His wife, Sheila, a pale English woman from up North, had expressed some concern when he enrolled their two sons, Samer, the eldest, and Duraid, five years his junior, in a weekly educational course at the local Mosque. However, Mullah Ghassan was a moderate man and, eventually, she had to admit that her sons had come to no harm.
Farid and Sheila Wassef saw no issues when Mullah Ghassan had been reassigned to a junior position at the Mosque and had subsequently resigned. His replacement, Mullah Hatem, seemed perfectly acceptable. Their ease with the new Mullah was not to last for long, when Samer, the eldest son, complained that the instruction they were receiving was fundamentalist and refused to attend any further lectures. Duraid, however, short for a person of eighteen and with a slight stammer, could not be dissuaded.
‘Allah does not discriminate. We are all equal in his sight,’ Mullah Hatem would say.
Farid had spent a significant amount of money on speech therapy for Duraid, but no amount of badgering from his father assisted. The more he told him to sit up straight, take a deep breath, pull in his diaphragm, the worse the stutter became. His father, however well-intentioned, unknowingly belittled him. Mullah Hatem praised him, boosted him and, in his presence, Duraid’s stutter subsided to no more than the occasional double repeat at the start of a sentence.
Mullah Hatem was not praising Duraid for his benefit, or his religious well-being. It was because he had a job for him, and his Western look, his flawless English and his clean-shaven face were ideal attributes. He wanted him to become a martyr.
‘I see what you say. We Muslims have been subjugated, treated as third-class citizens in our country of birth for too long.’ Duraid had no reason to make such a comment. He had been born in London, been to the best schools and had recently been accepted at a University in London. He had never experienced prejudice, discrimination, and he lived in a four-bedroom house in a good suburb in London.
‘Then you see what we need to do?’ It had only taken ten months and Mullah Hatem’s first convert was his most devout.
‘I will dedicate myself to the Islamic State. I will go and fight in the homeland.’
‘The fight is here. This is where you must dedicate yourself.’
‘I will do as you say.’
‘Are you ready for martyrdom?’ the Mullah asked.
‘If it serves Allah,’ Duraid Wassef said with barely a stutter, ‘praise be upon him. I will accept martyrdom.’
***
Breakfast at the weekend in the Wassef household was an informal affair. Duraid’s father was off for an early morning walk and then some golf ‒ he played off a thirteen handicap. His mother was off to do some shopping. Afterwards she intended to visit her sister, who lived forty minutes by car to the north of the city.
‘What are your plans today?’ Farid asked of his youngest son.
‘Nothing much,’ said Duraid. ‘I’m going out with Wali, he’s interested in a car he’s found on the Internet. He wants me to help him check it out.’
Mullah Hatem had told him to be careful with his father, and people in general, and not to expound on his newfound religious fervor. ‘Act as you did before,’ he would always repeat at the end of their regular meetings and conversations. It was difficult for Duraid, especially on this Saturday, as the religious fervour consumed him. It consumed him so much that he was unable to feel sadness and remorse that he would not see his parents again – although, as Hatem had said, he would see them in Jannah, in Paradise, so there was no need for sadness or farewells.
‘Are you ready for martyrdom?’ Wali asked as they drove down the A30 heading west. As usual, the weather was inclement, but it was clearing and the sun was attempting to shine through. Duraid’s car, a blue Ford Focus – his father had given it to him for his eighteenth birthday – was running well and had received a good clean at a local car wash. It was a special day and he was determined to make the best of it.
‘I am ready,’ Duraid replied.
‘I envy you. I only hope that I can join you in Jannah soon.’ Wali, the son of a shop owner, was not as educated nor as articulate as Duraid. He had not had the benefit of a private school. His had been government and virtually the entire student body had been Islamic and poor and from the East of London. He had not experienced Western culture and his swarthy looks, with the baggy pants and the hooded jacket, struck fear, not friendship, in the people he met on the street. With Duraid, they would be respectful and polite, with Wali, distant and discourteous.
‘You will soon,’ Duraid said. However, as the distance from London increased and the closeness of his destiny loomed, he started to feel remorse. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? It was only a temporary disillusionment. I am an educated man and an educated man does his duty and my duty is jihad. I will not waiver.
***
Faisal Aslam was a wealthy businessman from London. He owned a chain of Asian supermarkets and was a prominent and respected member of the community. He was an Asian Muslim made good, a shining example of the integration that was possible in a caring, inclusive country such as England. He had even shaken the hand of the Prime Minister, yet he was a member of the Islamic State. It was he who had been hiding Durrani, the bomb maker, since his arrival in England.
Durrani was a master at his trade. He had trained in Afghanistan with Al-Qaeda, perfected his skills in Iraq and Syria and had been smuggled into England nine months previous. The car bomb in Bournemouth had been his work and it was work that he had been especially proud of. There were not many who could conceal close to one thousand kilos in a Range Rover such that a police inspection failed to see it, as did the unsuspecting couple from Birmingham who had rented it for a two-week holiday down in Devon. Durrani and Faisal Aslam had intended a shopping centre or a tourist attraction further to the west than Bournemouth, but when Brett and Phyllis Greenstreet had decided on a diversion to see Phyllis’s sister, Liz, on the way, those that had been following discreetly took the opportunity to claim the vehicle back and to drive it down to the beach and remotely detonate it.
Brett Greenstreet had complained about the performance all the way down from the north, but Phyllis, his wife, constantly reminded him that they were on holiday and in no hurry. He would have had reason to complain if he had known that the poor-performing vehicle was to be responsible for the death of sixty-five innocent people.
The shopping centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the female school in Birmingham, the circus under the big top in Sunderland, the cinema complex in Bristol and at least half a dozen other incidents spread throughout the country had all been Durrani’s. He was a proud man, a craftsman at the height of his trade, the trade of bomb manufacture, specifically car and suicide.
‘Now, do you understand how this works?’ Durrani had asked Duraid at the hut in the centre of Epping Forest four days earlier.
‘Yes, I think so. I only have to press this switch and the explosion is instantaneous.’
‘I’ve given you my best work here,’ said Durrani. ‘It’s not only more compact, it’s more powerful. The vest weighs close to twenty kilos, so exit the car and walk quickly to the detonation point. You don’t want to be sweating profusely and puffing, it only raises suspicion.’
‘Will they be suspicious? I thought we had chosen Salisbury because they’re so complacent,’ Duraid Wassef asked.
‘Complacent, yes, but they’re more alert since the bomb in Bournemouth.’
‘And the backpack, what’s the reason?’
‘I’ve managed to get another fifteen kilos in there. It’s shaped to look as if you’re carrying books.’
It pleased Durrani that, since coming to England, he had noticed those committing jihad were smarter, better-educated than those he had encountered in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Some had been so stupid it was a wonder they ever made it to the detonation point, let alone trigger the bomb. Some never did, as they were unable to stop fiddling and showing off to their fundamentalist friends. A few had inadvertently touche
d the trigger and blown themselves up, along with their colleagues. There had been one in Afghanistan who, whilst saying his fond farewells to his mother, father and six siblings, four of whom had been male, had accidentally or stupidly hit the trigger in a final embrace with his father and had blown them all up, as well as the house. At least with Duraid he felt sure of a successful result.
Chapter 2
‘Are you sure about this?’ Wali asked as they sat in the car in the car park at the back of the shopping centre. He was shaking like a leaf, more nervous than Duraid.
‘Yes, I will complete my task, praise be to Allah.’
‘At least there are the seventy-two virgins to look forward to.’ Wali attempted to make light of the moment, to defuse the tension in the vehicle.
‘That may be, but there were always plenty here,’ Duraid replied.
‘What do you mean?’
‘At the school I went to. It was coed, and half of the females were ready and willing. I got my leg over more times than I can count,’ Duraid boasted. It was not totally true. There had been Evangeline, who had cornered him one night outside the school grounds, but she had been fat, her breasts drooping and the garlic that she consumed emanated from her every sweaty pore. Then there had been Naomi, dark, of African descent, but he had barely been able to satisfy her. The grass on the common where she had seduced him scratched his arse as he laid there, his trousers around his ankles, while she rode him as if his was a horse, not yet broken in.
‘You’re not a virgin?’ Wali exclaimed.
‘Of course not, are you?’
‘I once paid a tart down by the docks, but she wanted one hundred pounds, so I only went there once. She was old, smelt of fish.
‘Then you don’t know what you’re missing. Young and white and firm, and then they’re a delight.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Wali. ‘You have it made – a car, a good home, plenty of women. I’d swop blowing myself up for that.’
‘It is my wish to serve my faith, my people. Why? Are you not so convinced?’
‘To serve my faith,’ Wali replied, ‘my people, yes. But then I have nothing here. No job, certainly no women, and a home that is no more than a hovel. Transport, that’s just an old push bike. Death is better than that.’
‘I’ve made my decision. I will complete the task.’ Duraid exited the car after giving Wali a firm hug. The pangs of regret and the words of Wali troubled him as he walked across the car park, but he could not go back now. His only hope was that, what he was about to do, was for the betterment of his people. But he wasn’t sure.
***
Paul Marston was busy at the cash register. Business had certainly improved since the dismal takings of last week and the shop was full. His previously disinterested buyer had phoned, lukewarm again.
It seemed a good reason to take his wife out that night for a few drinks down the Haunch of Venison – at least, it would have been, but he had failed to see the youth with the backpack standing outside. Not that seeing him would have caused him to look twice. They all seemed to wear backpacks these days – although a loose-fitting jacket should have been suspicious, but he was not trained to see these inconsistencies. Besides, the cash register was doing good business and the young girl – not really a girl, she was nineteen – had failed to turn up for work. He’d have a word with her the next time she showed up.
If she wants to go out drinking, and no doubt get laid, then that’s her business, he thought. As long as she’s at the shop bright and alert at nine in the morning. If she isn’t, then her services will no longer be required.
Jessica, his Saturday helper, was lucky. She had drunk to excess on the Friday night, even more than normal, and she had managed to get herself laid. However, come Saturday morning she could remember neither the amount of drink nor the man she had screwed in the back of a car. Standing up all day in a shop with a head that hurt and a quick dash to the toilet every ten minutes after a dodgy curry did not fill her with any enthusiasm. Her loose morals and her lack of ambition were to save her life.
There were at least twenty people in the shop, but Duraid had ascertained the most efficient spot for him to stand, just outside. A fried chicken joint, a burger place, and a store selling ice-creams were all within a radius of ten metres, and the bookshop was to his rear by five. A quick calculation showed that he could ensure martyrdom for himself and death for, at the very least, eighty to ninety infidels, although the children who were pestering their parents for an ice-cream gave him concern. But he knew that, in time, they would take the crusade to his home, the home in the Middle East, not the one in London. He had made his decision. He pressed the trigger.
***
It would be fourteen hours and detailed scanning of the video cameras in the car park and the shopping centre precincts before there was any correlation as to how the suicide bomber had arrived and who he was. There was a head separated from the torso as the suicide vest exploded, but its condition was not good.
The immediate aftermath of the explosion was chaos and confusion. The dead and the dying were scattered within a radius of twenty metres from where the bomber had stood. First on the scene was the fire brigade, closely followed by the ambulances and the police. It was obvious the local services could not cope and additional support was brought in from as far away as Southampton and Bristol.
‘There’s been a bombing down in Salisbury,’ the head of the Counter Terrorism Command, Richard Goddard, said on the phone to the Chief Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Service.
‘What’s the situation? Who’s taking the lead role? What about casualties? How many?’ the Chief Commissioner asked.
‘Unknown. I’ve just phoned you as per protocol. I’ll need to get my best people down there as soon as possible.’
‘Who’s in control down there?’ the Chief Commissioner asked.
‘Unknown, although there’s a local Chief Inspector, who’s setting up a command centre at the scene.’
‘Then I suggest you get off this phone and get on with sorting it out!’
‘Agreed,’ said Goddard. ‘Let me get on to it.’
‘Good,’ the Chief Commissioner said. ‘Thanks for following protocol. In future, forget the protocol and just do your job.’
Salisbury Hospital had been situated close to the scene of the bombing in the past, out on Fisherton Street, but in the late nineties it had relocated out to Odstock Road, about three kilometres away. A constant shuttling of ambulances ferrying those that could be hospitalised continued nonstop for hours. Those that were dead were covered with sheets from a local store and left for forensics to attempt an identification.
Paul Marston had sustained the full blast from only eight metres distance and the one-inch nails inside the bomb on Duraid’s backpack had pierced his skin in at least a dozen places, as well as numerous shards of razor-sharp glass that had been projected at high velocity from what had been the shop window. His body was intact, but he had died instantly.
In the shop, at least ten or eleven of his patrons were dead, including Billy and Samantha Wiggins, four and six-year-old respectively, who had been sitting down in a chair leafing through a picture book on wizards and witches. Their mother, Nicole, had left them for an instant while she looked for a cookbook on French food around the back of the store. Shielded as she was, she emerged unhurt to find her two children dead.
Maisie Donnelly died, an elderly woman of eighty who loved cats and children equally and who had been browsing in the bookshop window. It was a friend’s birthday the following week and a book would have been an ideal present.
A group of gangly youths, idly spending their time hanging outside the burger joint and making silly, obnoxious and unappreciated comments to any pretty girl that walked past, were torn limb from limb. They would ultimately be identified by a tattoo, a dental record or any other distinguishing feature. Two of the pretty girls, seventeen and eighteen years old and dressed provocatively as b
efits a precocious teen, also suffered the same fate as the gangly youths, whose lewd remarks had caused the girls to be insulted and then to giggle.
‘How many dead? Has anyone done a count?’ Chief Inspector Donaldson asked.
A dour Scotsman, he had been in Salisbury for five years. He had a son at Bishop’s Wordsworth Grammar School, doing well in his studies, and a daughter at South Wilts Grammar school for Girls out on Stratford Road. The girl, Felicity, though everyone called her Fee, was proving to be a handful. Seventeen with an overdose of hormones, she could have been one of the pretty girls walking provocatively around the shopping centre.
Donaldson had checked out the two girls when he first arrived and was relieved that neither of them were her, but saddened to know that some other families would have to deal with the identification of the once pretty, but now heavily mutilated and dismembered, bodies. One of the girls was minus half her face, her brains splattered against a nearby post.
‘Chief Inspector, I reckon about seventy to eighty,’ said Police Constable Hopwood. He had joined the Salisbury station a few weeks earlier from London.
‘Can’t you be more specific?’
‘Not really,’ the police constable replied. ‘Some of the bodies may well have disintegrated, especially if they were close to the blast, say one metre or so.’
‘You seem to know a lot about these scenarios?’
‘I’ve seen a couple up in London. It’s not the first time for me.’
‘Well, it’s the first time for me, and I’m not finding it easy.’
‘That’s understood, but we need to rise above it, do our job. It’s not for me to tell you that, Chief Inspector.’
‘That’s fine. I thought one of the victims was my daughter,’ the Chief Inspector admitted.
‘Was it?’
‘Thankfully no, but it could have been.’
Terrorist: Three Book Boxed Set Page 36