When the helicopter flew away from The Hatch, Kaamil left the bed and breakfast and drove himself back to Portland. His transportation was a 1988 Chevy One ton step van with Johnson Farms Fresh Produce stenciled on the sides. It was the van Roberto Valencia used to run drugs down the river into the city. It had never been stopped or searched, partly because Roberto had installed a governor that kept the van from doing more than sixty miles per hour and getting a ticket.
On the way, his first call was to an informant in the Portland Police Department. He learned extra security had been assigned around Senator Hazelton’s home, where it was rumored the Secretary of Homeland Security was dining. There was no indication the Secret Service would have command authority for the added security. His next call was to his backup team. He told them they would be working tonight and to meet him at the mosque.
In the quiet time during the slow drive along the Columbia River, he went over the plans he had made in case Malik’s plan at the depot failed. Circumstances had intervened to defeat them, but Allah was providing another opportunity, maybe even a better one. He would just have to make sure nothing intervened again. Overwhelming force would always overcome unexpected circumstances, especially if the overwhelming force wasn’t afraid of dying. That had always been their advantage, and it would be again.
Four hours after leaving his pursuer walking around the parking lot at The Hatch, Kaamil and four of his men solemnly entered the men only prayer hall of the mosque and prepared to say their afternoon prayers. Each of the four had cleansed himself before meeting Kaamil. Each understood the importance of performing their role with the pure and clean intention of pleasing Allah uppermost in their minds. In fact, it was what they had been training for, and dreaming of, since they had been recruited.
When their last prayers were finished, Kaamil led them out of the mosque to a catering van borrowed for the evening. It belonged to a well-known catering company that had used ISIS to screen its employees for an upcoming socialite’s home wedding.
The van had actually been more of a problem to steal than the weapons he had borrowed from the warehouse ISIS maintained in the city. He’d been able to supply each of his men with a HK Mark 23.45 pistol with six twelve round clips and a M4A1 carbine with collapsible stock. Malik had purchased the weapons abroad for his international security service, and then had scattered some of them around the United States for the day they were needed. Today was such a day. No Secret Service detail would be able to stop them.
In case the Senator’s house was more secure than expected, however, Kaamil had two of the M4A1s equipped with M203 grenade launchers. One would carry a special surprise he would use himself.
He wasn’t planning a suicide mission. But if the body armor his men would wear didn’t get them into the Senator’s house to kill everyone there, he would do it himself. If he didn’t, he was probably a dead man anyway for failing Malik again.
The first step was securing a base to launch their attack, and he had just the place in mind.