The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

Far more importantly for his intent and purposes, it was estimated to be one hundred times more powerful than the older Sarin agent. Following a good deal of bargaining and political maneuvering, a deal was struck with the Assad regime and the necessary arrangements made for delivery.

Now Yahla al-Qassam had his nerve agent, but then faced the problem of determining and procuring the proper means for delivery. Automatically his mind went to a large civilian airliner, yet there were a myriad of difficulties in using that sort of aircraft for such a purpose.

To begin with, it flew too fast and was not amenable to the modifications needed to properly spread the substance. More so, the taking of one would bring an immediate call for alarm. Prior terrorist acts had made the security around any commercial jetliner more formidable than ever before. Plus there was the likelihood of having passengers and a crew involved. The more one inserted the human element into such a complicated scenario, the higher were the odds for something to go wrong.

With the formation of contacts in Cuba and Mexico through mutual acquaintances, he came up with a thick folder detailing the types of civilian aircraft found in the Southwestern United States.

Most of the smaller civilian types of one or two engines were completely unsuitable, by his figures the airplane chosen must be able to lift at least 6,000 pounds. He then looked at the models used as crop dusters, designed specifically to spray farm fields with insecticides. However, he ruled them out in needing to carry more agent further than any of them were capable of. Plus, he figured he would need a crew of four and these crop dusters were single seat craft.

The utilization of a large, multi-engine aircraft like those used for fighting forest fires was a possibility, but almost all of them were located several hundreds of miles from the three potential targets topping his list. Coincidentally, most were also stationed at larger airfields where any suspicious activity could be quickly reported to the authorities. Something else was needed, something fairly local yet out of the normal mix of the three large cities he had circled on an old Rand McNally road atlas.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

One morning while in the midst of his growing frustrations, an old acquaintance happened to stop by. This welcomed visitor was a man in whom he put a good deal of trust in, and who was also a fervent follower of the Ayatollah. As a point of fact his comrade had been in the fight alongside him from the very beginning, from the street demonstrations to the government armory sackings to the taking over of the American Embassy.

Not only that, he was also a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a fellow instructor in the training of the Basij. Recently he had moved over into politics, and Yahla al-Qassam believed his old ally had great possibilities in that area. The acquaintance’s name was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he possessed information that would solve several of Yahla’s remaining difficulties.

During his visit, Mahmoud listened intently to the current crop of problems involved in Al-Qassam’s monumental undertaking. As a trusted member of the Sephah and a quickly rising political force supported by the ruling Mujtahids, Ahmadinejad was already aware of the plan and had given it much thought. A very bright individual with a master’s degree in civil engineering from the Iranian University of Science and Technology, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understood instinctively how successful this operation could be. He also understood the breadth and depth of the attending difficulties requiring resolution to ensure that success.

Qassam’s trusted friend had a suggestion. Ahmadinejad had heard of and confirmed the existence of a few old World War II era heavy bombers still operational in America, and that were in private hands. These airplanes were used for living history exhibitions and air shows, and were mainly based in the American Southwest, specifically the state of Texas.

Furthermore, there was an organization for such aircraft enthusiasts known as the Confederate Air Force, headquartered in the very southern tip of Texas within twenty kilometers of the Mexican border. Among the airplanes still being flown were a couple of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses.

Mahmoud laid a thick binder with yellow tab markers in front of Yahla al-Qassam. Inside was a gold mine of information concerning these aircraft, their capabilities, where they were based in this region of the United States and some background notes on their present caretakers.

Yahla immediately grasped how several of his problems were being solved in one fell swoop. Nevertheless, the resolution of so many at once still necessarily led to other ones. Who could fly such a craft and how could they be persuaded to do so? These planes were nearing a half century in age, and the knowledge of how to operate them must be as rare as the aircraft themselves.

Mahmoud had an answer for that, too. It came in the form of the person who had helped in collecting this information for him, and who was a walking encyclopedia on this particular type of vintage American heavy bomber. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad related how he had first met this young man while still a student at the university in Tehran, just before the return of the exiled Ayatollah.

At first, he struck Ahmadinejad as being a bit ‘different.’ Yet he was full of religious fervency and professed loyalty for the Ayatollah, and proudly bore the description of an utterly committed Shi’a Islamist. Possessing a high intelligence, his behavior occasionally bordered on being obsessive in nature. He was never a leader but rather the gifted loner completely dedicated to his cause with little room for anything else in his life, including the people around him.

Yet in this strange young radical Ahmadinejad saw real promise, and had taken the necessary steps to recruit him into Sephah. As Mahmoud had gotten to know this individual