by James Hunt
Doug struggled to find the words as he shot Peter a cold glare. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“I can assure you that it’s not,” Peter said.
At that moment, the masked men raised their rifles in unison, aiming at Doug.
On instinct, he put his hands up, just above his chest. The answer was obvious, but he asked anyway. “What if I say no?”
“That wouldn’t be wise.” Peter clasped his hands together as though he were praying. “I implore you to do as we ask, and I can guarantee that no harm will come to you or your family.”
Doug shuffled in place, exasperated with the impossible choice before him. “Where are we going? What do you want me to do?”
“Easy. Wake your daughters, grab them some clothes, and bring them out here. We’ll all leave together as one happy family.”
Doug squeezed the couch until his knuckles went white.
“You leave them out of this,” he seethed. “Whatever it is you want from me, it doesn’t involve them.”
Peter nodded with a feigned look of understanding. He then signaled the masked men to surround Doug. In an instant, they swarmed as Doug backed against the wall. As they circled him, the men remained chillingly silent, with only their indifferent eyes upon him and rifle barrels aimed at his head.
Doug shielded his face with his hand, believing that his next best bet would be to grab his daughters and run. But it seemed as though any opportunity to escape had long passed. Even with the rifles pointed at him, he had the faint hope that he could grab his cell phone or maybe even the .38 in his closet.
“This isn’t necessary! My daughters have school tomorrow. They are of no use to you. Take me. Just please—”
A buttstock swung into his gut, fierce and without warning, knocking the wind out of him. Doug fell to his knees in an instant, clutching his stomach.
“Insufficient, Mr. Gannon,” Peter said, approaching his immobilized captive.
Doug raised his head just as Peter stepped in between the gunmen, staring down, holding two fingers in the air. “Two choices. That’s all you have. And if you waste any more of our time, we’ll make the decision for you.”
Doug choked on the air as the pain in his stomach began to subside. He shook his head, ready to tell Peter where he could shove his two choices.
“Doug...” Peter said. “Listen to me.” He crouched down right in his face. “Get your daughters and come with us willingly, or I let the boys here do what they came here to do.”
“They’re just children...” Doug pleaded. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Peter sighed. “Believe it or not, Doug, I’m here to help you. To implore you to come with us peacefully, and ensure that no one gets hurt.”
“Get out of my house,” Doug said. “Now.”
Peter looked to his men and said something lightly in Arabic. They responded with swift strikes to Doug with their rifle buttstocks, clubbing him in the head, chest, and side.
Doug fell to the floor in agony while desperately trying to shield himself from their blows, but the hits came hard and fast.
After a series of white flashes and a debilitating dizziness, Doug knew that he was powerless to do anything, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. He placed one hand on the ground and pushed himself up in a rage just as he heard some of the men burst into Chassity’s room, followed by the sounds of her screaming.
“Don’t you touch her!” he shouted, tumbling against the wall. The faint shape of Peter came into view, standing close.
“You had your chance, Doug. Now we’re going to do things our way.”
At that moment, he could see two men carrying Chassity’s small, thin, pajama-clad body out of her room as she kicked and screamed, with her hair flapping wildly in the air. Lisa’s fainter scream could be heard from her bedroom as soon as the men kicked open her door.
“Stop it!” Doug shouted, covering his head, where he could feel warm blood trickling down his forehead. “You’re terrifying them!”
Lisa passed by, kicking and screaming, held by one man as they headed toward the couch. The gunmen tossed both girls onto the couch and immediately set about binding their wrists and feet with zip ties.
Doug took a forceful step and pushed Peter out of the way, prepared to charge his way into the living room and tear the men to pieces. “Leave them alone!”
A thud came into the center of his back, followed by the most intense pain in memory as he fell once again to the carpet. One of the gunmen had hit him with his rifle.
The girls’ screams were muffled by balled socks stuffed into their mouths. Doug couldn’t imagine hearing a more horrifying sound in his life. He pulled himself back up and over the couch, fully expecting another sudden blow.
“Chassity... Lisa! Just stay calm. I’m here. Everything is going to be okay.”
He only heard muffled cries in response, which enraged him to no end. Through pure adrenaline, he managed to stand on wobbly legs, only to find Peter still standing next to him.
Doug turned his head to the couch, where they were picking up his daughters. His face went white with panic as he grew tense. “Where are you taking them? Stop this!”
A direct punch to the nose followed, courtesy of Peter himself, which sent Doug reeling back, unable to cover his face due to his arms being held back.
“Let him go,” Peter told the men. They released Doug, and he crouched, hands immediately on his face, trying to dull the pain.
Peter shook his wrist and splayed out his fingers, stretching them. “Thought I’d return the favor.”
Before Doug could respond, the men pulled his arms behind his back again, zip-tying his wrists together.
“Barack, go grab a bag and throw some of the girls’ clothes in it,” Peter said.
Doug tried to stand, but one of the men pushed him back down on his knees with a gloved hand.
Amused, Peter looked down and took notice of his struggle. “Bag ‘im.”
A burlap sack suddenly came over Doug’s face, blinding him. The air was already dank and stuffy. They lifted him, gripping the backs of his arms, and told him to move. As they pushed him out the doorway, he wished he had done things differently. He wished he had grabbed his gun at the first sign of noise. He wished that he had warned his daughters to run as far as they could from the house. He wished that he had called the police—anything to prevent the mess they were in.
The back doors to the van creaked open. Different sets of hands grabbed him, pushed him forward, and tossed him inside. He nearly landed on one of the girls—Chassity, he believed. As the doors slammed closed, he tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.
He wasn’t going to let anything happen to them. All they needed to do was to stay calm. And even though he tried to keep his voice steady and comforting, he was crippled with fear on the inside—a fear that could only be matched by that of his two rumpled, confused, and terrified daughters, neither of whom had any concept of the very evil that had catapulted their family into submission.
Angela’s Nightmare
In Salah Asgar’s world, no bad deed went unpunished. There had to be repercussions, and Border Patrol Agent Angela Gannon had recently come onto his radar. She and her partner, Captain Jorge Martinez, had inadvertently intruded into his activities and delayed an attack Asgar had been planning for nearly two years.
With Angela’s help, Martinez had taken it upon himself to lead the FBI to a strategic outpost located past the Mexican border, where they had slaughtered more than a dozen of Asgar’s men and compromised what had been a secret location. The setback cost Asgar greatly, and his intricate team of terror sleeper cells throughout the state of Texas was told to stand down.
The high-ranking ISIS leaders back home weren’t happy, and Asgar knew all too well what that meant. They would be more than happy to dispose of him and make him an example, as he often did with his own men. To survive, he had to get a handle on the situation fast. The first thing he did
was order his most-trusted operatives to find out all there was about the two star border patrol agents in questions. It was remarkably easy, and within hours they were able to gather personal information—names, contact numbers, and addresses—and put everything to motion.
Tucked away in the dry land of a nestled suburban neighborhood was Captain Martinez’s family, which proved difficult to find. He had been injured during the raid that brought down Asgar’s strategic Mexican outpost, and no personal information had been recovered. Angela’s family, however, was out in the open, and Salah ordered a midnight raid on their home.
The kidnapping of an innocent American family gave Asgar credibility like no terrorist organization before ISIS. The Islamic State had infiltrated the United States, and it was about time the Americans learned the extent the power they had toyed with.
Sending a message of fear into the hearts of his enemies was one of Asgar’s specialties. Attack plans had been postponed as his team regrouped and further prepared for what they were destined to do: strike at the heart of the great Satan and exterminate as many infidels as they could.
***
From the precinct office, Angela watched in horror the video streaming on her supervisor’s office laptop. Her supervisor, Chief Milton Drake, was just as shocked as she was. The video was running on its own site, reached through an encrypted link sent to several top government officials by an unnamed source.
It was meant as a message—a warning—of just what the sleeper cells were capable of and the consequences for interfering with their actions.
According to the masked man in tan fatigues speaking to the camera, the reach of ISIS was immeasurable, throughout the world. To emphasize this claim, he spoke in a clear British accent from behind a kneeling man in an orange jumpsuit with a bag over his head.
The masked speaker towered over his captive and then pointed a knife at the camera. In the small, basement-like room, a black ISIS flag hung on the wall behind them. The man delivered a scripted tirade against the United States and a list of other enemy countries, declaring that ISIS would soon bring them all to their knees.
As she watched, standing behind Chief Drake, Angela felt sick and dizzy, barely able to stand. And when the captive’s face was revealed with a yank of the hood, she felt gravity pushing her to the floor, crushing her inside. The man in the jumpsuit had his hands tied behind his back, and a solemn, vacant stare on his face. He looked oddly similar to Doug. As she held on to her disbelief, the terrorist called her out by name, sending a deep-rooted chill down her spine and crippling her with fear.
“We have your husband, and we have your daughters. And if our demands are not met, they will receive a swift and brutal death,” he said.
She pulled her phone out, but it was dead. She grabbed the chief’s office phone and called Doug’s cell. After four rings, it went to voice mail. She immediately hung up and called again. Nothing.
“Are you sure that’s him?” Drake asked, gesturing to the man on the screen just before the feed went out.
“I... I don’t know,” she said, shaking.
The image had been clear. The pale, frightened face on the screen belonged to one man only: her husband.
She waited again as the phone rang and rang, going to voice mail, as it had before. She slammed the phone down and began to pace in frenzied circles. It was a little after nine in the morning. She was tired and ragged, just like her fellow border agents, who had been up all night as well. She had expected to wrap up her briefing with Chief Drake, go home, crawl into bed, and maybe sleep for the next two days. All of that, however, had changed in an instant.
Angela suddenly collapsed face-first onto the carpet, lost in a dizzying stupor, with the fading voice of Chief Drake calling out to her. Then everything went black, and for a moment, she was at peace.
Angela awoke in daze to find herself lying on a small vinyl couch in Chief Drake’s office with a blanket placed over her. Two paramedics stood over her, talking to each other, as sunlight beamed through the spaces between the blinds. She heard Chief Drake on the phone talking in a frenzy about terrorists and FBI support and everything Angela had hoped to step away from—at least for a day or two.
In her daze, a shattering recollection consumed her: Doug, Chassity, and Lisa—Angela’s entire life, everyone she loved the most was in jeopardy. It all started coming back. She jolted up and tossed the blanket off, startling the boyish-looking paramedic and his pony-tailed female partner.
The male paramedic tried to calm her down, holding out a water bottle. “Ma’am, please. You need to take it easy.”
She was too frightened to consider anything of the sort—despite her obvious weakness and ghost-like complexion.
“You’re dehydrated, and we need to get some fluids in you, pronto,” the female added in a motherly tone. She then reached into her medical kit and pulled out an IV bag, preparing to set it up and hook Angela to it.
Angela stood up, disregarding their concerned glances and trying not to give in to her faintness. Chief Drake looked up and covered the receiver on his phone.
“Agent Gannon. Please. We’re working the situation. Lie down and get some fluids in you.”
A strand of blonde hair fell across her face as she placed one hand on against the wall and turned to them. “If you think that I could rest right now, you’re out of your mind. Where is my husband? Where are my daughters?”
“The police have been called to your house, and they’re investigating right now,” Drake answered.
Angela covered her mouth, mortified. “I’ve got to go.” She pushed past the paramedics and tried to run out the door but lost her balance and nearly fell over herself in the process. Her hands hit the door as she stumbled, but she was only caught by the muscular arms of the male paramedic.
“Don’t worry, I got ya,” he said, lifting her.
She shook in his arms as she looked around the room in a panic. All their eyes watched her in concern. “I need to get home,” she said again.
“Please sit,” Chief Drake said. “You’re not going to get very far running on fumes.”
Something snapped in her—a primal rage that sent her rushing from the paramedic’s grip to Drake’s desk, where she slammed her fist on its mahogany surface. “Where’s my family?” she shouted.
Startled, Drake took a step back, holding the phone receiver on his shoulder. “I’m trying to find out, okay?”
She turned to flee the office, but the male paramedic again placed a hand on her shoulder, urging her to sit.
The chief was more direct. “If you don’t calm down, you’re going to the hospital. Now take the IV, and I’ll explain everything that I can.”
She nodded and slowly sat as the female paramedic took her arm and inserted the needle into her wrist with deft precision and then secured it with tape and blue gauze. The fluids instantly made Angela feel more at ease—or as comfortable as she could feel after hearing the devastating threat against her family. The paramedics backed away as Drake hung up his phone and took a seat at his desk across from her.
Drake folded his hands with a solemn look that only hinted the troubling news ahead. He proceeded to speak calmly, as though everything were completely under control, but Angela knew better. The terrorists had targeted her. That was the only explanation. How they had done it, she had no idea. She trusted no one but was desperate for answers nonetheless.
“Could you give us a minute, please?” Drake asked the paramedics.
Angela turned toward them, slightly embarrassed. “Oh no. Don’t stay here on my account. I’m fine now.”
“It’s best that we hang around for another ten minutes or so,” the man said, brushing his surfer bangs back. “We’ll be outside.”
“No, please,” Angela said. “Thank you, but I don’t want to hold you up.”
But they were already on their way out the door, prepared to wait as long as it took, apparently. As the door closed, Drake heaved a long sigh—his confident
facade already fading. “We called the police to your house immediately. A search shows no signs of forcible entry… just yet.”
She waited for the words, and when he said them, she still found herself surprised.
“Doug and your two daughters were not there. Their rooms were empty. Doug’s truck was in the driveway. His wallet and cell phone were in your bedroom. Your daughters…” Drake paused as Angela felt tears stream down her cheeks, not even realizing that she was crying. “It looks like someone rummaged through their rooms and grabbed a bunch of clothes in a hurry.”
“What about the neighbors?” Angela asked. “Did anyone see anything?”
Drake rubbed his eyes, thinking. “They’ve talked to a couple of them, but no one saw anything. That could change, of course, as information trickles in.”
Angela had heard enough. She stood up, holding the IV bag in one hand as its fluids continued to drip through the tube. “I need to see the video again.” She walked to his desk, reaching for his laptop as he pulled it away.
“The feed is lost. It was sent through very specific channels. These terrorists… they’re not amateurs.”
Angela got up and walked toward the door, ready to go it on her own. But she was still in her dusty uniform from the night before and looked as though she had been hit by a truck. The thought of her partner, Captain Jorge Martinez, suddenly flashed into her mind. He would know what to do—that was, if the terrorists hadn’t gotten to him yet.
“Captain Martinez!” she called out, turning around. “Is he okay?”
Drake sighed as if he were preparing to reveal more bad news, but then was quick to clarify. “He’s fine. After your family’s disappearance, Martinez and his family were placed in protective custody.”
Angela shook her head in disbelief. “What, in the past ten minutes?”
