“He will see you now,” said Amir as he opened the door. His unkempt and tousled hair was now groomed.
Nick nodded and, taking the briefcase but leaving the weapons, followed Amir out of the small apartment he had been allocated and along a corridor to Mohammed Farsi’s far larger apartment. The entire top floor had been taken over by the group. The building stood in the center of the complex amongst a number of other high-rise apartment blocks. Nick assumed lookouts were stationed in all of the surrounding buildings and any suggestion of a raid or assault by the authorities would be spotted well in advance. The apartment block had numerous exits and roads leading away from it. It was, in his expert opinion, an excellent and safe base, certainly somewhere that would suit his needs should it be needed.
Nick entered what he assumed to be the main place of worship for the group. A disproportionately large room had been created by knocking together three smaller rooms. A wash area, the wudhu, was set into the far wall opposite the Mihrab, which denoted the qibla wall and the direction of Mecca. Nick removed his shoes and placed them on the wooden slats by the doorway before entering. He proceeded directly towards the wudhu and under the eyes of the group already in the room, performed the ritual washing routine before prayer. Once completed, he stood up and joined the group.
“Would you lead us?” asked Mohammed Farsi.
“Of course,” he said, smiling to the group of twenty men that hung on his every word.
Nick turned and faced the qibla before leading the most senior Al Qaeda members in France through the Salat al-Zhur midday prayer.
With the prayer complete, the questions began to rain down. The group had been summoned and had spent many hours travelling through convoluted routes to meet the man who brought a message from their Caliph and who had so nearly killed the living embodiment of Shaytan (Satan) on earth.
Nick raised his hand to silence the group. He had much to tell them and then he would take their questions.
He outlined the plan he had formulated with the Caliph. Specifics would be divulged when required to ensure the operational security and ultimate success of their mission. Nick apologized throughout as he skirted over details and the numbers of jihadists that he would utilize. It was vital, he explained, for the security of the plan, that the Caliph’s dream be protected until the last moment. If any jihadist or member of the leadership were captured by the authorities, the plan would be protected. As of that moment, all that was important was delivering the Caliph’s dream for Allah. Nothing else mattered. The jihadist groups had to come together as one to fight for the Caliphate that the Caliph and Allah deserved. When he finished, no one spoke. The scale of the plan that had just been described to them was beyond anything they had ever dared to imagine. Even without the fine details, the devastation it would cause would dwarf 9/11, which had up until that moment been the pinnacle of their efforts.
With his audience speechless, Nick told them what he needed from them. He needed an army of true believers, not just from Al Qaeda but from across the Muslim world. He needed men who were willing to give their lives to the cause but not those who simply offered those words vacuously. He needed men who had proved their worth, trained soldiers ready to fight and give their lives to Allah.
The group nodded as one and began to leave in a hurry. They had work to do. They had the jihadists within their groups to select for the Caliph’s plan — the men who matched Nick’s exacting standards and who would make their leader proud to be part of Nick’s army.
Nick took Mohammed to one side as the rest of the group left the building. “Have you got everything I asked for?”
Mohammed nodded and led Nick out of the prayer room and along the corridor to an exit staircase. One floor down, he led him to an apartment door being guarded by another two youths. The youths stepped aside and let the men enter. A bed sat in the middle of the room, enclosed within a plastic tent. A small generator ensured that filters cleansed the air leaving the tent.
Nick surveyed the room. “That was very quick,” he said, impressed.
“A lot of the people around here work at the local hospital. We immigrants are good for cleaning,” he said bitterly.
“And the guinea pig?”
Farsi led Nick through to the next room. Two women in full burkas and a man sat on the floor, bound and gagged. Fear raged in their eyes as Nick and Farsi entered the room.
“What are the charges?” asked Nick.
Farsi pointed to the first woman, her eyes pleading. “This one, adultery”. Moving to the second one. “This one, also adultery.”
Nick noted the area around the eye of the second woman was bruised.
Farsi moved to the man. “This man, rape,” he said with disgust for all three.
Nick walked forward and removed the veils that covered both women’s faces. They immediately dipped their heads to avoid his gaze but not enough to hide that they were both severely bruised.
“Did he rape them?” asked Nick.
Farsi nodded. Nick took a step closer to the rapist and forced his knee into the man’s genitals and pushed hard. The man tried to scream but the gag stopped him. Nick pushed harder and removed the gag. “How many others?” he asked.
“None!” said the man struggling against the pain. Nick pushed harder, feeling one of the man’s testicles begin to burst. “Six!!!!” screamed the man.
“The Caliph did not believe rape was an adulterous act,” said Nick. “It encourages scum like this to rape our women! There are six other women who have been too scared to tell what this man has done to them for fear of reprisals against them for his acts. Do what you wish with the women, the rapist will be my guinea pig.”
Farsi shouted for the youths to escort the women back to a holding room where their ultimate fates would be decided by the Al Qaeda-led council that ran the local community under strict Sharia law.
The youths returned after depositing the women and followed Nick’s orders. They took the rapist to the bed and strapped him down. Nick checked the camera that he had requested was in place and had a good view of the bed and the rapist. He also checked that the field of vision offered no peripheral insights into the location. Likewise, the names of any branded products were taped over to offer those watching no clues as to where or even in which country the recording was made. The man was stripped bare except for a small pair of medical pants to cover his genitals. His face was partially covered with a mask to stop any facial features being recognized.
Nick combed the specks of powder out of his hair with water and removed the spectacles. He double-checked everything then hit the record function and stepped into the camera’s field of vision.
“Ladies and gentlemen of America…” he began, then proceeded to spill out a hate-filled rhetoric of how disgusting and ashamed the Americans should be of their lives, how unworthy they were of Allah and how they were to be punished. Leaving the plastic tent briefly, he appeared back fully dressed in protective gear. His face, although behind a mask, was visible enough to confirm that it was still him.
Safely ensconced in his protective gear and within the tent, Nick opened the metal briefcase. A small hiss accompanied the seal being broken on the airtight case, revealing rows of vials with small amounts of liquid inside. Nick removed one, then took a syringe and removed the liquid. The rapist was fighting desperately and futilely against his restraints.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Ebola Zaire virus,” said Nick, holding the syringe up to the camera, “one of the most deadly viruses known to man. It is highly contagious and has a 95 % mortality rate. It acts fast and travels through the air with ease. If you wish to see how deadly and how fast it acts, this feed will continue live until the man lying here dies a horrific and painful death.”