WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

By Bob French

Jamie Kiernan sat on the bench in Gloucester Park.  The cold November wind moaned in the tall branches of the bare chestnut trees as the grey sky rushed above them threatening rain.  He looked at Pete, his older brother, with sorrow in his eyes.

          “Pete, I have to tell you something,” and with tears in his eyes, he explained how for several years, Father O’Donnahugh, the family priest had abused him.  How he had told their mother, who had made the mistake of confronting her priest and threatened him that she would tell all.  A week later she was found in the local cinema with her head caved in.  The weapon; an old iron poker, was found on the floor behind her seat.  No one saw the incident, but Jamie knew it was O’Donnahugh.

          Three months after the death of his wife, Jamie’s father took his sons away from the tranquil village outside Belfast and moved to Essex in England in the hope of forgetting the past and finding a bright future.  Two months after they moved, Jamie took his life.  He couldn’t live with the shame and guilt of the past and blamed himself for his mother’s death. 

          A year later his father started to drink and was dead within six months.  Peter having lost everything, joined the Army and with hatred in his heart made a name for himself in the Parachute Regiment.  He completed fifteen years before he had had enough and decided to come out, turning his back on his friends and his religion and wandered for a year working at any job he could find.  It was whilst working in a bookshop selling religious artefacts in Chelsea that he found peace of mind in the Qur’an and after a while approached the Imam of the local Mosque for advice on becoming a Muslim.  A year and a half later, Peter took the name of Abdullah.

          His love of the stories and the dedication to his studies did not go un-unnoticed.  Within the shadows of the mosque was Sherieff, a radical Muslim whose job was to identify potential Jihad warriors.  Abdullah was ripe for the picking.  After one Friday prayers, Sherieff made a point of bumping into him on the steps of the mosque and got talking.  He invited him back to his place for tea and it was here that with careful questioning got Abdullah to tell him of his past, his skills as a soldier and knowledge of modern infantry weapons, particularly as a sniper.

          That was nearly two years ago.  Since then, Abdullah had carried out several petty crimes, probably to test his nerve and belief in The Cause.  But now, he was involved in something different.  Now he was doing something important.  He and Sherieff had gone over the plans and the routine hundreds of times until he knew every aspect of the job except the target and the arrival details.  It was just after lunch one Wednesday when Sherieff’s mobile went off.  He read the text, then looked across at Abdullah.

          “Brother, it is time.  You know what you must do. May Allah go with you.” Abdullah had already gone through the safe house making sure that nothing would link him to the group.  They both washed, then prayed and at two in the afternoon, Abdullah, according to the plan, drove out of London and headed towards Stansted.  Once there, he skirted the northeast of the airport then drove down Green Street to within three hundred yards of the perimeter fence of the airport and parked up where he knew that in the morning many dog lovers would park and walk their dogs.  Then he made his way down to emergency gate number five just in front of a small wood.

          He had visited this place about three weeks before and cut off the old padlock, replacing it with a new one, then dug a vertical shaft, just inside the woods, wide enough to deposit his weapon.  He then covered it with the camouflaged net he had made to hide himself in the tall grass.  Once the job was done, he would return the weapon to the shaft and cover it up using the netting, making it virtually invisible to spot.

          Just after ten-fifteen that night he collected his weapon from the shaft, removed the waterproof wrapping and gained access to the airport perimeter using the key to the padlock, then crawled into position.  His skill as an intruder and sniper made him a past master at being invisible.  He looked down at the VIP Terminal, then flicked his sniper-scope to night-sights and pressed the distance finder; seven hundred and sixty-three meters, checked his sights and his camouflage netting, then relaxed.  It was going to be a long night.

          Abdulla smiled to himself.  Unbeknown to Sherieff, that afternoon Abdullah had driven via Harlow and booked himself into the Glamorgan Guest House, just inside Harlow Old Town, shaved off his beard, dyed his hair dark brown so as to resemble his passport photograph, then walked into the high street, dropped his old clothes into a dustbin and purchased an open return ticket to Turkey from Thomas Cooke, paying cash.  His plan, once inside Turkey would be to make his way slowly down to Antakya, in the south and catch a ferry over to Cyprus and vanish.

          He watched as the dawn crept slowly up over the horizon.  The sun slowly came up behind him, ensuring that he had the light behind him for the shot, and he waited.  Then he felt his phone vibrate and flipped the cover to read the screed.

          ‘Alitalia 737. ETA 1145.’ Another six hours he thought and remained motionless.  To remain completely still and alert in ice-cold and damp condition was part of the snipers training and he was good at it.

          At 11.30 he saw the Alitalia 737 approach the runway and land.  It taxied right to the end of the runway before turning back on itself and slowly make its way down to the VIP Terminal.  His phone vibrated again.

          He stared at the screen and blinked.  He could not believe his eyes.  He quickly read the message again, then put his phone in his top pocket.  They had given him a Sako TRG22, one of the best sniper rifles in the world; accurate to within three centimetres over one thousand eight hundred meters. 

          Abdullah slowly lifted the barrel, allowing the fork legs to gently slide down and give him maximum stability, then pulled the butt into his shoulder. A flick of his thumb turned the sniper scope on and instantly the Boeing 737 came into view.  He followed it until came to rest opposite the red carpet that had lead to the VIP Terminal.  There was a heavy security presence everywhere.  The first to come into view was a pretty young air-hostess as she pushed the main cabin door back, then the steps came up against the side of the fuselage and the security advance guards rushed up into the aircraft.  Abdullah started to control his breathing and waited.

          Time seemed to drag by, then suddenly out of the darkened doorway appeared the first of the party.  Immediately behind him was his Holiness, the Pope.  He stood awhile and waived.  On his shoulder stood a man dressed in a Cardinal’s frock coat with a distinctive black mole on his forehead.  Abdullah froze. My God, he thought to himself, the Pope.  He fought to control his emotions as the Pope moved forward to take a nervous step down the stairway.  Abdullah followed him on his first step, concentrating on the predicted movement of his target.  He took his last deep breath steadied his sights, then squeezed the trigger.  He watched as the high velocity .308 round founds its target.  The head jerked back violently and exploded as the round passed through the left eye; blood sprayed everywhere and the body slumped back knocking over one of the security guards.  Instant panic erupted at both ends of the steps of the aircraft.  Security men rushed forward, screams went up and chaos reigned.

          As calmly as possible, Abdullah stood up, picked up the netting and the cartridge case, racked the grass to remove any evidence that he had been there, retraced his steps, unlocked the padlock, then locked it again and threw the key into the long grass.  He then placed the rifle in the vertical shaft, covered it up and casually walked back to his car.  Only an expertly trained tracker would ever know he had been there.

          No one took any notice of him as he boarded the X30 airport bus, having parked his car in a side street in Barnston, or when he approached the Turkish Airlines desk and held out his passport.

          “Good afternoon Mr Kiernan, have you your ticket?” The young hostess studied it, then looked up.

          “We will be boarding in forty minutes time, please place your luggage on the scales.”

          As he sat in the departure lounge he felt his phone vibrate and glanced down at the screen.

          ‘You were not at the pick-up point.  Did you get the target?  Where are you?’

          Peter smiled to himself.  “Sorry Pal, this is now my part of the plan.”  Then dialled 999 and quietly informed the operator where the militant Islamic group who attempted to assassinate the Pope could be found.  When he finished, he stood and made his way to the toilet.  In a cubicle, he extracted the Simcard, broke it in half and flushed it away, then dropped the phone and its battery in waste bins outside several of the shops in the Duty-Free area.

          The final call went out over the public address system and Peter Kiernan picked up his hold-all and made his way to the boarding gate.  The flight took five hours and by that evening he was sitting in a bar in Turkey drinking a beer and looking up at the television behind the bar.  The Turkish newsman was waving his hands around excitedly.  Peter ordered another beer and asked the bartender what the fuss was all about.  The greasy unshaven barman stared at the screen for a while, then turned.

          “He say that someone try to kill the Pope in England today, but missed.  They kill a Cardinal….” He stumbled on the name.

          “It’s alright, my friend. His name was O’Donnahugh.”  The barman smiled then nodded his head.

          “Then the terrorist were arrested by British Police from…. How do you call it, a tip-off.”  The barman beamed at his ability to translate.

          Peter nodded his thanks to him.  Inwardly he felt pleased with himself.  He had made it his business to know where O’Donnahugh was and when he found out a few years back that he had been promoted to a position in Rome, he never for one minute thought that this opportunity would present itself. Then raised the bottle to the screen and quietly said, “That’s for you, Jamie.”

Copyright Bob French