pipe bombs could add to the equation.
The rest of his team would be similarly armed, although two men also wore large, bulky suicide vests.
Of his nine men, he’d managed to cajole five into the operation. He was confident that four of that number would actually go through with it, but the questionable cell member, Mirza decided, would not dare threaten the operation by going to the polizei.
Today’s objective was not to achieve a tactical victory; with five or six men and no support from Tehran, this would be impossible. His objective was, rather, to make a loud and violent political statement.
And he was confident he would achieve that mission today.
At four p.m. he climbed aboard his red Vespa Primavera scooter and headed towards the center of Berlin, and at four fifty he sat outside a café on Wilhelmstrasse, just around the corner and down the street from the rear of the U.S. embassy. His heavy backpack rested on the sidewalk between his feet, and an Americano coffee remained untouched on the table in front of him.
He’d placed his mobile on the table next to it, with his Threema messaging app open. A new message flashed on the screen, and he lifted up the device.
The text filled him with excitement, pride, and terror.
Ten minutes, brother. In position.
His second-in-command would lead the first wave, though in truth, it wasn’t much of a wave with only four men. Still, Mirza’s plan had been designed to create maximum chaos with minimum personnel. The four men would park their car on Unter den Linden next to Pariser Platz, as close to the embassy as possible. They would climb out as one, and then they would all four spray Kalashnikov rounds at the men and women in sight at the front gate, and then at the windows on the upper floors beyond that.
Mirza knew the upper floors contained the offices of the senior members of the embassy, including the ambassador, Ryan Sedgwick. Sedgwick was a close friend and political confidant of the president of the United States. And although he held out no hope his operation would kill the ambassador himself, by targeting the upper floors, he knew he increased the likelihood he would kill someone in a position of power and thereby cause real pain to America.
Mirza would be a part of the second wave, or perhaps he alone would serve as the second wave, depending on whether Faisal showed up here at the café in the next five minutes. Either way, Mirza would wait until five p.m. exactly, and then he would sling his backpack in front of his chest, climb onto his scooter, and make the two-minute drive to the rear of the embassy. By then the attack would have begun in the front. He planned to pull his rifle even before he stopped, leap off the bike as it was still moving up the street, and shoot the two or three guards who stood on the sidewalk there. Then, if he was still standing, he would rake the upper rear windows of the embassy and shoot any Americans he saw running out the rear of the building.
If Faisal came, then they would double the damage, but even if he didn’t show, Mirza felt powerful, a warrior who could almost single-handedly bring the Great Satan to its knees today.
This was a martyrdom mission, for all of the men in the cell. Mirza held no illusions otherwise. But the twenty-four-year-old Iranian felt confident that his act of bravery would spur others on around the world.
Haz Mirza also knew that Tehran would vilify him, disavow him, discredit him. But he didn’t care. His God was not the god of European sanctions relief; his God was Allah, the one true God, and he only lamented that his nation’s leadership had replaced Allah, sacrificing Him on the altar of open trade.
He looked down at his phone and typed out a response.
I will see you in paradise, brother.
He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly.
Mirza was in the middle of this calming technique as a man in a business suit appeared from behind him, stepped in front of him, and sat down at his little table. The Iranian was taken aback, but he tried to hide it. What does this asshole want?
“Ja und?” Yeah? Mirza said in German.
The man leaned closer and gave off an insincere smile. In Farsi he said, “Good afternoon, brother. My name is Tarik. I know you don’t think you have