The man walked inside and they quickly closed the door.

"Anybody follow you?" Solomon asked. Khalid walked up to the man and tried to do a pat down. The man flinched back.

"Hey!" he shouted at Khalid but after realizing what he was doing nodded and seemed to relent, putting his hands up.

"That won't be necessary, Khalid" he said. "This one ain't one of them, although I ain't sure he's one of us yet either..."

"What if he has a weapon?" Khalid asked.

"He does" Solomon replied casually. "Side strap. Probably a Glock 17".

The man looked at him surprised.

"What, you surprised nigga? You should talk to your tailor and get that shirt taken out. It'll hide that bulge".

The man looked at the small lump on his side and sighed.

"You're good" he said.

"It's only cause you're bad" Solomon shot back. "But how bad are you, fed? You get yourself followed?"

"Of course not. I know what I'm doing".

"You sure?" Solomon looked at him, tilting his head. "Don't get cocky on us, nigga. Remember I smoked you out and your gun pretty quick".

"I'm sure" the man repeated.

Khalid still looked on nervous and King was no different. Rocko casually looked on from the back.

"You two can chill" Solomon said. "It ain't the gun you need to be worried about, Khalid. He ain't gonna come in here like Rambo shooting us up, especially if he knocked on the door. Nah, if we should be worried about something it would be a wire or him learning about us and reporting back to those towel heads.... but he don't look like one to me and I think he's legit. Well, we'll see how legit he is... but he's telling the truth at least. I'm willing to trust this nigga, for now at least..."

"I appreciate that" The man said, lowering his arms more. Khalid and King seemed to lower their guard a little, but not fully. Rocko opened a protein bar and started munching on it. Neckbone laid on the floor nearby, looking at the man suspiciously but otherwise not moving

"So let's see the badge" Solomon said.

As Khalid and King kept a close eye, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a black wallet folded closed and opened it vertically. Inside was an ID card that said FBI with a picture of him and a matching badge.

"Linwood O'Keefe" the man said. "FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force".

"Well, Linwood..." Solomon said, sucking air through his teeth. "Terrorism task force, eh? You did a bang up job here. You let them motherfuckers take over the whole down".

"Call me Woody" the man said. "...and I'm here about fixing that. When you hear my story, maybe you'll understand how it came to this and when we can talk about how we're going to end it".

"Alright, Woody" Solomon said. "Let's talk".

A few minutes later they were all sitting at a make shift table made from two weight benches, drinking sodas except Rocko who was consuming some sort of brown liquid from a shaker cup.

Woody began to tell his story as they listened. It had all started with a child pornography investigation through the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. They'd busted a server full of the stuff and had traced one of the users who had logged in to their rural home to a computer belonging to a user named Hung Crescent.

"Hung Crescent?" Rocko had said with a deep laugh, nearly choking on his drink.

"They couldn't get an exact location on them" Woody continued, ignoring Rocko. "So they had one of their agents pose as a 12 year old to get some information out of him. It worked like a charm... But the more comfortable they got, the more they started to say other things that were very disturbing..."

"You mean that they were running in the Jihad Olympics" Solomon said, piecing things together.

Woody nodded.

"Basically it was a lot of standard Jihadist propaganda we were hearing at first. At first we thought we were dealing with just an ISIS sympathizer but as time went on it was looking more and more serious and we soon figured out this was a group that was part of a cell we'd never seen before. Something totally new. Soon they were trying to entice our agent to join their cause... to come live in a new wonderful land of Shari'a law..."

"Then what happened?" King asked. He seemed enthralled by the story.

"By this time my task force had joined the case as we were dealing with something much larger. Finally, we convinced our target to meet us at a halfway point in North Carolina. We'd concocted a story about how our 12 year old was visiting a relative and would sink off to a nearby mall to be picked up. Of course, we were luring him in with sex, but also the promise that they were ready to fight for Allah..."

"Nothing better to bait a trap with than pussy..." Solomon remarked.

"Actually, we were baiting it with cock..." Woody said. The use of the word seemed to make him wince as if it was unprofessional. "Our 12 year old was a boy...."

"Hmm... I should have known Babul was a pole smoker as well as a towelheaded bitch..."

"He didn't say it was Babul" Khalid said.

"I may not have known he was a fag, but I've known who he was talkin' bout since the start. Right?"

He looked to Woody for confirmation and he nodded.

"But actually... Babul Hussain likes girls too... he just prefers boys... Most pedophiles like both but have a preference"

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Solomon grunted in disgust and shook his head.

"So the day comes and we're all their staked out. We don't think he's going to show for awhile but soon he's there. He's cautious, watching his surroundings, but it's clear he's looking for our made up boy. Of course, he's never going to show..."

"So you got him right?" King asked. "So if he shows up how did he come back here and cause so much problems?"

"Because we didn't arrest him" King said, looking down at the table.

Everyone looked at Woody hard.

"Whatcha mean you didn't arrest him, nigga?" Solomon said. "Why the fuck not?"

"Because that wasn't the goal. The goal was to get him to expose himself. We needed to figure out who he was so we could figure out what he was part of and investigate it. If we arrested him it would have meant never knowing how deep it ran..."

"So you let him just leave?" asked Khalid, dumbfounded.

"We did" Woody acknowledged. "But we figured out who he was. We figured out where he lived. It was the right play and I stand by it..."

Solomon looked off, pondering.

"Until a couple weeks ago..."

"Until a couple of weeks ago..." Woody agreed, nodding. "But I'll get to that..."

"Proceed nigga" Solomon said.

Woody gave Solomon a hard and annoyed look but continued.

"When Babul reached out to our agent again, he wasn't too happy but suspected nothing. We made up some story about his parents catching him trying to sneak off and we kept the conversations going after that just to string him along. Meanwhile, me and another agent came down here to investigate posing as insurance agents and started to gather information and conduct surveillance..."

"Hey" Khalid said, looking at Woody hard. "I remember you now! You came into my store one day, asking a bunch of questions. You were racially profiling me..."

"I was" Woody admitted. "Wouldn't you?"

Khalid thought about this and said nothing, but still seemed to be fuming.

"The point is..." Woody said. "I knew you were good people but didn't until I talked to you".

Khalid remained silent.

"Still doesn't explain how you let this happen..." King said, sounding a little angry himself.

"When the virus came, our resources became fewer and fewer" Woody explained. "The Bureau cared less and less too. They initiated what they called a 'Strategic Refocus', which was code for dropping everything and focusing on anything related to the virus. Lots of our agents got sick from it, many started to die so more of us that weren't sick or dead were needed to pick up the slack and were called off our existing investigations. Told to report back to Washington for reassignment. They left me and my partner alone at first, but soon we ordered to report back too. My partner complied, I refused. Within two weeks he was dead from the virus and I was told to turn in my badge and gun for refusing a direct order. I told them to come take it from me. That never happened, although I guess I'm no longer FBI... but I'm not sure there is an FBI anymore".

"Why didn't you do what you were told?" Khalid asked. He already thought he knew the answer but wanted to hear Woody say it.

"Because I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I knew that this was serious and if I stopped it was just a matter of time until they made their move..."

"But they did make their move" Solomon responded, unimpressed. "You didn't stop it, did ya?"

Woody took a deep breath inward.

"No, I didn't. The virus sped up their time table and their ability to act. I got caught flat footed on that. I own that. But I'm here now to put an end to it".

Solomon looked at him hard for a few moments.

"Alright, nigga..." he said. "Let's see what ya got".

King had suggested they do a vote to see if Woody could join them. Solomon thought the idea was stupid but relented and they all raised their hands, Solomon with an eye roll.

Woody spent the next hour telling them everything he knew about Babul and The Sons of Al-Ḥaram Ash-Sharīf. He knew all about the compound. He was able to draw a detailed map.

"With this and our numbers, we can do a precision take down of them" Woody.

"It'll be like busting a nest of Charlie in the bush" Solomon said, shaking his head and thinking about his days in 'Nam. He ran a hand through his head as he pushed the flash backs away.

"We'll need some fire power, though. Any ideas?" Woody asked.

"Oh, I got you covered..." King said, smiling.

King told him about his weapons stash and what he had.

"You realize half that shit is illegal and you just admitted to a federal agent that you're selling black market weapons and gun trafficking right?" Woody said, looking at King hard. King frowned and looked worried.

"It's a good thing I'm not a federal agent anymore" Woody said, smirking. King calmed a little, but seemed uncertain for awhile after that.

They went over their plan with Woody.

After they were finished Woody sat silently for a few moments until finally Khalid asked: "Well, what do you think of our plan?"

"I think it's horrible" Woody said bluntly, everyone looked at him surprised, even a little unsulted.

"But I also think it's the best plan we've got".

Solomon gave a toothy smirk.

"When we doing this?" Woody asked.

"Tomorrow before dawn" Solomon answered.

Woody nodded.

"Well, let's get to work then..."