“But you will not merely martyr yourselves,” he continued, his voice tight with emotion. “You will become a warrior for the cause — a sword of God. And with that sword, you will take many thousands of infidels with you when you die. They will plunge into the fires of hell, while each one of you climbs to the very Gates of Paradise!”
The martyrs leaped to their feet, shook their fists in the air, and howled for the blood of the infidel.
“Your chariots await you!” Noor cried. “Go and smite the enemies of God. With each blow of your sword, cut out their lying tongues. Pierce their evil hearts with your spears. Open their throats with your knives! Blow them up with your explosives. Shoot them with your guns. Burn them with your fire!”
Faces contorted by hatred and anger, the narcotics mag-nifying their emotions, the men howled like maddened wolves.
“Go, Warriors of God,” Noor shouted. “Shower destruction and death on our enemies and show no mercy toward the infidel’s children or their women. Go! Go and smite the unfaithful. End this abomination and enslavement the West calls civilization. End it forever!”
“Yes!” Farshid Amadani cried when he heard his cue.
He leaped in front of the podium, brandishing an AK–47 over his head.
“Come,” bellowed the Hawk, “let us rain destruction down on the unfaithful!”
The martyrs burst from the Community Center and charged down Kurmastan’s deserted main street. Crying for blood, they reached the factory and swarmed around their assigned trucks. Some ran final checks on the vehicles; others armed themselves from their cache of weapons.
The sound of roaring engines filled the hot afternoon.
Diesel fumes belched, filling the compound with blue smoke. Then, one by one, the trucks rolled toward the gate.
As they rumbled through town, wives and children peeked out of their windows to watch the vehicles pass.
They peered through dust kicked up by a hundred spinning wheels, hoping for a final glance at their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, their uncles.
Those billowing clouds hung over the tiny settlement long after the last truck rumbled through the security gate.
“I’m really sorry, Agent Almeida,” the woman said, a frown curling her glossed lips. “On a good day, you can make this trip in twenty minutes, but that mess at the Holland Tunnel really set us back.”
While she spoke, Rachel Delgado kept her eyes on the road. Tony Almeida, unaccustomed to riding in the passenger seat, mostly watched her.
“Don’t apologize,” he replied. “Anyway, the sign says that we’re almost there.”
Rachel slipped into the left lane. As she steered them onto the exit ramp, she gave Tony a sidelong glance.
“Next stop, Newark. My hometown.”
They drove for a few minutes in silence. As in many urban areas, Newark’s hospital was in the older part of town. Soon they reached a squalid street lined with graffiti-scarred bodegas, check-cashing outlets, liquor stores, and boarded-up businesses.
“Are you really from Newark?” Tony asked.
Rachel’s eyes flashed with amusement. “Born and raised in University Heights, right here in the Central Ward. See that place with the tall fence and the barbed wire at the top? That’s the junior high school I almost flunked out of.”
She grinned. “Not the nicest community in America, maybe, but it’s my hood.”
Her expression was suddenly guarded. “I admit it wasn’t easy. I made a lot of mistakes when I was young. But there were people who took an interest. Saw a future for me that I couldn’t see.”
“People?”
The silence hung heavy for a moment. “People,” Rachel said at last. “Community groups. Mentors. Teachers.
At a traffic light, she faced Tony. “You have that look, you know.”
Tony frowned. “Look? What look?”
“That swagger. Don’t con a con man. You were a street kid, too, Agent Almeida.”
Tony snorted, and a smile flashed across his guarded face. “Yeah. And call me Tony.”
Rachel waited a moment, then two, for Tony to say more, but he stopped talking. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, Mr. Mysterious. I get it. Chitchat’s over and it’s back to business. There’s the hospital, anyway.”
Rachel twisted the steering wheel. Tires squealed in protest, and the van swerved into the visitors’ parking lot.
Brice Holman stepped out of the shabby motel room, into the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. Head throbbing, he slipped a pair of dark glasses over his eyes, then popped the top of a small bottle of Advil with his teeth. He quickly gulped down the last three pills dry, then tossed the plastic bottle into a trash bin.
Holman had checked into the Novelty Inn a few hours before. As soon as he got to the room, he had showered and shaved. Still dripping, he tried to call Judy Foy again, and then again, but got only her voice mail. He wanted to call Jason Emmerick next, to see if the two “packages”
had arrived on the Montreal to Newark flight, but it was just too risky.
Bad enough Emmerick and his partner, Leight, were communicating with Judy nearly every day. At least the three of them had concocted a phony cover story about a smuggling ring working out of Newark International to cover their tracks.
If Holman tried to contact Emmerick, it would set off alarms at the Bureau and prompt an investigation that might compromise, or even expose the rogue operation.
Better to wait for the rendezvous at noon, Holman had decided. He could talk to the two FBI agents then.
But noon came and went with no sign of Emmerick or Leight. When Holman finally relented and called them, he got voice mail and left no message.
By one p.m., Holmen knew something had gone wrong.
Either the situation at the compound was exploding, and Foy, Emmerick, and Leight were caught up in it. Or his Deputy Director and the two FBI agents had been taken into custody by their superiors, the rogue operation exposed. If that was the case, they were looking for him right now.
Either way, Holman was effectively alone. He knew he had to act, had to get inside that compound in Kurmastan.
Unfortunately, there was only one way to do that, now, and it involved endangering civilians who might already be in danger.
His decision made, Holman hurriedly dressed in fresh clothes and left the motel room. His destination was the Nazareth Unitarian Church in Milton, New Jersey, where a group led by United States Congresswoman Hailey Williams and the pastor, Reverend James Wendell Ahern, were scheduled to travel to the compound and meet with one of its leaders, Ibrahim Noor.
As Holman guided his Ford Explorer out of the motel parking lot, he watched a truck rumble down Route 12, heading west. Holman realized the vehicle was from Kurmastan when he saw the Dreizehn Trucking logo on the unpainted aluminum trailer.
Holman wondered if the truck was carrying cardboard containers, or a more deadly cargo, like the one he’d seen earlier. If he was lucky, he’d know in a few hours.
Minutes later, Holman spied another Dreizehn Trucking trailer roar past him on the highway. This time he
