Black Flagged Apex

by Steven Konkoly

  “My hope is that they plan to hand the canisters over to the government. The best-case scenario is that they orchestrated this as a huge publicity stunt to show the American people that they are truly America’s new heroes. We have an election year coming up, and the word on the street is that they are consolidating political power to make a move in 2008.”

  “What’s the worst-case scenario?” Guerrero said.

  “The worst-case scenario is they are planning to destabilize the country through terrorism.”

  “Which one is your money on?”

  “Somewhere between the two, leaning toward the worst-case scenario. True America’s spin-doctors have done a great job distancing the movement’s public face from the group’s original founders. Just five years ago, Jackson Greely and Lee Harding regularly took to the streets decrying government tyranny and demanding a quick, violent overthrow. We found literature published by these two going back decades. They’ve been on Uncle Sam’s radar for a long time as domestic terrorist threats. Over the past three to four years, the two have faded into the sunset, orchestrated by the more savvy visible leadership currently cruising around the country in their True America tour buses.”

  “Why would they agree to step down if this was their movement from the beginning?”

  “My sources say they haven’t stepped down from anything, aside from the podium. True America’s political action arm takes in millions of dollars in grassroots donations every month. There’s a sea of people hungry for the kind of change at the core of True America’s manifesto, but Greely and Harding’s visions of a violent overthrow kept the organization pinned to the ground. Wallets have a tendency to snap shut when either of those two appears in front of the True America banner. If Greely or Harding is behind the theft of the virus canisters, I wouldn’t expect True America to hand them over in an expression of good will.”

  His cell phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at the message on its screen.

  “Any word on the mosque request?” read the message sent from Callie Stewart.

  Sharpe glanced up at the black metal catwalk and saw Stewart leaning on the rail, smiling down on him from a distance and waving with her phone. He shook his head and typed a quick response. He hadn’t heard anything from Justice. Two additional requests had been sent up through their NCTC liaison, but nothing had come back. Maybe the recent attack on the Mount Arlington pump station would loosen their interpretations of the Patriot Act. He looked up at Stewart again, secretly wishing he could authorize her to send some of Sanderson’s operatives into the mosque. He hated himself for thinking this, but he had an extremely bad feeling about the next few days. Mount Arlington had the potential to be the very beginning of a national nightmare.

  He felt slightly lucky at the moment. There was little they could have done to prevent the attack, and the emergency response was out of his hands. He didn’t envy the task lying ahead for the state and federal agencies responsible for safeguarding the lives of the citizens who might have been exposed to the contaminated water from the Mount Arlington station. His job was to prevent the next attack.

  Chapter 11

  9:20 PM

  Masjid (Mosque) Muhammad

  Newark, New Jersey

  Aleem Fayed remained seated long after the last of the mosque’s devoted had left the modest building. He raised his head and glanced casually in the direction of the Mihrab, a small, curved alcove in the northeast wall, indicating the direction of Mecca. The Mihrab appeared modestly decorated in comparison to some of the larger mosques he had visited, adorned with paint instead of expensively arranged mosaic tile. Everything about Hamid Muhammad’s mosque emphasized simplicity. The small prayer hall could hold roughly eighty worshippers, shoulder to shoulder on the dark hardwood floor. He didn’t see a separate prayer area for women, which didn’t surprise him. Hamid Muhammad’s brand of Islam didn’t accommodate women, or most Muslims for that matter.

  His Friday noon sermons were widely known as the most anti-Western tirades on the east coast, often packing the mosque to twice its advertised capacity in the afternoon. According to FBI and police intelligence, Friday wasn’t the only day he conducted a sermon. Two or three times a week, he would hold a more private sermon in one of the back rooms for potential terror candidates. Young men attending Muhammad’s mosque had a propensity for appearing on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, or in many cases, joining the ever-growing population of Jihadist prisoners rotting in Guantanamo Bay. All the U.S. government could do was try to catalogue the men coming and going from the mosque, in the hopes of alerting allied authorities to the potential trouble headed in their direction. Unfortunately, too many of the young attendees had simply vanished into thin air over the past few years

  Tonight, all of that would change, if his hunch proved correct. He had attended all the day’s prayers so far, from dawn to sunrise, trying to get a feel for the mosque’s regular attendees. Attendance had surprised him at Fajr (pre-sunrise), consisting of a few dozen men who had clearly been there for some time. The number of worshipers increased drastically for Zuhr (noon prayer), but dropped off considerably for Asr (afternoon) and Maghrib (sunset) prayer. He overheard grumblings about the absence of Imam Hamid Muhammad, who had never missed noon or afternoon prayer unannounced, since anyone could remember. He attributed the lower numbers to their Imam’s absence.

  He had lingered in the mosque after Asr and noticed a group of three men waiting near an open door on the left side of the prayer hall. He saw a few desks inside the room, indicating that this could be the mosque’s Quranic study room. A true believer would never put their Quran on the floor, and he had no doubt that the men Hamid allowed in that room were “true believers” in the most literal sense of the word. Of course, he doubted the men had come for Quranic study.

  They looked edgy and impatient, continuously stealing glances past the minbar, the traditional raised platform for sermons, at the door on the right side of the prayer hall. He assumed this door led to the Imam’s office. Their glances started to shift in his direction, taking on more of an angry impatience. The disdainful looks gave him the distinct impression that their new master didn’t plan to make an appearance until the mosque was cleared. He gladly obliged the men and walked out of the front door, taking a left on Irvine Turner Boulevard. He doubled back ten minutes later to find the mosque’s front doors locked.

  Aleem stood up from the prayer sitting position and started to roll up his prayer mat. He glanced at the door in the far right corner of the room. In a few seconds, he would take the day’s fight through that door, directly to the enemy. First, he needed to take care of a few impediments that had unwisely chosen to stay past Mahgrib.

  “You forgot the final rakat,” issued a voice from behind him.

  “And you forgot your manners,” Aleem replied in an Arabic dialect that would identify him as a connected member of a Saudi society.

  He turned to face the three men he had seen waiting for the Imam earlier in the day. Through their loose fitting clothes, he could tell that the men had not undergone any serious physical training in their lives. A fact that would soon change when they reported to whatever training camp Hamid Muhammad arranged for them. Three to six months of intensive mental and physical drills would transform these raw recruits into lethal instruments for Al Qaeda. Slightly more lethal, at least. Aleem Fayed stared at them, waiting for a response.

  “Your family name means nothing here,” the tallest of the three spat.

  “And your family name means nothing there. It’ll never mean anything, anywhere. I’d rather feast on a pig than shake your filthy hand,” Aleem replied, stepping closer to the man.

  He could tell that his comments had cut straight to this young fundamentalist’s core. His ego was still in a fragile state, having most likely come from a lower-class family in Riyadh. The incredible disparity between classes in Saudi Arabia fueled the fire that forged angry, bitter young men like the one standing before him.
The Imams of the Kingdom had become experts in harnessing that anger and turning it against the West, blaming all of their ills on America and its allies. They preached their own ultra-conservative form of Islamic doctrine, known as Saudi Wahhabism, as the one true path for Islam to rise above corrupt Western influences and regain dominance. On sermon days, the mosques overflowed into the streets with disenfranchised young men listening to the Imams blame America and Israel for all of their troubles. Frighteningly, this phenomenon was not limited to Saudi Arabia. Similar scenes proliferated throughout the Middle East, extending along the Indian Ocean to Southwest Asia.

  “Watch what you say here! You can’t hide behind the corrupt police and your inbred family here. This is our mosque. What do you want here?”

  The two men behind the leader started to spread out slowly, in an attempt to intimidate him. The man to his right looked slightly overweight, wearing khaki pants and an off white, cotton, button-down shirt. His black hair was longer than the others’, giving him a slightly unkempt look. Aleem wondered what the Imam thought of that. Aleem, however, was more concerned with the man approaching him from the left side with a murderous glare and a modicum of caution. Cautious confidence. It probably wouldn’t matter in the end, but it was something for him to consider.

  “I want the same thing you want,” Aleem said.

  “And what is that?”

  “I need to speak with Hamid Muhammad.”

  “The Imam doesn’t speak with pigs like you,” the man said.

  “Is that any way to treat a fellow Muslim? The Quran commands you to treat people of all beliefs and cultures peacefully and with kindness. I bet your false Imam didn’t focus on that aspect of Islam,” Aleem said.

  The three continued to stare him down, moving slowly into what they perceived as the best position to attack him.

  “Paradise awaits us as a reward for our faith.”

  “Oddly enough, I think you might still reach paradise. I think the Prophet will make an exception in your cases. This really isn’t your fault,” Aleem said, gesturing to the prayer hall.

  The man on his right lunged forward in a terribly timed attempt to grab Aleem for his compatriots. Aleem dodged the initial attack, snagging the man’s left arm and twisting it into an extremely painful position that he could use to maneuver the hefty kid to block the others. The leader sprang forward at a perceived gap that Aleem had purposefully allowed to exist, only to be slammed to the ground by the useless weight of his friend’s spiraling body.

  Aleem pounded his elbow into the fixed arm of the first attacker, cracking his elbow inward and eliciting a blood-curdling scream. He pivoted around the incapacitated man and delivered an upward sweeping kick into the leader’s throat while the man was still on all fours from the sudden collision with his overweight friend. The sheer force of the kick crushed his larynx and dislodged his upper vertebrae, rendering him paralyzed. He would asphyxiate within minutes, unable to bring his hands to his neck.

  He kept a close eye on the remaining attacker, who proved to be cautious as well as confident, staying out of Aleem’s immediate hand-to-hand combat range. Taking advantage of the man’s hesitation, he briefly turned his attention back to the screaming man on the floor clutching his elbow. A quick stomp to the man’s knee brought both hands downward, exposing his upper body to extreme violence.

  Aleem collapsed onto the man, bringing his right elbow down on the man’s neck with the full force of his own body, instantly killing him. He was back on his feet within a fraction of a second, in time to see the third and final assailant back out of a halfhearted attack. The man had just witnessed the near instantaneous death of his friends at the hand of an enemy that spoke perfect Arabic. Aleem could tell the man’s confidence had evaporated, replaced by utter confusion.

  “Smart move. The Imam has betrayed the cause. You can’t even begin to comprehend the level of his betrayal. My orders are to return him so we can learn the true extent of the damage. Can you help me with this? If not, you will join your friends.”

  The man stuttered, clearly in complete shock at the sudden turn of events. He saw the doubt flash across the man’s face. His world had unraveled too quickly for rational thought. The next few moments would be critical for Aleem.

  “What do you need?”

  “Is Hamid here at the mosque?”

  In the background, they could both hear the group’s leader struggle to force air through his destroyed windpipe, an involuntary and useless attempt by the man’s body to survive.

  “Can he be saved?” the man asked.

  “He won’t be saved. Where is Hamid?”

  “Through that door somewhere.”

  “Did you copy that? Any movement at the side exit?” Aleem said aloud, waiting for a response in his earpiece.

  “Copy. Tariq is en route. Thirty seconds. Negative movement. If the Imam was in the building, he’s still there. Sensors detect a cell phone within the confines of the building. Low-level emission.”

  “Who are you talking to?” the man demanded.

  Aleem smiled at him. “My colleagues. Who else?”

  He saw the final realization flash in the terrorist recruit’s eyes. When presented with another conflicting batch of information, his confused psyche had simply fallen back on what he wanted to believe, which in this case was completely correct—that Aleem worked for the enemies of Allah and had tricked him into betraying the Imam. He burst forward, quickly engaging Aleem before a sharp pain to his solar plexus dropped him to his knees with a sudden thud. Aleem kicked him in the back, pushing him down to join his friends on the floor. A pool of bright red blood spread rapidly underneath the pile. Aleem leaned over to wipe a small, serrated blade clean on the back of the dying man’s, crisp white shirt before walking over to unlock the front door for Tariq.

  Tariq Paracha slipped through the door, carrying a black nylon duffel bag. The pair immediately locked and bolted the door to prevent any unwanted guests.

  “Allah won’t be pleased,” Tariq said, pulling a silenced pistol from the duffel bag and tossing it to Aleem.

  “He’ll get over it. Through that door. Did Graves find schematics for the building?” Aleem said.

  “No. But one of the businesses a few doors down submitted a plan that required a zoning change, so he was able to download the scanned document. Looks like a similar layout from the front. We can expect a basement,” Tariq said.

  “Good. I’d prefer to do our work in the building. I hope it’s a deep basement. If our Imam doesn’t feel like chatting, we’ll need to compel him.”

  Tariq hefted the bag up and down, shaking the assortment of metal tools contained within. “I brought everything we should need.”

  “Let’s find this missing Imam, shall we?” Aleem said.

  They approached the closed door on the far right side of the cramped prayer hall, ready to do whatever was necessary to produce a viable lead for Task Force Scorpion. Given the fact that Aleem and Tariq could proceed unhampered by legal or moral restrictions, they stood an excellent chance of success.

  Chapter 12

  11:14 PM

  Wayne County

  Pennsylvania

  Julius Grimes had long ago lost track of where his van was headed. They had turned off Interstate 87, headed west on I-84 in Pennsylvania. The van had exited the interstate deep in the Pocono Mountains region, taking several obscure paved roads that eventually led to unmarked gravel roads travelling deep into the rolling foothills. He had been told by the driver of the van that they were headed to one of True America’s most closely guarded sites, which added to his already highly elevated anxiety level.

  He knew that he’d seriously fucked up at the target site. He hadn’t taken his mask off on purpose, but it didn’t matter to his team leader, Kathy Nadeau. She didn’t say a word until they were several miles away from the scene. Even then, she simply turned in the front passenger seat of the car and suddenly extended the business end of her silenced pistol again
st his forehead. He had carefully weighed his options in the milliseconds that followed.

  He could have slammed her hand against the headrest, likely dislocating her elbow and disarming her, but that would have put him in an even worse situation. Instead of becoming a fugitive from both the U.S. government and the most powerfully connected shadow network in America, he did nothing as Nadeau hissed a few berating words and removed the pistol from his face. She placed a quick phone call and announced that he would have to go into hiding until they could determine the extent of the damage he had caused. She never looked at him again, which gave him an uneasy feeling about his future in True America.

  His fears were somewhat eased early the next morning in one of True America’s tri-state area safe houses. He received instructions to await pickup by one of the delivery vans that would deliver a consolidated shipment of canisters to a secret location out of state. He was told to take a few days off from work, while senior leadership decided how to handle his situation. They made it clear that he couldn’t contact his family, since his identity might be compromised. He felt terrible as he thought he might have possibly dragged his family into a potential nightmare by his carelessness. However, the risks had always been clear to Julius. He had made a conscious decision to play a critical role in reshaping America, understanding that revolution often came with a hefty price tag.

  He just hadn’t expected to start paying so early. He’d made an adrenaline-filled, rookie error back at the target site. The mask he had been given for the operation had been a few sizes too small, squeezing his head and causing him to sweat profusely. Stepping back into the cool night air, his first instinct had been to get the damn ski mask off his head. The cocktail of natural stimulants flowing through his system had dampened his common sense. One little mistake and his life had been permanently changed. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t matter. He was part of a more important change, and when the transformation was complete, he would be rewarded. He had been assured of this.