Soft Target 01 - Soft Target

by Conrad Jones

  In 2002 when Ahmed first splintered from al-Qaeda he was involved in a series of incidents. If we take all the successful and attempted events in systematic order, we have the word ISHMAEL. There were attacks in Istanbul, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Manchester, Antwerp, Edinburgh and London. Now bearing in mind that he was just starting to branch out, he was already sending us messages. He has been playing games with us from the beginning,” Chen shrugged again to emphasise his point. “What about the attacks in America before he landed here?” Tank asked with a confused look on his face. He couldn’t make any sense or word from the attacks there. “Well this one is a little more difficult. If we apply the same logic to it then we have a series of attacks that would give us the letters, SLGF. San Francisco; Las Vegas; Grand Canyon and Florida were all Ahmed targets. There is an Islamic extremist group in the Philippines that were formed in 1991 that use the same initials. The Sayyaf Liberty Group Freedom Fighters, they are responsible for over a thousand deaths, and they are highly revered by Ahmed and his affiliates. At the time of the American attacks, SLGF had just bombed a passenger ferry killing three hundred and twenty-three people. Spelling their initials from his own attacks was a gesture of salute from Ahmed.” Chen smiled at the look of amazement on Tank’s face. Tank knew that Chen’s theory was correct. Yasser Ahmed’s message to the Times had just highlighted the obvious.

  If we can identify an Ahmed plot, then we may be able to second guess the next target. It’s not much to go on. It would be pure speculation and guess work, but it’s better than nothing,” Tank said thinking out loud.

  What do we have from the tape apart from that, any suggestion of where it was made?” Grace asked. Identifying a potential target wouldn’t help them to catch Yasser Ahmed. He was unlikely to be near to the attacks when they happened. Grace Farrington made an incorrect assumption. “Forensics has it at the moment but there isn’t much to go on at the present time. The fact that he emptied a machinegun clip into the ceiling during the tape would indicate that they are using an empty building somewhere, an industrial unit perhaps. There are no neighbours. That is certain.” Major Timms looked across the room as he was speaking, the fat controller David Bell was hurrying toward them.

  We have located Sian’s Jeep at a railway station in North Wales. There is a lot of blood in it, which indicates that she wounded her attacker. The DNA matches the samples of blood that we took from the steps where she was shot. Whoever drove that Jeep also killed Sian. Our initial DNA searches have thrown up the name of a Bosnian Muslim called Rasim Janet. He is a veteran of the siege of Sarajevo, but our records have him listed as missing, presumed dead after the war.” David Bell stared at the list of cities that was on the digital screen. “Has anyone checked the local hospitals in the area? He can’t have boarded a train unnoticed with a bullet wound in him,” Faz said.

  There are no reported gunshot victims at all but there is a Polish immigrant in a recovery room at Bangor hospital. He has had emergency surgery to a shoulder wound that was apparently caused by a metal spike. It went right through him in some kind of farming accident. He could be lying, and it’s possible that he is our Bosnian friend with a through and through bullet hole in his shoulder. The local uniform men are checking it out now,” the fat controller said.

  The chances are that if he is Rasim Janet then he is armed. I want you to send an Armed Response Unit, to back them up immediately,” ordered Major Timms.

  Do they have him on CCTV entering the hospital? If they do then we need to get his picture to the hospital in Holyhead and see if Mustapha Ahmed recognises him. Look, I know that this Rasim character shot Sian but we really don’t need another terrorist in prison that is refusing to say anything to us. We have an opportunity here and we shouldn’t waste it.” Tank stood and walked toward the window. Everyone in the taskforce would want this man imprisoned or dead for killing Sian. “What are you saying, Tank?” Chen asked.

  I am saying that if it’s him then we need to let him go and keep him under surveillance. He could lead us straight to Yasser Ahmed.” Tank knew that it would be an unpopular suggestion, but it was the correct thing to do. Yasser Ahmed was the number one priority.

  Tank is right. We need to know that it is Rasim Janet first. Get the Response team to keep him under observation. Tell them to send that CCTV footage to us immediately. Bell, you need to get that information to Mustapha Ahmed for confirmation that this man is our target,” Major Stanley Timms patted Tank on the back. It was a hard decision to allow a man that has killed one your officers to remain at liberty. The job of taking him to task would be delayed. He could lead them to the most wanted terrorist on the planet; justice would have to wait.

  CHAPTER 47

  Trooper Bob Duncan

  Trooper Duncan was standing in the middle of the one thousand, nine hundred acre Stanlow Oil refinery. Next to him was his spotter; they were both using binoculars to survey the refinery, trying to assess its weak points. Following the governments meeting of the Cobra Committee that Tank attended earlier that week, armed troops were deployed to defend Britain’s refineries. Stanlow had been identified as the number one priority because of its size and close proximity to the recent extremist activities. There were twelve million tonnes of extremely flammable fuels being stored in huge metal tanks. Terrorists or no terrorists, the use of high velocity bullets in the vicinity was out of the question. Just one stray round could cause an ecological catastrophe. The Army were instructed to issue their soldiers with tactical combat shotguns only. Each refinery would also be defended by sharpshooters, where it was thought to be appropriate. The tactical shotguns had only a limited effective range. They were devastating at close quarters but the Army had to prevent terrorists from getting close enough to the storage vessels to attack them. Snipers would be deployed to protect the weak points in the refinery’s perimeter.

  Trooper Bob Duncan was revered by Special Forces the world over as the best of the best. The American SERT sharpshooter had been seconded to advise British forces on the best positions, and the best weapons and munitions to use. The wrong calibre or incorrect bore of bullet used in this sensitive arena could end in disaster; a ricochet bullet could pierce a storage vessel; the resulting explosions would be felt sixty-miles away.

  In December 2005 maintenance workers at a similar refinery situated at Buncefield, Luton, not far from London, caused a spark that ignited a fuel line. The following series of massive explosions were heard in the country’s capital city eighty miles away. Surrounding areas were evacuated and road networks in the vicinity were closed. It took fire crews days to bring the flames under control. They used 1.4 million litres of water and 20,000 litres of foam. That was an accident, but harsh lessons were learned about the vulnerability of this type of storage depot.

  The SERT team leader pointed to one of the white storage containers close to the bank of the River Mersey. “If you think that the threat is most prevalent from the river, then that’s the position we need to take. We need a CheyTac M-200 .408 calibre sniper rifle. What is the distance to the water’s edge?” Trooper Duncan asked his spotter. The spotter looked again through his binoculars and gauged the distance. “It is approximately 2200 yards from that row of storage tanks to the river. It’s well within the striking range of an RPG, or even a homemade EFP,” the trooper advised. Chen was confused. He knew that a rocket propelled grenade launcher could be carried by a determined diver to the refinery. All it would take would be a waterproof covering of some description to keep the ordinance dry. A terrorist could deliver his RPG attack from well beyond the effective range of most expert shooters, if he made it to the riverbank. “What is an EFP? I am not familiar with that abbreviation?” Chen asked. He hated not knowing and felt a little ill equipped in front of the two military men. “An EFP is a new phenomenon that our forces in Iraq are encountering frequently. It’s a form of improvised explosive device that the insurgents have developed with Iranian know-how and training. Our vehicle armour in Iraq will
withstand most explosive attacks, but the EFP is a whole different ballgame. It’s very simply an Explosively Formed Penetrator. The Iranians have shown the Iraqi insurgents how to place a cylindrical shaped explosive charge behind a concave copper disc. The force of the explosive launches the metal disk at 6,000 feet per second, which will penetrate our armour. Once the metal projectile is inside the armoured vehicle it ricochets around, ripping any of our Marines in there to pieces. It could do the same here with your storage tanks. It would be like a big pinball bouncing from one tank to the next, Boom, Boom, Boom,” Trooper Duncan explained. He had witnessed firsthand the devastation that had been caused by the EFP devices in Iraq. By the time the penetrators had stopped bouncing around inside the armoured troop carriers it was difficult to identify the casualties.

  I want some target disks set onto wooden posts along that river bank. Let’s make sure that if we get the chance to make a shot, we are ready to make it count,” the spotter saluted Trooper Duncan and jogged away to make his preparations.

  The river is over 2000 yards away. Can you seriously take a man down from that distance?” Chen asked incredulously.

  Well now let’s go and see shall we,” Trooper Duncan slapped Chen on the back and they headed toward the storage tanks close to the river. The white metal tanks were sixty feet high and one hundred feet in diameter. They had black metal access ladders that hugged the circumference of the containers, leading to the top of them. Chen and the trooper climbed the stairs to the top of the container. From the top of the fuel storage tank they could see Liverpool city centre across the River Mersey on the opposite bank. They could also see passenger jets landing and taking off from the John Lennon Airport. It was two miles away across the water. Between themselves and the water’s edge was a flat marshy area of waist high grasses. Two soldiers were hammering wooden stakes into the mud and attaching white disks to them. Chen had to look through his binoculars to see them clearly; they were 1.3 miles away.

  We have another problem here that you may not be aware of,” Chen said to the SERT officer. “There are forty-two refineries similar to this one across the country, with over a thousand miles of underground pipelines. The airport on the far bank of the river is supplied with high-octane jet fuel via an underground pipe. There is no feasible way that we can protect every pipeline.”

  Trooper Duncan’s spotter returned with the M-200 sniper rifle and a small handheld computer. The rifle was nearly five feet long and was fitted with a large black scope. The end of the barrel was thickened by a built-in suppressor, which was designed to quieten the supersonic bullets as they were fired. The computer was called an ABC, Advanced Ballistics Computer. When relevant information such as wind speed and bullet velocity is fed into the ABC, it delivers super accurate adjustments for the rifles scope. It is essential that a two-man team be deployed on a weapon such as the M-200. The sniper and the spotter are equally important.

  The SERT team set up their weapon and programmed all the variable information that was required into the computer. “We are trying to eliminate some very important factors that come into play when we are shooting over long distances. The spindrift of the bullet and even the curvature of the earth affect shots fired over this distance. We have a 10-15 mile per hour wind up here at the rifle; that will be 20-25 mile per hour at the target,” Trooper Duncan adjusted the scope in line with the information that was appearing on the ABC. Chen looked on, fascinated by the preparation and technical skill that the two sharpshooters were demonstrating. Trooper Duncan squeezed the trigger and a loud crack sounded as the supersonic bullet headed toward the river. Chen raised his binoculars and looked at the circular targets. He thought that the bullet had missed at first, but it takes a full four seconds for the bullet to travel 2200 yards. Suddenly a white disk just 12 inches in diameter, shattered into pieces as the big bore .408mm bullet struck it. “Well I think we have the river covered,” Trooper Bob Duncan said as he fired another dead eyed shot.

  CHAPTER 48

  York

  Yasser Ahmed pulled the van to a halt. He turned to the passenger who occupied the front seat and smiled. Omar Squire smiled back at him nervously. Omar had entered Britain just two days earlier on a flight from Pakistan. He was born a Muslim in the African country of Gambia and was just 23 years old. His childhood had been typical for that part of the world. Education was for the wealthy, and war and poverty were the only certainties. The Gambia was a satellite country, completely surrounded by the country of Senegal. Civil wars in the region had raged on and off for centuries creating famine and strife. The capital of Gambia, Banjul situated on the West coast of Africa, had a healthy tourist industry. The influx of Western European tourists coming into Gambia was a constant reminder of the inequalities of life. Tourists would spend more on an evening meal than the average Gambian could earn in a month. Bitterness and anger had festered in Omar Squire until he had reached the point where he felt that he had to act.

  Omar travelled across West Africa to the Sudan, where he found solace in a religious training camp sponsored by Yasser Ahmed. The camp Mullahs had taught Omar that there would be no peace for the oppressed Muslim people of the world, until the Jewish and Christian enemies were crushed. Omar Squire spent two years in the Sudan until he had answered the call to arms from Yasser Ahmed himself. Now he was sitting next to his Caliph wearing a suicide bomb vest.

  Explosive vests had first been used by the Tamil Tiger group from Sri Lanka in 1991. A female Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up and killed Rajiv Gandhi. Omar had made his explosive belt the previous day using some of the IRA Semtex that Yasser and his affiliates had purchased. He filled six metal cylinders with the plastic explosive and strapped them around his abdomen. He put on a waistcoat packed with steel ball bearings and screws. The explosive force would turn his jacket into an Omni-directional fragmentation grenade. A deadly spray of metal shrapnel would be unleashed upon detonation of the device.

  Thank you, Caliph, for this great task that you have given to me. I will not let you down.” Omar Squire opened the door of the ice-cream van and walked toward the vast bulking towers of York Minster. York Minster is the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and is situated in the City of York, England. There has been a Christian house of worship on the site since the 300’s AD. The Minster is one hundred and forty meters long, and its three towers stand sixty meters high. Built from limestone, the cathedral is a creamy white colour. Omar looked at the massive Great East Window as he approached the stone edifice. The seventy-six foot tall Great East Window is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. It towered above him as he entered the building, heading for the main altar. The huge vaulted ceiling loomed overhead as he walked through the cathedral, Christian images were all around him and he suddenly became very frightened of dying. Every window depicted a story of Christ, everywhere Jesus seemed to be staring at him. The two million pieces of glass that make up the Minsters one hundred and twenty-eight stained glass windows glowed as the sunlight filtered through them.

  The building felt so serene and holy that real doubt started to weaken his desire to commit this horrible evil act of aggression. Yasser had prayed with him that morning and he told him that fear and doubt would be sent to him by the devil; he must ignore them both and complete his task. Omar Squire heard a small girl crying close to him. He looked at the little girl and his heart softened even more; she had black African skin just like his own, her eyes were wide and bright, full of life. Omar reached out and touched the wiry black hair that she wore platted against her head and she stopped crying immediately. She looked up at him, her eyes still full of tears and she tried to smile. The little girl looked similar to the three sisters that Omar had left at home in Gambia. It seemed like such a long time since he had seen them. He didn’t even know if they were still alive and he felt very guilty for leaving them. “What is wrong with you, little one?” Omar asked the little girl. He wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and she
tried to smile again. Her nose was running and Omar wiped the fluid away with the edge of his sleeve. “That statue makes me really sad. I don’t want Jesus to be hurting like that,” the little girl pointed to a plaster statue of Christ on the cross. It was a realistic image of a white European Jesus nailed to a wooden crucifix. The blood stained nails and thorns were clearly visible. The statue depicted how horrific crucifixion would be and left little to the imagination. It was a terrifying image for a five year old girl to face. The little girl’s father approached and looked at Omar suspiciously as he led her away; he scolded the child for becoming separated from her family. Omar was left alone with the memories of his young sisters in Africa and the image of a crucified Christ suffering on the cross to console him.