American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (27 page)

What they didn’t know was that this was intentional. For the very few minutes that Fatima spoke, it was clear that she would be the perfect role model for the new generation of American Muslim women.

Now, their eyes were fixed on the highlight reel of Ahmed’s warrior exploits. The mood in the room changed. These two newcomers had definite substance. All were convinced of Ahmed’s might—some even inwardly wondered whether he might be the “twelfth imam” that had been foretold. Whether or not he was, nobody had any doubt that this was a leader on the rise with the looks, substance and style to be on the world stage.
 

Ahmed folded his hands on the podium as he smiled confidently at the audience. “My brothers, I am but a mere foot soldier in the army of Allah. I have no ability to speak in public. I am a doer, not a talker. But because of the untimely murder of my father, and I do call it murder, Allah in his infinite wisdom has chosen me to take his place. That is a burden and responsibility I do not take lightly. Why do I call it murder when it seems that he died of natural causes? It is because he cared so deeply about the ruin that the Big Satan and Little Satan have wreaked upon our people. He was always plotting, always scheming about how to conquer them. It is this intensity of caring that raised his blood pressure so high that it exploded before he had a chance to implement the plan he devised with me.”

Ahmed paused for effect, scanning the room and seeing he had everyone’s attention. “We were on the brink of launching when he died, and it is my duty to carry through the ingenious operation that he devised. He said, and I agree, that the time for jihad is now.”

He pounded the podium. “Terrify the enemies of Allah. Every amount of harm against the Muslim nation must be responded to with many times the retribution to the inflictors. America and the Jews have violated the honor of the Muslim nation and we cannot let this continue as the world continues to spill our blood and blaspheme the Almighty Allah. Do not stand by idly and watch our orphans and widows cry, see our masjid desecrated and sanctities violated.”
 

Ahmed’s hard eyes flashed with righteous anger as they surveyed the group that lapped up his every word. While it seemed he was speaking off the cuff, this was far from the truth. This speech was written by a speechwriter for an American presidential candidate more than six months earlier. Back in Syria, Fatima forced Ahmed to rehearse this speech countless times. Practice became instinct and now it was time to wrap up and close the deal.

“My Muslim brothers, Allah has given us
Tawid,
the doctrine of oneness in Islam, so that we might worship Him and establish Islam throughout the world. We are mujahedeen, to perform jihad on all who resist so that Allah will be established. We do this with the power and authority of Allah according to the Scripture. We will prevail. If our words do not convince them, we will use the sword because we are the Sword of Allah. We will fight our enemies with Allah’s guidance and strength.
 

“I am burdened with this trust, just as my father was burdened with this trust. I am not the best of men nor am I better than you but I obey Allah, no matter what it costs. Even if we have no luxury and no money, if we follow Allah, we are superior because we are true believers and no one can overcome us. This is the promise of Allah. Stay with the truth and perform jihad! Endure the hardship and you will receive your reward of honor! If you have money, use it to strive in the cause of Allah. If you have only yourself, use your body for jihad for the cause of Allah. Your sins will be forgiven, and you will be admitted to the gardens of joy. Brothers, now is the time for war. Be prepared to die. Be prepared to kill. The enemy surrounds us and we must strike terror into their hearts!”

And then Ahmed did the unexpected. Instead of shouting a call to action like his demagogue idol Adolph Hitler might have done, Ahmed dropped to his knees, bending his head so it almost touched the floor. In a loud voice of singing/chanting, he intoned, “Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.”

All in the room prostrated themselves and joined in the chanting.

Chapter 37
 

It took Rayna over an hour to battle the traffic to get to the Mosque of Jordan. It was finally in her sights but now she was stopped at a traffic light. She swore as she saw the exodus of cars leaving the religious center’s parking lot.
 

Damn. Damn. Damn.
Half a dozen of them were S Class Mercedes Benz luxury sedans, a favored car of the Middle East elite. All the vehicles had tinted windows, so it was impossible to peer inside to check out their occupants.

And then, Rayna spotted gold. A black stretch limousine roared out of the lot and down the street. That had to be the car.

Rayna shouted, “Hang on, Jennah.” Rayna drove up on the sidewalk to bypass the six vehicles in front of her, then thudded back onto the street to avoid collision with a tree.

The car in front of her seemed to take offense at Rayna’s bypassing the line and purposely slowed to a crawl.
 

Rayna honked, trying to get the stupid idiot to move faster but that backfired. Instead of speeding up, the car stopped. The owner stepped out and walked toward Rayna.

“Screw it.” Rayna drove at the driver. He leapt out of the way to avoid being accordioned between Rayna’s Beamer and his Corolla. The German vehicle knocked the Japanese car out of its way in pursuit of the black limo, which was now a block away and taking the ramp onto the Interstate.

No time to be polite and wait for the other cars. Rayna pulled to the extreme right, hugging the concrete wall, as she skipped the line-up to the highway. A truck driver deliberately pulled in front of her to block her.

“Damn you.” Rayna whipped out her gun and fired it at the driver’s mirror. It shattered on impact and the truck quickly swung out of the way. As she passed, Rayna saw the driver giving her the finger.

With her eyes lasered on the road, Rayna said to Jennah, “If you ever try to drive like me, I’m gonna make sure you never get your license.”

Jennah pointed ahead. “The big black car. It’s way up there. You’ll never catch up.”

Never say never to Rayna. Even though the limo was more than three hundred yards away, Rayna was damned if she was going to let Ahmed get away now. She had hated him from the moment she saw the beheading video. Those emotions intensified after rescuing Lena from Ahmed’s predatory clutches.

Flooring it, Rayna did everything to advance—tailgating, cutting in and out, bumping cars ahead of her, slamming on the brakes to avoid accidents... and she still was making almost no progress in catching up. The driver in the limo was no slouch.

“I hate buses,” snapped Rayna as one of those public transportation vehicles barreled onto the highway from an intake ramp on the right, knowing nobody in their right mind would argue with a large bus cutting into the traffic.

Except Rayna wasn’t in her right mind. She was in the zone and she floored it. Sparks flew with the horrible sound of metal crunching metal as the BMW squeezed through the impossibly tight space between the bus and a cement truck.

Finally emerging from the clutches of the bus and the truck, the Beamer shot out, now gaining rapidly on the limo.

And then, madness.

The limo slammed on its brakes and did a one eighty. Picking up speed, it went against the flow of traffic directly toward Rayna.
 

“He’s crazy and so are you!” screamed Jennah as there were now no cars between the limo and Rayna. The limo accelerated and Rayna shouted, “Brace yourself.” A fraction of a second before a head-on collision, Rayna veered right to avoid the limo.

Instead of stopping, the limo picked up speed, and then crashed through the guardrail on its right. It flew six feet in the air, then thudded onto the highway. Now going in the same direction as the other traffic, it slowed its pace.

“Keep an eye on the limo,” Rayna commanded Jennah as she took the next turn-off. It was only five seconds before she was able to get onto the highway and travel the same direction as the limo but that was enough to stretch the distance between her and the limo almost half a mile.

So near, yet so far. It was wall-to-wall traffic with no openings to cut in.

Unless...

There was a police car directly in front of her. Rayna hit the accelerator and rear-ended the cruiser, not enough to kill its passenger but enough to make him woozy. She jumped out of the Beamer and ran to the cop car. She threw the dazed lawman onto the passenger seat and took the wheel, turning on the siren and the rooftop flashing lights. As if by magic, the cars parted, making room for the speeding Rayna to gain on the limo.
 

With everyone moving to the side, there was now a clear patch of road.

Rayna booted it but the limo had the same open stretch of highway. Both drivers put pedal to the metal, now a hundred and thirty miles an hour and climbing.
Chicken feed. I did one-hundred-fifty in my sleep at the Flats.

Complete insanity reigned for a couple of miles. And then it was time to give up. There was a barricade of police cars two hundred yards ahead. Half a dozen cops stood across the highway, each with a gun poised at the limo or BMW.

The limo and the police car screeched to a halt. Rayna jumped out of her car and dashed toward the limo.

“Stop!” yelled a cop.

“There are terrorists in there,” screamed Rayna, not losing a step.

The door to the limo opened up and Rayna went limp.

Inside was an underage teenage driver.
 

“She was trying to kill us!” screamed the boy. “I was just out for a ride and she like went nutso!”

One of the cops reached into the limo’s glove compartment and pulled out a rental agreement. “It says this car was rented by Reverend Geraldine Swanson, age sixty-seven. Now, you don’t look anywhere close to that age and my guess is you are more devil than minister. What the hell is really going on?”

The boy broke down. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was at our mosque when someone asked if I would drive the car back to her hotel for her. I... I thought this was my chance to burn rubber. I do it for hours every day. Need for Speed. Project CARS. Gran Turismo.”

“You call playing video games driving?”

“I love it. I go every weekend with my dad. He taught me everything.”

“I’ll be having a word with him, too,” said the officer as he took the kid away.

“So what’s your story?” the interrogating officer asked Rayna.

He’ll never believe the truth.
“That kid I was chasing was trying to rape my goddaughter in a prayer room. When I caught him, he ran and I chased after him.”
 

“So how did you wind up driving a cop car?” asked the interrogator sarcastically. “You ask nice or something?”

“Actually, I did. I got stuck in traffic and he...” Rayna pointed to the two-hundred-fifty pound cop who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, “…let me take over and use his flashers and siren.”

“Oh, come on. Let’s stop this,” said the interrogator, rolling his eyes.

“All right,” snapped Rayna. “I pulled up to his car, beat this bruiser up and threw him in the driver’s seat. Right? Right?”

Rayna knew this guy would never admit to being bested by a woman, especially one that was less than half his weight.

“Of course I let her have the car. Felt sorry for her.”

Everyone knew this was all lies but, other than a few banged-up cars and fractured egos, not a whole lot of damage was done. What the hell. It was close to time to change shifts.

“Who are you, ma’am?”

Rayna pulled out her identification—military ID.
 

“Still active?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why are you here?”

“I came back to bury a friend. He threw himself onto a live grenade to save me.”

The patrolman handed back her card and saluted. “I thank you for your service, soldier.”

“You’re welcome. Before we go, can I speak to that boy for a moment?”

The cop shrugged and led him to his colleague’s car.

“Can I have a few minutes alone?”

“Okay.” The policeman got out as Rayna climbed into the front seat.

***

“Do you know who I am?”

The frightened boy shook his head.

“I am the one who is going to come to your home tonight and kill you. After I kill you, I will kill everyone in your family if you don’t tell me what I want to know. You shout now and I kill you now. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded.

“The man you saw today, Ahmed, is a very bad man. Did he have anyone with him?”

“She said she was his sister. Fatima. She was very pretty,” stammered the kid.

“Was there anything special about them? About their clothes? About their hair?”

“Yeah, they didn’t dress like Muslims. They dressed like normal people you see on television.”

Interesting.
“Thawbs, hijabs...”

“No, she had a brown dress and he had a dark suit.”

“Did they say what they were going to do here?”

Again, the boy shook his head. “We talked a bit at the reception. The girl said she wanted to find out what real Americans are like. They’re here to help us celebrate the 4th of July.”

“How are they planning to celebrate?” Rayna asked.

“I don’t know. I told her I liked baseball and they said they’re planning to go to a baseball game, too.”

Is this it?
“What team?”

“Didn’t get that far. By then, the other guy asked if we wanted to drive the car.”

“What other guy?” Rayna asked.

“Someone from LA who came up just to join them for that meeting. I didn’t catch his name.”

“Did you hear that, Julio?” said Rayna on the radio.

“Yeah. We’re good.”

There was a knock on the window. Rayna looked to see a policeman standing there. “Time’s up.”

***

Rayna apologized to the big cop for taking him out. He wasn’t happy but grunted approval as he drove her back to the BMW where Jennah sat waiting.

Jennah found Rayna’s story fascinating. As they drove back to the Resort, Jennah exclaimed, “When I grow up, I’m going to be just like you, Rayna.”