Free Into the Crossfire by Lisa Marie Rice

and places only someone on the inside of the
    finance industry could know.
    Muhammed knew them, oh yes. Knew exactly where the dagger's point
    should thrust. Which businesses to destroy--a surgical strike at the very beating
    heart of the economy.
    The entire financial district, gone, destroyed, rendered a wasteland.
    Manhattan emptied, its inhabitants rendered radioactive lepers, condemned to die a
    slow and painful death.
    Perfect. A plan that would bring the West to its knees, in submission to the
    Prophet's will.
    It was all in place, all perfect. And now this. Muhammed frowned at the
    printout of the decrypted email he'd just received.
    Trouble.
    A crew member of the Marie Claire, the ship carrying the martyrs, reported
    that a member of the Marseille Port Authority saw the secret hold, had seen the
    men, the shaheed belts and the canister with its universally understood biohazard
    symbol and had grasped the significance. Luckily, the man had been terminated
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    but had been alone in his office with his computer for a good five minutes.
    Checking the server log, one message with attachment had been sent to
    [email protected] in the time frame between the clerk's arrival at his office
    and his death.
    Close examination of the attachment showed merely a technical text
    pertaining to plans to expand the harbor, but the message and its recipient had to
    be destroyed.
    Google told him that www.wordsmith.com was a translation agency based
    in San Diego. Its owner's name was Nicole Pearce.
    Something had to be done fast. The Marie Claire was on its way. It would
    stop a hundred miles from the port of New York. The martyrs would be offloaded
    at night to four fast boats that would land in New Jersey, and from there would be
    bused to Manhattan. The Marie Claire would land briefly in port and be on its way
    to Panama by the time the bombs exploded. No one would ever suspect her.
    It was all in place except for the wild card of Nicole Pearce, potential
    trouble.
    Twenty years of planning was coming to fruition. It was unthinkable that
    they fail. Even more unthinkable that they fail because of a Western woman.
    They wouldn't fail. Muhammed had a plan.
    At the topmost levels of American finance, in the heart of America's
    softness, Muhammed had been astonished to learn that there were hard men.
    Money was defended as fiercely as land in this arcane world, by the iron laws of
    warfare, if necessary. Like all overlords, the kings of finance required warriors to
    deal with problems. A whistleblower threatening to bring down a lucrative deal, a
    divorcing wife threatening to report hidden assets to the IRS, the head of a rival
    company whose plane had to go down...these required warriors to deal with them.
    And the men of money knew where to go.
    Several times, late at night, after a luxurious meal and over the thousanddollar bottle of cognac or brandy Paul had learned to consume, a man was
    mentioned. He had many names and no one knew his background, save that he had
    been trained to be a ruthless but efficient killer by the US Army. It didn't matter
    what his name was, what was important was what he could do.
    Anything.
    He could do anything at all for you, if the price was right. He also
    commanded vast resources and highly trained men. No matter what the mission,
    he could deal with it.
    The world of high finance guarded its wealth ferociously when threatened
    and it had its enforcer--shadowy, fast, smart. Paul only knew his code name:
    Outlaw. He knew nothing else, except that there was a cell phone number.
    He did not have it but he knew who did.
    Muhammed picked up his phone and began the long process of arranging a
    meeting with one of the most powerful men in the world.
    It was a humiliating process but Muhammed swallowed his pride.
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    Soon enough, the world of dishonor would be wiped out, and Umma would
    rise from the ashes of the West.
    43

Chapter 4
    San Diego
    To Nicole's surprise, Sam Reston hadn't booked at one of