While at home Doug tried to read as much material as he could find regarding his next targets. One of the articles he read outraged him when it said that indoctrination was taking place in America’s schools. Of particular significance was a report regarding seventh-grade world history textbooks. The report said that a lot of the seventh-grade curricula in America, is following the lead of the California schools. Some schools in California require students to receive instructions and engage in activities to learn about Islamic history, culture, the Qur’an and the religious practices of Muslims. He read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle where an author said, “Islamists have taken what’s come to be known as the “soft Jihad” into America’s classrooms and children in K-12 are the casualties.” The writer believed America was under assault, whether it is textbooks, curriculum, classroom exercises, film screenings, speakers or teacher training in public education. (10) Doug couldn’t believe what he was reading. He thought that America needed to open their eyes as to what is being taught to our children. He thought, how could these Muslim people have this much influence in America to have it being taught in our school system?
During his research Doug found there were three major mosques in San Francisco and seven in Santa Clara. He just had to find out the ones that had suspected ties to the Muslim terrorist organizations and they would be his next targets. He wanted to make sure he didn’t just go in and kill a lot of innocent men, women and children by taking out the wrong mosque. After doing a lot of extensive reading he found that two mosques in particular had been criticized by local authorities for handing out leaflets and other material regarding their disapproval of the Jews and Christians. They were going to be the two targets he was going to focus on.
Doug loaded everything he needed under the back seat of his car and left about 6:00 a.m. This time he didn’t take his motor home because both targets were only a three and a half hour drive away. He had a lot of time to think about what he was going to do and was already planning his strategy and every move he would make. The first thing he would do was check in at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco where he was going to stay. It is located in the heart of San Francisco and a perfect spot to blend in with the rest of the tourists in the area.
When he arrived at the Mark Hopkins Hotel it brought back both sad and happy memories of Shirley and how much fun they had being there on one New Year’s Eve. Doug had to admit that he loved the plush accommodations and the views from the Top of the Mark. He told the bellman that he was just going to go check in and then come right back down so he asked him to pull his car off to the side for a few minutes. The bellman was more than willing after Doug slipped him a twenty dollar bill. He waited for him to bring back the keys to his car and then went inside. He checked in and gave the clerk money for his stay. They always ask for a credit card and he told the clerk he didn’t have one that he paid for everything with cash. When he went to his room he waited for his luggage to be brought up and made a quick stop in the bathroom while he was waiting. He wasn’t wasting any time, after tipping the bellboy for his luggage, he went back down, got in his car and he was soon on his way to take a look at his next targets.
Doug didn’t have to go very far because his first target was only about six blocks from where he was staying. He did some checking around for a good parking area and looked to see what the foot traffic was like in the area near the mosque. This mosque was nothing like the one in Seattle. It sat back off the street about fifteen feet and there was a covered “patio type” area that covered the entire front of the building, all the way to the street. There were a few problems he had with this target. One was that all the buildings on the street were attached, and no space between them. He knew he couldn’t blow up just the one building without blowing up the connecting buildings. The other problem he had was that everything was concrete and there was no place to bury a bomb. He kept thinking, where can I place the bomb so that it won’t be seen. After surveying the covered area he saw there were two nice large potted beautiful green plants on the patio. When he spotted them he thought, that will be the place I will bury the C-4 bomb.
Doug took the drive to his next target forty miles south to Santa Clara to check it out. The building had a flat roof and it was in a commercial neighborhood downtown. The building had an alley in the back so Doug drove around to the back of the building to see if there was any way he could get onto the roof without being seen. He saw an air conditioning unit next to an access rail that he could climb up on and then climb to the upper part of the building. He figured the top of the building was the best spot to place his bomb. Once it was placed and the time was right, he would explode it from down the street with his remote control detonator. Satisfied with his plan he drove back to San Francisco to the Mark Hopkins hotel. After he arrived he went into the restaurant and had lunch then he went up to his room to relax for a few hours. He was going to go back after dark and check out his targets to see what kind of activity was going.
The next day Doug went to his first stop in San Francisco and slowly walked up to the mosque door. One of the men standing outside acknowledged him in Arabic as he looked Doug up and down. Doug said “Hello” back to him in Arabic. Then he asked him if it was okay to go inside. The man didn’t say anything, he just nodded his head yes. He walked in the door, slowly looked around, and saw familiar pamphlets and books on a fold out table at the back of the room. As he picked up one of the pamphlets he could tell it was one that was full of a lot of propaganda just like others he had seen and heard about. He didn’t take time to read it all, he just put it back down and turned to the man he had spoken to earlier and asked, “Can you please tell me when is the next meeting?” The man very quietly told him the next big meeting would be in a few days at 8 p.m. Doug thanked him and with his arms folded behind his back, walked back toward the entrance. He had seen and heard everything he needed to know about this mosque. He checked out the potted plants as he stood on the porch. He wanted to make sure he could plant the C-4 bomb in one of them. As he left, he was proud of himself for feeling so comfortable blending in with the rest of the Muslim men.
Doug decided that for his second target it didn’t matter when they were going to have their next meeting; he was going to attack it on the same night as the San Francisco mosque. He was just hoping there would be some terrorist in the building when he set off the explosion. He went back to his car, took off his disguise and put it back in its place under the back seat. He then went back to the hotel and up to his room to take a shower and change into some nice clothes. He wanted to relax and rest for the evening so he went to the “Top of the Mark” for dinner. He didn’t want to let his mission consume him and take full control.
The following day, he was up early but just hung out in his room and relaxed for a while before he walked down to the Pierside Restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf. He wanted to have clam chowder and fish and chips for lunch. It was a couple of miles of walking but he felt he could use the exercise. He was looking forward to going to the Pierside Restaurant where he had been before with Shirley. As he walked along the street near the water there were a lot of amateur acts that were performing along the sidewalks. He thought that a lot of them were pretty clever and others just plain ridiculous. One act that had really gotten to Shirley the last time they were there was the guy that jumps out at you with a bush covering his body. Doug thought it was so ridiculous but yet clever. He didn’t know why but he remembered tipping the guy five bucks.
As Doug was walking along, he heard a man shouting something as people were walking by. Doug moved a little closer to see if he could hear what the young man was saying. When he got within ten feet of him he could tell that he was in his mid-twenties to early thirties and was saying that the Jews and the Christians were the problem in the world. They were the cause of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a Caucasian man, a little overweight, stringy long brown hair, a mustache and
beard. He was wearing a tan shirt with tan loose fitting slacks, a dark brown corduroy vest and old white tennis shoes. He was saying other derogatory things about how the American troops were killing Muslim children in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Doug heard that it sent him into a quiet, but controlled rage. He could tell his face was red because he could feel the blood rush to his head as he thought, this is exactly the kind of outspoken, anti-American guy I want to get rid of. I have to find a way to silence this jerk for good. He is no better than the other terrorist that spread their lies and hatred across the world. After watching him for a few minutes and becoming angrier by the minute, he decided to walk on down to the Pierside Restaurant where he could try to relax and have lunch.
The entire time Doug was in the restaurant he couldn’t take his mind off the guy in the street. He began to plan his strategy of how he could kill him. He remembered that he had brought two syringes full of Potassium Chloride with him. He had made up his mind that if he was ever caught by law enforcement he was going to use one of them on himself. After lunch he went back to the hotel, got the syringe and walked back down to the Wharf. When he got there the guy was still spouting his hatred and lies. He browsed around the stores in the area for a few hours and the entire time he was keeping an eye on the loud mouth. Finally, the guy must have decided he had done his just part for the Muslim terrorist organizations for the day and started to leave. Doug followed him from a safe distance until he walked down a somewhat secluded street to his car. As Doug got close to him he looked around to make sure no one was close by or watching what was about to happen. When the guy opened his car door and sat down he quickly walked up behind him and held the door open with the left side of his hip and left leg. He hadn’t noticed what Doug had done as he leaned back in his seat and started to shut the car door. That is when Doug stuck him in the back of the neck with the needle and pushed in the deadly substance. His last words as he felt the prick of the needle go deep into his neck, were, “Hey, what did you do to me?” Doug didn’t say anything to him he just shut the car door with his leg and quickly walked away. When he took a quick glance back he could see him slumped over in his seat. As he walked briskly back to the hotel he thought, that poor fool won’t instigate any more of his hatred and lies.
That night Doug waited until around 3:00 am and then went to Santa Clara and quietly made his way onto the top of the mosque and planted the C-4 bomb and detonator. There was a vent that had a round rotating cover made out of sheet metal and Doug removed it and gently lowered the bomb into the dark hole and put back the cover to the vent. When he was through he put on his disguise and went back to the mosque in San Francisco. He had the C-4 bomb hidden under his dark loose fitting coat as he approached the building. He approached his target slowly and when he was confident no one was around, dug out the soil around the base of one of the large plants and quickly hid his bomb. He covered it and made sure it looked undisturbed before he left.
The following day he made plans with the concierge at Mark Hopkins to see the play, “Phantom of the Opera” the following evening. He told the concierge that he wanted to go to the late show at 10:00 pm. That would give him time to clean up after blowing up his two targets. The play was at the local play house theater downtown. He and Shirley had seen the “Phantom of the Opera” in New York when they stayed at the Waldorf Hotel in May of 2001 and they both loved it. He could still see Shirley as the tears swelled up in her eyes and how she was trying so hard not to cry during one of the sad scenes of the play.
He spent the next day taking pictures of San Francisco and the famous Sea Lions near the pier. He wanted to have an early dinner before he exploded his targets so he had dinner around 5:30 p.m. Soon after dinner he headed to Santa Clara. By then it was dark and he was surprised by all the activity going on at the mosque as he drove by his target. Doug drove down the street several blocks and put on his disguise. He also put on the remote control detonator and started slowly walking toward the mosque. As soon as he was within range he pushed the button and the explosion went off. When it went off he ducked, turned and started walking back to his car, forcing himself not to run. He was both nervous and excited on his way back to San Francisco.
Once he got back to San Francisco he parked his car and walked toward his next target. When he got within striking distance of the mosque he pushed the detonator. The people in the mosque were in the middle of their meeting when the bomb went off and it shook all the buildings in the area and everything burst into flames. The blast was so large that it actually destroyed the mosque and damaged a few of the connecting buildings. He was about a hundred yards away and there were little pieces of debris that were landing in the street and all around him. For a moment he thought, that’s ironic, now I’m going to get hit from pieces of my own bomb. He dodged a few of the falling pieces as he made his way to his car
Doug was pleased that he had gotten his two targets. He went back to his car, drove several blocks away into a secluded area then took off his disguise and put it back under his back seat. He went back to the Mark Hopkins, went up to his room, took a shower and got dressed for the opera. Now that those two targets were blown up he tried to put them out of his mind for the moment, just like he had done with the targets in Vietnam. No matter how he tried he couldn’t help himself; he kept thinking about what had happened to Michael and how he had died. The pain of that loss was haunting him and would not let him rest.
When he went downstairs he had the bellman call a taxi that took him to the Play. As he sat there watching, he had tears in his eyes, but it wasn’t from what was going on in the play, it was from missing Shirley, Jenifer and Michael and the good times they all had together. More than anything he hated being all alone. The loneliness was eating him up inside. When he got back to his room that night he tossed and turned all night thinking about blowing up his targets and just missing his family.
The next morning he packed and left before noon and he was back in Visalia around three in the afternoon. Once there he put everything away and lay down on the couch for a few hours to unwind. He was mentally and physically exhausted from all the planning and excitement of taking out his targets.
Later that evening he made a sandwich, poured himself a glass of milk and went into the living room to listen to the news reports. The attacks on Santa Clara and San Francisco were on the evening news. The reports said twenty two Muslims had been killed in the San Francisco attack and twelve wounded. Eleven had died in the Santa Clara attack and nine wounded. Doug scoffed as he said thought, yea; I also got a bonus with the loud mouth jerk on the sidewalk. Even though it didn’t make the news report as one of his kills, he had the satisfaction of knowing he had done his part in getting that terrorist off the street. He wasn’t feeling any remorse for what he had done. In fact, he was getting a great deal of satisfaction for avenging Michael’s death.
Law enforcement agencies found leaflets and other materials in the two mosques that talked about killing the “Jews and the Christians.” Printed on some of the material, in bold face print, it said things like, “It is our duty to destroy all infidels and destroy the west.” The news reported the law enforcement community was having a hard time trying to figure out what person or organization was responsible for the bombings. Because of the similarities, law enforcement strongly believed these two crimes had to be connected to the attacks in Portland and Seattle. Doug was somewhat offended that they called them crimes because he didn’t consider his actions as crimes, he considered his “victims” as casualties of war and when its war it’s not a crime, just like his pastor had told him so many years ago. As he watched he shouted at the television, “come on America, I’ve declared war on all these terrorist organizations. Open your eyes; they need to be stopped before it’s too late.”
The next day he went about his normal everyday chores and back into his routine of making bombs. He needed a few weeks before he was goin
g to hit his next targets in Los Angeles and San Diego. He would wait until he felt the timing was right for him before he would go on his next attacks.
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Chapter 12 - The Fresno Leader