Al-Matari said, “Remember, you all came here telling your loved ones you would attend language school. You all have return flights. You will all go home on your return flights, and you will not take your weapons. I will bring everything you need to America, and I will deliver it to you before you begin operations.”
As al-Matari talked operational details, the headlights of a pickup truck appeared in the distance, near the corrugated metal buildings. The truck parked, and a man climbed out and then looked around. Al-Matari shined a flashlight toward the man that would be easily visible in the dusk, letting him know his position.
Three hundred meters away, the man began walking toward the group in the dry streambed.
Al-Matari turned back to the students of the Language School. “You will all leave tonight, but before you go, I have one final exercise. The man coming this way owns the shell company that purchased this property, and I asked him to come here to collect the last of his money this evening.” He paused a moment. “He is an infidel. He can identify me, and he has shown suspicion about what we are doing.”
The African American woman from Mississippi raised her hand. “The trainers… They are infidels, they sure as hell knew what we were up to.”
Al-Matari nodded and smiled. “This morning your trainers from Guatemala boarded a helicopter they had stored in a hangar near Playa El Zonte, an hour-and-a-half drive southwest of here. They planned on returning home by flying below radar into Guatemala. Two associates of mine prepared a surprise for them on their helicopter. When they were off the coast and within sight of the Guatemalan border, their helicopter exploded at an altitude of two hundred feet. There were no survivors.”
No one said anything, but some eyes widened.
He pointed to the man approaching, now two hundred yards away.
“Each of the five cells will speak quietly to one another, and you will, together, elect one member of your unit to kill this man who is approaching us now. Pick the one you believe will be the best representative of you to draw blood in front of me. Your most sure killer. When I have my five selectees, I will make the final choice. You have one minute to decide.”
The man was fifty meters away by the time the choices were made. Al-Matari was proud in his abilities as a leader of warriors. He’d correctly predicted the chosen killer in four of the five units. The fifth group, Atlanta, had selected the twenty-two-year-old female college student from Mississippi to do the deed. A mild surprise; he thought she would be their logistics expert, the brains of the unit. That still might well be the case, but the fact she was also the one designated as the first to draw blood for the unit impressed him.
The man arrived at the group now, sweating in the night’s heat. He was well into his sixties and seemed uncomfortable and agitated to be here. He looked around at the students, then up to al-Matari.
Al-Matari smiled at him and then, without saying a word, he drew his knife, and stabbed the man through the throat. The man had made no reaction to the movement at all before the blade plunged down, slicing into his airway.
Blood spewed, the Latin man gurgled and wheezed as he crumpled to the rocks of the streambed, then he lay there still.
Al-Matari turned to the others. He saw the shock and confusion on their faces. “Very well,” he said, still trying to get his pulse back to normal. “Your assignment was not, in fact, as I had described. If I am present, I need no help in killing an infidel.”
He wiped the knife off on a handkerchief and returned it to the scabbard hidden under his shirt.
“Each cell has just chosen its leader. Your killers are your leaders. I want killers in charge because that, first, foremost, and fully, is your job. Do you all understand?”
One of the Atlanta team, the Jordanian American with the student visa, switched into Arabic to address Musa al-Matari. “No! I will not serve under a woman! We put her forward to test her dedication, not because she was a leader!”
Al-Matari glared at the young man. “Then you disobeyed my order. Maybe I’ll have her kill you to prove her leadership ability.”
Al-Matari looked at the woman, who had no idea what was being discussed. In English, he said, “Number twenty-seven, are you ready to lead these men into war?”
Twenty-two-year-old Angela Watson replied, “Oh, yes, sir. I will not fail.”
Al-Matari nodded. The Jordanian American fell silent.
“Now you will all return to America. Not to your mosque, not to your friends, not to your Muslim way of life. No. You will go to safe houses we have arranged, you will live quietly, establish your peaceful, nonthreatening routines, give all those around you no reason at all to be suspicious of you.
“And then, as soon as I arrive and deliver your weapons, I will assign targets. When these targets are destroyed, inshallah, I will assign more, and more, and more. As new recruits beg to join the jihad you, my brothers and sisters, will arm them and send them on their way, directly into the soft targets. But your main mission will always be direct action against the military and intelligence arms of America.”
He smiled. “A month from now… chaos. Three months from now… the armies of the West will be leaving to fight in the caliphate. One year from now, inshallah… the permanent retreat of the West, devastated and demoralized, the bodies of their dead left behind to fertilize our fields. They will run and they will never return. Within five years the caliphate will vanquish the Shiites, including Iran, and we will control their oil. The caliphate will destroy the tyrants in Mecca, the Saudis, the King’s severed head at the foot of the Ka’ba, and we will control the oil to the south.
“The West will not be able to burn us in the nuclear fires, because our oil fields will last a thousand years, and without this fuel the West will die.”
He squeezed his hand in front of his face. “We will own them.”
Now he lowered his hand and his head. “The twenty-eight of us will not live to see that day. We will surely die in the jihad, and we will achieve paradise for ourselves and for our loved ones. We will make this journey on earth good for all future Muslims… imagine the rewards that will be bestowed upon us for our valuable sacrifices.”
The audience was at one with him in his reverence for their fight to come.
“You are the swords against the oppressors, and the shields of the oppressed. There are only two paths forward. Victory or martyrdom.”
The twenty-seven students of the Language School shouted, “Allahu Akbar!”
At one o’clock in the morning the SUVs that were seen a month earlier going up the hillside out of San Rafael rumbled back down into San Rafael, on their way to the highway. The villagers took note, and they wondered if this meant the sounds of gunfire would cease and the damn dogs of the village would stop barking so much.
11
The three operators of The Campus converged in John Clark’s office at nine on Monday morning, each with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. They were dressed informally; it was hot as hell in D.C. this summer, so Jack and Dom wore polo shirts and linen dress pants, while Clark wore a collared short-sleeved button-down shirt and Chavez wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his muscular forearms.
Normally there would be a little lighthearted chatter before getting down to business, but the two younger men were both still painfully aware of their errors on the exercise up in Maryland on Friday. They’d follow cues from the two older men. If there was to be any joking during this meeting, Dom and Jack knew better than to start it themselves.