Born of War Read online

  “Is it China?” Genret had had little dealings with the sale of weapons from China. It was known, however, as the creator of this new weapon, or at least what was considered to be the newest and most capable variance. The DF-21D’s software was known to be able to track and kill the fastest of America’s military ships. It was a “carrier killer.” The rocket would climb and then sink to surface level as it tracked its target. A ship of nearly five thousand men and a deck of aircraft could be at risk.

  “China is not the only one. Although they have been most generous in offering our brothers the skills needed.” Faud had said much in one statement.

  Iran has created a knockoff! Genret pondered the thought as he nervously lit another cigarette. God, MI-6 would drop me in the Gulf Stream with my brains like mashed potatoes. He would be drugged and gagged until they could get him to some stone shack in the highlands. He wanted to shut his ears. The knowledge burned through his chest. A leak would cause the free world’s intelligence networks to grab him for any chance of this information. Israel would pay a bounty for even a hint of this information.

  And if he told anyone, Al Shabaab would follow him to the driveway that led up to his Swiss hideaway and kill him. With one sentence, Genret had been pulled in whether he liked it or not.

  “We need your skill in transportation. What price to get this across the Gulfs of both Oman and Aden? What price to get it to Somalia without being detected?”

  “Will the Iranian Navy help cross one?” Genret asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what will Oman do if a truck passes across its lands?”

  “They will look away.”

  “Do I have to pay for that?” The cost of bribes carried an extra expense that had to be planned for.

  “No.”

  Genret didn’t believe what he was hearing but took another sip of the coffee.

  “10,000 Leafs at one ounce per,” said Genret.

  The job had the makings of being that final push that he and his competitors always were looking for. Genret knew that if he passed on the job he would never leave Sana’a. But the thought of death didn’t enter his mind as much as the fact that the other arms dealers would be sick to know that he was the chosen one.

  I can insulate myself. With enough money, I can layer the job.

  Genret thought of the many go-betweens who never had to know what was in the back of the trucks. It would take several trucks to split apart the device to lower the suspicion, but it was doable. The parts would be separated and shipped in “layers” of cover trucks.

  “Your price is reasonable.”

  Genret was shocked at the response. He should have asked for more.

  “Plus expenses. We have to pay many,” he said.

  “We will raise the money,” said Faud. “You may begin the plans.”

  “It will be a target.” Every agency in the world would jump and act on it.

  “Yes, but it will have a brother and sister soon thereafter. And with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean unsafe they will have to disperse their fleet. With their ships spread out our pirates will be able to roam.”

  “It is a game changer.”

  Faud pulled the keffiyeh around his head before he stepped out into the sunlight. He glanced quickly up to the sky and moved in the shadows of the clay buildings to a Toyota truck waiting on the other side of the city gate.

  My new friend will be more help than he realizes.

  Faud felt the cell phone in his pocket. It was one of many that would be used for only one call and then crushed and tossed. The chief financier of Al Shaabab had worked at his trade well before Somalia became a known word. He was linked to the entire network.

  When will our American arrive?

  Omar was more than just a new jihadist. He had become a source of Internet popularity, and with his popularity came much-needed money.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Let’s stop for dinner.” William Parker leaned back in Moncrief’s truck as they headed north from the Farm.

  “The usual?”

  “Yeah, my treat.” Parker pulled the sunglasses down around his neck as darkness started to set in. The glasses had a strap that held them on and as he pulled them down he smelled the familiar scent of what others called “gunpowder.” It was really a more complicated chemical formulation that included nitro and graphite.

  Most of the Special Operations guys wore some type of gloves, which also carried a unique smell. Parker, however, refused to wear them. It was important that he was able to feel the weapon. He needed the sense of the trigger pull. Each weapon, whether a rifle or pistol, had a distinct squeeze that caused the round to go high or low or on center. The farther the distance, the more the pull would send the round high or low and right or left.

  It was also the consistency. A well-aimed round went on target when the shooter was consistent. Arnold Palmer was the best example in the game of golf. His style of swing was unique, but since he was consistent, the ball was always on target.

  They drove for several miles to the north, turning on the cutoff to the small rural town of Cuthbert, Georgia. The truck passed open fields planted with green rows of peanuts and forests made up of perfectly lined pine trees. The pines grew in rows similar to the Marines in formation on the parade deck at Parris Island.

  “Everyone is getting a lot of time.” Parker spoke as he looked out the window. He was referring to the constant rotation of Marines. For every combat tour of duty, the time back in the states was getting less and less. Only the lucky ones got a year between the times spent in a combat zone.

  “Did you hear the news of E’s brother?” Moncrief was referring to another member of their past team, Enrico Hernandez. He had a younger brother who was a staff sergeant on active duty with the Marines.

  “No.”

  “Just was RIF’d.”

  “What?”

  A “reduction in force” was shaking all of the military to its roots.

  “A third of all the E-6s were sent to the house.” Moncrief used his somber voice saved for the few military funerals he had attended. A drop in staff sergeants was significant but that was not the only rank that was targeted.

  “Didn’t you have him when you were on the parade deck?”

  “Yeah, little bastard, I saved his ass.” Moncrief had done a tour years ago as a drill instructor at Parris Island. An Apache warrior descendant as a drill instructor was not a good day.

  “The fool told me his birthday.” Moncrief laughed as he spoke. “And we celebrated.”

  “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “I covered his butt. I already had served with E.”

  “I’m not sure how kind you were.” Parker didn’t smile despite how Moncrief was trying to provoke him.

  “He did three combat tours.” Despite combat experience, the young staff sergeant was being put on the street.

  “Gunny, not your fault.” Parker knew it needed to be said out loud.

  “So, same time next month?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The MarSOC guys are coming down to the farm next month.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll run down on Ospreys. You need to come see the new toys.” Moncrief looked ahead as they drove into the center of town.

  An old brick courthouse was just off the town square. It had a chain-link fence that encircled the building. For years now, the old courthouse had been on the verge of falling to a homeless man’s match or a random lightning strike.

  “There’s the Subway.”

  The yellow sign marked a quick stop for food.

  Moncrief’s truck radio was set on a low volume. They pulled up to the front and he shifted into park. He reached for the key to turn off the engine.

  “Wait a minute.” Parker stuck out his hand. He turned the radio volume up.

  “. . . . blast killing four in Mobile.” The voice was a news bulletin.

  “What the hell?” Moncrief leaned over the st
eering wheel as they both listened to the news.

  “The FBI has confirmed this was an act of terrorism. The bomber was killed in the blast. He is suspected to be linked to an alleged terrorist cell in Mobile, Alabama.” The two men stared at the radio as the broadcast continued.

  “Wasn’t your wife from Mobile?”

  “Yeah.” Parker continued to look forward into the dark.

  “Hey, Gunny, how about we skip eating?”

  “Sure.”

  Moncrief shifted the truck into reverse, swung his vehicle around, and headed north.

  William Parker’s farmhouse was dark. It had been for some time. The truck pulled up to the front door. In the vehicle lights one could see the weeds that reached up to a man’s waist. It appeared abandoned.

  “You want something to eat?” Parker swung open the truck’s door and grabbed the plastic case that held his pistol and his rifle bag from the rear. He also took his water bottle from the console. It wasn’t as if there was much in the farmhouse. At best, the kitchen held a Coke and a can of Vienna sausages.

  “No, boss, I think I’ll head north. Should get to the house around midnight.”

  “Got it.” Parker had been quiet for most of the time since they left Subway.

  “An American terrorist.” Moncrief spoke straight ahead to the windshield of his truck.

  “Mobile.” Parker shifted the two weapon containers to his left hand. He reached across the truck’s cab and shook his friend’s hand.

  “Thanks, Gunny.”

  “I’ll just show up at the same time in four weeks.” Moncrief didn’t say more. His friend had become a loner. Parker’s telephone landline had been pulled for some time now. He’d tossed the cell phone and with it the last form of communication. The house did not hold a computer. His house and farm had been sold to a small corporation with an attorney in Atlanta as the agent and registered officer. Cash from the attorney to the county seat paid the taxes regularly. The people in the courthouse knew who the owner was but no one talked about it. It had become a part of rumor. Parker had gone off the grid. They all left him alone.

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  But Parker wasn’t thinking of four weeks from now. He was thinking of what had just happened in a city farther south.

  William Parker watched Moncrief’s taillights as they crossed over the ridgeline heading back to the county highway. He stood there for a minute in complete darkness on the front porch. The disappearance of the truck left a silence and then, as if it were a machine spinning up, he heard the woods become alive again. He opened the heavy wooden door and turned on the lamp on the table. The door was never locked. It didn’t need to be. The room had that smoky smell from the stone fireplace. It was brutally quiet. The absence of someone lay over the farmhouse like a soaked towel covering a face.

  He hesitated for a moment before putting his pistol case and rifle bag against the wall. Parker took a swig of the water from the bottle and then went back outside. He walked around the lodge to a large shape barely visible in the darkness. A motion detector caused a light to come on revealing a blue tarp. He pulled the cover off to reveal a black truck. It had not been used often but was built for the country. It was a GMC Sierra off-road that had been brand new only a year before.

  Parker reached under the edge of the Ranch Hand bumper and pulled out a key. He climbed into the front seat and turned on the engine. It was his only link to the outside world. He pushed the scan on the radio, turned up the volume, and listened to it travel through the stations until it hit on a news channel.

  “. . . an act of terrorism has again struck on American soil.”

  Parker wanted the facts.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Omar heard the news as he headed across Canada and neared Toronto. I am a Banu Najjar. Omar considered the thought. He learned of the importance of his tribe from his uncle. It was his uncle who taught him the importance of the faith. It was his uncle who taught him that death meant little if one died for Allah.

  The elder was to be followed without question and only the bearded ones were to be respected. His branch of the tribe came from Syria and before that from Yemen. It was said that Muhammad spoke of his tribe. As soon as he returned from his first trip to Syria as a young man Omar began trying to grow his beard.

  His beard left a patch of bare skin on his cheekbones so it was neither uniform nor attractive. The beard was important. It carried with it the sign of manhood and leadership.

  A clean face. Omar thought of how repugnant that was as he looked back on his high school days in Daphne. It would make the journey much safer if he shaved before he passed through the Western airports; however, it would create the opposite effect when he reached his destination.

  He tuned the radio while his wife drove the Nissan.

  Toronto. He stroked his beard as he thought of the past.

  “Will we see my family?” Fartuun spoke over the sound of the radio.

  He put up his hand to silence her. Omar had changed his clothes and put on a Toronto Blue Jays hat. He wore sunglasses. She was uncovered, which was what the infidels did; however, it was important that they blended in as they neared the city. On other trips the customs would be followed; however, this was an escape—not a regular trip.

  It was the beard that worried him the most. But he had a plan.

  “At that next gas station stop and I will change.” He had bought a dark, pinstriped, vested suit with a white button-down collar shirt. The tie was important. It was crimson and blue. The dress would break him out of the “profile.”

  “You can stay for an extra day or two but first you must take me to Pearson,” he said. “They will be knocking at your door if you stay too long. You must follow me to Egypt as soon as you can.” Pearson International Airport in Toronto had a flight to Europe nearly every other hour.

  Omar was correct about the time. It would be an easy trail to follow. Everyone knew that Eddie was a friend of his. As soon as Eddie was identified as the bomber, Omar would be next on their suspect list.

  They will be knocking on my parents’ door tomorrow.

  He could see his father’s rage when the news hit. The first wave would be the coworkers turning up their radios when they heard of a bombing in Mobile. Then they would learn that the suspects were two young Muslims. The knock would only confirm what his father suspected.

  The mosque in Mobile was the first place where he had heard of the Islamic conference in Canada. Eddie had gone before him. But Omar had followed quickly after that.

  Then Omar had traveled to his father’s homeland of Syria for the first time when he was in ninth grade.

  “You have not been to Syria.” He spoke to his wife as if he didn’t really know her.

  “No.”

  “I have many cousins there. I joined my uncle for prayers. Five times a day!”

  She nodded her head. The wife only listened.

  “Syria changed me. I went back to Mobile and it was a different world.” Omar watched a Yukon truck pass. A young blond woman was behind the wheel. In the instant he saw her he was reminded of why he took this different path.

  “I hated Mobile after that. The drugs, television, the stupid people. They had no direction.”

  High school became miserable. And he fought it and everything school and his broken family stood for.

  “I wore Islamic dress to school.” He laughed. She smiled.

  “They all laughed at me.” His tone changed again as he remembered how quickly his world had changed. “My teacher changed. Mrs. Hughes taught me to be liberal in thought, but when I confronted her with the teachings of Muhammad she became angry.”

  Another person in his world who had pushed him further away. His faith became his anchor.

  But Mrs. Hughes wasn’t the only problem.

  Omar looked out on the buildings of Toronto in the distance.

  He had lived there, on and off, for years. He reached behind his seat for the suit jacket and pulled the Air C
anada ticket out of the front pocket.

  They had driven through the night stopping only for gas. “The flight leaves in just a few hours.”

  The flight was direct to Barcelona leaving at 1:00 P.M. It would stop in Montreal and then Zurich. It was intended to go on to Barcelona, but he would leave the airport in Switzerland and take a train across the border to Milan. From Milan, Omar had another plane ticket, which would take him on to Cairo. It was only in Cairo where he could wander into the crowd and feel safe.

  “They probably are tracing Eddie’s trail to me by now.”

  Eddie and Omar used a patch of grass near the high school parking lot for their prayers. The one thing his father had done was go to the principal and insist that his Muslim son be allowed to do his daily prayers. It was the only thing his father had done on behalf of his son’s Islamic beliefs.

  “If I hadn’t gone to Toronto I would be in medical school by now.” He was talking out loud to himself. “It was what my father wanted me to be. It was his dream. An American Muslim and a doctor but not a Muslim of the true faith. He wanted a Muslim for show.”

  Omar looked on his past like turning the pages on a family album.

  “He will hear of the bomb and soon realize it was Eddie.” Omar was correct. A photograph taken from the church’s parking lot security camera had already been downloaded, enlarged, and cross-checked. It would not be a hard crime for the FBI to figure out.

  Faud had promised at least forty-eight hours before Al Shabaab would announce to the world that their soldier was responsible. A terrorist plot deep in the American South, masterminded by an American jihadist, would spin around the world’s news networks a million times. And with it, donations would flow in just like the Americans’ sudden loyalty to a football team that had just won the Super Bowl. Omar was proud of his role in this plan.

  “Do you remember my first winter here?”