End Days Super Boxset (11 page)

"Aunt Malaka," Husein said, visibly distressed. "Why are you saying this?"

The curly-haired agent immediately pulled Malaka’s hands behind her back and handcuffed her.

Craig took a step back and faced the FBI men. “Next time, don’t interfere with my business," he said.

The FBI agents looked flummoxed.

"None of you will escape!” she shouted. "You will all die! All of you!”

They pushed her out of the room as Craig grabbed Husein by the arms and moved out into the hall.

Her shrieking tirade continued. “I am the Black Widow, soldier for ISIS against the infidels. And I curse every single American to die!" Her lips curled as her eyebrows shifted downward in a vengeful angle. "I curse this country to drown in blood for eternity!"

As they led her down the hall, Craig knew that words weren't just the ravings of a fanatical lunatic. There was truth to what she was saying. Something was headed their way. He could feel it.

It could have been another false alarm, as Malaka’s credibility was already in question. But Craig saw something in her eyes different from her formerly vapid gaze, as if she wholeheartedly anticipated another attack.

The three FBI agents followed Craig to a separate brightly lit interrogation room, where they brought in Malaka and sat her down, handcuffed. The room itself was bugged with microphones and a single security camera in the ceiling. After she was seated, Craig pulled Husein into the next room over and sat him down at the square table in the middle of a white-tiled floor. Husein shook with nervousness as Craig slapped a pair of handcuffs around one of his wrists and then cuffed him to the table.

“What have I done?” the boy asked, nervously.

Craig seemed distracted, his mind racing. He looked down at Husein and got right to the point. “Five minutes. I’m giving your aunt five minutes to talk, and if you think you’ve seen the worst of me, don’t count on it.”

He walked out of the room and closed the door, leaving Husein alone to ponder his fate. The boy looked up and saw a large mirror on the wall in front of him. He assumed there was a room on the other side where they were watching him. He pulled at the handcuffs, but it was useless. The small table he sat at was bolted to the ground. He wondered what they were going to do with him.

Between Malaka’s room and her nephew’s was a narrow observation room where the FBI could watch both suspects without being seen. The three agents stood huddled together as Craig entered the room. The curly-haired man, Agent Donaldson, was on his cell phone, as was his heavyset partner, Agent Rivers.

“The building is on high alert,” Agent Hicks said to Craig. “Just about every government facility is, given the circumstances.”

Craig pointed toward the one-way window facing the room where Malaka was sitting. Her eyes drifted onto the table in front of her. “That woman is out for blood, and while she may be delusional, we can’t take her threats for granted. We have to move this up the chain.”

“What do you plan to do with her?” Agent Hicks asked.

Craig walked close to the window, keeping his eyes on her. “I don’t know yet.”

Agents Donaldson and Rivers talked rapidly into their phones, trying to get the latest updates on the attacks. The computer server shutdown had brought the entire building to a standstill.

“I’ve alerted my people,” Agent Hicks said. “Donaldson and Rivers are doing their part.”

Craig backed away from the window, looked at his watch, and began pacing as Hicks’s eyes followed him.

“So this Black Widow? Who is she?”

Craig turned around. “She’s someone we have to beat at her own game. Somewhere within her hatred and resentment lies information.”

“But we don’t even know who’s responsible for these attacks yet.”

“It was ISIS, damn it! And mark my word, they’re just getting started.”

Hicks seemed stunned. “How do you know this?”

“I’ve been tracking sleeper cells for the past year. The port attacks were a coordinated effort, but I don’t believe it stops there.”

“Well, my expertise lies more in insurance fraud,” Hicks said. “So I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Suddenly Deputy Calderon entered the room with Craig’s immediate supervisor, Agent Walker, at his side. Calderon, with his disheveled hair and tense, bulging neck, looked to be on the warpath.

Walker, a short man—just over five feet—with red suspenders, walked in, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt. He didn’t look very happy either.

Calderon got right to the point. “What is this about you assaulting this woman? I thought I made it specifically clear that you were to stay away from her.” He looked toward Walker. “You make the call. I can’t deal with your out-of-control agents today.”

“She admitted her affiliation with ISIS,” Craig said, unwavering.

“Did she now?” Calderon said, stepping forward. “Well, stop the press, we caught ourselves a terrorist!”

Hicks cut in. “Agent Davis is right. And while I may question his
methods
, the woman did admit to being a member of the Islamic State—one they call the Black Widow.”

“Sir, I believe that the port attacks were only the beginning of a massive offensive against this country,” Craig said.

“You have evidence of this?” Walker asked.

Craig pointed to Malaka as Calderon looked through the glass and examined her. Her checkered hijab was bound tightly to her head. Her black robe, or abaya, went down to her feet.

“She was wrong, Agent Davis,” Calderon said, turning to him. “So far, everything she told us was wrong. Why should we believe anything she says now?”

“Give me five minutes,” Craig said. “She screwed with our heads. Now it’s time to return the favor.” As he looked at his superiors, he could sense their lack of support.

“I don’t want you to go anywhere near that woman,” Calderon said. “Period.”

“Sir, if I may,” Walker said. He looked at Craig. “You said she called herself the Black Widow?”

Craig nodded.

“I’ve heard of a female up in their ranks who goes by that name. Agent Davis could be onto something here.”

Calderon took a step back, sighed, and ran his hand down his face. “Is no one listening to me here?” He thrust both arms out. “The world is on fire, our computers have been hacked, and we’re messing around with Momma Surkov?”

The two agents in the corner of the room, Donaldson and Rivers, got off their phones as things suddenly grew quiet. Calderon looked at the blank faces awaiting his guidance.
He zeroed in on Craig. “Five minutes. That’s it. But you send someone else in there. And so help me God, they better walk away with something useful.”

***

In a parking lot three blocks away from FBI headquarters, Manuel sat in a rented U-HAUL listening to the news on the radio. The country was in disarray from coast to coast. They were already referring to it as “a new day of infamy.” Big news to be sure, but Manuel’s mind was occupied with other things. He had one task and one task alone. He was to drive the U-HAUL to the south end of the J. Edgar Hoover Building at the specific time scrawled onto his notes.

He didn’t know what kind of explosive was in the back of the U-HAUL, but he assumed the worst. Whatever it was, it caused the rear of the fifteen-foot truck to sag to the ground. In one hand he clutched a folded envelope with instructions and directions scribbled on it, and in the other, he held a cell phone.

He put the envelope to the side and grabbed a nearby layout of the FBI building, studying it. If the news reports were right, D.C. was swarming with police and military. How would he have any chance of getting close to the building in the first place? It was an impossible mission. Nonetheless, Manuel didn’t have a choice.

It wasn’t his battle. He wasn’t in control of the situation. The bomb had a timer. That’s what he had been told. And it was timed to detonate at precisely 11:11 A.M. He looked at his watch. It was 11:01.

His cell phone buzzed. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and he wiped it from his eyes. He picked up the phone on the second buzz.

“Yes?”

The Arabic voice on the other end had a hint of a British accent.

“Have you reached your destination yet?”

“I—I’m trying. They have the area blocked off. It’s much harder than you think.”

“You have ten minutes. So you’d better hurry.”

“They’ll stop me before I can even get to the building. Someone must have tipped them off.”

“No more excuses. Your wife and children are depending on you.”

Manuel teared up. His voice shook. “Please. Whatever happens to me, just let them go. They are not to blame for any of this.”

“If you carry out the task successfully, no harm will come to Victoria and your three girls.”

Manuel squinted and clenched his fist, practically crying into the phone. “Please…please, just let them go. I promise to carry out the task.”

“Your word means nothing to us. Results are what we’re after. And once you do what you’re supposed to do, we’ll no longer have an issue.”

Manuel breathed heavily into the phone, nearly sobbing.

“Better hurry. If you do plan on seeing your family again, you’re going to want to get as far away from that truck as possible.”

The man hung up, leaving Manuel sobbing into the phone. He felt desperate and lost. He cursed himself for getting involved. If only he had done nothing to begin with.

Months before Manuel found himself in a U-HAUL packed with explosives, he had been sitting at home with his wife, Victoria, and three young daughters.

A group of men moved in next door. Watching TV, Manuel got up from the couch and looked out the living room window to see an old moving van parked in the driveway across the street. Five or so men carried boxes into the house. Manuel wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t want to be suspicious, as they were clearly Middle Eastern, but he had heard how important it was to be vigilant ever since 9/11.

The next week, he watched them come and go, picking up and dropping off boxes. There were other men as well—all Arabs. He figured them to be Muslim, as they often wore white skullcaps, or taqiyahs. Again, Manuel tried to ignore them. They were probably just a group of bachelors and nothing more. Manuel remembered the days of living with friends when he got out of high school. The party house, as he fondly referred to it.

“Maybe you should just talk to them,” his wife told him one afternoon.

“I think I will,” Manuel said. But he never did.

A couple weeks later, his six-year-old daughter, Maria, told him that one of the men from across the street yelled at her for playing in the street.

No big deal
, he thought.
People yell at kids sometimes
.

Though the thought of some stranger yelling at his kids angered him. Then his sixteen-year-old, Lynn, told him something that troubled him more.

“They asked me how old I was and said that I would make a good wife,” she told him.

“What?” Manuel said, turning around from his workbench in the garage.

“That’s what he told me,” she said, shaken.

“Well, that’s that.” Manuel tossed a rag on the floor and marched over to the house across the street, ready to confront the men. It didn’t matter who had said it; he was going to give them a piece of his mind.

It was a sunny, breezy Saturday afternoon, but the closer he got to the three-bedroom home with the patchy yard, the more dread he felt inside. There were several cars in the driveway and one parked in the street. Manuel pushed onward, made it to the front door, and knocked. He heard voices from inside suddenly stop, and a man answered—thirty-something with a trim beard and thick eyebrows. He looked surprised to see Manuel, as if he’d been expecting someone else.

“Yes?” he asked with a slight British accent.

Manuel’s heart raced. The man seemed polite, and Manuel wondered how long things would stay amicable once they got down to business.

“My name is Manuel Rivera. I live across the street.”

The man extended his hand. “I’m Jabar. Nice to meet you.”

“A pleasure,” Manuel said, shaking his hand.

You sell-out, get to the point
, he told himself.

“How can I help you, Manuel?” Jabar asked.

Manuel glanced past Jabar’s shoulder and saw what looked like pressure cookers lined up on a table in the dining room. There looked to be close to ten or fifteen people inside, quietly speaking to each other in a language he could only describe as Arabic.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” Manuel began. “But my daughters told me that one or more of your roommates here said some things to them, like, personal questions. I would appreciate them not speaking to my daughters. Period.”

Manuel felt better getting it off his chest. He waited for a response as Jabar’s smile dropped and his brows arched downward as if he were in deep thought.

“I see,” he said, scratching his beard.

“With all due respect,” Manuel added.

“My brother, Raheem, told me about that. He meant no harm. He was just trying to pay your daughter a compliment.”

“I understand, but it is inappropriate, so no more,” Manuel said.

Jabar looked down and nodded. “Very well. My apologies.”

“It’s quite all right, thank you,” Manuel said. They shook hands and parted, and that was the last he thought he would have to deal with the situation. But it didn’t take long for things to escalate.

A week later, Manuel walked into the kitchen after getting home from work at the warehouse where he was a lead supervisor. He noticed Lynn sulking at the table while his wife was at the stove cooking. Neither of them seemed particularly happy.

“What’s wrong?” Manuel asked. He didn’t even think he really wanted to know.

His wife turned to him, frowning. A single string of dark-red hair hung in her face. “One of the men from across the street talked to Lynn again.”