Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (40 page)

Putting the final touches on the page
containing the coded words, he took time to relax with a cigarette
and cup of coffee before uploading it to the Internet, activating
the sleepers strategically positioned around much of the globe.

Enjoying the mental image of his own hand
crushing a world small enough to fit in it, Abd started to let his
fantasy run wild before composing himself once more.

Crushing the cigarette butt in an ashtray he
went to the kitchen, opened a cabinet door then pulled at a hard
downward angle to break it from its hinges. Abd carefully removed
the inside panel of thin wood to reveal his 'slick,' the place
where he earlier secreted cash, false passports, identification and
travel documents. With these items he hid a one-way plane ticket to
Cairo, Egypt. From Cairo he would take a bus to his hometown of
Kafr el-Dawwar and wait out the melee that would engulf the world.
If his schedule remained true he'd be home in time to catch the
first rumblings of trouble on the television. Abd grinned as he
left the apartment; a taxi he earlier called was waiting for
him.

Fifteen minutes after Abd got in the taxi
headed for Imam Khomeini International Airport the final loose end
went up in flames. The small yet powerful bomb was secured to a
natural gas pipe to initiate a secondary blast, leveling most of
the building. By the time investigators had the slightest clue as
to who it was that set the bomb, the world itself would be ablaze.
Watching the explosion on his mobile screen, via a live feed from a
web cam secured to the roof of a building in an adjacent building,
Abd grinned a second time that evening.

"Thank you for choosing Iran Air. We will
begin boarding Flight 1503 to Cairo shortly. Enjoy your flight!"
The pleasant female voice over the speaker system was music to his
ears.

Abd sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs in
the boarding area as he waited for his flight, watching the ground
crew do their prep work from a large observation window. Fuel,
luggage . . . he compared his watch to the time displays over the
ticket counter. A minute discrepancy. It was his nature to assume
the difference to be an error on the airline's digital display, not
his own.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin
boarding Iran Air flight number 1503 to Cairo, Egypt. We will board
rows 1 through 30 at this time. Please make sure you have all of
your personal belongings as you . . . " The overhead speaker droned
and crackled as Abd moved toward the queue that had formed.

"Thank you, seat 6-F is just right over
there." A smiling flight attendant gracefully pointed the way.

Abd took his seat at the window of the sixth
row, right side of the plane. As the remaining passengers boarded
he stared absent-mindedly out the small window, reveling in the
knowledge that this was to be his last view of Iran.

He wondered when, after tomorrow, their
national airlines would fly again. Probably never. Once weakened,
other countries that escaped the worst of the wrath of the scourges
would come in to plunder Iran's wealth of natural resources.

Without the Zionist entity in the Middle East
any longer, and a civil war-ravaged Iraq, that county would almost
certainly be either Turkey or Egypt. With ISIS making its way to
Syria Abd was laying odds on Egypt. Turkey was to be attacked,
though in moderation. Egypt was to be free of any attack. He
confirmed through his own circle that Ghasem was true to his word,
there were no sleeper agents in any part of Egypt.

Other than some crying babies two rows back,
and slight turbulence, the flight was uneventful. The crying got on
Abd's nerves. He silently cursed the rule that no longer allowed
smoking on airplanes.

Landing in Cairo Abd collected his carry-on
from under the seat in front of him. He pushed his way through the
crowds, pressing his way through the hurried hordes of people
toward the baggage claim area in the lower level.

After what seemed forever the chute to the
carousel opened, spewing the first groups of luggage. Baggage slid
down to begin their slow journey around the carousel to anxiously
hovering owners' hands, waiting to snatch them up lest they make
another trip around.

At length Abd's arrived. Leaving the baggage
claim area he showed the bored airport employee the match of the
flight tags on his luggage to that of his airline ticket. The man
didn't so much as glance in his direction. "Probably not even
Egyptian." He thought as he exited the sliding doors to hail one of
the dozen taxis eager for another fare.

The bus station main terminal was located
near the airport. Upon arriving Abd ducked into the men's bathroom,
headed toward a toilet stall and closed himself in as he lit his
third cigarette since leaving the airport. He wasn't fond of having
no control over various situations in his life. Traveling high in
the sky with nothing but a useless flotation device and seat buckle
for security definitely ranked high in the list of powerless
situations.

Securing the small metal bar that served as a
lock for the toilet stall Abd retrieved his forged passport and
identification papers that were no longer needed, burning each with
a sigh. He had to pay a king's fortune for such expertly prepared
documents that had even fooled the Zionist pigs once. Shame to burn
them, but it would have been more of a shame to have them found on
his person in his hometown where almost everybody knew him. What
few pieces of edge-scorched paper remained were flushed down the
toilet with the ashes. "Such a fitting metaphor for the condition
of the world by this time tomorrow!"

Awaiting his bus in a chair more
uncomfortable than that of the airport in Iran, Abd allowed his
thoughts to drift once more. It would be great to get home, see his
wife and daughter again. It had been too long and he dared not risk
contacting them while on assignment. He decided to call his parents
and invite them over to dinner. An only child, he knew they would
be frightened once the first reports started drifting in - then
pouring in - once the attacks started. If they were in his home he
could curtail their fear and assure them that they were safe. The
phone lines would all be jammed by the time they would otherwise
try to call him.

Just as he ended his conversation with them,
his mom so excited to see her boy after all this time, he boarded
the bus to complete this last stage of the trip home. Abd was
exhausted but excited to be united with his family once more. Eager
to show how well he could protect them and how much he knew of what
was about to happen, they would be impressed, and so proud.

"He looks familiar." Abd thought to himself
as he took the final step from the bus to the street. The man in
the car barely looked in his direction as he drove away. "These
days everybody looks familiar - part of the job." He knew a healthy
sense of paranoia came with the territory. All these years of
looking over his shoulder, checking for signs of being followed or
watched. They eventually catch up with a man.

Abd thought of some of the precautions to
which he had grown so accustomed, they were as routine as brushing
his teeth. When driving he always found a space with both the front
and back slot open in the parking space so that he could drive
through and park facing forward. He parked that way so that he
could drive forward, quickly, if need be. Then there were the
little, low-tech, precautions that he favored. Leaving his
apartment he would pull a hair from his head before exiting so as
not to be seen, if being observed. As he locked the door he would
smooth the hair between the door and door frame - secured with a
little spittle. This wasn't perfect, a strong wind could dislodge
it and did a few times, but it would also be a first indicator of
an intruder. No uninvited guest would look for a piece of hair on
the door as they quietly broke in.

He tried to think of where he had seen that
man's face before. Frustrating. May have gone to school with him.
If he had it would have been a long time ago now. Abd probably saw,
at one time or another, all of the faces in this town where he had
lived all of his life before going to university. Little surprise,
then, that he would have recognized a face whose owner he couldn't
quite place.

His wife and daughter made his favorite meal.
Abd wasn't particularly religious but his parents were observant so
he decided to forgo the wine until tomorrow's celebrations. Even
his parents wouldn't begrudge him that when they learned of his
role in wiping the Zionists blight off the map and the Jew swine
out of the corridors of world power and domination.

He checked his watch frequently the next
couple of hours. His wife shot him a 'you're being rude' look. He
smiled at her, shrugging his shoulders. She thought that he was
eager to be alone with her. Nothing could have been farther from
the truth.

Buzz

"I'll get it!" His daughter, whose sixteenth
birthday was two days away, sprang to run down the stairs and
answer the door. She returned with a huge smile on her face.

"What is that darling?" Abd's grandmother
didn't approve of the way she was dressed at her age, let alone
going to the door unescorted. What if a man had been there? Young
people! The media was such a corrupting influence, what with the
suggestive songs from the west and all - yet she always spoke
kindly to her granddaughter, reserving her harsh words for her
beleaguered daughter-in-law.

"Oh! Just look at this beautiful sweater!"
She removed it from the wrapped box and shook it out for everybody
to get a good view.

Clink

There was a slight sound as if two crystal
glasses touching for a toast made to an honored guest.

Abd froze at the sound. Looking down to the
floor he was horrified to see tiny, sparkling shards of glass mixed
with a puff of powder instantly scattered into the air by the
overhead fan.

Watching his family convulsing, eyes
watering, losing the contents of their bowels and bladders, mouths
foaming, Abd finally recalled the vaguely familiar face of the
person in the car at the bus depot.

The man who delivered the birthday present
waited outside for a full five minutes, having donned protective
gear over his face. He observed a young couple walking down the
street, hand-in-hand, watching him with a mixed look of curiosity
and concern. They hesitated as they grew nearer, visually
confirming that he was in very fact wearing some kind of gas mask.
Standing where they were, with hesitation as to continue walking or
not, the young woman - an instant later followed by the young man -
began to shake as they to the ground. Foam issuing from their
mouths, eyes rolled high to reveal only the bloodshot whites of
their eyeballs, both died without so much as an uttered word
between them.

"Let this be the end of all who would aspire
to the throne." Keeping his mask on, Ghasem's second-in-command
walked the five blocks to a waiting van. Standing outside he was
stripped naked, hosed and scrubbed down, provided with new
clothing, then driven to the flat of a family of sleeper agents a
distance from Cairo as the Ebola and Anthrax strains were being
released throughout the world, including Egypt.

Table of Contents

32. Nuclear Winter

"You don't have any communication between the
Israelis and the Iranians. You have all sorts of local triggers for
conflict. Having countries act on a hair trigger- where they can't
afford to be second to strike - the potential for a miscalculation
or a nuclear war through inadvertence is simply too high."
-
Ambassador Dennis Ross, Special Middle East Coordinator under
United States President, Bill Clinton

Washington, District of
Columbia

"We interrupt this program
to bring you a
special report." The solemn faces of the evening programs for every
television station, network and cable channels, filled the screens
of all powered-up devices capable of receiving a broadcast.

Having just heard the report from his
National Security Advisor, the President of the United States now
focused his attention on the screen showing the face of Bill
O'Patrick. Bill was the outspoken commentator and sometimes
'pinhead' he labeled others who disagreed with him, dominating the
early evening time slot of the conservative WOLF cable network. A
proud liberal and pacifist himself, President Mason felt it best to
keep his finger on the pulse of the other half of the nation, in an
endeavor to know what to say to whom when he was in front of the
cameras. His predecessor followed only poll numbers, dismissing
what the 'other side' had to say of him. Huge mistake. His
predecessor also urged the continuing "War on Terrorism." President
Mason instead traveled to Egypt and apologized for 'American
Exceptionalism.' He even went so far as to bow to the King of Saudi
Arabia. This had to be the way into the hearts and minds of those
who hated America.

"It is my sad duty to inform you that across
this great nation of ours dozens of cities have come under attack.
How and by whom remains unknown at this time. All we can positively
confirm is that people by the thousands are dying. It appears that
the main objective of the attacks are Jewish institutions and
neighborhoods. We have yet to validate this nationally. I cannot
take any questions at this time, I'm sure you understand I have to
get back to work."

With the president off the screen the camera
again focused on Mr. O'Patrick.

"One moment." O'Patrick appeared to be
holding an ear, eyes slightly upturned as if studying the overhead
lighting. Momentarily he fixed his focus once again at the
live-feed camera. "One of our reporters in Cincinnati is with us.
Marsha, what are you seeing?"