SOFT TARGET III Jerusalem (SOFT TARGET SERIES)

by Conrad Jones

  “What’s the problem Mr Farrington?” the nurse asked. She picked up Grace’s hand and checked for a pulse in the wrist. It seemed much stronger than it had earlier that morning, which was unusual for a patient in this condition.

  “She moved nurse, she moved her hand twice, I thought it was a mistake the first time but she did it again,” Grace’s father was rambling. Her mother was stood frozen rigid by fear, holding an empty vase and staring at her daughter, watching for a sign of life. She was cautiously excited, but also fearing the worst. Her husband could have been mistaken.

  “I don’t think that is possible Mr Farrington, you’re well aware that Grace has been comatose for a very long time,” the nurse didn’t finish the sentence. Grace moved her fingers again. The nurse reached over the bed and pressed the alarm button. This time nursing staff came running into the room, along with a senior consultant who had been starting his rounds on the ward.

  “What’s going on nurse?” the doctor asked as he placed two fingers against Grace’s neck, feeling for the jugular vein.

  “There was definite movement in her right hand,” the nurse answered.

  “She did it twice before that doctor, I thought it was a mistake but she did it twice before,” Mr Farrington was becoming very agitated.

  “Sister, could you take the relatives to the family room while we have a good look at Grace please,” the doctor wanted the parents out of the way, it could just have been a muscle spasm, which was unusual but not impossible. Mrs Farrington started to cry as her husband led her away from the ward, helped by a nursing sister. Several doctors and consultants had been paged to attend to Grace, and they passed by the Farrington family on their way to give their expert advice. It was all a bit of a shock for Mr Farrington as they had repeatedly been told to expect the worst.

  They had come to see their daughter everyday that she had been in hospital, even though they’d been given little hope. They timed it so that when they were leaving, John Tankersley was arriving. Mr Farrington blamed Tank for what had happened to his beautiful daughter. She should never have been placed into a combat situation as far as he was concerned. On the odd occasion that they ever crossed paths in the hospital, Tank always said hello to them, and they always ignored him, gathered their things and left. Grace’s father opened the door to the relatives’ room and he ushered his distraught wife into a comfortable chair. He gave her a paper tissue from a box on the table.

  “Would you like some tea Mrs Farrington?” asked the nurse. It doesn’t matter what type of disaster was about to unfold, tea was Britain’s answer to all evil.

  “I’ll go and get some, thank you nurse,” said Mr Farrington. He needed a little space to clear his thoughts. He thought that he should phone John Tankersley to tell him about Grace, but the hatred ran too deep. Grace’s father was still in turmoil when he reached the vending machine in the corridor. He was so confused that he dropped his change on the floor. He didn’t notice the cleaner that passed by him. The cleaner looked to be from the Middle East somewhere, and he wasn’t wearing any blue plastic overshoes. The wearing of plastic overshoes had been made compulsory for all external employees because of the spread of the MRSA virus. Of course, any genuine cleaning contractor would be well aware of that, and there was nothing genuine about this particular cleaning contractor.

  Chapter Five

  Yasser Ahmed

  Yasser turned over in his sleep and knocked the septic stump of his amputated arm on the edge of his metal cot bed. He awoke with a scream of pain as the nerve endings in his wound went into a terrible frenzy. The pain brought tears to his eyes every time he accidently caught the stump. He had been shot in the arm and shoulder by John Tankersley, leading to his capture and brutal imprisonment. The arm had never been allowed to heal properly as his interrogators focused all their attention on the tender appendage. Eventually gangrene took hold and the arm had to be amputated. His tormentors still used the wound to cause him as much pain as they could during his daily interrogations. They plied him with antibiotics to stop any life threatening infections taking root, but his shoulder never healed and became a festering sore.

  Yasser Ahmed was the spiritual leader of the terrorist organisation known as, Axe. His formative years had been spent in his native Iraq, where after surviving two allied invasions and witnessing the chaos they had inflicted upon his people, he had joined in the Islamic struggle. Once a protégé of bin Laden Yasser formed a splinter group of his own. He focused all his considerable resources into attacking the Western coalition on their own soil. In time, he had become the most wanted terrorist on the planet. His untimely capture in Chechnya didn’t put an end to his organisation`s activities, it only fuelled their resolve.

  The American intelligence agencies had demanded first crack at him when he was captured, despite the fact that British forces had actually caught him. Yasser had been handed over to them in the Turkish city of Istanbul; from there he had been taken to a Chechen prison that specialised in extraordinary rendition. Most of the information that they extracted was useless or made up. Yasser knew that they would never release him, and a slow lingering death was all he had to look forward to. He would never betray his followers, no matter what agonies he suffered, and he had endured more pain than you could imagine in your worst nightmares. He would never surrender. Yasser had given them names. He had also given them detailed information about imminent plots that were yet to unfold, but they were always the names of rival militias, people that he wanted dead.

  Yasser sat up in his stinking cell and gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder. It radiated through his entire body. He could tell by the amount of daylight that entered through a tiny barred window, high up the wall of his cell that the sun had been up for a while already. His torturers would come soon. Their routine was like clockwork. An hour after sunrise every day they came down the corridor of the medieval dungeon opened the metal door and dragged him into the interrogation suite, or torture chamber. They were late today. There was a noise and he heard the metallic scraping of a door being opened in the corridor, and then the sound of boots running down the dank passage toward his cell. There were at least three sets of boots, maybe four or more. Normally there were never more than two guards and they didn’t run anywhere. Perhaps this was the end. Yasser closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.

  The door was unlocked and four uniformed guards entered the cell. The first guard punched Yasser in his bad shoulder and yelled at him in Chechen to stand up. The pain was unbearable and Yasser felt consciousness slipping away. The men dragged him to his feet and a hessian sack was thrown over his head. They strapped his one good arm to his torso with an elastic bungee, and dragged him out of the cell into the dark passageway. Yasser was too weak from the pain to carry his own weight. The guards lifted him and his feet dragged along the dank stone floor.

  He was taken through three sets of thick metal gates; they screeched open and then slammed shut as they passed, which was the normal routine. As they approached the torture chambers Yasser could hear the demented screaming of his fellow detainees, whose daily interrogation had already begun. The guards dragged him passed the interrogation rooms and through another set of gates, which was not part of the usual routine. The sound of screaming was fading into the distance as he was dragged further on through the maze of corridors. He was convinced that they were taking him to be shot. He was no longer any use to them.

  A metal door clanged open and Yasser felt the wind on his skin for the first time in years. The cold air-cooled the raging pain in his stump, and he breathed in the fresh air. Yasser felt a leg restraint being fixed around his ankles; then he was picked up and thrown onto a raised metal floor. He heard more voices around him but the hood obscured his vision. There was a muffled scream and another man landed on top of Yasser crushing his infected shoulder. Yasser screamed through gritted teeth and waited for the surging pain to subside a little before he wriggled away from the other body to a more comfor
table position.

  Angry voices continued to bark instructions to unseen prison guards then a door was slammed shut and the voices faded. There was a deep reverberation as the unmistakable sound of a helicopter engine filled the air. Yasser felt the vibration generated by the rotor blades turning. He didn’t know why, but he was being moved. A twinge of hope entered his world of despair.

  Chapter Six

  Eccleston Church/ Tank

  Tank shifted uncomfortably on the narrow wooden church pew, his suit was damp and his collar was rubbing his thick neck. The congregation had just finished singing the hymn, ‘Abide with me’. The vicar had positioned himself in a carved wooden pulpit, and he began to deliver his sermon when Tank felt his pager buzzing against his thigh. Only Major Timms and the consultant at Grace’s hospital had his pager number. He was seated alone at the rear of the church, so it wasn’t difficult to check the message without attracting attention, or offending anyone. Tank read the message and panicked; he stood up and walked to the back of the church. He felt his blood pressure rising and his face reddened. He approached the church usher at the rear of the church, and showed him his badge.

  “I need to make an urgent call, is there somewhere quiet I can use?” Tank whispered without disturbing the requiem.

  The usher opened a narrow wooden door and indicated that he should go up the stone steps. Tank started up the staircase and heard the usher closing the door behind him, the sound of the vicar’s sermon became a muffled drone. The stairwell was plunged into darkness when the door closed, and Tank had stop to allow his eyes to adjust. The steps had been worn smooth by centuries of use. There was a sharp turn to the right at the top of the stairs before Tank reached another wooden door. He groped for the handle and felts its cold metal surface against his skin; he opened the door and stepped into a large loft room conversion. The ceiling followed the contours of the steep slate roof above it, and the floor was made from polished piranha pine planks. There was a window set in the far wall, which overlooked the graveyard at the side of the church. Tank headed toward it and removed his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  He punched in the telephone number of the high dependency ward, fearing the worst.

  “Get me Dr Morris please, its John Tankersley speaking,” he said to the switchboard operator. The pager message had told him to call the senior consultant urgently regarding Grace’s condition. Tank felt his stomach knotting with dread. He had anticipated receiving this dreadful news, and rehearsed what he would say when it came a hundred times. Tank stared out of the window at the rain, and his mood matched the appalling weather beyond the window. He could see a freshly dug grave in the near distance that would soon be the final resting place for his grandmother. The undertakers were moving flowers from the hearse to the rain soaked graveside.

  “Hello John, I’m sorry to use your pager number, but your mobile was going straight to answer phone,” the consultant said.

  “It’s not a problem Dr Morris, what’s happened?” Tank felt stupid asking the question. Grace was dead, what else could possibly have happened? Tank felt his eyes welling up again. He was very vulnerable today. He stared at the churchyard trying to occupy his troubled mind, when he noticed a black Mercedes panel van parked at an odd angle on the graveyard’s access road. There was something not quite right about it. The rear passenger window was open about six inches, and cigarette smoke was drifting from it. One of the worst thunderstorms Tank had witnessed was in full flow, yet someone needed the window open. Who took the time out to relax and smoke in a graveyard?

  “I don’t want you to get unduly optimistic but Grace is moving her hands, it may be nothing it’s too early to tell, but it is very unusual for a patient in Grace’s condition to demonstrate any motor function at all,” the doctor explained. Tank hardly heard a word, because he was focused on the Mercedes. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a telescopic sight glass that was no bigger than a ballpoint pen.

  “I know it must come as a shock to you John, but it’s a very positive sign, are you alright?” the doctor was trying to breach the silence at the other end of the phone. Tank focused the telescope on the window of the van and saw the business end of a Bushmaster sniper rifle, which had a silencer built in to it. The barrel was unmistakable.

  “John, are you alright John?” the consultant was becoming concerned. “We have moved her to an assessment ward for neurological tests to see if there is any brain activity. Her parents are here John, I know you don’t see eye to eye but I thought you would want to know immediately.”

  “That really is great news. I need to call you back Dr Morris, I’m afraid something has come up,” Tank ended the call and touched the empty holster beneath his armpit. His Glock 9 mm was locked in the car two hundred yards away. He couldn’t get to it without passing the sniper.

  Chapter Seven

  Holyhead Breakwater/ Chen

  Chen had activated the personal alarm function, which was built into his Task Force cell phone. He couldn’t risk making a conventional call or even sending a text message in case the explosive device was sensitive to SMS signals. Chen figured that it would take fifteen minutes for a reaction team to respond to the alarm, locate it and then launch a rescue. Holyhead was situated twenty-one miles from the Welsh mainland, off the northwest coast of Anglesey. It is one hundred and twenty miles by road from the Task Force headquarters in Liverpool. A helicopter flight would half that distance and cut the two-hour drive time to forty minutes. He had to try to survive for at least one hour, without triggering the bomb.

  Chen had found a fragment of wire filament in the foot well of his vehicle, which indicated that there was a bomb attached to it, fitted with an electrical detonator. If he was correct then the device could be detonated either remotely or by a trigger switch. Remote detonation requires the bomber to remain close to the target; they can use infrared or another source of electrical impulse such as a mobile phone to ignite the explosive. Trigger switches generally contain mercury, which possesses the qualities of both a liquid and a metal. Its metal qualities give it the ability to conduct an electrical charge, whilst its liquid qualities make it behave like a fluid. Even the slightest vibration makes the substance move. The motion of a moving vehicle, or even opening the door could make the mercury move enough to complete an electrical circuit, triggering the bomb. This could be the longest hour of Chen’s life, if he lived that long.

  A bolt of lightning streaked across the dark sky and struck the earth somewhere on Holyhead mountain, in front of him. The mountain rose fifteen hundred feet from the sea, grassy lower slopes gave way to bare grey rock at the summit. Thunder rumbled overhead and the wind rocked the vehicle. Chen froze as he waited for the wind to subside, but it seemed to strengthen and rocked the Jeep even more. He tried desperately to think of a way out of this predicament. Chen focused on the sea for a moment. The water had turned an angry deep green colour, and the swell was rising to form huge peaks and troughs. A wave crashed against the breakwater, spraying the vehicle with tons of saltwater. The Jeep lurched violently and Chen squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for the imminent explosion. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, but nothing happened.

  Chen heard sirens in the distance. Across the marina, he saw a convoy travelling along the Newry beach road, heading toward the breakwater. The beach had a ten feet wide strip of gritty sand, and then a rock shore led up to manicured grass slopes, which reached the beach road. The road was lined with wooden wind shelters that resembled little cottages; he could see tourists sheltering from the rain sat inside them. The police vehicles reached the end of the beach and disappeared into a single-track lane hidden from view by tall trees. The remains of an old air force stronghold peeped above the tree line, looking like a huge grey stone cube with windows. The convoy stopped on the breakwater approach road, and set up a roadblock to stop any unsuspecting tourists stumbling into a bomb scare. The Task Force must have alerted the loca
l law enforcement agencies; therefore, they must be on their way. He thought that he had heard the unmistakable oscillation of helicopter engines approaching, but he couldn’t be sure. The wind gusted again and the engine noises faded. He was starting to panic, hearing rescuers that didn’t exist. A wave exploded against the breakwater and spray covered the Jeep, obscuring his view again. The wind dropped momentarily and he heard the engines again; this time he was certain that it was the noise of a twin engine Chinook. He rotated slowly in his seat and lowered his head, trying to get a glimpse through the rear window. The black clouds were too low for him to distinguish anything, but the sound was coming closer. Chen strained to look, and then slowly returned to face the windscreen.

  Two Chinooks emerged from the thunderstorm. One of them flew toward the mountain and then turned one hundred and eighty degrees to position itself in front of the Jeep. The summit of the mountain was now covered by low storm clouds. The helicopter struggled to manoeuvre with any degree of accuracy against the winds. The immense downdraft created a cloud of dust and gravel. The side cargo door slid open and four ropes were thrown clear, landing on the breakwater fifty yards away. Task Force agents used the ropes to abseil from the helicopter onto the sea wall. They were on the ground in just a matter of seconds. The second Chinook peeled away from the breakwater and headed across the harbour toward the Syrian vessel that was still anchored to the jetty. Chen watched agents descending onto the cargo deck of the ship in his rear view mirror.