Earlier
The first thing Namir felt needed to happen on arriving in America was getting his men to shave. Not totally, however. Going hairless wasn’t the plan.
Namir got them to trim their beards and get neat haircuts. He insisted on their wearing clean, Western clothes, to look as if they belonged.
Appearances mattered.
The second item on the agenda was weaponing up. ISIS helped him in that.
He received a single text message on the throwaway phone he’d bought.
The message consisted of a name, Asif Iqbal, and an address in Texas.
Namir knew ISIS was also sending a covert message through that text: that they could find him wherever he was.
He wasn’t bothered. He would carry out the killing spree his masters desired.
After executing Kenton Ashland.
He rented four vehicles, and the group set off for Texas from New York. None had driven in America, and the interstate highways took some getting used to.
A couple of his men couldn’t help staring at American women in their short skirts. Namir tore a strip off their butts with his tongue, and from then on, they behaved.
No Arabic: that was another rule he insisted on. Everyone would speak in English, however broken it was. He was fluent enough in English, and in any case, their cover as Saudis would explain their lack of proficiency.
Asif Iqbal’s address turned out to be a rundown trucking warehouse in an industrial park outside Houston, in a corner all by itself.
Metal was peeling off its shutters. The few trucks in the lot were old.
Namir watched the warehouse for a full day. He scattered the group’s vehicles behind several trucks and rotated his men on surveillance duty.
He personally inspected all the parked vehicles on the street.
There were no police cruisers. No vehicles with antennae sticking out.
The industrial park looked like it had business-as-usual traffic. One building was occupied by an office supplies company; another, a bathroom fittings manufacturer.
Normal businesses, with normal-looking staff. Some pudgy, some lean, women, men, black, white. A mix that reflected the country’s melting pot.
Once he was sure there was no trap set, no cops in waiting, he approached the warehouse.
Iqbal looked to be in his thirties. He had a scrawny neck, a straggly beard that fell over a soiled T-shirt. His dirty jeans stank.
His brown eyes flicked over Namir’s men and then to the cellphone the terrorist presented to him.
‘No names,’ he snapped after reading the text message. ‘I don’t want to know who you are. Or what you intend to do.’
His attitude grated on Namir. He thought of snapping Iqbal’s neck.
‘I plan to kill you.’