ON TARGET
Book #3
of TERROR BLOODLINE Series
Genre: #Mystery #Terror #Suspense #Thriller
#Adventure #Crime
Book #3
TERROR BLOODLINE
Ex-CIA Jon Bradley 3-Series Thriller
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TERROR BLOODLINE
Ex-CIA Jon Bradley 3-Series Thriller
TERROR BLOODLINE Series abounds with terror-cell plots, personal conflicts, rape, vengeance, child-abuse, betrayals, murders and illegal arms & drug trafficking, mingled with deceit and dangerous interplay by the FBI, CIA, Mossad and MI6.
Culminating in a mad race to hunt down and eliminate the fugitive Lebanese Hezbollah Terror Mastermind from carrying out the deadliest suicide-bombing act in modern history.
Fields of Action: Beirut, Lebanon - New York City – Iran - Somalia - London - Jerusalem.
Meantime, read the Preview of the Prologue (Continued)
Prologue MOGADISHU - SOMALIA |
The firing outside had stopped.
Bradley ordered the third commando, “Go,
check on the other teams and ask Mike to report to me.”
The wounded terrorist was still standing,
leaning against the wall, and bleeding heavily under his dirty,
the long full shirt and loose pajama, their fighting uniform, as blood was seen
collecting near his feet.
Jonathan assumed that his slug had severed
the man’s femoral artery. He would bleed
to death if not medically treated soon.
Keeping his eyes on the bearded man,
apparently their leader, he said, You. Do you speak English?”
“Yes, I speak English,” replied the man
tersely, but fluently.
“Move aside,” Jon motioned him menacingly
with the barrel of his HK46, Assault rifle with the suppressor, “towards the left.”
The man obliged reluctantly.
“Three more steps…” demanded Jon, and saw
that the man was less rigid in obeying
him this time.
Then, nodding towards the wounded
terrorist, “Commando, do a body check of that man for any hidden weapons. And,
then tourniquet his wound using the first-aid kit.”
The wounded militant must have understood
because he was raising the leg of his pajama, as the commando stepped towards
him.
There came the sound of boots stepping on
the ground and some movement behind as Mike entered with two commandos.
“Mr. Bradley, we have secured the place and
all resistance removed.” As he said
this, his eyes met Bradley’s. There were
no survivors.
Now with the arrival of reinforcement,
Mike’s commandos quickly dealt with searching the militants and the premises,
and collected their cellphones and a radio phone, and a small haul of papers, sketches and rough notes – all in
Arabic. No. IDs or passports. Not an important hideout or storage point.
Just a temporary transit shelter. Jon
surmised.
Both the militants were handcuffed and
placed under guard. Meanwhile, the other
commando teams were gathering outside the mud-stone structure.
“Sir, I have called for a CHINOOK from our
base in Mogadishu. It should be here
within five minutes.”
“Mike, this place is not safe any
longer. The time is close to their first call to prayers. It will soon
be crawling with terrorists when they get no response to their calls from any
of these guys here. It’s best we move away from here and coordinate with the
chopper to pick up further down.”
From Jon’s understanding of the mid-eastern
terrorists’ traits, the forbidding
demeanor of the militant, now being led away by the American commandos, led him to believe
that this man was probably a hardened Hezbollah extremist, a leader of the
Shiite sect.
The Lebanese looked educated, and probably
came from an elite background before being radicalized.
Jon stepped a foot closer to the man,and
asked quietly, “Where’s the "Surq"?”
The captured militant looked briefly into
Bradley’s eyes and mocked, “He’s like a ghost.
Someone, you will never get your hands on.”
“You mean, he was here…?”
“That’s right. He left a whole day earlier. He was supposed
to be elsewhere on Friday evening. Your informant lied to you.
“But he lied to us also. That you Americans
had cancelled the plan to attack this
place as the “Surq" had fled.
“I personally killed the Yemeni traitor
with these bare hands and justifiably so.
He is today responsible for the death of my brethren here and my
capture, if that means anything to you, Infidel.”
He spat out the last word at Bradley and in
the same instance, headed-butted the chest of the nearest commando catching the
latter unaware to lose his footing.
Jonathan reacted swiftly and rammed the
butt of his assault rifle on the back of the terrorist’s neck, the blow causing
the militant to fall face down on the ground.
The other commandos rushed to subdue the
sinewy prisoner. The man appeared
relatively strong to have withstood the blow to his neck. He was no more than merely dazed. This time they bound his hands to his body
and led him by the rope.
A short while later, they heard the noise
of the chopper and Mike radioed their position as they came out of the long
grass trail and showed themselves out in the open area of the Somali plain. It was a CH-147
Chinook, heavily armed, and more than spacious enough to transport all the
commandos, including the two wounded and the dead, and the two prisoners,
back to their secret base in Mogadishu.
The closely guarded prisoners were taken to
the CIA’s Underground Prison located inside the
presidential palace compound, in the Halane Training Facility, close to the
Mogadishu International Airport, where torture was not uncommon.
If not their main objective, the CIA had
successfully scored two other equally important targets through this operation.
First one was that they had managed to nab one of the most wanted Somali
terrorist leaders, Salel Ali – who turned out to be none other than the wounded
prisoner. He lost his wounded leg during
the period of his intense interrogation.
His information revealed the presence of al
Qaeda training camps in Ras Kamboni along the border of Kenya. Moreover, he divulged the name of a
Pakistani, Mustaque Ahmed, who managed the distribution of funds, weapons
supply and communications systems to al Shabaab outfits of al Qaeda. Mustaque was also the “Suqr’s” intermediary.
When drained dry of intelligence
information, he was let out of solitary confinement. He, however,
lasted only a few hours as he was found dead, stabbed in the eyes and
disemboweled, in the common bathing area of the underground prison.
The Lebanese Hezbollah militant leader
whose identity the extant intelligence
reports established as Abdel Salaam, had a more colorful history, beginning
with his inception into Palestinian Hamas after the Sabra and Shatila refugee
camp massacres in 1983 by the Sa'ad Haddad's Lebanese Christian Phalangist
militia. Later he fought in Afghanistan
with al Qaeda against the allied forces, and in due course
was
plotting terror attacks in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.
The terrorist gave his name as Irfan Mahdi.
But he didn’t have any ID on him to prove that.
The papers and cellphones seized in the raid, mentioned no such name or
matched his features or particulars.
When the man refused to answer any
questions, the CIA interrogation team, including Jonathan Bradley decided to
break down the terrorist in the underground prison.
To disorient the man and make him realize
the reality of his situation, the prisoner was
locked up for 3 days in a solitary-confinement cell.
It was a small, narrow room, without a bed or mattress or toilet, and floodlit by bright electric
lamps that kept switching on and off, between the intervals of light and total
darkness. There were no windows and so
no ventilation. Periodically in
the night, the room space was blasted with high decibel recorded sounds of
screeching tires, and shots being fired amidst screams of men and women.
For the first two days no water or food was
provided. Only a metal bowl of clear liquid oats on the afternoon of the third
day.
The tiny high powered camera installed
above the upper end of the heavy iron grill gate, monitored the prisoner’s
every move, who was dressed in only a flimsy orange jumpsuit with no underwear
and barefoot
On the early morning of the fourth day, he
was abruptly woken and brought into the sinister-looking, special interrogation
designed to intimidate the already disoriented prisoner.
Two prison guards prodded him inside,
shackled with chains at the ankles and hands, and firmly set him down on the
sturdy upright wooden chair that stood in the middle of the room, and they left
closing the heavy metal door behind them.
Only Jon Bradley was present, the other two
CIA agents from his team, witnessed the interrogation through the one-way
mirror with a hidden camera recorder.
Despite suffering the three-day ordeal of solitary confinement
and the disorientation torments, Abdel Salaam, the seasoned al Qaeda
veteran, sat up straight in the chair
and stared defiantly at the interrogating officer who faced him.
His body language, Jon noticed, appeared to
throw up a challenge at him, with a
display of contempt in his eyes, which set a wicked twist to his lips.
Jonathan Bradley realized that the
interrogation of Abdel Salaam, Irfan Mahdi, was in for a long haul.
“Who and where is the “Suqr” – the falcon?”
began the intrepid CIA professional.
***
I invite your comments and review. Thank you.
Paul Rodricks, Author.Paul's WRITERS DIG 7
Email: paulrodericks@gmail.com
Blog: www.paulswritersdig7.blogspot.com