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  Rudy grabbed the remote control off his desk and punched it, causing the screen to go black. "Let me know if you hear anything."

  "Aye, aye, Skipper."

  "That will be all, Commander."

  Their escape route took them on a northerly route from the scene. The driver checked his rear view frequently for signs of pursuers. So far, so good. Or so it seemed. Mostly tractor-trailers, SUVs, and thousands of nondescript cars zipping along at sixty-five miles per hour in both directions. Not a single law-enforcement vehicle. At least not in the last hour.

  As the vehicle crossed the James River Bridge, revealing the sight of the late-afternoon orange sun reflecting off the modest Richmond skyline, the driver reached down and punched the car radio. The AM scanner found station WRVA, the 50,000-watt news station and self-proclaimed "Flagship Station of the Old Dominion." A female reporter was in the middle of a newsflash.

  "The Associated Press now confirms one death in that sniper shooting believed to be an assassination attempt on Navy Lieutenants Zack Brewer and Diane Colcernian."

  The passenger, who was trying to doze, woke with a start, her eyes widening.

  "Twenty-two-year-old Maggie Jefferies, a University of North Carolina coed, was shot this afternoon by a sniper as she left a men's varsity basketball game between North Carolina and Duke. Jefferies, who was a senior speech communications major from Wilmington, is believed to be a victim of mistaken identity. Described by her friends as a beautiful young woman who was slender with red hair and green eyes, Jefferies bore a strong physical resemblance to Navy Lieutenant Diane Colcernian, who also attended the North Carolina - Duke game this afternoon with Lieutenant Zack Brewer, a Carolina graduate."

  The passenger's eyes met those of the driver's.

  "Brewer and Colcernian, the Navy JAG officers stationed in San Diego who prosecuted the high-profile court-martial of United States versus Mohammed Olajuwon in which three Muslim navy chaplains were convicted and now face the death penalty, were in Chapel Hill as part of an East Coast tour on their way to meet President Williams in Washington later this week. Both university and law-enforcement officials are reporting that when network cameras caught the JAG officers watching the game, death threats followed. Brewer and Colcernian opted to leave the game early for security reasons, we are told, and their whereabouts are unknown."

  Diane reached over and took Zack's hand.

  "Officials are saying that Miss Jefferies came out of the exit Lieutenant Colcernian most likely would have used, had she stayed for the remainder of the game. Authorities are treating this as an act of terrorism, and the university president, the governor of North Carolina, and the White House have issued statements condemning the shooting.

  "Meanwhile, in sports, the Virginia Cavaliers . . ."

  Zack punched off the radio.

  "Oh, dear heaven, that poor girl," Diane said. "They were trying to kill me, and they got her." Tears streamed down her face. Trembling, she withdrew her hand from Zack's, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Zack put his right hand on her shoulder, massaging her neck while steering the car into the far-right northbound lane of I-95 with his left. "I wish it had been me." She opened her purse, fished out a tissue, and tried to stem the flow of tears. "I feel like it's my fault. Her family . . ."

  "I'd better call the skipper," Zack said awkwardly. "Let him know we're okay." He picked up his cell phone, powered it up, then punched the speed-dial number for Captain Glen Rudy, JAGC, USN.

  "Skipper? . . . Yes, sir, we're fine . . . Yes, sir. We just found out. We heard on the radio . . . She's here . . . She's pretty shaken up. We're in Richmond. Northbound Interstate 95. Just crossed the James River, coming up on I-64 split off to Williamsburg . . . I understand . . . That's a direct order . . . Aye, aye, sir."

  Zack looked at Diane's tear-stained face, and his heart filled with anguish. He breathed a prayer for strength. "Skipper says I'm to call him back in thirty minutes if we haven't heard anything from him before then."

  The first flashing blue light appeared five minutes later as they passed the Parham Road exit just north of Richmond. Immediately, Zack's cell phone buzzed.

  "Lieutenant Brewer."

  "Lieutenant, this is Sergeant Scott, Virginia State Police. I'm right on your rear bumper, sir. You guys okay?"

  "We're fine, Sergeant. But I must confess that this is the first time I've ever been happy to see a flashing blue light on my rear."

  "It's a privilege to be on your rear, Lieutenant. And I promise, no tickets this time."

  "Thanks."

  "Lieutenant, I want you to drop your speed down to about fifty-five, then stand by for further instructions."

  "Okay." Zack tapped the brake, disengaging the cruise control, and watched the speedometer needle drop from seventy to fifty-five miles per hour.

  "Good," the trooper said. "You okay on gas, sir?"

  "Half a tank," Zack said. Another blue-and-silver Virginia State Police vehicle with lights flashing came out of nowhere, whizzed by the rental car, then pulled in directly in front of them.

  The trooper in the rear car spoke again. "That's why I wanted you to slow down, Lieutenant. We've got two other squad cars headed our way to join the party."

  A third trooper, charging from the rear at probably eighty miles per hour, pulled his squad car even with Zack. He flashed a quick salute at the tip of his Smokey Bear hat.

  "Whose gonna be catching the speeders in Richmond today, Sergeant?"

  "Speeders have a holiday for a couple of hours. They just don't know it yet," the sergeant said. Just then, a fourth squad car zipped past the three others and pulled into the very front of the caravan.

  "You guys escorting us all the way to Washington?"

  "Wish we could," the trooper said. "The governor made the offer, but the navy had other ideas." Zack did not respond. "Here's what we're gonna do. Just follow the lead car with the flashing lights."

  "I'm with you, Sergeant."

  Five minutes later, Zack saw the squad car in front flash its right turn signal, and the trooper in the car to his left gave him a hand signal, which Zack interpreted to mean that the makeshift motorcade was about to exit Interstate 95. They took Exit 92B, the Ashland exit, and made a left at the top of the ramp. In another five minutes, they were driving into the entrance of Randolph-Macon College, about twenty miles north of Richmond. Zack stayed close on the trooper's bumper, following him to the school's small, empty football stadium.

  "Follow us onto the field, Lieutenant," came one of the officer's voices over a loudspeaker.

  As the sun slowly surrendered to twilight over central Virginia, the small caravan of flashing blue lights proceeded slowly through the open end of the stadium, past a sign that read "Home of the Yellow Jackets,"and came to a halt in one of the end zones.

  "What are we doing?" Diane asked.

  "Being protected, I hope," Zack said.

  The state trooper in the car behind them got out and walked to the driver's side window.

  "You two okay?" The officer wore the gray uniform and black Smokey hat of the Virginia State Police.

  "We're fine, Officer," Zack said. "What's the plan?"

  "We're to stay with you here until the navy picks you up," the trooper said. The other three troopers who had been part of the caravan were getting out of their cars. All three carried pump shotguns. They took up positions around Zack's car like Indians circling a wagon train in a John Wayne movie.

  "Any idea when that'll be?"

  "Trying to get some information on that now, Lieutenant. But from what we hear" -- the patrolman raised his voice against the thwock-thwock-thwock of the rotary blades -- "it sounds like your ride is here now."

  The dark silhouette of an SH-60B Seahawk, its running lights blinking, passed directly over the rental car. The helicopter slowly maneuvered into position near the fifty-yard line, and when the pilot rotated it on an aerial axis at a perpendicular angle to the end zone, a spotlight on the tail section il
luminated the word NAVY.

  "A sight for sore eyes," Zack mumbled to himself as the war bird feathered onto the field. A squad of commandos carrying M16s poured out the open bay door and sprinted across the grass.

  "Lieutenant Brewer, I'm Lieutenant (JG) D. L. Cobb, Foxtrot Company, SEAL Unit 1, Virginia Beach," the squad leader said to Zack. "Our orders are to escort you and Lieutenant Colcernian to Washington, sir. My men will get your bags, but I need you and the lieutenant to accompany us in the Seahawk."

  "Lieutenant, I thought you'd never ask," Zack said, then looked at Diane. Her green eyes were still bright with tears, but a small smile of relief crept across her beautiful face. "Ready?"

  She nodded.

  "Let's go."

  Surrounded by five black-clad SEALs moving in a human circle, Zack and Diane jogged to the helicopter. As the fierce, warm air from the whirling propellers blew her red hair in a thousand directions, a master chief reached down and took Diane's hand, pulling her up into the back of the chopper. Zack stepped up behind her. The SEALs turned, pointed their guns out toward the field, as if to threaten any potential assassin who might be looking on, then backpedaled into the chopper.

  The chopper lifted off in a rush, and in an instant, the whirling blue lights below were but dots disappearing into the landscape, then darkness as the chopper dipped its nose and headed north toward Washington.

  CHAPTER 3

  Council of Ishmael headquarters

  Rub al-Khali Desert

  250 miles southeast of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Inbound from Riyadh, the helicopter slowed, then made a low circle before feathering toward the landing pad.

  Its owner and passenger, Hussein al-Akhma, raised his binoculars and looked down for a last bird's-eye view of his mighty empire. The 100,000-square-foot concrete command center, just to the left of the landing pad, was painted the color of sand. Surrounded by sixty-foot sand dunes, it appeared buried in the barren desert landscape. Powered by solar energy, and inaccessible except by helicopter, the command center housed the most modern communications and jamming equipment black gold could buy on the black market.

  Al-Akhma, a Saudi national with blood ties to the royal family -- second cousin once removed to King Fayel himself -- was called by some a billionaire Muslim playboy, by others a devout follower and hero of the great faith. Only the latter designation mattered to him.

  He adjusted the focus on the binoculars, sharpening the image of the building that housed the Council of Ishmael international headquarters. He was not sure if the Americans had seen it with their spy satellites. Most likely they could, if they wanted to. But they would never attack it. Not here in the Rub al-Khali anyway. This was not Iraq or Afghanistan. An attack here would mean an attack on the sovereign territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

  "Terrorist activities," as the leaders of the Great Satan called them, were treated with a double standard by America's criminal presidents. Be it Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, or now the dog Mack Williams, America would "get tough" on so-called "state-sponsored terrorism," so long as it was allegedly sponsored by hapless, bumbling, loudmouthed regimes like the Iraqis, the Afghanis, or the Libyans.

  Other nations, because of their importance to American economic interests, or because of their potential possession of nuclear weapons, got free passes from the sons and grandsons of John Wayne. Foremost among the "free pass" states were China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

  America would more likely drop a bomb on Westminster Abbey than shoot a slingshot at Saudi Arabia.

  This calculation was foremost in al-Akhma's strategic thinking when he located the Council's headquarters here. And if the Americans did the unthinkable and launched a strike on Saudi soil, the cluster cells in Europe and the Caribbean were capable, on a moment's notice, of making September 11 look like a Sunday school picnic.

  He looked down once more on his camouflaged empire. Goose bumps rose on his arms and the back of his neck. From here, strategic decisions were being considered that would finally eradicate the Zionist plague called Israel on the Mediterranean coast.

  Nasser, Sadaam, Arafat, and Assad had all failed, but Hussein alAkhma would not. Allah had given him the vision to found the revolutionary Council of Ishmael -- an elite group of twenty Muslim, Arabic billionaires, all Western educated, all fluent in English, all who pledged their cumulative fortunes to the elimination of Zionism and Christianity and to the spread of the Great Faith throughout the world.

  Theirs would be a subtle infiltration of Western institutions and culture. The new Islamic freedom fighter would be equally fluent in English, Arabic, and French and in some cases even Hebrew. Under alAkhma's command, Council operatives would blend unnoticed into the godless Western landscape, gather intelligence, recruit disciples, and undermine the enemy both politically and militarily.

  Al-Akhma understood all too well that the nefarious twin nemeses of Islam, Israeli-Zionism and Christianity, were propped up by the Great Satan, the United States of America. Weaken America, and he would weaken Zionism and Christianity. His vision called for crippling America by infiltrating Council operatives into its military. And in the seven years that had passed since he first brought the Council of Twenty together, he had successfully inserted numerous operatives into the United States military, primarily the United States Navy.

  It all started with the Navy Chaplain Corps. The Council, through an entity called the Muslim Legal Foundation, had threatened to sue the navy if it did not admit more Muslim chaplains. The chief of naval personnel, a three-star admiral on the short list for chief of naval operations, wilted like a frail petunia and capitulated in order to keep an embarrassing lawsuit out of the public eye.

  This paved the way for other well-educated, multilingual Muslim operatives. The Council secretly offered scholarship money for hard-line Muslims to go into naval aviation, naval intelligence, and the elite submarine community.

  The pilot's voice resonated over the intercom, breaking into his thoughts. "Leader, if you wish, safety harnesses are available for your protection, as we are about to touch down."

  Hussein pressed the talk button on his headset. "Very well, Akeem." He stuffed the binoculars under the seat, then clicked the harness across his shoulder. As members of his personal security team sat down and strapped in, he returned to his musings.

  All this pointed to an apocalyptic event that would shake the world for Islam. Allah had revealed this to him. And Allah had given this cataclysm a name.

  Operation Islamic Glory.

  This glorious culmination of events would finally drive a wedge between the Great Satan and its moderate Muslim sycophants who were more interested in the corrupt American dollar than the advancement of Islam. From Islamic Glory, finally, a consolidated Islamic superpower would rise like a phoenix from the ashes. A superpower that would hail Hussein al-Akhma as its leader.

  The time for Islamic Glory would be soon. But first, other matters must be attended to.

  He smiled as the helicopter made a quick circle of the area, then lightly touched down in the center of the beige concrete.

  The sun blistered the midmorning sky as the pilot cut the engines, then rushed around to open the bay door for al-Akhma. A blast of hot air rushed in as the back door slid open. Two turban-clad young men, somewhat of a ceremonial honor guard, stood at attention on the tarmac holding AK-47s just outside the helicopter door. The Council of Ishmael leader put on his sunglasses and stepped into the desert heat.

  From a monolithic concrete building across the tarmac, a tall, turbaned man with a closely cropped black beard walked swiftly across the landing pad, his arms spread.

  "Welcome back, Leader!" He greeted al-Akhma by dropping to his knees and kissing his leader's hand.

  Al-Akhma allowed his principal deputy to spend several seconds with his knees on the scorching asphalt before he spoke. "Rise, Abdur," he said.

  The deputy rose, his face dripping sweat, then planted a quick kiss
on each of al-Akhma's cheeks.

  "Let us escape this roasting inferno, Abdur." Al-Akhma put his hand on Abdur Rahman's back and nudged him toward the building. The men shaded the sun from their eyes as they strode quickly toward the air-conditioned entrance. Two aides jumped from the helicopter with alAkhma's luggage and briefcases and followed the two men.

  "What is our situation with the two infidel JAG Corps swine?" alAkhma asked when he felt the blast of cool air at the front doorway. "Are they dead yet?"

  "Our agent tracked them to a sporting event on the East Coast. When the American television networks showed them on television, our people made calls to the stadium, warning of their fate."

  As Abdur Rahman spoke, the two men walked down a long hallway, then walked into the office of the leader of the Council of Ishmael. Al-Akhma sat down behind a desk with three computer screens on its surface. He motioned Abdur to sit in a chair just opposite the desk, facing him.

  "By calling," Abdur continued, "our operatives hoped to flush the infidels into the open, ahead of the crowd. Our sniper was positioned in a wooded area, watching the exit closest to their seats in the stadium. They did not emerge immediately, as we hoped, but our sniper got off a shot, we believe, at the witch Colcernian."

  "What a shame, Abdur." Al-Akhma snapped his fingers. A bodyguard brought him a glass of American Coca-Cola. "Such a beautiful maiden with the decrepit soul of an apostate. Perhaps I should not admit this, Abdur, but that woman became the object of my fantasies on more than one occasion. It is a pity that I had no chance to act on those fantasies."

  A sip of coke. The crunching of ice.

  "Coke, Abdur?"

  "No thank you, Leader."