The Caliphate André Gallo (list of ebook readers TXT) 📖

on the Ranger. Later, Rashid had customized the UAVs to allow them to carry Hellfire missiles and small bombs.

     Karim soon had the Ranger in the air and turned it over to the other two men on his team. He instructed them to “Get it up to five-hundred feet heading directly west, two-seventy degrees.” Then he put two additional Rangers up and told their crews, “Fly them west at altitudes of four-hundred and three-hundred feet. One-hundred feet of separation will give us an increased margin of safety when we maneuver them.”

     A few miles away, Rashid was going through a similar protocol from a beach between the Shati Refugee Camp and the border with Israel to the north.

PART III

And fight them until there is no temptation, and the religion is for Allah.

—Quran 2:193

All our problems come from the Muslim Brotherhood.

—Prince Naif bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud

06:25 HOURS

Hussein looked at his watch as their small convoy pulled off under trees on a side road. It was 6:15 a.m. They were less than ten minutes from their objective. Hussein thought it would give them at least five minutes more than they needed. His cell phone signaled that it was receiving a text message and he flipped it open: GREEN.

     He said to al Khalil, “Rashid’s UAVs are up. On time.”

     “Good.”

     He looked at the men in back of the covered delivery truck they were using, and told them, “We have twenty-five minutes.”

     Hussein opened the window, still looking at his watch. He waited. He strained to hear. At 6:25, the faint sound of an explosion came through, and then another.

     “The mortars,” he said looking at al Khalil.

     “Yes and three shaheed just reached paradise. I hope they took a lot of Jews with them.”

     Hussein noticed cars were beginning to appear. He didn’t want to stay parked any longer.

     “We’re right on time,” al Khalil said. “Move, go,” he commanded the driver.

     The men in the back checked their weapons again.

***

Following his brief meeting with al Khalil, Steve had been taken to the bomb shelter of the house in Ashqelon. The room was pitch-dark. He knew very well, having gained insights into al Khalil’s operation when he was running Karim, that al Khalil’s men were killers. Whatever the purpose for keeping him alive, he doubted al Khalil had any intention to keep him alive longer than necessary.

     Although his eyes had become accustomed to the dark, Steve could still see nothing. He assumed there were no windows. His wrists were still bound but he could use his hands to explore by moving along a wall. Then a familiar female voice in the room said something in Arabic.

    “Kella? Kella? Is that you?”

     “Oh, my God! Steve!”

     He moved toward the voice and heard her move, apparently getting up. They touched against each other in the dark.

     “What the hell is going on? How long have you been here? Are you okay?”

    Kella sobbed briefly. In a quiet voice, she recounted her experience since her capture. She had spent one night in another location. She had not gone through any checkpoint and assumed that she had not left Israel. With one exception, no one had said much to her. She was just a tool, a commodity, to be minimally maintained until she could be used.

     “At first, I thought that, as the American ambassador’s daughter, they would try to exchange me for Palestinians being held by the Israelis. Now, I’m not so sure. Anyway, no one is saying anything to me or asking me anything. Someone gave me a lecture. I thought I recognized al Khalil’s voice. He told me about the crimes Americans were committing every day against Muslims, and about the Jewish occupation of Arab land, and that the Americans and the Jews were the real terrorists. But it wasn’t a conversation. Al Khalil wasn’t interested in a dialogue. How about you, how did you end up here?”

     Fearing that whatever he said was being recorded or somehow being listened to, Steve stuck to the same story he had given al Khalil. He was careful not to mention that his father had come to Ashqelon with him.

     They slept little, their handcuffs rubbing their wrists raw. At one point, when he determined Kella was still awake, he tried to raise her spirits.

     “Did I ever tell you about the first time I was kidnapped in Israel?”

     “This has happened to you before?” she asked in amazement.

     “Yeah, I was in high school when my older sister came to stay with us from college for the summer. A friend stayed at my house one night. Around midnight, my older sister woke us up. She had brought an Israeli girlfriend with her. They said they were kidnapping us. I remember that the Israeli girl was doing her military service and hoped to go to some Florida college on a tennis scholarship. They snuck us out of the house—with no resistance from us I should add—and drove us to an orange grove. For a couple of hours we just hung out and drank beer.”

     “Sounds like quite an adventure,” Kella said, sounding a bit cheered. “Given your prior experience, I expect you to get us out of this mess.”

***

In the middle of the night, Kella and Steve were walked out of the house and put into the trunk of a Renault. It was a tight fit. Steve protested, “We can’t breathe in here. If you want to kill us, just do it. If you want us alive, you have to give us more room. Tell them Kella.”

     Kella translated in Arabic and one of the men agreed. They left Steve in the trunk and moved Kella to the floor of the back seat, covered with