Chapter Fifteen
While they were traveling to their destination, Doug told Terry and Krista there was a couple of real extreme radical terrorist that were located in San Diego and they were recruiting other young Muslims to join their effort to hurt or destroy America. Terry said, “We already know about a few of them, the FBI has some guys that have been trying to infiltrate a couple of groups that we know about. We’ve gotten some confidential informant information that one of the groups is getting ready to do something big, but we just don’t know what it is yet.”
Doug soon found out that Terry and Krista knew a lot more about the terrorists in San Diego than what they had been letting on to him. After they had relaxed with him, he was getting the true story of what was going on and why they were so willing to go to San Diego. They told Doug they were getting bits and pieces from the C.I. that the terrorists were planning a huge attack on Sea World Park. The FBI hadn’t been able to find out when and how they were planning on doing the attack, but felt based on the information they had gotten from the informant, it was going to be sometime in the near future. Terry said, “What we want you to do Doug, is infiltrate their group and find out what their plans are. Once you get us the evidence we need regarding their groups plans, we’ll go in and arrest them. We don’t want a lot of innocent people getting killed at the Park.”
Krista said to Doug, “We have a one bedroom furnished apartment lined up for you and we've already rented it for two months. It’s in the Claremont district and the same area where the three terrorists lived that were involved in the 9/11 hijacking and terrorist bombings. This seems to be a hotbed for terrorist activity, no matter what we do to try and stop them, they just keep replacing the bad guys with new ones. We also have a rental car lined up for you and we’re going to give you enough cash to do whatever you have to do. Maybe we can get lucky and stop them before they can put their plan into action. We’re going to give you information that’ll help put you in contact with the leaders of the group.
Once you get set up in your apartment, don’t do anything crazy and kill anyone. You might end up killing an FBI agent or a C.I. in the process.” Doug replied, "Is there any way I'll know who those people are? Krista said, "We'll see if we can find a way for you to make contact with them, but probably not. Especially, the C.I. We've had trouble with a few of them in the past being reliable enough to take a chance and let them know who you are. If he gets spooked, he might just turn you in to the terrorist organization. For that reason, we just can't trust some of them."
Doug was impressed, but also playing on their ego as he said, “WOW! I thought I knew what I was doing, but it looks like you guys got a handle on this thing! Why do you need me?” Krista smiled, “We haven’t found out exactly when and where they plan on carrying out their big attack yet. We need to know. We think you have the ability to win their confidence and become one of them.” Doug felt good that they had enough faith and confidence in him to let him do what they needed him to do. “I’ll find out what they're up to and we'll put a stop to them. He was already secretly thinking this might be a good opportunity for him to kill a few more terrorists.”
Doug's idea of putting a stop to them wasn’t the same as the FBI's. They just wanted to expose them, arrest them and put them in prison. He wanted to hunt them down and kill them. Still, he welcomed the help they were willing to give him. Krista said, “We’ll be staying at the Bahia Hotel on the bay and if you need to contact us you have our cell phone numbers. Just call and leave us a message and we'll find a way to get in contact with you.” Doug replied, “That all sounds good to me, when do I start? Krista said, “The sooner the better. but probably tomorrow, once we have your car and money that you'll need.”
One of the terrorist Doug was going to target first was a guy that Mandy had given him. He was known as a senior recruiter for al-Qaeda and a spiritual motivator from one of the local mosques. His name is Jasvir Khalid. When he was overseas and before 9/11, during some of his sermons, he encouraged future attacks against Americans in the United States and abroad. He has suggested suicide bombings, assassinations and jihad throughout America and other non-Muslim countries. Doug couldn't believe the United States let this guy into our country after the hatred he had been spreading against America. The FBI believed he was still spreading his Jihadist ideas, but he was doing it in secret and being very hard to catch doing it. Doug knew this was exactly the kind of guy he had to eliminate and he was going to go after him without Terry and Krista knowing about it.
The next morning Doug got up and put on his Middle Eastern attire and received the keys to the car and the apartment from Krista. She also gave him the cash he would need while searching for them. She gave him the address of the apartment and directions on how to get there. Before he left, Doug told them he would be in touch with them as soon as he had something concrete to tell them. He told them he didn’t know just how long that was going to take but they just had to be patient. Terry said, “Just take your time and get these guys, Doug. We don’t need them killing a lot of our American people.” Doug looked back at him, “We'll get them. We're not going to let them blow up a lot of innocent people. I’ll be in touch with you once I make contact with them.”
When Doug left, it took him about 20 minutes to find the little apartment house. It was a small building that was behind the main house. It reminded Doug of what they called a "Grannies Quarters." He had to park his car in the street because there weren't any covered parking places. A lot of the houses in the area were rented to college students going to San Diego State University. He didn’t feel like the place was anything special, just a place to make his own meals and a place to sleep. It was perfect for him, because it was somewhat private and secluded.
Doug soon found out there were three young college students living in the main house in front of him. There were two young men and a woman and they were all in their late teens or early twenties. When they first found out Doug moved in behind them they came over and introduced themselves. After the introductions, they invited him to come over and have a soda. He gladly accepted their invitation and went into their living room and sat on the couch. During their conversation, they told Doug he didn’t have to worry about any parties, they didn’t do much partying because they were all too busy with school work. The girl spoke up and said, “Yeah, we’re pretty low key around here.” She and everyone laughed and Doug joined in, “Me too! Oh! by the way! if my car is ever parked in the wrong place, just let me know and I’ll move it.” The young girl quickly replied, “It’s cool right where you parked it, don’t worry about it, we park wherever we can find a space open. It gets pretty crowded with cars, around here at times.” They talked for several minutes and Doug finished his soda then asked if he could use their bathroom. The girl said, “Sure, it’s right down the hall past the first bedroom on the right.”
Doug thanked her and slowly made his way down the hall and looked back to make sure no one was watching as he peaked in the first bedroom. He quickly looked around the room as a matter of habit. He noticed that in the corner of the room, and next to the bed, there was a shotgun leaning upward toward the ceiling. He thought it was a little odd for a college student to have something like that in his room. He went on down the hall and used the bathroom and then went back and joined the group. When he sat down again he said, “I'm sorry but I went into the wrong room at first and it was someone’s bedroom. I’m really sorry that I made that mistake, I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.” One of the men spoke up and said, “Oh! That’s my room, no big deal. People do that all the time.”
Seeing that the young man was okay with it, Doug said, “I couldn’t help but notice, you have a shotgun in the corner of your room. What do you use that for? The young man joked, "To kill intruders." Then he laughed real loud and said, "Just kidding, that’s my dad’s old twelve gauge and he wanted me to have it just
for safety reasons. Where I come from we have a problem with people breaking into houses, even during the day and sometimes when people are home. That's in case someone broke into our house, while we are here." Everyone laughed when he said that. Doug said, "Why is that so funny, that sounds scary to me?" The young man spoke up again, "That's funny, because we don’t even lock the doors when we leave the house. I’d forgotten the shotgun was there until you mentioned it.” Doug asked, “Does it still fire? The young man hesitated for a moment and then replied, “Yeah, I think so, it did when my dad gave it to me a couple of years ago.” He laughed again, “I just hope I never have to use it.” Doug said, “That’s for sure, I’d hate to get shot if you thought I was a burglar or a thief, or some other intruder.” The young man said, “Don’t worry, that would never happen. I would never kill anyone.” They all laughed and talked a little longer before Doug excused himself and told them he had to unpack some things before it got too late. He thanked them for the soda and the hospitality and went back to his little hide away. Doug knew, just from talking with them, they were all good kids and knew he wouldn’t have any problems with them. They seemed to be more concerned with just getting through school than anything else.
After Doug got settled in, he started looking at a local map for the addresses of his new targets. He circled them and memorized the street names and how to get to them. The first person he wanted to visit was one of his personal targets Mandy gave him by the name of Jasvir Khalid. He was an American born Iranian that was friends with Aftell Taldo-allid, the leader Doug had killed with his sniper rifle, the last time he was in San Diego. Khalid was now a member of the same mosques that Taldo-allid once was the leader of. According to Mandy, Khalid was believed to be spreading the same type of propaganda that Taldo-allid did to the members that attended the mosque. Before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 Taldo-allid was openly spreading his belief that the Muslims should do jihad in America. He was spreading his hatred for America and the Jews and telling his followers the Americans needed to be destroyed for what they had done to the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. He hated America because he felt like the United States was an enemy and that they were an accomplice to Israel. That was the reason Doug killed him the last time he was in San Diego. Now Khalid was doing and saying the same thing as Taldo-allid and Doug was going to make sure he stopped him from spreading his hatred.
The FBI, Homeland Security, and CIA were now putting a lot of pressure on some of the mosques and their organizations for allowing what they believed was propaganda and hatred. Some of the new leaders were hiding their hatred for the Jews and Americans very well and seemed to be only talking about it in private. It appeared they were spreading the Jihadist ideas to small groups outside the mosques.
Doug had blown up several of the mosques during his missions, but he found they weren’t the best place for him to kill the individual terrorists he was after. He felt that too many innocent people in the mosques had died for the actions of a few radical terrorists that worshiped along beside them. During his research, he also found out that some of the mosque leaders were now turning people over to the FBI, Homeland security and the CIA if they believed one of their members was spreading their jihadist ideas in America. Doug knew the biggest problem we have with the Muslims in the world was that even if only a small percentage of the 1.6 billion of them were set on their radical terrorist’s ideas and beliefs of the Quran then that was still way too many terrorist in the world to have to hunt down and destroy.
Just after dark Doug put on his Muslim clothing, went to his car and drove to the local mosque. He wanted to see if he could get information from some of the members and possibly meet up with Khalid. Doug knew that men must attend Fard prayer five times a day and on Friday so he knew he wouldn’t have any trouble getting into the mosque to find him. Visitors are required to cleanse themselves in a process known as wudu, before they enter. There was a place in the courtyard outside the mosque to wash his feet before entering. Doug took the steps and followed the process that was required of everyone to enter.
Once inside the mosque, he put his shoes on a shoe storage rack just inside the mosque entrance. "Since mosques are a place of worship there was no loud talking inside, only faint whispers. There was a central area for prayer that is called a musalla and it didn't have any furniture, except for a few chairs and a bench, to assist the elderly or disabled. There was a large prayer rug where worshippers could sit, kneel and bow directly on the floor in front of the Mihrab. Men had to line up for prayers in front of the mihrab that is located on the wall and is shaped like an oval doorway. It’s decorated with tiles and calligraphy. It’s considered disrespectful to walk in front of or disturb Muslims in prayer. The women followed the traditional rules of occupying the rows behind the men. Along one wall there was a bookshelf to hold copies of the Quran, along with books on Islamic philosophy, theology and law. The walls within the mosque have very few items, except for some Islamic calligraphy." * Doug carefully joined the other men at the musalla, bowed and said some words in Arabic, “Oh Allah, open the door of mercy for me,” before he knelt down and began to pray. He performed the cycles of a prayer of kneeling on the floor, head to the ground.
"There is usually a prayer leader called an imam and he must be a free honest individual and well versed in religious matters. During a worship he preaches from the Minbar, especially on Friday night Muslim prayers. It’s a raised platform with a short staircase leading to the top. It's in front of the mosque where sermons or speeches are given. During worship time women are in a separate chamber, but where they can also see the imam. It had a place for a zakat, or charity, where Muslims may donate money to help the poor or to support the mosque." * This mosque was very similar to all the others Doug had been inside. He had spent about two hours at the mosques, just to familiarize himself with it. He left a few dollars in the zakat before he left.