The Last Infidel Read Online Free

sitting down to dinner together.”
    General Williams quickly sifted through every piece of paper on his desk, and then he rubbed his hands over his face.  The intelligence reports devastated him.  In less than a month, Bashar’s Islamic Front Army, with three thousand men, would move south and challenge the Army of Tennessee for control of Chattanooga, the Tennessee River, and Northern Georgia.  Chattanooga might hold, it might not.  Zafar Katila, who knew intimately every logistical detail of ISA, could make the difference.  Zafar was the key.
    This game of war, now entering the fourth quarter, was far from over.  Williams had great players on the sidelines.  Tracy Graham was one of them.  He’d sent her into the field numerous times; and she’d gone out only last month, trekking as far north as Crossville, Tennessee, returning to base with intel every bit as valuable as that gathered by the more experienced team leaders.  But she’d made it clear on more than a few occasions that under no circumstances would she return to Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
    General Williams got up and called for his aide.  He walked over to his map of Murfreesboro and put his right index finger down on what used to be one of the college’s parking lots on Greenland Drive near the intersection of Old Las Casas Pike.  Where once there was a straight road now sat a mosque.  He drew a circle around it, slowly and thoughtfully.  Then he moved his hand east and tapped on the town square.  “Here’s where it will all play out.”
    Langford, the general’s aide, stepped up beside him and said, “I hope this guy was worth Alpha Recon 4.” 
    General Williams hoped so, too.  Zafar Katila, close to a few key men in Bashar el Sayed’s inner circle, needed to become even more important part of that circle; but he needed to capture the attention of Bashar in a heroic way in order to do earn his trust. 
    Alpha Recon 4, offered up by the Army of Tennessee for that very purpose, had unknowingly played the part assigned them.  The covert agent had lied to Malone.  Zafar had no intentions of fleeing south. 
    Two hours after Malone’s team ambushed Zafar’s convoy, they, in turn, were ambushed by men under Zafar’s command.  Zafar, once a member of the Tennessee Islamic Forum for Democracy and now devoutly Christian, would be richly rewarded by Bashar for taking the initiative in removing an enemy reconnaissance team; and Zafar, besides being elevated in rank, would also be able to choose a reward.
    “She’ll never do it,” Langford said.  “You think Tracy’s really going to show up here and agree to undertake the mission?”
    “Don’t underestimate her,” General Williams replied.
    “Get herself captured?”  Langford hated the idea of losing Alpha Recon’s brightest mind to a mission as risky as this.  Command would never be able to replace her.
    “We’ve been over this,” General Williams said.
    “And what if that old horn dog Bashar wants her?”
    “We don’t have that kind of luck,” General Williams said.  “Nobody will know it’s her anyway.  Besides, Bashar will offer Zafar the woman of his choice, Zafar will ask for the blonde-haired girl at the camp, and it’ll be a done deal.  Bashar may be a terrorist dog, but he’s honest.”
    “I forgot you guys used to golf together.”
    “Don’t remind me,” General Williams said.  “I should have clubbed him to death while I had the chance.”
    “And the guards at the camp – what if they don’t look the other way when Tracy sneaks in?”
    “Just be glad they like guns and Jack Daniels,” General Williams said.  He picked up the old, rotary dial phone and called the quartermaster.  Supply always did an excellent job with the field equipment, but he felt Tracy needed to have her head shaved in the morning.  She also needed jeans and a tee shirt to change into once she’d arrived in Murfreesboro, preferably something stripped off the body of a