Speaking through his throat mic, Ibrahim ordered Khalid to have his team drive right towards the hole in the building and start clearing the building. His twelve-man team should be sufficient, considering they were all armed with assault rifles and the police were bound to be shell-shocked from the blast.
“Mohammed, I want you to have your team break into four groups. One group is to walk around and start killing the wounded. I want your other teams to start clearing and killing everyone in the surrounding buildings. We have exactly ten minutes to cause as much chaos and damage as possible and then we move to the warehouse and regroup for our next mission.”
“As you wish. This is a glorious day for us, Ibrahim. I am honored to be a part of your command,” said Mohammed, who quickly turned and ran towards the two vans carrying his team.
As Ibrahim walked towards the heavily damaged Starbucks across the street from the police station, he heard the moan and soft cry for help from a man lying on the sidewalk. His arm had been badly mangled from the blast and he had a terrible head wound. He reached out his good hand towards Ibrahim, begging him for help. Without thinking, he reached down, grabbed his Glock and shot the man in the face, putting him out of his misery.
For some reason, he was amazingly thirsty and his throat was dry. As he walked into the Starbucks, he saw what he was looking for — the cooler filled with bottles of water. He grabbed several bottles of water and started walking back towards his command vehicle, a black Chevy Suburban with a reinforced brush guard and bullet proof windows and doors. The sound of automatic fire emanating from the police station was intense; the police were clearly putting up one heck of a fight.
Ten minutes went by quickly; everyone had returned to the vehicles. Some were bloodied, and others were carrying a wounded comrade. “Ibrahim, we cleared the first two floors of the police station and the holding cells. We released 86 prisoners; we made sure to arm all of them and told them to go cause as much havoc as they could. Khalid lost five of his twelve guys; two of my guys were killed clearing the buildings around here,” Mohammed said as he climbed into his vehicle and took a long drink from a bottle of water Ibrahim had liberated from the Starbucks. They all started to drive away from the carnage they had just inflicted.
Dozens of sirens could be heard as three police cruisers drove past their vehicles, heading towards the police headquarters. “How did you lose two men while clearing that office building?”
“Several employees apparently had concealed weapons. As soon as the shooting started, they quickly shot two of my guys before they were gunned down themselves,” explained Mohammed.
“Make sure all of the men are aware that anyone they see could be armed, so we should treat them all as hostiles. Now we will head back to the warehouse to rearm and get ready for our next mission.”
Grabbing his cell phone, Ibrahim made a quick call to Sami Abbas. He had recruited Sami two years ago to be the group’s primary hacker. His mission today was to disable the traffic cameras in the city and delete the hard drives. “Sami, this is Ibrahim. Have you completed your task?”
“Yes, Ibrahim. It has been done. The cameras are disabled and the hard drives are deleted. Do you want me to start hacking into the power grid?”
“Yes, do what you can. Any destruction and distraction you can provide will greatly aid the cause.”
“I’m on it,” said Sami as he hung up.
The month of October and going into the Presidential election was a month of pure terror across most of the US. Sixty-eight terrorist attacks had taken place striking malls, movie theaters, restaurants, business offices, hospitals and police stations since the 2nd of October. The entire American way of life and freedom of movement was under attack by Islamic extremists. 42,375 Americans had been killed by these horrific attacks, which were now starting to alienate anyone who looked as if they came from the Middle East or practiced Islam.
Mosques were starting to be attacked in retaliation for attacks against churches and synagogues. When a Muslim group in Washington DC held a rally to denounce the attacks against Muslims in America, they themselves were attacked by armed factions within the US population who had had enough of the attacks being carried out by Muslim extremists and looked for a way to vent their anger.
As the election neared, the three political parties made their case to the American people. The Democrats were saying that the US needed to reconcile its past with Islam and the Middle East to achieve true peace. The Republicans were demanding war against the Islamic Republic. The FP continued to stress the economic revival taking place in the US and emphasized the successful capture of hundreds of Islamic extremists before they were able to execute their attacks.
“Mr. President, it would appear that you are going to win by a landslide. Forty states are reporting results in so far, and you’ve won 38 of them,” said Monty as he muted the television in the residence.
“I think you are right Monty; it looks like this is as good a time as any to declare victory. We’ve clearly won enough electoral votes to claim it.”
“I agree. Four more years Mr. President — we did it,” said Monty. He smiled and thought to himself, “Four more years. Four more years to right this country and the world.”
The President had planned on celebrating Thanksgiving with the troops in Mexico, but due to multiple credible assignation plots, the trip had been cancelled. So the President enjoyed his Thanksgiving dinner with his family at the White House, and as was customary in the Stein family, they overate and sat around watching football. Unfortunately, things around the world forced the President back to work halfway through the 4th quarter of the afternoon game.
“I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving; it is unfortunate that we have to shorten our holiday, but the issue with the IR needs to be resolved.”
“Mr. President, we have collected enough evidence from the DOJ, FBI, DIA and the CIA to present a clear case to both the American people and to Congress to declare war on the Islamic Republic. There is no refuting the evidence; the question now is — when do we start launching cruise missiles?” asked Director Rubio, the head of the CIA.
“General Branson, what is the state of our military forces? How soon can we be in a position to strike at the IR?” asked the President.
“We have begun a quiet shift in forces from Mexico and other combat divisions from the states to various ports on the East Coast to be moved by transport. We have moved over 400 Special Forces personnel to Israel along with a full Air Wing of F35s. We also have most of Third Corps arriving over the weekend.”
“Fortunately, the IR is also moving a lot of their forces into the local region for their ‘supposed’ exercise. I suggest we launch our attack soon to pre-empt them and catch the bulk of their forces by surprise before they can get fully organized,” said Branson.