©Copyright 2016
This is a work of fiction. Any events or action described that resembles actual events or persons is purely coincidental. All rights for this work are reserved by the author, Jason E. Fort.
PROLOGUE
Edwards Air Force Base
California
September 11, 2001
Chief Petty Officer Robert C. Brady was at the foot of the ramp of a Globe Master III C-17, waiting for the rest of his SEAL team to board for a routine HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) training jump; their Master Chief had decided it was the perfect day to go up and get some wind in their faces. Before he was ready to board, he had to borrow the satellite phone to make some important calls to his family; his parents were going to be tourists in New York City for the week, and his wife was just starting her school day in Blacksburg, Virginia. First he dialed up the number and called his wife while she was at school. He knew she didn’t have kids yet. They were three hours ahead in Virginia; she was an art teacher and she had a planning period first thing in the morning. It was still very dark where he was, although he could see a small red line over the horizon at the end of the tarmac.
She picked up on her cell phone at the first ring and said, “Hello?”
She couldn’t help but notice a heck of a lot of background noise as her husband said, “Hey Honey!” on the other end.
His wife’s name was Rebecca, but he just called her Honey.
She had to ask, “Baby, what is all that racket? I can hardly hear you.”
Brady replied, “Oh, that’s just the Globe Master, Honey. They’re cranking her up so we can take her for a spin. You talk to my folks yet?”
Rebecca shook her head back in Virginia as she answered him on the phone, “Not yet. But don’t worry; I told them you checked in often.”
Brady couldn’t help but agree with her on that point, “Thanks for taking away some of their worry; Hey - I gotta go before we go jump – I mean flying…Crap! You weren’t supposed to hear that, Honey.”
He always thought that his wife worried too much about him, but she laughed it off.
“It’s fine babe; I may not know the details - especially the classified ones. But I know what you do for a living. I love you Baby, and I gotta go, too; I have a conference with a parent in a couple of minutes.”
Brady always hated this part, but knew he had to let her go; “Bye Sweetie. I love you – see you when we get back to the East Coast.”
Then he ended the connection.
The ramp had been lowered; super cold air filled the inside of the body of the plane as SEAL team 3 prepared to exit the plane at 30,000 feet! All the SEALs were wearing heavy fatigues and flight suits to keep them safe from the temperatures, and everyone was wearing special oxygen masks that sealed to their faces, but still allowed them to communicate with each other through special intercoms and invisible earpieces they tucked into their ear canals like hearing aids. They were all standing, and the Master Chief was in front of everyone holding his right hand up in a fist to keep anyone from initiating the jump too early. Brady watched the Master Chief’s hand in anticipation, ready to run to the edge and jump off into nothingness. There was a bright red light to the right side of the exit of the plane. Suddenly, it turned green. The Chief flattened his right hand out and made an overt chopping motion forward, and the team moved in unison – a group of small bodies, jumping out the back of a perfectly good airplane, and catching the wind. Chief Petty Officer Brady fanned out his arms and legs to increase his wind resistance. His teammates did the same; each member assuming a different spot in relation to the others. At first they were all at different planes, but with adjustments of their bodies – small movements of their arms and legs – they all made a circle and grasped hands. The Master Chief then released the hand of the SEAL to his right, motioned a three count, and gave a static filled command over the SEAL team’s earpieces that everyone would release on a three count - watching his hand. Then he started counting, and signed an emphatic one finger – two fingers – three fingers…and they all let go.
Chief Petty Officer Brady could see the small square below him that was the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base. He had a feeling he could beat everyone back to the hangar; on the way up the team placed bets, and the Master Chief had the money. The catch was that they had to beat the Master Chief, too. Brady could see all six of his other team members; everyone was still on a similar plane in the sky. He looked down with his head and shaped his body like a pencil. Whatever wind resistance he had was lost, and he took off past the other SEALS. The rest of the team followed, and pretty soon everyone was shooting toward the earth like missiles.
Then a static-filled transmission came over their earpieces; “SEAL TEAM 3, SEAL TEAM 3! PREPARE TO MOBILIZE AS SOON AS YOU LAND! COUNTRY IS UNDER NATIONAL EMERGENCY! REPEAT – COUNTRY IS UNDER NATIONAL EMERGENCY!”
As far as each SEAL team member was concerned, all bets were still on. The faster they got down, the better…so they continued to come closer to the ground at break-neck speed.
Soon after that, from the ground they would have looked like small flowers blossoming in the sky, but the chutes began opening. Each SEAL felt like they were hurled back up to the sky as their parachutes opened, and their almost terminal velocity slowed to a mere thirty miles per hour and falling as the parachutes slowed their descent. But the Master Chief and Chief Petty Officer were still in the competition. They dove downward past their teammates, and it was going to be a close one; finally both stubborn SEALs looked at each other and fanned out their arms and legs, and as soon as they came out of their dive, they pulled their cords. It was going to come down to boots on the ground. Both men came down at a long, shallow angle headed towards the hangar, and they both came into the tarmac running. They dropped their chutes and tore off their straps. The other guys were just falling onto the tarmac, but they had fallen too far behind to catch their senior officers. Master Chief and Brady finished climbing out of their harnesses and busted it to the hangar. Chief Petty Officer Brady crossed the line of the hangar door first, followed closely by his leader. They came up to the ramp of the Globe Master that had landed earlier, breathing hard and gasping for air, like Olympic sprinters right after the 100 meter dash.
Finally, as they were both bent over at the waist, with their arms resting on their thighs, Master Chief leaned on Brady with one hand, and dug out a wad full of cash with the other.
“Guess I owe you this, big boy.”
An officer who had been checking more equipment into the large plane came down the ramp, out of the belly of the plane.
“Master Chief, America has been attacked, Sir! We’ve been told to get you guys back in the air ASAP; we are your ride to Shaw Air Force Base.”
Chief Petty Officer Brady chimed in, “The East Coast? We’re preparing to stage something from there? Where were we attacked?”
The officer – the same one who had loaned the satellite phone to Brady before takeoff and who knew he had family in New York - looked at Brady with a long face.
“New York City, sir. Someone flew two jet-liners into the World Trade Center.”
The doorbell rang at the front door on the inside of the screen porch. The small cabin was on the shore of a hidden pond, nestled in some woods in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Rebecca answered the door, and a large, red headed Irish American soldier was standing there. All she had to do was take one look in his brilliant green eyes to know the answer to the question they had been waiting to find out for the past two and a half weeks. He then bowed his head and sank to his knees, and his little lady knew exactly what was wrong. He began sobbing into her waist as she stood
there, her arms wrapped around his large shoulders and neck. She didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say to calm the storm of pain and loss that Brady felt. She helped him up, and they both walked over to the sofa in the living room. They held hands and held each other for an hour. Rebecca finally noticed it getting darker outside. She got up slowly and told her husband she was going to bed. She beckoned him to follow. He told her to go on ahead, and that he would catch up soon. She went to their bedroom and closed the door, and he slowly made his way into his study. He sat behind the large wooden desk and pulled out a small journal. Chief Petty Officer Brady opened the journal, grabbed a pen from a coffee cup nearby, and began to write.
Entry #1, September 29, 2001
Dear God,
Guide me, I pray. We have enemies at our gates…and I need to rally the troops. Lord, help me have courage to bring these merciless killers to justice. Father, I don’t just pray for justice for my mom and dad. I pray for justice to the enemy behind all such mindless and pointless acts of violence. I want to be part of the flames that lick the feet of these sinners as they descend into Hell. Lord, help me learn my enemy; help me learn about all his ways and all his weaknesses. Use me as your tool, and not just to bring these people to justice, but to prevent this kind of thing from happening to more of your followers. I would not pray this pain I feel on anyone; the pain of losing those who matter most. But justice must be served Lord. Not just for the Americans who lost loved ones in New York, or Washington, D.C., or the field in Pennsylvania – but Christians everywhere who are scorned by this enemy. Let me be your champion, and let my race start today. I pray all these things in Jesus’ name.
Amen
He closed the journal and placed it back in the desk drawer. He wanted the woman he loved, and he had wanted her for over two weeks; but sudden circumstances had kept them apart until now. His family had just gotten smaller by two. He couldn’t stand that thought. Perhaps he and Rebecca could get started on a remedy for that…so he went into the bedroom. He and his wife would finally spend quality time catching up, and reminiscing his parents and their crazy antics, and discussing funeral plans. But all of that really didn’t matter as much as the results of that night. When it was all said and done, he and his wife made love. They made love like they had never made love before. And then time passed by, and they discovered the family was going to get bigger again. Nine months later, he was fighting the battle that he prayed for; only it was on a slightly different battlefield. He began working for the CIA, and his wife was taking a year off for a child. That same nine months later they had that child; a beautiful bouncing baby girl. He had a second little lady now, and she had the most beautiful, brilliant green eyes.
PART ONE
1
Blacksburg, Virginia
2015
Jessie’s mom had told her to wait in the car for just a moment; she had to run back in to the grocery store because she had forgotten to pick up some mouthwash for her husband when he got back home. Jessie and her mom Rebecca had decided to run to the store to buy some things for a surprise welcome home dinner for her dad. Robert Brady was away on a certain job for the CIA, and was scheduled to be back home in the next couple of days. Jessie sat in the front seat of their minivan in one of the closer parking spaces to the entrance of the store. She was stroking the head of her pet black rat snake, Stanley, as she played a quick video game on her smart phone. The long, slender black snake was acting a little restless and began slithering up her arm to her shoulder.
She reached up and gently grabbed him near his head and brought his little head down in front of her face.
“Don’t worry, Stan…Mom will be back in a jiffy. Calm down and maybe I can feed you a frozen mouse when we get home,” the vibrant young red head told her pet snake.
Jessie didn’t happen to notice the large black van parked nearby, watching her small movements in the van as he waited for the mother to re-appear. Inside the cargo area of the van, Sayid Mussaad told the other two large Syrians that they needed to wait until the American spy’s wife walked back and got inside or behind the minivan. That way, they could capture her and the daughter without giving them a chance to run. Sayid was following orders from the leader of his cell; Barack Mussein had acquired inside information on the location of some family members of one of the intelligence agents who had been making life for ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) quite miserable for the past three weeks. As the Syrian terrorists looked through to the front windshield, they could see the very attractive figure of Rebecca Brady pushing yet another grocery cart back to the minivan. They quickly pulled on black ski masks to conceal their Middle Eastern identities.
Jessie looked in the side mirror, and noticed her mom approaching with another buggy.
“Stan, can you believe she got even more food?”
She laughed as she climbed out and walked around to the trunk. Her mom had hit the remote key fob to open the trunk. Both of Brady’s little ladies stood there behind the minivan, taking turns loading the last minute items Rebecca decided to pick up for her husband. She couldn’t wait for her husband to come home; he had been gone for three weeks now.
She spoke up to her daughter, “Jess, Sorry it took so long. I had to get mouthwash for your dad…and frozen pizzas, and yogurt…and you know how he gets if he doesn’t have his coffee.”
Sayid grabbed the small-framed teen-aged girl from behind and scooped her up off her feet. At the same time, his two Syrian friends grabbed the mother. They quickly rushed the girl and her mom back just a few feet to the large sliding panel door of the black van. They had moved it up closer as the two females had been loading the groceries. Once the sliding door was slung open by Sayid as he held the little teen in a tight head lock with his hand over her mouth, he lashed out with a scream of his own as the black rat snake had surprised him with a bite to his hand. He didn’t see the snake wrapped around the girl’s shoulders under her long red hair as he snuck up behind her. He forcefully shoved the girl inside. The two large Syrians threw the mother into the van, in the waiting clutches of two more thugs dressed in dark clothes, who immediately held the females down and bound them with duct tape. The large black van peeled out of the parking lot, carrying two helplessly bound little ladies, four large Syrians, and one angry Sayid, who was cursing because of the large lacerations caused by Sayid’s rush in yanking the snake off his hand and tossing it to the ground. The only things left behind were black skid marks, an empty grocery cart, and the trunk to the minivan, standing wide-open.
2
Cairo, Egypt
2016
His chambers were quite elegant, for someone who claimed that there was no need for material wealth in this world. The room was large, octagonal, with golden tapestries hanging from what seemed like innumerous anchors around the walls. The opulent quarters also included several prayer rugs in the center of the room, as well as a small finely-polished wooden water basin. That is where the sole occupant of the room stood now, washing his hands and face. The quarters belonged to a very important man of the Muslim Faith. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Mahmud was the Imam of the Cairo branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was well respected by most world leaders; especially those in the Middle East. He was also known as one of the more peace-loving Muslims of his time, in comparison to several of his Muslim brothers. It was because of his outspoken thoughts of peace that he normally did not have high security inside his most sacred place; he understood most threats to his kinsmen to come to the ones who were more known for their violent habits and tendencies. Although he did have guards set up outside his palatial hallway, he saw no need to have security watch over him in his inner-most sanctum: his personal quarters where he meditated on his words with Allah and said his prayers religiously at all the customary times of day, always facing Mecca.
It was at this time that if he had known he was not alone in the room, he would have definitely felt the need for a security guard, or two…or three. T
here was a black form hidden among the tapestries, with nothing but lethal plans for the religious leader. Ibn Abdullah Mahmud was bent over the wash basin, rubbing water thoroughly through his thick black beard, and around his dark bushy eye brows. He had to make sure he was cleansed, for one did not kneel down before Allah in ritual prayer until they were clean. The black form slowly materialized out from behind one of the tapestries directly behind the holy man. Silently, slowly, he crept over carpeted floors and even over a prayer rug or two. The silent intruder was clad from head to toe in all black: a black hood; small night vision shades covering the eyes that could adjust to any amount of light; a black BDU top covering a black bulletproof vest; a coil of 500 pound-test climbing rope wrapped around like a miniature sash on a holy man’s robes; black pants with several pockets full of extra ammunition as well as smoke bombs, knives, etc.; a black Glock pistol in a thigh holster strapped to his right leg; and black gloves and boots solely meant for stealth.
Misguided: The Jesus Assassin Page 1
