I5 and I’ll call you with instructions tomorrow.”

Chapter 35
 

Julio and Helena had two hopeless tasks in front of them. The first was finding Ahmed and Fatima, and the second was figuring out the location of the target the two planned to light up.

There was a troubling non-development. All sales of materials that could potentially be used for explosives had gone back to normal sales levels, making it even more challenging to track where the sold materials were and whether they were going to be used for incendiary or farming purposes.
 

Discovering the link between the convicts and the Mosque of Ali in al Juwat was critical. Julio ordered the Geek Freaks to dig for more information, challenging them to find anything.

There was little point in trying to figure out the target of the possible/probable explosive attack, but that didn’t prevent fruitless speculation. The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco’s famed Chinatown, and Union Square were all candidates, as well as thousands more. This was one of the scariest things about terrorism. A target could be a shopping mall, a school or a skyscraper... anything. Their deliberate destruction would be enough to put a nation on edge.

The Geek Freaks were getting nowhere trying to find out where Ahmed might be speaking. Calls went directly to voicemail. Wary receptionists and managers said they had no way of accessing info on private functions. It made the decision to have Jennah accompany Rayna to make personal visits to religious and cultural San Francisco even more sensible. With the excuse of helping a fragile new Muslim refugee whose family had been ripped from her, Rayna and Jennah would be welcomed by even the most protective of religious centers.

Julio had accumulated a priority list of twenty organizations of potential sympathizers. During the next five hours, Jennah and Rayna visited five of the groups on Julio’s list. Every place they visited expressed compassion; every one of them offered religious, emotional and financial assistance.
 

Of course, the two couldn’t tell the truth about who they were or why they were there, so they fabricated new backgrounds.

Jennah was a star—a natural storyteller. She convincingly told the story of her family traveling in an overcrowded rubber dinghy to Lesbos. In compelling detail, she described the horrors she felt when the dinghy overturned, watching her parents drown in front of her while she desperately clung to the rubber craft, hanging on until rescue came. Rayna was an aid worker whose parents agreed to adopt Jennah. It was a lie that flirted with the truth—and those were the hardest to detect.

While staff were captivated by conversation with Jennah, Rayna quickly and discreetly went through the mosque or cultural center, sometimes able to sneak a look at a computer. Her forays revealed nothing, but she was able to plant bugs in strategic locations.

Rayna called Julio. “Any new leads?”

“Nothing. It may be that they’re going directly to the explosion stage?”

“I dunno, Julio. How can I break through? Nobody claims to know anything but I just sense somebody knows something. That’s why I didn’t press it, hoping they’d give you something to work with.”

“Threaten to kill them, cut off a body part or something,” Julio said, only half-joking.

“You know, you’re smarter than you look, Julio.”

“Uh, thanks, I think.”

Just after noon, Jennah and Rayna arrived at a small mosque on hotel row. As was becoming the norm, Jennah’s appearance was a minor event. So touched were the workers by her story, the visitors were given a personal tour of the house of worship by the imam before being invited into his office.

Rayna and Jennah watched as Imam Asjif adjusted his wire-framed glasses. He stroked his gray-flecked black beard as they sat in his office surrounded by ancient books and texts.
 

“It is so nice to meet you, Jennah. I know Allah has great plans for you in America. Unlike our homeland, in America we practice true Islam. True Muslims are peaceful, loving and tolerant. We care for all creatures, for everyone, everywhere and every day. To submit to God is the most important thing.” He paused, his eyes staring into her. “We keep up prayers and are generous to those in need. We fast during Ramadan and, Jennah, when it is time for you and your husband, you must make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your lives. We fight the self by abstaining to gain genuine freedom; and we believe in Allah’s justice. No evil, no tyranny, no alcohol, no flesh or blood of pigs, no gambling, no adultery. Praise be to Allah. This is what real Islam is for Muslims in America.”

“You are very wise and thoughtful, Imam. I would be so honored if you accepted me into your mosque,” said Jennah.

“Thank you, child.”

“Thank you, Imam,” expressed Rayna. “Can you step out for a moment, Jennah? I need to go over something with Imam Asjif.”

Jennah bowed, then stepped outside the door.

“What were you hoping to discuss, Rayna?” asked Imam Asjif curiously, adjusting his glasses again.

“Imam, can you tell me how to contact these people?” Rayna took her iPad and brought up the holograms of Ahmed and Fatima.

“Very impressive technology but I don’t know who they are.”

“That’s too bad because, when I step out the door, I will make a phone call and tell of your donation to al Badwari.”

The imam tried to hide his shock at this insolent visitor’s knowledge of the mosque’s support of the mid-level terrorist but failed—Rayna noted the slight involuntary twitch of the hand holding the teacup.
 

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Are you saying my organization has faulty research?” whispered Rayna with a sharp edge to her voice.

“Is it the same research that showed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that convinced America to start a war on Islam?”

Rayna knew she wouldn’t get anything out of this imam. Time to move on.

“Thank you for your time.” Rayna left an envelope on his table. “Open it.”

The plain white envelope contained five thousand dollars in cash. “If you hear anything, let me know. And there will be a bonus for you, too.”
 

Rayna got up and saw herself out of the room.

The imam stood by the window and watched Rayna and Jennah get into their vehicle and drive off. He then made a phone call.

“Yes, Imam,” answered Tariq’s voice.

“There was a Chinese woman and a new refugee that just left my office, looking for Ahmed and Fatima. She was very advanced and did not show photos but ghost images like you see in the movies. She gave me five thousand dollars, too.”

“Thank you. Anything else.”

“She’s driving a silver BMW.”

***

Naturally, Rayna planted a bug in the imam’s office. She and Julio heard his entire conversation. Both breathed an anxious sigh—finally, something Julio could work with! Now, if only whoever was at the other end of the phone used it again, Julio might be able to pinpoint a location.

***

Rayna and Jennah finished a cordial meeting at the expansive Hancock Springs Islamic Society with the same junior imam Fatima had stabbed earlier. As they walked back to the parking lot, Jennah said softly, “He gave me the look.”

“What look?” asked Rayna, puzzled.

“While you were in the other room and I was talking to him, he gave me the look. The look bad people give.”

Understanding completely, Rayna opened the silver BMW’s door to let Jennah inside and said, “Jennah, this time I’m going in alone. Do not open the door for anyone. If, for some reason, I don’t come back, call Julio right away.”

Rayna reversed direction and strode confidently into the mosque. She ignored the receptionist as she continued down to the end of the hall. Without announcing herself, she walked directly into the imam’s office.

“Is there something wrong? Did you forget something? Can I help you?” uttered the middle-aged bearded man with concern.

“Where are they? And don’t ask me who because I showed you already.”

“I already told you I don’t know them.”

Rayna saw the imam moving his hand toward the desk drawer. Before he could open it, Rayna’s left hand whipped out and grabbed his wrist. Her right hand was gripped so tight around his throat that it was hard for him to breathe, let alone speak. “I have five black belts in martial arts. I have killed over twenty men. If you do not want to be the next, you will tell me what I want to know.”

The imam forced out, “I would rather die than say anything.”

Keeping one hand on his windpipe, Rayna released his wrist and said into her hidden headset, “Okay, Julio, what do I do next?”

“Go to the ‘decorating projects’ folder on his computer. Inside that folder will be another folder called “flooring samples. Inside that one will be a locked folder called “archived unused.”

It was hard to tell what made the imam more uncomfortable, Rayna’s right hand on his throat or her left hand typing.

“The password is ‘deathtosinners,’ no spaces,” Julio told her.

“You got to be kidding to me,” said Rayna as she typed in the letters.

The file opened. In it were thousands of high-resolution photos of naked young girls in all kinds of positions, in varying states of awareness, of at least half a dozen ethnic types.

Rayna let go and said to the gasping man. “Now where are the people I’m looking for? If I don’t get the right answer, I will not only have these sent out to everyone in the Hancock Springs Society but to your wife, your children, and your grandchildren.”

The defeated and humiliated man whispered, “They are at the Mosque of Jordan in Springbrook. He is giving a talk there now.”

Rayna reached into her pocket, pulled out a needle and injected the imam. As he looked at her in horror, Rayna said, “You have six minutes before you will lose consciousness. From now on, you belong to me. If I, or any of my colleagues, contact you, we expect immediate cooperation. It will be pointless for you to either delete the folder or destroy this computer. We have already made copies of it and, by the time I leave the parking lot, it will be in hidden files in every computer in this building. Do you understand?”

The imam nodded. “Yes.”
 

“Now see me to the door and say goodbye.”

The light-headed imam opened the door and walked with Rayna to the entrance. In front of the office staff, he said, “Thank you for stopping by.”

Rayna smiled graciously and left.
 

The imam quickly went back to his office and closed the door. He laid his head on his desk and was oblivious to the world within seconds.

Chapter 36
 

They were in a special private room in the Mosque of Jordan. Tariq had told Fatima that, if there was going to be a gold mine in the meetings he helped set up, this would be it. It was so important that, when Fatima told him the mosque had agreed to let Ahmed speak, Tariq flew to San Francisco just for this presentation.
 

The imam of this mosque was different from many other radical supporters and sympathizers. He believed the work and profile of the movement should not only be that of young misfits or barbarian thugs, disenchanted with life and who saw only a corrupt society with no personal hope for a better future. There should be acknowledgement of professionals, middle-class. “We are more than sadistic psychopaths,” was a favorite saying.

Which was a key reason one of the mosque’s members, sixty-one-year-old Muhammad, was intrigued to find out more about Fatima and Ahmed. Of course, revolution demanded men and women who would inflict pain and shed blood. But Muhammad wanted to find more people who were comfortable in the boardrooms, in the lecture halls and in the legislatures of America.

The Mosque of Jordan attracted a lot of people like Muhammad. Immigrated legally to America two to three decades earlier, they built successful lives in business, healthcare or government. Originally they thought they would make a new life but discovered, after years of living there, that America was indeed the Great Satan. Even though they had done well, prejudice against them was still strong—neighbors and colleagues openly disdained their food, dress, smell or religion. Now, as they approached retirement—or death—the question arose, “What have I done for what I truly believe in?”

For those who put aside the dream of a worldwide caliphate while they established new lives, they realized, as Muhammad did, that they were the ones who should lead, if not directly, at least financially. Many worried about their personal safety, though, so rather than donate funds to established terrorist organizations that were closely monitored, they were open to new groups and some thought it would be a good idea to check out this new cleric warrior recommended by their imam.
 

When Muhammad was initially approached to be part of the private audience for the new cleric warrior of the Mosque of Ali, his inclination was to decline. He had seen the beheading video and thought Ahmed was yet another thug. However, the previous night, he received another invitation, this time with a new picture of the imam and his sister. Seeing this modern, bright couple who could fit in anywhere changed his mind—they could also kill anywhere.
 

The select audience of twenty-five sat politely as Fatima was brought on. It was sacrilegious for a woman to speak in a mosque but this was not a formal service and her main purpose was to introduce her brother, so there was grudging forgiveness.