Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(6)

He’d spent months hidden underground, submitting to primitive medical procedures, surviving various infections and extended internal bleeding. All the while wondering if the Americans knew he’d survived. If, at any moment, Rapp would once again appear.

After a time those fears had faded and he began to heal both physically and psychologically. Once he was able, he’d devoted himself to prayer and study. He’d spent endless hours watching newsfeeds from throughout the world, reading history and politics, and studying military strategy. During that time, he came to understand why God had allowed his most devoted servant to be attacked in such a way. Halabi had let his life become consumed with the battle. He’d pursued the fleeting pleasure of inflicting damage instead of dedicating himself to the far more arduous and unsatisfying task of securing a final victory.

Footsteps became audible behind him and he turned to watch his most loyal disciple approach.

Muhammad Attia was an American by birth, the son of Algerian immigrants. He’d expended his youth working at his parents’ general store in New York and seeking the approval and acceptance of the Westerners around him. After high school, he’d attended a year of community college before taking a job as a civilian Arabic translator for the U.S. Army.

As a Muslim American, he’d already experienced the treachery and moral bankruptcy of his parents’ adopted country, but it wasn’t until he’d arrived in Iraq that he came to understand the magnitude of it.

His recruitment by al Qaeda had occurred less than six months into his tour and he spent almost five years as an agent for the organization before being discovered. He’d proved too clever for the Americans, though, and had escaped into the desert before they could come for him.

“Can we change?” Halabi said as the younger man approached. “Are my followers capable?”

“Everything is possible with Allah’s help.”

“But it’s far more difficult than I imagined to garner that help.”

“No man can see into the mind of God. We can only seek to play our small role in His plan.”

Halabi nodded. “Are we ready?”

“We are.”

The stairs had been cleared of debris, but the ISIS leader still needed help getting down them. The darkness deepened as they descended into what was left of the building’s basement. Halabi felt a moment of panic when the door closed behind them and the blackness recalled the agonizing hours he’d spent dragging himself from the cavern in Iraq.

This time, though, the darkness didn’t last. The dim glow of computer monitors coming to life pushed back the emptiness and he found himself standing in front of a series of screens, each depicting a lone male face.

The difference between this ISIS leadership meeting and his last one couldn’t have been more stark. The former Iraqi soldiers who had lined up on the ground in front of him and the traitorous Aali Nassar were all dead now. Taken from him by God not as a punishment but because they were useless. He understood that and so much more now.

With his newfound clarity, Halabi saw his past actions as almost comically misguided. He’d put his faith in men who had already been defeated by the Americans once. They’d had no new ideas. No new capabilities. No knowledge or insight that hadn’t existed for decades. The most that they could hope to do was bring order and discipline to ISIS’s next failure.

A red light flashed on a camera in front of him and the faces on-screen gained resolve. Despite the hardening of their expressions, though, it was clear that none were soldiers. Some were well-groomed and clean-shaven while others had thick beards and unkempt hair. The youngest was barely twenty and the oldest hadn’t yet reached his fortieth year of life. Two—one a pale-complected Englishman—didn’t even speak rudimentary Arabic.

That diversity went deeper than appearance, extending to their areas of expertise. Computer programming. Marketing. Finance. The sciences. Perhaps most important was a young documentary filmmaker who had spent the last year working for Al Jazeera. The only common thread was that all had been educated in the West. It was something he now required of his inner circle.

While a far cry from the brutal and fanatical forces Halabi had once commanded, these men had the potential to be much more dangerous.

“There was a time when I believed that the movement had lost its way,” Halabi said in English, his heavily accented words being transmitted over a secure satellite link. “But now I understand that there was never a path to victory. Osama bin Laden expected his actions in New York to begin the collapse of a society already faltering under the weight of its own moral decay. But what was really accomplished? Punishing but ultimately indecisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A handful of minor follow-up attacks that were lost in America’s culture of violence and mass murder. Bin Laden spent his final years bleating like a sheep and waiting for the Americans to find him.”

Halabi paused and examined the faces on the screens before him. While these men were indeed different from the ones he’d commanded before, the fire in their eyes burned just as intensely. The movement was everything to them. It gave them purpose. It gave them a target for their fury, hate, and frustration. And it gave them peace.

“Al Qaeda failed because their leadership grew old and forgot what motivates young men,” Halabi said flatly.

Osama bin Laden had feared the rise in brutality throughout the region, seeing it as counterproductive to recruitment. Unfortunately, he hadn’t lived to see the truth. To see the slickly produced videos of chaotic, merciless victories. To hear the pumping music that accompanied them and the computer-generated imagery that enhanced them. To see thousands of young men, motivated by this propaganda, flood into the Middle East. Ready to fight. Ready to die.