“What have you done with my daughters?” he had asked through the burlap sack covering his face.
“Ask us again, and we’ll bring you their heads,” a man answered in an indifferent Arabic accent.
“No, that’s a little too much, don’t you think, Saheed?” another man had said in a British accent.
The British man then softly explained to Doug that he was going to be in a video, and as long as he cooperated, no harm would come to him. It was the very same man Doug recognized as Peter from earlier, the man who had come into his home and taken Doug and his daughters away.
Doug had also been told that he would be given an opportunity to speak in the next video. That video, Peter explained, was going to be seen all over the world.
After the first video, in which Doug had said nothing, he was back in his cell, free from the restraints on his hands, a piece of paper lying at his feet.
“Those are your lines,” a large man with soulless eyes said, walking out. “Memorize them and be ready.”
The door slammed shut, and Doug was left alone again. For how long, he didn’t know. The script was the typical propaganda he had heard from ISIS videos of the past: how ashamed he was of his country, how the US had murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims, and how the infidels were a great evil unto the world. He knew the drill. But never in a million years could he have imagined that he would be forced to say such words.
Hours had passed, and Doug knew that Angela would be worried sick about them. Despite the promises from his captors, Doug knew that he was in serious danger. He knew what happened to ISIS prisoners in the Middle East. They were promptly disposed of and discarded. But he wasn’t going to let that happen.
After an hour so of sitting in silence, the multiple dead bolts on the door slammed back, unlocked, one after the other. Doug huddled with his knees against his chest, shivering with apprehension in his orange jump suit. It’s time, he thought.
They were probably ready to prop him up in front of the camera again. He had looked over the scripted words on the crinkled paper before him but had failed to memorize them. Part of him was ready to refuse, but then he thought of his daughters. He knew the terrorists would use them to get what they wanted.
When the door creaked open, he saw two large, shadowed figures holding rifles. Doug backed against the far corner of the room in a defensive ball. Bright light seeped inside from the hallway. The armed men parted as another man, lanky and robed, stepped past them and casually entered the room. As he came into focus, Doug saw a man strangely similar in look and build to Osama Bin Laden.
He had a thin, graying beard that grew down well past his chin, and he wore a white turban, balled up like a cap. The edges of his long white robe dragged against the ground as he approached Doug with a curious look in his dark eyes. His hands were folded behind his back, and unlike the two other men, he didn’t appear to be armed.
His sandals shuffled against the concrete floor where he stopped—mere inches from the sheet of paper with Doug’s scripted words. Their eyes met, and the man slightly bowed his head in acknowledgment. “My name is Salah Asgar, and you are Douglas Gannon.”
Doug looked up, stone faced, his fear shrouded in anger. At first, he said nothing, but as the room went silent, with Asgar waiting for a response, Doug asked the only question that mattered. “Where are my daughters?”
“They are safe. For now. And their fate depends on you,” Asgar answered coldly. His eyes shifted to the paper on the ground then back to Doug. “Do you know why you are here?”
“No,” Doug said. “I don’t know what any of this is about, but whatever it is, you need to release them. They are only children.”
“In time. But first you must do something for us.”
“I’m not reading that,” Doug said, pointing to the paper. “Whatever this is, it needs to stop. You and your men are going to get yourselves killed. For what? Forcing me to say words I don’t believe? You can’t possibly think you’re going to get away with this.”
Asgar studied Doug as though he was gathering his thoughts. He exuded a calm patience, making Doug think he might be able to talk some sense into him. Asgar’s gaze turned to his men, and he signaled them away, speaking in Arabic. The two men in the shadows nodded and left the room, closing the door behind them.
Doug thought it strange to be left alone with this man, surmising him as the leader. He wondered where “Peter Graves” had gone and what role he played in the organization.
“If you do as we say and say what we ask, no harm will come to you. This is a one-time offer. For you see, my men are eager to spill the blood of your family all over these walls.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Doug asked, more perplexed than ever. “I don’t know any of you. I’ve never seen you in my life.”
Asgar took a step closer, his face contorted in anger. “Your government slaughtered many of our brothers in cold blood, several of them unarmed, in a midnight raid in which your wife played a key part.”
With the mention of Angela, things were suddenly beginning to make sense to Doug, despite his skepticism of everything that came out of Asgar’s mouth.
A long finger pointed inches from Doug’s stubbly face. “You will reveal the truth of this crime against innocent Muslims. You will detail how your government conducted an illegal raid, and you will apologize for your country. Only then will we even consider releasing you.”
Doug reluctantly picked up the paper and began skimming its lines. “What about your demands?” he asked. “The release of all Gitmo prisoners? Our government has a strict policy against negotiating with terrorists.”
“That seems to have changed as of late,” Asgar said. “And that’s none of your concern, anyway. Just read the script.”
Something about Asgar’s certainty and arrogance made Doug bristle with anger. Here Asgar was, on American soil—he presumed—with a group of men who claimed to be members of ISIS. The very idea was preposterous to him. He took the paper crumpled it up, much to the shock evident in Asgar’s eyes.
“You must think I’m pretty stupid,” Doug said, tossing the paper to the side. “I’ve seen enough ISIS videos to know what happens to people after they read this bullshit. You’ve got the wrong guy this time.”
Asgar reminded him of his daughters, and Doug realized that for a moment, he had forgotten the significant leverage the group had over him. He decided, however, to play his last card in a defiant attempt to stand up to what he assumed was a ragtag group of terrorist phonies. “Let me and my daughters go, and I can guarantee that the feds go easy on you. Keep this up, and you’ll be signing your own death warrants.”
Asgar folded his hands at his front and sighed. He took another step closer, standing directly over Doug, staring down at him in near contempt. “You Americans are all the same. So sure of yourselves. How soon you forget that we are at war with you.”
“Who? ISIS?” Doug said.
Asgar raised one foot and pushed against Doug’s leg, taunting him. “All of us under the banner of Islam.”
“That’s not true. You and your men are nothing but extremists.”
Suddenly, Asgar stepped away, shaking his head in what appeared to be disappointment. He pivoted swiftly with his finger in the air. “We have over one hundred cells throughout this state alone. Thousands of fighters throughout this country. How do you think I was able to dispatch a team to your home so quickly?” Asgar crouched as his knees cracked. “Once we attack, how many Americans are we going to kill? A thousand? Two thousand?” He then smiled, and in his eyes Doug could see pure malice. “No, Mr. Gannon. It will be far more than that.”
Doug thought of his daughters, of Angela, their friends, family, and neighbors. The man before him was threatening all of their lives and relishing it, and Doug could take it no more. He pushed back against the wall and leapt up, surprising Asgar with his audacity.
Doug charged forward and tackled Asgar, throwing him aga
inst the ground with a resounding thud. Asgar was light and bony, but the hands that clutched Doug’s wrist had a tremendous grip. He lay on top of Asgar, crushing his body against the ground, as both men gasped for air. Doug jerked one hand loose and punched Asgar directly in the jaw, hearing a pop. Asgar cried out in pain and released his grip on Doug’s other hand. He then covered his face in agony as Doug punched him twice on the other side.
As he wailed and thrashed against his captor, Doug didn’t know what had gotten into him. It was as though abject rage had taken over. The repercussions were certain to be severe, but Doug wasn’t thinking about that. He only cared about how much damage he could inflict on the man who fancied himself a terrorist leader.
“Bastard!” Doug shouted, striking Asgar in the side of the chest.
The door then swung open and slammed back against the wall, as the two men rushed back inside, their rifles drawn. Doug looked up and froze as the muzzles entered his field of vision. The men shouted wildly at him while Asgar, pinned beneath, demanded that they hold their fire. Doug looked up and felt Asgar grip his neck with a claw-like hold.
“Get off of him!” one of the guards shouted.
Doug slowly raised his hands up, surrendering. The guard’s eyes were furious, but they did not fire. Instead, he received treatment similar to what had been dealt him during the home invasion.
Their rifles were on him like clubs, beating his already-bruised body repeatedly until he fell onto the floor in a tight ball, praying for the blows to end. One final bludgeon to the back of the head with a buttstock ended his resistance. His ears rang, and after a white flash exploded on his retina, he could barely see anything. He was drifting fast, but before total blackness came, Asgar knelt down next to him and spoke softly in his ear.
“I should kill you now, but you are too important to us right now. That was strike two. Next time, I kill both your daughters right in front of you. We’ll record it as we separate their heads from their bodies and send the pictures to your wife. And then… you die.”
Doug opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, only groans.
“The truth is, Mr. Gannon, the government is not searching for us.” He paused and laughed to himself. “They’re waiting by the phone for us to call. No one is going to save you. No one…”
Suddenly, he felt the kick of a hardened boot across his back, sending him into a pain-induced spasm. Then the room emptied, the door to his cell closed, and he heard the lock slam into place. He had never felt so much physical pain and hopelessness before. As the reality of the situation set in, he drifted from denial to bargaining. There had to be a way to negotiate and save his daughters. There had to be a way.
5
First Strike
Angela swerved through her neighborhood streets, well over the speed limit, on the way to the patrol station, holding her cell phone against her ear.
“Mom, I can’t give you all the details right now. I just want you to know that it’s very serious, and we’re working on rescuing them.”
Angela’s mother, Mary, was in hysterics. Angela knew the risk in telling her but felt that her mother deserved the truth.
“Was it the cartels? I told you to get out of that job! Why did you have to join the Border Patrol? Why couldn’t you have just stayed at home and raised those beautiful girls like a normal woman?” Mary sobbed into the phone, barely listening to anything Angela said.
She understood that her mother was upset and that her father would get an earful soon. Her parents lived in Pittsburgh, where Angela had been born and raised, and they had been wary of her new life in Texas. But after Doug’s layoff, the young family had had to move where the work was, and the optronics engineering plant in Del Rio offered a good salary and had even paid for their move from Columbia, South Carolina.
“Mom, listen to me. You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Not even your father?”
“Yes. You can tell Dad, but you have to keep it to yourselves. The rescue plan is going to be a secret operation. But it’s going to work, I promise.”
Her tires squealed as she took a sharp right turn at an intersection. Calling her mother, she felt, was necessary. Doug’s widowed mother, Cindy, lived in California, and Angela didn’t know if she could bring herself to call her yet. But how could she not? Cindy had a right to know. Besides, if the video went viral, they would find out anyway, in a much more shocking and detrimental way.
“I have to go now,” Angela said, feeling nervous and sick inside.
After her initial outburst, Mary seemed to have calmed down, offering Angela some solace. “Are you going to be okay? What can your father and I do?”
“Just be there when I call back,” Angela said. “It won’t be long.”
They said their good-byes, with Mary telling her she would be praying. Angela hung up the phone. She was now only a few miles from the station, dreading the next call she had to make but wanting to get it over with before reporting back to work. She stared ahead as the flat road zoomed by and the sun shone above a thick cumulus cloud in the afternoon sky.
She scrolled for Cindy’s number and made the call, but the phone went to voice mail. As she pulled into the station parking lot, she tried again, only to receive the same automated message that read the number, digit by digit, and then asked the caller to leave a message.
“Cindy, call me, please. This is Angela. It’s important.” Angela was almost relieved that she didn’t answer. Once the FBI or CIA or whoever was in charge rescued Doug and the children, it would be so much easier to talk. The rescue would be a modern-day success story—a sign of heroic triumph over terrorism. She could only hope.
She parked in a corner spot, a good walk from the building, which sat atop a slight hill, with a large American flag flapping in the wind on a tall silver flagpole. She turned off the ignition, glancing up at herself in the rearview mirror. She had changed into a clean uniform just as Chief Drake had advised. Her blonde hair was pinned back behind her ears in a bun. Her dry, puffy face was nearly absent of makeup because, what would be the point? No matter what she applied, it was sure to go runny soon from tears of either sorrow or joy. She hoped more than anything for the latter.
The mood was tense in the familiar conference room. All the power players were there: Chief Drake, Assistant Director Thaxton, Special Agent Sutherland, Agent Lynch, Agent Hopper, and of course the man Angela knew as Chief Special Agent Burke of the CIA.
As the members sat, Burke commanded the room, standing in front of the projection screen, which displayed a satellite image of the “hot zone,” as he described it, in which key analysts had narrowed down the location of the terror cell.
A separate image on the screen displayed running feeds from the perspective of several field agents who were staked out and ready to move in. The jerky images were similar to what Angela had seen during the FBI raid the night before. She still hadn’t told Drake the truth about that evening, but she considered it the lowest of priorities as she watched Burke briefly explain the details behind Operation Rat Snake.
“After surveying a dozen vacant buildings in the old industrial area, we’ve narrowed our search down to two locations: an unassuming outpost deep within the Appalachian Reserve, some fifty miles outside Del Rio, and a single-structure plastics factory which was purchased by a foreign investor from the United Arab Emirates only months ago. While it was difficult to trace the exact location from the video upload, we were able to determine that its faint signal originated in these areas.”
Angela was impressed that they had amassed so much information so quickly. Perhaps it was time for the FBI to step aside and let Burke and his teams take over. Thaxton and her team listened quietly, scrolling down the screens of their laptops, which displayed the same feed Burke had projected on the screen.
In the middle of the table sat a large teleconference phone. Burke had informed them that the president’s chief of staff was on the line and that the president would
be joining them shortly. The covert operation was one of extreme importance for everyone in the room, and everyone at the very top of the government. But it was most important of all to Angela.
“Our teams are in position and will move once instructed. The sensitive nature of this operation is well known by each team, and they are under strict guidance to extract the family safely. This means that they have to be quick, silent, and precise.”
Angela watched as one of the cameras in for a closer view, capturing the members of Burke’s covert team. They were wearing light-green camouflage and looked to be Special Forces. Definitely military. She felt better already. As she glanced up at Sutherland sitting across from her, she could almost read the envy in his face.
Position Alpha, as Burke put it, was a modest outpost, a small building with no windows or extra floors. It hardly looked like a dwelling of any kind. It was surrounded by forest, and Alpha Team had taken position a safe hundred feet from the structure.
There was no movement outside or any opposition in sight, and Angela had her doubts about the location. Her heart raced, nonetheless.
Position Bravo was a stark contrast to the thick brush and trees of the Appalachian Reserve. The so-called plastics factory was a tiny building with pebble-strewn grounds surrounding it, and a tall barbed-wire fence, rusty and covered with weeds. Both places looked abandoned and unoccupied to Angela. She would need a miracle.
Burke stepped forward toward the conference phone, his headset in place, and began speaking. “Mr. Chief of Staff, is the president ready?”
“I’m here,” a voice said.
Angela could hardly believe it. It was the president’s voice, all right.
“Send the first team in,” he continued.
“Yes, sir.” Burke nodded and pushed the mic closer to his mouth. “Alpha Team, go.”
From the view of a single helmet cam, the five-man team rushed toward the building, one of its members carrying a door breacher. They went to the door, not wasting any time, and took positions at both sides, as the breacher man batted the door open with one full swing. They stormed inside with their rifles aimed and weapon lights darting around the darkened empty room.
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