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“Only if they were negligent. They went to great trouble to keep the Wood’s deaths quiet. Why would they expose themselves?” Bill followed The Cobras to the Humvee.

“Hang on a minute.” Brock stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean their deaths were kept quiet?”

“According to Woods’ PA, she received a text message from him indicating she had to cancel his appointments for the following two days and that he was taking his family on a hiking trip into the Santa Cruz mountains.”

“Then who found the bodies?”

“The local police department received an anonymous tip two hours ago and no, it’s untraceable. I already checked.” Bill closed his eyes as he pulled the smoke from a cigarette into his lungs.

“If they wanted his body found this morning, we better prepare for another incident,” Tanner said. “My gut tells me this message was the appetizer. The next one is going to be much bigger.”

A deep, hollow sound rendered through the atmosphere, shaking the earth in its wake. For long moments there was an eerie twilight between normal and total insanity as they struggled to comprehend what had just happened.

“What the fuck?!” Bill exclaimed as they all turned towards the city of Santa Ana. In the distant rolling skyline fifteen miles away, an enormous lancelike ray of blue-white light ripped open the midday sky. A synergism of five distinct spectral phenomena fused into a blinding flash and a ball of varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and a fiery ball of yellow flame, billowing outwards the next.

“Christ Almighty! That’s a thermobaric device! The main course! The blast and pressure wave alone are supersonic. The heat signature will incinerate everything at ground zero,” Tanner said as they stared in disbelief.

“My God,” Brock said as he squinted at the darkened sky. The shock of witnessing the blast conjured up the black terror of being caught out as the Taliban had effectively registered a hidden battery of Russian 240mm mortars walked in fifty meter increments right up to his outpost in the Korangal Valley in Afghanistan. He suppressed the memories with difficulty. He’d learned how to compartmentalize trauma and move on. “That just blew my theory about supremacists out the window. That is an act of pure terrorism. It’s gotta be ISIS and Fadhil. But where the hell could they have acquired a bomb of that size?”

“The vultures are en route,” Cruz intoned dryly as they watched the reporters frantically dash to their vehicles. “Hold on. I just received a ping.” He cursed as he read the messages. “The explosion flattened the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and the United States Courthouse. I guess you’re right, Brock. Wait, here’s another one, a video that was streamed immediately after the bomb detonated.”

He placed the iPad on the hood of the Humvee and pressed play. A heavyset man, his face and head covered with a black al-amira, the customary two-piece veil usually worn by Muslim women, appeared on screen. Amber colored sunglasses covered his eyes. The voice sounded dull but the words cut like a knife.

“We, the people and sons of Allah have spoken. The time has come to purge the world of vicious fascists. Remember the message you received years ago at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. You deserved Allah’s wrath then and do so now again. You murdered our people to gain hegemony. You failed, Mr. President. The blood of your own people is now on your hands.” He folded his hands over his chest as if in prayer. “As will be the blood of others yet to come.”

“It could be Fadhil. He looks similar in stature to the photos Jordan showed us,” Brock said as Cruz paused the video. “I guess that means we’re heading back to Iraq.”

“Maybe.” Jared shook Bill’s hand. “We’re going to take a look at the bomb site. Keep us in the loop with anything you may find. We’ll do the same.”

It was late afternoon before they were on their way back to San Francisco.

“Cruz, see if you can identify the IP address from where that video call was made and whether it was a live feed or a recording that played.”

“We seem to be on the same page,” Brock said dolefully.

“Meaning?” Tanner and Cruz said in unison.

“Fadhil went to a lot of trouble to get out of Iraq and into the U.S. Why would he go back there?” Jared’s fingers tapped out a beat on his thigh.

“Because he achieved what he came here for?” Cruz said.

“Which is what?” Jared asked, glancing over his shoulder. “No, Cruz. Tanner’s right. This is just the first in a series of messages. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether they are leading us to the apocalypse or if it’s a ruse to keep us distracted from what they’re really planning.”

“What about the Red Kitties? Does this mean they’re safe and we can relax our vigil?” Tanner shifted in his seat as thoughts of the danger the women had been facing over the past couple of months surfaced.

“No. We keep them under 24/7 guard and surveillance. Fadhil and Abu might have a different agenda but I don’t believe for one second that Marco Boneiro has changed his mind. His brain is programmed differently. He parcels out the Code of Hammurabi in true Sicilian fashion. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He wants them all dead for the role they played in chasing him out of the U.S.”

“What about Luca’s offer? Have you given it any further consideration?” Brock asked.

“It’s been a constant thought of mine.”

“You don’t trust him to deliver,” Brock stated, which confirmed his own feelings.

“Not even within spitting distance. He’s been tutored by Marco. There’s no way he’s going to just walk away from the only life he knows. No matter how much he might protest his innocence and noble character, his lust for power will always win out.”

“On the other hand, playing along gives us a foot in the door,” Tanner interjected.

“Yeah, it sure does,” Jared ran a hand over his face. “Let me give it some more thought. For one thing, we need to make sure whatever deal we make with him is airtight in our favor.”


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