Three seconds.
“Sir, I'm asking you again to state your purpose.”
Shazad nodded, produced a set of counterfeit documents, and held them out the window for the guard.
Two seconds.
The guard reacted with a measure of caution by arching a brow as he reached for the documents. He eyeballed them briefly.
“We have no confirmation of your arrival from Main Gate."
One second.
Shazad gave a cocky grin. “I don’t think that really matters much."
The guard’s eyes suddenly detonated with the realization that the JBAB had been breached. He raised the point of his firearm. But Shazad beat the guard to the draw, directing his suppressed weapon to a particular point on the man’s forehead.
He pulled the trigger.
The guard stood for a long moment as a ribbon of smoke exited from the bloodless wound, his eyes now alight with wonder as the moment of death approached, and then he fell like a stone to the ground, hard and fast.
The other three sentries opened up immediately, strafing gunfire across the truck’s armor-plated body in a volley of shots that forced Shazad to duck down inside the cab.
Zero.
At that precise moment Shazad’s unit exited the vehicles, took immediate position, and then fired upon the exposed guards with punishing shots that gored their flesh. Bullets repeatedly found their marks, the impacts causing the guards to shudder in seizure for a moment before falling.
As the last shot echoed off into the distance, Shazad sat up and shouted a single command: “Move!”
Two of Shazad’s computer operatives went to a keypad situated to the left of the doors, removed its panel, and attached the leads from a handheld meter to the motherboard. Numbers began to scroll down the five windows on the meter’s screen at rapid pace.
And then the warning sirens began to sound off — a high, keening wail that could be heard throughout the JBAB.
Over his lip mike, Shazad intoned: “Mabad, Azlan, take position and may Allah grant you all your wishes in Paradise. It has been an honor to have you both serve under my command.”
“Same, Shazad. We will not disappoint you.”
“I know you won’t. You never have.”
The two smallest cargo trucks — those not long enough to carry the required payloads — pulled out of formation. One headed for the barracks, the other for the Motor Pool.
Shazad turned back to his team by the doors, knowing that the numbers on the meter were now beginning to reveal a set combination. The first number was 4, the second was 3, and the third was 8. There were two numbers left to go for the entry code as the numerals in the last two columns moved with blinding speed, then slowed, the final two values beginning to position themselves.
The numeral 6 appeared and held in the fourth digit position.
The sirens continued to wail.
One number left to go.
Shazad looked at his watch: thirteen minutes. They were falling behind.
The final number in the window was 0.
The doors began to part.
Everyone inside the barracks of Charlie Unit galvanized themselves the moment the sirens went off. They grabbed their weapons and headed for the doors, each man taking a unified position as their commander keyed the radio. “Charlie to Base Unit! I say again, Charlie to Base Unit!”
Nothing but white static. Base Unit, or the main gate, had been compromised.
As the defense outfit readied themselves to push forward, they found themselves caught within high-powered cones of light emanating from a cargo truck that barreled in their direction. At first they thought it was support. But as the truck sped up and veered directly toward the barracks with no obvious inclination to slow down, they raised their weapons and fired, the bullets shattering the headlights and the windshield.
But still the truck kept on coming.
Mabad had been born in Michigan, and like Shazad, had grown up under the lifestyle of two cultures — one of his people and the other as a natural-born citizen of the United States. And like Shazad, he had found America to be a land of temptations, a place where God had no foothold whatsoever. People were wanton in their ways, always wanting but never giving. They valued goods and precious stones, flaunting luxuries because it was in their nature to do so. They lived in twenty-four carat neighborhoods, while his people suffered in muddy hovels. And they did this with their God being little more than an afterthought, when they should have been showering Him with praises.
Unlike Shazad, who had grown up in Detroit, he had been raised in Dearborn, home to the largest Arab population in the country. Mabad, like Shazad, had come to enjoy the temptations that America provided. But when nine-eleven happened, he and his people had been vilified overnight, always coming under the sudden scrutiny of government eyes that began to profile members of his community, especially the high-principals who governed the mosques. Though he was a natural-born citizen, he felt less like one as the days, months and years pressed on, the government affording them the illusion that they were protected by the constitution as scribed by the forefathers, that everyone was equal. But over time it became apparent to him that the same conditions, rules and systems did not apply to him or his kind. It was as though they lived under a microscope, while the fair-skinned, blue-eyed kids he grew up with were always above suspicion. At least this is what he believed.
Even though an official war had not been declared on the home-front, a war still existed, nonetheless.
After weathering the storm in the aftermath of nine-eleven, his beliefs became increasingly radical, his anger slow brewing in an invisible vat constructed from the beliefs of his native culture. And like Shazad, he, too, had made connections. When he turned eighteen, with Allah strong in his heart, he joined the U.S. military and trained amongst them, learning their ways until he became a seasoned soldier gifted with all of the tools necessary to kill.
He was now attacking his enemy from the inside.
As he neared the barracks he could see the heavily armed troops lining up. He floored the pedal, gunning the engine, the truck accelerating as it made a direct route towards the troops that were being shored up with additional fighters.
As he closed in, he could read by their expressions that they were ill-prepared for battle. Their looks alone satisfied him to the point that he already felt victorious, knowing that Paradise was only a few heartbeats away.
Allah will be pleased.
In his right hand was a detonator. Neatly packed in the rear of the truck sat twenty-five pounds of Semtex plastic explosives.
He began to apply pressure to the detonator with his thumb.
Then the lights of his vehicle were blown out with bullet strikes. After that his windshield spiderwebbed, the fissures expanding, then cracking under the constant hail of gunfire. Bullets began to penetrate the weakened windshield as rounds zipped past his ears with waspy hums.
One bullet, however, found its mark.
Mabad took one to the chest, his pain that of white-hot agony. And then another lodged deep in his left shoulder, the punch of the bullet causing him to turn the wheel of the vehicle to the left, veering off course. He then course corrected by righting his line of direction.
The truck was now bearing down and looming larger within their sights.
As Mabad relished in delight that he was the one to make the first shot across the proverbial bow, he held the detonator trigger high, and shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” God is the Greatest!