people were crammed into an area less than 1.4km2. Located just 3km from the Israel/Gaza border, the conditions were a perfect breeding ground for Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of the Hamas group. With few or no prospects, the young men of Jabalia were under constant threat from Israeli Defense Force raids and by the age of sixteen, Hassan had lost friends and family to Israeli aggression. With each Israeli incursion, the Brigades’ numbers swelled.
Hassan had always refused approaches from the Brigades. He had a future ahead of him. Excellent language skills and a keen mind for numbers had already seen him accepted into the Islamic University of Gaza’s Faculty of Engineering. His father had died young, just 41 years of age. Another symptom of the camps, life expectancy was low. With a mother and three younger siblings, the young Hassan had taken seriously the responsibility of heading the household and had planned to make something of himself and move his family out of the camps.
All that had changed one fateful night. Hassan, walking home from school, watched as the Israeli helicopter gunships swooped low over his head. The three machines swung their front-mounted 30mm cannons menacingly as they flew past. The tank-busting cannon was ridiculously powerful for a shanty town constructed of basic materials. The rocket pods hung ominously from the choppers’ stubby and pointless wings. Hassan noted that their path was his path. However that was nothing unusual. The Israelis constantly offered the refugees a glimpse of their awesome war machine, a reminder that they were dominant and not to be trifled with. But this was a message that Hassan was uninterested in. For him, the Palestinian — Israeli conflict was in the past. His people had to move on, adapt and progress.
Even when the rocket pods lit up, Hassan looked on with little interest. His home was in a quiet part of the camp, well away from any of the militant strongholds. It was only when the rockets began to rain down on their targets that Hassan’s breath stopped and his world ended. As the night sky lit up with a fireball of explosions, Hassan’s family and his reason for living were obliterated in a cloud of bloody ash.
Hassan met with the local Brigade Commander the next morning, after burying his entire family. Within four hours, he was in a truck heading South and by evening, he was in one of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade’s most secret and specialist training camps. The Brigade had big plans and Hassan was exactly the type of Palestinian their new plan called for.
As the customs official waved him through, Hassan breathed a huge sigh of relief and as instructed, he changed the destination on his GPS device from Corpus Christi to his real destination. The ETA changed from 2 hours 41 minutes to 28 hours 17 minutes. Just over a day until America would lose its iconic White House and with any luck, its President too.
As Hassan’s truck approached the border, the Department of Energy’s monitoring alarms triggered. Red flashing lights lit the room as the radioactive detectors did the only thing they were programmed to do, detect the imminent and immediate threat to the United States of America. The agent in charge of the monitoring station moved immediately to implement the procedure he had trained for all his professional life but had prayed would not be needed.
His first call was to the border guards to instruct them to close the border. His second was to NEST, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, to deal with the nuclear threat. The next would be to the local National Guard station which would immediately implement Martial law within a controlled area and if required, conduct an evacuation up to an area determined by the size of risk estimated by the NEST team.
As he picked up the receiver to make the first call, a hand appeared on the phone’s cradle, killing the call. The agent looked up into the dark sunglasses of a man who had appeared from nowhere.
”What the …?” exclaimed the DoE agent.
The man with the sunglasses flicked his badge open revealing a Defense Intelligence Agency badge. Before the agent could see the name, the leather holder flicked shut. Four soldiers had taken up station at the back of the office, their weapons drawn, as the DoE agent tried to study the badge.
“Way above your pay grade, your shift’s over!” replied the DIA agent, his tone leaving no room for discussion.
As the DIA agent issued his order, the soldiers moved forward as one, making it crystal clear to the DoE agent that his shift was most definitely over. Without another word, he stood up, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and made a swift exit. As he exited the building, two compact black choppers sat in the small car-park, each filled with soldiers, heavily armed and dressed entirely in black. Whatever was going on, the DIA agent had been right, this was way beyond his pay grade. How he hadn’t heard the choppers land, he didn’t know but what he did know was that he was getting the hell out of there before the inevitable hit the fan.
The DIA agent immediately went to work. All data collated over the previous few minutes was replaced with clean data. The truck that had just crossed the border and set off every potential warning signal, no longer existed. According to the data now in the system, the truck was clean.
As the DoE agent pulled out of the car park, he failed to notice a Ford F-450 pick-up pull out from the street and follow him. Ten minutes later, as they drove past one of Brownsville’s major reservoirs, the same pick-up brushed the DoE agent’s car aside like a fly swat hitting a fly. The car plunged down the embankment and straight into the water. Had the door locks and windows not been tampered with, he may have survived but all eventualities had been covered.
With his job done, the DIA agent circled his finger, signaling to the soldiers it was time to move out. As they emerged from the building, the choppers powered up and once they had boarded, immediately took off. The pilots followed the road and within minutes had caught up with the truck and were following just beyond the horizon, out of sight. Their orders were to hold off until told to take the truck down.
The pick-up driver waited until the DoE agent’s car had disappeared below the surface before turning and driving towards US 77N, the route he knew Hassan would take. He reached across and picked up the walkie-talkie from the passenger seat and pressed the transmit button.
“Team One, please give me your location.”
“We are five miles NW of Brownsville, approximately one mile behind the target, travelling at 55mph. Team Two is 200 yards behind us. We’re in position and just need the signal to take the target down,” replied the DIA agent from the first helicopter.
“Excellent, please continue to shadow the target until further orders. Out,” replied the pick-up driver as he pulled into the truck-stop on the outskirts of Brownsville. Wiping the dash and steering wheel down, he exited the pick-up and retrieved his standard issue Crown Victoria saloon car. He pulled out of the truck-stop and floored the accelerator. He quickly calculated his position, approximately ten miles behind the target. He pushed the speedo to 75 mph. In an hour, he would be 10 miles ahead of the target.
Up until three months earlier, he had had one master, the US government. They had trained him, trusted him and paid him well for his services. The DIA left no stone unturned during his application. They were aware of his Middle-Eastern background. His ability to speak the language and dialects of all major protagonists in the Middle- East had been one of the major reasons he had been recruited in the first place. His background and family affiliation had checked out and no risk was believed to be present. Zak was a solid and trusted member of the world’s most powerful intelligence agency.
However, four months earlier, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades had declared war, launching a catastrophic attack on Israel and everything had changed. Sleepers across the world were being unleashed. Calls were being made in the dead of night and a secret army was being awoken. Zak had received his call and listened intently. He didn’t like what he was being asked to do. He didn’t fully understand it, but, ultimately, he had been asked and it would be an honor to do what he could.
After forty-five minutes of driving, Zak could see Hassan’s truck ahead. He knew that the helicopters were up there somewhere but in the darkness that enveloped that part of Texas at night, he knew it was pointless even trying to spot them. The OH-6 little birds were developed to be one of the quietest and stealthiest helicopters. Even in the middle of the day, you’d struggle to spot one if the pilot didn’t want you to. Pushing the accelerator, Zak shot past Hassan, stealing a glimpse as he hurtled past. The glow of the dials gave Hassan’s face a ghostly glower. Zak’s foot subconsciously pressed harder on the accelerator.
The lack of any ambient light and traffic made this the ideal location. Zak pressed the accelerator further, constantly calculating distances as he tore away from the bomb. At 115mph, Zak was gaining a mile a minute on
