Free Game Changer by Douglas E. Richards Page A

precaution. Any follower who was
captured could only reveal a small portion of the plan. Jafari wouldn’t insult anyone
in attendance by suggesting they might provide operational details during an
interrogation, but weakness happened, even in men whose hearts were in the
right place. And stupidity happened. What if someone made a list that could be
discovered? Allowed themselves to get drunk and then bragged about the plan?
    Caution was Jafari’s watchword. He would take no unnecessary
chances. They would see the beauty of his full plan, the grandeur, as it slowly
unfolded, like the rarest of roses revealing its beauty petal by petal.
    He held out his hands, palms up, and his face glowed with an
inner peace and serenity. “So it is time to announce our first move. One that
could well cut the deepest of all.”
    He paused for effect. “This will be a cut carved by the
lava-hot scalpel of fire ,” he
proclaimed triumphantly.

 
    9

 
 
    Azim Jafari waited several long seconds before continuing, partly
for dramatic effect, but mostly because he wanted to soak in the palpable
electricity that had swept across the room, relish the heightened attentiveness
of all of those standing before him in the soaring prayer hall.
    “I have witnessed for myself the horrible, unparalleled power of Allah’s fire,” he continued finally.
“And it is truly a power to behold. In 2007, I was living in San Diego, one of
the ten most populated cities in America. In October of that year, a wildfire
began to burn east of the city, heading due west. Embers from the first fire
started others, and these fires grew at an incredible rate. The carnage that
followed, the smoldering hell these fires created, was like something out of
the apocalypse .”
    Jafari’s memory of this devastation had never diminished,
and he had bolstered these memories with statistics he had read afterward. He
would paint his loyal followers a picture of the potential of fire to wreak
terror and destruction that would be an inspiration to them.
    “In a very short time,” he continued, “the walls of flame
were thousands of feet long, and up to eight stories tall. By the end of a
single week almost eight hundred square miles of Southern California were blackened.
Nearly a million residents were forced from their homes, the largest peacetime
movement of civilians in America since the civil war. Before the fire was
brought under control, more than three thousand structures were lost. Ash and
other particulates blanketed hundreds of square miles, like the aftermath of a nuclear war .”
    Jafari paused to let this sink in, his voice now filled with
awe. “During the day, the darkened sky was eerie .
Unsettling to the depths of one’s soul,” he said, his prepared words now bordering
on the poetic. “There was a surreal, orange cast to it, as the sun largely
failed to penetrate the mass of particulates. Ash rained from the sky, turning
San Diego into a sinister, coal-black version of a shaken snowglobe. Backyard
pools turned from a serene blue to a sickly black as soot covered their
surfaces. Residents stayed indoors, or wore surgical masks when they needed to
venture outside.”
    He shook his head grimly. “Unless you lived through it,” he continued,
“no description can do it justice. The psychological impact it had was
profound. There is no way to adequately convey the feelings of dread and
impending doom that gripped every last resident when their entire world was
covered in ash, and their sky was scorched and darkened.”
    Jafari could tell he now had his audience completely
enthralled. “Seventeen people were consumed by the walls of flame, including
five firefighters. More than a hundred more suffered injuries, not including
dozens who were hospitalized due to respiratory distress. The economic impact of
the fires was measured in billions of dollars. Much of the region was shut down
for the entire week, including schools, universities, and businesses.