The man sitting in the parked green Prius watched the dark form stealthily run down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. It was two o’clock on a drizzly Sunday morning in Portland, Oregon’s Nob Hill district. Printed notices were being stuffed in the doors of random residences and businesses in the area.
He knew the area was chosen because it was just west of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. He also knew what each notice said. He’d drafted the warning.
In the name of Allah, the merciful, full of grace. You who are
not believers will be beheaded in three days in your house.
You must choose one of the following to stay alive:
1. Convert to Islam. 2. Pay the jizya (religious tax) for protection.
If you choose to ignore this warning and do not make one of the two
choices you’re being offered, you will be beheaded.
Do not expect the police to prevent your murder or save you from death.
Several of the catholic churches in the city had received an earlier notice to convert or die nailed to their front doors. Now the next phase of the plan was being implemented to create fear and panic among the Catholic parishioners of St. Patrick’s, as well as in the minds of the owners of a few of the trendy Nob Hill boutiques and restaurants in the area.
It had taken him just a year to develop his plan and find the person who would carry it out. From there, it took another year to recruit the other members of the group and test them to ensure their professed pledge of loyalty was sincere. He found that young Americans were easily attracted to the idea of violent jihad. Few had the ability, however, to fully embrace the sacrifice and commit their lives totally to the cause. Fortunately, the leader he had chosen had the fire and the ability to do both.
She also had the natural gift of leadership. The acolytes she chose obeyed her without question. When she’d required them to go far beyond the societal norms they were accustomed to, they hadn’t hesitated. Her final test for each of them was to behead a sheep in the dark of night in some farmer’s pasture and bring the sheep’s head back to her.
He was shocked when she told him about her final test, but he was not surprised. He had recognized her psychopathic personality soon after she enrolled in his entry-level computer science class at Portland State University.

He’d been fascinated by how she charmed and manipulated the others in class. But he was fully convinced of her psychopathic personality by what she offered to do when he was being reviewed for termination by the administration. One of his students was a loud-mouthed football player who voiced anti-Muslim sentiments one time too many in his class. He’d made the mistake of responding out loud to the bigoted lout in class. When the student’s well-known and wealthy alumni father persuaded his Catholic church to protest the anti-Christian and discriminatory outburst toward his son, he’d been called on the carpet by the administration and terminated.
That’s when his chosen had offered to take care of the loud-mouthed student for him, if he wanted. She had flirted with the football player and embarrassed him by calling him out as gay when he rejected her advances. When he tried to get back at her for embarrassing him, she offered to go to the police and claim she’d been raped. If he didn’t like that idea, the football player thought he was such a stud, she said she was willing to castrate him and let the world know about it.
The young student delivering the notices this morning was a new member and hadn’t been fully tested. That’s why he was interested in how she delivered the last items on her list. In her backpack remained three items; a stencil for gang-style graffiti in bubble letters for the word “ISIS”, a black can of spray paint and a gallon Ziploc bag with a small wooden cross soaking in sheep’s blood.
He watched approvingly as she ran up to the front door of the turn-of-the-century Victorian home toward the end of the block. She took her backpack off and set it at her feet. From inside, she took out the stencil and the can of spray paint. Holding it up against the heavy solid oak front door, she sprayed the word “ISIS” in gang-style bubble letters onto the door. She replaced the stencil and spray can in her backpack and took out the Ziploc bag. Carefully opening it, she lifted out the wooden cross dripping in sheep’s blood and laid it on the front door welcome mat. With a quick survey of her work, she replaced the Ziploc bag, slipped on the backpack and jogged down the sidewalk and turned left up the street. Her ride was waiting one block away.
When she turned the corner at the end of the block, her watcher started the Prius and followed her up the street. He was now satisfied that he had a cell of warriors with the capability to carry out his plan.