Sunrise over Evil: The Twelfth Book in the Johnny Skull Series

By Vincenzo Spiaggi

Two Las Vegas mosques are destroyed. We know who did it; but what was discovered at the sites of the destruction is just the beginning of uncovering a much more sinister plot to overthrow the government and culture of the United States. Aided by subversive officials in high places within the American government, international jihadism is firmly entrenched within the apparatus of the U.S. intelligence community.
With the help of certain underworld figures, agents of World Interconnect (WI-7), an international terrorist-hunting organization, attempt to unravel the plans of the enemies of the United States. Their search for clues leads them to a group of international-Islamist plotters within the American government and the greater Muslim-American community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728327303

Vincenzo Spiaggi

Vincenzo Spiaggi, a native of New York City and a graduate of The City University of New York, is a geologist, novelist, journalist, fine arts photographer, and screenwriter. He has lived and worked throughout the United States, in Canada and the Middle East. He currently resides in rural upstate New York.

Book preview

Other Works of Fiction by

Vincenzo Spiaggi

Curse of the Quincunx*

The First Raindrop Of The Storm*

One-Legged Geese*

The Antelope Farm*

Time To Lean, Time To Clean*

The Natural Order Of Human Events*

A Tribute To His Heroes*

The Great Sicilian Rabbit Hunter*

Happiness Is The Road*

Small Pebbles, Long Shadows*

Small-Town Weekly*

Ho Po Pinocchio Day

Thicker Than Water

* Books of the Johnny Skull Series

Sunrise

Over Evil

by

Vincenzo Spiaggi

The Twelfth Book in the Johnny Skull Series

36859.png

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2019 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/12/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2731-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2730-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019914030

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover photo courtesy of Bruce Rubin

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

A Brief Synopsis Of The Previous Eleven Books Of The Johnny Skull Series

Key Members Of World Interconnect (Wi-7)

Prologue

1 Monday, June 3, 2013

2 Wednesday, December 2, 2015

3 Thursday, December 3, 2015

4 Friday, December 4, 2015

5 Saturday, December 5, 2015

6 Monday, December 7, 2015

7 Tuesday, December 8, 2015

8 Wednesday, December 9, 2015

9 Thursday, December 10, 2015

10 Friday, December 11, 2015

11 Saturday, December 12, 2015

12 Sunday, December 13, 2015

13 Monday, December 14, 2015

14 Tuesday, December 15, 2015

15 Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Epilogue

To the

memory of

Mitchell Goldberg,

1959-2018.

Dearest nephew. Godspeed.

Rid yourself of the thoughts and words of others.

Find your own voice.

William Godwin

A brief synopsis of the previous eleven books of the Johnny Skull Series

Small-Town Weekly (Book 1)

The Valentine Voice is a mess. This small-town weekly newspaper is suffering from listless reporting, lifeless news presentations, and dwindling advertising revenues, all a result of its inexperienced, inept and feckless management, and a lack of effective community awareness.

Into the equation enters Johnny Skull, an itinerant newspaper editor who has made a career of revitalizing failing small-town weeklies and turning them into successful entities by upgrading their writing, reporting, photojournalism, and community advocacy.

Via his editorials, feature articles and interaction with the locals, we learn about Johnny and how he transforms the woeful newspaper into an award winner in just one year.

His efforts, and the efforts of his newly energized, all-woman staff, are woven into the events and fabric of the town and county, including a tornado, a successful high school sports year, a surprise visit to the town by a rock ‘n’ roll legend, a mystery woman who sends love letters to Johnny, a major fire, and a multiple-murder spree.

Small Pebbles, Long Shadows (Book 2)

The editor of The Sheridan County Sunrise disappears.

Its sports reporter is brutally murdered.

The sheriff’s investigation hits a dead end.

The star quarterback at the local high school has a troubling past and is walking an emotional tightrope. His cheerleader girlfriend is bothered by his occasional disappearances.

What is it about the missing editor’s past that leads to the uncovering of a terrorist plot?

The newspaper’s new editor, Johnny Skull, leads an investigation into the previous editor’s disappearance and sports reporter’s murder, and finds more questions than answers; but finally, all clues lead to a rural mosque and its radical leader.

Set in the beautiful foothills of the Bighorn Mountains of north-central Wyoming, this is a tale of mystery, love, international politics, personal awakening, and individual triumph.

Happiness Is The Road (Book 3)

Johnny Skull’s life experiences from 1998 to 2006 are explored during his wedding celebration in the fall of 2007.

Documented is the young newspaperman’s odyssey from the time he graduates from the University of Arizona, until just before he takes a job at The Valentine Voice, the setting for the first Johnny Skull novel, Small-Town Weekly.

This story, via flashbacks, follows Johnny’s career through seven different jobs as he learns the publishing business … and priceless life lessons.

In Texas, at his first job which lasts only one day, he is run out of town by the sheriff’s daughter. In Kentucky, he saves the life of his future boss and earns a job at a newspaper in Maine. In North Dakota, he rescues a newspaper from mediocrity and brings it into the twenty-first century.

In Colorado, Johnny starts a brand-new weekly newspaper, only to lose his job just days before 9/11/01, when a new owner acquires that publication. In Arizona, he resurrects a failing mining-industry magazine to its former respected status, and becomes a successful fine-arts photographer.

As the communications and publications director for a trade organization in Washington, he goes head-to-head with his new boss who has some strange views on intra-office relations. And in Nevada, he helps a congressman get elected.

But the story also reveals the dark-side of ex-Marine Johnny Skull, as he uses the lessons he’d learned from his grandfather to avenge the honor of his friends.

The Great Sicilian Rabbit Hunter (Book 4)

A little-known, but particularly evil, Nazi war criminal is on the loose. He escapes to South America after WWII, then eventually makes his way to North America, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Newspaperman Johnny Skull, with help from a well-connected U.S. congressman, an Israeli Secret Service agent, and a terrorist-tracking organization known as World Interconnect (WI-7), is on the Nazi’s trail, one that leads from Italy to Argentina to Mexico to Arizona to British Columbia, and finally to Wyoming.

The story follows the military careers of U.S. Marine lieutenant Johnny Skull, and his grandfather, a former U.S. Army major, as they hone their particular skills in hunting down the world’s evil thugs. The story also revisits the life of the Nazi, and his metamorphosis from a bumbling fool to a ruthless killer.

A Tribute To His Heroes (Book 5)

At the end of the previous book, Johnny Skull discovers a fortune in gold and cash in an abandoned coal mine. He then proceeds to give many of his friends a cash gift of $20,000 each, but he remains the anonymous gift giver.

The story follows the recipients of the gifts and how their new wealth affects their lives.

A sub-plot of the story is the murder of a radical Muslim cleric, how that murder intertwines with the lives of several characters, and the international intrigue that builds thereafter.

The Natural Order Of Human Events (Book 6)

Family members of the Secretary General of the United Nations are murdered in a homicide bombing in Jerusalem. Overcome with grief, the Secretary General then takes his own life.

His successor, Mikki Paarsalu of Estonia, vows to reform the corrupt international organization; but during his acceptance speech, he offends a few people and makes a few new enemies.

The story chronicles the efforts of Paarsalu’s enemies as they try to teach him a lesson for his public humiliation of them. His enemies include a powerful mullah at a mosque in Boulder, Colorado, and a Middle Eastern ambassador to the United Nations.

The story also tracks the efforts of Paarsalu’s friends as they try to protect him from his enemies. Working in his behalf are: Johnny Skull, who is on his own mission of revenge; a U.S. congressman and an Israeli Mossad agent; several reporters for The Sheridan County Sunrise, an award-winning weekly newspaper in the Village of Story, Wyoming; and members of World Interconnect (WI-7), an international terrorist-tracking organization. WI-7 believes that the Yemeni jihadist, Abu Zulu, is the man behind the plot to harm Paarsalu.

Time To Lean, Time To Clean (Book 7)

Interwoven between scathing indictments of the American president and international jihad, is a story of terrorism, foreign intrigue, incompetence at the highest levels of the American government, and creative patriotism.

Vespa Jiggs, the American president’s puppeteer, is not whom she seems to be. Following the path of her own secret agenda, she is planning a catastrophic event that will forever change the world’s political course.

But the killing of Osama bin Laden – an action she vehemently opposed – causes her to change her plans when one of her operatives talks a little too freely to the wrong people about her planned terrorist event.

Once again, Johnny Skull and World Interconnect (WI-7) rise to the occasion to save the world from the evildoers.

The Antelope Farm (Book 8)

The American president’s friends, top advisors, and co-conspirators are disappearing at an alarming rate. With the 2012 election just around the corner, and with his key people nowhere to be found, the president is concerned that, without them, he will lose his bid to serve another four years, thereby foiling his efforts to destroy the United States from within.

Only the organization known as World Interconnect (WI-7) knows where the missing persons are. In an effort to destabilize the president’s re-election campaign, the international anti-terrorist organization not only kidnaps those people who are important to the president, they also uncover a network of radical jihadists who are working toward the overthrow of the United States government.

One-Legged Geese (Book 9)

World Interconnect (WI-7) is on a mission to eliminate a North America-based, Iran-sponsored network of jihadists. But the Iranian government and the Boston Mafia are on separate missions of their own; coincidentally, and incredibly, their independently arrived-at missions are identical, and WI-7 is caught in the middle of an international race that could turn the world upside down.

The First Raindrop Of The Storm (Book 10)

Iran wants to start the end-of-days war with the West. To that end, a plot is afoot to kill seven key world leaders, thereby forcing the West to respond militarily.

Twenty-two jihadists are on the loose in America, preparing to form an Iranian caliphate when the end-of-days war ends. Additionally, a host of Iranian operatives and sympathizers within the American government are aiding Iran in its attempt to turn the world to ashes.

Can Johnny Skull and his WI-7 teammates succeed in saving the world from destruction? WI-7’s road to success is circuitous, but the ultimate outcome will surprise even themselves.

Curse Of The Quincunx (Book 11)

During the Middle Ages, and after two-hundred-fifty years of inbreeding, this geographically isolated community of genetically diseased killers is all but destroyed by an earthquake. Its few survivors scatter to the four winds and resettle afar.

Now, a mad man tries to resurrect their lineage, hoping to recreate an army of mercenaries from what remains of their genetically noxious descendants.

Waiting for them are the agents of World Interconnect (WI-7), who attempt to stifle this deadly march of evil. WI-7’s quest is international; its failure would be catastrophic.

Key Members of World Interconnect (WI-7)

WI-7 Directors

WI-7 Operatives

WI-7 Consultant Status Force Members

Prologue

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 to Monday, November 30, 2015

The two stunned women gazed out the window, hypnotized by the sight of the airliner flying toward them. Their collective gasp was the last human sounds they would ever hear.

Carmella Scavuzo Antonelli and Rosalind Telansky Schemler worked as financial analysts for United Securities and Investments on one of the upper floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower in lower Manhattan.

They sat across a large desk from each other, they ate lunch together, they shared family stories with each other; indeed, they and their families had been close friends for as long as they could remember. Both women had grown up next door to each other on the same street in Brooklyn, they were classmates throughout grade school, high school, and college, and they acted as the maid of honor for each other at their respective weddings. They even babysat for each other’s children on occasion.

And their best-friend fathers were U.S. Air Force buddies, both had enlisted on the same day in 1967, and both had served side-by-side with each other as airplane mechanics in Viet Nam.

Carmella’s father, Santo Scavuzo, was emotionally hit the hardest by the 9/11 attacks. He suffered a stroke upon hearing the news of his daughter’s death, and he died of a broken heart three weeks later. Rosalind’s father, Isaac Telansky, also broken-hearted at the news of his daughter’s death, promised Rosalind’s eternal spirit to someday avenge her murder by making life miserable for Muslim trash of all stripes. In time, he would succeed.

Carmella had a younger brother, Pauley, who loved his sister dearly; and they had a cousin, Carlo Matouzzi, who loved Carmella like a sister. Pauley and Carlo (who were born within one week of each other) were the best of friends; they were very smart young men, and, being Sicilian, they were loyal to their family members and close friends of the family. La famiglia per sempre! They, too, promised a debt of revenge for the deaths of Carmella and Rosalind; and, like their Uncle Isaac, they would, in time, collect on that debt.

* * *

During his adolescence, Pauley was always devising ways to get away with something or other: like stealing candy from the corner candy store, stealing books from the local library, stealing ice cream from the neighborhood ice cream delivery truck, stealing newspapers from the stack of papers at the local newsstand, and stealing pay phones from corner phone booths (not for the money inside them, but for the electronics inside the phones, just to see what made them work; he was curious that way). Eventually, he would return just about everything he stole: his effort was to get away with his illegal actions, not to keep the things he stole for any length of time for personal gain … especially if his victims were people he knew or if they truly needed their pilfered possessions returned.

On the other hand, his cousin Carlo, as an adolescent, did not steal from the rich to give to the poor; he just stole from everyone and kept everything, especially the hand guns he’d confiscated from local neighborhood gangsters.

Being as tough as they were, Pauley and Carlo decided to join the U.S. Marines after graduating from high school, putting their college educations on hold for a while. Their reason to join the military was to go to war in the Middle East in order to learn about the terrorists, to understand the ancient and evil motivations of these people so they could more easily exact revenge for the deaths of Carmella and Rosalind when they would return home from the Middle East Theater. They figured that if they learned the terrorists’ language and culture and religion, the easier it would be to walk away from any future carnage without any sense of guilt, such was the hate they still harbored in their hearts for the terrorists because of the events of 9/11.

* * *

While in the Marines’ basic-training program, Pauley and Carlo met Virgil Thorpe, a young black Texan who hated Middle Eastern terrorists as much as they did. Virgil’s hate grew from an incident in high school when his girlfriend was brutally raped by three Middle Eastern illegal jihadists who were on the run from U.S. Customs agents after illegally crossing the Mexican border. Virgil’s girlfriend had worked as a waitress in Jesse’s Café in Muleshoe, Texas, Virgil’s hometown. The jihadists had attacked her as she got into her car after the end of her late shift at the café one Friday night. And, even though Virgil caught the men and beat their brains in, his continuing hatred for jihadists festered … and lingers still.

After basic training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Pauley was assigned to the electronics division of the weapons-development sector of the U.S. Marine Corp. He was deployed to Iraq.

Both Virgil and Carlo were assigned to the Marine Corps’ Special Ops division, and both were deployed overseas: first to fight Islamic rebels in the Philippines; then to fight Islamic insurgents in North Africa, and finally to fight the pain-in-the-ass Taliban in Afghanistan. During their last week in the Marines before their return home, Virgil had saved Carlo’s life by rescuing him from a Taliban death squad in Helmand Province. Carlo never forgot Virgil’s valiant heroism. Carlo called it God’s eternal loyalty.

After his experiences in the U.S. military, Virgil moved to Las Vegas to work as a journalist – he’d previously earned a degree in journalism from Abilene Christian University before joining the Marines – first as a reporter for a local TV station, then as a writer for a Las Vegas-based magazine.

Pauley and Carlo, as per Virgil’s suggestion, enrolled at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas: Pauley majored in electrical engineering; Carlo studied business administration.

Four years after graduating from college in three years, and after having earned a PhD in electronics engineering, Pauley became an electrical-engineering professor at UNLV – the youngest tenured professor in the school’s history; and a year later he became the youngest department head in the school’s history. He also became an inventor of useful electronic gadgets, including a fool-proof safecracking device.

After graduating from UNLV in three years with a degree in business and finance, Carlo carved out a niche as an important, but low-profile, underworld figure in Las Vegas.

By then, Virgil had become a regionally influential conservative voice through his opinion columns and cultural articles for Inside the Southwest, a politically conservative opinion magazine in Las Vegas. During his tenure there, he’d written in-depth exposé-type articles about two radical imams in two mosques in the Las Vegas area: imam Isatuq Bhuq at the Henderson Center for Islamic Studies, and imam Qumhasa Tuqasi at the North Las Vegas Center for Islamic Studies. It was those two articles by Virgil Thorpe that inspired Pauley and Carlo to create a forward-looking plan to do what they had to do to gain their revenge against the jihadists … someday.

Virgil’s generally hard-hitting reporting for the TV station, and his anti-left-wing articles for the magazine, also attracted the attention of Jack Davidson, the executive director of World Interconnect (WI-7), an independent international anti-terrorist organization, which, over the previous decades, had been successful in thwarting a multitude of jihadist plots, mainly in North America, but also in Europe and the Middle East. WI-7’s personnel are a collection of savvy administrators, electronic-device experts, intelligence operatives, law-enforcement and former military professionals, and assassins; in reality, they all were assassins.

Eventually, Jack Davidson recruited Virgil as a part-time consultant status force member; since then, Virgil had contributed mightily to WI-7’s successes. But Virgil had never revealed his WI-7 affiliation to his good friends and former-Marine buddies, Carlo Matouzzi and Pauley Scavuzo.

* * *

During 2014 and 2015, Virgil had accumulated a portion of a large arsenal taken from various radical Arab extremists who had been eliminated by WI-7. He and one of his WI-7 teammates, Johnny Skull, were the organization’s custodians of that large cache of weapons: Johnny held most of the weapons in his barn in Patagonia, Arizona; Virgil kept his moderate-sized cache in several storage lockers in and around Las Vegas.

In the process of eliminating those jihadist radicals, Virgil, and some of his other WI-7 teammates, came to possess four safes which had belonged to a radical pro-jihadist professor. Virgil then approached Carlo, asking for help in breaking into the safes. Carlo, still feeling indebted to Virgil for having saved his life in Afghanistan, used the safecracking device which had been invented by his cousin Pauley.

Afterwards, Virgil felt indebted to Carlo for opening the safes, which allowed him (and WI-7) to walk away with more than seventeen million dollars in gold bullion. So, out of gratitude, he asked Carlo, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Carlo, not knowing of Virgil’s weapons stash (nor did he know of Virgil’s association with WI-7), jokingly answered, Not unless you’ve got a lot of weapons just layin’ around. My stash is getting low. Mostly hand guns will do. And, if you’ve got a few bazookas, I’ll take ‘em. Bazooka rockets, too. And maybe some dynamite, if you’ve got it. I, of course, being the rich gangster that I am, will pay you handsomely for them.

Knowing he had in his possession more contraband than he, or WI-7, would ever need, Virgil told a surprised Carlo he would provide whatever weapons he wanted … and he wouldn’t even ask Carlo why he needed such things as bazookas.

* * *

On November 26, 2015, Jack Davidson, the executive director of the New York City-based WI-7, was about to bring to a close the organization’s annual business meeting, an event held every year on the morning of Thanksgiving Day in the rather large den at the palatial log home of long-time WI-7 supporters Brian and Davida Robbins, in the lovely mountain village of Story, Wyoming.

Attending the meeting were the organization’s 30 America- and Britain-based, full-time operatives and part-time consultant status force members; also present were WI-7 Board of Directors members Greta Vogelein (WI-7’s Denver-based Western Regional Director), and Mikki Paarsalu (the Secretary General of the United Nations). Not present at the meeting was H. Mathias Neimark (the Vice President of the United States and a member of the WI-7 Board of Directors).

Earlier in the meeting, the discussion revolved around WI-7’s recent success in eliminating the dangerous threat of a mad professor’s effort to resurrect the ancient genetic lineage of a Persian sub-race of incestuous humans, who were to be used as a mercenary force of killers for hire.

Also discussed was: 1) the WI-7-instigated demise of an anti-American, anti-Israeli, Washington D.C.-based pro-Iranian think tank, The Islamic Council for the Betterment of North American-Muslim Relations (popularly known as The Betterment Society); and 2) the successful usurpation of an ISIS gun-running operation based in Nigeria, which had been smuggling weapons into the United States to be used by terrorists – those weapons were now being funneled directly, unbeknownst to the Nigerians, to two WI-7 agents who work undercover at Iran’s U.N. Consulate in New York City, thereby exponentially increasing WI-7’s already large weapons cache.

So, without further delay, Jack Davidson said, allow me to close the meeting and say that I’ll see you all at our rather lavish Thanksgiving dinner later today ... It’s a lovely day outside, so you might want to take advantage of the many hiking trails that wind through the forest west of the village and ...

Jack! interrupted Brian Robbins as he came through the den’s archway, I just heard a report on Fox News. It seems there’s been a few explosions in Las Vegas. It seems that two mosques have been totally destroyed.

Virgil Thorpe’s eyes opened wide; then he dropped his chin to his chest, closed his eyes and silently muttered to himself, He did it. Holy shit! Carlo actually did it. He said he was going to do something really big … How many bazookas did I sell him? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? … I can’t remember.

* * *

Saturday, May 17, 2009, was graduation day at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Fortuitously, the ceremony’s venue had been scheduled indoors at the Las Vegas Convention Center rather than outdoors at the campus football stadium, the outside temperature being well over one hundred degrees, and all.

Adorned in their cute little red hats and red-and-gray robes, Pauley Scavuzo and Carlo Matouzzi sat next to each other at the back of the auditorium; they’d just received their diplomas and Summa Cum Laude certificates, and were proud as hell of themselves. Pauley’s plans were to stay in school at UNLV as a graduate teaching assistant while enrolling in the school’s graduate program in electrical engineering. Carlo had already accepted a position as an investment advisor for Sunbelt Securities Associates, a front company for a Boston-based crime syndicate controlled by Carmine The Razor Cannizari, the capo di tutti capi of Boston’s Sicilian mafia. And, as coincidence would have it, Carmine is the great-uncle of both Pauley and Carlo; Carmine also is the uncle of Joseph Ballantonio, the current President of the United States.

Because of that personal familial relationship, no one from the higher echelons of Carmine’s crime apparatus made the trip to Las Vegas to congratulate the boys; they couldn’t afford anyone making the political connection between Carmine and his great-nephews. However, Carmine’s favorite niece, Josephine Cacciatore, made the trip west to celebrate her cousins’ academic accomplishments, along with the sizeable Scavuzo and Matouzzi families.

After the graduation ceremony, a celebration was held at an edge-of-the-desert Italian restaurant called Facciponti’s Desert Grotto, run by Josephine’s second cousin Gina Facciponti, whose aunt and uncle, Joseph and Rose, operated the hundred-year-old Facciponti’s Ristorante Italiano in Boston.

At the conclave, the Scavuzo and Matouzzi families milled around with each other on the large, tree-shaded patio behind the restaurant before the beginning of a private celebratory feast.

Under a large cottonwood tree on a small adjoining patio surrounded by desert landscaping – large rocks, yuccas, ocotillo, century plants, agave, mesquite, cholla, and imported saguaro and organ-pipe cacti from southern Arizona – Pauley and Carlo sat at a small table with their cousin Josephine; they were watching a small pack of javelinas in a nearby gully as they browsed and munched on prickly pear cactus, needles and all.

Boys, Josephine said as she looked across the table at her younger cousins, "Uncle Carmine is very proud of you. Carlo, you’ve chosen to work for the family, and there’s no doubt you’ll be more than helpful in the future. And Pauley, you’ll be assisting the family from your position at the university. Specifically, because you’ll be inventing and developing all sorts of electronic gadgets for us from the school’s electronics-research lab. Things like surveillance and eavesdropping devices, explosives enhancement protocols, and remote-control devices for weapons-delivery systems, among other useful items."

Weapons-delivery systems? asked a confused Pauley. He knew of the family’s nefarious reputation, but the words weapons-delivery systems sent shivers up and down his spine.

"Yes. You see, Uncle Carmine is having second thoughts about our new president. As you may know, my brother Bart has been appointed to a position on the president’s economic advisory council; and, as we all know, Bart is a socialist, so he’ll fit right in with our new commie-loving president. Uncle Carmine hates that about Bart, and it bugs him to no end; and he hates the new president because the president also is a pinko. But he really hates the new president because of his anti-Israel policies. And, as you already may know, Uncle Carmine’s great-grandmother was Jewish – a Sicilian Jew, by the way, the world’s rarest species – and he loved her dearly. She lived to be 106 years old, and she had a profound influence on his life.

Plus the fact that he understands your own rational hatred for the jihadists because of Carmella’s and Rosalind’s murders on 9/11. And, because you still grieve for them, and because he knows of your promise to avenge their deaths, and because he knows of your exploits against the jihadists as Marines in the Middle East, he knows you’ll work with him on this project ...

Pauley and Carlo eyed each other strangely, not fully understanding what Cousin Josey was getting at. The term this project made them wonder a little.

"… Therefore, Uncle Carmine is looking to the future and is quietly preparing his business empire for a covert war he’ll wage against Middle Eastern jihadists, if only to make the new president look foolish for sucking up to them. Now, we’re not talking about a massive, nationwide onslaught, but just some kind of local, large-or-small nuisance-type activities that will keep them off balance from time to time. He’s doing this because he knows that our new president will not lift a finger against them, especially on American soil. So, little by little, he wants to gear up and be ready for something special. One of these days, he’ll be coming to you two for your intellectual and logistical input. Uncle Carmine knows there are two radical mosques here in the Las Vegas area, and that the mullahs and imams and their acolytes and assorted henchmen at those mosques are Islamic radicals; that is, even more so than the so-called moderate Muslims. So, he wants you two to keep an eye on these imams and their mullahs; and, who knows, if someday these local jihadists do something inexcusable … well, maybe we can teach them a lesson. Actually, even if they don’t do something inexcusable, we can still teach them a lesson before they do something inexcusable."

Pauley looked warily at Carlo, as if to ask, Did you know about this? Carlo returned the look, as if to say, This is the first time I’m hearing about this.

Josephine continued. Anyway, as you probably already know, those two radical imams are Qumhasa Tuqasi and Isatuq Bhuq; Tuqasi is the imam at the North Las Vegas Center for Islamic Studies, and Bhuq is the imam at the Henderson Center for Islamic Studies. Those mosques have innocuous and innocent-sounding names, just to make them sound acceptable to modern American society; but we all know they’re up to no good. So, check them out, see what you can learn about them, their associates and their plans. Just keep me informed and I’ll keep Uncle Carmine up to date. We may not act for a while; but when we do, I can assure you it will be memorable.

Pauley and Carlo looked at each other again … and swallowed hard. Then, after a short while of creative thoughtfulness, anticipatory smiles grew on their faces, and remained there for the rest of the day.

* * *

During the first week of 2014, in the new year’s first edition of the Las Vegas-based conservative opinion magazine Inside the Southwest, Virgil Thorpe, a WI-7 agent, wrote a series of scathing articles exposing the radically extreme views and activities of Las Vegas imams Qumhasa Tuqasi and Isatuq Bhuq. Via the Internet, The Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union took issue with the articles, calling Thorpe a racist, citing shoddy reporting, promoting pre-conceived and baseless ideas, and using unsubstantiated and unreliable sources.

Within hours, Virgil answered those charges with actual facts – which debunked the ACLU’s emotional finger-pointing and fear-mongering – including the propensity of the local pro-jihadi leadership for supporting for sexual child abuse, encouraging wife-and-daughter beatings and honor killings, and teaching young Middle Eastern men how to make bombs. Of course, the mosques’ leadership denied all accusations in the articles and they rejected all of Virgil’s charges; a subsequent search of the mosques’ premises revealed no nefarious activities.

In truth, the bomb-making materiel had been either hidden in subterranean vaults at the mosques, or had been taken from the mosques to the homes of high-ranking members of the local pro-Sharia community immediately after the articles were published; and all the women and children who had been raped and beaten by local pro-jihadi men, were now tight-lipped and scared to publicly corroborate Virgil’s conclusions. It was those badly treated women and children who had been the original informational sources for Virgil’s articles, and without their continued cooperative corroboration, the police investigation into any deviant wrongdoing on the part of the leaders at the mosques was ended. Therefore, the mosques remained open and their imams and mullahs went unpunished. Eventually, the previously removed bomb-making materiel would be returned to the mosques’ underground laboratories for explosives’ development and manufacture.

On the night of January 10, 2014, Pauley and Carlo took Virgil Thorpe out to dinner just to let Virgil know how much they supported his investigative reporting efforts, and that they’d been developing a long-term plan to get even with the pro-jihadist locals. However, they did not specify to Virgil the guts of their multi-step plan; but they did mention that Virgil, who they knew shared their mutual hatred for jihadists, would be