Namir smiled mirthlessly when Iqbal sprang back in alarm.
‘If you don’t give me weapons,’ Namir clarified and displayed his teeth when the trucker swore.
Iqbal had plenty of weapons.
Namir’s eyes popped in disbelief when he saw the array of guns in the warehouse the cell owned.
Iqbal’s trucking company turned out to be a five-man cell that stood ready to outfit people like Namir: ISIS killers.
The warehouse had all kinds of weapons: HKs, Sig Sauers, Remingtons, M16s, they were all available.
Namir selected HK MP7s as their main assault weapons, and Sig Sauers for handguns. He stocked up on ammo and knives.
‘Secure phones?’ he asked the cell leader.
Iqbal disappeared inside the warehouse and returned with a carton.
He ripped it open and brought out a collection of smartphones.
‘Not those,’ Namir said, tossed them aside. ‘Older models. Much older models.’
Iqbal brought out devices that had nothing much on them but keypads. All in black.
Namir grunted in satisfaction. ‘Jammers?’
‘Those are hard to get.’
‘Get them.’
Iqbal got them the next day, a whole carton full, and he added a bonus.
‘Satellite phone jammers,’ he announced proudly as he held up another box containing two box-like devices. ‘They have a two-hundred-meter radius and can jam any signal: cell, GPS, or sat phone.’
Namir fingered the equipment and sat back in his chair. ‘Show me,’ he ordered.
Iqbal leaped up and plugged one of the jammers into a power socket. He fiddled with dials and then inserted SIM cards into two phones.
‘Make a call,’ he said, tossing one to Namir.
Namir dialed the number Iqbal read out, and held the cell to his ear.
No response.
‘See?’ Iqbal grinned. ‘They work. Those babies are new. We paid big bucks to secure them. They are military grade.’
Namir made no response. He looked at two of his men, who nodded silently.
They rose and went to the warehouse doors. They rolled them shut and closed the rear exit as well.
‘What’s up, dude?’ Iqbal asked in confusion.
‘This,’ Namir replied, and shot him and the rest of the sleeper cell members.
‘You wiped out the entire cell!’ Safar screamed at him that evening, over a secure Internet call on a laptop.
Namir was in a motel, in a room all to himself. The computer was a used one he had bought and the call was through a messaging service—protocols he had agreed to after his escape from prison.
‘They saw our faces,’ he replied, unapologetically.
‘Anyone who can identify me, in this country, in your network, dies.’