He watched from across the street in the supermarket parking lot. He saw two of the investigators get out and go their separate ways to explore inside and outside the mosque. The Arbiter could only assume that their leader, the one to whom he had sent the e-mail, was waiting and watching from their rental car. The Arbiter didn’t think they would find their target here; it just didn’t feel right to him. His only close encounters with Robert Brady, a.k.a. the Jesus Assassin, had been in the attack at the cabin, and his brief meeting in a makeshift hangar - on an air base in Iraq. But he had read all of Brady’s file. He probably knew Brady better than any one of the three investigators; he was surely a better match against Brady in a fight than the agents. But this mosque; its location; its convenience; its simplicity…it was just too easy. Brady liked a challenge. If something wasn’t much of a challenge, Brady at least wanted things to appear to be a challenge at first glance – so he could always make people say, ‘He did what?!’
The Arbiter had faith in the sleuthing ability of the agents, though. He knew the assassin might be too much of a match for them if they ever caught up to him, but he wasn’t too worried about that. He would take care of the problem real quick. Yes, the Arbiter could feel the end in sight, just like Brady. It was only a matter of time before they clashed. Although, if the Arbiter had things his way – there would never even be the need for a clash…if he could take care of the problem from a safe distance.
It was almost dusk, and Officer Lovelace was cruising the vicinity of the sewage treatment plant and the nearby mosque. He was good at his job; always extremely observant, noticing little things that common people would never pay attention to. That’s why when he slowly drove past a copse of trees, he happened to notice what he thought was a red reflector shining his alley lights back in his direction as he passed a small gravel path, just wide enough to drive a vehicle. Lovelace drove a little further down, and then whipped into a U-turn after making sure there was no traffic to oppose him. He came back to the gravel path and pulled his patrol vehicle onto the little trail. He followed it back a few yards and around a small curve. As soon as there was a clearing, he knew he had something. The A.P.B. (All Points Bulletin) that had been put out to his platoon had been for a blue Jeep Commander. He immediately got on his radio and called in the approximate location, and requested backup. All units had been advised to approach the vehicle with extreme caution because there was a possibility that the owner was the now infamous Jesus Assassin. This Jeep looked like it had been through a small war zone, and Lovelace shined his spotlight right into the rearview mirror in case it was occupied. He got out quickly and drew his sidearm and flashlight. He wasn’t about to take any chances with a known assassin. He had already made up his mind as he got out of his car that if the assassin was in the Jeep, and made the slightest overt move, he would empty his magazine into the bastard.
As he got closer to the vehicle, he touched the rear tale light just as he was always taught…in case the worst happened, and the assassin killed him and got away; at least there would be a Jeep Commander somewhere with Officer Lovelace’s prints on the rear tale light. He aimed his flashlight and the muzzle of his weapon into every visible part of the vehicle as he walked up to the window, but realized the Jeep was empty once he got all the way up to the driver’s side window. He cautiously scanned around him for any signs of an ambush, but once he realized he was alone, he re-holstered his weapon. He kept the flashlight out and looked around the vehicle for any signs of where the assassin had gone. He wasn’t about to track this guy down alone; he would wait until backup arrived…and possibly a K-9 unit.
Knox, Malik, and Agent White were just leaving the parking lot of their fourth mosque of the day, when Knox got the call from the night shift captain. He put the call on speaker phone so his teammates could listen. Captain Bo Reynolds was on the other end of the line, and had good news for the agents. One of his boys in blue had come across a suspicious vehicle; a blue Jeep Commander parked within one mile of a local mosque. Knox looked right at Malik and winked as the captain added that the Jeep looked like it had been shot several times. Knox informed the captain that they would be on their way, and Malik floored it as Knox quickly told him which direction to take.
In a matter of fifteen minutes, the agents had made it across town and were sitting in the parking lot of a strange one story building for a place of worship. Behind the building was the hulk of empty structures on the construction site for the future Muslim school. The parking lot was still somewhat full; attendees of the mosque were just leaving out the front doors to go back to their cars to go home after their evening prayer. Knox noticed right away that there was no observable sense of panic in the exiting Muslims’ faces. Malik parked the car, and the agents immediately got out and met up with the lieutenant standing outside the front door, standing next to his patrol vehicle.
“What took you guys so long? I thought you feds were supposed to be hot stuff?” the lieutenant asked jokingly.
Then he motioned inside and changed to a more serious tone, “Captain Reynolds is inside. He rode with me. He’s filling the imam in on what’s going on.”
Beth was just about to tell the lieutenant that the agents would take over from here, but Knox walked in front of her and offered a hand.
“Thanks, Lieutenant. We’ll go and get the story. Thanks for bringing the captain.”
The tall brawny lieutenant smiled and nodded his head, but then gawked at Agent White’s rear end as she walked by and followed Knox.
Malik cleared his throat as he caught up and chuckled, “Sorry man, but that seat’s taken.”
He punched the lieutenant in the shoulder and followed his teammates into the mosque.
When the agents entered, they saw who they assumed to be Captain Reynolds slowly walking to the door with a Muslim Imam, Imam Masadi al-Hara. The agents overheard the imam finishing conversation with the captain as they approached the door.
“Captain Reynolds, I appreciate your concern for my welfare,” the exiled Iranian was saying, “But, I assure you, as long as I am at the mosque I am safe. Look around…do my brothers and nephews look like the kind of family to let harm come to me?”
The agents and the captain glanced around at the pillars along the walls; he had a good point. There were six good, strong looking and imposing Muslim figures standing along the side and back walls of the mosque. Captain Reynolds, a short and stocky black man, looked up and saw Agent Knox, and motioned him over to the imam.
“Agent Knox, I presume – Captain Bo Reynolds. This is the Imam Masadi al-Hara. Imam – these are the federal agents trying to capture the Jesus Assassin.”
The imam looked at Agent Knox, and then at Malik and nodded, “Welcome…I am pleased to meet you Agents. But as I was just telling the captain, I am fine and well-protected. There has been no assassin here at our mosque today, otherwise, I would have called you and your men a long time ago,” finished the imam with his Iranian accent.
“If it’s all the same to you, Imam, we’d at least like to drive behind you on your ride home…to make sure you aren’t followed,” Knox offered in return.
The imam stood there in what appeared to be deep thought for a moment, and finally replied, “Very well, Agents. You may reinforce my safety as I drive home tonight. But I am afraid you will have to wait another half hour or so – I have some cleaning up to do around the mosque.”
The agents nodded in understanding, and began heading out the door. Before Knox headed back outside, he told Al-Hara, “Imam, thank you for listening. We just want to take all precautions, sir.”
As he stepped outside, the captain caught up with him shortly after saying his farewells to the imam.
“Thank you, Agents, for offering to do that. We have been a little short-staffed tonight, and I honestly couldn’t even get a K-9 unit over here to try to do any tracking. The west side of the city is marbles right now…and we’ve had random shootings on the south end about half
the night.”
Knox pumped the captain’s hand, and then finally offered the typical FBI response that Beth had wanted to say earlier: “Thank you for your help, Captain, but we can take it from here.”
The captain smiled as he shook Malik and Agent White’s hands, and then headed over to the lieutenant’s car and climbed in. The agents watched as he made a waving motion forward to the lieutenant who was already waiting in the patrol car. The police officers sped off out of the parking lot, and the feds remained behind to ensure the safety of Imam al-Hara.
The assassin lay there underneath the blanket, scrunched down in the back seat of the large sedan. He had been waiting there since late afternoon, once he realized which car belonged to the imam, and he had recognized the imam by the turban he wore on his head that nobody else seemed to wear. Brady had the hypodermic needle primed and ready once he realized it was dark outside. The imam had not been back to his car since he had arrived again in the afternoon; Brady thought that was fortunate. Even though he had entered from the rear passenger’s side door, he had broken the door handle off on the passenger’s side…and he really didn’t need the imam to see that little piece of handiwork. Unfortunately for Brady, he had not been privy to any of the events that had transpired regarding the discovery that he was in the area. He had no idea that federal agents had tracked him down, or that his Jeep had been discovered in the woods nearby. He had chosen to just enter his state of waiting calm; the one that he was trained to enter as a SEAL sniper. That’s why he wasn’t startled or surprised by the sudden opening of the driver’s side car door, or the shaking of the front seat as the imam climbed in and plopped down into his seat for his long drive home. Oddly enough, Brady was there to assure that the drive would not be very long at all.
Imam al-Hara had climbed in, got comfortable in his seat, and cranked the engine. Once the motor was up and running, he put the car in reverse and arced the car out of the parking space, and began aiming his big Buick Sedan towards the exit of the parking lot up closer to the mosque itself. As he slowly made his way through the parking lot, he was suddenly grabbed from behind. He felt a sharp pain for a brief moment at the base of his skull, opened his mouth and eyes, just about to scream, and lost all control of the vehicle. Brady quickly extracted the syringe, and briefly looked out the windshield. He ducked down in the back seat and braced himself at the last second, as the car went careening out of control, directly towards a street lamp.
Agent Knox was in the driver’s seat again, and he cranked the car up as he and his partners cautiously watched the imam steer his vehicle towards the upper exit to the parking lot. It was dark outside, and the imam’s rear window was tinted – so the agents couldn’t see inside the car from their SUV.
As they began to slowly follow the imam’s vehicle, Malik spoke up, “Hey – what’s he doing?”
Just as Malik spoke, the agents were dumfounded as the imam’s car suddenly took a strange left turn and smashed straight into a street lamp.
As Knox slammed on the brakes, Malik and Beth were out of the car. Agent Knox quickly put the parking brake on and got out the driver’s side as fast as he could. The other two agents were already off and running after a shadowy figure, who was garbed in black from head to toe. The hooded man ran like an oversized wide receiver, pumping his arms and making up tons of ground. Beth couldn’t quite keep up, but Malik looked like he was even faster than the assassin.
All three agents knew who they were after, and shouted at different intervals as they ran, “Stop – FBI! Brady – stop right there! Robert Brady – you’re under arrest!” seemed to come from all three investigators at one point or another.
Knox finally caught up to Beth, and everyone realized their target had run straight for the construction site.
Malik was hot on the heels of Brady, and he quickly turned the corner of the mosque and saw him run into a three story building; an unfinished structure of immense proportion, with only walls of wood and sheet rock up, supporting the building hallways and giving the interior its general shape, but nothing more. As he ran through the doorway into the dark, he saw the assassin’s shadow pass up a flight of steps. Malik adjusted quickly and followed. He flew up the stairs, and ran down a corridor that was dimly lit by utility lights hanging along the walls. He was upon another doorway and didn’t have time to slow down before realizing it was dark immediately upon entry. As soon as he ran across the threshold, he was suddenly hit by an arm bar and taken to the floor hard. There was just enough light for him to see a foot come crashing down towards his chest; Malik threw up his forearms in a tight bend and caught the boot. He twisted furiously and spun his body around so that he was up on his feet, ready to take on his assailant. Brady quickly backed away from him in the dark; moonlight shining on parts of his black outfit. Malik’s training in Israeli martial arts, or Krav Maga, had prepared him for fighting most people. But he could tell right away that this man Brady was going to be a handful. He was almost identical in size to Agent Knox, and outweighed Malik by about fifty pounds. But the assassin was backing further into the room. Malik then realized, he was giving himself more room to fight because of his large size. The further back he went into that particular room, the higher the ceilings and wider the walls. They squared off and began circling. Part of one side of the wall was open to the air; no wall at all. The other side had incomplete windows; no glass to break – just large holes that lead to the ground three stories below. Malik then feinted to grab for Brady’s arm, but then struck him with a sharp elbow across the side of his head. Brady’s quickness allowed him to avoid the brunt of the blow, and caused a small cut to open on the side of his face from the fast graze across his forehead. Brady came back with a solid kick to Malik’s hip, and made him cringe to his side for a short moment. That gave Brady the chance he needed to throw Malik off the floor and into the construction site below…but he refrained. Agents Beth White and John Knox ran into the room, and charged towards Brady, forcing him back to the corner of the room.
Beth spoke up with her pistol drawn, “Robert…just stop running. If you come along quietly, and cooperate, we can maybe find a judge who will give you some leniency.”
Brady smirked. “Leniency? You think I want leniency? Lady – I don’t know who you are, nor do I care, but I don’t have anything to lose.”
Knox spoke up, “We know, Brady. We saw the video…and the journal.”
Those words caused Brady to pause.
Then Beth added, “We know about your family, Robert. We know about all of them; your parents, too.”
Brady paused a little longer.
Beth continued, “I’ve lost someone, too. My brother – my best friend in the world – was killed in the line of duty by an evil man. I wanted revenge, too. That’s why I became an agent.”
Then Brady slowly edged his way around the room to one of the windows.
“Then you know why I can’t just give up. Not yet – the mission isn’t complete.”
Just when Knox was about to lunge and attempt to tackle Brady, he and Beth both saw a small, bright red light appear on Brady’s chest from the side of the building with no wall. Knox suddenly saw the world in slow motion, as if he were one of those super heroes who could slow down time. Only he had no control over the situation. Just before the sharp report of a sniper rifle hit their ears, Beth had leapt over to Brady and pushed him out of the way. As time ebbed by ever so slowly, Knox was jumping over immediately after to catch his lady as she fell. He could see the time lapse motion of a wound opening up on her side, and blood immediately soaking through her blouse on both sides of the small seam between the ballistic pads of her vest. Knox’s weight seemed to be carried back to the wall as he caught his partner, and he slowly sank down with his back against the wall; Beth’s body and head falling as his lap also approached the ground. The world seemed to be moving slowly a moment longer for the word to squeeze out of Knox’s throat, “NOOOOOOO!”
Brady had
made it to a window sill and poised himself to jump from it to whatever was below. As he was perched with most of his body ready to jump off, he turned back towards Agent Knox.
“I’m sorry.”
And he was gone. Malik was just dusting himself off as he stood up; he had also seen the whole thing, but had been hunched over in miserable pain from Brady’s intense side-kick to his thigh and ribs. He looked at Knox, as Knox pulled out his cell phone and hit 9-1-1. Just before he spoke into the phone to the 9-1-1 operator, he shouted to Malik.
“Get him, Malik. I don’t care what you have to do…get him! He’s the only one that can lead us back to the bastard that did this!”
Malik jumped through the window as fast as Brady had, and disappeared into the darkness.
John Knox sat there against the wall, tears already welling up in his eyes. Time had gone back to normal for Knox, and he cradled and supported Beth’s head and neck in his lap. He realized she was moaning faintly, and quickly spoke up to encourage her.
“Hang in there, Honey. You’re going to be just fine.”
Knox was only telling her this to keep her going a little longer – so he could have some selfish last seconds with her before she left this world.
Agent Knox had seen death come in many forms, and he immediately knew from the amount of blood that had already soaked through onto his clothes from hers that it was too late. When everything was still in slow motion for him, he had called 9-1-1 and hurriedly told the dispatcher to send an ambulance as fast as she could. He remembered the awful sensation of not being able to get the words out fast enough as his partner lay there dying in his arms. He knew these next few minutes would be the last minutes of Beth’s life, and he didn’t want her to be afraid.
Misguided: The Jesus Assassin Page 21
