The old man shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Shut up!” the younger fighter said, waving his rifle in front of the old man’s face. “Hand me those keys now, and go back to your room.
“No,” the old man said, lifting his white-bearded chin. “Those girls have brought trouble, and they shouldn’t be here. It’s not worth all this when we have more important things to be concerned about. Salah would agree with me.”
Angela stood behind Ramsey, frozen and surprised to hear a reasonable voice among such men. She leaned against the door and listened for the faintest sound of her daughters on the other side.
The old man boldly nudged the young fighter aside and continued to shuffle down the hall with the keys in hand. The young fighter looked to the others in disbelief—stunned that no one else was stopping him.
“Do something, you fools!”
But no one seemed to know what to do. Many of them had just been rousted out of bed and were overwhelmed by the scenario unfolding before their startled eyes.
“Here you go,” the old man said, approaching a grateful Ramsey. “I told Asgar before that these girls have no place here. Some of the men were looking to sell them. I say, good riddance…”
As the old man grew closer, two of the largest men Angela had ever seen entered the corridor with their rifles aimed.
“No one goes anywhere! Salah’s orders!” the brawny, bearded man on the left shouted out in an authoritative and booming voice.
Ramsey recoiled in fear. “Those are Bosra and Nabil, Asgar’s personal guards,” he said, head turned slightly toward Angela. “This is over. I knew it wouldn’t work. We’re completely fucked!”
Angela jabbed him with the shotgun. “Calm down. We’re sticking to the plan.” The old man with the keys was only feet away, extending them for Ramsey to take.
“Drop those keys!” Bosra shouted.
The old man waved him off and handed them over as Ramsey winced, expecting swift retaliation. At Bosra’s side, Nabil held his rifle up and fired, blasting a hole in the old man’s back.
The old man collapsed—eyes wide in shock—and fell into Ramsey, who then dropped the keys to the ground from his shaking hands. Ramsey looked up to see a barrage of rifles aimed at them from every point along the corridor.
Bosra and Nabil stood at the end, both their barrels leveled, with smug satisfaction plastered across their faces.
“None of you are getting out of here alive,” Bosra said. He paused for a moment, glaring at Ramsey with contempt. “You brought them here, you British scum. You dare put our great leader in danger?” He paused, nostrils flaring, as Nabil took one resolute step forward, moving in for the kill. “Traitor…”
“Fire!” Nabil shouted, holding one arm in the air.
A chain reaction followed, a cataclysmic symphony of chaos. Blasts erupted from both sides of the corridor, riddling Ramsey’s convulsing body with lead. Angela ducked low behind him, frantically trying to avoid the barrage of gunfire while using his propped-up body as a protective shield.
Her free hand clawed in the air for the dangling M4 around her neck as she struggled to hold Ramsey upright, with one hand gripping the shotgun. More gunfire rang out as several fighters began advancing from their previously concealed positions. Bosra and Nidal held their fire, to avoid shooting their own men, and remained in place as they anticipated with glee the impending carnage of the intruders.
Ramsey slumped back, torn to shreds, and Angela could barely hold him up any longer. Suddenly, she slipped on the blood pool and pulled the shotgun trigger by accident, blowing his head to pieces. After the deafening blast, his body collapsed from the neck down, leaving Angela completely exposed.
For a moment, she stood perfectly still and anchored to the ground, watching as a wave of fighters rushed toward her, faces consumed with bloodlust. In her eyes, their movements were deliberate and drawn out, as if everything were in slow motion, the presumptive calm before the storm.
Her hand released the shotgun, and she went for her M4 just as she heard a rattling blast from Burke’s machine gun mow down the men charging toward them.
Her face was covered in something warm and damp, which she guessed was Ramsey’s blood. Bits of skull and brain covered the door next to her. The keys were at her feet—she was so very close. A gunshot hit the wall behind her, and she sprang back into the moment.
She raised her M4 and began firing into the charging fighters just as Burke went the ground on his chest and blasted every last man in their path away. Bodies flew violently in the air like rag dolls as the 7.62mm shells tore them to pieces. Several other men ducked or ran for cover as Angela fired quick, steady shots into their heads or chests or whatever was exposed.
Burke fired relentlessly, balancing the bulky machine gun on an outstretched bi-pod affixed under its smoking barrel. He soon ran out of ammo, leaving a river of carnage in his path. After the deafening barrage of gunfire, the room went eerily silent. Bodies, still and lifeless, lay everywhere, with weapons at their sides.
Angela knelt in front of the girls’ door, unable to hear a thing. A dozen shells lay at her feet among chunks of Ramsey’s flesh. She was glad to be alive but sickened by how things had gone. Death filled the air behind the thin, hazy veil of gunpowder.
“You okay?” Burke shouted to her, retrieving the shotgun on the ground. His voice was distant and muffled from the faint ringing in her ears. She counted a dozen bodies down in the corridors, torn to pieces and wildly contorted. However, Bosra and Nidal were nowhere to be seen.
Burke grabbed her arm. Her head jerked to the side, pale with shock. “Hey!” he said, kneeling next to her. His gloved hand brought the barrel of her M4 down as he gently took the weapon away and placed a set of car keys in her hand.
“Listen to me,” he continued, speaking clearly and loudly, with his eyes intense and focused. “I’m going to clear the rest of this place. You find your daughters and get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Start here,” he said, pointing to the bloody door next to them.
Nodding, she placed the keys in her pocket. Burke hurried off, crouched low to the ground and cradling the M4. She stood up with the old man’s key ring and tried the first key, turning it just in time to see Nabil jump out from behind a nearby crate and fire.
She was struck by a dizzying white flash of the bullet hitting the cement wall, inches from her eye. As she flew to the ground for cover, Burke gunned Nabil down with several precise shots into his chest. He stepped over Nabil and kept going, entering the shadows beyond Angela’s range.
She carefully stood back up and tried the next key. Suddenly, more shots rang out, and she saw Burke tumble to the side, falling on his back. She froze, clenching the door handle and pulling with all her might. Bosra entered from the shadows, rifle aimed and advancing forward like a machine.
Burke swooped up and fired a multitude of shots, sending Basra fleeing back into the darkness in a panic.
“I’m all right!” he shouted to Angela. “Got me in the vest.”
She exhaled with an overwhelming sense of relief and went back to the door. “Be careful!” she shouted.
He waved back, charging down the corridor in hot pursuit. As Angela’s hands went back to sifting through the key ring for the right fit, she thought of the two people on earth that she wanted dead more than anyone—Salah Asgar and the person who killed her husband. It was sad to think that she hadn’t a face or a name. For all she knew, her husband’s killer lay among the mutilated dead.
The first bolt suddenly unlocked, making her heart surge with hope. She went down the line of dead bolts, using the same key, and unlocked them all. She then swung the door open and shouted into the dark cell, wanting nothing more than to see her daughters’ faces and know that the relentlessly violent journey she and Burke had taken had been worth it.
“Chassity! Lisa!”
She walked inside and looked ahead, squinting into the dark. She found two young girls huddled in
the corner with their heads down and hands covering their ears. Their dirty, tear-ridden faces turned toward her in unison, and they opened their eyes. She could hardly breathe.
Chassity’s face went from timid to ecstatic in an instant, as she was the first to recognize Angela. She jumped up and pulled Lisa to her feet as they studied their mother, dumbfounded.
“Mom?” Lisa said.
Angela approached them with a joyful smile across her face and tears falling from her eyes like raindrops. She crouched down lower and spread her arms wide.
“Come on, girls,” she said. “We’re going home.”
They flew at Angela and nearly took her to the ground as they leaped into her arms and felt Angela clutch them to her, one on each side. She squeezed them tightly, smelling their hair and crying with joy.
“I missed you so much,” Angela said. “Oh thank God.” They trembled in her arms as they buried their faces into her side, and only their faint cries of happiness could be heard. They had been through hell, but they were going home. And that was all that mattered. Angela’s head suddenly rose in a panic, nearly forgetting the place they were in.
“Okay, listen to me,” she said quietly as she stroked their heads. “We need to get out of this place right now. Stick close to me, and we’ll be home soon.”
Chassity looked up and into Angela’s eyes with understanding. Lisa still shook uncontrollably.
“We’re going to be fine,” Angela said.
“Agent Gannon!” Burke’s voice suddenly shouted from far outside the room.
She turned her head as fear gripped heart. His voice sounded urgent… afraid, even. She held her girls tight and told them they had to go. As she led them out the door, Burke called to her again.
“It’s okay. The coast is clear. Come down here. You have to see this!”
Standing with both girls at her side, holding their hands, Angela looked down the bloody corridor.
“Asgar escaped. Bosra too. But they left a bunch of stuff behind!”
She could stall no longer. She led the girls a few steps back into their cell and crouched down eye-level with them, speaking as calmly as she could. “Wait for me just one minute, and I’ll be back.”
Near hysterics, Lisa reached out with one hand and grabbed at her. “No, Mommy. Please don’t leave us!”
“Shhh,” Angela said, stroking her stringy hair. “It will only be for one minute. Then we’ll all leave.”
She broke away from the girls, despite the sinking in her heart, and ran out of the room past the multitude of bodies in her path. She couldn’t bring herself to walk Chassity or Lisa past the horrific sight. They had experienced enough as it was. She continued down the corridor and into a room at the end, with its vault-like door busted open.
As she carefully walked inside the largely empty room, she saw Burke standing over a small table of documents with the wholeness of fear in his eyes. A look she had never seen from him before.
“What is it?” she asked, approaching him with concern. There were a few Kerosene lamps placed on the ground, providing just enough light to see by.
Burke managed to look away from the documents just long enough to signal to the double mattress in the corner of the room, titled at an angle.
“Asgar got away. Some kind of trap door I found under his bed. Thick steel. Five inches at least. None of my tools can penetrate it.” He turned back to the table and pointed to a Texas map with areas marked by yellow circles.
“What’s wrong?” Angela asked, growing impatient. She found that she didn’t care about Asgar anymore, nor did she care that he got away. All she wanted to do was to leave this place with her daughters in tow.
“This here…” Burke began. “This is their plan to attack the Dallas nuclear power plant. They’ve accelerated the mission.”
“Okay,” Angela said, almost as though the plant attack was common knowledge. “How do we stop them? Who do we need to call?”
Burke turned to her with sharp, serious eyes. “That’s the thing, Angela. According to this, Asgar has given them the green light. We may not have time to stop them.” He paused with a deep breath. “You have to run. Now.”
Terror Rising: Holy War
1
Retribution
Sunday, 9:30 a.m.
Garland, Texas
Travis Durant sat in the driver's seat of his black 2011 Honda Accord watching the Masjid Quabba Mosque with great interest. From the far corner of a large parking lot, he examined the Muslim congregation filing into the open double doors as services were about to begin.
The men wore casual dress shirts and pants, many of them with white cotton prayer caps, or taqiyahs, on their heads. The relative calmness in the air gave a certain spirit to what would be a lengthy service. The sun peeked over clouds on the horizon in the brightening sky, which only an hour ago had been dark, with streaks of yellow emerging in a radiant glow.
At the entrance of the two-story mosque, no one turned a head in Travis's direction. He felt invisible. And though most of the families entering the mosque wore their summer colors—the men in white button-down shirts, women in blue long-sleeved dresses and hijabs—Travis was dressed in black. His car engine was off. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Both windows were halfway down and the stagnant air seeped into his car. Sweat beads formed on his forehead. His black T-shirt felt damp, especially where it pressed against the back of his vinyl seat. Lying next to him on the passenger seat were several local newspapers detailing events from a few days ago, their headlines nearly identical:
Terror Bombing in Texas
Mysterious Truck Explosion Linked to Terrorist Sleeper Cell
Chemical Agent Scare on Texas Border
The newspapers detailed a recent event involving a truck explosion that killed a young Border Agent named Jeremy Dawson with the Del Rio U.S. Customs and Border Protection station. Dawson, it was reported, was searching the cargo port of a box truck when he triggered an improvised explosive that blew up the truck, killing him instantly.
Fearing the release of chemical agents, authorities cordoned off the area for miles. The truck’s driver and passenger, killed in a shootout, were later identified as militants linked to ISIS, but the story didn't end there. The Islamic State kidnapped the family of another border agent, Angela Gannon, of the same Del Rio sector, and killed her husband on camera in a videotaped message to the United States government.
“Homegrown” ISIS Cell Executes First American in Chilling Message
ISIS Executes American in Texas
Government Vows to “Bring Killers to Justice” after Murder of Texas Man
Travis stared ahead while tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Most of the congregation had entered the mosque, with only a few stragglers left exiting their cars. He was lucky enough to find a spot in the corner under a tree, which provided him some much-needed shade. He studied the tan, octagon-shaded building with a golden dome before him, prepared to do what he felt necessary. The last of the group went inside, and two nicely dressed Middle Eastern men shut the double doors behind them. Services were about to begin.
Travis brushed his dark bangs to the side and glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. There were bags under his tired blue eyes. He'd been up for hours—nearly all night. His road map lay half folded on his dashboard, soaking in the heat. In the lead-up to his visit, he had been searching for the right mosque. The Masjid Quabba Mosque was one of the most popular and well-attended, and for Travis, that made it perfect.
He had been sullen and withdrawn from family and friends for a while, and as he sat in his car, he had never felt so alone. Though he knew that he wasn’t alone. He was embarking on a mission far beyond himself. America had lost its way, he believed. There was nothing left but a wasteland of broken promises. At nineteen, Travis had found solace in his radicalized views. All the answers were there for everyone to see. A war had already begun, and no one was doing anything about it. That was, until now.
Travis leaned to his side and grabbed a gym bag from the passenger floor, hoisting it onto his lap. His nervous hands unzipped the bag, revealing two .45 semiautomatic handguns and several loaded magazines, piled together like some grab-bag of carnage.
He loaded the magazines into each pistol and then placed each remaining magazine into separate slots on a joint-shoulder-harness vest. The air was still and quiet. Cars passed by on the nearby open road, echoing in the distance. There was plenty of time for him to turn away. He could leave this place for good, and no one would be any wiser to it. The decision was all his, but for Travis, the time to reconsider had long passed. He was on a mission. It was his duty. Those inside were sealed to their fate.
He slid the ammo vest over his shoulders, slipping it on. He snapped the clips in the center of the vest together and tossed the gym bag to the floor. On his lap lay the two hand guns, the instruments of Travis's destruction—and his power. He placed both pistols in individual holsters dangling on the sides of his vest.
The last piece to his plan involved an Adidas windbreaker in the back seat to better conceal his intentions. He reached back, grabbed the jacket, and then opened his door, feeling relieved to exit the stuffy car. He stepped out, jacket in hand, and stretched. Once his jacket was on and zipped up halfway, he looked around carefully to ensure that the coast was still clear. No one was around. The parking lot, filled with vehicles, was undisturbed. He leaned against the side of his car, driver's door opened, and lowered his head against the hot surface, praying.
An eighteen-wheeler semi roared by, interrupting Travis's prayer as his head jerked up. He stared ahead at the mosque, with its arched window frames and opaque tint. From where he stood, the building looked modest, small even, but there were plenty of people going inside. He shut his door and walked toward the mosque, passing three rows of parked cars and reaching the shaded walkway to the front entrance.
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