Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [98]
“You’re doing the right thing, Mr. al-Fihri. Remember that.”
“I know, miss.”
They found a parking space and then, as instructed, walked behind al-Fihri the rest of the way to the mosque. Casey reminded him to take his time. They wanted to get there as late as possible. They had no desire to stand around socializing before prayers.
Approaching the front doors, al-Fihri nodded and said hello to several men he knew, but kept moving. He accompanied the women to a side entrance where he spoke a few words to a burqa-clad woman who appeared to be a greeter of some sort. Per the plan, he then berated Casey for making him late, shoved her inside along with the other women, and hurried back to the main entrance, which was for men only.
The greeter further chastised the women, and after they had removed their shoes, rushed them up a narrow set of stairs.
On the second floor, she shooed them into a small bathroom and waited outside while they performed their ritual purification. As they conducted their faux ablutions, Casey radioed a quick update over the bone mic in her left ear.
When they reemerged, the doorkeeper hurried them into the packed women’s prayer room and pointed to where she wanted them to stand in the back row. She then took up a spot right between them and the door.
The team was professional and maintained radio silence. Casey didn’t need to hear anything; she knew exactly what they all were thinking. The doorkeeper had just gone from being a pain in the ass to an actual impediment that would have to be dealt with.
With their heads down, feet shoulder-width apart and their hands at their sides as they faced in the direction of Mecca, the ladies pretended to quietly utter their intentions to perform Salaat, the Islamic ritual prayer. Over her earpiece, Casey could hear Nikki Rodriguez reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Right away, Cooper and Ericsson joined her. Casey did too.
A voice crackled over the loudspeakers at the front of the room in Arabic and the Salaat began.
The Athena Team followed along, voicing the appropriate phrases and adopting the proper postures, until Casey signaled over the radio that she was going to take out the doorkeeper.
Rising from the floor, Casey wrapped her midsection and bent over as if she was in pain. She sat in that position until she could tell that she had gotten the doorkeeper’s attention. Standing up slowly, she then moved toward the exit.
The doorkeeper met her halfway and tried to stop her from leaving.
“I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled in Arabic and then added in heavily accented English, “Need toilet. Sick. Sick.”
The woman stepped out of her way, but followed Casey toward the women’s bathroom.
Approaching the door, she pretended to falter and the woman rushed forward to grab her arm.
She helped steady Casey and steer her into the ladies’ room. As she did, she took the opportunity once more to chastise her. “Shame on you,” she hissed. “You should know better than to come to mosque when you are sick.”
“I’m not sick, darling,” said Casey in her best Texas drawl as the door shut behind them and she reached over to lock it. “But I am getting pretty tired of what a bitch you’re being.”
“I, I, I,” the woman stammered, suddenly aware that something very bad was happening.
“Yup. You, you, you,” replied the Athena Team leader as she pulled her Taser from beneath her burqa and stun-drove it into the woman’s chest.
The doorkeeper’s muscles seized up and Casey caught her as she fell forward. She was in the process of removing the woman’s burqa to bind and gag her when she heard Ericsson’s voice over her earpiece, “We’re in the hallway. All clear.”
Casey reached up and unlocked the door. Rodriguez and Cooper helped her secure the doorkeeper in one of the stalls as Ericsson continued to keep watch. Once they had her out of the way, Casey radioed Harvath that they were heading to the basement. Morning prayers would not last long, so they needed to move quickly.
With suppressed weapons at the ready beneath their burqas,