SMITH TRADING FACED WEST on Union Avenue, and received the afternoon sun. The reflective material Abdullah installed in the front window helped shield him from the heat. Still the temperature reached an uncomfortable 103 degrees inside the office he now used as living quarters. He planned to buy an indoor air-conditioner and vent it into the back half of the building.
Abdullah thought of his deluxe motor home and the event that brought him back to Smith Trading and this degraded existence. He had enjoyed the luxury of living in a magnificent RV with a woman to satisfy his needs. Then, within a few hours, he faced the likelihood of discovery and capture. He’d gathered his essential items, the bag of money, the Master Plan of Action, and his computer. He then assembled the cell phone bomb and attached it to the fuel tank. After walking a mile, he had detonated the bomb and viewed the orange glow of the explosion in the night sky. Two hours later at the Westside Plaza, using his duffel bag full of money as a pillow, he lay on the cold office floor, asleep by midnight.
The next morning he found a pay phone, and called Bashir in El Paso. The Russell Smith identity was compromised. He needed new credentials. Using Abdullah's photograph from the original Allen Lee forgery, Bashir got a new Social Security number and New Mexico driver’s license from his longtime source in El Paso. The next day he sent them to Abdullah at the Smith Trading address in an overnight pouch.
Armed with a fresh ID, he walked to a pawnshop, and bought a bicycle. He rode it to a U-Haul outlet and rented a truck. After buying the air-conditioner, some used furniture and a mattress, he waited for the ice cream and the vacuum repair shops to close before he unloaded his furnishings into his unit, using the back door. Abdullah then returned the truck and retrieved his bike. He paid cash for everything.
When the shipping container arrived on the evening of day four, he signed for it and discovered heavy-duty locks on the doors. He tested the locks and found them resistant to any hacksaw he might have to cut them off. He entered the back door of Smith Trading, stored his tools. That's when he heard a banging sound out back. He hurried to the rear of the building and peered out of a small cobweb covered window. He watched a woman pounding on the sides of the container. She circled it and stared at the identification plate riveted to the door. She did not look like a homeless person. His first inclination was to go outside and confront her, but decided that would expose him to someone he did not know or trust. She soon walked away and didn't return.
In preparation for his need to hide that one important item from the cargo container, he bought a beat-up old panel truck from a private party he found on Craigslist. He did not intend to register the truck for the short time he would need it.
The next morning he again called his contact in El Paso and learned Bashir had received a key to the shipping container from Dubai with instruction to foreword it to Abdullah. It would arrive the next day by express mail. Bashir also told him of the strange woman who inquired about the old Ford truck he had bought from him. The one Abdullah later transferred to the Russell Smith identity. "She seemed legitimate, but when I searched on line for the insurance company name, I didn’t find it listed anywhere."
Abdullah's asked what she looked like and Bashir described her. She didn’t sound like anyone he knew.
Now he waited for delivery of the key on this, the fifth day. Late tonight he would open the shipping container and remove an item that would arm him with a powerful weapon. This meant that soon he would receive encrypted instructions from Rome. Finally, his need to serve Allah the All Powerful, and become a revered figure of Islamic history would be realized.