After Michael’s funeral all Doug could think about was the radical terrorist insurgents that had killed him. He started planning his strategy to get even with them for killing Michael. While he was racking his brain he thought about how angry he was with the politicians because the two wars had gone on for so long and that American soldiers were still fighting and dying there. Although he was furious at the politicians for what he believed was prolonging the wars, he almost couldn’t contain his and anger toward the radical Muslim terrorist insurgents that had killed Michael. He couldn’t help himself; the more he thought about Michael’s death the more he developed his deep seeded hatred for all the radical Muslim terrorist organizations. It was hard for him to turn on the television and watch the news about our soldiers still fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. After days of planning and contemplating what he was going to do he made up his mind that he wasn’t going to just sit idly by and accept Michael’s death gracefully. He was going to get some revenge.
After days of planning, Doug decided that he was going to declare his own personal war on all the radical Muslim terrorist organizations that were hiding in America. He knew he couldn’t do anything about them in their own countries but he could do something about them in America. He read that they were already operating within the borders of the United States and plotting attacks on American soil. He wasn’t going to wait for any more attacks without doing his part to try to stop them. He was going to hurt the terrorist where they would feel it the most, in their gathering places, their mosques, compounds and training camps right here in America. He was going to become, what he now hated most of all, and that was one of them, “a terrorist.” He would hunt the terrorists down and kill as many of them as he could with booby trap I.E.D.s’, and C-4 bombs that he would make in his shop behind his house. He was going to find out how to make and use the same kind of bombs the terrorists had used to kill Michael. He was also going to kill as many of them as he could with his sniper rifle and pistol he had purchased months earlier. He was no longer going to be the church going retired Christian doctor. A few days later he had tears running down his cheeks as he shouted out loud, “I’ll kill them at their own terrorist game, Michael. I’ll hunt them down until I find their little hiding places and destroy them. When I find them I’ll blow them to pieces!” He was like a man that had become obsessed as the days went by and he was focused on his plan. This had now become his only mission in life.
Doug decided his motor home would become his new home while he carried out his vicious attacks on the radical Muslim Terrorists. The first thing he was going to do was have a car hitch put on his motor home to tow his Mercedes. He mapped out the areas where the Muslim terrorist cells were suspected to be located in America. He planned to find a campground within a fifty mile radius of each of his targets and set up camp for a few days with his motor home. He would then unhitch his car and drive it to his targets, place his bombs and blow them up. He wanted to appear to everyone to just be an older retired man travelling around in his motor home taking pictures of the scenery and seeing the sites of America. Once he located what be believed to be his targets he would place his bombs in strategic places and blow them up. After he started his bombings he would move from location to location where it would be hard for law enforcement to pinpoint him.
He went to the local camera store and purchased a Nikon camera. The camera would be one of his decoys and he would keep it in the front seat and on the passenger side when he was traveling from target to target in case he was stopped by law enforcement. He would tell them he was just a tourist taking pictures.
His next project was to spend a few days redoing the back seat of his Mercedes. He cut out the springs of the back seat where he would have a place to hide his sniper rifle. Once he had the springs out, he built a wooden box compartment for the rifle and I.E.D.’s so they would fit under the seat. When he was done with the box he made sure the seat fit back in place and looked normal even with his rifle, ammunition and a few I.E.D.'s hidden away in the box. He made sure that it wasn’t easily detectable by someone just looking in the windows.
He purchased a professional metal detector as another decoy and placed it in the trunk, along with an entrenching shovel. If he got pulled over by law enforcement and they looked in his trunk they would just think it was for digging up hidden treasures. The metal detectors black over the shoulder carrying bag was also the perfect size to carry Doug’s rifle, scope and a few I.E.D’s.
He went to the Army Surplus store and purchased several six inch foam layer mats that people used for mattresses while camping. He lined the underneath compartment in his motor home where he was going to store the I.E.D.’s. He purchased two sets of camouflage uniforms that would fit over his clothing and one camouflaged Gilly suit. The kid at the store was more than a little inquisitive; he asked Doug if he was going to do some camping. Doug raised his eyebrows, looked at the kid and smiled as he said, “Yea, you might say that, I just purchased a new camera and I’m going to go across country and take pictures of the wildlife and do some treasure hunting with my metal detector.” The kid said, “Sounds like a lot of fun to me.” His next stop was the local sporting goods store to purchase a high powered set of binoculars with night vision and a case. He knew that he would need them to spy on his targets both at night and during the day.
Doug had a friend that owned a Pest Control business so he talked him into giving him a couple of uniforms that had his logo on them. He had the phone numbers on the shirts changed to a fake cell phone number. He went to Orchard Supply and purchased a sprayer that looked like a commercial unit that he could carry on his back. While there he also purchased pesticide to put in the sprayer. He believed this would help him get up close to a few of his targets.
After some extensive internet research he soon learned how to make and explode the I.E.D.’s bombs like the ones that had killed Michael in Afghanistan. He drove to Los Angeles and spent two days locating a (fence), a guy he felt he could trust to purchase all the material he needed to make the bombs. He knew he could buy whatever he needed if he had enough money so he made sure he brought plenty of cash with him so that money wouldn’t be his problem. While there he had his contact get 60 blocks of C-4 plastic explosives with detonators and a remote control detonator. Each block was one and a quarter pounds. He also had him get one hundred pounds of steel balls the size of marbles. It took four days for his contact to get what he had on his list but he was able to come up with everything Doug wanted.
While he was waiting for his contact to get back to him he had a fake I.D. made with the name Douglas Youssef printed on it. This was the name he was going to use when he needed to show a fake identity. He had read about the type of clothing the Muslim people typically wore during their meetings and so he went to several stores while he was in Los Angeles and purchased the right robes and black Middle Eastern attire he needed. He also purchased two long haired wigs that were dark with graying streaks in them. He made sure he purchased the material so they would stick to his face and head without coming loose. He wanted to make sure he fit in with the Muslim population when he went into their mosques or other compounds to spy on them. He also purchased a black hooded sweatshirt and black wool ski cap he could pull down over his ears and two gray beards with mustaches attached to them.
When he got back to Visalia he feverishly started on his task of making the bombs in his workshop. He was a man that was obsessed and nothing was going to stand in his way. He had several boxes of the disposable gloves from his medical practice and when he made the bombs he used the gloves to make sure there were no finger prints on anything. He spent tedious hours making the bombs all day long and every one he made was with the thought and anger of killing the radical Muslim terrorists. After completing each I.E.D. he took satisfaction in knowing he was getting closer to starting his mission.
He wanted to have at least twenty I.E.D.’s made before he went
on his first hunt to find his targets. Each I.E.D. had a half pound of C-4 and about four hundred steel balls packed in them. When the bomb blew up it would be like firing four hundred rounds from a rifle during the explosion. It was enough to destroy a vehicle and several people within the area of the bomb when it blew up. He knew it was going to take a few weeks to make that many but he wanted be sure he had enough to carry out his plans when he was ready to go.
One afternoon, while he was making one of the I.E.D.’s, Michael’s best friend Gary, came by just to say hello. Because Doug was working in his shop and had the music playing a little loud, he didn’t hear Gary knock on the door. He could see Doug working but wasn’t getting a response so he opened the door and went in. When Doug heard the door close behind him he was startled that Gary was already standing inside the building. He turned his head and shoulder toward Gary to say hello and quickly threw a towel over the bomb material he was working on so Gary couldn’t see it. When Doug turned toward him he said, “Hey, Doctor Cotton, I knocked on the door, but you didn’t hear me so I came on in. I just came by to see how you were doing.” Doug quickly turned the music down, walked toward him and put his arm around his shoulders and headed for the exit. He said, “Let’s go inside and have a soda and visit.” That was what Gary was really hoping for because he wanted to talk about Michael.
After Gary left he mentally kicked himself because that was way too close for comfort. He was almost caught right in the middle of making one of the bombs and that would have been a total disaster. From that point on he would make sure the door to the shop was locked when he was working inside. He didn’t want anyone to discover what he was really working on and ruin his plans for revenge.
Doug spent his nights reading everything he could about his future targets. He wanted to know where they were located in America. It was really hard to pinpoint their exact locations but he found some information that gave him the city and states. Even though he had all that information he would still have to go and hunt them down. He had already made up his mind that if they were part of a Muslim terrorist training camp or organization then they would be one of his targets. He spent a lot of sleepless nights using his computer until three or four in the morning to search for any information he could find on the terrorist organizations.
He found that most of the terrorists in America operate as sleeper cells. They are a dormant, on standby, group of individuals that were smuggled in, arrived legally, or possibly born in the country and they are just waiting for the orders to attack. The members live among the general population and participate within the guidelines of our society attempting to blend in and not draw attention to themselves until the time when the cell is to carry out a terrorist attack. The hijackers of September 11, 2001 were operating as sleeper cells before they acted that day. They traveled to Las Vegas and took part in gambling and other activities without drawing attention to their true goals. Effective terrorist cells are usually very small and tightly managed, generally three to four people and rarely involving more than ten or twenty. When the numbers become larger the sleeper cells are much more vulnerable to law enforcement or detection by alert citizens. The September 11, 2011 operation was conducted by four sleeper cells composed of about three to five individuals per cell. Because of their nature these groups are tough to track and infiltrate due to their small size. Americans were not only in shock at the destruction and amount of death caused by the young Arab Muslim terrorists on September 11, 2001, they were also frustrated and disturbed that they were able to do that much damage in America. Unfortunately, in most cases the United States government has to capture a sleeper cell leader or planner prior to the action phase in order to actually stop an attack and completely remove the threat.
In cities all across America ethnic communities have been established and it is hard to spot a terrorist cell in the mix of all the different people. Illegal immigrants can live their entire life outside the government’s scope of detection. One of the main reasons for that is America has 4,000 miles of border to the North with Canada and over 2,000 miles of border to the South with Mexico. Slipping in and out of our borders has always been very easy to do. Thousands of people illegally cross the borders daily through tunnels they have dug, being smuggled or other ways. (16) No one knows what type of weapons of mass destruction they bring with them. To back up what Doug now believed to be true, there have been reports that individuals of Middle Eastern and Asian descent paying for safe passage through the holes in the border have grown since September 11, 2001. According to government estimates, there are as many as twelve million illegal aliens living in the United States. The government knows there are sleeper cells among us right now in America simply waiting for their orders to attack and we haven’t found them yet. (4)
The more Doug read about the different terrorist organizations that supported Jihad in America and all over the world, the more he realized that the United States has just been fighting the tip of the iceberg in their fight against terror in the world. Everything he read regarding the terrorist organizations talked about the radical Islamic extremist’s calling for the death and destruction of Israel and the United States. He believed that the home grown terrorist organizations in the United States weren’t going to do anything but grow in numbers. In his mind he believed he had to do something about them because all the terrorist organizations were guilty of killing his grandson. This was his country, the place he loved and he wasn’t going to let a radical Muslim born American or some other radical foreign terrorist organization destroy or kill any more Americans. He knew that he couldn’t stop them all but at least he believed he could slow them down and make the government and the American people more aware they were here in America preaching their hatred. He felt that maybe if he could bring attention to them the American people would rise up and protest their existence and possibly expel them from America.
What was astonishing to Doug is that the freedoms which allow the radical Muslim terrorist organization to exist in America are exactly what the terrorist despise most about the United States (They hate the western way of life). Doug believed that many Americans have not come to grips or are not aware of the amount and desire of their true threat to us as a nation. Doug wondered are we going to sit with our heads buried in the sand and let them commit another September 11, 2001 or are we going to stop them before it’s too late?
As for the home grown Muslim terrorist that are American Citizens, Doug believed that if we know an American Citizen is a member of one of the terrorist groups or organizations then we should expel him or her to that country where they have the close ties and are representing. Make them live in that country and once they’ve given up their rights and freedoms then see how they feel about living in America. However, once they are there never allow them to return to America.
Doug had seen in Vietnam how the communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers would kill their own people if they believed they could kill a few American soldiers in the process. They had no regard for human life if it meant accomplishing their goal of killing their enemy. He believed the radical Islamic terrorists organizations operate the same way. There have been countless newscasts on television showing how the terrorists strap a suicide vest filled with explosives to themselves and kill hundreds of their own innocent people just to get their target. He was stunned and angry when he learned that the radical Islamic Terrorist Organizations were using America as one of the major countries to do their planning and training to spread terror throughout the world.
Once he looked over his list of terrorist locations in America he decided none of them would be safe from his attack during his mission of revenge. He started mapping out his strategy and thought that in a few weeks he would be ready to take a drive to Seattle, Washington and blow up one of his targets. On his way back home he would stop in Portland, Oregon and plant a bomb or two and blow up some targets there as well. Once back h
ome he would stay for a week or so before he would pay a visit to his next targets.