American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Author’s Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Special Offer

  Also By Wesley Lowe

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  AMERICAN TERRORIST

  (The Rayna Tan Series - 1)

  By

  Wesley Robert Lowe

  Copyright © Wesley Robert Lowe 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or any portion thereof may not be used in any manner without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Author’s Introduction

  American Terrorist is a work of fiction. All the characters, events and many of the locations are completely fabricated.

  However, as I write this in April of 2016 against the backdrop of attacks in the past six months in San Bernadino, Paris and Brussels, I see how much of this story could or has happened, especially regarding immigrants and refugees. President Roosevelt’s statement from his inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” doesn’t apply anymore. The enemy is real… and is here.

  I am not saying we should not let refugees in. I come from a family of immigrants and the kindness that Canada extended to us must be continued with others who are in difficult circumstances.

  But let’s be brutally honest. Mistakes have been made by the decision-makers on whom we have been letting in. It’s a tiny, tiny percentage, but that small number is enough to cause chaos in our lives… and, sadly, to worry about the genuineness of the greater majority of decent people we would like to extend a hand to.

  A quick story note. In the use of Arabic names, I didn’t use traditional formal practices, which can produce long names that are difficult to understand. Instead, I generally used just a first name, only to make for easier reading.

  Chapter 1

  SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMP

  Dreams do come true. Sabiya finally saw hope and happiness in her world of darkness. It was so close she could taste it. At thirty-five years old, the Syrian Christian had never known anything but poverty, persecution and pain. The northern village she came from, Sadaan, was looted regularly. She suffered regular beatings and rape from... it seemed like everyone. Sometimes it was pro-government military, sometimes the rebels, sometimes the Islamic terrorists.

  Yet she endured, hoping life would somehow transform itself. After all, the Americans, the Russians, the French, and the British all promised relief... but the only thing that ever changed were the faces of the monsters who mounted or beat her. After a while, even they all looked and sounded the same.

  She was the wife of a pastor, Boulos (Paul), and they served a small church of fifty. Boulos felt they had to stay—someone had to give the people hope. Their little vegetable stall eked out a living for the couple and their young daughter, Yasmin. Even though no one in the village ever had much money, everyone needed to eat. It might only be a few pounds (A Syrian pound is less than a penny), but God was good and there was always enough in sales to provide for the next meal.

  Three years ago, Sabiya’s husband did the foolishly unthinkable, but absolutely understandable. One of the barbarians yanked Sabiya from their stall, intending to take her for himself. Boulos tried to defend her and pulled her back. This infuriated the marauder; he was an experienced dispenser of agony so, rather than giving them a merciful instant death, he gave two deep cuts to the stomachs of Boulos and Yasmin. Then he reached into the bloody cavities he had created and half pulled out the intestines of father and daughter. Sabiya was forced to watch her husband and daughter suffer for hours. The only thing she could do was pray for their deaths. The bandit smirked, then stalked away, knowing that by sparing Sabiya’s life and forcing her to watch her loved ones die, she would suffer living hell for as long as she remained alive.

  Beside herself with despair at a hopeless future, Sabiya followed the example of millions of her countrymen—she walked two hundred miles to a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey. It was filthy, overcrowded and there was never enough food, but she was alive. And, as long as she was alive, she was allowed to dream about hope.

  Sabiya heard that some countries were willing to accept refugees. It was a long shot at best... but better than no shot at all. Sabiya registered as a refugee with the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. For years, she underwent a series of interviews. All her biographical and biometric information confirmed the same thing: Sabiya was a devout Christian who was in imminent danger in Syria for her religious beliefs. She was traumatized by the horror she experienced, was single, had no criminal record, no history of illness, and had the potential to be an outstanding citizen for whatever country would accept her.

  So what? There were hundreds of thousands of others who were qualified. By the time UNHCR finished its evaluation of Sabiya, there were more than three million other Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

  She’d been taught that God helps those who help themselves. As her despair grew with the addition of hundreds of refugees every day, she decided to be pro-active, risking her life in an inflatable dinghy designed to hold a dozen but overcrowded with thirty others just as desperate as she was. Rain poured down on them, creating angry waves that capsized the dinghy. Sabiya was one of only a few able to climb back onboard. They realized it was too treacherous to continue on to Greece and, defeated, they made the shorter return trip to Turkey. Utterly crushed, she cried herself to sleep on the streets, shaking her fists at God, asking Him to take her life.

  Then, after checking in with a contact she’d listed with the UNHCR, she found out the agency was trying to get in touch with her. She wondered what the bureaucrats could possibly want now. More runaround? More false hopes?

  The answer was totally unexpected. God did indeed answer prayer. A country called Canada elected a new prime minister in October of 2015. One of his election promises was to bring twenty-five thousand Syrian refugees to Canada by Christmas, less than eight weeks away. With so little time to make this deadline, those who had been at the camp as long as Sabiya were given priority. This turned out to be an impossible deadline, and she waited. “Don’t worry,” she was told, “you are on our priority list.”

  The stalling continued into 2016. January turned to February, eventually turning into June. Sabiya felt she had just substituted one pack of lies for another and then, out of the blue, she was told, “You are going to Canada in three days.” Not only that, a Syrian resettlement organization found som
eone to sponsor her and take care of her when she arrived in Toronto—a retired Baptist minister.

  That night, she celebrated with another unexpected evidence of God’s favor on her. In the midst of despair and tragedy in this hellhole of hopelessness, she found something she thought she would never again experience.

  Love.

  Ahmed had seen Sabiya in line for an interview with Canadian authorities. The handsome, muscular man saw how hot and uncomfortable she was and offered her a drink of water. It satisfied her thirst and, as she looked into his blazing eyes, she felt something she had not felt in years—the aching of her loins for a man. Several hours later, after the interview was over, Ahmed was waiting.

  He took her to his tent where he quenched her sexual fire—over and over again. His rough, leathery skin melded into her naked flesh. His strong grip caressed her buttocks and breasts, squeezing gasps of exhilaration from her as her mouth hungrily devoured his.

  When the night was spent, so was she. She hardly had enough energy to go to the next round of government interviews the following day but somehow she endured the mindless tedium of bureaucracy. When she was done, Ahmed was waiting outside again.

  Electricity coursed through her body in anticipation of what would happen in just a few minutes. At the same time, she was fearful. What if she could not satisfy him again? What if he noticed the stretch marks on her tummy that never went away, or the droopiness of her breasts? She forced herself to put those thoughts out of her mind. She would enchant him with pleasure that would leave him in a stupor... and he would do the same for her.

  Then Ahmed uttered three magic words that turned lust to love. “Let’s walk first.”

  “That would be wonderful,” replied Sabiya.

  “I want to know everything about you.”

  She was enraptured. Here was a man who was not only an extraordinary lover, but sensitive to her emotional needs. She poured out her life to him, sparing not a single detail. She could not believe how interested he was, falling more deeply in love as he asked probing questions about her aspirations for the future as well as the pain of her past. She promised him she would begin sponsorship of him as soon as she could when she got to Canada... and, if that were not possible, she would come back to the refugee camp and live with him here.

  “Don’t talk silliness,” he laughed, pulling her into his tent.

  Within moments, his hard flesh pressed against hers. Her body shivered while she moaned pleasure. She dared open her eyes to see his devouring hers—oh, to feel like a woman again! Her body quivered in excruciating rapture as Ahmed’s firm hands ascended from her tingling bruised breasts to her neck.

  As her breaths came faster and faster, her fingers dug into his muscular pecs as ecstasy coursed through every pore in her body. As she tightened her legs ever harder around his thighs, Ahmed’s hands clutched her throat. She turned her head to kiss them but his viselike grasp rendered her head immobile. Then, his hold around her throat tightened.

  Sabiya tried to cry out, but the sounds were stifled in her esophagus. She tried to kick out but Ahmed’s legs now imprisoned her body. After she stopped moving, he held her body with one hand and her head with the other and, with one quick snap, he broke her neck, just in the almost impossible case she was not already dead.

  Ahmed quickly dressed and stepped outside. He motioned to Casey, a young red-haired man who quickly came over and went inside the tent. With a smart phone, he snapped photos of Sabiya’s body.

  While the young man took the pictures, Ahmed made a phone call.

  “Hello, Ahmed.”

  “Hello, Fatima. I hope you got everything you wanted to hear when we were walking. I couldn’t take it anymore so just had to quit.”

  “Everything was fine. You did well, although I missed a minute or two when you had to switch cell phones when the battery ran out.”

  “You didn’t miss anything,” he told her. “That woman was more boring than our father’s Friday sermons at the mosque.”

  “Nothing is as bad as that,” she chuckled. “I will see you shortly.”

  “I’m sending pictures,” Ahmed said and, within seconds, Fatima was staring down at a woman who strongly resembled her.

  “Got them, thanks.” She pressed the END CALL button on her cell phone.

  The woman on the other end of the call was sitting in a hotel lobby several miles away. She took a closer look at the photos Ahmed sent. She bore a remarkable resemblance to Sabiya—the same height, the same hair color, probably the same age. Ahmed had done his part well. Now it was her turn. She made a call.

  “Papa’s waiting,” answered a middle-aged male’s voice.

  “I’ll be right up.”

  ***

  Damascus

  Fifty-seven-year-old Hank Azarius stepped into the bathroom. Staring at his nude body in the mirror, he pulled in his stomach and flexed his muscles. I’ve still got it. He rinsed his mouth with mouthwash, dabbed cologne over his body, then threw on a bathrobe. No point in getting fully dressed because the clothes were going to be coming off within five minutes of Aida walking through the door.

  A former senior engineer for an oil well repair firm, Hank had been coming to Northern Iraq for two decades with a major British firm. However, when terrorists captured the wells, the firm laid him off. That made little difference to the Los Angeles resident. The wells still needed repairing and Hank, with his long experience, was an excellent candidate to supervise the adjustments, improvements, and overhauling, as well as mandatory service work.

  In the last year, coming to this cauldron of danger had become infinitely more palatable. He had met a woman who was the most passionate creature he had ever experienced. Not to mention that Aida had the body of a porn star, which he never tired of tasting, suckling and indulging in.

  There was a knock on the door. Hank stepped quickly to turn the knob and Aida walked in.

  “You bad boy.” Aida pushed Hank to the floor. He got up and she shoved him hard. He landed on the bed.

  “I missed you so much,” she said slowly, tantalizingly unbuttoning her sheer orange blouse.

  “It was only a week,” protested Hank.

  “A week too long,” purred the Middle Eastern beauty as she allowed him to finish undressing her.

  Flesh against flesh, their two bodies entwined and, for the next hour, Hank had the rawest, purest, most exquisite animal sex he had ever had. During the past year with Aida, he thought he had experienced all that a man could hope for... and then this magical evening superseded everything that had happened before. Aida was a wildcat in heat. Unbelievable and utterly exhausting.

  She turned her head into the pillow. He leaned over to kiss her cheek and saw her tears. “What’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” she murmured into the pillow.

  “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “Hank, today is the happiest and the saddest day of my life.”

  “You’re talking riddles,” he said as he turned her onto her back and caressed the taut nipples of her firm breasts.

  Picking up his hand and dancing her fingers on his palms, Aida said, “My visa to America has come through. It is the happiest because I am leaving for America tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” said Hank, sitting up straight.

  “Yes. I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted our last night together to be special. I have to leave now to pack and make the final arrangements.”

  “It’s not going to be our last night. We can get together in New York, Los Angeles, Houston... wherever you’re going to be.”

  “Hank, you have a wife, children and a happy life. I am your toy and there are lots of toys around. You don’t need me. I just want you to know that you... you are the best I have ever had. I will always remember you.”

  It didn’t take two seconds for Hank to respond. “Aida, I’m going to leave Francie. The love went out of our marriage long ago.”

>   “But she will take all your money,” she protested. “I have heard about American divorce lawyers. You know about that. What do you call them? Shanks? Shucks?”

  “Sharks. Lawyers are sharks. I hate them... Aida, do you think you can arrange for a larger package for me to bring to your uncle?”

  She hesitated. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen without you,” he said. “For us, Aida. For us.”

  “Are you sure you, Hank? I can try but I don’t know.”

  “Of course you can do it, Aida,” he said. “Make it as big as you can. Have someone bring it over to my hotel. We can’t let anything stop us.”

  The “uncle” Hank referred to was the owner of a dry cleaning shop in Los Angeles. After their second passionate tryst, Hank confided to Aida that his finances were often tight. Otherwise, he would have bought her a diamond necklace instead of a pearl one. Aida told him it didn’t matter, but Hank insisted he wanted nothing but the best for her and would get her the moon if he could.

  Aida told him that her uncle in Los Angeles was in occasional need of “special deliveries.” Hank gladly agreed and, since then, each time he returned to America, he carried a little package and delivered it to her uncle’s shop where he was immediately paid five thousand dollars. Hank never asked about the contents of the packages. If somehow he were caught by the authorities, he could pass any lie detector test, claiming he had no knowledge of what it contained. When he asked who gave it to him, he would truthfully answer, “Aida,” not knowing this was not her real name.

  “Okay,” said Aida, kissing Hank one more time.

  She started to dress.

  “Aida?”

  “Yes, Hank?”

  “I love you.”

  Her eyes twinkled and she said with sassiness, “You better!”

  After one final kiss, Aida eased out of the room, walked down the hallway and took the elevator to the lobby. She went outside but, instead of hailing a cab, she walked to the beauty salon around the corner and entered.