Soft Target 01 - Soft Target

by Conrad Jones

  About a mile past her house she reached the car park which serviced the lighthouse and its visitors. The car park was empty apart from an estate car parked in the far corner of the lot. Sian got out of the Jeep and reached inside her jacket for her gun. She opened a lock box positioned between the front seats and placed the Glock inside. She put on a warm coat that was in the back seat; the wind on the mountainside was bitterly cold. She walked toward a gap in the low stone wall that lead to a path which made its way down the mountainside to the lighthouse. She could see the white building perched on its island in the sea below her. Local legend suggests that there are three hundred and sixty-five steps descending down to the suspension bridge. It’s believed there was one step for each day of the year. In actual fact, that is just another urban legend. There are actually over four hundred steps, which zigzag down the cliff-face to the lighthouse bridge. In the summer time the steps are crowded with tourists and birdwatchers. The cliffs at South Stack are home to thousands of sea birds and puffins.

  Sian started down the path toward the steps. She descended the first flight of smooth stone steps and reached the first tight turn. The path turned back on itself and descended sharply. Sian looked over the edge of the low wall toward the flights of stairs below her, searching for any sign of Mustapha. She saw him three flights below her, he was walking up the steps toward her. There was another man with him that Sian did not recognise. He was definitely not from Holyhead, but then hundreds of people used the area for bird watching, he could just be a tourist. The two men looked up at her simultaneously and stopped their ascent. Sian knew immediately that something was wrong. She reached inside her jacket instinctively and touched the empty holster. The stranger reached toward Mustapha pressing a small revolver into his ribs. Sian was confused by the situation, the man didn’t look Asian. She watched as the men started to ascend slowly up the steps, the gun still pointed at Mustapha. Sian quickly stepped back away from the wall and out of sight of the two men. She turned and started to run toward the Jeep. It was at least two hundred yards across the heather to the car park.

  Rasim Janet was a Bosnian Muslim. He looked like any other white, European male. He had been allowed to leave the raid at the cold room in Warrington because the taskforce had focused only on Asian or Middle Eastern men. He was pointing a Colt revolver at the younger brother of his Caliph, Yasser Ahmed. Rasim was born in Sarajevo in 1970. He had still lived in the city when the breakup of Yugoslavia began and the country descended into civil war. He was trapped in the city with hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants for four years. The siege of Sarajevo is the longest in modern history. The Serbian army surrounded the city in 1992 and laid siege to it for nearly fifty months. Rasim and his fellow Muslim countrymen made up less than a tenth of the city’s population. Rasim fought bravely alongside his fellow Muslims, some had travelled from other countries to help their religious kin. Many of the Muslim fighters from the Afghanistan conflict, the Mujahideen, travelled to fight alongside their Muslim brothers in Bosnia.

  The Christian Serbian forces carried out a campaign of genocide, seeking the annihilation of the Bosnian Muslims. There were mass killings, mass gang rapes and torture conducted by different Serbian forces. Rasim escaped the city in 1995 and fled to Poland. As the immigration barriers in Europe began to fall, he travelled to England using a Polish passport; along with hundreds of thousands of other Eastern Europeans looking for work. He headed for the North where rental accommodation was cheap and eventually settled in Warrington. Rasim worked for employment agencies, moving from one casual job to the next. It was whilst working for one of these agencies that he had met Nasser al Masri. They found that they had a lot in common. Both men had fought as Mujahideen in Muslim struggles against Christian invaders; the colour of their skin was irrelevant. It wasn’t long before Rasim joined `Ishmael`s Axe’.

  Nasser had told Rasim to drive to Holyhead and to look for Mustapha Ahmed. He had waited on the cliff tops opposite Mustapha’s caravan with a pair of binoculars. He looked like all the other bird watchers and tourists who visited the island. When Mustapha arrived at his caravan, he had gone inside only briefly. He came back out shortly after and started walking along the headlands toward South Stack Lighthouse. Rasim had followed at a safe distance until he had Mustapha alone on the steep stone steps that led down to the suspension bridge. He had approached Mustapha in a friendly manner at first, but when he mentioned that his brother, Yasser had sent him, Mustapha had become frightened. That was when he had pulled the gun out. Now he had been spotted by a woman with red hair who seemed to know Mustapha, he could tell by the look on her face when she had leaned over the small wall, this changed the dynamic of the whole situation.

  You had better run because she is a police woman and she has a gun. Go now while you still can. I don’t want to go to my brother. Just leave and say you couldn’t find me,” Mustapha hissed at the man.

  Of course she is a police woman. Do you think that I am stupid? There are hundreds of woman cops around here carrying guns. Now shut up and keep walking,” Rasim pushed the muzzle of the gun hard into Mustapha’s ribs.

  Look, my brother is a lunatic and I don’t want anything to do with him. My sister has just been shot because of that bastard. He is not worth the trouble that he will cause you. Whatever he is paying I will double it, please just let me go.” Mustapha finished what he was saying when Rasim punched him hard in the solar plexus. The breath in his lungs was forcefully expelled and he dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. “If you were not his brother I would cut your tongue out and feed it to you, you whining dog. You are not fit to speak about a Muslim warrior of Yasser Ahmed’s calibre. How dare you speak of him that way? Do you think that I follow him for money, you little pig?” Rasim kicked Mustapha hard in the side of the head, jerking it backwards violently.

  A high calibre bullet smashed into the low wall a yard to Rasim’s left hand side. Splinters of stone and hot metal spat into his face, making him lose his balance. Mustapha saw his opportunity as Rasim staggered to maintain his footing on the smooth steps. He lunged at Rasim, grabbing him around the knees making him fall backwards down the hard stone steps. Rasim tumbled backwards, head over heels for what seemed like an age until he hit the low wall, which stopped his momentum. He cracked his head on the hard rock and cried out. Warm blood started to trickle down the side of his face. Rasim looked for the gun but he had lost it in the fall. He spotted it lying close to Mustapha, who was lying stationary just a few yards away. Mustapha stirred and looked at the gun. Both men launched themselves for the weapon at the same time.

  Sian rounded the sharp corner of the second flight of steps and pointed the Glock at the two men as they tumbled down the third tier. She couldn’t shoot at the stranger without endangering Mustapha. She ran down the steps, keeping her weapon trained on Rasim. `He must have laid the flowers at the scene of the shootout’, she thought. He wasn’t Asian or Middle Eastern in appearance, which didn’t make sense.

  The two men collided as they leapt for the weapon. Rasim managed to grab the revolver first. Mustapha punched him hard in the mouth. His lip split as they were forced back against his front teeth, and the coppery taste of blood filled his senses. Rasim grabbed Mustapha by the hair and pulled his face down toward his bleeding lips. He bit down hard on Mustapha’s face and twisted his head sharply at the same time. A large flap of cheek flesh tore away from Mustapha’s face and he screamed in agony. Rasim was on him in a flash and had his arms pinned together tightly. He smashed the hard bone of his forehead into the fleshy bulb of Mustapha’s nose, crushing the cartilage and making it bleed profusely. Rasim had fought hand to hand for his life many times during the Bosnian war; he had killed many men with his bare hands. He stood over Mustapha and kicked him violently in the groin. The blood vessels in one of Mustapha’s testicles burst under the power of the impact. Mustapha kicked out in desperation, knocking the Bosnian over, and he fell on top of Mustapha. Rasim raised his right elbow a
nd smashed it in to Mustapha’s windpipe, and the blow closed the already winded Mustapha’s throat momentarily and he blanked out.

  Rasim stood up quickly and turned to face the approaching woman with the gun. A bullet slammed into his shoulder knocking him over the low wall onto the thick heather that clung to the steep cliffs. Rasim lifted himself to his knees and fired twice at Sian. The first bullet hit her in the chest and smashed her sternum into splinters of bone. The shards of bullet and bone ripped tissue and punctured her lungs as they travelled through her body. She had felt nothing as the second bullet hit her in the middle of her forehead, she was already dead.

  Sian’s body tumbled down the steps and landed crumpled, next to Mustapha. His eyes were watered by the impact of the headbutt that he had received and he had to blink to focus them on Sian’s ruined face. The woman that he loved was dead beside him; it was only half a day since his sister met a similar fate. The rage inside him surpassed the pain that he felt in his body. He looked like a man possessed as he rose, covered in his own blood, from the cold stone steps to face his lover’s killer.

  Rasim raised the gun toward Mustapha, but he was seconds too slow. Mustapha cleared the low wall and struck Rasim in the chest with both feet. The impact catapulted the Bosnian down the steep slope toward the cliff face. Rasim grasped at the thick heather and managed to stop himself from falling over the precipice. Mustapha ran headlong at Rasim, hitting him in the midriff with his shoulder. The momentum took the two men over the edge. They fell, locked together in a violent embrace, toward the foaming surf far below.

  CHAPTER 41

  Glasgow Airport

  Chen walked into the top floor office and was greeted by cheers and applause, his right arm was slung in a loose hospital fastening across his chest. “Some people will do anything for a few days off!” he heard someone say as he made his way across the office toward the goldfish bowl. There was a buzz around the far side of the room as new information was coming in. Tank waved at Chen and summoned him over to them. The digital screen was descending into its operating position and the image of a burning vehicle came into focus. “Good to have you back, Chen,” Tank said, slapping him on the back a little harder than was necessary. Chen grimaced in exaggerated pain and then smiled.

  The image on the screen showed a green Cherokee Jeep wedged in the doorway of the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport. The Jeep was ablaze, as were the two Asian men that had jumped from the burning vehicle. Four members of the Strathclyde Police Force pounced on one of the burning Asian men and handcuffed him. Flames were jetting out from the rear of the Jeep and gas canisters could be seen clearly in the boot.

  The Major stepped out of the goldfish bowl office to address the assembled agents of the Terrorist Task Force. “We have an incident at Glasgow Airport as you can see. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has called a meeting of COBRA, the emergency committee. The home secretary has raised the national terrorism threat to its highest level, `critical’, meaning that we are expecting attacks imminently. Tank, there is a helicopter on the way for you. You need to be at this COBRA meeting with the PM.”

  I’ll take Chen with me, if that is okay with you.” Tank grabbed his suit jacket and started to fasten his tie properly. Tank and Chen headed to the elevator that would take them to the landing-pad on the roof. “It would seem that we are finally getting some response from London. Faz, you had better get yourself up to Glasgow, and report back to me when you know what the bloody hell is going there.” Grace Farrington nodded and headed toward the lift.

  The Major and Tank had been frustrated by the lack of urgency that the government had displayed since the arrival of Yasser Ahmed. The home office didn’t want to spark off wide-spread panic across the country. Incidents of terrorism both at home and abroad led to mistrust in the communities where Muslims lived and worked. During the 1970’s when the troubles with the Irish Paramilitaries were in the news every day, anyone with an Irish accent became a potential bomber. The general public would become suspicious of anyone with olive skin, if the government were not very careful.

  The Major had asked the home office for troops to be deployed around the Stanlow oil refinery, and for heightened security at the country’s airports. The strain of British forces stationed in Iraq, and at war in Afghanistan left domestic issues short of men. There was no definite target, and too much supposition, for the home office to agree to deploy troops. The situation had been compounded by incidents the previous day in London. Two abandoned vehicles had been found packed with petrol, gas canisters and nails. One was parked outside of a busy nightclub in the theatre district of the capital; the other was left abandoned on a major traffic route. Neither homemade explosive device had detonated, but the intention shocked the nation. The green Jeep that the Major was watching on the screen was packed with gas canisters. This was the work of the same group that had attacked London the previous day.

  Tank had already given the Scottish Airport police orders on what to do until Grace Farrington arrived to control the situation. The two Asian men who had been in the burning vehicle had suffered severe burns. It was only because of the quick thinking of a taxi driver that they were still alive. The taxi driver was an ex-marine who had seen action in Northern Ireland. He had located a fire extinguisher and doused the flames that were consuming the two suicide bombers. Eyewitnesses reported that the two Asian men were not at all grateful for being rescued. They were now in the accident and emergency department of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. Tank ordered the rest of the department to be evacuated until it was clear that the two men had no further devices hidden on their person. All the aeroplanes that were on the runway were to be parked, and all passengers were to be left on-board. Any air traffic that was due to land at Glasgow was redirected to other airports in the North of England.

  Airports all over the country were closed to traffic. Nothing was allowed to approach the terminal buildings at any airport in the country. Tank’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered it and spoke to Grace. “I am in touch with the Strathclyde police; they have given me a rundown of the situation. The setup is the same as the two cars in London yesterday. The vehicle is packed with gas canisters but there doesn’t appear to be any sophisticated explosive devices involved.” Grace had already deduced that this was an independent extremist terror cell. The type of attack that they had attempted in London and now in Glasgow was amateurish. “This is not Yasser Ahmed’s work then. This is another cell. Have we got any indication of who they are?” Tank asked.

  Often bombers and bomb makers could be identified by the type of device that they use. The 7/7 London bombers had used homemade explosives, to devastating effect. A few weeks later, on July 21st, copycat terrorists tried to imitate the bombs. They used a mixture of Hydrogen Peroxide and a type of baking flour. They had incompetently weighed out the incorrect amounts of ingredients and the bombs failed to explode. On August 11th 2006, the Terrorist Task Force and British police foiled the worst airline terrorist plot since 9/11. Tank believed that, had they not uncovered the plot, it would have caused death and destruction on a massive scale. It was believed that the suspects were just days away from carrying out their plan. They planned to take down multiple aircraft using liquid or gel explosives. The plan was to hide the explosives in a sports drink bottle. The bottom half of the bottle was to contain dyed explosives; while the top of the bottle would be sealed, containing innocent sports drink. Water-gel explosives are now the most commonly used commercial blasting agent and have almost completely displaced the use of dynamite and plastic explosives in industry. The liquid explosives were to be detonated using a camera flash. Since this plot was discovered, the carrying of liquid through security at airports has now been banned.

  We have ID on one suspect; it appears he is a doctor. He is badly burned and keeps shouting that the attack is in revenge for the people of Haditha,” Faz said. She was around an hours drive from the Glasgow airport.

  I wil
l call you after your meeting with the PM.” Tank asked Chen what the connection was with Haditha and Muslim extremists. Chen had researched Iraq and Afghanistan as the conflicts developed. All wars have casualties, but many of the dead in Iraq were non-combatants. The allied forces there were fighting a faceless enemy. They did not wear the uniform of an enemy army. The fight was impossible to win without creating innocent casualties. “Haditha is a nightmare situation. It is a city in the Western Iraq province of Al Anbar. There are so many conflicting reports about the incident that it’s hard to get to the truth. The incident took place on the 19th of Novmeber in 2005. The Iraqis will tell you that the American Marines shot and killed twenty-four men, woman and children, in cold blood. They claim that the killings were in retribution for an attack on a convoy, with an improvised explosive device that killed an American Lance Corporal. The Americans will tell you that they were chasing known insurgents through the area when they took small arms fire from two houses. Standard procedure is to clear the building with fragmentation grenades and then pepper-spray each room with machinegun fire.”

  What happened, then? Were there non-combatants in the houses that they attacked?” Tank asked. “You can’t really attack peoples’ homes like that and not expect civilian casualties.”

  Well that’s not the only problem. When the deaths were first discovered, a Marine Corps communiqué initially reported that fifteen civilians were killed by a bomb blast and that eight insurgents were subsequently killed when Marines returned fire. An investigation found that five men, four teenagers and a taxi driver were shot dead in a taxi. Nineteen dead bodies were found in the three houses that were attacked; apparently all of them were killed by well aimed shots to the head and chest.” Chen shrugged his shoulders as he told Tank the tragic story of the Haditha killings. The horror of war changes peoples’ lives; normally good men do strange things. “Eight American Marines were charged in connection with the deaths. Not all of them were convicted, but the incident doesn’t exactly make the Iraqi people think that the coalition is there to help them.” Chen finished with a one-arm shrug.