Revenge Is Mine

By Malcolm John Baker

There is a US drone attack on two Islamic State generals who are on the United Statess Most Wanted list. The men escape, but their families are killed. The IS fund a revenge attack for the soldiers to go to the United States on false passports to attack the White House and kill the president. The adventure starts when the refugee marches through Europe. This involves arrest and escape, murder, and earthquakes. Then on a cruise to the United States, things go wrong along the way. One is removed by the FBI in a hurricane. The other has to fool authorities in getting in through the back door. Help is available from sympathisers, and love matures. The freedom of the arrested soldier and treachery follows, and the FBI characters have it on hand, and it eventually leads to a final bloody showdown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524597955

Malcolm John Baker

Malcolm John Baker was born in Salisbury, England, in 1945. By trade, he was a chartered surveyor and practised in South London, England. Now retired, he lives in the United States in Florida.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

In the beginning

I T WAS A CHILLY April in Washington. The cherry tree parades had all finished, and the petals were now beginning to fall. The White House was quiet that afternoon for a change. The President was in the Oval Room, working on papers at his desk. The Chief of Staff knocked and entered.

Sir, we need to go to the Situation Room urgently. They have located Mohamed Ali. They both left the room to go downstairs into the bowels of the White House. The room was well below ground level and could be sealed off in case of any attack; it was completely bomb proof. They entered the room, which comprised of a long table, surrounded by the Vice President, Generals, CIA, and Intelligence officers, except for two seats in the center, which they immediately occupied. On the wall were charts and a video screen.

Well, let’s get on with it, said the president.

The head of the Intelligence service began, saying, Mohamed Ali, our most wanted man in ISIS or the Islamic State, has been located in a conclave just outside of Ramadi, a small town in Northern Iraq.

On the screen there was a photograph of two houses just outside a small village in what was otherwise a desert. Islamic State was an organisation that wanted to establish a country of all Arabia and the surrounding Middle East that adhered to very strict Islamic principles but was seen in the West as evil as it controlled its people ruthlessly. At the present time, they were raging war all over the region to bring about that aim. The countries concerned—Russia, America, and the European Union—were fighting against them.

So what are the options? said the president.

There are two, said the IO. "We can either send in the Navy Seals by helicopter to evaporate him and his assistant, or we launch a drone with missiles from one of the carriers in the Mediterranean fleet. I think the latter is more appropriate. No risk to our boys in the services. We need to get this terrorist. ISIS is getting too strong now and needs to be destroyed.

We have to act promptly, said the IO. We don’t know how long the target will be in place.

What’s the time scale? said the president.

About an hour, was the reply.

Then do it, said the president.

They all got up and left the room.

*     *     *

It was late afternoon on the fifteenth, April 2015, in the hot desert plains of Ramadi, an area of Iraq held by ISIS. The sun was just setting at 6.30. The evening chill would soon descend. Mohamed—or Mo, as he preferred to be known—was out in the desert for a walk, contemplating the time when ISIS ruled all of the areas from here to Turkey and maybe beyond.

Mo, at thirty-five years old, was a General in the army of ISIS and one of the most wanted men in the western world. His brother, Khan, was his right-hand man, aged thirty-three. Both were in the regular army of Iraq until the Islamic State formed as an offshoot of al Qaeda after Bin Laden’s death.

They were brought up in the strict Islamic faith. Their parents were fanatics in that respect, and that no doubt affected the boys in the same way. Sadly they died in a car accident ten years ago. Since then the two brothers had been like one and looked after each other. Mo was six feet, three inches tall and had a rugged completion, with very dark hair and a bushy beard. His skin was light for an Arab. Both brothers were born in Iraq, but their mother was English and their father Egyptian.

Khan had a similar colouring but was shorter, being six feet tall with a more formal beard, and both had blue eyes. When their parents died, they each wanted to get married as soon as they could and raise a family. They both found lovely wives who had the same beliefs as them. Children soon followed, and so the cycle went on.

The soldiers were not at the front at the moment, enjoying a weekend break with their families, but as always, work was not far away and that night Mo and Khan had to attend a meeting in Ramadi to plan further strategy.

Mo was heading back to his house, where his wife awaited with their two children, a boy of eight and a girl of six. Mo’s house was next to Khan’s and adjoined it. He and his wife had one child, a boy of six. The children had all grown up in the confrontation of war, and Mo couldn’t wait till it was all over and they could resume their lives in peace and strict Islamic principles.

Mo was now entering The Enclave, the name given the two houses side by side. As he entered, Khan was approaching with his wife, a pretty lady, thought Mo, although he hardly ever saw her directly, as she was normally clothed head to toe.

Khan was Mo’s second-in-command, and they only had another three days to enjoy their break before heading back to the front. It was about three miles to the town, where they had their meeting tonight, so they arranged to say goodbye and meet at the front of the houses in half an hour.

Inside his house, Mo embraced his wife and said they had to leave soon. He put the children to bed. It was now dark and they had no electricity, by which time he was ready to leave and meet Khan outside. They anticipated being back in about three hours; most meetings were held in the cool of the evening out of the sun. Their car was an old Jeep left behind by the Americans from the Iraq War. At 7 P.M. they set off to town. It was now a pleasant evening. The heat had subsided, and the desert was in total darkness other than the lights of their Jeep.

They were a mile out from the complex and chatting about when things would get back to normal when they heard it, a whirling sound like a plane overhead. It passed by. Instinctively they turned as they heard an enormous explosion and saw flames shooting up the sky, red and orange. They knew what had happened. There were no other buildings in that area other than their own.

Mo immediately swung the Jeep around and drove at hair-neck speed to where they came from. It took them about three minutes, and they were confronted with a bomb site. The buildings were completely flat, just the wood was burning, which gave them light. They rushed around the debris, knowing there could be no survivors; no one could live through that. They managed to get the flames dowsed with water and then scrambled in the ruins, pushing large stones aside in the forlorn hope of finding someone alive. They found what was left of five bodies, completely burnt but just recognisable. Both men were completely devastated, but they knew they had to get the bodies in the Jeep before the vultures got to them. They carefully laid the bodies in the back with tears streaming down their faces and drove off to the town once again. They took the bodies to the morgue. It was the worst night of Mo’s life. Mo received a phone call from their commander as to why they were not at the meeting. Mo relayed the story, and it was agreed that they should take to a hotel and contact them the next day to sort matters out.

They went to the small boarding house. The village didn’t have a hotel, but the owner had rooms and they went to bed. No drinks were allowed in their religion, but sleep eventually found them.

*     *     *

Back in the Situation Room at the White House, all were watching the screen as the video showed the pictures that were being beamed back from the front of the drone. Night sites made the picture a little blurred, but it could still be made out as two missiles were released and descended to the two houses in the center of the screen. A large explosion followed, and what were two houses was now rubble.

A cheer went up in the room.

*     *     *

Report from Special Operations on the Ground in Central Iraq to Command in Washington

Having located the whereabouts of Mohamed and Khan Ali, we were watching the town of Ramadi prior to the drone attack and would question the involvement of the Imam at the Mosque. There is nothing concrete at the moment, but he has been in communication with members of the ISIS army. We recommend he be kept an eye on, and we are adding him to our watch list of interesting persons.

*     *     *

CHAPTER TWO

The Plan

T HE NEXT FEW DAYS were a nightmare for the two brothers. Islamic law meant that the bodies had to be buried with all haste, and a small service was held the next day. Later in the day, they heard on the radio that the U.S. was stating two of the most wanted IS leaders had been eliminated by a drone attack in Iraq. Mo was sickened. The brothers had consoled each other but that was not enough; they had been to the Mosque to arrange the funerals. The Iman was sympathetic to them, but fire was now burning in the brothers’ veins. They had to have revenge. They had spoken with their commander and told him of a plan, which was still to be fully formulated, but they wanted to go to America to seek retribution, and he gave them his blessing.

They agreed to meet the Iman after prayers that evening. All that day they were working on a plan to get to America. At 8 o’clock they went to the Iman’s house and relayed to him their plan, to get to America and blow up the White House.

The Iman was very thoughtful. You’ll need false passports. You are too well known. Leave that with me, he said, and come back at this time in two days.

These were strange times. ISIS was very successful on the ground. War was ranging in at least three countries, causing hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they were heading for a better life in Europe. Germany was saying, We will welcome you all, so not only refugees from Arabia but also many areas of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were following the lead and heading up to Germany.

Maybe we could go that route, said Mo. He had heard a good way to enter America was on a cruise liner, but of course they would need good false passports.

The Iman was in his office, going through papers, looking for men of the highest integrity who had just died, and he came across two. Ah, he said, just what I need.

He went to visit the two widows and explained to them that the Mosque wanted their dead husbands’ passports and they had to not on penalty of death in the afterlife report their husbands’ deaths to the authorities. At first both ladies were not happy and refused to cooperate, but the Iman gently threatened them with damnation if they didn’t and eventually they both agreed, handing over the passports.

The Iman left, feeling pleased with himself. He now had two passports in the names of Abdul Bitar, a Jordanian missionary, and Brek Zaire, an Iraqi banker. He now called on Mo and Khan and took some passport-sized photographs.

His next call was on a local forger. He handed the two passports and the two photographs and told him to make new passports for Mo in the name of Abdul Bitar and for Khan in the name of Brek Zaire. He needed them by the next day at the latest.

The passports duly arrived the following morning, and the Iman looked at them. They were perfect. The new photographs were inserted instead of the old ones, and to all intents and purposes no one would know the difference, providing the two widows kept quiet, but he would work on that over the coming months.

The two brothers called on the Iman after prayers once more and were delighted when they were presented with the two new passports showing their photographs in the names of Abdul Bitar and Brek Zaire.

Do the widows realise they must not report the husbands’ deaths for at least a year? They do, said the Iman.

They relayed their plan, which was to join the refugee trail heading north to Germany, then branching off to go across land to Barcelona in Spain to catch the Ocean Highway Cruise Lines ship The Argonaut, heading for Tampa in Florida. Ocean Highway Cruise Lines was a small line, having five ships sailing in world destinations. The largest one, The Argonaut, was the largest cruise liner in the world, holding some six thousand passengers and three thousand crewmembers. Ocean Highway was an American company whose head office was in Miami. All of their ships were registered in the Bahamas. The Argonaut spent the winters cruising in the Caribbean Sea and the summers in the Mediterranean.

Timing was crucial as the ship left Barcelona on the sixth of October for its repositioning cruise, and it was now the twenty-eighth of April, which gave them just over five months to get to Barcelona inconspicuously, but it would mean walking most of the way. They would need a car in Tampa and a rocket launcher and other equipment in Washington.

I will see what I can do, said the Iman, and gave them mosque contacts in Tampa and Washington and a few