The Assassin (Max Doerr Book 1) (24 page)

“This
man will die within twenty-four hours after he picks up the stuff from your
place,” Halim had told him, so Samuel did not worry about getting caught in a
legal logjam.

He
smiled to himself and shut down the laptop and then went outside for a smoke.

FAIZAN
YAWNED AND rubbed his eyes, but it was only eight p.m. – jetlag.

A
sign at the side of the road said Richmond, Virginia, was still one hundred and
twenty miles away. As he drove, he thought he saw the
Malaq Am-Maut
’s face
flash in the sky. He knew death was near; he would die in less than twenty-four
hours. He was certain that he was headed for Heaven, and his virgins would be
waiting.

Figuring
it would take more than an hour to reach his destination, he slapped himself on
both cheeks and his forehead to try to get rid of his sleepiness. When that was
not enough, he took the next exit and filled up the fuel tank and that gas can
he had bought at the Home Depot store. When he asked for coffee, the gas
station owner was kind enough to brew it fresh for him.

The
elderly owner filled the twenty-ounce cup himself. He handed it to Faizan and
pointed to the corner and said, “Creamer and sugar over there.”

Faizan
poured a load of creamer and plenty of sugar into his cup and then returned to
the register. On the way, he picked up a bunch of soda cans, which would be
soon used in bomb-making.

“Fifty-six
dollars and forty-nine cents,” the elderly man said to Faizan, grinning. “The
gas money. Coffee is free.”

Faizan
handed him a hundred-dollar bill and took a long sip of his coffee.

“Headed
for a long night drive, young man?” the elderly man asked, returning Faizan’s
change.

“Yes,”
said Faizan awkwardly, taking the money. He left the store promptly.

Back
in his vehicle, Faizan entered the address Halim had given him into the GPS.
That was where he would pick up the firecrackers. Faizan drank almost half of the
coffee quickly and felt much fresher. The GPS showed he needed to drive another
seventy miles on Interstate 95 to reach the house. He went through the plan
mentally again and floored the gas pedal.

Directed
by the GPS, Faizan reached the house in about an hour. The road was long;
outside, it was dark. He lowered the windows and heard a humming noise; he was
not sure what it was and where it came from. He rolled the windows up and
slowed to a halt in front of a secluded home in rural Virginia. Faizan parked
his van on the asphalt-covered driveway, right next to another van.

He
got out and proceeded to the door. It was wooden, painted white, protected by a
metallic net screen on which several bugs were stuck. A light bulb at the top
kept the area illuminated. Faizan rang the bell and waited. No one came. He
rang the bell again, and a few seconds later, a tall man opened the door. He
wore a white sweatshirt with a large hood, which covered most of his face. The
lights inside were turned off, perhaps on purpose.

“I
am Faizan,” Faizan said and extended his hand, expecting a shake. “Are you
Sigma?”

The
man nodded but did not take Faizan’s hand and asked in a deep voice, “Tell me
what you are here for?”

“I
am here for fire.” That was the code phrase. Faizan wondered if he had come to
the right place, but the doubt lasted only a second.

The
man lowered his head. “Come with me.” He stepped outside the door.

Faizan
saw the man’s face, under the light from the bulb right above the door. He had
a distinctive scar on his right cheek.

Sigma
continued to walk, and Faizan followed him. Sigma stopped near his van and
opened the rear door. Faizan did the same and opened the door to his own vehicle.
The boxes were transferred, and the job was complete within minutes. Sigma
walked away toward his house without saying anything and closed the door
without looking back.

Halim
had warned Faizan, “Some Americans talk too much. Don’t engage in unnecessary
conversations. If they don’t like what you say, they might kill you on the
spot. Every American has a gun tucked in his back pocket. It is a shame that
they call their country a civilized one. It’s really a lie.”

Faizan
didn’t have to worry about avoiding conversing with the man—the man with a cut
on the right cheek – the man left on his own.

Soon,
Faizan was back on I-95 North. About thirty minutes later, he saw a sign that
read ‘Emporia.’ It was time to look for a place to spend the night and assemble
the bomb.

A
few miles later, he chose an exit that did not display any sign for a gas
station or motel and took a left at the end of the ramp. The road was dark, and
he passed a gas station and two shops, all closed. A car crossed from the other
side, and he flicked the headlights just for fun.

The
plan was to look for an empty house after eleven, but it was only ten forty, so
he drove on and took a right turn a few junctions later.

Both
sides of the road were lined by trees left naked by the winter. He drove
another half a mile but found no house. He was about to turn when he finally
saw one. It was a small, two-level house with no vehicle in the driveway, which
was a good sign, so he hit the brakes. As he ventured closer, he could see the
white garage door barely lit by a feeble lightbulb. He decided to pass.

“If
there is a garage, most likely the car is parked inside and the owner sleeping
in the bedroom,” Halim had said. “Look for a house with no car in the driveway
and no garage. Sometimes the garage could be at the side of the house, so look
carefully. And always remember to have your pistol ready. Be it a man, dog or
child, point at the head and pull the trigger.”

“How
do you know so much about America?” Faizan had asked his mentor. “You have
never been there, right?”

“Right,
but I have been working on this plan for last two years. I have some people
giving me information as well.”

“What
if a bunch of people come out of the house?”

Halim
had laughed loudly. “This is the difference between them and us. They like to
live solitary lives. At eleven p.m. a house in rural America will only have two
occupants. One, if you are lucky.”

“What
if the guy comes out with a gun?”

“That
is a possibility, son.” Halim’s face had become serious. “That is why you need
to do some more training before you leave and show everyone that we are better
at everything. Understood?”

Faizan
had nodded, and his mentor had continued, “If a man appears with a gun, kill
him first. Should there be more people inside, kill everybody, show no mercy.
They don’t deserve our mercy. Think about all the Palestine kids they have
killed; you will find strength. Think of all the women widowed by the Americans.
You will find courage. Allah will put an elephant’s strength and deer’s agility
in you.”

“What
if an alarm goes off?”

“Well,
in rural areas they are unlikely to have alarms. What is the point in having an
alarm blare if there is no one around to hear?” Halim had laughed again, and
then his face went solemn. “If an alarm does go off, then kill everyone in the
house and disable the alarm before leaving. You will be getting some training
on alarms, how to disable them and how to re-enable them.”

Passing
that house with the white garage door, Faizan appreciated the knowledge and
greatness of the Lion of Dubai even more. He passed a few more houses and
stopped at one with a long driveway that looked to be ideal. There was no car
parked in the driveway, and no garage was visible.

He
stopped in the driveway; his van stood about twenty feet away from the door. He
stopped the engine and waited.

After
five minutes, he opened his briefcase and inserted his hand. He pushed aside
the 9mm and took the silenced Beretta, alighted from the vehicle, closed the
door as softly as possible, and waited again. One minute passed, and he didn’t
hear any dog, so he proceeded to the gate. Had there been any barking noise, he
would have gotten back into the car and left quietly. He heard the howling of
some distant animal, maybe a wolf or a bear. He was not sure; he did not care.

He
tiptoed to the door. The walkway was made of white stones, and dry leaves lay
strewn around.

There
was no light on, inside or outside. After trying to peek inside for a few
seconds, he pressed the doorbell and watched his own silhouette on the door
against the moonlight, and then he pushed it again. He heard a dog inside but
nothing else, and the inside of the house looked pitch dark. He gave the knob a
turn with his left hand, still holding the Beretta in the other hand, raised
and ready to shoot. The knob did not move, and Faizan waited. He turned and
looked at the moon. Bright and soothing. How many times had he looked at the
gracious moon? Too many times, and perhaps this was the last time he would gaze
at it.

And
then the door opened wide. Faizan turned his head back. A man appeared, and the
moonlight glinted off the long double barrel of the rifle in his hand.

Bert
and Sandy had been thankful to God for a good retired life in Virginia.

Bert
had worked at a local USPS office and had retired two years previously.
Sandy
retired from her middle school teacher job a year ago. They had a son, who was
settled in Boston, and a daughter, Janice.

A
cloud had fallen on their otherwise happy life when Janice got divorced a few
years back. Patrick, their son-in-law, was an asshole.

One
day Patrick had come home and told Janice, “I am leaving you.”

Shell-shocked,
Janice had asked, “Why? Is it because of something I did?”

“No.
I need something more from life. Something that will wow me. I don’t want to
live this regular life.”

The
next day, Patrick was gone, and Janice had to play both mother and father to
their five-year-old son, Harry. Once the divorce was final, she moved from
Chicago to Washington, DC, to be closer to her parents.

Janice
worked as a paralegal at a prestigious DC law firm that dealt with mostly high-profile
murder cases. Despite long hours, Janice was happy with her job, and she was
paid an above-average annual salary of sixty-two thousand dollars.  

Janice
could take a breather as her mom and dad extended helping hands in taking care
of her son.

Sandy
and Bert regularly went to their daughter’s apartment in Washington to be with
Janice and Harry, who was seven by that point. Janice and Harry spent many
weekends at Sandy and Bert’s big house. Harry liked the house. He could fly kites;
he could hold grandpa’s prized guns, run around outside, and do lots of other
things.

Janice
liked skiing, one of a very few hobbies she had shared with her ex-husband.
When they had been married, they used to go to Canada skiing, at least once a
year.

After
coming to Washington, DC, she missed skiing sorely. She thought of going to one
of those artificial ski places near DC, but she did not have a skiing buddy,
and she did not like to ski alone. In fact, she did not like to do anything in
life alone.

But
soon she met a friend who was into skiing, and together they planned a trip to
Canada. Janice thought it would be nice if her mom came along; she knew her
father would not come, as he hated traveling.

Sandy
agreed to go with her daughter and said to her husband, “You always complain you
never get enough time to spend with your grandson. Now is your chance. You and
Harry can stay here when we gals go to Canada.”

“That’s
fine with me,” Bert had said, “as long as there is enough food in the fridge.”

THAT
NIGHT, BERT had been cleaning his guns in the garage, and his grandson, Harry,
was playing on his Xbox in the basement. By nine p.m., Bert was done cleaning
his two handguns and the rifle; only the shotgun was left, and he decided to
clean it the next day.

Bert
went to check on Harry, who was sleeping soundly next to the Xbox controller.

Bert
looked at Harry’s face; he did not want to wake the little boy. Bert put a
pillow under the boy’s head and then a blanket over his legs and torso. He
smiled and walked upstairs to the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich, which he
ate and then went to his bedroom. He put his just-cleaned rifle under the bed
and patted its double barrel before lying down. 

Bert
woke up in the middle of the night; he had heard the doorbell ring. He got off
the bed and picked up his rifle. He tried to remember if he kept the video
surveillance system on, and he was pretty sure he had. He confidently walked
downstairs and crossed the living room, and his beloved mutt followed him and
sniffed his feet. Bert had acquired the mutt only a year before, but he felt
the dog had been with him a lot longer. It accompanied him wherever he went,
especially during the night.

He
went to the door, opened it wide and pointed the rifle at the man standing in
front of him.

WHEN
THE DOOR opened, the mutt jumped at Faizan, and its owner looked on. Faizan’s
left hand went up and shoved the mutt aside. The mutt fell, right outside the
door, but immediately sprang up and bit Faizan’s left arm. But it wasn’t enough
to save Bert. As he shoved the mutt, Faizan’s right hand came up, the Beretta
leveling at Bert’s head. Faizan’s body tilted back slightly, his vision fixed
on the skull of the old man in front of him; he pulled the trigger, just like
he had during his training.

Faizan
crouched, the dog’s teeth still locked on his left arm, which he jerked off to
free himself and immediately pointed the Beretta at the old man, who was lying
on the floor, looking as if he was dead. The man’s head was on the doormat, and
blood had started oozing from the hole in his forehead.
No need to spend
another bullet on the man
. He turned the gun to the loyal, large, and hairy
dog, and pulled the trigger. The dog slumped to the floor. The owner and his
pet lay bleeding within a few feet of each other.

It
became quiet; Faizan stood still but alert. He looked inside; it was dark.
Switching the gun to his left hand, he tried to listen for any sound. There was
none. He moved his hand on the wall, trying to find the light switch. After a
while, he located it and turned the light on. His eyes swept the area. On the
right was a two-piece sofa, in front of the large flat-screen TV, and the kitchen
was on the other side. He walked a few steps and saw the stairs leading
upstairs, which he quickly ascended. On the second floor, the first room was
small and empty. The second one held a bed. He stepped inside but saw no one.
He moved to the third room; it was empty too.

There
was no time to waste, Faizan knew that. He had a lot of work ahead of him. He
rushed down the stairs, dragged the old man’s corpse inside the house, pulled
in the dead dog by its collar and shut the door. He surveyed the floor,
checking out each door, just like he had done during his training in Somalia,
and found the entry to the garage. Inside the garage, there was a neatly parked
black, polished sedan. Faizan walked to the back of the car. He saw ‘Lincoln’
written on it.

First
he thought he would move the Lincoln out and bring his van in and then unpack
the firecrackers into the aluminum cans he had collected. But then he felt pain
in his left arm and noticed a little blood oozing from the dog bite. He
abandoned the idea of swapping cars.

He
went outside and brought in the duffel bag from his van. He took out a bandage
and put it over his wound. It did little to relieve the pain, and he worried
about getting rabies. But then he chuckled.
Heck!
Tomorrow would be the
last day of his life. No need to worry about rabies. He glanced at his watch –
12:08 a.m.

So
today is the last day of my life
, he thought. A cold shiver ran
down his legs, and he sank into the sofa. He was tired. He set the alarm on his
wristwatch to three a.m. If he woke up at three, it would give him just enough
time to pour the explosives from the firecrackers and set up the trigger for
the bomb. All he would need to do later in DC was join the two main wires and
walk away. Then – boom!

The
bomb would explode, and a new mayhem would start with him firing his AK-74 at
the oncoming people. A feeling of glee swept through his entire body.

At
that point in time, he was supposed to call Halim, report his progress and get
his blessings. But he felt the pain in his arm and the ache in his leg muscles
– it had been a long day.

Deciding
to call Halim later, he lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes.

AT
THE SHARP beeps from his wristwatch, Faizan woke up exactly at three a.m. The
corpses of the old man and his pet lay exactly where he had left them hours
before. Faizan jumped to his feet, jerked his head to loosen up his neck
muscles, and headed for the bathroom. After relieving his bladder, he came back
to the living room. He took a look around and decided he liked the house. He
liked the size of the living room and its ruggedness. The windows were large
and had no drapes. The floor was wooden but was not treated with shiny polish.
Faizan thought there was masculinity hidden in that floor. 

Faizan
liked the isolation and size of this house. He wished he could live in a place
just like it in his next life. Though Islam taught him that there would be no
reincarnation, Faizan read about Hinduism in high school and learned that
Hindus believed in reincarnation. Since then, he secretly believed in a second
life. You screw things up, and then you get a second chance in your next life.
Faizan liked the idea.

One
thing he was certain of was that his next life would be much better and, more
importantly, much longer than his current one.

He
picked up the bag with his left hand and moved toward the door. A sharp pain
struck his left arm, reminding him of the dog bite, and he immediately dropped
the bag on the floor. He bent and straightened his arm a few times. It appeared
to abate the pain. He picked up the bag with his right hand and then headed for
his van.

He
repositioned the vehicle so that the passenger-side window was just past the
large oak tree, and then he opened all seven firecracker boxes.

He
twisted the crackers one by one and poured the explosives into the cans and
threw the empty cases right behind the oak tree, so that any passerby would be
unlikely to see the empty shells. He continued his work for ten minutes, and
then the pain in his arm came back.

He
took a two-minute break and started the chore again. After fifteen minutes, he
took another break. Forty-five minutes later, he was done. All eight cans were
now filled with explosives, ready to go.

Faizan
left the remaining crackers on the van floor, hoping they would add punch when
the bomb would go off.

Faizan
proceeded to connect the links to the cans. He attached the other end of the
links to the main link and the main link to the detonator. He attached the
detonator link to one of the two cell phones he had bought only hours earlier.

After
reaching his destination, all he would need to do was get away from the
vehicle, go down the escalator at the station and, at the right time, make a
call from his other phone, causing the phone next to the detonator to start
vibrating, and the mayhem would start. Everything was the way Halim had
planned, and Faizan had executed mock explosions in Somalia four times.

It
had been estimated that the explosion would kill at least fifty Americans, if
detonated at a busy time. If the plan went right, Faizan would be riding the
escalator downstairs, and then he would start firing his AK-74, and that should
kill at least fifty more people. The train commuters would have nowhere to go;
they would be trapped on the platform in a hail of his bullets.

Once
all his bullets were gone, Faizan would pull the two handguns and continue
firing at the fleeing mass before pointing one of the guns at his own head and
pulling the trigger.

“According
to my estimate,” Halim had said, “at least a hundred people will die. God
willing, maybe even more, maybe a hundred and twenty or fifty. Imagine that
many dying at the hands of one single man, right at the center of the infidel
power. And they will have no clue who did it. It will drive the Washington
power-hungry suckers crazy, and the common masses will be afraid, like chickens
about to be slaughtered.”

“But
what if they figure out you sent me there. And they come after you?” Faizan had
asked.

Halim
sat down on the hotel chair. “I have thought of that possibility,” Halim had said,
touching his beard. “After all, things do go wrong. And I have a contingency
plan for that. But even the contingency plan can fail, and I might die.”

Halim
had stood, his face looking thoughtful. “I am not fearful of death. But if I
survive,” Halim had said ominously, “I will make sure whoever caused those
failures will be adequately punished. Even if it is a friend, my family or one
of my own brothers. I will punish them.”

Now,
Faizan looked at the bomb he had made and chuckled, visualizing the dead people,
the concrete walkway drenched with blood, broken hands and severed legs, but
before all that killing would happen, in just a few hours, he had more work to
do. He walked to the back of the van, picked up the full propane tanks, one by
one, and placed them around the explosive-filled cans placed strategically in
the passenger area. Then he put the twenty boxes of assorted nails around the
propane tanks. He covered the whole thing with a piece of cloth. Conveniently,
the vehicle had tinted windows, but Faizan didn’t see the point in taking
chances. Some kids might peek, out of curiosity, and tell their parents.

Faizan
went back to the house for the third and last time to wash his hands and change
the bandage on his wound. His hands were covered with a thin film of
explosives. He didn’t mind the smell, but he was worried that his hands would
somehow catch fire.

Once
the washing was complete, Faizan came back to the house door, looked at the
dead old man, kicked him in the belly, and then he walked out and closed the
door. Back in his vehicle, he cranked on the ignition. He glanced at his watch
– 5:17 am. It was still dark.