Jambaz was furious. He had failed in his attempts to steal Q-3 or stop the scientist from working on her project, and there was another demand from Abbas Kahn to report his progress immediately.
He slumped down at his cluttered desk, turned on his small lamp and examined the email closely.
At least there was good news back home. Their Lashkar cells were working together on the next missile attacks as well as a conventional attack on an American advance team. If India didn’t retaliate to the first strike surely they would react to these. Then Pakistan’s generals, who were even more trigger-happy, would respond in kind, and soon the entire region would be at war with all kinds of missiles flying everywhere.
One problem, a huge problem, kept bothering him. It bothered Abbas Kahn as well, which is why he had sent Jambaz to this city in the first place. If the new missile defense technology were completed and India were successful in purchasing it from the Americans, that would be like an ancient battle where both sides had swords but only one side had shields. He could not let that happen. He had to make sure India never got the shield.
He doubted that the bureaucrats at the Pentagon would allow Pakistan to have it. Yes, they were selling F-16’s, but not other sophisticated technology like this. And while Lashkar-i-Taiba wanted Pakistan’s government to fall, they had to see that India did not end up the victor.
No. They needed a stalemate and one-time elections where they knew they would win a majority in both Pakistan and Kashmir. They would then rule the entire area, control the nuclear arsenal and be able to force America to do their bidding. He had heard it many times now. But Abbas Kahn said it bore repeating so no cell member could doubt the outcome of the grand design.
As he stared at the message, a plan began to form in his mind.
He had not been able to eliminate this inventor, Dr. Talbot. She would continue to work on Q-3. Then others would learn to operate it. He was certain of that, and he wasn’t sure who they were.
Then he figured out what he had to do.
He simply needed to hobble the company itself. The place where all of the technology, the software, the systems were housed. Yes, that was it. If he could destroy the Bandaq building they would not be able to focus on producing Q-3 for quite some time. A well timed, well placed explosion at an industrial complex, could be just the ticket to paradise.
He had seen that Dr. Talbot and many others often worked late in that facility. He had been trailing her long enough to learn her habits. So he would have plenty of time to launch the blast that would destroy the building, but as an added bonus, it could destroy her and her teammates as well.
He went to his bookshelf and pulled down two files. The first was filled with clippings and summaries of successful attacks by fellow militants in various parts of the world. It was gratifying to go back and read about successful operations. It often gave him new ideas, new insights.
The first articles were about a series of car bombs the insurgents had set off in Iraq and Syria. All were done by remote control. And though the Americans had developed new jammers, the bombs still went off. They were being used everywhere. He underlined the words “remote control,” and set one page aside.
He then studied reports about suicide attacks in London and Paris some time ago. Many had been killed and injured, but he was not ready to give up his life for Allah. Not just yet. He had more work to do.
He sat back in his chair and visualized his target, an industrial building, surrounded by park land and woods. One could actually drive a car up to the front door of the building and park in a “Visitor” slot. Yes, that could be done. But it could be noticed. And if he were working alone, how could he park the car, get out, detonate the blast and make his getaway? No, that wouldn’t work.
He thought about the company garage with the metal door. He had watched as Dr. Talbot and the other employees had used a card to access that garage. He had even made a note of how much time had elapsed between the entry of the car and the descent of the gate. There might be enough time to drive in directly behind another car, go and park in the center and then find a way out of the building. Then again, if it wasn’t a familiar car or a familiar employee, that could cause concern too.
No. He would not use a car bomb.
He turned to his second file, the one on explosives. He had studied the effects of dynamite which might be easy to get, but would cause people to ask questions. He read about C-4, the explosive that the military used. That would be hard to get.
Then he thought about his favorite stand-by, Semtex. It was highly explosive, easy to get, and hard to detect. In fact, the stupid bomb-sniffing dogs had a hard time finding the stuff because it had such a faint odor. And it couldn’t be seen on the X-ray machines at airports either.
It was fairly stable and all he would need to set it off was a blasting cap or piece of detonating cord. The best part of all was that his cell had been storing small supplies of Semtex in several locations for the last several years just in case it would be needed.
They had purchased their supplies from Libya and countries in the Eastern bloc, along with many other militant groups. Some of those groups had used it in their bombs, and you didn’t need much to wreak a lot of havoc.
After 9/11, there was a demand to crack down on the big suppliers of Semtex. And that meant that the government of Czechoslovakia had to buy out the company that makes it. A company with a great name, he thought. Explosia, based in eastern Bohemia. After that, it got a bit harder to buy from the Eastern bloc. So his cell had simply expanded its contacts in Libya. But then the traitor in Tripoli had caved in and turned from supporter to informer. Good thing they had concluded their purchase long before that debacle.
On his last trip to America, he had been given a small block of it just in case it might be needed some day in the future. He had stashed it in a locker at a Greyhound bus station. No one ever checked those things. They were perfect places to keep anything truly important. It couldn’t go off. There was no detonator with it. It simply looked like a lump of clay. A simple lump of clay that could be the perfect answer to his prayers.
All he needed now was the perfect delivery vehicle.