109

MIAMI, FLORIDA—25 MAY

Zaid Farooq stepped onto the balcony to enjoy his Turkish coffee and the view.

He was surprised that he had not heard from Ruzami in several days, but he was grateful for the arrangements the Kairos operations chief had made. The accommodations were ideal.

The Oak Grove apartment complex was located directly across the Snake Creek Canal and less than a mile from Hard Rock Stadium, with an unobstructed view. Long known as Joe Robbie Stadium, it was the home of the Miami Dolphins football team and site of numerous Super Bowls and other major sporting events and high-profile concerts since it opened its doors in 1987.

From the tenth floor of the adjoining apartment suites, Farooq and his colleagues had been able to study all the security preparations being made at the stadium in minute detail, day and night, in good weather and in the brutal thunderstorm that had just swept through. The Patriot missile battery, for example, was almost directly in front of them, and they had taken careful note of how many men operated the system and exactly when their shifts changed. They also now knew where all the sharpshooters were going to be positioned and could see the makeshift hospital as it was being erected.

Pretending to read that morning’s edition of the Miami Herald, Farooq was in fact focused rather intently on an exercise underway at that hour by first responders training for some sort of crisis—perhaps the very sort of crisis he and his men were planning to inflict. Sitting beside him was his young aide-de-camp, Mansour bin Badr, hunched over his laptop and scouring news reports and social media for any scrap of information on the logistics for the upcoming Mass.

“Brother Zaid, a new message has just arrived for you,” Mansour whispered, suddenly looking up.

“From your father?” Farooq asked, not taking his eyes off the exercise.

“No, from Tariq.”

“Everything all right?”

“Hard to say,” the young man said. “You’d better read it yourself. There seems to have been a change in plans.”