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airport was worth the price. On this remote road, it was impossible to know whether someone would discover the charred hulk in three minutes, three hours or three days.
    Fatima took no chances. She walked back to the town they passed an hour earlier, expecting to arrive there early the next day. It could be faster but she was not going to travel on the paved road, but in the forest beside it. She definitely didn’t want anybody to see her.
    After a couple of hours, assured that she was alone, Fatima sent a text using Geraldine’s phone. “Praise the Lord. After working for thirty years, I have retired and can now do all the things I want to do that I couldn’t do when I was working full time. It is wonderful.”
    Moments later, she received a coded reply from her brother. “Glad to hear that. You’re going to love retirement.”
    In other words, things were going to kick into high gear.

    SYRIA

    Half an hour later, there was a small gathering of young men in the desert. All the acolytes looked at their bearded leader, wondering what he would say. Some had followed Ahmed for two years, some not as long.  
    All had committed themselves to training in the desert. They had hardened their bodies, not only with tens of thousands of push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups, but by taking turns at pummeling each other so they could withstand beatings, even torture.  
    Phenomenal physical specimens, they learned techniques to kill and defend—martial arts, strangling, bladework, boxing, garroting, and firearms. They practiced with Russian, American and Chinese rifles. Each of them had fired over ten thousand rounds of ammunition, turning themselves into worthy marksmen.  
    In addition to training, they learned the fundamentals of making explosives and had created a vast stockpile of cheap IEDs with flashlight batteries, cell phones and detonators. They even raided traditional landmines for explosives and put them in everything from soda cans to gas cans. Some of the souped-up mines had nails, ball bearings or fire-starting chemicals to make them even more dangerous.
    At least once a month, they wreaked havoc on some small remote village. Each time, they grew more vicious, more skilled, more committed to the cause of Ahmed’s bloodthirsty vision of a caliphate. Every one of them was willing to martyr himself for the cause by driving a booby-trapped vehicle into a crowd or detonating himself with a suicide vest.
    Ahmed raised balled fists into the air and shouted, “Soldiers of Tiger Claw, it is time. You have proved yourselves worthy warriors. More than that, you have proved your undying allegiance to a new world order. Someday history will point to you and say, ‘a small band of true believers, against all odds, changed the world.’ Are you ready to accept the challenge?”
    “Yes. Yes. Yes,” chanted the men.
    “Then today is the beginning. We are no longer Tiger Claw but the American Muslim Militia. Allahu Akbar!”
    “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”

Chapter 5  

    Rayna strode confidently down San Francisco’s lofty business area to her destination—the pyramid-topped monument to glass at 777 Harbord Street. With its seventy-seven floors, it was a perfect San Francisco address for its elite clientele. While many poo-pooed the concept of lucky numbers, Fidelitas discovered that this was not so with their clients, especially those not from North America. Many of them consulted fortune tellers, astrologers or numerologists before making any important decision.
    When Paulina suggested to Arthur that Barry be brought onboard, Arthur thought him to be an almost ideal candidate. Not only because of his work in Delta Force, but because Barry’s family fortune was built up partly by capitalizing on a burgeoning Hispanic population. The experience of working with minorities, while not exactly transferrable, gave Barry the insight to work with under-represented groups.  
    Using the motto of legendary baseball hitter,