“Very pretty,” the tall man said. “And very common. Everywhere I go, the faith of the mujahideen is tried. And, everywhere I go, they profess renewed faith. It is with these weak tools that Allah’s Will must be worked. But, Halal, the Jihad has need of you. You have skills that are needed in a great mission. We still can bring the Great Satan to its knees and teach the Lesser Satans of Europe and Asia that Allah’s Will is great and powerful beyond even that of Satan. And you will be the tool that shall show that will. In one stroke, we will break the will of the Dar Al Harb, which is divided even in the lands of the Great Satan, and bring the banners of Islam, once again, to the lost Da Al Islam. And all the jihad needs is your skills.”

“I live in submission to Allah,” Halal said, nodding. “What is the mission, Great One?”

“We shall strike at the Satan’s greatest weakness,” the tall man said, his eyes lidding heavily. “The love of its whores.”

Book One

Chapter One

Mike Harmon stuck his laptop in his jump bag and tossed the latter over one shoulder, standing up and stretching his back. He had been sitting in the coffee shop for nearly three hours and he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Fifteen years in the teams had left him with degenerative damage in half the major joints in his body and a back that was compacted enough for a fifty-year-old.

As he wandered out of the shop, he glanced at his image in the plate glass window and grimaced. Brown hair, brown eyes, a “regular” face, neither handsome nor ugly, shoulders a bit wider than the norm, middle beginning to bulge a bit despite regular exercise. Not the most prepossessing figure and certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, a big man on campus.