During his research of terrorist activity and Washington D.C. he learned there are fifty six FBI field offices throughout the United States. In Washington D.C. alone there are eight hundred and fifty eight Federal agents that protect the Capital, White house and the U.S. Supreme Court from terrorist plots. He read that every day there are five bomb threats against one of these locations. According to reports the agents spend every minute of every day following up on the threats and making sure they eliminate them. (23) This was one time and place he was glad Doug was just a tourist.
Doug headed to Washington D.C. and made reservations at the Cherry Hill RV Park just a few miles from the Capital. It was a perfect place to set up his motor home and visit all the things he wanted to see while he was there. He was going to try and put his personal war behind him for a few days and just be a tourist. After he arrived at the park and set up his campsite he kicked back and relaxed and had a glass of red wine. That evening he mapped out the areas of interest he wanted to visit on his first day at the Capital.
Early the next day, he started with the Washington monument. It is 555 1/8’ above the National Mall and is a tribute to George Washington. It was dedicated in 1848. Doug took pictures as he lazily strolled along the concrete pathways. His next stop was the Lincoln Memorial, which was dedicated in 1922 to honor our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. There is also a memorial to Martin Luther King (key figure in the African-American civil rights movement) at the Lincoln site. Doug had no idea how beautiful and large the memorial really was until he was standing there in front of it. Other memorials he saw were the 19’ Thomas Jefferson Memorial that was dedicated in 1943 but wasn’t completed until 1947. The Roosevelt 32’ tall Sculpture was a tribute to the Marines that have died in combat since the Marine Corps was founded in 1775.
When he went to the Vietnam Memorial he found it was hard to control his emotions. It was dedicated in 1982 and is referred to as the “Wall.” This was one of the main reasons he wanted to stop in Washington D.C. The “Wall” honors American soldiers killed, prisoners of war, and missing in action in Vietnam. Their names are listed chronologically on the black granite V-shaped memorial wall. He spent a few hours there and looked up a few buddies names he knew that had died in Vietnam. While sitting on one of the benches at the wall, he couldn’t help but think of Michael the entire time he was there. He had to wipe the tears away as he stared at the “Wall” with thoughts of Vietnam and of Michael flashing through his mind. He wondered how many more Americans soldiers were going to die in the struggle against the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan before it was over. He also wondered what the memorial would look like someday to honor American soldiers that have died in those two countries. He knew that people would be seeing Michaels name on a memorial someday and just the thought of it felt like a dagger piercing his heart.
Once he regained control of his emotions he walked east and saw the Vietnam Women’s Memorial that was dedicated in 1993 to honor servicewomen and nurses. He continued to the U.S. Navy Memorial and Naval Heritage Center. There is a seven foot tall bronze statue entitled “Lone Soldier” that stands at the entrance to the U.S. Navy Memorial. Further on down the pathway is the Korean War Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1995. It features a polished wall engraved with faces of soldiers, nurses, chaplains and even a dog honoring those that served. A bronze sculpture group of platoon soldiers inching through a field forms the focal point of the memorial. He visited the African-American Civil War Memorial, the National World War ll Memorial.
Doug finished up his first day across the Potomac River visiting the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial that was dedicated in 1954 and lastly the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. It was designated as a military cemetery in 1864. It is home to over 300,000 honored soldiers and distinguished citizens. When Doug got back to his motor home he had a glass of red wine as he sat down to relax and think back about his day. He had no idea how emotionally draining that day would be for him.
The following day, he spent all day visiting the U.S. Capital, The White House, The Smithsonian Institute, The Library of Congress, National Air and Space Museum, National American History Museum, The Supreme Court, The Arts Building and completed his day taking pictures of the Pentagon. There was so much to see in one day there was no way he could spend very much time in each one. By the end of the day he was exhausted from all the walking. Back at his motor home he was just kicking back and having a glass of red wine when he fell onto his bed called it day.
Early the next morning Doug drove the eighty three mile drive to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and visited the site of the Battle at Gettysburg. It was the Civil War’s bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties. While there he also visited the 22,000 square foot museum at the Gettysburg National Military Park. That trip was a full day and filled with a great deal of pride and sadness. By the time he got back to his motor home he had been driving in his car over five hours and was ready for that glass of red wine. He kept thinking how great it would have been to visit all the places he had been to the past few days with Shirley, Jenifer and Michael. Even though he had seen places he had always hoped to see someday, he was crushed that he had seen them alone. It had a lot of empty meaning to him the way he was feeling at that moment. As he sat drinking his wine and feeling very alone and sad he suddenly snapped back to why he was there in the first place. He was still on his mission to kill the terrorists and soon he would be back on the road again searching for his next target.
That evening Doug started planning what his next target would be. He decided he was going to hit the terrorist camp at what many believed to be the Muslim terrorist headquarters at “Islamcity.” It is near Francock, New York and only one hundred and fifty miles from New York City. It is deep in the woods and very secluded on a one hundred acre compound in the Catskill Mountains. It has winding dirt roads that lead in and out of the area and a guard building at the entrance to the camp. It is reported to have forty Muslim houses, a mosque, schools, a grocery store and a firing range. He believed that with all the media attention about the “American Terrorist” law enforcement would be on full alert for any suspicious activity. He thought that maybe even the FBI and the CIA may be keeping an eye out for suspicious activity on or near the camp as well. He had to take his time and be a little smarter in his next attack. He didn’t want to kill any undercover law enforcement agents and he especially didn’t want to get caught by any of them.
Doug would take some time and plan his strategy very carefully, but first he wanted to drive a little out of his way to see the damage the terrorists had done to the World Trade Center at “ground zero” in Manhattan, New York. When he arrived at the site and saw the empty space where the “Twin Towers” once stood, he was floored by what he saw. He and Shirley had visited the “Twin Towers” in May 2001, just before the terrorist blew them up. He remembered how enormous they were to see in person. Now it was almost unbelievable because all that is left is just a big empty space. He was convinced that until you could see this with your own eyes you would never believe that the young Arab terrorist could have caused that much destruction and devastation here in America. He could still see the images of the two crumbled towers in his mind as he stood there. The anger and hurt swelled up inside his chest as he recalled how he felt the first time he, Shirley and Michael watched the news of the attacks on television.
After standing there for a few minutes Doug remembered what he had read about a Muslim mosque that was trying to be built near the “Twin Tower” site. He had a hard time accepting this since he believed so many of the Muslim mosques and their members are against Israel and the United States. He felt that a lot of the mosques are just another façade for the terrorist organizations. Just the thought of the Muslim mosque being built nearby angered him. While he was there he wondered if the Empire State building would someday be a target of the radical terrorists. It was built in 1931 and is the tallest building in New Y
ork since the destruction of the World Trade Center.
While he was in Manhattan he also wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. He had to blow off some steam so after he left the Twin Tower site he walked several blocks to the water where there were ferry boat tours to Ellis Island. That is where the “Statue of Liberty” is located. It was about a two hour tour so he bought a pass and rode over to the Island with about one hundred other people. When the boat arrived at the base of the “Statue of Liberty” he couldn’t believe how beautiful and how tall it looked in person. At that moment he had that warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought about what this monument represented to all the people of America. He wished Shirley, Jennifer and Michael could have seen it.
Once he was through site seeing for the day he headed back to his RV campground. He stopped at a couple of different places and picked up several “pay as you use” phones. When he was learning how to detonate his bombs he found out how to take a mobile phone apart, attach a wire to the phone and another wire into a block of C-4. When the phone receives a call or text the vibration connection sends out a charge that detonates the C-4 bomb. The thing he really liked about them is that you could call the number on the phone detonator from anywhere and set off the explosion. He just had to make sure he didn’t turn the phones on until he was ready to use them. Doug remembered reading about a Russian woman terrorist that had a similar bomb and when she received a text from the phone company it caused the bomb to go off early blowing her up before she killed hundreds of people on a train she had targeted. Luckily, for all the innocent people, she was the only one killed.
Doug had a great plan for some of his future targets so while he was in Manhattan; he was going to visit one of the largest Toys-R-Us stores in America located in Times Square. The store has a sixty foot Ferris wheel near the life-sized T-Rex dinosaur and a 4000 square foot Barbie Doll house. He called the store ahead and told the clerk he wanted two remote control battery powered adult helicopters fully assembled and ready to fly. He purchased the gigantic 450 3 channel metal RC helicopters, (called the Silver Ghost). Each helicopter operated on their own frequency. They are 31” in length and can reach heights of one hundred and fifty feet. They have an operating range of eight hundred feet. They can fly for ten to fifteen minutes with a fully charged battery. He also ordered two remote control battery operated Carrera cars. They have four wheel drives and can hit speeds up to twenty one miles per hour. They are 19 3/4” long, 10 1/4” wide and 7” high. He had given it a great deal of thought and he was going to use these remote control cars and helicopters to deliver his bombs in a few of his future attacks.
On several occasions, while Michael was growing up, he and Doug went to the local school grounds on the week-ends and flew remote controlled airplanes, helicopters and drove remote controlled cars. Michael loved to spend time doing it and he would run them until the batteries were out of juice every time they went. If it had been up to him, they would have spent every week-end doing nothing but remote control toys. Doug was always ready to go because it made him feel like a kid again. Little did he know that all those week-ends flying and driving those remote control toys would someday be part of his strategy to kill his terrorist targets. When he went into the Toy-R-Us store he wore his ski cap pulled down over his ears with sunglasses, a mustache and goatee and a hooded sweatshirt, to hide his true identity. After he had the toys in his motor home he found his way out of town and pulled over to the side of the road then hooked each one of their charging units to an outlet in the motor home so they would charge while he was driving to his next location.
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Chapter 19 - Attack on “Islamcity” New York
The American Terrorist Page 18
