CHAPTER 86
VIRGIN GORDA
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
Located on the North Sound of the small island of Virgin Gorda was one of the best-kept secrets in the world. Accessible only by sea, the Bitter End Yacht Club was the last island outpost before the open waters of the Atlantic.
It was where Matthew Dodd and his wife, Lisa, had spent their honeymoon and to where Dodd had now returned.
He had flown into Tortola’s Beef Island airport and walked the three hundred yards to Trellis Bay where the boat he had chartered was waiting. Though he could have taken the high speed ferry to Bitter End, Dodd didn’t want to mingle with other people. He had come to be alone.
After leaving Poplar Forest, he had come to a painful conclusion. Just as he had duped Andrew Salam, he himself had been duped. He had been playing with fools; engaging in business with men who weren’t properly equipped to further Islam’s aims. The entire religion was being subverted by men who pursued Islamic supremacism at all costs. They were neither worthy of the fealty Dodd had sworn to them, nor were they worthy of their exalted positions as spokespersons and representatives of true Muslim faith in America. They hungered for power under the guise of Islam rather than for the sake of Islam. They were apostate.
Dodd was also beginning to believe that in this grand struggle there was no “right” side to be aligned with after all. Maybe there were only right actions.
The assassin checked in at the front desk with only a backpack slung over one shoulder. The cottage built above the beach looking out over the aquamarine Caribbean water was just as he remembered it. Nothing had changed. As Dodd quietly unpacked his few possessions, he thought about the better times in his life.
He remembered Lisa’s love of snorkeling and her delight over the Bitter End’s brilliant array of wrasses, damselfish, and parrotfish. He smiled as he recalled the hours she had spent among the colorful sponges and corals just offshore.
Removing his clothes, the assassin slid into a pair of trunks and walked down to the beach. He’d dealt with sand extensively over the last several years-in his hair, in his eyes, his food, his weapons, but not between his toes where it really belonged. It felt good as the warmth radiated up through his body.
Dodd walked into the wet sand and allowed the sea to lap at his feet. Slowly he moved forward until he was up to his waist in the warm water.
After marking the time on his watch, he submersed himself beneath the surface and began swimming.
He pulled with long, powerful strokes for over half an hour. When he stepped back onto the beach, his breathing was shallow and his pulse rapid. His mind felt clear and sharp.
Outside the cottage, he cleaned the sand from his feet and then opened the screen door and stepped inside.
He stripped out of his swimsuit and rinsed off in a hot shower. With his hair slicked back and a towel wrapped around his waist, he retrieved his backpack, a glass, and walked out onto the wraparound veranda.
He placed everything on the table, sat down, and powered up his satellite phone. As it worked to establish a signal, Dodd opened one of the bottles of Arundel rum he’d bought at the airport in Tortola and poured three fingers into his glass. He and Lisa had gone through at least two bottles of it during their honeymoon.
The brown liquid burned as it went down and though it had been years since he had had a drink, the taste and the sensation were pleasant and familiar, like coming home.
His Koran should not have been sitting right there next to a bottle of alcohol. He knew that, just as he knew that he should not begin drinking again. Alcohol had only added to the darkness and despair of losing his wife and son, but here he and his Koran were anyway.
He had prayed relentlessly for guidance, but none had come. After retrieving the al-Jazari device, he had studied his heart and made his plans accordingly.
The assassin looked down at the glass in his hand and laughed. Though he was far from soft, he certainly wasn’t exhibiting much self-discipline at the moment.
Islam
Nevertheless, he knew that Omar with his hate-spewing mosques and Waleed with his laughably corrupt Foundation on American Islamic Relations were all standing in the way of the truly good work Islam could do in America. The two men were not part of the solution. They were abominations and unquestionably part of the problem.
Dodd poured himself another drink. He sipped slowly at it as he watched the minutes tick away on his watch.
At the appointed time, he picked up the satellite phone and dialed Sheik Omar’s private number.
Omar picked up on the first ring. “Is that you, Majd?” he asked.
“It is I,” said the assassin.
“Allah be praised. We have been so worried about you since your last call. We barely had any time to speak. Did you find it? The invention of al-Jazari?”
“I did.”
“Allahu Akbar, my brother. Allahu Akbar.” The sheik was overjoyed. “Allah’s work-our work is now secure. Allahu Akbar!”
“Are you at your desk?” asked Dodd.
“Of course I am. You’ve called me on my private line.”
“And Abdul is with you?”
“He is sitting right here,” replied Omar. “Just as you requested. When can you bring us the device?”
Dodd had no intention of staying on the phone any longer than he needed to. “Stay right there and don’t move,” he said. “I will call you back in thirty seconds.”
Omar, though frustrated, respected the need for security. What’s more, he was so happy with his assassin that at this point the man could have asked anything of him and he would have gladly obliged. “I understand,” he said. “We will be right here waiting.
Dodd hung up with the words
A man of his word, the assassin began dialing the digits almost immediately, except they weren’t for the sheik’s private line. They belonged to a cell phone attached to an improvised explosive device that had been hidden behind Omar’s desk.
CHAPTER 87
BITTER END YACHT CLUB
THE NEXT EVENING
As the last rays of daylight faded, Scot Harvath watched Matthew Dodd drain the final drops out of the bottle he was drinking and stumble inside his cottage.
Having watched the man drink himself into a stupor, Harvath liked his odds. It didn’t mean the assassin wasn’t still dangerous, but it did mean his reflexes and his situational awareness would be significantly dulled.
Harvath put away his binoculars and grabbed his dry bag, grateful to finally be going topside. Though he had rented a sizeable sailboat for the operation, being cooped up belowdecks with not much of a breeze for the better part of the afternoon was not his idea of the perfect Caribbean getaway.
Needless to say, he was here to work, not to play. But a luxury yacht beat any of the snake-, scorpion-, or bug-infested hide sites he’d been forced to endure over the course of his career. Life, especially an enjoyable one, was all about perspective and as Harvath checked the restraints in the cabin he had prepared for Matthew Dodd,
