Day Of Wrath by Larry Bond Read Free Book Online Page A

to meet the challenges of this new age, Ibrahim’s father had arranged for him to be taught English and schooled in the ways of the modern world.
    But his father, so wise in many things, had been so weak and so foolish in others.
    The memory stabbed at Ibrahim yet again.
    It had been early in the evening. He had come into the room his father used to entertain his prized Western guests—eager to show off the top marks he’d just received from his tutor. Two American executives were there. Americans who worked for one of the major oil companies. Both of them stood looking down at his father with expressions of utter contempt on their faces.
    And his father? His once-loved father lay in a drunken stupor on a divan, still clutching the bottle of forbidden whiskey his “guests” had plied him with.
    Ibrahim’s stomach churned. It was almost as if he could smell the smoky reek of liquor still hanging in midair.
    He remembered one of the Americans glancing quickly toward him, then swinging back to his companion with a harsh, muttered laugh. “No problem. It’s only the sand nigger’s boy.”
    From that moment, Ibrahim’s path—his duty—had been clear to him.
    His formal education gave shape, form, and purpose to his hatred.
    During his years at university in Cairo and Oxford, he gravitated toward fellow students and teachers who preached the need for radical change—first by words and then by violence. Their creed was simple, strident, and seductive. Israel, its American and European backers, and those Arabs and Muslims corrupted by Western money were the source of all that was wrong in the Arab world. Only by armed struggle could the peoples of the Middle East throw off the shackles of their Western exploiters and regain their true place in the world order.
    Determined to play a leading role in this new war, Ibrahim had even spent a summer training at one of the new terrorist camps springing up across the Middle East. The men masterminding the resurgence of Arab radicalism had been delighted to find a scion of the House of Saud among their disciples. But they had quickly made it clear to him that he was too valuable an asset to be used as a gun-or bomb-carrying foot soldier. Instead they had given him special skills and training—teaching him how to organize self-contained terrorist cells, intelligence networks, and moneylaundering operations. He had been schooled in the arts of command and deceit and then sent back to Saudi Arabia to put those lessons into practice.
    Well, Ibrahim thought coldly, he had repaid their investment in him a million times over.
    He returned his attention to the task at hand. The Radical Islamic Front’s plan to destroy the American undersecretary of state contained a single, troubling flaw —a flaw that would have to be mended before it was put into action.
    Ibrahim glanced up from the document in his hands. Massif Lahoud sat across the table, watching him closely.
    “Do you approve this venture, Highness?” Lahoud asked carefully.
    Ibrahim nodded, then held up a single finger. “On one condition.
    The Front must first agree to work with Afriz Sallah. You know this man?”
    Lahoud shook his head. Usually it was not wise to admit ignorance in front of the prince, but in matters like this there was always much hidden.
    “Sallah is a demolitions expert—one who has handled such matters before, usually in Egypt. And the Front lacks the necessary explosives expertise to carry out this operation on its own. I don’t want Carleton walking away unscathed because they bungled the mission. Tell the Front we will cover their expenses and Sallah’s fee—if they can work effectively with him.”
    Ibrahim tore off a piece of paper, wrote an address on it, and showed it to Lahoud. “Contact Sallah at this address and arrange a meeting.
    Understand?”
    The older man read the address, committed it to memory, and then handed the paper back. “I will attend to it immediately,