The countryside was so quiet you could almost hear your own thoughts echoing in your skull. Robert cleaned and dressed the fish, one for dinner and four for freezing. The lull after this work left his hands idle and he was impatient and jittery. It was too dark to take Rocky’s deer gun out for a hunt, so he paced the cabin like a ping pong ball bouncing against the walls.
Robert took the bike out for a ride. Once he was on the open road, his anxiety level dropped a bit. He realized then that he needed to get back to work – the sooner the better.
***
The investigation on Garcia had dried up and the passage of time was making it less likely it would come to a satisfactory conclusion. Wokowski and Samuels had “lost track” of Robert somehow. The game was at a stalemate. Maynard would just have to wait for Paladine’s next move. He tapped his index finger against the screen of his monitor.
“I’m gonna get you, Paladine. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Who you talking to, daddy?”
The miniature voice came from the corridor. “Nobody, sweetheart. Daddy’s just working.” He beckoned to Erica with a sweep of his hand and she ran and jumped onto his lap and cuddled up against his chest. She looked up at Joshua with a sad, puckered face.
“You’re always working, daddy.”
Joshua gazed at his daughter as the guilt pangs ran up his spine.
“I know, baby, I’m sorry. Tomorrow, we’ll have a lot of fun, okay?”
“Okay, daddy.” She put her thumb in her mouth and, in just a few minutes, fell asleep.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Wokowski and Samuels had their meeting with Bill Carpenter, but Carpenter was not pleased. He was not going to be responsible for the screw-ups of Nathan Anderson or even his own agents. But he did assure them they would get all the support they needed. Whether they had to get every agent of every office in Nevada on it, this Paladine would be found.
Like a pack of bloodhounds, led by Wokowski and Samuels, federal agents in Las Vegas proceeded to turn over every rock and leaf in search of the terrorist killer. They put out an all-points bulletin on Julio Ignacio and the motorcycle registered in his name but came up with nothing. Every known confidential informant was grilled. Wokowski and Samuels interrogated the clerks at Robert’s remote mailbox, but they didn’t know anything. Then, they paid a visit to the DMV.
Wokowski and Samuels split up and spoke to every clerk in the office, showing them each a picture of Robert. Finally, Samuels showed the picture to a clerk named Virginia Linder, whose eyes flung wide open in astonishment.
“Why are you looking for Julio?”
Samuels fired back with his federal double-talk. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it, ma’am. Do you know this man?”
“Well, yes. He’s my…”
“Your what?”
“He’s my friend. What has he done?”
“Again, ma’am, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Let’s just say he’s a person of interest we need to talk to.”
Samuels motioned to Wokowski, who came over. Virginia closed her window and led them into the break room so they could discuss it with her further.
Once they had all sat down in the plastic chairs around the circular table that was next to the coffee machine and water cooler, the agents started in on her again.
“Wait a minute! You haven’t told me yet. Is Julio in any kind of trouble?”
“Well, yes, ma’am, we think he may be, but all we’re trying to do now is talk to him. Do you know how we might find him?”
“Julio doesn’t have a cell phone, but I’ve got his phone number.”
“Can you give it to us please, ma’am?”
Virginia gave them Robert’s phone number, explained that she hadn’t known him long and knew he lived in an apartment in Las Vegas but she didn’t know where. She told them that he had a dog, too. The interrogation went on for two hours, until they were satisfied that they had milked enough information from her and she could be released.
The FBI tracked the actual telephone number through the records of the phone company to Robert’s apartment, obtained a quick search warrant, and broke into it. It was as empty as if nobody had ever lived there. They spoke to the manager, who gave the same story about Robert and his dog that Virginia had given, and described Robert and his motorcycle. An artist did a sketch of Robert from the descriptions given by Virginia and the manager and it went out over the wire, along with the photo from his DMV file. It was a nondescript drawing and an ambiguous photograph, either one of which could have passed for many different people. The fact was that Robert did not have any outward physical traits that anybody would have considered to be unique.
***
Robert was getting antsy. He donned his hunting gear and took the hunting rifle out, thinking that would blow off some steam. As Robert adeptly snuck through the woods in search of deer or elk, he found some droppings in a clearing by a stream and found a place to cache himself. He patiently waited and, finally, a grand-looking elk appeared in the clearing. Robert aimed, fired, and took the beautiful creature down in one shot. He dragged the body down the trail to the side of the road and went to fetch the truck so he could take his prize home and prepare the meat, a task which took the rest of the day.
But it seemed the work couldn’t stay away from Robert, or he couldn’t stay away from it. He delved back into the dungeons of the Darknet, mastering his many puppet jihadist aliases, looking for an open door to this grand terrorist scheme he had read about in Jahawi’s computer. Since he knew virtually all of the lieutenants of ISIS in the states, he knew exactly which digital doors to knock on.
Robert offered up his services to Allah under the well-established but artificial history of his namesake, Malik Abdul, a respected warrior who was a legendary commando and freedom fighter in the Middle East. He expressed a desire, as he had for months and months, to go to Syria and join the fight. Finally, he was invited by PGP message to communicate with one of the assistants for Badi Hasib Najjar, second in command at ISIS whom was thought to be in Al-Raqqah, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State. Robert met him in a designated chat room with a password-protected entrance which used TorChat, an encrypted instant messaging system.
“Peace be with you, brother.”
“And with you.”
“Your reputation precedes you.”
“I am but a servant of Allah.”
“Allhamdulillah.”
“Yes, brother, Allah Akbar.”
“The caliph himself asks for your help.”
“I live to serve him.”
“But you must understand the need for discretion.”
“Of course. The Kafir are watching.”
“Yes, and that is why you must be tested if you are to be in His service.”
Robert was instructed to meet his compatriot in a secluded area of the Hudson River Valley. Robert knew this would be a test, but he had been through more rigorous examinations.
***
Nathan Anderson gulped his coffee impatiently as he pored through the analysts’ reports. Something big was brewing in the virtual caliphate, but nobody had a clue what it could be. All of the operations by undercover agents who had been sent to penetrate ISIS’s online stronghold had resulted in nothing but a string of arrests of small-time wannabe jihadists who had pledged to take out infidels or go to war against them in Syria. Nathan’s frustration internalized to the point where it was giving him palpitations. If only he had the power to send his own analysts in undercover, maybe he could obtain some useful information to wage the war against terror.
The president took his briefings of inactivity as if everything was fine. He passed off Nathan’s hunch that something big was brewing as over-enthusiasm. After all, this was the Jaycee Team. Targeted drone killings were working and were eliminating head ISIS figures, never mind the women and children as collateral damage. The Commander-in-Chief downplayed Anderson’s concerns for heightening the alert level around
airports and major institutions. He didn’t want to panic the people, nor did he want to get a reputation as the “president who cried wolf” by painting an orange or red alert every time ISIS waved their black flag.
The briefings from Wokowski and Samuels had shed little light on the subject. They, too, had surmised that something was brewing. The social media sites were ablaze with well-wishers and warriors, waving Islamic State flags and spouting energetic jihadist rhetoric. To them, Anderson’s hunch was “right on.”
“But what do you think we should do, sir?”
“I think we should go deep undercover and try to infiltrate them.”
“For that we need someone who is fluent in Arabic, who can pass their vetting process and convince them they can be trusted.”
Like Paladine, thought Anderson.
“You have any candidates in mind?”
“We do, sir. We’ll have to clear it with Director Carpenter, though.”
“Of course.”
Anderson looked back down at his reports. As the agents were leaving the room, he raised his head.
“Anything on the Paladine case?”
“No, sir, that’s a dead end. Our Las Vegas dragnet stopped cold, so we figure he’s left town. And he’s been quiet for a while.”
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
The preparations for Robert’s road trip were minimal – no dog to feed, no mail to check – just pack his bag, lock the door to the cabin and jump on the bike. As he motored from the Rocky Mountains he turned a switch in his mind. From that point on, he would speak only Arabic and think only in Arabic. He wiggled back into the skin of Malik Abdul, the fabled warrior of the Iraqi insurgency, whose reputation had been built by millions of dollars of perception management of the media by the CIA. Through the Midwest he ran over the backstory of Malik in his mind and became the holy soldier for Allah they would expect to see. Finally, he reached the rendezvous point in Upstate New York. He stashed his bike and hitchhiked to the designated location not too far from the Bear Mountain Bridge and waited.
Robert was picked up by a white van with no windows, which was probably originally designed to be a delivery van. In this case, it would deliver Robert to a location his future handlers obviously didn’t want him to know. To greet him, a dark-skinned, bearded jihadi exited the passenger side door and stood before him. Robert could sense the speculation in his eyes as the man hailed him with the Arabic phrase, “Peace be with you.”
“As-salaam ‘alaykum.”
Robert took the man’s extended hand and responded, “Wa ‘alaykum salaam.”
The man slid open the side door of the van and directed Robert to get in. He found a seat inside, which was filled with five other men, whom he greeted as well. Between the body of the van and the driver’s cab was a partition with a small, tinted glass window, which was presently shut. Its cargo loaded, the truck took off for its eventual destination.
Robert kept track of time, but could only speculate where they were headed, whether it was Albany, Syracuse, or maybe Buffalo, because there was no way for them to look out. The men in the van were short on conversation. They didn’t reveal much about themselves and Robert didn’t care. After over three hours, he speculated they must be in some remote, rural area near the Adirondack Mountains.
Finally the car came to a stop and the side door slid open. They were ordered out of the van, military style, by the man who had greeted Robert, and instructed to line up. Robert stood at attention in front of the man as another man approached. He was of average height, shortened hair, and had a long scar that protruded from above his right cheekbone into the thick dark brown hairs of his beard. Robert recognized this must be Badi Hasib Najjar. He was to be vetted by one of the chiefs at the very top echelon of the Islamic State.
It soon became clear to Robert that he was at a terrorist training compound, smack in the middle of Americana, teaching their jihadist mantra of kill the infidels and training how to shoot them, thanks to the umbrella of the First and Second Amendments to the United States Constitution. He suppressed and filed away his anger toward these cretins, resisted the urge to turn the weapon they had given him on all of them, and crawled back into his jihadi persona.
The tests may have been grueling for some, but they were child’s play for Robert. He began with a string of recruits in a traditional indoor shooting range with a CZ-75 SP-01 9mm handgun. Robert donned earplugs, took a shooting stance and fired six rounds at the target at about 50 meters. He pushed a button, and the half-man sized target sped toward him on a cable. It had three perfect holes in the head and three perfect holes in the bullseye area of the chest. Robert replaced the target and set it away at 100 meters. He fired another six rounds, three again spot-on in the head and three in the chest.
The man who had met Robert at the van, who still remained nameless, collected the targets. He paused, held up Robert’s, one after the other, and harrumphed before moving on to the next shooter.
Robert and the others were herded outside to an outdoor shooting range and each outfitted with an AK-47. Robert had handled this gun thousands of times and held it like it had always been a part of his body. He shot the targets at the maximum distance of 1,500 meters. After making adjustments for wind factor and the weapon’s own particulars, he hit them with extreme precision. Then, they were put through an obstacle course. He crawled on his belly through sand and mud with live rounds shooting over his head, scaled walls and climbed rope with his weapon strung over his shoulder, and emerged from the course before anyone else.
Next, Robert entered a large kill house. As he navigated the massive rooms, life-sized mannequins confronted him with varying degrees of threats. He had done this many times while he was in the service, hitting only the “bad guys.” This time, Robert had to change his thinking. He flew through the kill house, but this time the “bad guys” he shot were the law enforcement officers and unarmed infidels. He left the jihadist “good guys” unharmed.
From the thinning crowd of his peers, it was evident to Robert that the vetting process had already begun, and that he was part of a final group who would be put to the next test. When he was sequestered in a dark room that contained an empty chair and what Robert surmised was a two-way mirror, Robert figured that, since he had passed the arms and physical prowess tests, this would be an examination of his loyalty.
Through a speaker in the ceiling, Robert listened to and responded to questions about his family history, his background, military and insurgency experience. After two hours of interrogation, he was taken to an area where he took a seat on one of two sofas, was offered black or mint tea or cardamom coffee, and opted for the coffee. A woman completely covered in a hajib entered and placed a tray with two cups of coffee on it, and Robert helped himself to one of them. As he sipped, the man with the scar on his face entered and Robert rose to his feet.
“As-salaam ‘alaykum.”
“Wa ‘alaykum salaam.”
He took Robert’s hand in a firm shake.
“Please, sit.”
Robert lowered himself back onto the couch as the scar-faced man sat.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Badi Hasib Najjar. You are a great and faithful warrior of God.”
“And you are Malik Abdul, a warrior of the Iraqi insurgency. Whatever brought you to America?”
“I am but a humble servant of God and do not boast of my exploits. I have answered the call of the caliphate to wage war on the infidels in their own homes but I fear that my victories acting alone have been too few.”
Najjar took a sip of his mint tea and smiled. “We have plans for you, brother.”
“What plans?”
“An operation.”
“When will I be told?”
He paused, sniffing the steam from the tea and then taking another mouthful.
“Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself for God?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then you will be told at the appropriate ti
me. I think you must realize that we will be using your particular skills.”
“I am happy to use them and will die for the better good.”
“You are a good soldier, Malik. I have a feeling you will serve God for many more years on earth, Inshallah.”
Najjar set his cup down on the saucer and rose. The door to the room opened and two men appeared. Robert stood and shook his hand, then Najjar took his leave. Robert was left in the room for about thirty minutes, then met at the door by the handler who had greeted him at the beginning of his journey.
“It is finished, Malik, and welcome to the caliph’s colonial army. I am Colonel Fahad Qurashi.”
This time, when Qurashi shook Robert’s hand, he also double-kissed him on the cheeks, a sign that Robert was now part of the family.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Even though Joshua Maynard had hit a dead end in his investigation and the mysterious suspect, Robert Garcia, seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, the hype on Paladine had only increased. His son was even asking him to buy him a Paladine action figure for his birthday. Maynard was sickened by the idea of vigilantism, which was becoming popular on every social media site. Even in the playgrounds at school, the kids were playing “Paladine games.” Instead of the old cowboys and Indians that Maynard had played in his childhood, his children were jumping out from behind structures in the play yard, spraying Muslim jihadists with make-believe machine gun fire.
Joshua had gone through all the evidence over and over. His captain told him he had been spending too much time on the case and it was affecting his workload. As a result, he did more unscheduled and unpaid overtime, working the dead case at night. He put his elbows on his desk and buried his face in his hands. There had to be a break in this case soon. He couldn’t bear to consider it unsolved when they had already come so far.