Authors: Jonathan Maberry
That data would eventually come home to Mr. Priest's private mainframes, the six Titan supercomputers he'd acquired through many removes from a friend in Russia. That computer, Zarathustra, was protected against all forms of invasion. Mr. Priest had even tested that claim by running programs filled with the kinds of keywords that would attract MindReader. After fifteen months of dangling bait in the water, Mr. Priest was convinced Zarathustra was impregnable.
He paused in his work and sniffed, wondering if Kang had gone another step down into personal degradation, but he shook his head. The man's bowels were still clutched tight. Good; that would be so unpleasant.
When the process was done, Mr. Priest removed the cables and stowed the drives back into his briefcase. Then he removed another external drive, plugged that in, and sat back, rubbing his tired eyes. The screen display on Kang's desk flashed with a status bar. The four-hundred-gigabyte Trojan horse was uploading quickly. He appreciated the speed and sophistication of Kang's computers.
Finally Mr. Priest stood, leaving that last drive in place.
He came over and stood directly behind Kang, careful, though, not to step in the puddle of urine around the man's expensive shoes.
“Listen carefully now, my friend,” he said quietly. “You know the terms of our agreement. You know what will happen if you break your promises. I'm leaving now. You will sit at your desk and wait for my call. You will not touch the external drive that's plugged into your computer. If you even touch it, I'll know. I'll get a signal and so will my field teams. And you don't want that, now, do you?”
Again, Kang was too terrified to speak.
Mr. Priest patted him on the shoulder.
“Good-bye, Dr. Kang. Here's hoping the day ends well for both of us.”
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THE BLACK TENT
HOME OF THE MULLAH
ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND ASH-SHAM
MOBILE CAMP #7
SEPTEMBER 9, 9:34
P.M.
LOCAL TIME
The Mullah sat in his tent and ate chicken and lentils while the men around him argued. This was a difficult meeting. An important one, because these men had brought old hatreds with them to the Mullah's tent. These were men who had sworn death threats against others seated nearby. No one had been allowed to bring a weapon with them. Only the Mullah's men had guns. Each of the others had ten hand-picked men outside, seated on the ground under palm trees. They had been instructed to read the same key passages of the Koran and to talk only among themselves. They were told that it would be a great sin against God to break the temporary truce the Mullah had called for. The men obeyed, but they glared their hatred at the others who sat only yards away.
Inside the tent, the Mullah listened to representatives of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. There were Sunnis here seated next to Shiites. There were leaders whose tribal conflicts were numbered in centuries. It was a gathering many of these men and all the rest of the world said was impossible, even unthinkable.
The Mullah had greeted them all as brothers. Seating was arranged by lottery, with no one receiving favored placement. Even the Mullah had drawn a colored stone from a bowl to receive his place.
When he was done eating, the Mullah set aside his food, washed his hands and face. Then he led them all in a carefully chosen prayer, one that had been selected because it did not play into any sectarian ideology but simply worshiped God. When this was done, he asked permission from the group to turn on his laptop computer. They agreed, though some were very cautious and uncertain.
Akbar brought the machine and placed it on a small table beside the Mullah. The old man turned it on and brought up a news update from Houston, Texas. It showed the mountains of rubble of what had once been a hotel a few weeks ago. Towers of work lights had been erected and crews of emergency personnel were picking through the debris while the voice of a reporter said that there were still forty-seven people missing and presumed dead. Rescue workers had found parts of another thirty-two. All of the other dead had long since been removed.
“You see this?” asked the Mullah. “Do you see how much damage has been done to our enemy?”
The others nodded. Many of them eyed him with suspicion or anticipation. The Mullah smiled and placed his hand over the screen.
“I did this,” he said.
There was a moment of dead silence.
Then everyone began yelling. Shouts of praise, harsh denials, accusations, and even threats. The Mullah let it all wash over him. Finally it was his calm lack of response that quieted the tent. They fell silent one by one, and he nodded to each man as they did so.
“Of course you do not believe me,” he said, still smiling. “Why would you? Anyone can point to an event and say, âI did that.' We have in the past, each in our several groups. It is a tool of fear and confusion, and they are both arrows in our quiver.”
No comments, merely silence and a few nods.
“I do not ask that you believe an old man when he makes what appears to be a wild claim. I would never insult you in such a way, my brothers. It would be unseemly.”
A few more nods, but the men seemed to be ready for a trick.
“It is out of my respect for each of you and for all of us in our beliefs that I do not ask for trust but instead offer proof.”
One of the men spoke up at last, a Taliban warlord who had fought at times with and against the Americans and whose father had died fighting the Russians. He said, “What proof is this?”
“Before I show you, my brother, I want to explain why we have not openly declared the attack on Houston to be part of our jihad.” The Mullah gazed around, fixing each man in turn with a serious, penetrating look. “Some of you are here because you are already part of our new caliphate. Others, I believe, have come because you heard the rumors. Speculations in the world media and whispers from the mouths of our own people. You have heard of the Mullah of the Black Tent. You know that I have, because of the grace and guidance of God, directed our forces toward making greater gains and also helped them evade reprisals from our enemies.”
A few nods, some reluctant.
“And some of you are here because you want to know if, in fact, the army of the caliphate has done this great thing.” He nodded, his smile never fading. “Now you are here and you watch an old man eat chicken and show you pretty pictures on a computer. You hear an old fool make claims and you wonderâIs this a trap? Is this a joke? Is this worth the risks you took when coming here?”
“Of course we wonder those things,” said the warlord. “We are not starry-eyed children. We are men who are fighting a war, and as such we do not have time to waste on fantasies and false claims.”
That caused a sudden buzz of argument, but the Mullah raised his hand to call for peace. It fell, slowly and awkwardly.
“There is a saying that one picture is worth a thousand words,” said the Mullah. “So, let me show you something beautiful.”
He tapped a few keys on the laptop and the image of Houston vanished to be replaced by a military base. The image wobbled but it was clear.
“This is Fort Rucker army base in Dale County, Alabama. That is in the southern part of the United States. It is home to the First Aviation Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Michael Lundy. Between military personnel, civilian employees, and families, there are five thousand people on the base. The United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence is located there. Many of the their military policies and procedures that are used against our people are developed there. This is a crucial place. A key target, but one that is unapproachable. This image is from a pigeon drone, but before you ask, the drone is not armed with explosives. It is there to give us a bird's-eye view, if you will pardon the small joke.”
No one smiled.
As the bird flew, its camera's eyes showed men and women training, vehicles moving, a Chinook helicopter airlifting a large air-conditioner unit to the top of a building that was under construction.
“The people on this base feel safe,” said the Mullah. “They have numbers, they have gates and guards, they have their training, and we have to accept that their training is second to none. They have advanced technology and they have so many weapons and resources. We are like peasants throwing stones.” He shook his head. “But what if we could reach out and, as if with the hand of God, switch off their lights, still their engines, drop their planes from the sky, silence their communications, darken their nights? What if the great thing that happened in Houston was no fluke? What if it was us? What if this is something we could do at any time? What if we held that power?”
The warlord was the only person who seemed able to speak. “Are you saying that you could do that to a military base in their own country?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it,” challenged the warlord. “I will go back to my people and we will watch the news and we will see if you are a lying old fool orâ”
And on the screen all of the power at Fort Rucker went out. The big Chinook suddenly jerked as the rotors died. The machine fell like a dead bird. All across the base the lights went out, the vehicles rolled to slow stops, the people turned, and looked around, and yelled. Some of them screamed. The sound of the crashing Chinook rolled like thunder across the base.
The gathered men cried out in surprise. Some of them leapt to their feet.
The Mullah sat there, smiling.
“And now we give them back a shred of hope,” said the Mullah. On the screen the lights came back on. The engines started up. Sirens began to wail, and only they were loud enough to drown out the screams. “And with hope comes doubt. It is the survivors of a catastrophe who are the victims, for they have seen the face of death and they know it can take them at any time. They will never be free of the memory and the fear for the rest of their lives.”
The warlord wiped spit from his mouth with a trembling hand. “This is how we will win this war. This is the sword of God.”
But the Mullah shook his head. “No, my brother, this is the gun.”
He reached over and tapped keys to change the image. Instead of a view of burning carnage it showed a pair of men dressed in white hazmat suits. They stood in a small, poorly equipped laboratory. As the gathered fighters watched, one of them used an oversized syringe to draw biological transport medium from a heavy vial and inject it into a small device. He repeated the process over and over again until he had emptied all of the metal vials and filled the receptacles on several dozen small but identical devices. Then he and the second man went down the line and closed the lids, forcing them down hard against the springs. As each lid closed a small magnetic lock clicked into place and a green safety light flicked on.
The metal vials were each stamped with the international biohazard symbol.
“And this, my friends,” said the Mullah softly, “is the bullet.”
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THE PIER
DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 9, 12:17
P.M.
We sat in horrified silence, watching it all unfold on the screen.
Church and Violin, Harry Bolt and me. The death toll at Rucker was small when compared to Houston, but incalculable when measured against the destroyed lives of each of those servicemen and women.
“We interrupt our full team coverage of the tragedy at Fort Rucker,” said the reporter for the NBC affiliate. “I am told that we have received a statement from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. We are going to play it live. Please be cautioned that we have not had an opportunity to preview this statement.”
The anchor's grim face was replaced by a good-quality video of a man in a black turban with dark eyes surrounded by wrinkled flesh. His nose and mouth were covered by a black scarf and the flag of ISIL was hung on the wall behind him.
Church hit the Record button.
“I speak to you now as the voice of jihad,” he said, speaking in perfect English. “I speak to you as a mujahedeen, a soldier of God. I speak to you as the voice of the new and eternal caliphate. I speak to you now to tell you that we will no longer accept interference with our culture, our people, our nations, and our faith. You may not have our oil. You may not rape our lands. You may not, with impunity, invade our countries and slaughter our people. That time has ended. God has reached out his mighty hand and drawn the curtain to cast you into darkness. You have seen this. You have cried out in that darkness and wondered why? How? Who?” He held up a finger and wagged it back and forth, the way a teacher might scold a naughty schoolboy. “A great darkness is coming. Ten of your cities will fall into hell. There is nothing you will be able to do to stop this because it is impossible to oppose the will of God. All that you can do is fall onto your knees and pray for forgiveness. You have declared war on the lands and the people and the one true faith. You and your children will pay for your sins. Darkness will fall. Darkness will fall.”
The camera lingered on his eyes for several silent seconds, and it struck me that the man looked dazed, or stoned. Or something. As he'd spoken there was no flicker in those eyes. We could see his mouth move even beneath the scarf, but the eyes were like those of a mannequin. No expression, no flaring as he made his threats. No life.
The video feed ended and the anchor came back and in contrast the gleam in his eyes was equal parts stark terror and dawning realization that this was possibly the biggest moment of his career.
Church replayed the video.
When it was over, Violin said, “The Mullah of the Black Tent. God. ISIL has owned the Houston and Rucker attacks. They've just declared open war on the United States.”