Manchester, England
Flight 42 from Orlando to Manchester, England was on approach, and the airplane was full to capacity with British tourists, many of whom were returning home from their holidays in Florida. Yasser Ahmed had listened to conversation after conversation about the atrocities that had taken place earlier that evening. Many of the passengers expressed gratitude to be leaving Florida behind, others told tales of how they had been close to the bombings and had narrowly missed being caught up in them.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we should be down on the tarmac in about fifteen minutes. We are to taxi a little to our gate, so you should have your feet firmly on the ground in approximately twenty five minutes. The temperature in Manchester at the moment is fourteen degrees and it`s raining,” the co-pilot said over the cabin`s speaker system.
Yasser sat in a window seat still dressed as Yasmine. He had not moved from the chair since boarding eight hours ago, not even to use the toilet. The fewer people he had contact with, even visually, the better, as he knew that if the authorities were onto him they would pounce here. Once he had disembarked from the airplane, he could disappear into the large Asian communities that lived in Britain’s cities. He was uncomfortable from the long journey that he had made dressed as Yasmine, but so far he was still a free man.
The plane touched down and Yasser disembarked the aircraft without any incident. It appeared that the security services had not managed to trace the attacks to him yet. He knew that they would eventually, but by then he would be long gone. The attacks had gone well. The Americans would once again realize that there was a price to be paid for their leader`s foreign policies and the invasion of Muslim countries. His people also owed Britain a powerful blow in repayment for their crusades in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was going to need some time to prepare his attacks but the process was already in motion to strike at America`s greatest ally. There were already many followers of Islam in Britain who were deeply offended by the government`s decision to invade Iraq despite protests from the British public. The invasion had already provoked a violent response.
Yasser had been aware of the 7/7 bombings of the London Transport system in 2005. The attacks had confirmed that the UK was now a major target for Islamic fundamentalist terror groups. On Thursday, July 7, 2005 a co-ordinated attack of four bombs killed fifty two people and injured seven hundred more in the county`s capital city London. Young men from relatively stable backgrounds placed the bombs. They were not people like Yasser, whose life had been shattered by war or poverty. None of them had been previously identified as violent extremists, and in most cases their families and friends expressed extreme shock and sadness that they had been involved. Yet they had been so incensed by the British government`s policies that they chose to leave their families and condemned themselves to death by becoming suicide bombers. Yasser knew he could rally support in this country for his Jihad against the Christian invaders.
Yasser walked down the long air bridge that joined the airplane to the terminal building. He stopped and pretended to tie the shoelace in his pink training shoes. He spotted what he was looking for further down the long carpeted corridor. He stepped onto a travelator while looking at the rain that was running down the windows to his left. `This country is so bloody miserable`, he thought. He saw the sign that identified the ladies` toilets further up the corridor, and he joined the next moving escalator. Yasser stepped off the moving pavement and headed for the toilet areas. He walked into the toilets and entered the disabled cubicle, locking the door behind him. He opened his hand luggage and started to get changed quickly, removing the makeup that he was wearing from his eyes using wet wipes. He changed into a pair of dark work pants that he had packed up in his hand luggage and then removed his pastel coloured tracksuit jacket. He took out the bright yellow high viz waistcoat that he placed into the side pocket of his bag and put it on over his plain black tee shirt. On the back of the yellow waist coat in big blue letters was the word `Baggage`. Yasser tied up his long black hair into a tight ball on the back of his head and covered it with a baseball cap. The badge on the cap said Supervisor. He clipped his cell phone to his belt and hung a bunch of keys from his waist. Then he placed a fake plastic ID wallet around his neck. He left the toilets, and headed in the opposite direction from which he had come, back toward the airplane and pushed open the first fire exit door that he could find.
Alarms rang out all over the terminal because the fire door had been breached. Two unarmed security guards ran down the long terminal corridors toward the fire exit doors, to investigate what had happened. One of the guards was so fat, that he was out of breath by the time he reached Yasser.
“Hello, Mate, did you see who opened this fire exit door?” he panted, thinking that Yasser was just another airport employee. The overweight security guard lifted his walkie-talkie to his ear.
“Do we have any idea what`s going on with the fire exit alarms in corridor twenty two Mallory?” A static voice came over the air.
“A tall blond man with a black leather jacket walked close by to where I was standing and he suddenly bolted through the fire exit door. I didn’t want to follow him until you guys got here, just in case he is dangerous,” Yasser told the guards.
“Mallory to control room, come in please, Boss. We have a tall blond male wearing a black leather jacket that has entered a fire exit on corridor twenty-two. It’s an unauthorized area sir,” the fat guard said into the radio.
“No shit, Sherlock. Get your fat ass down there after him and arrest him. If you want to keep your job do not come back without him, Mallory,” the static voice shouted.
Yasser could see that the heavy man was starting to panic. The pressure on airport security guards had become intense due to the increased number of security checks that were now required at all airports. The increased number of immigrants entering the country illegally had also put pressure on an already stretched operation. Yasser saw his opportunity.
“You guys take the corridors and store rooms down there, and I will take the exit areas and the exterior. I will give you a hand and get the baggage men to check our areas too.” Yasser pointed the flustered security guards in the direction that the non-existent man had run.
The guards headed off to chase the wild goose and Yasser slipped out of the airport terminal building onto the tarmac; he walked confidently around the boarding gate areas. He headed toward the perimeter fences through the rain, which was starting to fall heavily now. Yasser had estimated that the walk to the employee car park would take him about twenty minutes. He went beneath a dozen large jets that were attached to the terminal building by the air bridges, people were buzzing around loading and re-fuelling aircraft. Yasser was almost invisible with his yellow baggage handlers` high viz jacket on. He blended in perfectly, just another immigrant in a low paid job at the airport. There were so many employees at the airport that pretending to be one of them was the perfect disguise. He walked along the edge of the terminal building and headed for the main bus route drop off, and pick up point. There he took the bus, which serviced the long stay car park out to terminal two. Terminal two had an employee parking section that was permanently full. Four shifts a day of baggage handlers, restaurant staff, cleaners, air stewards, pilots and security guards all had to come to and from this section. Yasser exited the airport shuttle bus and entered the employee parking lot. He pulled his waistcoat high around his neck to stop the rain from soaking him completely. Yasser pressed the remote on the plastic key card that he held in his hand, waiting for a vehicle to respond. He walked the full length of a second row of parked cars but nothing happened. Yasser entered the third and final row and at last a red Volkswagen golf flashed its headlights and beeped in response to the key card. Yasser climbed into the vehicle and started the engine. He lit a cigarette and then opened the keep box, which was between the seats. He took out the cell phone that had been placed inside, hit the recall button and dialled the number that appeared on the screen.
“Hello I have recently arrived in this country and I am looking for accommodation,” Yasser said. He was using a pre-prepared sentence that the person receiving the call should recognise.
“You will find our rooms very cold, my old friend. I see from the news your business trip was successful,” replied the voice, recognition and excitement in his tone.
“Yes the trip was a remarkable success however it is time to bring my plans for the British to fruition. How are my brother and sister? I hope that they have been well looked after. I would like to see them soon whilst we are working on our plans. They have been in exile too long. Their time for hiding from my enemies is over. We will meet at the cold room the day after tomorrow. I would like to be able to meet with my brother and sister shortly after the meeting. You must tell no one of my arrival here in this country, I cannot trust anyone.”
Yasser pressed the call terminate button and headed the vehicle toward the exit barriers. He inserted the ticket and the automatic payment machine requested the exit fee. Yasser placed a credit card into the machine in order to pay. The machine illuminated a red light, which indicated that the card had been declined. An alternative method of payment was requested on the digital screen. Yasser placed an alternative credit card, which was linked to a separate bank account. The barrier lifted slowly. Yasser realised that the international security services had identified his bank account and had frozen it. He headed west on to the M56 Motorway away from Manchester Airport. He followed the signpost, which directed him toward Warrington in Cheshire; that would be his home for a while.
As Yasser Ahmed was making good his escape, Tank and the Terrorist Task Force had desperately tried to contact Manchester Airport security. They had informed them that a Middle Eastern woman using an Iraqi passport was a terror suspect and that she must be detained. The control room radioed the instructions over the airwaves.
“Mallory and all units, we have a target female Asian national who has just disembarked from the Orlando flight forty two. She is to be considered dangerous, possibly armed. She should be between passport control and baggage collection. I want you to use a low profile approach please, do not panic the other passengers but apprehend her immediately.” The static voice from the control room boomed through the security guards radio.
“What a fucking day I’m having chasing bloody nuisances around the airport!” Mallory said to no one. The security guards and armed police officers searched all the way through the terminal walkways and found nothing. They searched passport control, and went into the baggage collection area but all the passengers from flight forty two were gone. Mallory retraced his steps back to the terminal corridors and checked inside the disabled toilets; they found a pastel coloured tracksuit, pink training shoes and some sunglasses. Armed police officers stood in the empty luggage collection hall where their owners had already collected the bags from Orlando. There was no sign of the Iraqi woman. Two lost and lonely cases went around on the conveyor belt repeatedly. The nametags on them indicated that they had belonged to Yasmine Ahmed.