“Did that kill her? Did you see her dead?”
“Actually, no.” Miguel turned his palms up. “Who could know that a person could escape from that? It was impossible for anyone to escape from that rope. We were sure of it.”
“So then this woman you say could not possibly escape, escaped.”
Miguel shrugged self-consciously. “There was no way for us to know.”
Rafael took a settling breath as he gritted his teeth while looking around at the four men. “Well yes, there is a way to know. You stay there until she is dead, or, better yet, you cut off her head.”
“We were working hard on finishing the job so that we would be ready for you, Rafael—that was what was most important. The woman went to the police but they let us go because they believe we are Mexican immigrants. The police are not interested in charging us with a crime. We know that we must fix this, so we went to the bar where this American whore works to find out where she lives. At first, the man who owns the bar wouldn’t tell us. In the end he told us how to get to her house.”
“And did you kill him so he couldn’t tell the authorities you were the same men who tried to kill this courier?”
Miguel nodded furiously. “Yes, Rafael. Of course we killed him. I’m pretty sure he was dead when we left him.”
“Pretty sure. Not sure, just pretty sure.”
“He was not breathing.”
“And I thought José was the stupid one,” Rafael said under his breath as he shook his head in frustration. “So, who is this woman that you hanged?”
“Her name is Angela Constantine. She is an American whore.” He flashed a brief smile. “We used her as a wife to us before we hanged her.”
Rafael noticed that Cassiel had come closer. The man’s hands had fisted at his sides.
“You say you know where she lives?” Rafael asked.
Miguel nodded furiously before repeating the directions to her house.
Rafael grabbed the man’s shirt and yanked him close. “I want you, Juan, Emilio, and Pedro to go to her house—right now—and finish the job, as you were instructed. Do you understand?”
Miguel nodded again, afraid to speak.
Rafael looked at the other three, standing self-consciously together. “Do you all have knives?”
They all nodded.
“Shouldn’t we take some guns?” Pedro asked.
“Why? So that if you’re stopped by the police you can be arrested for carrying AK-47s? So that you can be interrogated about being heavily armed illegal aliens? So that the authorities can discover our operation and put a stop to our decades of planning? They let you go before because they thought you were simply undocumented Mexican immigrants. They won’t let you go if you are caught with guns.”
“Sorry, Rafael,” Miguel rushed to say. “No guns. We can do what is needed with our knives.”
“I think I should go with them,” Cassiel said in his gravelly voice.
Rafael thought the man looked a little too eager to go back to his personal fetish. “No. This is not your responsibility. Miguel and his men should be the ones to take care of it.”
Miguel nodded again. “We will, Rafael. I swear.”
Rafael swept a finger back and forth, pointing at the four men. “I want you to cut off her head and bring it to me. Do you think you can do that correctly this time? Do you think that you four strong men with knives can handle this one woman who escaped from you already once before?”
“Yes, Rafael,” they said as one.
“We handled her easily before,” Miguel added. “She is not big enough to cause us any problem.” He dismissed her importance with a casual flick of his hand. “Our only mistake was being too eager to get on with our work and not staying to see that she was dead, that’s all. We will take care of it.”
“Then get going and finish it before she can cause any trouble.”
The four men all scrambled to get into the Toyota.
“All right,” Rafael said to all the other men standing around him as the door rolled to the side and the Toyota drove off into the night, “you all know what to do. You all know what this means for us, for our cause.
“Our computer team in Russia successfully launched the cyber attacks, so that we might be able to succeed with our part of the mission. American intelligence agencies have blamed the Russians for the cyber attack. America is angry and demanding retaliation.
“Our comrades running those servers in Russia are standing by for the second phase. Just before detonation they will launch a second wave of cyber attacks. Those cyber attacks will hopefully cause US defense agencies to assume that the nuclear attack that we launch was the second phase of a Russian attack on America.
“This will hopefully result in the US launching a nuclear strike at Russia. Once those missiles are in the air, Russia will counterattack with their own missiles.
“This all means that within a matter of minutes, World War Three may be under way.
“The Great Satan will be destroyed.
“But even if such a nuclear war does not develop, America will never recover from the blow we strike. Hundreds of thousands of infidels will die. Vast territory will be uninhabitable. The electromagnetic pulse will take out much of America’s infrastructure. The US will be thrown into chaos. Many millions more will starve to death as they shiver in the darkness we have brought upon them.
“Our strike, carried about by those of us in this room, will be a turning point for the Islamic world. We now know how to get nuclear material into America. Others will follow the path we have laid out.
“Israel will be next.
“With what we do, the final destruction of the Great Satan will be under way, and then Israel will at long last be wiped from existence. They cannot destroy the entire Islamic world. We are used to surviving in darkness. They are not.
“Once this new nuclear phase of our war against the West is under way, nothing will stop it. We will change the balance of power. Islam will become the new ruling superpower.”
The men all around listening to his speech thrust a fist into the air as they let out cheers. These men had devoted their entire lives to this mission and this cause. They had trained in every field necessary to make plutonium bombs, both in Iran and Pakistan, and a few of them in North Korea.
They had worked their whole lives at being able to pass as Mexican immigrants who so easily moved into and throughout American society. No one would suspect the darkness they were about to bring to America.
“Now, put on your protective clothing.” He gestured to his second-in-command. “Alejandro, see to the material that is to go into the cargo van. You will oversee this crew, here. I will take the van to the second location.”
Splitting up the material increased the chances they would remain undiscovered until it was too late.
He looked to his second-in-command. “You have the entire place wired with explosives, just in case?”
Alejandro bowed his head. “Yes, Commander.”
“Cassiel, you will come with me and my half of the team. The rest of you know what to do. If we work hard we should be able to complete the assembly and be ready in a few days. The countdown can then begin. When that hour is upon us, we will bring the Great Satan to its knees.”
FORTY-ONE
As Angela dropped the cable in front of her driveway, a car pulled off the road and across the drive at an angle. Gravel crunched under the tires as it rolled to a slow stop. It was hard to see in the dark with the headlights blinding her, but she thought it looked like a government-issue sedan.