American Jihadi

By Mark Langford

From a spring of eternal hope evil can walk in broad daylight, well-hidden within the souls of men. A maladjusted boy, Ajay Majumbar, begins his trek towards a dark and vile destiny. His narcissistic soul travels from the wind-swept prairies of Texas to the holy paths of the Hajj and the soaring peaks of the Vail of Kashmir, and yet finds only affirmation of his own twisted desires. Along the way he is absorbed into the machinations of America's enemies and becomes their tool of destruction. This is the first book of the four-part Persia Rising story, a tale of intrigue, danger, and what lies within the hearts of men both good and bad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Langford
• Release date: Dec 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311012593

Mark Langford

Mark Langford retired in 2007 from a seventeen-year career in law enforcement and now writes when he is not driving hazmat trucks. He lives with his family along the sparkling waters of the Roaring Fork River in Colorado. His entire experience during his law enforcement career was in patrol work, but included extensive duties in front-line supervision and instructing defensive tactics, arrest control, firearms, SWAT tactics, and active-shooter response. He now enjoys driving hazmat-tanker trucks in every challenging environment that the Colorado Rockies and winter‘s weather can produce. He spends his days with his wife, two spoiled dogs, and a free-range cat that adopted them all.

Book preview

The Long War Series

American Jihadi

By

Mark Langford

Published by Mark Langford at Smashwords.

This is a work of fiction that is set in the real world of today. Many public places and entities existing, and people living are topical to this imaginary tale; when they are discussed or described, it is done in strictly fictional terms that are completely the product of the author’s opinion and imagination. Any other resemblance to actual events or locales, organizations or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or are used fictionally.

Tactics, methods, and sources in this book are strictly the product of the author’s opinion and imagination.

Any representation, by the author, of religion, ideology, and politics are wholly the product of the author’s opinion and imagination. To paraphrase John Steinbeck: readers seeking to categorize any content here described would be better served to scrutinize their own communities, souls and hearts, for this fictional story is entirely human and is a part of America and the world today.

ISBN 9781311012593

Copyright Mark Langford, 2011

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of a reviewer who may quote brief passages as part of a critical article.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Join the discussion at www.persiarising.com and on Facebook at Persia Rising.

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to all the brave and selfless men and women of the American armed forces and law enforcement. To those vigilant few who bar the gates against the wolf and protect our loved ones at home, and those courageous young who crawl through hell to seek out and slay the dragon in its very lair.

May God bless you and keep you safe until you return to your loved ones safe and whole.

To Melissa, my wife, mi corazón. You have my deepest love and respect. You keep me true and sane (mostly). Thank you for your guidance, wisdom, and love. This story would be nothing but for you.

Table of Contents

Preface

Book One – American Jihadi

Preface

I INITIALLY decided to publish Persia Rising as a single tome and not separate the four books within. But many readers told me that those books would stand well on their own. I have since reconsidered and have released those four books, American Jihadi, The Perfect Day, The Event, and Pigs in Zen individually.

Since 9/11 we have all watched a growing line of jihadists taking their various ‘best shots’ at us and our allies. The biggest terror successes like the Bali bombing, the London underground attacks, and the Madrid train bombings came in the earlier years of this War on Terror. Since then such successes have been stopped, and less coordinated lone-wolf attacks have become the norm.

Personally, the lone-wolf scenario has always been my greatest fear. Individuals who are not attached to a ‘conspiratorial web’ are very difficult for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to locate and identify until after they act. An independent jihadist with a good plan who is fully committed is virtually unstoppable by our defenses. Now add to that threat the greatly increased scale of destruction that could occur if that lone-wolf had state sponsorship from an enemy country like Iran.

This first book, American Jihadi, is that story. A home-grown jihadist with the coldness and cunning of a Mohamed Atta, unleashed against us again.

If you think the great and powerful United States of America cannot be militarily defeated by our terrorist enemies in a single day – you are sadly mistaken.

Book One – AMERICAN JIHADI

Throughout his life a man has more of these four things than he knows:

Sins, Debts, Years, Foes.

Persian Proverb

*****

October 29, 1947 22:33pm UTC+5:30

Wular Lake,

Jammu and Kashmir, India

THE DARK night was moonless, without a hint of breeze. The bearded men were gathered in a tight circle as they quietly conversed by the small fire. They squatted inside a walled courtyard that encircled the modest dwelling of the clan’s patriarch. Most of the two dozen men held their single shot Martini-Enfield rifles in their hands while the others laid theirs across their knees. Loud screams of pain echoed around the dwellings and spoke clearly of the agony being suffered by the patriarch’s youngest wife, who was in the throes of childbirth. The wailing would occasionally intensify and then subside. Occasionally the muttering of the midwife would be heard coming from the two-story house, tucked into the steep flanks of the imposing Mount Rajkain.

The wailing and muttering of women blended with the solemn discussions of men, but neither drowned out the sound of sporadic gunfire coming up from the valley. Below them, some distance from the swollen Wular Lake the city lights of Sopore twinkled. Sounds of a vicious battle there came clearly through the thin mountain air.

Tonight the water of the lake was a dark canvas but under a full moon, the glow off Wular Lake made the valley floor appear as if it were filled with pure silver. The reflected light would brighten the valley until all of the majestic mountain ranges that flanked it were visible. Their dark hulking shapes would appear to be like giant slumbering dragons that disappeared into horizon.

Tonight the beauty of the three great Himalayan mountain ranges of the Karakoram and Zanskar to the north and west, and majestic Pir Panjal to the south, were hidden by the dark gloom surrounding the Majumbar clan’s encampment. The patriarch, Abdulla Khan, a well-built and still quite robust and hale man of sixty-three, stood as motionless as a statue. His richly carved face, lined from many cares and much hard work, still showed the firm appearance of a man well within the prime of his life.

His steel-grey eyes stared out into the dark night, far beyond the little fire, where he could see the distant lights of numerous villages. The wide land stretching out below was where many famous and powerful men fought throughout history believing it to be the most beautiful valley in the entire world, the Vale of Kashmir. Abdulla had lived upon these slopes above that valley all his life and his mind’s eye could see every God-made and man-made feature below him as if it were broad daylight.

He smelled the lush pine and sacred deodar trees that forested the hillsides of the mountain around him. Toward the valley floor the trees opened up onto grassy slopes and grazing meadows full of sheep and cattle, and then closer to the great brawling Jhelum River there were water-filled paddies of rice and saffron that framed the naturally formed Wular Lake. A surrounding sea of reeds marks seasonal highs and lows that fluctuated greatly as the spring floods later became a trickle in the fall. The Jhelum River wound off into a distance filled with glades and orchards of walnut, almond and huge apple trees until, splitting the valley it joined the powerful and famous Indus River. Together, with turbulent and raging waters, they emptied the deep mountain snows from the northern flanks of the Karakoram and Zanskar mountain ranges, into the Arabian Sea far to the south. Abdulla agreed with those great men of history; this place was indeed a paradise on earth, blessed by the merciful Allah.

Many centuries before Christ preached in Palestine, the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka claimed this territory, only to have Hindu kings take control for centuries after his reign was forgotten. The Muslims installed the Sultan Dynasty that brought in the arts and craft makers from as far away as Samarkand and Persia, who were such skilled craftsmen they still rivaled any Persian rug-maker for the highest quality tapestry made. Later, the Mughal Emperor Akbar conquered the region and cultivated many of the beautiful gardens that populated the rich and fertile plains of the valley. Later still, the Mughals fell before the marauding Afghans who came rampaging out of the north. Their empire, in fullness of time, was also destroyed and the people living here were subjugated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh who installed the Sikh Empire over Kashmir.

But even the great Sikh kings could not rule this land forever. They were replaced by the last great empire to subjugate this land, the reviled British. Abdulla had been told that the sun never sat upon the Empire of Queen Victoria while she sat upon some throne in England, but he did not believe such nonsense. There was no power but Allah’s that circumnavigated the globe. The British had come to this land many generations before Abdulla and conquered everyone on the subcontinent. Now, the great British Empire was dissolving away like a river slug after salt is poured on it, but as they shrunk and wilted away they were still trying to leave their lackeys in charge behind them.

Even in the dark, Abdulla turned and looked directly at the soft faint light emitted from Sharikot Hill, where a spiral roadway twisted its way up to the Shrine of the pious Sufi saint, Hazrat Baba Shirkir-u-din-Wali. One week ago Abdulla made a pilgrimage to that shrine to pray for advice and guidance in handling the evils that afflicted his life and his clan.

Allah had only allowed him to produce two healthy boys who had survived the illnesses and accidents of life. Tonight, if his thirteen-year-old wife managed to produce another male heir, he would be very pleased and give prayers of thanks to the Sufi mystic, din-Wali. Unlike his past wives that had given him his young surviving sons, this adolescent woman had won over Abdulla’s heart with her kind eyes and gentle ways. He was anxious to see her give birth to another son and to survive herself. But he betrayed no signs of weakness or emotion for her to his clan, who warmed themselves by the nearby fire.

As leader of the clan he could not show weakness and look in on the young woman whom he deeply loved. Right now all he could display for his clansman was concern for their plight and their future. His duty was to provide leadership in this time of battle for the clan’s rights and privileges. The very future of the clan’s status in this ancient and complex society was at stake with the recent troubles. Together they must secure their rights and land after the division of Pakistan from India, or they could lose everything. The fledgling nation state of Pakistan and its revered leader Quaid-e-Azam had called on them to rise up in jihad against the British and Hindus, and the Majumbar clan had rallied to the call for holy war.

The lands his clan lived on and worked from would soon be on the wrong side of the new division of Kashmir and place the clan and their land under the control of the Indian government and away from the new Muslim state of Pakistan. The evil Brittan, Lord Mountbatten, had advanced the cause of the powerful and clever Indian Prime Minister Nehru by expanding his control over this district. These new annexations in Gurdaspur were nothing less than a giant power grab before the plebiscite. If Mountbatten proved successful in his greed, it would guarantee that the Majumbar clan and many other Muslim clans from here would never be free of the Hindus. This land grab by the British would inevitably force the clan to flee down to the lower Punjab plains, to be servants and untouchables in the caste system of the subcontinent, nothing more than disgusting dom or shilpkar, to be forever laughed at and ridiculed by the Hindus.

In the caste system, the loss of one’s place as an esteemed Brahman and property owner would be far more than just loss of money or prestige. It would mean possible starvation, assured ridicule, no chance of betterment, and endless debasement of his entire clan. But with the help of Almighty Allah, these proud Pahari tribesmen were going to stop that from happening.

So far their skirmishes with the hated British and their sycophant coolie Hindus had been brief but bitter. Sadly, his brother Ashok was wounded by a grazing bullet to his skull and his uncle Raheem had died yesterday from a rifle’s bullet striking him in the lower abdomen. Abdulla was contemplating what he hoped was an effective plan of action that would allow success in their upcoming battles and allow for them to retain control of their Gujjar pasture land overlooking his beloved Vale of Kashmir.

The screams continued from his home as he hovered over the worn map and debated with the other clan elders on whether or not another assault on the morning’s supply train would achieve any success, or whether it would just invite the British to lay a trap for them.

Abdulla finally decided that he would risk another attack on the morning supply trains, and as he told those assembled around him that they would indeed attack again, the screams coming from the dwelling abruptly stopped. Abdulla fell silent as well, and every man’s face craned around and stared across the dirt courtyard, the fire light accentuating their facial features. As the moments slowly passed and no more cries came from the house Abdulla started to walk slowly to the structure. Suddenly the vibrating wail of a baby’s cry rose from the windows, filling the sky with its shrill bellow of life.

Abdulla approached the front door just as two small women exited. The first bent with age, opened the door and addressed him. Your new son breathes the air of the Zanskar Mountains, sayyid, but your wife has lost her battle for life. There was nothing I could do for her – please forgive me, the midwife said in a timid voice that trailed off weakly as she meekly bowed her head before Abdulla.

Abdulla’s steel-grey eyes were set in a pool of anguish; tears tried to appear but he fought to keep them from falling upon his face. He raised his eyes to the quietly sobbing servant girl who stood behind the old crone. Rocking in her cradling arms was the crying baby that now was all the patriarch had of his lost love. A single tear forced itself through Abdulla’s iron will and left a trail through the thin dust that covered his cheek. He looked down at the wrinkled ancient face of the old midwife and said heavily, He will be called Pushkar Abdul.

The old woman lifted her head and saw the faint trail the single tear left upon her master’s face. She reached out and softly held his hand saying, "Yes, sayyid, Allah yu’tiik al-aafiya."

Abdulla abruptly turned and walked with a stiff stride back to the gathering of clansmen at the fire and immediately began directing them in the tasks they would have in the forthcoming attack on the British. His heart beat slowly in his chest, as cold as the barren stones of the Himalayas that surrounded him.

*****

October 31, 1947 17:45pm UTC +5:30

Sheikh-ul-Alam Airport

Srinagar, India

THE OIL lamp’s docile flame slowly danced in the mild breeze. The light was kept low on purpose; with enemy sharpshooters outside the airport fencing, too much light could prove very deadly for those inside. The dark-skinned Hindu orderly squinted under his thick eyebrows while writing out the dispatch his commander was dictating. Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck had spent the day settling into his new headquarters at the airport and collecting his subordinate’s reports. Now he paced slowly back and forth in his glossy black boots, the heels making a dull thud as he walked between the small desk and the window, reciting his message to the Indian Prime Minister.

"Your Excellency Nehru, I am pleased to report that yesterday morning the proud and loyal servants of the Indian State, your Indian Army, have again successfully stopped two more raids upon the military supply train bound for Sopore and territories north of the Jhelum River. The count of tribal militants killed in these two sorties number forty-seven with an additional fourteen collected as prisoners. Interrogations are presently ongoing and have proven successful in the divulging of pertinent information regarding enemy actions. These hostiles are also being questioned about Governor General Jinnah’s involvements in these attacks, which I am positive will be confirmed.

The military resistance may continue, as previously discussed, for some period in the more heavily Muslim districts of the rural pastures and valleys. But, the political conversion to the new order of things continues to move along in an orderly manner. As I relayed in my post to you this morning I do not foresee any more difficulties with the local magistrate, Hari Singh, who appears to be willing to acquiesce to your over-lordship and...

*****

March 23, 1959 05:40am UTC+5:30

Watlab Village,

Jammu and Kashmir

DAWN CREPT over the mountain peaks slowly and the sun had just placed its first ethereal tendrils of honey-colored light on their crowns as the fajr prayers were being ritually sung from the small minaret. The roar of the mighty Jhelum River was deafening as it bashed against the large boulders in the valley. The spring runoff was just beginning and was quickly filling Wular Lake. The river’s torrent of muddy water would soon swell to even greater amounts as the warmth of the spring melted the thick snowpack with increasing speed.

An old farmer adjusted his turban as his donkey slowly trotted through the narrow streets of the village. They both exhaled small white clouds into the cold morning air as the man gently swatted a small stick against the animal’s flanks to keep the stubborn animal going. The beast unhappily obeyed the prodding without enthusiasm. The animal and rider negotiated their way around the corner of a mud-walled courtyard as they headed toward a group of small mud-brick buildings. In the road several chickens scratched and pecked in the dust for food. Suddenly, the birds squawked and fluttered into the air in panic, with one heading directly for the donkey’s muzzle. Badly startled, the beast reared and snorted as the rider almost fell off the donkey’s slender back. Out of the rising dust three boys came running down the dirt street, laughing.

Miscreants! the farmer yelled while shaking his fist in the air at the boys as they continued running while giggling over their shoulders at the irate farmer.

Pushkar Abdul Majumbar’s bare feet pounded the dusty road as he ran. The third surviving son of the now-dead Abdulla gasped for breath as he tried to keep up with his two older brothers’ longer-legged pace. The oldest of the three, Mayur, ran with the fluid and sophisticated stride of early manhood. A year younger than Mayur came Subhash, whose timid mind loved poetry much more than tests of physical skill. But his ability to outrun the youngest was still present and he looked back at Pushkar with a smile, urging him on.

They approached the small adobe madrasah that was also used by the small community as a masjid. The elderly imam stood smiling near the door, waving one arm encouraging them to hurry to prayer. They arrived in the order of their ages, as usual, with Mayur breathlessly pulling up to the doors first and Subhash getting to them just a second behind while Pushkar, as always, came in last. But he did not mind being last, as his naturally sunny and happy personality never held any envy for the feats and abilities of his brothers.

They quickly moved to the water fountain and set about washing their callused feet. Pushkar, not realizing the imam had followed them in, mischievously splashed his brothers with water and giggled as they threatened to splash him back. All the playing from the two older brothers ended quickly as they saw the now stern and critical looking imam hobbling in behind Pushkar. Thinking he would succeed in splashing his brothers again Pushkar readied himself to swing another handful of water at his siblings when the imam raised his cane and, with a sharp jab, poked its end into the small of Pushkar’s back, causing him to yelp from surprise and pain as he received the rude lesson of discipline in the house of worship and learning.

I didn’t lose this leg to the British, fighting with your father, to see you commit sacrilege in the house of God’s learning, boy! What would your father say to such frivolity in my school? the elderly man asked with raised eyebrows and a mocking halfhearted sneer.

My apologies, teacher, please forgive me. Pushkar replied wincing at the pain in his back and rubbing his new injury vigorously with the back of his hand. Glancing sideways at his brothers he saw them smirking at his punishment, and happy at how they had escaped their teacher’s early morning lesson.

The imam quickly sized up the spectacle of the three boys with a scowl and then his stern face softened.

Enough, inside with you, he said, motioning them inside the place