The sun had set, and the cool breeze flowed through the area.  Amir backed his brand-new black Silverado truck next to the edge of the Rio Grande River.  The new car smell still radiated from the leather seats.  It was fully equipped with all the extra’s, even a bed rack which rose slightly higher than the cab and an aluminum roll-up tonneau cover for the bed itself.

          As he stepped out onto the rocky banks he peered into the dark across the river.  He could barely see the two boats launching from the shores of Mexico as they slowly made their way toward him.  While he waited for them to arrive, he opened the tailgate of his truck and rolled back the hard tonneau cover of the bed.  Jumping onto the tailgate, he sat and studied the movements of the two boats.  Each fully packed boat had a man at the back, steering the outboard motors.  One of the men had two other passengers bundled up next to him.  He knew that was the boat carrying his cargo.

          As the boats approached the shore the two men jumped out and pulled the boats on land as much as they could so that they would not float away.  Amir cringed as the breeze carried the stench of the men in his direction.  He slid off the tailgate and stood next to it as the two men went to work unloading six aluminum boxes out of the boat and onto the bed of the truck.

          One of the men made the mistake of lightly tossing his first box onto the bed.  Amir immediately pulled out a Glock 19 handgun from a concealed pouch tucked in the front of his pants and pressed it hard against the temple of the man.  “If there’s even a little gap between your hands and the surface of my truck again, border patrol is going to find your smelly body floating down the river.”

          The man instinctively made a slight movement for his rifle that was slung over his shoulder.  When he did, Amir pressed his gun harder against his head.  The man humbled himself, lowered his head, and nodded in understanding.  Amir lowered his gun but did not put it away as he watched the two men carefully load the remaining boxes onto the bed of the truck.  Once done, they closed the cover and shut the tailgate.

          The men went back to the boat and grabbed the woman and girl.  They brought the woman up to Amir.  Amir took one glance at her and yelled, “What is this!  There are bruises all over her face!  I can’t use her!”  He grabbed the woman by the arm and threw her to the floor.  “You better get me a replacement.  I need someone who doesn’t have signs of abuse all over their face.  You have five hours to bring me a replacement to my warehouse.  Got it!”

          The men nodded.  Amir turned his attention to the young girl.  She must have been no older than seven years old.  He nodded in approval as he gazed up and down at her.  She had bruises but were mainly on her legs.  “Now she will do.”  He walked up to her and sniffed the top of her head.  “Yes, she will do.  Put her in the back seat.”  The men did what they were told and put her in the back seat as Amir got in the driver’s seat.  After he turned on the engine, he rolled down his window and looked at the men.  “Get rid of that woman.  Leave no loose ends.  Remember, you have five hours.”  He rolled up his window and sped off, kicking small rocks up at them as he left.

          Twenty minutes down the road they arrived at a large warehouse in an industrial area.  Amir opened a large garage door and drove in.  The space was full of shelves filled with TV’s, kitchen trash bins, and other home products.  Amir got out of the truck, opened the back door, and looked at the girl.  “Get out.”  The girl hesitated to move.  Amir had no patience.  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out.

          He held her arm tight as he led her up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, and down a hall.  When they got to the end of the hall, he pushed the girl into a large room that had a shower, toilet, sink and counter on one end and a bed on the other end.  On the bed was several pairs of different size jeans, shirts, and shoes meant for young girls and adults.  In the middle of the room was a table that had two large sub sandwiches, cups, and a large pitcher of water.  “Clean yourself up and get dressed.”  Amir shut the door and locked her in the room.

          He turned and made his way back down the stairs to the back of his truck where the six metal boxes were loaded.  Opening the liftgate, he reached in and pulled out the boxes, carefully placing them on the floor next to a large workbench.  Grabbing a screwdriver, he pried open each metal box, revealing pieces of a metal device.  Carefully, he put two of the pieces on the table and went to work.  With wrenches, screw drivers, and a soldering iron, he joined the two pieces together both mechanically and electronically.  He grabbed another piece from the floor and attached it as well.  The process continued until the device was fully assembled.

          Amir pulled a small, remote sized piece of equipment out of a drawer.  He plugged it into the fully assembled device.  Once a green light went off on the remote, he unplugged it and looked at the readings from it.  It was fully operational.  A glimmer of pride glimmered in Amir’s eyes as he smirked.  It was finally happening.  The great Satan will be wounded and this nuclear bomb will be the sword.  He will be the means of delivery.  Best of all, they will all be clueless as to how it happened.

          Pulling a cart next to the table, Amir carefully lifted the nuclear device onto it and rolled it to the back of the truck.  He opened the tailgate, pulled back the cover, and carefully lifted the bomb onto the bed and pushed it to the front.  Next to the truck was a large chest.  Amir opened the chest to reveal blankets, tents, tarps, a stove, flashlights, clothes, and a lot of other camping equipment.  He grabbed the blankets and threw it over the device.  He continued to empty out the chest and filled the bed with the supplies, burying the nuclear device.

          After rolling the tonneau cover shut, he walked over to the storage shelves and pulled out two paddle boards.  He carried them to the truck and placed them on pads that wrapped around the bars on the bed rack, placing one next to the other.  Grabbing straps, he secured the boards to the rack so they would not budge, even at high speeds.  Once he shoved the paddles into the bed, he shut the tailgate, securing the load.  Closing things up and looking around his truck to make sure everything was secure, Amir made his way to his office and sat down on his couch.  As he was pondering what he was about to do, he fell asleep.

          A couple of hours later, an alert on his phone woke him up.  The properties proximity alarm was going off.  He clicked on the notification on his phone and live video appeared on the screen.  One of the men from the river was walking to the door with a woman in a beat-up dress.  Amir walked over to the door and opened it right as they were walking up to it.

          The man from the river stood at the doorway, now wearing a beat-up baseball cap.  The woman stood right beside him.  Amir grabbed the woman by the arm and examined her for any visible signs of abuse.  After seeing that she was clear he pulled her inside.  “She’ll do.  Moneys in your account.  Get out of here.”  He quickly slammed the door before he had a chance to inhale the man’s stench which oddly didn’t creep into his nostrils yet.

          Still clenching the woman’s arm, Amir dragged her up the stairs to the room where the little girl was at.  He opened the door to find the girl laying on the bed, still in her old clothes and not showered.  On the table one of the sandwiches was nothing but crumbs.

          Amir gritted his teeth and grabbed the woman by both arms and placing her right in front of him.  His eyebrows were lowered over his cold steely eyes.  “You need to shower both you and her and change into those clothes in one hour.  Do you understand me?”

          The woman shook her head yes as she looked down at the floor, trying not to make eye contact.  Amir pushed her into the room.  She fell onto the floor, almost hitting her head on the table.  He slammed the door shut and locked it.  After storming down the stairs, he went back down to his office.  Looking at the clock he realized that he only had two hours before they had to go.  In two hours, he would make the nineteen-hour non-stop drive to his destination in California.  Then it will begin.  They will suffer.  They will bleed.  All because of him.  A devilish smile crept across his face as he laid back down on the couch and fell asleep.

          An hour and a half later, Amir woke up to an alarm on his watch.  He glanced over at the time and realized that he napped a little longer than he wanted.  Frustrated, he quickly marched up the stairs.  As he marched, he said to himself, “They better be cleaned up and ready.”

          Unlocking the door, he flung it open to find the woman was holding the girl, who was asleep, while lying on the bed.  They were both clean and dressed in the clothes he laid out for them.  Amir was somewhat satisfied but did not change his serious demeanor.  “Get up!  It’s time to go.”

          The woman woke the young girl up.  They got up and walked out of the room.  Amir was closely behind as they walked down the stairs.  When they got to the truck, Amir told them to get in, with the woman in the front seat and the little girl in the back.  As they were getting in, he grabbed two large, fully loaded backpacks from the floor and put them in the back with the girl.  Opening one up, he pulled out a tablet and some headphones.  He turned the tablet on, connected the headphones, and tapped on the screen.  There were several different movies on the screen that he showed to the girl.  The girl smiled and quickly grabbed the tablet and put on the headphones.  Amir pointed to the bag and said “food.”  The girl looked inside the bag.  Her smile got bigger as she pulled out a bag of cookies.

          Amir shut the back door and got in the driver’s seat.  He looked at the woman with a little friendlier face.  “We are going on a long trip to California.  We are a happy family on vacation.  If we get pulled over and if someone asks you a question, smile and put your hand on your neck like you just had your tonsils taken out and you can’t speak.  Do you understand?”  The woman shook her head like she understood.  “Good.  If you cooperate, I promise to let you both go with a bunch of cash to help you on your way.  There’s food in the backpacks.”

          After opening the garage door, Amir pulled the truck out of the garage and took off.  It was very early in the morning.  The sun had yet to rise.  He gripped the steering wheel tight as he pulled onto the main highway to start their journey to blow a hole in America, ending countless lives.  There were no second thoughts, no feelings of guilt or regret.  Instead, there was only feelings of anticipation and excitement.

          To his appeasement, the trip was long and uneventful.  When one of the girls had to go to the bathroom, he would stop at a rest stop, wait till there was no one around, then watch them carefully as they went in and out of the restroom.  If he had to go, he went in a cup as he drove, then threw it in the trash when he had the chance.  Other than the bathroom breaks as well as fueling the truck, they did not stop.

          It was late in the evening when they finally arrived at their destination.  They were near downtown LA in a residential area.  He pulled up to a driveway of a small home and opened the garage with a remote he had in the glove box.  Amir got out of the truck and took the paddle boards off of the rails.  He put them on one side of the mostly empty garage.  Pulling open a drawer from a small counter in the garage, he pulled out a metal shaft and walked back to the truck.  After getting in, he pulled the truck into the garage and closed the garage door.  He turned off the truck, then pulled out his gun from his concealed holster and screwed on the metal shaft, which was a suppressor.

          The woman’s eyes widened as she saw what he was doing.  “I thought you were going to let us go.”

          Amir gave her a cold glance.  “I lied.”  He motioned his head in the direction of the little girl in the back seat, now asleep.  “She’ll make a nice personal pet for me.”  Pointing the gun at the woman he said, “As for you, no loose ends.”

          He pulled the trigger.  A bullet exited the gun and towards the woman’s head.  Just as the bullet was about to strike her forehead, it stopped its progression, span in the air, then dropped on her lap.  The woman looked at the now puzzled Amir with a devilish grin.  Amir frantically pulled the trigger multiple times, emptying the magazine.  Several bullets made their way to the woman, all stopping short and dropping.  The woman grabbed the gun from Amir, who sat there with his jaw dropped.  She smacked him on the side of his face with the grip of the gun.  Holding up her hand, she made a hang loose sign with her pinky and thumb extended, then punched Amir’s chest.  Amir felt a surge of energy flow through his body as he passed out.

          A slight breeze swept passed Amir’s face as a bead of blood dripped off his nose.  He could smell the scent of salt water as he slowly opened his eyes.  All he could see was a large body of water twenty feet below him that was darkened by a large shadow.  As he slowly gained consciousness, he noticed that he was suspended in the air.  The only thing that was attached to him was a thick rope around his neck.  As he followed the rope, he discovered that it was attached to a large circular stone that was about six feet in diameter and two feet thick.  It too was mysteriously hovering in the air.

          Amir turned his body to look up.  His jaw, once again, dropped.  Above him was a very large triangular object.  It was very smooth with no markings to identify what it was.  He glanced around him to discover nothing but water as far as he could see.  The sun must have been directly over the triangular object because he couldn’t see it anywhere else in the clear sky.

          A deep voice rang in his ear from the object.  “Who do you work for!”  Amir was speechless.  His eyes widened as he tried to figure out what was happening.  The voice called out again.  “Who do you work for!  You will answer my questions!”

Deep within Amir, his lifelong training kicked in.  As he remembered his personal purpose, emotions left him.  He became numb inside.  He forced himself to suppress all feelings of fear and bewilderment.  Curiosity of how and what was happening escaped his thoughts.  He knew that he would die to protect his cause.  Nothing else mattered.  His eyes became more focused on the object.  “My purpose is set!  My soul is secured!  You do not scare me!”

          The rope on Amir’s neck tightened as the large stone dropped a foot.  The deep voice spoke again.  “I do not think you fully understand your situation.”

          Amir closed his eyes and proudly spoke, “It doesn’t matter.  All that matters is the cause.”

          A laugh came from the deep voice.  “You think you are noble.  You think that you are brave as you pretend to answer with no fear.  We know the truth about you.  We know the grotesque things that you have done.  The things you were planning to do.  We know what you did to the little girls you enslaved.  You are scum.”

          Amir yelled out in anger, “My reward will be great.”

          The deep voice quickly replied, “You will get what you deserve, no doubt.  Be proud that you are silent right now.  The thing that you don’t realize is that you already squealed out all the information that we needed about your contacts in Iran.  Maybe you will remember as that millstone drags you by the neck to the bottom of the sea.  Sad thing is, that will be better than what’s waiting for you.”

          Amir looked at the object with a smirk.  “We shall s…”  Before he could finish, both him and the stone dropped into the water.  The rope pulled on his neck, squeezing his trachea as he suffocated.  The lights around him diminished as he quickly sank to the bottom of the sea.