Gnash Read online

  GNASH

  by

  Brian Parker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  19 March, 2319 hrs local

  Karakoram Mountain Range

  Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

  The ancient lantern sitting beside the computer cast a dull glow that flickered off the wall, distorting its craggy features even further. Malik al-Nusurim sat at his World War II-era field table typing on one of the few laptops that the Brotherhood allowed. The air reeked of diesel fumes from the generator that ran constantly in the interior of the cave to power the computer and communications equipment.

  For over fifteen years the Brotherhood of Niyyat had been orchestrating the Jihad against the westerners from the safety of the caves. Those dogs had believed the disinformation campaign that the Brotherhood had delivered to the world about the fabricated terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. Even today the infidels still celebrated the death of the farmer named Usama that the Brotherhood had put in front of the camera to deliver their messages to the world for almost thirty years.

  If they only knew the truth! The Brotherhood of Niyyat, the secretive organization of the faithful that predated even the religion Islam, was founded to fight against the Greek invaders of Alexander. Later, after the Brotherhood was firmly on the proper path following the teachings of the Prophet, they fought against the crusaders from Europe and eventually transformed into what it was today: the most powerful organization in the world, bent on inflicting as much harm to the non-Muslim population as possible. Very few knew of its existence.

  The group was well financed and had operated virtually unrestrained until the Americans made a bold move and invaded Afghanistan. Even the Russians feared to enter the ancient valleys, but al-Nusurim knew what the American response would be when the Brotherhood ordered the attacks on the targets in New York and Washington D.C. The four planes were meant to plunge the Americans into helplessness for months as their financial institutions, military and government were struck a serious blow all in one day.

  Unfortunately the plane meant to destroy the United States Capitol building crash-landed in a field and the plane meant to cripple the military might of that nation hit too low along the building’s foundation instead of punching through and destroying more of the infrastructure and collapsing it. The Americans were able to rebound quickly from the attack and lashed out against the Taliban in Afghanistan for no other reason than they were a government that tolerated terrorism. Their agents at the CIA would be shocked to learn how close they actually got to reaching the Brotherhood when they blindly struck out against every available target.

  The Brotherhood went to ground after the infiltration of the American Special Forces into the Northern Alliance and had been calling the shots from the safety of the caves in the Karakoram Mountain Range ever since. The range ran from Afghanistan, through Pakistan and into India and China. The world’s second tallest mountain peak, K2, was within these mountains. From here the Brotherhood directed the most recent war in Afghanistan, supported numerous regional conflicts and planned terrorist attacks across the world.

  When the Americans foolishly invaded Iraq in 2003, it had been a Brotherhood of Niyyat agent that put the ideas of weapons of mass destruction into the lexicon of the American society. Of course, the Americans believed the information and attacked Iraq, as was expected. Iraq had long been a thorn in the side of the Brotherhood. Saddam Hussein ruled with an iron fist and would not take part in the terror campaign against the infidels. Instead, he preferred to attack his fellow Muslims within his own country and on the borders of Iraq. When the Americans toppled his regime it opened the way for Islamic unity amongst the true believers and presented them with easily accessible Western targets as nation after nation provided soldiers to take part in the rebuilding of Iraq.

  al-Nusurim halted his recollection and returned to typing the message his superiors had directed him to send. He had been creating this web site for two months, building pages of the history of Islam, how the religion had spread across the entire world, even as far as tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean, and what the future held for the proud Muslims of the world. It took considerable time to convert items into HTML code[1] in each of the three languages for the site, Arabic, Farsi and English. He had to develop the multiple pages of his fake site and to create the different links to legitimate web sites that would not arouse suspicion when viewed by the world’s intelligence personnel. Hidden within one of the very remotest sections of the site was a one-line message: Today is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and honor Him on the Night of Power. The Night of Power, Laylat-ul-Qadr, is the anniversary of the night the first verses of the Holy Qur’an were revealed to the Prophet. It is celebrated annually during the month of Ramadan, which was five weeks from today.

  A shiver of excitement went through al-Nusurim as he hit the execute key that would publish his web site to the World Wide Web. Cells that have been hidden for years, some maybe even for decades, would now be required to carry out the missions that the Brotherhood had given them so long ago. He knew there were several separate organizations in each of the major countries worldwide. If all of them carried out their acts of mayhem at the appointed time it could plunge the world into chaos and the stability of the Islamic faith would carry the believers through to paradise.

  He stood up and stretched his back. He’d been sitting for over four hours finalizing everything after he’d received word to carry out the plan. He walked stiffly to the opening of the cave, his sandals made from old truck tires scraped heavily on the traffic-worn floor. After relieving himself beside the cave, he squatted down and looked at the moon illuminating the valley below. Appropriate that the crescent moon shines tonight, he thought as his mind went over the potential for the future. Although he didn’t know what missions the cells had been given, he knew what the Brotherhood was capable of. Years of planning and training in secret across the globe could create all sorts of exciting possibilities. Bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, chemical or biological warfare, infrastructure disruption and a whole host of other events were possible. The imagination was the only limitation when it came to the actions of a martyr.

  His imaginings were interrupted by a loud beep from the laptop behind him. He stood up and walked back to the table. The visitor counter he had placed on the web site just registered its first hit. The message would be spread to all soon! The counter began to rapidly change and beep with each advancement. He pressed the mute button on the computer as it quickly rolled past one-hundred.

  ONE

  13 April, 0804 hrs local

  Yellow Line – Washington Metro

  Washington, D.C.

  The Washington Metro was exceptionally crowded this morning, and as luck would have it, her rail car was extremely loud and jerked at various points along the track. That happened sometimes. Emory thought about whether it was from the brakes not being fully disengaged, or if it was time to lubricate the fittings on the train wheels, or if her car was only seconds away from de-railing and they were all about to die. The dirty railcars were packed with rude people, and at least once a week there was an issue with the Metro and the trains would have to vie for position on a single track while they repaired the other, which turned her normal twenty minute subway ride into forty-five minutes or longer. God, she hated her commute but she was unwilling to deal with the hassle of having a car in the city.

  She lived in Alexandria with her longtime fiancé and worked as a Congressional staffer for Senator Ann Marie Fergusson. Senator Fergusson was a pretty good boss to h
ave, especially given that she was a powerful third-term Democrat from Georgia and a staunch conservationist, with which Emory identified. The Senator’s attitude toward the environment had earned her a seat on several environmental committees, including being the Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She was also a ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had an easygoing personality, a disarming smile and a quick temper, which she made up for with being even quicker to forgive people. Emory had always found it effortless to meet people and made friends easily, which Senator Fergusson used to help her office earn contacts. The two made a very good pair within the Washington political scene.

  Growing up as a privileged child in La Jolla, Emory Perry had been afforded opportunities that most girls only fantasized about. She’d never had to worry about anything as a kid, what with her parent’s money, their huge beachfront house and the family yacht. Sure, she’d had to endure some of the tedium of California high society like etiquette and style classes, Friday afternoon cocktail parties and Sunday brunches, but Emory had also been blessed with both an older and a younger brother. From them, she had learned how to defend herself, tell dirty jokes, handle her alcohol, play sports and feel comfortable around all sorts of personalities, traits that had all served her well in politics.

  Her childhood experiences had helped her immensely in her current profession as a staffer for a Senator with two major military installations and several smaller ones within her district. Several times she had to go to the Pentagon to seek out answers for the Senator and the military-types over there knew her by name and by reputation and they knew they couldn’t bullshit her or intimidate her with big egos and acronyms.

  It was on one of those trips to the “puzzle palace,” as they called it, that she met her fiancé Grayson. He was ex-military and had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. When he got out he took a Department of the Army Civilian job and moved to the District. Thinking about how their relationship began brought a smile to her face. The first time she met him was outside in the courtyard at the Pentagon where people ate their lunch and could shortcut from one side of the building to the other. He was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs eating an apple. She only noticed him amongst the hundreds of people in the courtyard because he was sitting in the sun whereas most people were crowded together in chairs that were shaded by the trees.

  She’d had a few moments to spare between a meeting with the Army G-8, the people who procure equipment for the Army, and another meeting about Fort Benning to determine how many jobs the Senator could inform her constituents to expect to gain in that community. She sat beside him and the chemistry was almost instantaneous. They talked for over thirty minutes about nothing and everything all at once. Grayson loved everything about the outdoors, from going to the beach, to hiking the Appalachian Trail, to snowboarding in Wyoming. She loved water and snow skiing, riding horses and running. After she introduced herself there had been hardly any moments of silence, they’d just sort of complemented each other well as a pair.

  Emory had taken too long to disengage from the conversation and give him her number. As a result, she was late to the Georgia briefing. Luckily for her, there were pages upon pages of handouts and she was able to get caught up from them. The military loved PowerPoint slides. You could give any moron one of their slide packets and he could understand everything about the subject since they wrote out complete sentences and read the slides instead of using simple bullets and notes.

  The train jerked to a halt at Union Station. Dodged a bullet one more time, she thought as she exited the car. She swiped her fare card at the turnstile and glanced at the trio of older black men singing near the escalator. They performed every day either here or at Gallery Place where she had to switch trains from the Yellow Line to the Red Line for a few more stops. They harmonized well and she occasionally gave them some change, or whatever she had in her pockets, for their effort to brighten up the dreary subway.

  She waved to them, but hadn’t been to the ATM in a couple of days, so there wasn’t anything to give them today. She rode the escalator out of the subway and hurried around the outskirts of the plaza outside. She turned south on Delaware Avenue and again on C Street until she made it to the Hart Senate Office Building on the corner where she worked. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining. April is always so unpredictable in D.C. She smiled at the guard checking IDs and went through the metal detector.

  Emory glanced up at the gigantic sculpture that sat in the atrium of the office building. The piece, called Mountains and Clouds, was a large metal sculpture consisting of angular steel plates in the shape of five mountain peaks with two arch-like legs, one branching from the other, and several clouds suspended 85-feet in the air from the ceiling of the 90-foot tall atrium. The clouds, four individual sculptures made of aluminum and painted black, were originally mechanized and turned by varying degrees over the course of the day, but the system had broken down years ago. There was a renovation project to repair the sculpture before the Sequestration debacle a few years ago, but the project seemed to have been abandoned, so she hadn’t heard if they ever expected to complete the job and get it moving again.

  When she worked late at night, the shadows around the sculpture seemed darker and sinister in a way. A few times, when the lighting was dimmed for the evening, she had been startled by the janitors cleaning around the base. There would have been plenty of space for someone to hide in the shadows and it didn’t help any that she was scared of the dark when she was by herself. Her therapist called it nyctophobia and had tried several treatments to overcome her fears, none of which had worked. So it seemed that she was stuck with a racing heartbeat and a mild constriction of her throat anytime she wasn’t in a well-lit area.

  Senator Fergusson’s office was on the second floor so Emory took a quick trip up the stairs and down the hall to the office suite. The door was unlocked and the lights were on, which meant Bradley, one of the Senator’s other staffers, was already in and getting things ready for the day. He was an alright kid, twenty-four years old with a wide-open future after the two or three years he would work for the Senator. There were two types of people that worked in a Congressional office, the long-term, committed staffer that would stick through thick and thin with their legislator and the ones who were hired right out of college, interested in gaining valuable resume enhancements and then they’d be off working at Fortune 500 companies making triple what the professional staffers made.

  She sat down at her desk and put her ID card into the card reader that allowed her to access the computer system. There was an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management regarding heightened security alerts in the Washington area. The OPM is the management organization for all the government civilian personnel and is also responsible for contacting everyone with pertinent information and announcements. While technically, the staffers weren’t managed by the OPM, they still received the emails from their system.

  She deleted the email after a cursory glance at the reading pane on her screen. The heightened security alerts had been coming out periodically since September 11 and no one really paid any attention to them anymore since nothing happened. Working for the Senator, she did know of a few foiled plots overseas that the media didn’t get wind of, but nothing really major or even close to threatening anyone on American soil. Even Grayson didn’t take those Homeland Security alerts seriously and he was a big-time believer that the U.S. was being watched and terrorists were planning another big attack.

  The next email was from Grayson and was sent about twenty minutes ago. It said to call him at work, he’d probably been there for over two hours already. He left for work early, before she woke up, and his day ended relatively late, so he did most of his personal business in little moments of time captured throughout the day. She picked up the phone and dialed his number, “Force Management operations desk, Grayson Donnelly.”

  “Hey baby, it’s me. What’s up?”

  “H
ey. Good morning, hon. I just got word I have to fly out to Oklahoma tomorrow. There’s a live-fire test of the new howitzer and my office wants someone there.”

  “Really, tomorrow? That’s our anniversary. Did you tell them it was our anniversary,” she asked.

  “Yeah, but you know how things are and how she is. This is another Number One Priority to the Army and good ol’ dependable me has to handle it,” he said with a slight southern Texas accent. “Colonel Reeds said there was absolutely no discussion about it, I was going and that was final.”

  “You can only have one number one priority before something is forced to become number two, Gray. Doesn’t that stupid bit-,” she caught herself, “…woman understand that?”

  “I’ve told her that, but she isn’t listening. They have me flying out of BWI[2] at ten tomorrow morning with a connecting flight in Dallas to Fort Sill.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Eight days, so I’ll be back next Thursday afternoon.”

  “I am so pissed right now. You are going to have to make this up to me. You really screwed up my plans for a nice evening with you.” She knew she shouldn’t take it out on him, it wasn’t his fault that his job required him to make sacrifices, but somebody had to catch hell over this and she had him on the phone.

  “Babe, play your cards right and we’ll have tons of anniversaries, you’ll laugh that we missed this on,” he said playfully. “But I promise you I’ll make it up to you and then you’ll want me to miss more big events in the future because of how good I’m going to treat you.”

  “Ugh, you’re such a guy, trying to buy your way out of things! Well, when you do make it up to me, it better have at least three key components: Copious amounts of wine, a very expensive gift that sparkles and mind-blowing make-up sex.” Bradley looked over at her from where he was making coffee with a stupid high-school grin on his face. “Oh grow up Bradley. Women like sex as much as you boys do. We just use it to our advantage when we can.”