Isis in the City

By EE Hunt

Those of us who have lived in big cities can imagine the danger presented by radical Islamic terrorists, but suppose at the last New York City Thanksgiving Day parade, the ISIS members in this book had terrorized bystanders. Would it have been such a fun day or a very tragic one? In this book, the heroine, Fatima, is attacked in Central Park only by a Frisbee that narrowly misses her, but as it whizzed by her head, she has visions of it being a true gun hit and of being horribly hurt as in her past. Indeed, that Frisbee leads to suspicious activity, which she will have to confront along with her fianc, Charles, and her two hosts Ted and Sherry who live in Manhattan on East Seventy-Second Street. The terrorists, however, are after bigger game than one lone woman. They are after the very heart of the city today after its prior attack on 9/11.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524573164

EE Hunt

E E Hunt is an Episcopal priest who has lived and served in urban and rural California, suburban St Louis, New York City for 16 years, Dallas, Texas, and Paris France for more than ten years. He was Rector of the Church of Epiphany in Manhattan, Dean of the St Mathew’s Cathedral in Dallas, and Dean also of the “American “Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris, France for more than ten years. He has published seven previous books, one academic and six novels about our turbulent times in regard to terrorism and human trafficking. He graduated from Stanford University with two degrees, the Episcopal seminary of the Southwest with two degrees, and Princeton Theological Seminary where he earned a doctorate. In a time of religious division and political mistrust, his interest is in promoting a common sense of human decency and reconciliation amongst the practitioners of all faiths.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by EE Hunt.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017900060

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-7318-8

                Softcover        978-1-5245-7317-1

                eBook             978-1-5245-7316-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/29/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

752543

Contents

Chapter 1 Fatima in Central Park

Chapter 2 The Brooklyn Bombers

Chapter 3 A Grip on Reality

Chapter 4 A Scary Dog Walk

Chapter 5 Atlantic Avenue Escape

Chapter 6 Sharia Law Exposed

Chapter 7 The Phantom of New York

Chapter 8 A Sneak Attack

Chapter 9 Horrific Plans

Chapter 10 Decision Time Pain

Chapter 11 A Tower Again

Chapter 12 It’s About Time

Dedication

I dedicate this book to those who are concerned about potential terror attacks in our large U.S. cities, especially New York City, as well as all other cities of the world. May we someday live in peace with our neighbors of all backgrounds and creeds, and together we strive to end senseless attacks against innocents, who are loved by the one, universal, gracious God, everywhere. As my favorite poet, Anglican Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England, wrote in the seventeenth century,

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as of a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tools; it tolls for thee. The Islamic State (ISIS) in my mind represents a bell that wakes us up to its threat.

I also want to thank my daughter, Elizabeth Hunt Blanc, for dutifully editing the text and my grandchildren, Caroline, 12, and Louisa, 11, for allowing me to shoo them away from the computer in the summer when I need to write.

Chapter One

Fatima in Central Park

It would be impossible for anybody not to stare at a female beauty sitting on a bench at noon in New York’s Central Park as the sun shone on her hair that fine day. Her tresses were not brown but deep black, and the light accentuated their sheen. She had slightly bronzed skin, deep-set black eyes, and a classic, royal Egyptian chin and nose, a striking resemblance to the ancient regal busts on display in museums. She was slender, but one couldn’t help notice that the breasts within her blouse seemed pointed also and full, easily seen as she sat on a park bench with her right arm resting on the top of the bench for support, the left nestled next to her side. She favored that arm, as if from an old injury, yet she was not seemingly self-consciousness about it.

She was attired in a thin white blouse and a red dress, not cut short but flowing down near her ankles, yet even still, one could note beneath the thin fabric nicely crossed legs while a large red bandana hung loosely folded around her neck. It was large enough to cover her shiny hair if she so chose.

She appeared to be entranced watching young adults play with a Frisbee, but she also had a quizzical look on her face as if she had not seen that kind of toy often. Perhaps it fascinated her to watch how almost grown men could be so absorbed with such a fragile, innocent object. At least they were not pointing AK-47s or other automatic weapons that could slaughter men, women, and children but just a children’s toy as a tool for simple fun.

This was new to her, as New York’s Central Park was also a new experience on such a leisurely Saturday. She couldn’t help letting her mind linger about her fiancé, Charles Winthrop, a handicapped undercover CIA agent, who was slated to return from Washington, D.C. after a week there, and her brave friends still in Paris, France. Every time she thought about energetic newspaper reporter, Penelope Wilson, and her American Embassy political officer fiancé, Steve Hallcroft, she also recalled the horrible episodes the four of them had experienced with Algerian terrorists a few years ago. That would blank out any fun she saw young men having in front of her, so she tried to resist those sad remembrances, but it was difficult, as she watched the Frisbee glide between youthful players.

How could she ever forget the dreaded terrorist Aboud, who shot her in Paris’s American Cathedral foyer, or the other cruel wannabe from Algiers, Assad, whom she remembered survived after her friend, policewoman, Sherry Williams, shot him before he killed many at the posh George V hotel in Paris.

Partially retired FBI agent, Ted Edmunds, and his betrothed, Sherry Williams, were her hosts for now. They lived not too far away on the Eastside in a spacious co-op apartment on East Seventy-second Street. Fatima and Charles had been invited officially to New York City to investigate another terror attempt by mad men, this one inspired by disaffected Algerians who had joined the infamous ISIS fanatics. At least, that is what Ted’s boss, Edith or, E for short, had told them, without any glorified details.

Fatima and Charles were not invited, however, just because they successfully withstood and confronted Algerian terrorists, but because they had personally survived terror attacks. Charles had been shot while escaping Aboud’s men in the desert and had lost his lower left arm, and later Aboud, while staring directly at Fatima in the foyer of the cathedral, shot her with no guilt. She received a severe pistol wound to the chest and shoulder at short range, and it had taken her a long time to heal. It was serious to fight such horror, and each had firsthand experience in battle, yet both continued to resist and survive in faith as seasoned veterans.

Fatima Yousseff was not shocked by her first visit to the Big Apple but rather enamored by its streets filled with a diversity of people who lived side by side with others from various countries. Middle Eastern women wore a hijab over their hair and no one seemed to care, unlike in France where such dress was banned from schools. She could hear different dialects as she walked the crowded, dense streets, not far from where she and Charlie were living on East Seventy-second Street. Even abiding in the building with Ted and Sherry, no one said anything to her when she rode the elevator but rather treated her with indifferent respect, even when she wearing her red hijab.

The uniformed doorman at the front door treated her with the same deference as he did others, although he was a bit shy and quiet. Today she was alone and had walked west to Central Park to enjoy the glimpses of a green, wooded area in the city. She sat down on a bench in an open area where young T-shirted adults played on this Saturday and watched them.

While reminiscing about her past and concentrating on the open clear, blue sky, an errant yellow Frisbee surprised her as it sped by her, nearly glazing her head. So she fell instinctively to the ground, missing the impact and scared by the memory of the terror that had indeed struck her before. While kneeling on the grass, the young Frisbee thrower approached her, profusely apologizing, and asked if she was okay. While he attempted to help lift her back to the bench, she laughed and waved him off, saying she was fine.

He insisted and grabbed her damaged arm by mistake, which made her gasp for a moment, but she shook it off to say, Thank you. I’m not hurt, just surprised. I have had some similar encounters that were not so pleasant, but this is just embarrassing. I am not used to watching young men merely play, but rather try to harm each other. Oh, dear, that was a horrible memory surfacing in my thoughts, and I apologize. Thank you for trying to help me back to the bench, but I can do it by myself.

The young man said, I can’t help but feel responsible, using that as an excuse to abruptly sit down next to her so that he could talk to her while observing more closely her identity, or to analyze the foreign way about her while also noticing her slight accent,

You’re not a New Yorker. Are you French? Where are you from?

Fatima did not like sharing her personal information with strangers, but the young man, perhaps five years younger than she, seemed quite innocent and genuine in his interest, so she responded,

I was born in Cairo, Egypt, and lived five complicated years in the Sahara Desert, then a few years in Paris, France. I also traveled to Algiers and now this great city of New York. I was a flight attendant for Egyptian Airways. As quid pro quo, what are you doing, still studying or are you out of college?

Yes, I’m finished with undergraduate studies like my friends, who are over there on the green. We are all struggling to find jobs, but still live near New York University, taking a break and enjoying the day. We can stay where we are for the summer, but then, we have to find work to earn a living, but so far no luck.

Curious now, Fatima asked while studying him a bit more closely, What do you want to do?

Quickly responding, the man answered proudly, I studied international relations and I want to be a diplomat. Oh, I know you start at the bottom in the State Department, and then after many years you might find your dream, being a consul somewhere, but it takes years of hard work.

Suddenly, sparking to the moment to help and encourage him, as was her way, she suggested, My fiancé, Charles, works for the government and so does my friend in Paris, Steven Hallcroft, the political officer at the American Embassy. Perhaps you could contact them and they might help?

Wow, you bet. Recommendations and leads always help.

Fatima got up, saying that she should leave since Charlie would be home soon, but the young man stopped her, saying, You don’t know my name or address nor do I know yours. How can we communicate, or how will I know to talk to your fiancé?

Fatima smiled, nodding her head in agreement, and introduced herself. He replied that his name was Tom Jones. He handed her out of his pocket a little pad of paper and a pencil so she could write down her information, and then he in turn, on another piece, wrote done his name, phone number, email and address, and then they shook hands, he saying thank you as he went back to his Frisbee game.

Fatima began to have second doubts about releasing her personal information, but it was true that she could not be of any help if she did not know how to communicate with him, but then she wondered if there was some other angle to his seeming sincerity. It seemed at first so normal, and he was very believable. Was he just a Frisbee player, or was he something else? What could that be? After all, her walk to the park was not a planned event, and seeing young people playing was just coincidental, or was it?

As she got up to leave her bench, she noticed that the Frisbee players were no longer in sight, especially Tom Jones, and she wondered if that was just another accident of time and place. She recalled that only E knew where she and Charlie were staying, aside from her hosts of course, and that E did not want the world to know her location, but then she, Fatima, just gave it away to the Frisbee player!

Why did I do that? Perhaps it was because it was such a bright day and seeing so many young people having fun that I suddenly escaped my dreaded past. After all, I am in America and this great city. Why should I be afraid as I was once in the desolate Sahara or in Paris? Oh, Allah, I pray it will not turn out to be a horrific error.

She kept thinking about it after leaving the park as she walked back on East Seventy-second Street to Ted and Sherry’s apartment, deafly avoiding honking cars and taxis as well as fast-walking pedestrians, but as she strolled along and pondered the encounter in the park, she became more perplexed and anxious.

She resolved, I will speak to Charles tonight when he arrives before he calls Edith, the chief, as he usually does.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tom Jones, or whatever his real name was, suddenly left the park and pushed the button on his cell phone to call up his handler, who had paid him well to engage the innocent Fatima. Engagement to the big boss meant more than causing the lady the willies about being identified by a stranger. He also wanted to just plain harass her for his own devious reasons, and in time find out her husband’s precise mission. Why were they here? Did they know about him?

The boss was happy to know that she had been penetrated, that is, made to realize that she was not impregnable but vulnerable even in America. He hoped that this invasion of her privacy would trigger apprehension in all her friends, more particularly in her hosts. No one likes to be fooled and then tracked, as he had often been. It hadn’t been that difficult to trace her as she walked down East Seventy-second Street before he pushed into action two young men he had hired to encounter her. They were well paid, and had worked for him before, especially the good-looking, innocent one who called himself Tom Jones, after the Welsh singer, but he was in reality just another out-of-work actor. Now Nadir knew for sure that this was indeed the real Fatima and he had identified where she was living. He assumed that she had to be there because her friends in the city were connected to those who caused so much troublesome work in Paris, but he wanted to be absolutely positive.

"Yes, Fatima will become more and more afraid as I continue to haunt her. She doesn’t know who I am yet, but she will remember in time after those long five years she spent in the hot Sahara Desert as Aboud’s compound slave. Oh, yes, she will remember me well! I can’t wait to have her in my grip when I proceed with my plan to implement what the Americans call the tactics of ISIS. So foolish they are not to understand that ISIS is in this city, as it was recently in Paris and coincidently in San Bernardino.

Yes, we are hidden here, not just in destroyed Syria that is creating the well-known immigration crises for Europe. However, they do not know yet that a secret plot is taking form on this island that will destroy two of its well-known areas. She will be a golden key for me to open the lock of defenses of the NYPD police and others as we continue our war of terror that will outshine the known disasters of the past. Yet, I do not want her friends or her husband to thwart any of these plans, as they have that of Aboud’s and Assad’s in the past. We are beyond those two who were more or less alone, but we have the resources of the mighty force of the Islamic State.

XXXXXXXXXX

When Fatima arrived at her temporary home in the co-op apartment of Ted Edmunds and Sherry Williams, she was greeted by the friendly doorman, who asked how she was. Fatima rushed by, smiling, nodding to the effect that she was all right. She pushed the elevator button, still pondering the weird event in the park, wondering why she had been so free with her information. She thought to herself, I have been a hunter of bad guys, but now am I just another sucker for an innocent-appearing young man?

The elevator door opened, and she rode up to the sixth floor, still preoccupied with her doubts. When she arrived at her apartment, she used her temporary key to enter, discovering that no one was home, except Buzz, Ted and Sherry’s lively black and white Sheltie/Border Collie dog, who immediately scoured the floor for his red leather leash, and after seizing it in his teeth, ran to her with it, jumping in hopes of a walk.

She told him to wait. She had to visit the loo first, but then she would take him to investigate any of his friend’s scent on the street. She liked Buzz, never having a pet of her own. She also was not accustomed to this spacious prewar co-op with its high molded ceilings, modernized white kitchen with an obscure maid’s room attached, now used as an extra bedroom, full-sized dining area and built-in air-conditioning. Still thinking about the opulence of Ted and Sherry’s apartment, she looked down at the anxious pet and knew that he had waited long enough. She attached the leash to his collar and took the elevator down. Soon they were on the sidewalk as he pulled her along noisily to Second Avenue that bisected East Seventy-second Street. As she walked him, the thoughts of the incident in the park continued to dominate her, but recalling that she had been in contact with that boy in the park soon made her mind revert to her days in the Sahara Desert when she was trapped by Aboud. Could something like that happen again?

Flying to Hassi Massaoud, an important oil town in Algeria as an innocent flight attendant, she wound up being held in the desert for five years, set up by Aboud who supposedly rescued her from a pogrom against women in the streets of that popular oil town. Once in his hands, he kept her a total prisoner because, as he told her, she was educated, pretty, and young, and he had uses for her.

She had been fooled there, but out of necessity because many women died in a persecution that had begun by a crazy imam who said all females who worked in beauty shops or stores were just whores because they had no male protector, no wali watching their every move. They should be home with children and not out on the street. She was standing near her friend’s shop when she heard a loud roar, male voices out of control, and shouts that grew louder and louder, and she knew instinctively that they were about to beat her, rape her, and torture her horribly.

Just as she was about to collapse, two men held up their hands to the crowd as if they controlled them, and since she had fallen, they picked her up off the street, politely straightened her dress