“Why do I fight? It’s simple. You came to my country. You attacked my people. You killed my family. Do you expect me to accept that from you? Do you expect my people to lie down as you and your Western allies take turns with us, one after another? No! Look now! The victim is holding a dagger. The victim has drawn blood. You thought you had beaten us down, but you have failed. We are still standing, and we still have much fight in us.

“We realize that we do not have the firepower to defeat you on the battlefield. So we will use the most powerful weapon we have-ourselves. Like the Intifada to the occupying Zionists, we will be the spike through your boot. Over time, we will decimate you. We will dissect you limb by limb, piece by piece. No place is safe for you anymore! Let me repeat that so you fully understand. No… place… is… safe!

“I have told you my name, and I have told you my purpose. But who am I really? I am your neighbor. I am your friend. I am your coworker. I am your husband. I stand with you in the elevator thinking about how to kill you. I ride with you on the bus dreaming about detonation. I sit with you on the plane, in church, at the movie theater.

“You think that I am you, but you are mistaken. My greatest desire is to bring pain to your comfortable world-pain like I felt when you stole my family from me. Some of us in the Cause fight for Allah; some of us fight for ideology; some of us fight for revenge; some of us fight for honor. But we all fight. And we will not stop until your streets run red.

“So tomorrow, when you get on your train or your plane or your bus, maybe you will see me and you will wonder what’s in that briefcase I’m holding. Maybe when you’re stuck in traffic, you will see me in the car beside you and you will wonder what’s on the seat next to me. Or maybe when you enter your church or your synagogue or even your mosque-for you milquetoast Muslims-you will see me and you will wonder what I have strapped to my chest.

“Hear me! This will happen again… and again… and again. There is a new reality for you. The days of Pax Americana are gone.”

Hakeem reviewed all this in his mind while outwardly he appeared serene and composed. Though the attack next week would be deadly, he knew that when the video he had created was released after the attack, it would have a much more far-reaching effect. Sow seeds of distrust. Create fear. If you poke the sleeping devil just right, he will wake up and devour himself looking for the offender.

Now that Hakeem had taken a night to think through his performance, he was even more anxious for the final hour to come. Eight days seemed like such a long time. I’ve waited over a decade and a half for this. I can wait a few more days. For now, he had to try to focus. Any deviation in his cover now, and the whole plan could collapse in pieces around him.

Sunday, December 21

CTD North Central Division Headquarters

Minneapolis, Minnesota

“It’s good to see you drinking a man’s drink,” Jim Hicks said to Scott Ross as they sat down at Hicks’s desk, each with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand.

“That’s only because I haven’t been out of this building for the past eighteen hours.”

“You should get some sleep. Maybe it’d help you-”

The look from Scott stopped Hicks midsentence.

“Never mind. I should have known. You know, Weatherman, you and I are a lot alike. You just don’t have the twenty years of having your soul sucked out of you yet.”

“Golly, Jim, it’s a wonder CTD doesn’t have you in the recruitment department. ‘Join CTD. See the world. Lose your soul!’”

Hicks laughed as he reached into his drawer and pulled out a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream. “You want a little shot for your coffee?”

“No thanks, man. I learned long ago that for me one shot leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another, and pretty soon I’d be up on your desk dancing the one-man lambada.”

“The lambada, huh? Isn’t that the forbidden dance?”

“Sí, pero necesito bailar.”

“Nice try, Weatherman, but the lambada was a Brazilian dance, not Spanish. I know that because my second wife was from São Paulo.”

“My bad. Sim, mas mim necessite dançar.”

Hicks stared at Scott; then he laughed as he stretched back in his chair and kicked his feet up on his desk. “You are a strange one, son. Now, let’s go back over what we’ve got for a fourth time so that when the higher-ups ask, I can use some word other than diddly-squat.”

“Okay,” Scott began, leaning back into the same position as Hicks. “We’ve got the name ‘Hakeem,’ and from what you learned in your follow-up conversations with Abdel, we know this Hakeem is going to be coordinating more attacks. Abdel said that there had always been rumors in the Cause of some mole or sleeper known only by the name Hakeem, who would one day rise up and inflict great pain upon the West.”

“Hold up there a second,” Hicks said. “You know, that’s one thing that struck me. As Abdel was walking me through his story, he mentioned Hakeem a few times. Each time it was while he was talking about his own recruitment or training. At first he mentioned the rumor of Hakeem in relation to attacking the West. But toward the end, he mentioned him twice in relation to America. That happened all three times I had him tell his story. Was that just semantics, you think?”

“Could be. Or it could be that Hakeem’s focus has narrowed.” Scott paused and looked away for a moment. “If it did narrow, then why? Maybe because of the second Gulf War-although Abdel was recruited after it started. Maybe because of a focus shift in the Cause itself.”

“Yeah, maybe… maybe. Or maybe the mole moved. Maybe Hakeem was based in Europe but always wanted to move to America. Then, when he got his chance, he took it.”

“That’s a lot of maybes, but I’m tracking with you. If you’re right, then we’re looking for some sort of businessman or professional, like a doctor or maybe an IT guy. If he was just some everyday worker bee, he could have come over anytime. But his power is in his position. So when the opportunity came for his position to move, he came with it.” Scott whipped out his phone and hit speed-dial two. Three rings later, Tara Walsh answered. Tara had reluctantly flown home last night to head the efforts of the team. “Tara, did they bump you up to first class like I asked them to?”

“Would have been tough for them to do, since, as you well know, I flew home on our Gulfstream.”

“True, true. But I still think you deserve the finer things.”

“I’m flattered. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re kind of busy here.”

“Always business with you. Look, I want you to pull Virgil and Joey out of whatever they’re doing and set them to researching European businessmen and professionals who have moved to the States in the last three years.”

Tara’s loud and long reaction to the request caused Scott to cover the mouthpiece of the phone and say to Hicks with a grin, “Apparently she feels our parameters are a bit wide.”

Then back to Tara: “There now, do you feel better? So, pull Virgil and Joey out of whatever they’re doing and set them to researching European businessmen and professionals who moved here in the last three years, starting with any that might be of Middle Eastern extraction. Okay?… Yeah, but… yeah, but… yeah, I know. Just try… Okay, good-bye… Thanks… Good-bye…” Finally he closed the cover to the phone.

“She said she’s thrilled to help out in any way she can,” Scott said as he eyed the Baileys longingly.