Boyle Plaza, Jersey City, New Jersey
Nazari reached into his pocket, his phone, issued to him at the warehouse, vibrating. He entered his code and read the message, cursing. The driver glanced at him.
“What is it?”
Nazari shoved his phone back in his pocket. “We’ve been compromised.”
“What do you mean?”
“The leadership has been taken, which means we were betrayed.” His immediate suspect was the convert, though how he could have done it, he had no idea. The man was in another vehicle with other warriors loyal to the cause, who would never have given him an opportunity to do anything.
And how would he have had time?
“What do we do now?” asked the driver, those in the back already whispering among themselves, scared.
Nazari sighed. “It’s time to reveal to you our true mission.”
This silenced everyone, the driver’s foot easing off the accelerator as he suddenly forgot what he was doing.
“You will have noticed that each team split into two, and if you knew your maps, you would know that we are not heading for Washington, DC. Half the teams are indeed heading for their assigned cities, but the other half are heading for our primary target, a mission, that once completed, will be even more glorious than anything accomplished before.”
“Where are we going?”
“We will be rendezvousing with others who have been here for months, laying the groundwork for the biggest attack ever conceived. But now that we have been compromised, we must assume we are being watched.” He motioned to the driver. “Watch the GPS and speed up. Your job is to deliver us to our destination as quickly as possible without attracting attention.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
The man refocused on the road ahead.
Nazari turned toward the others in the back. “All commanders just received the same message I did, as did all secondary vehicles. At this moment, all of the teams, not just the half originally assigned, are heading for our primary target, as we have to assume that we are all being tracked. With twenty-four teams now heading for the target, we are sure to get a significant number through.”
“What’s the target?”
Nazari smiled. “One with over twenty-thousand Americans including men, women and children.” He took a deep breath, the fever filling him. “Today we strike fear in the hearts of Americans everywhere, at one of the symbols of their supreme decadence.”