After looking through the peephole to confirm that there was no one in the hallway, I grabbed the bag, left the condo and closed the door. I heard the lock engage.
I went straight for the stairway. When I reached the ground level, I looked toward the reception desk. Gus’s head was bent down and he was snoring. I could hear a sportscaster’s voice coming from his computer. Apparently he had fallen asleep watching a football game. I quietly hurried out the door, turned left and made my way to the Lexus.
As soon as I was a couple of miles away, I pulled into an Exon service station, parked on the side, and took out my cell phone.
It was urgent to inform Agent Stewart of Stockman’s death, and the information about the van and the mosque.
Chapter 66
Agent Stewart sat in the waiting area outside of Director Stancil’s room. The Director was sleeping. They had discussed scenarios on how to search the numerous mosques in the DC area, but had not come up with an acceptable course of action. He reported to the Director that Senator Roberts was going back to Stockman’s condo to attempt to secure more information, using whatever means necessary. They were running out of options and they both knew it.
Stewart was sipping on a lukewarm cup of black machine coffee when his cell phone rang. He had sent Agent Garcia and the other guys to the hotel to get some sleep while he stood watch. Regardless of moving the Director to a secure section of the hospital, he still refused to leave him alone without a trusted Agent outside the room. He punched answer.
“This is Stewart.”
“Gerry, Michael here. I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just say it. Stockman is dead. It doesn’t matter how, but he’s dead. I sent the Informant away, and I don’t believe she’ll say anything. Matter of fact, I would be surprised if she wasn’t on her way out of the country as we speak. There’s no reason to believe that Stockman’s body will be discovered for a couple of days.”
“My God Michael!”
“I did find a note that he apparently wrote after a phone and call prior to the informant’s arrival. This could break open the case. It says, and I quote, “Van bomb to 239 South Windsor Avenue, apartment 3A for Pentagon from Aberly 16th street mosque.”
“My God, ”Stewart exclaimed.
“Gerry, my interpretation is this, for some reason the terrorists decided to move a van bomb to that address from the Aberly 16th Street mosque here in DC. This bomb was to be used to blow up the Pentagon. I think it’s reasonable to speculate that the remainder of the explosive devices are still in the mosque. We must assume from what we already know that these devices will be picked up by the jihadists between now and January 19th to be used on the 20th. You need to gather a group of trusted agents and secure the mosque. Then you can wait to arrest each jihadist as they arrive.”
Stewart took a deep breath to control his excitement and his relief that a break of this magnitude had materialized.
“Michael, other than myself, I’ve got two agents here that I can use and possibility a third. I must leave one man to guard the Director. We’ll proceed to the mosque immediately. However, we can’t be in multiples places at one time. The number one priority is to secure the explosives, especially the nuclear device, but the meeting will be held in a matter of hours among all the traitors involved in this plot. We’ll never get all of them in the same place again. Another problem is that the van bomb is at another location. If detonated, hundreds of lives will be lost.”
“Don’t worry about that Gerry, I’ll handle it.”
“What in the hell do you mean you’ll handle it? There’s only one of you.”
“Gerry, you secure the bombs and capture the jihadist who were planning to execute the attacks and I’ll do the rest. The explosives must be secured immediately. Trust me, I’ll handle everything else.”
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with you,” Stewart replied.
Disconnecting the call, Stewart went directly to the Director’s hospital room. The Director was wide-awake staring at the ceiling.
“Sir, I need to brief you on what’s happening.”
He repeated the conversation with Roberts. “I’ll get Agent Henderson to stay with you. I’m taking Garcia and Ratliff with me to handle the situation at the mosque.”
“To hell you are,” Stancil said. “You’ll need Henderson. Just give me a gun. I’ll take care of myself. I just wish I could go with you.”
Steward left the room. The first call he made was to Ethan Tyler. He briefed him and told him to leave the Debue’s and meet him at the Aberly 16th street mosque.
The second call was to Agent Dan Garcia. After briefing him on the situation, he asked him to get Henderson and Ratliff and meet him in the Hospital parking lot.
Now Stewart had a five-man squad to secure the mosque and capture the jihadist.
Chapter 67
A stony peaceful feeling came over me as I contemplated what I was about to do.
I punched in 239 South Windsor Avenue into the navigation system on the Lexus, dug through the plastic bag, and took out the .45 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun with the silencer attached. I checked the chamber. It was loaded.
The assignment list that I had secured from Stockman indicated that a man named Abdul Moham Islick was appointed to destroy the Pentagon. I assumed that he was the occupant of apartment 3A.
I arrived at South Windsor Avenue within twenty minutes. A white van was parked outside the first floor apartment 3A. I parked three spaces down from the van and attempted to look inside the vehicle. The windows were tinted, and I was unable to see anything.
Proceeding directly to apartment 3A, I knocked on the door. No answer, nothing. I knocked again, harder. A muffled voice inside responded, “Who are you?”
“The Controller sent me. There’s been a change of plans. You are Abdul Moham Islick, my Muslim brother.”
He opened the door. “Why didn’t The Controller call me?”
“He’s on his way to the final meeting and assigned me to bring you the news in person.”
He looked skeptical but allowed me to enter.
“What is the change?” he asked as he walked toward a desk beyond the entrance.
“Where are you going Abdul?”
“Something I need in the desk.”
Following closely behind him, I reached back and pull the gun from my belt. When he opened the drawer and reached inside, I put a bullet in the back of his head. I stepped over the body and looked inside the desk drawer. A Glock G19 compact pistol lay there. No doubt, he was going to kill me.
I searched his pockets and found keys. I went to the van, and after trying several keys, found the right one. I opened the back of the van and jerked back the black tarp. There were enough plastic explosives in there to demolish a city block. An electronic device was attached to the right side of the load. A cell phone was connected on top of it. I assumed that was the detonator and could be detonated by calling the number from another cell phone.
I went back into the apartment, pulled out the dead terrorist’s wallet, and dumped the contents on his kitchen table. There were a couple of credit cards, two hundred dollars in cash, an unopened condom, and an EBT food stamp and welfare card. It was humorous and sickening to me that we were feeding this jihadist with taxpayer’s money, and he was planning to kill as many of us as possible.
It was also interesting that he had an Obamacare insurance card, a Social Security Card, and a driver’s license. A small folded sheet of paper was stuck in the inside pocket of the wallet.
I unfolded it. There were three phone numbers listed. The first was labeled mosque, the second with the letter C, and the third was unlabeled. Maybe that was the number to the cell phone detonator and maybe it wasn’t. I had no way of knowing for sure. I guess I’ll have to test it under fire.
I went to the kitchen, looked in the cupboard, and found a large plastic grocery bag. Then I moved back to the body. Fitting the bag over his head, I tied it securely to prevent any more
blood from oozing out of the head wound. I dragged the body to the door. Seeing no one in the area, I threw the body over my shoulder and dumped it in the passenger seat of the van.
I removed the bag. He looked as if he was sleeping. I swear there was a hint of a smile on his lips. Maybe he had joined his seventy-two virgins in his version of heaven. I don’t know why I laughed aloud at the thought, but my mind was careening in countless different insane directions.
This was the first time I ever shot a human being in the back of the head. I felt like a stranger in my own body, who was lost in the maze of confusion. I had been lost in the maze of survival on the island, and lost in the maze of despair with the death of my wife and the disappearance of my daughter. Maybe now I could finally find my way out of this damnable maze.
I searched the rest of the apartment and found one final thing, which would help me in what I had planned. On the closet shelf in his bedroom was a pair of Sunagor Mega Zoom Binoculars 30-160x70.
I grabbed them and proceeded to the van. Eyeing at my watch, I determined that the major meeting of all the coconspirators was going to take place in two hours. It’s time for me to go there and settle this thing once and for all.
The van didn’t have a GPS system so I typed in the address 3451 South Windsor Avenue, Washington DC in my smartphone. The calm female voice began to give me directions as if all in the world was okay.
“Your destination in ahead on the left,” the voice said. I had made several turns and had not seen any buildings or houses for at least fifteen minutes. I was in what we called in North Carolina, the boondocks.
On the left was a large warehouse bordered by a seven-foot chain link fence. A wooded area surrounded the fence. There was a gate at the front. Standing on either side of the gate were two armed uniform guards.
I drove past about a quarter of a mile. There was a small dirt road on the right. I turned on the road and it lead to a dilapidated and abandoned barn. I pulled the van to the side of the building, grabbed the binoculars and trudged back toward the warehouse. I concealed myself behind the trees and underbrush and trained the binoculars on the gate. There were two cars parked inside the fence in the parking lot of the warehouse. The front of the warehouse was brightly lit.
I moved to the side and saw that the back of the warehouse was bright with lights, probably the meeting place. Thirty minutes prior to the scheduled meeting time another vehicle arrived. The guard on the right shined a flashlight in the car, apparently checked a list from a clipboard he was holding, and waved them through.
I pointed the binoculars at the vehicle while it parked. The doors opened and two familiar people got out. Alexander and Maria Debue walked in the front door and down a long hallway until I lost sight of them.
Over the next thirty minutes I watched as eleven other cars arrived and the occupants went inside. I recognized many of the faces since I had the occasion to associate with them while I was in the Senate. Among the traitors were;
Major General Issac Stearns, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Henry L. Dickerson, President of the AFL-CIO.
William P. Lister, National Security Advisor to the President.
Hector W. Lopez, President of The National Council of La Raza.
Percy B. Hinson, President of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Victor Q. Brent, Agent in Charge of the Regional FBI offices in Washington, DC.
Abraham T. Shipley, Director of Intelligence of the CIA.
Donald R. Brown, Governor of the State of California.
These were men of privilege, some of whom were sworn to protect the citizens of the USA and to uphold the Constitution of this great country. However, in their insatiable thirst for power they had joined Speaker Stockman to overthrow the Government of the United States and kill thousands of people in the process. They were despicable turncoats.
I knew what I had to do. Even if Agent Stewart and his men arrested every one of them, the evidence is so flimsy that they would never be convicted of anything. It is not against the law to attend a meeting at this warehouse. They could deny any knowledge of why Speaker Stockman had their names on a list in his safe. They would remain a future danger to this country and probably discredit the FBA and certainly me for attempting to connect them to a conspiracy to bring down the Government. The entire scenario was, I admit, to crazy to be believed.
My cell phone rang and I looked at the caller ID. It was Agent Stewart. I allowed it to go to voicemail because I didn’t want to tell him what I was planning to do.
I sprinted back to the van and cranked it. The lifeless jihadist stared straight ahead with his dead gaze. In death he was my partner in what would probably cause his Allah to deny his seventy-two virgins.
I opened the back of the van and looked more closely at the cell phone detonator on the bomb. As far as I could tell there was a three-minute delay programed in the detonator. I didn’t know this for sure, just like I didn’t know for sure that the number I had was the correct one to set off the bomb.
I realized that this was probably a suicide mission, but in my mind there was no choice. I laid the pistol with the silencer on the lap of the dead man. I shoved the note with the number on it and my cell phone in my pocket.
It took me less than five minutes to turn down the driveway toward the gate. The two-armed guards pulled their firearms as I approached. With my right hand I clutched the handgun.
“Relax guys, I’m here for the meeting,” I said.
One guard was standing by my door and the other by the window on the passenger side looking quizzically at the dead terrorist. His pistol was lowered. I clutched my gun, lifted it up and shot the man by my window in the face. In one motion I swung it around and shot the other guard in the neck as he was raising his weapon.
Jumping out of the van, I added another bullet to the head for each guard. The silencer made a soft spitting sound. I jumped back in the van and drove it into the compound. I parked it on the right side of the building as close to the wall as possible.
Grabbing the binoculars, I got out and ran like hell through the gate and toward the wooded area. Gazing back, I didn’t see anyone coming out of the building. When I reached the tree line, I jerked the cell phone out of my pocket along with the number. I punched in the number and pushed talk. The phone rang three times before I heard a click. I took off running again, and put additional space between the building and me.
I thought my eardrums would rupture when I heard the tremendous explosion. I looked back again and hunks of building were sailing through the air. There were several additional explosions, I assume from the gas tanks in the cars in the parking lot.
Flames leaped high in the sky and the trees next to the clearing caught fire. I felt the heat and the swoosh of hot air hit my face, and I ran again away from the carnage. I stopped for a moment and looked back through the binoculars. The place was demolished and burning furiously. No one could have survived that massive blast.
I got back to the dark highway and began walking north. When my ragged breath settled down, I grabbed my cellphone and noticed that Stewart had left a message.
“What’s going on Michael? We’ve got everything under control here, and are ready to come out there and arrest the Traitors at the meeting. Call me immediately.”
Abruptly I became dizzy and vomited. I had been running on adrenaline and it was quickly diminishing. I sat down on the side of the road and buried my head between my knees.
A few minutes passed and I regained control of my mind and body. I raised the cell phone and called Agent Stewart. I heard sirens in the distance, probably the fire department.
“Gerry, this is Michael. You need to send someone to pick me up.”
“Where in the hell are you, and what’s going on?”
“You first. What did you mean, everything’s under control?”
“With the information you provided, four of my men and I went to the mosque on 16th street. To hell with a
warrant, we just stormed the place. There was some resistance, but we took control after fatally subduing three of the radicals. We kept the noise level down and took control without firing a shot. The search of the facility produced the explosives planned to be used in the attacks. We also located the nuclear device.”
He hesitated for a moment and then continued.
“A couple of hours later, we captured five of the jihadist when they came to pick up their devices. The only ones still at large are Abdul Moham Islick, the man you were going after, the girl Aabish Lini Malik and Aalim Mohammad Alam. The others called Aalim, The Chosen One.”
“Now it’s your turn Michael.”
You don’t need to worry about Abdul, he’s dead. The van bomb exploded at the warehouse where the meeting was being held. All of the traitors are dead. That’s all I have to say. I’m on the highway a couple of miles from the warehouse. Send someone one to pick me up. From the sound of things the fire department and police are on the way. I’ll hide in the bushes when they pass by.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. I heard Stewart take a deep breath.
“I’ll come myself. I’ll be driving the black Escalade. Stay hidden until you see my vehicle. All living hell is about to break loose, but the danger to the country is over.”
I sat in the bushes waiting on him. I lowered my head and cried.
As the tears streamed down my cheeks, a strange light transformed the ground around me to a soft white glow. I looked up at the star filled sky and felt a warm peace fill my soul.
I think an angel was comforting me, and offering forgiveness on what I had done.
The glow lifted, and I felt cleansed.
I knew I had found my way out of the maze in which I had been lost since the horrible night on the cruise ship.
My new life was beginning. I looked up at the stars.
“Thank you,” I said to whatever had been protecting me, and wiped the tears from my eyes.
Lost in the Maze Page 35
