Viper’s Lair,
Kerch, Ukraine
Muhammad crouched upon the floor, next to his odiferous mattress. Another day had passed without interruption; at least he considered it to be another day for he had slept soundly and felt quite refreshed. He had taken to a semblance of keeping track of time by casually adjusting his mattress in relation to the blocks comprising the walls but apparently his captors discovered his trick and it was not long before he found his ‘timepiece’ relocated quite noticeably. At least, this bit of interference proved beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was observing his actions carefully.
Proven observance meant that he was, after all, worthy of inspection. Why he had no visitors was left to the minds of the infidels; he was valuable and therefore someone at least was keeping track of his most innocent actions. This knowledge empowered him a bit, providing him with just enough incentive to ignore his nakedness and absence of furnishings.
He no longer needed to worry about his not having any visitors; that some unseen and unknown soul had been watching his every move, his every action, and no doubt his every belch seemed to dissipate the loneliness that encroached upon his thoughts every now and then. Muhammad was now surrounded by an undeterminable number of infidels and this provided him with a high level of incentive to defeat their objective – whatever it was.
Leaning slightly against the mattress to relieve stress from his lower legs, Muhammad tugged on his long, dark beard as he focused on his own goal – subjugation of the West. September 11th, 2001 taught him that the West – specifically the United States of America – could withstand just about any attack against it and it would roll off as more or less a minor interruption to their wicked ways. Therefore, he needed to formulate an attack that held no precedence; something so horrendous that not even the pathetically apathetic Americans could endure.
Grandiose plans of global mayhem were not foreign to Muhammad’s thinking. For years he planned to vanquish his own Middle East through the use of chemical weapons. He planned their use for he knew that almost all grown men within the region possessed facial hair making it decidedly difficult to don gasmasks and other protective headgear. He experienced this firsthand in his youth when he served in the Iranian People’s Army, or Basij militia, as they fought to retain control of the conquered Majnoon Islands during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980’s for which Saddam Hussein’s military unleashed nerve agents upon the unprotected Iranians.
Muhammad held no qualms over destroying tens of thousands if not millions of his fellow Arabs if it meant personal glory; the fact that nearly all possessed beards and mustaches simply made it easier to use chemical agents upon them. For the infidels, however, something even more sinister had to be unleashed upon them; something that there was no known protection for the general population. Only then would the Americans capitulate over fear of further destruction.
He thought about standing up, of pacing around his small cell in order to flush more blood into his brain but decided that those watching him from the camera embedded high above would take notice of his change in demeanor so he elected to stretch out further into his mattress. It was a semblance of laxity that just might cover his train of thought.
Muhammad knew that to attack the Americans, he literally needed the power of God; that nuclear attack was perhaps the only option available that presented a quick and powerful strike without resorting to large amounts of chemical or biological agents. The problem rested not with the technology or even the know-how – these were available to almost anyone with at least a moderate degree of intelligence and access to the Internet – but with how to smuggle the device into the United States.
Fully understanding the porous nature of America’s borders, he could easily smuggle in a small device such as a suitcase nuke into the infidel’s homeland without anyone taking notice but therein remained another problem: Muhammad thought big. Really big. He didn’t want to unleash a nuclear attack upon the United States unless he could guarantee the unbearable, total annihilation of one of the Great Satan’s largest cities. No mere destruction of a small, outlying ‘heartland’ town as some of his followers wanted to do would suffice.
In fact, Muhammad had already chosen which city that he wanted to destroy; the same city that Islamists had been targeting virtually uninterrupted since the 1979 Iranian Revolution thrust the radical Islamists upon the world stage: New York City. He no longer felt that merely toppling office buildings would serve his expectations. No, he wanted New York City wiped clean off of the map. Then, perhaps, the infidel Americans would listen to him.
What he wanted was easy to imagine; how to impart it to his satisfaction was a totally different animal with which to deal. Muhammad was not so naïve as to believe that he could just walk into the United States with a hydrogen bomb and detonate it. First, he had to find a way past the nation’s security forces. Second, nearly everyone on the planet knew that most American citizens were armed to the hilt and would not take too kindly to another Muslim trying to destroy their country. Fortunately, for him, he knew full well that New York City was one of the few places in the United States where indigenous laws benefited the likes of him and not its own citizens. Third, Muhammed wanted more than just destroying as many people as he could; he wanted to cause as much financial and environmental damage as possible.
Crawling haphazardly over to the corner so as to relax up against the wall without attracting undue attention to his actions, Muhammad allowed a brief smile indicative of his sinister plans. New York City was the ideal target – a location which possessed tens of millions of people; the financial center of the Great Satan; and served as a major – and vulnerable – harbor. Perfect.
There could be no doubt that if he could orchestrate the total destruction of the entire city, America would be brought down upon its knees. The rest of the country would lose confidence in its security, suffer unimaginably through destruction of its primary financial center, lose the use of one of its main harbors through contamination, and beyond all else, take an emotional hit as New York City would be struck yet again. Yes, Muhammad thought, a major nuclear detonation from within the city would be his ultimate dream and ensure him of his place of honor within Greater Islam. What could be better?
Muhammad tugged at his beard: How can I get a large, megaton nuclear weapon within New York City? He considered the difficulties of getting past U.S. Customs and the probable need for heavy shielding to prevent detection. Besides the logistics involved, he thought about the need for capital – a significant amount of capital – as well as the technological and administrative support for such a massive undertaking.
While his exterior showed almost none of the thought processes that swirled throughout his mind, Muhammad’s consciousness drifted back into time when ancient Troy was leveled by the appearance of a ruse gift courtesy of the ‘departing’ Greeks. A wide grin made its appearance upon his otherwise stoical face. What better way to gain entrance into America than by having its citizens welcome their own destruction with open arms? New York City would be vaporized into non-existence and the Americans would have no one else to blame but themselves! Muhammad began a deep, sinister laugh for which he could care less if the entire planet had heard. His agile mind was beginning to plan out the ultimate in attacks and the only obstacle that remained was his eventual extraction from the Viper’s Lair.