Chapter 4

Near In Guezzam, Algeria

The desert on the Niger – Algeria border was a dry, dusty place. The twenty men who lived at the training camp directly west of the small oasis of In Guezzam were relaxing after a rehearsal of the placing of a bomb. It was a terrible rehearsal ... nobody got their jobs right, on either the Team of the Prophet or the Team of The Rivers. One bomb exploded too early, one not at all – all ‘explosions’ were fake, of course. Any real explosion would obliterate the camp and everyone in it. Training in the middle of a desert for a mission that was to take place in the middle of an ocean was less than ideal.

Bin Salaam looked at his two lieutenants: Ali Rostum and Mos Urel. All three, of course, were noms de guerre, pseudonyms adopted for the duration of ‘the war.’

Bin Salaam: “We still have many days before we ignite the powder keg. Do not be concerned.”

Ali Rostum: “They are not used to setting a bomb to explode on an empty island.”

Mos Urel: “As you know, that is the whole point. The infidel would never set such an explosion where anyone would be harmed.”

Bin Salaam: “Do not think of the overall impact. Think only of doing your own jobs. The bomb is different in kind from the ones we have dealt with before. We will practice each team individually and we will decide in ten days which team will go forward and which will remain in Durban.”

In just ten days, the team members would pick up parts of the bomb in Durban and Cape Town. The ships with the components were already at sea having left Alexandria, Egypt and Bandar Abbas, Iran.