February 1
9:15 a.m. Western Europe Time (4:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Nerja, Andalusia
Costa del Sol, Spain
“Más café?” the waiter, a dark black African, asked.
More coffee?
“Sí, un poco más.”
Yes, a little more.
Gregorio Fuentes sat at an outdoor table with a red checkered tablecloth at his favorite tiny café, on a narrow cobblestone side street just off the Balcon de Europa. Seagulls floated above the steep hillside of the whitewashed village, crying to one another. A waft of salt air came from the ocean.
Gregorio held the morning newspaper open, reading about the terrible events in the Canary Islands. He barely glanced up when the waiter asked if he would like a refill. He still had sugar-sprinkled churros left on his plate, and his cup was empty—of course he wanted more coffee.
It was a perfect time of day, and a perfect time of year, to be here. The weather was sunny and warm, but not hot, and the tourists were few. From the corner of his eye, he could see a handful of them picking through some silkscreen clothes available for sale from street vendors. He did not like tourists.
Never mind that. He would not let their presence gore his mood. He was here, it was off season, the town was quiet and beautiful, and he was Gregorio Fuentes. He could remain Gregorio Fuentes for a time if he liked, and the idea appealed to him. The operation had been a failure. But that happened in war—things did not always go your way. Moreover, there was no reason to rush back. The war against Crusaders and apostates wasn’t going anywhere.
He sighed happily. Sometimes a man needed a holiday from war, and Allah himself must understand that.
He glanced at his coffee cup—still empty. Where was that waiter?
The waiter instantly reappeared, as if conjured by Gregorio’s mind. He passed through the waist-high swinging doors from the inside of the café, bringing the coffee pot with him. He reached with the pot and began to pour the black coffee into Gregorio’s small white cup.
There was something interesting about this waiter. Yes, he was dark, a Sub-Saharan African, a hardy young man who had somehow made the arduous journey up through the vast Sahara desert, and the dangerous passage across the Mediterranean, to arrive here on the coast and pour coffee into Gregorio’s cup.
The man wore black pants, and a black vest over a white dress shirt. The man was slim and his clothes were ill-fitting. The vest in particular seemed much too bulky for the man’s thin frame.
“Will there be anything else,” the man said in Spanish, “Señor Muhammad?”
Muhammad?
Gregorio looked at the man closely now. Their eyes met. It was almost as if time had stopped. Gregorio could hear his own heart beating in his chest.
“You are Rajan Muhammad, the one who murdered Yisrael Abdul Salaam. Are you not?”
Boko Haram. They knew who he was. They knew where he was. He could never come back here. If he lived, he could never…
He reached inside his jacket for the gun holstered there.
Suddenly, the waiter threw the coffee pot in his face. Scalding hot liquid burned the skin on his face, and on his neck. Worse, it burned his eyes! The instant pain was so extreme, for a moment, Gregorio forgot about his gun.
“Did you think we cannot see you?” the waiter shouted. “Did you think we cannot reach you?”
The waiter ripped his vest away, revealing the bulky suicide belt underneath.
“No,” Gregorio said.
A searing light came, followed by heat, and pain.
Down the narrow street, a group of tourists hit the pavement as glass shattered, metal twisted, and the tiny street-front café blew apart.