“Copy,” the general replied. “Shoot them both now,” he pointed and ordered. The jihadists continued to pepper the inside of the room with machine gun fire. The corporal and Lisa stepped out into the hallway and opened fire.
The two shooters were quickly mowed down. The team immediately moved up the hallway, staying close to the walls as the Effort men were still shooting. They slammed into the walls around the doorway to the living room. They were protected by the thick walls. General Stone decided to see if the men inside would surrender, but before he could say anything Kaley spoke in their earpieces again.
“Oops,” They all heard. “I’m sorry, but the jihadist I had cornered decided to fight. I had no choice but to put him down for good.”
“Damn,” Lisa uttered.
“There is still the one attempting to enter the living room,” Malcolm said to support Kaley’s recklessness.
“Then we’ll have to take him,” the general said with determination. “Malcolm, you and Kaley need to get down here in the hallway immediately,” he ordered.
“We’re on our way,” Malcolm replied.
“But how are we going to capture the last jihadist?” Lisa groaned.
“We might have to wing him I guess,” Corporal Watts said. “I’m a pretty good shot.”
“Let’s see if we can move this along a little,” the general spoke. “Stop shooting,” the general yelled out to the men in the living room. “We’ve killed the jihadists that were after you. There is no need to shoot at us.”
“Who the hell are you people? Hans Keidel screamed back.
But the Effort men stopped shooting while they waited for a reply from the unknown shooters.
“We’re a U.S. government special task force that has been tracking the jihadists who attacked you,” General Stone said and identified himself.
“Hold your fire boys,” Hand Keidel told his remaining men.
***
Omar entered the living room as soon as the shooting had stopped. He was able to make his way over to the table where the Switch was sitting. No one in the two groups noticed him as they all were concentrating on each other. He stealthily slid the device off of the table and hid with it behind a lounge chair.
As he sat behind his protection, he manipulated the settings until he achieved the exact positions that the warlord had given him on the piece of paper in his pocket. He then extracted the tainted meteorite from his jeans and opened the metal box, tossing it onto the floor. Once he had the rock in its cradle, he took a deep breath and stood up.
“What the hell,” Hans Keidel bellowed when he saw the jihadist. “Who are you?”
“I’m the servant of Allah who is taking the Switch from you,” Omar screamed back.
“The hell you say,” Keidel roared back. “You’re not taking anything of mine, you raghead.”
“Oh, but I already have,” Omar calmly replied with a smile. He raised the Switch to chest level.
“You don’t have a weapon you dumb bastard,” Hans Keidel continued in a rant.
I don’t need anything more than what I have in my hands,” Omar responded and laughed like an insane person.
“Shoot him,” the Effort leader ordered with finality.
Kaley and Malcolm had just reached the wall where the rest of the team had huddled when Keidel’s son Lars turned and placed two shots at the Arab at close range.
But the jihadist was still standing. One bullet hit him in his shoulder and one bullet went into his side. But he was still alert and dangerous. Everyone found out how dangerous in the next few seconds.
That was because the next thing that happened put a huge scare into the MAD team. The sound of a gigantic crack filled the room. It sounded like someone breaking a piece of wood over their knee. Three bolts of lightning suddenly shot from the Switch. The three men standing behind the desk never had a chance. In less than a nano-second, the lightning pierced the huge desk and hit all three men. It burned right through them and started a fire on the back wall. The Effort men were immediately burn to a crisp and their ashes fell to the ground. Omar grinned manically.
He then looked at the people standing in the hallway He began to move unsteadily across the living room. He wanted to get a better shot at the people in the doorway. They stood stunned by the force of the lightning and hadn’t recovered yet. He was seconds away from turning the MAD team into ashes too. His grin had grown more evil. He knew he could kill them all.
“Run,” screamed Kaley, but she knew it was already too late.
Corporal Watts had extremely good reflexes. He shot at Omar, putting two more bullets into his body, but the jihadist was already pressing the button.
Suddenly a large burning log leaped from the roaring fireplace and sailed across the room. General Stone had sent it. The log hit Omar squarely in the head. He dropped the Switch as he went down to the floor.
Kaley sprinted into the room and pulled the device from Omar’s twitching hands. She then kicked him in the face, but it didn’t really matter because he was about to die anyway.
Lisa now slid to a halt on her knees near Omar. She immediately began to ping him.
“Who’s your leader?” she silently asked.
“He will miss me,” the dying man responded. He was already hallucinating. This caused Lisa to rethink her approach.
“The leader wants you to know that he is pleased with your results,” Lisa pinged the already delirious jihadist. “You are indeed a soldier of the great and mighty Allah. Your leader just wants you to say his name out loud in recognition.”
After a few seconds, Omar spoke. “I achieved it for you my leader Jossef Kamal. Without out you I wouldn’t have been given a chance to succeed in Karachi.” His eyes went vacant. He turned his head and died.
“The leader’s name is Jossef Kamal. He is in Karachi,” Lisa sputtered as she looked at Malcolm. “Is that enough information for you to find him?”
“I believe that the spirit can go back in Omar’s history and find when he last made contact. Then he can follow Kamal’s trail to pinpoint where he currently is located.” Malcolm immediately asked the spirit for help.
“It will take me a few minutes,” the voice in his head replied like he was fixing a car.
Meanwhile, Corporal Watts and Kaley found fire extinguishers and began putting out the fires.
“Let the place burn down,” General Stone ordered dramatically. “Let’s get out of here,” he uttered as he scooped up the Switch.
“Wait,” Kaley wailed while spraying out foam from her device. “You need to see what Malcolm and I found in another room before we burn this place down.”
“What’d you find?” the interested general asked.
“I believe we found the Effort’s control room,” Malcolm explained. “It could contain information on the whole operation and maybe more.”
The general immediately grabbed a comforter from a couch and began to swat the flames from the log that had hit the jihadist in the head.
“If this guy Keidel was the real head of the Effort, he would have information about some of the Nazi treasure,” he told everyone. “It would be a great find.
Everyone redoubled their labors to put the fire out.
***
A half hour later, after putting the fire out, the team entered the Effort’s control room in the converted library.
“These people were slobs,” Lisa noted as she eyed the mess in the room and wrinkled her nose.
“Let’s hope they were as careless in protecting their information as well,” Malcolm said optimistically.
“We’ll have six TACP people here in five minutes to guard the place,” the general offered as he limped into the room while returning his cellphone to his pocket.
Lisa and Malcolm began working on the computers while the general and Kaley started searching the big room. Corporal Watts stood watch at the door.
After a few minutes they had success.
“I’ve found something,” Lisa called out. “I
t’s a list of all the Effort people and their locations. It’s a huge list.”
“Here’s a list of their holdings,” Malcolm let out seconds later. “The organization has a lot of money.”
“Good,” the general responded as he pulled out draws from a filing cabinet. “We’ll confiscate it all. But there’ll be someone after this information and money very soon. You can count on it.”
“I’ve got it,” Malcolm shouted loudly.
“Got what?” Kaley asked.
“The exact location of Jossef Kamal,” Malcolm said brightly. “He’s right near the border of India where all those refugees are massed.”
“Hmm,” the general muttered. “I know someone who would be interested in hearing that information.”
***
“Colonel Patel here,” General Stone heard.
“Colonel,” this is General Stone.
“I’m a little busy right now,” the Indian Air Force officer responded with annoyance in his clipped English.
General Stone did not beat around the bush. “I can give you the exact location of the jihadist who is directly responsible for the problem you are facing right now.”
“What?” he heard the officer utter.
“His name in Jossef Kamal.”
“Yes, he is a known terrorist,” the colonel agreed. “Are you saying the he caused the Tsunami?”
“Yes,” the general responded. “He originally wanted to start an earthquake in Punjab in India, but we stopped him.”
“What?” the colonel repeated.
“That was why we were in your area,” the general explained. “We stopped his threat, but it created the tidal wave that hit Karachi.”
“How could he do that?” the now stunned, but curious colonel inquired.
“You may not believe this, but there is a way to control the weather inside a vortex — like the Indus river vortex,” the general told the confused officer. “Kamal had a device which was capable of creating weather using the earth’s magnetic field. My team now has control of the device.”
Colonel Patel said nothing for a few seconds. “I have heard of strange unexplainable weather occurrences in the Indus vortex. Are you saying they are manmade?”
“In some cases they are. There’s most certainly a device that can accomplish that.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed recently by suspicious weather activity,” Colonel Patel agreed. “Did you say that you can pinpoint exactly where Kamal is located?”
“I can send you the GPS coordinates. I have an eye in the sky watching him right now. He is by the border.”
“What is he doing there?”
“Right now he is coordinating an attack on your position,” the general said truthfully.
“Send me those coordinates,” Colonel Patel demanded in an angry voice.
“With pleasure,” General Stone responded.
Soon after the two military men hung up their phones, eight men dressed as Muslims slipped over the border driving two transports loaded with weapons.
***
“Look,” Kaley said excitedly. “I’ve found an old diary from Keidel’s father. It’ll take me a while to read, but in skimming the pages, it appears that he lists where some plunder is hidden in America.”
“We can track the treasure to its current location if we know where to start,” Malcolm announce with enthusiasm.
“Wow,” we’ve got treasure to hunt,” Kaley exclaimed. “Whoopee!”
“I think that we need to seize this mansion and make a thorough search,” General Stone broadcasted. “We haven’t found any safes yet and I’m sure they have them here. Maybe some tunnels too.”
“This is turning out to be a fun adventure,” Kaley gushed.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The eight man special ops team from India flew through the stark sloping highlands of the area known as the Punjab. The province was just over the border in Pakistan. They were traveling through the southern tip of the area in their vehicles and into extremely dangerous territory. There were actually few people that lived in the region due to the constant border disputes between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan had been claiming much of the area as soon as the treaty that provided their freedom had been signed in 1947. Anyone who decided to live there was under constant threat. The disputed area was about a hundred miles south of the city of Lahore. The country of Pakistan had border disputes that were on- going with the Chinese, the Afghans, and the Indians all while saying that they were a peaceful country, but needed more room. Many people had died in the vacant territory.
The special ops team looked like any ordinary run of the mill jihadists complete with scruffy thobes, the robe like coverings that many Arabs wore. Bandoleers crisscrossed their chests. They all wore red and white Shemagh head scarves that covered their heads and most of their faces. But under their dirty tribal robes, they had an arsenal of weapons including machine guns, knives, Tasers, and grenades. They also carried knives in their combat boots. Their destination was the headquarters camp of the terrorist known as Jossef Kamal.
They didn’t have to consult their GPS to find their way. They just had to follow the sounds of gunfire. The jubilant jihadists who had gather at the headquarters were screaming and whooping while firing their guns into the air as they pumped themselves up for the invasion into India. They expected to ransack the nearby city of Sri Ganganagar and walk away with huge plunder once they penetrated the border.
Jossef Kamal had set up his tent on an area of open ground. About twenty men mulled around outside the tent waiting for orders to attack. They were getting restless and wanted to seek their fortune.
Inside the tent, Kamal held court with his six top henchmen advisors. They were studying a map of the nearby city. Their objective was to divide up and decide which henchman’s group would have the pleasure of ransacking each area of the city. As usual, the subordinates disagreed with how much territory they each should receive. The discussion had become heated and threating insults were verbally thrown back and forth against each other. It was common in the Muslim world.
“Enough,” bellowed Jossef Kamal as he slapped his knees with his hands. “You each have all the territory that I have assigned to you, nothing more. When we attack the next city, I will be open to your input and desires. But until then shut up.” Everyone knew he meant he would accept bribes then.
“Are you sure that this plan of yours will work?” one of his underlings asked. “What happens if one of the border guards recognizes one of us?”
“There are thousands of refugees massed at the border right now,” the leader replied and stabbed his finger at the map. “You just have to disperse your men into the crowd and get them placed across from a border guard. When I give the signal, it will be a whistle, they just need to shoot the guard and we will all rush over the border.”
“It sounds easy enough,” the man replied.” But the easiest plans are usually the most dangerous.
“And don’t forget, they are all infidels,” the jihadist leader pointed out with his finger. “It’s Allah’s will for us to kill all of them.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. The flap on the tent opened and a guard appeared. “Eight men had just appeared and said they are here to help us fight,” the guard said.
Kamal had sent out a message for all jihadists to come and fight. He expected some of them to come late, but these guys were cutting it close.
“Make sure they know we have a plan,” he ordered.
***
The Indian commandos parked their two vehicles about a hundred feet from the unruly crowd. Two of the men got out and headed for the tent. Two men stayed in the vehicles and casually leaned on the 50 caliber machine guns in the back of the transports. The other four men leisurely spread out to cover the crowd. They pretended to be tired, but their eyes had the sharpness of a combat soldier.
The first two men walked up to the guard standing outside and g
uarding the tent.
“What do you want?” the jihadist challenged in a macho tone.
“I bring you powerful weapons to fight the non-believers,” the commando said without an accent. “I request to speak to Jossef Kamal right now.”
The guard believed the shoddy looking man was looking to line his own pockets with plunder and nodded towards the tent. “He’s in there,” he said. “But you may already be too late to get a piece of the city.”
The two men never stopped their determined walk and flipped open the entrance way. They walked inside and interrupted the jihadist leader Jossef Kamal who was ranting about killing infidels.
As soon as they were inside, they each brought up handheld machine guns and opened fire. Kamal was the first to receive a bullet to his head, but the other six men in the tent never had a chance to draw a weapon. They were all killed in seconds and the terrorist’s leader’s plans quickly became obsolete.
Outside the tent, the other special ops men opened up with their own machine guns. At the same time, the two 50 calibers began firing. The big machine guns could fire at a rate of 850 rounds per minute. The jihadists outside the tent didn’t know where to fire first. The battle lasted about twenty seconds and before the first two commandos could exit the tent to help. They had set the tent and all its contents on fire. Thirty-six jihadists were mowed down and Kamal’s dreams of riches were all going up in smoke.
“Let’s get back over the border,” the leader of the special ops team muttered after surveying the carnage.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Back at Area 51, Doctor Gillian Darby and Colonel Jacobs were staring at Wes Robertson. It had been over two hours since she had tossed him the tainted meteorite and he was showing the poisonous effects. Sores and red splotches were now forming all over his body. He was sweating at a furious rate and he had a raging fever. He didn’t know that he was dying as he began to lose consciousness but sensed that something was not right. The gun he held in his hand began to waver and he had to use both of his hands to aim it.
“I don’t think that your friends are going to call Wes,” Dr. Darby said sympathetically. “Why don’t you just give me the gun?” she asked as she held out her hand.
The Oracle Philon Page 24
