FIRST PUBLISHED 2008
BY GERRICON BOOKS
Copyright 2008 Conrad Jones
9780956103406
CONRAD JONES HAS ASSERTED HIS MORAL RIGHTS TO BE IDENTIFIED AS THE AUTHOR
OTHER TITLES BY CONRAD JONES
SOFT TARGET II `Tank`
SOFT TARGET III `Jerusalem`
The 18th BRIGADE
BLISTER
THE CHILD TAKER
SLOW BURN
CHAPTER 1
The Down Town Disney bombings
The overhead traffic lights changed from red to green, and flashing chevrons pointed toward parking lot number two. Yasser Ahmed pulled the black people carrier off Buena Vista Drive, into the car park. His passengers were silent, and the tension in the vehicle was palpable. Yasser looked up into the rear view mirror trying to read the thoughts of the other occupants, and the image that was reflected in the mirror was like a weird dream.
Mickey Mouse sat directly behind Yasser in the back seat and next to him was his partner, Minnie Mouse. Donald Duck and Goofy sat a row behind them at the rear of the vehicle. All the cartoon characters stared silently back at him, and the fixed cartoon grins on the costume masks disguised the evil intention that hid behind them.
Yasser pulled the black vehicle into an empty parking bay and turned off the engine. Without saying a word the man dressed as Mickey Mouse placed his hand on the door handle and hesitated a moment before opening the door. The cartoon characters stepped out one by one into the hot evening air, and headed toward the lights of Downtown Disney market place. They had made this journey many times before dressed as tourists wearing shorts and sunglasses, but this time it was not a dress rehearsal. This time it was the real deal.
As the characters neared the packed tourist area they parted company from each other and headed in different directions. They didn’t look back, each one of them dealing with their own fear and trepidation.
“God goes with you my friends,” Yasser said aloud in the empty darkness of the vehicle.
Yasser Ahmed was born in Iraq, and he was the spiritual leader of the extremist group `Ismael`s Axe`. In 2005 over a three month period, Yasser and his affiliates were responsible for more than one thousand attacks on coalition and Iraqi forces in Mosul alone. Many of them were suicide attacks typically using cars and other motor vehicles. The plague of sectarian violence, which was spiralling out of control in his country, had placed his own life in danger, and so he had decided to leave, and bring his Jihad to the land of the aggressors.
The Disney market place was an entertainment and shopping metropolis packed with tourists. It was the home of nearly one hundred shops, restaurants and the famous Cirque du Soleil. Schools all over the country were already well into their summer recess, and families from the world over wandered around the shops and restaurants, enjoying the magic of Disney. The evening’s firework display was still a couple of hours away, and long lines of hungry tourists waited patiently, forming snake queues around the Downtown Disney restaurants.
Pamela Rodriguez smiled as she looked around the table. Her three children laughed, talked, and ate chicken nuggets simultaneously as only kids can. Her husband Raul was talking to his parents, they clinked their beer bottles together every time they agreed on something. It had taken Pamela eighteen months to plan this trip to celebrate their in-laws fiftieth wedding anniversary. So far it had been a perfect holiday. Her father in-law, Pappy, was a second generation Puerto-Rican American. He had left his homeland as a young man to come and live the American dream. America had been good to him. The idea of sitting in the Rainy Jungle café, in Downtown Disney, eating New York steaks with his grandchildren, once seemed a world away. It was once an impossible American dream but now it was a wonderful reality. Pamela loved her in-laws like they were her own mum and dad. They were simple people and they worshipped their grandchildren. Most of all they enjoyed spoiling them at every opportunity they could. Sometimes they would spoil the kids too much, but that’s what grandparents are for.
Her husband caught her eye as she looked around the table and he smiled at her, and Pamela’s heart flipped even now after all this time when he smiled at her that way. Raul had just six months left to serve in the American Air Force until his retirement. He had served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Pamela wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not for him to leave the service behind. It had been his life. He loved the service and his buddies were like his brothers. She couldn’t see what else he would be if he took retirement. Pamela knew that despite all the promises people make when they left the air force for Civvies Street, they would lose touch, everyone does.
Raul smiled and turned away from Pamela’s gaze. His kids, who were gesturing excitedly toward the restaurant`s entrance took his attention.
“Look, Daddy! Mickey’s coming for dinner!”
Both the families that were already eating, and the people waiting in line for a table, pointed as the man dressed in the mouse suit walked by them. The volume in the dining room rose to fever pitch as he headed toward the centre of the room waving to the kids as he walked by table after table.
The Rainy Jungle’s manager smiled a Disney smile as if all was well. He pretended that the famous mouse came to dinner here every night. He looked from one waiter to another looking for someone to give him an explanation as to what was going on. The Disney characters appeared on scheduled days but charged a huge fee. Today was not a scheduled day for the mouse to appear. Disney did nothing for free, and this extra visit was not in the budget. The bastards are just trying to put the rent up, he thought, but he could not let his customers see how annoyed he was. He could not disappoint his excited customers by asking the mouse to leave! This was Disney after all; this is whom they want to see!
Pamela couldn’t believe her luck as Mickey headed straight toward her table. Wow, she thought, this is what makes the time and expense all worthwhile. Pamela’s eldest child Christopher turned in his chair as the mouse approached the table.
“Hi, Mickey,” he shouted, he had a smile from ear to ear which exposed the half chewed chicken nuggets that were in his mouth.
The mouse stood still for what seemed an age, the cartoon grin never fading but the waving had stopped.
“The man in the mouse suit has stage fright or something. What`s he doing?” she thought to herself.
“I think he has forgotten what to do, maybe he’s new,” she said quietly across table.
Raul took out a digital camera to make the most of a photo opportunity so close to the mouse.
“It`s still perfect for the kids we are so lucky that they have come in while we are eating,” Pamela said to her in-laws.
Just as she was wondering what was wrong with Mickey Mouse, the bomb that was strapped around his waist, beneath his costume exploded; it took her family and her thoughts away forever.
CHAPTER 2
San Francisco
Hassan finished praying in his San Francisco motel room, and then he dressed in his clean white smock type shirt with a beige sleeveless long jacket over the top. He pulled on his matching white cotton trousers and slipped his feet into rope sandals. The white skullcap was last to be put on. Hassan was Pakistani born and educated in Karachi which was a luxury not afforded by many people in his country. His family had been displaced from their home in India during the partition of Colonial India, when the British forces forcibly created the Islamic state of Pakistan. Over twelve million Hindus, Christians and Sikhs had to leave their homes and belongings behind them during the partition, and a further two million Muslims were slaughtered as ethnic tensions exploded between the displaced religious factions. The chaos left behind by the British led to many young Muslim men growing up to hate Britain and its Western allies. Hassan had met Yasser at a religious training camp in Somalia some years before. The camps were originally set up by Osama bin Laden and his followers in 1996 to train Islamic extremists how to use weapons and manufacture explosives. The trainers at the camps were veterans of the war in Afghanistan, where the struggle against the invading Soviet Union had drawn Muslim brothers from all corners of the world to fight alongside the mujahideen.
Hassan dressed and watched the news of the chaos that Yasser and his terrorist cell had caused in Florida the night before. The death toll was in the hundreds and rising all the time.
“Now it is my turn, my brothers,” he said to the man reading the news on the screen. The man at the C.N.N. desk ignored him and continued to read the news.
Hassan had no doubts that what he was about to do was right and just, but he felt scared and very alone. During their planning they had decided that once the terrorist cells had been given their targets, there was to be no further contact between them. Hassan had no idea of the others` whereabouts, and he did not know what their missions would entail either. He knew that some of the others were to work in groups, and he wished that he had been assigned an accomplice on his mission, but Yasser had told him that this glory was to be his own, alone.
He glanced in the mirror. The clothes and his long dark beard left no one in doubt that he was from the nation of Islam. He left the hotel room and headed down to the reception, where he enquired at the reception desk if any messages had been left for him. The receptionist handed him an envelope, and he read the two words that were printed on the page inside.
DiMaggio/ Monroe
Hassan understood the meaning of it straight away. His instructions from Yasser three weeks earlier had specified that he was to travel to San Francisco, and check into a motel. He then had to change his accommodation every six days, until he was contacted. Hassan was also told that he needed to take open top tour buses from the Fisherman’s Wharf at least twice a week, and to travel with a different operator every trip. Most of the tours used the same routes and were an excellent way of getting to know the city quickly. The tours had taken him past a beautiful granite church in a part of the city called Little Italy. Apart from its architectural beauty it was famous because Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had had their marriage blessed there. The tours pointed it out because the postal address was `666`, the sign of the devil, and Hassan thought that it was very apt for the house of the Christian devils to worship in. Hassan knew that the truck would be parked near to the church, as the two words that had been written on the note gave him all the information he needed to find the vehicle. Everything else that he needed would be inside. That morning in his prayers he had asked for the strength and courage to complete his task, and his prayers had settled his nerves and steeled his resolve. The next time he spoke to his god it would be face to face.
The plan was to take a cab to the area where the vehicle had been parked, but he decided time was on his side, and he would walk one last time through the streets that he had become familiar with. He wanted to feel the bay breeze on his face one last time before he met his maker.
Hassan stepped out onto Polk Street. The wind chilled him as he pulled his waistcoat tighter around himself and he started up the hill toward the San Francisco Bay. The bay area was the hub of San Francisco’s tourist industry, and he had walked up the hill toward the bay every day since arriving in the city. This part of San Francisco was the area that the locals called, `The Sirloin`, and it had been the centre of the drugs and vice trade since 1900`s. The nickname had come to fruition, as the only people in the city that could afford such expensive cuts of meat as sirloin, were the corrupt policemen that worked this part of town. The police force pay was lousy but the perks and bribes made it a job well worth doing from a financial point of view.
As he walked along the sidewalk toward the bay, neon massage signs flashed from windows on every block, and a myriad of colours promised sex for money from dawn till dusk. Each massage parlour that he saw hardened his resolve to rid the world of as many of these non-believers as he could, and he wanted to join his dead brothers in their Jihad.
“Spare change, Sir?” a vagrant stepped from the alley on his left. This scruffy man was one of the thousands that chose the city of San Francisco for their home. It had amazed Hassan just how many tramps there were in this city, and how the people and the police tolerated their presence. Even the well-trimmed lawns in front of the City Hall were home to a dozen slumbering rag bag people at any given time. The last time he had gone by on one of his city tours he had decided to count how many vagrants were sleeping on the lawns of City Hall, and he had counted twenty-two there, right under the noses of the mayor and his colleagues. Madness, they would be stoned to death in his world unless they repented and changed their idle ways. Hassan felt no pity for these lost people, only the dull glow of hatred for the society that accepted the vagrants and sex shops so freely. He hated the homosexuality and the drug abuse that the city`s inhabitants, and its tourists, found attractive. The infidels found these vices part of its charm. He was about to tarnish the city’s charm forever, and he knew that a place in heaven with his brothers would be his reward.
He reached the crest of Polk Street and looked down the steep hill to the bay. The hill took him down past the huge Ghirardelli chocolate factory, which was on his right, and the old maritime museum stood in front of him at the bottom of Russian Hill.
The museum building was under a major repair programme, as the facade was showing the signs of its age. Its position next to the sea made it vulnerable to erosion from the weather. Construction workers covered the scaffold`s walk ways like little yellow ants in their high viz jackets and hard hats, and they seemed to swarm left and right all over the building’s facade. Hassan`s thoughts were on the task ahead, when suddenly a loud whistle from above drew his attention.
“Hey, Osama, where the fuck have you been, Dude?” A group of construction workers laughed loudly, patting the speaker on the back in congratulations for his joke.
“The police have been looking all over for your ass, Boy!” Another comedian in a yellow hat joined in from higher up the scaffold.
“What the fuck have you done to Mickey Mouse, Man? That shit just isn’t funny, Dude!” The first hard hat added. News of the Islamic terrorist attack in Florida was plastered all over the news, and it had obviously provoked the racist abuse that Hassan was receiving. A supervisor from the construction company heard the commotion and decided that enough was enough.
“You aren’t funny, McAlister! Get back to work.”
The men ambled away from the rails slowly going about their business. The laughter and jeering continued as Hassan walked by the museum. Hassan put his head down and walked faster, and his face flushed red with anger. His fists felt sweaty as he clenched them tightly, and Hassan put as much space between himself and the catcalls as he could; he also mentally added an extra job to his plan.
“You will not laugh any more today, you will not laugh for a long time,” he hissed under his breath as the voices faded into the distance.
CHAPTER 3
Grand Canyon
Muktar backed slowly away from the canyon`s edge, and small stones rolled over the edge and fell toward the canyon floor thousands of feet below. He stood when he felt that it was safe to, and stepped back up onto the canyon trail. He walked backward a little to check if the sniper rifle that he had placed beneath an overhanging rock, could be seen from the path, and then he walked down the path in the opposite direction and looked again. Eventually he was happy that it could not be seen from the path, even if an eagle-eyed tourist spotted the green baize material that he had wrapped the rifle in, it would look just like moss. If anyone was stupid enough to lean over the rim that far, it would still not be obvious what was hidden there.
This was the third and final rifle that he needed to hide that morning. The sun was rising higher into the sky. The light was changing the colours of the rocks from grey to red, shifting the dark shadows and revealing the true marvel of the canyon. Muktar looked back toward the Bright Angel Lodge through the short sight glass that he had. The footpaths around the lodge were still quiet as the tourists had not arrived yet, or were still asleep.
He had booked into his room at the Bright Angel Lodge the week before. The rooms were basic to say the least, as there were no televisions in the lodge rooms and the shower facilities were shared. American Indians from every Indian nation that he had ever heard of, and some that he hadn’t heard of too, serviced the lodges. The carpets that covered the long corridors were bright red and embroidered with American Indian symbols and patterns. Early that morning he had tip toed down the long corridor and out of the rear of the building to his car. He had collected the three sniper rifles that were folded into a sports holdall, and hidden them along the rim trails.
Muktar, who was an Egyptian national, had given the idea of using snipers in sensitive tourist areas to Yasser months before. Yasser Ahmed and Muktar met many years ago at a religious terrorist training camp in Syria. Muktar had told Yasser stories of how the Islamic fundamentalists in his country had become disenchanted with President Mubarak. Resentment was growing amongst young Egyptians because of his capitalist policies, and in 1992 Egypt had started to suffer a series of terror attacks largely aimed at tourists. Tourism represents the most lucrative part of the country’s economy and the attacks on Western tourists proved to be very damaging to the economy. Western governments had always associated these attacks with al-Qaeda, however it was never clear who was responsible for the attacks. It appeared to Muktar and his associates that in general, they were attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, on the westernisation of Egypt. Muktar told Yasser how in recent years his country had become transformed into a modern capitalist economy. Huge tourist resorts full of luxury hotels, swimming pools, and golf courses were built by Mubarak`s government. Large sections of the Egyptian indigenous population felt ignored and lived in poverty.
“Is it any wonder my people feel aggrieved when we are starving, whilst being constantly surrounded by foreign wealth?” Muktar often asked.
In September 1992 the Egyptian group Gama`a al-Islamiya warned the government that tourists must not enter the province of Qena, which was renowned for its ancient archaeological history. In October snipers opened fire on a cruise ship full of German tourists that was sailing on the River Nile. In the same month a tourist bus was attacked resulting in the death of a British tourist. In total that year, the gunmen had murdered nine foreign nationals. Egypt became a dangerous place to visit and the attacks threatened to do lasting damage to the well-established tourist industry. Terrorism did not need to be sophisticated to work, as just one determined man with a weapon was enough to cause mayhem. In 1995 the group that was dedicated to the over throw of Mubarak’s undemocratic government, continued their campaign against western capitalism, within their own country. They had warned all foreign tourists to leave the country immediately, and two days later seventeen Greek tourists were gunned down outside a hotel in Cairo. Yasser had learned much from their discussions about the Egyptian insurgents and the devastating effect that attacks on tourists could have.
Muktar looked through the glasses again, and panned down the rock face below the Bright Angel Lodge, following the path of the orange looking zigzag trail. The narrow tourist trail snaked down the canyon wall to the Indian gardens a mile and a half below. His task was simple enough, as from sunrise tourists would start to descend the Bright Angel Trail toward the Colorado River. Walkers usually only got as far as the Indian gardens before fatigue, and the heat, forced them to retrace their steps back up the steep trail. As they descend the heat increases, as does the realization that they have to walk back up. There are no cabs or buses from the canyon floor, no chair lifts or cable cars to relieve weary travellers. If you walk down the Bright Angel trail, then you have to walk back up too. Many seasoned hikers had headed off with the intention of reaching the Colorado River, only to collapse, many fatally from dehydration and fatigue.
These people were not his target today though. He was to wait for the mule trains to start their decent down the narrow path. Muktar was to take three shots at the mules or their riders, before moving to the next rifle. He knew that the noise would be sufficient to make the mules panic and cause havoc on the busy narrow trails. Then he would leave the weapon where it was and move onto the next hidden rifle and begin again. The confusion of the moving shooter, and bullets coming from different positions around the canyon, should make his capture or death more difficult. There would be many deaths if his aim was true and his luck held. His task was finally prepared and he headed back toward the lodge. There was time for prayers and one last meal before the mules started their journey down.
CHAPTER 4
LAS VEGAS
Mido looked out over the balcony at the busy strip. The streets were lined with giant hotels of all shapes and sizes, a medieval castle, a pyramid and even the Eiffel Tower were below him. He paced up and down the balcony nervously, looking from the busy streets below, to the blank screen on the cell phone that he held in his hand. It was as if the answer to his dilemma would appear on the screen if he stared hard enough at it. His hand felt hot and clammy as he held the cell phone tightly. The desert heat had already started to rise, making him sweat. The temperature was already in the high nineties, and it wasn’t 9am yet. He walked inside to the hotel room and took a cold bottle of water from the fridge. He took a long gulp from the bottle trying to quench the thirst that his hangover had gifted him. Mido had spent the previous night drinking heavily at the bar in the huge hotel casino. It was supposed to be his last night alive after all.
At around midnight he had been approached by a call girl called Laura, or Lara, he wasn’t sure which and didn’t really care. He had taken her to his hotel room and enjoyed what can only be called a brief encounter, before asking her to leave. His Muslim brothers would not have approved if they had known, but from what he had seen on the news programmes this morning, they were already dead. Whisky always made his head ache in the morning, and today was the mother of all headaches. Today was supposed to be his last before he joined his brothers in heaven; they had completed their tasks already, and now it was his turn. The television news told of nothing but the chaos that Yasser Ahmed and his affiliates had caused in Florida the night before. The problem was that Mido`s part of the plan was messed up. He was alone and did not know what to do next.
Mido had said goodbye to Hassan in San Francisco three days before, and then he made the long drive to Las Vegas across the desert alone. He had met Hassan in a religious terror training camp in the Sudan some years before. Mido was from Iraq but he had been forced to leave his country shortly after the American and British forces invaded in 2003. The invading armies were using 9/11 as their justification for a war on terror against the `axis of evil`. The invading coalition forces had begun a generalized offensive against elements of the Arab world including Mido`s homeland. The reasoning behind the hostile invasion confused Mido and his compatriots, as the United Nations had not sanctioned the war. He could almost see the justification for the invasion of Afghanistan, as many countries believed the Taliban were giving shelter to Osama Bin Laden, and the US firmly believed that Bin Laden had sanctioned and financially supported the 9/11 attacks. Mido`s country was secular with strong links to the West, and America and Britain had armed Iraq when its borders were threatened by a Soviet backed Iranian invasion. Iraq and its people were polar opposites in terms of Arab culture to Bin Laden. The general opinion of Mido and his compatriots was that this invasion was a ploy to control Iraq’s oil fields. Resentment and anger spread across the country as it descended into religious civil war. Centuries old feuds resurfaced between Shia`s and Sunni factions. The illegal invasion had the effect of ratcheting up the tension between the two cultures tremendously. Many of the neighbouring Arab nations started to regard America and the West with hostility. Mido believed that the invasion itself was an unprovoked attack on an independent country and was a form of state terrorism itself. He had stayed in Iraq during the conflict but the removal of Saddam Hussein and the destruction of his army and police forces led to total anarchy. The invaders could not quell the many conflicts that ensued once the regime had fallen, and with the collapse of the infrastructure, Iraqi tribes began to fight amongst themselves to establish their dominance in their ruined country. Mido had watched his country fall into disarray as rogue elements from the Iraqi military started fighting amongst each other and the hospitals and water supplies crumbled into chaos. Insurgents all over the country stockpiled dangerous weapons and ammunition. Mido had joined in a guerrilla war that included improvised explosions, suicide bombing and the sabotage of oil wells. Water and electricity supplies were destroyed by grenade attacks, as the opposing ethnic and political factions, of Iraqi society continued to do battle with each other. Mido felt frightened for his life and left the country, and it was when he had left fearing for his life that he met Yasser Ahmed and the others. The training camps were full of angry young Muslim men from a myriad of Islamic countries, and it was there that he decided to take the fight for his country’s freedom to the aggressor’s door.
Yasser Ahmed told Mido and Hassan that once they had been given their task there was to be no further contact between them. Mido told Yasser that he would dispose of his cell phone on his journey across the desert, so that it could not be traced, but instead, he had kept it in the event that something went wrong. It had gone very wrong. He was desperate for an answer, a plan B. He had a rental car in the parking lot beneath the huge hotel. In the trunk of the vehicle were three tactical M40-A5 rifles, the same type Muktar had taken to his mission in the Grand Canyon. Mido had trained for many days in the camps in the Sudan with similar weapons, and he learned to use them with deadly accuracy.
Yasser made the plans for the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas attacks to be almost identical. The idea was that one man with three sniper rifles hidden in different positions could cause chaos on a large scale. When he arrived in Las Vegas Mido was to check into three different hotels, and he was to book rooms that had balconies overlooking the strip. Then he was to set up a sniper nest in each room. Once his attack was prepared, he was supposed to choose targets on the streets below indiscriminately. Mido was to fire at tourists. Police officers would be even better. Each attack was to last for three minutes, and then he was to set fire to the room, leave the weapon and travel to the next hotel, where the next rifle was already hidden and waiting for him. Once his mission was completed, the authorities would only find one body or kill one shooter. The police would then be left with many questions to answer. How many shooters were there? If there was more than one, had the others got away? Was there one shooter or three? The fires would cause confusion and hamper any investigations that were made, and the police would never know the truth about the number of terrorists that were involved in the plot. They could only assume. The public would believe that there were still terrorists out there hiding somewhere, and people would imagine that extremists were lying in wait everywhere. Every hotel room on the strip could be concealing a sniper waiting for the next best shot to come along, and they may even be lining them up in the sights of a rifle right now. Panic and fear is the one true goal of any terrorist attack, and if Mido could complete his grisly task then the streets of Las Vegas would become like a ghost town. Tourists would avoid the city until anxiety settled down, by which time millions would have been lost in revenue.
The events of the previous night in Florida had made tourist destinations nervous and there was tightened security everywhere. Mido had checked into the rooms easily enough, but all the hotels were checking bags and customers with metal detectors as they entered. Mido could not find any way of getting his weapons into the buildings, and he could not get access to the balconies armed with his rifles. Mido decided that he needed another drink while he thought things through. For the first time since the illegal invasion of his country, he started to have doubts. He left the room and headed toward the lift.
Mido stood in the hallway and waited for the lift to arrive, and he was grateful that when it arrived it was empty. He stepped inside and held the door open for a second, and then he pressed the ground floor button and leaned back against the mirrored wall, breathing deeply to calm his shattered nerves. Mido had to keep his mind focused, and he reached into his pocket and looked at the cell phone again, and then he typed in a text message.
PROBLEM AT HOTEL. CAN’T GET BAGS IN. ADVICE?
He pressed send to Yasser’s cell phone number. The lift descended at warp speed, and then it stopped suddenly and the doors opened. A man wearing a dark suit and dark sunglasses stepped inside. He rode the elevator never looking away from Mido all the way to the ground floor. Mido could feel the man`s stare upon him, and it made him even more nervous than before. He was sweating profusely now and his breathing was becoming laboured. A few seconds later, the doors opened and he stepped into the hotel lobby, where the air conditioning cooled him down and he immediately felt more in control. Mido checked that the signal on his phone was still good. The lobby of the giant hotel was nestled beneath a million tons of glass and steel, and although his cell phone had a full signal, the screen was blank.
`They must all be dead` he thought, or captured, though the news had said nothing of any arrests. He was clutching at straws trying to think of a course of action but his mind was just a blank. The alcohol from the previous evening had made his head fuzzy and confused. He looked around the huge hotel reception area, and in desperation approached the reception desk.
“Have there been any messages received for Ramirez?” he asked the peroxide blond behind the desk. He had used a fake passport when he had checked in, identifying him as a tourist from Honduras. The blond woman went to check the pigeonholes on the wall behind her.
“What room are you staying in, Mr. Ramirez?” she asked him with a sigh. Her shift was nearly over and she couldn’t wait to go home. The man who called himself Mr. Ramirez was sweating and he smelled of body odour and alcohol.
“I am staying in room 1408,”he answered her while still looking down at his cell phone.
“I am afraid that there is nothing here for you. Would you like to leave your cell phone number here and I will page you if anything arrives for you?” she said, walking away into the rear office. Mido had already turned to walk away and he did not answer her question. He had also not seen the receptionist taking his passport through to the back office. She had worked in Vegas for too long not be able to spot a fake passport. She picked up the internal phone and dialled security.
Mido turned and headed down the long walkway that led to the high-class hotel shops. Gucci and Prada stood next to Armani and Chanel. Nothing in the glitzy windows had a price tag on it, and if you needed to ask the price then you couldn’t afford it. The corridor led further into the bowels of the giant hotel and then into a huge casino. He saw the main bar area some distance away, and it looked like an oasis in the centre of the football field sized gambling area. Mido walked past a hundred slot machines and then sat on a stool at the bar, where he ordered a whisky straight with ice. He lit a Marlborough and fed a fifty-dollar note into the poker machine that was in front of him on the bar. His head was filled with doubts about what he should do next.
“That’s two dollars and fifty cents for the whisky please, Sir,” the bar man said. His fixed Vegas smile never faded.
“I am playing the poker machine. Drinks are free when you’re playing the machines right?” Mido answered through clenched teeth, the air conditioning was now doing little to cool him down or calm his mood.
“You weren’t playing the machine when I gave you the drink, Sir.” The smile did not fade at all.
“Well I am playing the fucking machine now, and I’ll take another whisky, and another, until I am done playing the machine, or are we going to have a problem?” Mido said. He was starting to lose the little composure that he had left.
“No problem at all, Sir, but we really don’t need the bad language though, Sir. We just want you all to have a good time, without the bad language thanks.” The bar man replied still grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Mido was close to snapping. What was he doing here drinking and arguing with a person that looks like he has a smile glued permanently to his face? He should be in place in the first room now. He couldn’t get the rifles into the hotel. He tried to think what to do next, but there was no plan B and there were no rendezvous points, because this was a suicide mission. What should he do?
Doubts started to eat into his mind, all the planning and preparation over the months before seemed pointless now. The training in the religious camps had cemented his resolve to sacrifice his life for his god. He wanted to be killed in the Jihad fighting for the freedom of his country, but now it all seemed so far away. The inspirational words of the Imams were distant echo`s now. The preaching from the Mullahs had seemed to be so absolute, but today he felt different.
He could just sit here and get drunk, maybe even get another hooker, who would know? His friends were all dead. Tomorrow he could get into the rental car and head for the coast. He had a bundle of money and fake credit cards. He could leave now. He could live. Maybe this was fate.
Whatever he decided to do, he wasn’t going to do it right now. He was too confused to make any decisions. Mido decided that he would take his time and think the problem through properly. He needed to retrieve a small bag from the trunk of the rental car, as it contained his money and he had just put his last fifty dollars into the poker machine on the bar. He pressed the deal button on the poker machine; it was his last dollar bet. Four aces popped up on the screen and the animations went crazy. The bartender looked over and waved a hand in Mido`s direction.
“Four Aces, Sir, it must be your lucky day!” The bartender’s grin faded slightly. Mido had just won the equivalent of a week`s wages.
“Yes it must be my lucky day after all,” Mido replied. The casino machine manageress came over to Mido to verify the win. She smiled and made a big fuss of handing him his winnings, and he took the nine hundred dollars from the woman and thanked her.
He put the money in his pocket and headed for the parking garage. The garage was situated beneath the hotel and Mido walked down a flight of concrete stairs. His mind was made up.
Mido opened a heavy fire door and stepped into the dimly lit garage. He walked toward the far end of the parking garage. The roof was low and the smell of exhaust fumes filled the air. Mido opened the trunk of the blue Ford Mustang with an electronic key. The lid clicked open. He reached in, lifted a small bag out of the trunk, and placed it on the floor next to his feet. The three sniper rifles that were in the trunk were stripped down and contained in three sports holdalls. Mido looked at them and felt very confused and guilty. He had not completed his mission. His Muslim brothers were dead but he had failed them.
` I can’t get the rifles into the hotel`, he thought out loud. The plan had failed but he did not believe that it was his fault. He decided that he would dump the rifles in the Mojave Desert the next day. Maybe he could sell them; he would decide when his mind was clearer.
“Step away from the vehicle. Lie down and place your hands behind your head!” A voice boomed in the parking garage. The low concrete ceilings made it echo. A man in a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie was pointing a gun at Mido`s head. It was a big gun and Mido froze. His mind was more confused now than ever. Had Allah read his mind and heard the doubts that were rattling around in his head? Mido thought that his lord had deserted him because he had failed his task. This was his punishment.
“You need to lay down right now, Motherfucker, or we will shoot you!” The voice came from a second man and Mido looked in his direction. The second man looked identical to the first man except his gun was bigger.
Mido stayed very still and looked from one agent to the next. He was terrified. Mido looked into the trunk and saw the three bags that contained folded sniper rifles. He wished that he had stayed at home in his beloved Iraq.
“Okay I am surrendering. Please don’t shoot me.” Mido said and he moved to lie down. His hands were shaking with fear, and Mido could feel beads of sweat running down his face into his eyes. He tried to blink as the sweat stung his eyeballs, and he moved slowly trying to bend down but the small bag that he had removed earlier was in his way. Mido reached forward to move it.
The two men in suits were NSA agents. They fired simultaneously, and Mido’s head exploded as the high velocity rounds smashed through his skull.
All his confusion disintegrated into a red mist.