Undeclared War (12 page)

“The extraction takes about sixty hours,” Fazul said as he warmed up to his subject. He was completely in his element talking about his laboratory work. “The balance of the process should be completed a day after that. Since this is being done in a laboratory and not on an industrial scale, these Soxhlet Extractors only hold a relatively small charge. I expect the yield to be about thirty-five grams per unit, so between 400 and 450 grams of pure Methylenedioxy-n-methylamphetamine.”

“That is pure MDMA?” said Arzee. “Raw Ecstasy?”

“Yes, sir,” Fazul said. “The process is much the same as that used by some of the biker gang cookers
to crank out their crystal methamphetamine. But their process is crude at best. Our system is much more sophisticated and efficient. The product here is of much greater purity than any other brands available on the street. Once I have diluted the final product down with a buffer and pressed it into tablets, they will be ready for sale. The customers should be well satisfied.”

“These clubbers will pay well for their Ecstasy tablets,” Arzee said. “How long do you expect to take to manufacture the pills themselves?”

“Each thirty-five-gram batch should make about 580 tablets at the popular dosage,” Fazul said. “Using the press and dies does take some time to actually form the final pills. I expect to have several thousand tablets available for you in four days. They'll be marked and shaped as double-stack white Mitz, a very popular underground brand.”

“Excellent,” Arzee said. He was happy something was working out according to plan for a change. “Do you need any relief or other support?”

“Nothing I can think of, sir,” Fazul said. “The process is pretty straightforward for the extraction. As you can see, the extractors run themselves for the most part. I can get what rest I need well enough as they run.”

Arzee looked at the rows of glassware bubbling away. The liquid would rise in the Soxhlet Extractors until it reached a certain level, then quickly be siphoned off into a large round flask nesting in an electric mantle heater. Each setup would make a quantity of Ecstasy, the popular club and rave drug, that would have a final street value of more than
$11,000. And there were twelve setups running at once. Over $130,000 profit would be a good return for a few thousand dollars investment in chemicals and glassware.

Even wholesaling the drug would be more than profitable while minimizing the risk. Maintaining a pure product is how they had cornered the heroin trade. This would be no different. And the process, chemical, and equipment, could even be sold to some of the biker gangs that they worked with on other projects. Arzee had a smile on his face for a change as he headed back down to his offices.

In northern Lake Michigan, almost twenty miles from the closest point of the mainland, is South Wolverine Island. About five miles to the northeast is North Wolverine Island. Covering more than 3,300 acres of ground, South Wolverine Island is shaped like an inverted fat banana with the stem end pointing due south and the other end curved over to point northwest. The island is a little over five miles long and about a mile and a half wide. North Wolverine Island, shaped like a straightened comma mark, is two and a half miles long and barely over a mile across at its widest point.

Both islands are covered with trees, brush, and grasslands. There are wide sand beaches at several points along the shoreline of South Wolverine, while North Wolverine is almost completely surrounded by a thin border of sand beach. The grasslands and trees offer good cover and grazing to the herds of deer and other game on the two islands. The only industry that had ever come to the islands
was logging, as it had on most of the islands of Lake Michigan during the late 1800s and early-to-mid 1900s.

The logging camps were long gone, but there were still traces of man on both islands. North Wolverine Island had a few cabins along its west shore. On the widest part of the northern end of the island was a 1,000-meter-long grass landing strip for aircraft. The island was covered mostly with grasslands, broken up by patches of scrub brush and low trees. Some small hills rise up from the relatively flat island at its southern end.

South Wolverine Island holds a large area of trees and brush in the rolling ridges that cover over two-thirds of the island. At the southernmost point, separated from the main part of the island by 400 meters of sand, stands a single automated lighthouse. Near the metal-framed light are the remains of an old brick lighthouse along with a single-story structure that had been the living quarters of the lighthouse keeper almost a century earlier.

The decaying structures at the southernmost point of South Wolverine Island are not the only buildings on the island. A mile almost due north of the old lighthouse is a huge two-story mansion built decades earlier. Seeing the island as a summer refuge, a lumber baron had established a large estate on South Wolverine.

Years after the lumber baron was gone, the estate was bought up and improved by an automobile magnate from Detroit. He had a two-story summerhouse built on the island. The mansion-sized house held six bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms, a
maid's room with bath, and a rambling first floor. This floor included a billiard room, music room with a separate chamber for the pipe organ, a library, and a twenty-by-forty-foot indoor swimming pool.

Built on a hillside, the summerhouse had a walkout basement foundation with over a dozen rooms and chambers including a photographic dark room, several walk-in refrigerators, a coal cellar, four huge cisterns holding thousands of gallons of water, and even a single-lane regulation-sized bowling alley that runs along the east side of the pool structure. At the opposite side of the pool is a collection of utility pipes that lead to a six-foot-wide tunnel connecting to a powerhouse two hundred meters away.

The powerhouse holds large diesel-electric generators that supply power to the house and other structures and facilities on the island. The powerhouse is part of the hangar facilities and garage that stand at the southern end of a 1,200-meter landing strip. At the west shore of the island, directly across from the large rise that the mansion stands on, are the boat docks and landing facilities.

The offshore waters teem with fish at different times of the year. Shallow water shoals extend for more than three miles to the north of the main island. The South Wolverine Island Shoals, a long expanse of treacherous shallow waters, extend for more than nine miles to the south of the island. Thirty-foot-deep channels separate the different parts of the southern shoals. The three most dangerous areas of shallow water are marked with lighted buoys. It was to warn boats from this stretch of wa
ter and the hidden dangers there that the lighthouse was designed to do.

The geography and location of the South and North Wolverine Islands made them excellent places for sportsmen. But, except for the small spit of land above the sand that holds the inactive lighthouse, the islands are private property. Even the lighthouse was not open to the public, so very few people landed on the posted property of the islands.

The islands were a huge, private playground for the rich of several cities, lying roughly 250 miles equidistant from either Detroit or Chicago. The auto magnate and his family had long since left the area. The properties had gone through a number of hands, each trying to make something more of what was available at the remote location. The previous owner had established a hunting lodge on South Wolverine Island, surrounded by thousands of acres to support exotic imported game.

The owner of the hunting lodge had failed to see his private club become a successful concern. He had fallen on difficult times, both personal and professional, something Paxtun had been able to take advantage of. Obtaining both North and South Wolverine Islands for under market value, Paxtun now had a very large, very isolated facility available to him. That was something his investors had ordered him to obtain for their use.

Now, the hunting preserve and lodge were listed as being closed to the public for renovation and upgrading of the facilities. That explained a large number of workers going to and from the islands whenever the weather permitted. One thing that had
not been announced publicly was when the hunting club would reopen, if ever.

Having finished leading the morning prayers with his men, the man called Ishmael sent them out of his suite of rooms. The main room of his sumptuous quarters at the mansion was easily large enough to hold all of his men. Ishmael was a tall, medium-built, intense man. His close-cropped, thick black hair, beard, and mustache framed an oval face with a very high forehead. Shaded by thick eyebrows were bright, intense, dark brown eyes.

Ishmael had been with al Qaeda since its beginnings and had spent his share of time sleeping on little more than rocks. His quarters now were what had been called the “Owner's Chamber.” The suite had an almost thirty-foot-square room with an attached semicircular enclosed sleeping porch and two separate large combination dressing rooms and baths. Ishmael thought it shameful that just the cupboard space and closets of one of the baths were larger than what many families called a home back in his adopted Afghanistan.

Not that he hadn't been used to luxury at one time in his life. Ishmael had been born into a privileged family in ‘Ajman, in the United Arab Emirates. He had been educated and raised a devout Muslim, and remained so even when studying abroad in Europe and England. He spoke a number of languages, including English, German, French, and Arabic.

When the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the young man who would become Ishmael went to fight the infidel invaders. He joined the mujahideen and took part in the jihad.

The fighting hadn't stopped with the Soviets abandoning their actions in Afghanistan. The occupation of holy Muslim soil by the infidels from the United States had incensed Ishmael as it had many other fundamentalist Islamic Muslims. It had been obvious to any devout true believer that the U.S. had been bent on driving Iraq from Kuwait solely for its own benefit.

The defeat of Iraq had only been the United States' opening gambit into the Arabian peninsula as far as Ishmael and his contemporaries were concerned. The justice that had been brought against the United States by the Prince, bin Laden, had been used by the infidels as an excuse to destroy what had become Ishmael's new home in Afghanistan.

Planning had been going forward for several years for a new strike against the Great Satan, deep in his own homeland. That planning had been modified by the horrendous invasion of Iraq by the U.S. forces as they went forward with their intent of occupying the Middle East. But Ishmael and his men were now in the United States itself, deep in the heart of their enemy. And they would very soon be striking fear in that heart—fear that would reverberate throughout the world and let their Muslim brethren know that the fight was not over.

 

Paxtun retained his office down the second-floor main hallway from what had been his personal quarters now used by Ishmael. For his own sleeping quarters, he had moved into what was called Chamber 4, part of an extended suite of rooms. From
Chamber 4, he could pass through a dressing room and vestibule and be in his outer office.

Made from one of the major sleeping chambers of the original mansion, Paxtun's office had a large central chamber, sixteen-by-twenty-five-feet in size, as well as an attached bath and separate dressing room. The main chamber was his outer office, that Paxtun used for meetings and such. The enclosed semicircular sleeping porch just off the main chamber was where he kept his private inner office.

Sleeping arrangments were not of major concern to Paxtun at the moment. Since Ishmael's arrival weeks earlier, he had done little in the way of sleeping. And what sleep he did get was restless and unsatisfying. Ishmael was a demanding taskmaster. Nothing short of perfection was acceptable to him in support of what he considered his holy duty.

Paxtun had yet to be fully informed of the details of the operation. The only thing that he knew was the code name of the attack, Operation Shaitan's Blessing. That could mean anything and take place anywhere. It made for a situation that he had a hard time accepting. It wasn't that his conscience bothered him about being responsible for a possible major terrorist attack in his home country. It was the fact that he didn't know enough of the details to insure that he was protected from possible discovery.

Inside his inner office, Paxtun still felt safe and relatively in control. His extensive knife and sword collection was in cases and racks both on the walls and several glass-topped tables. On the table between the two doors that connected the inner and
outer offices was his most recent acquisition. The long, flat wooden case that Hadeed, one of Arzee's cousins, had brought to him didn't hold an antique or foreign blade. It did hold the sword made by Reaper's own hands. Arzee's relatives had known of Paxtun's passion for blades, and they had brought him the sword as well as a real prize—Reaper's family.

The wife and son of the man who had forced him to relinquish his military and intelligence career were in his complete control. For the time being, he had them secured in a storage room in the basement. It amused Paxtun to have the woman and child secured in the windowless, concrete-walled room. Twice a day, they were taken out to make use of the toilet facilities. All the rest of their time was spent in their prison room. Even their meals were brought to them there.

Paxtun hadn't quite decided what to finally do with the two hostages yet, but he had time. They had to be kept alive to insure Reaper's cooperation—for the time being.

As Paxtun was contemplating the good parts of his situation in his inner office, Ishmael strode in from his room down the hall. His arrival instantly brought Paxtun out of his reverie. The news had come in from Arzee that he had secured four of the Jackhammer shotguns. Any additional weapons would be available in two days. The exotic weapons would help replace part of the firepower confiscated by Canadian customs. Additional weapons would take longer to obtain—there just weren't any more immediately available.

This was not the news Paxtun wanted to give Ish
mael. That the man was a fanatic went without question. Causing him difficulties could set off what Paxtun had quickly learned was a violent hair-trigger temper. Ishmael and his superiors had proved a very profitable group of partners for Paxtun's enterprises. Now that the time had come to pay back some of those investments with interest, Paxtun was having some second thoughts about the arrangement. It was one thing to very profitably distribute narcotics and build an infrastructure to support activities in the United States. It was quite another to actively take part in a terrorist action within the continental United States itself.

Paxtun had little choice in how events moved forward now. The last group of Ishmael's men were coming into the country that night. They would be at the island base the next day if everything went according to plan. That was another bit of good news that Paxtun could pass on to Ishmael. But even that news had a bad taste to it for Paxtun.

Once all twelve members of the Sons of Ishmael had joined with their leader, the group would greatly outnumber Paxtun and his handful of men on the island. Ishmael had insisted that there be as few support people as possible on the island to insure security for himself and his men, an insistence that Paxtun had to go along with.

Even the cook and caretaker staff had been removed from the island more than a month earlier. Paxtun had one of his junior men doing the cooking, something that was wearing thin over the weeks. Coming to the island was a strain now, especially after the fare they had been used to from their usual
expert cook. He was tired of food that was microwaved or had come from cans. There was no wine at the meals either. Drinking alcohol would be a sin in the eyes of Allah. More importantly, it would piss off Ishmael and his men.

Ishmael entered Paxtun's office unannounced and without knocking. The arrogance of the man was just another bitter pill that Paxtun had to swallow.

“Good news, Ishmael,” Paxtun said, “the final group of your men have arrived in Windsor. They'll be brought across the border tonight.”

“You are certain that your procedures will work?” Ishmael said in flawless English. “And that their papers will stand up to the closest scrutiny?”

“No problem whatsoever,” Paxtun said. “The crossing procedure is the same as we used for yourself and the other four groups of men. The papers are the very best available. Each man will have an authentic U.S. government passport with his picture in it as well as a Michigan driver's license.