The first prayer must take place before dawn.
After prayer was complete and the mats placed in the designated area of the mosque, Khan called them together to explain the turn of events, the change in plans that moved their attacks to the next day.
Khan noticed four of the men eagerly awaited the mission. Their destiny in Paradise. The youngest, however didn’t react with the same enthusiasm as the others. He was somber and withdrawn. This one, Khan decided, he would watch.
After the meeting, the five men were sent to cleanse and purify their souls. Hair would be cut. Faces would be shaven. A necessary step before the glory of tomorrow. The remainder of the day they would spend in prayer in preparation for Paradise.
Khan left the men in the imam’s care while he drove into Paris. One last look at his targets. One last glimpse at the historic landmarks before their destruction. The evil West would get what it deserved — death and destruction — and it would be swift and without warning. Many would die, perhaps thousands. Many more would be injured. When the dust settled, the Infidel would again know the power of Allah.
They would know fear.
CHAPTER 39
Jake was the first to notice when Isabella Hunt regained consciousness. Her eyes distant, pupils dilated, and brow creased with a troubled look on her face. He nudged Bentley with his elbow, “Sir. Isabella’s coming to.”
Kaplan moved to her bedside and grabbed her hand. “How do you feel?”
One of the doctors examined her then turned to Bentley, “She’s all yours, sir. She’ll be a little groggy for a while but she should be able to answer questions. Just don’t push too hard, she’s been through a lot.”
Five minutes later Jake heard Hunt give Bentley news causing his pulse to quicken. Hashim Khan had planned two terrorist attacks in Paris. His mind was clouded with only one thought. Kyli and her friend are going to Paris.
Jake grabbed Wiley’s arm. “Sir, Kyli and her friend…uh Kate—”
“Kates?”
“Yeah that’s it, Kates. They are on their way to Paris now.” Jake said. “They’re planning on staying for a few days. We need to contact her and tell her to get out of there.”
“I’ll go to the bridge and use the satellite phone.” Wiley said. “You find out what you can from Ms Hunt.”
Wiley turned and left the small room.
Hunt revealed the information she’d gathered while working for the Hilal Shipping Company in Aden. Two simultaneous attacks were planned for high-profile Paris landmarks specifically chosen by Khan to guarantee a high body count. She didn’t know the landmarks nor did the man who owned the shipping company. Khan never shared his targets with anyone.
After twenty minutes, Hunt stopped talking. Jake, along with Bentley and Kaplan had absorbed and processed the information Isabella Hunt had shared with them. If the timetable Hunt laid out was accurate, Jake had ample time to avert the strike on the French targets. He needed to get to Paris as soon as possible. If Bentley couldn’t get him there, he knew Wiley could.
Wiley came back with a distressed look on his face. “I can’t get in touch with Kyli.”
“What do you mean?” Jake asked.
“I called her apartment, no answer.” Wiley said. “I called the office and they said she wouldn’t be back for a few days. So, naturally I called her cell phone next…”
“And?”
“And my office manager in Leuven answered.”
“She must have forgot to unforward her calls.” Jake said.
“That’s what I thought too.” Wiley said. “But she answered Kyli’s actual phone. Kyli left it at the office. I have no way of getting in touch with her. Sometimes Kyli does personify the absent minded professor.”
“What about her friend? Can we get her number?”
“Already thought of that, Jake. I had my office manager call Kates’ mother in Florida.” Wiley shook his head. “Kates doesn’t have international service.”
“Scott,” Wiley said. “Jake and I need to go to Paris. If you can get us to Sigonella, I’ll make arrangements to have us picked up there. I’ll also alert the French Gendarmerie.”
“Sorry, E.W.” Bentley said. “You can’t go. I’ll send Gregg with Jake. You and I have business that can’t wait. Not even for your granddaughter.”
Jake and Kaplan were picked up by a helicopter and transported to an aircraft carrier patrolling the Gulf of Aden. They touched down on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz class nuclear-powered super-carrier. Jake and Kaplan were allowed thirty minutes to rest, eat, and change into flight gear. They were then loaded into separate F/A 18F Super Hornets.
Five minutes later Jake and his pilot were catapulted into the air over the blue water. The rapid acceleration and resulting g-forces sent a wave of nausea through him but he forced back the bile as the jet fighter rocketed into the afternoon sky. He’d flown in a fighter jet once before and he didn’t like it then either. The hotshot pilots always wanted to impress their riders — or more accurately themselves — by over-controlling the aircraft at the sake of their riders’ stomachs. Another sick rider, another tale for happy hour. On his first flight he’d vomited in the sic-sac. He vowed it wouldn’t happen again.
The first thirty minutes were spent in silence, the only noise being the communications between the pilot and the air traffic controllers. Jake couldn’t help but remember something Wiley had said to him while they were on Wiley’s Citation jet enroute to Belgium, “In all likelihood, the next few days will be life altering for you.” It seemed like such a long time ago and so much had happened since Wiley spoke those words. He’d been running on pure adrenaline. It felt like days since he’d slept and he was exhausted. He needed to rest, it would be a long night and he and Kaplan would probably spend it awake.
“Sir?” The pilot broke the silence. “This flight is quite irregular. You and the other man must know someone pretty important to pull this off. I’ve only seen this once before…it was terrorist related.”
“Captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This mission is classified and never took place,” Jake spoke into the fighter’s intercom. “A lot of lives are at stake. The order came from the top.”
“I hope you stop the bastards, sir.”
“Me too, Captain.” Against his closed eyelids, Jake saw Kyli and her pleading face. “Me too.”
CHAPTER 40
Jake watched the last of the day’s light lose its battle to darkness while the underside of KC-10 tanker aircraft loomed above the F/A 18F’s canopy. With a supersonic range of just under 1900 miles, the Super Hornets were incapable of making the nearly three thousand mile hop from the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf of Aden to the Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily without refueling along the way. And the only option available was the tanker that was already in the eastern Mediterranean preparing for a refueling exercise with a combat squadron based on a carrier currently patrolling the Mediterranean. With one phone call before the helicopter picked up Jake and Kaplan, Bentley had overridden the Mediterranean carrier’s objective with a mission priority status issued by the President.
According to Hunt’s briefing, the explosives were shipped to a small French Islamic community west of Paris called Trappes. Khan was to setup in the Mosque de Trappes and ready five suicide bombers for the two unknown targets in Paris. The only additional information she could provide was that Khan had assured his superior that the targets were guaranteed to be highly visible and packed with tourists. In Paris, that list was long. But with five more days, Jake assumed he and Kaplan would be able to cull the list of probable targets down to a manageable number.