Liverpool
Tank saw the punch coming and moved to his left quickly. He lowered his left shoulder and swung a vicious left hook toward his opponent’s head. The punch landed and stunned the smaller man and made him drop his guard. Tank moved swiftly for a big man and in seconds he had his opponent in a chokehold.
“I`ve got you, Chen, my boy. I`ve got you. Come on now tap out or pass out, it`s your choice!” Chen was choking. The guillotine lock that Tank had applied across his windpipe could kill him in seconds. Mixed martial arts rules are similar to the rules in wrestling. If you tap your opponent, or the canvas, with your hand then you lose, but you live to fight another day. Chen hated tapping out to the big man. He knew that Tank would go on about it all bloody day when they got back to the taskforce office.
Faz stood ringside leaning through the ropes; a white sweat towel was hanging around her neck. She was watching the boys sparring, which they did three times a week. Faz was cooling down having finished her session with Tank earlier. She loved sparring with him because it was such a challenge. He was big, strong and very quick. Grace Farrington, who everyone called Faz, had been born in Liverpool but was of West Indian origin. Her dark skin looked shiny with sweat as she watched Chen choking in the boxing ring. Tank was applying even more pressure to the little Chinaman`s throat.
“Come on, Chen, just tap out and it will all be over. A better opponent has beaten you. Tap out or pass out. Tap out or pass out!” Tank was talking through clenched teeth.
“Tap out, Chen, or none of your shirts will fit you anymore; your neck size will be three sizes smaller!” Faz shouted. “You`d better let him go, Tank, he`s turning blue.”
Suddenly Chen stopped struggling and went limp in Tank`s arms. Tank felt the Chinaman stop struggling, his dead weight signalling the mental alarm bells in his head. Tank loosened the grip on Chen`s throat and was straining his head round to look at Chen`s face. Tank was worried that he had hurt his friend and colleague; panic was setting in. Chen’s eyes suddenly snapped open and he pulled away from the big man’s grip moving like lightening. Tank was rooted to the canvas, confused and shocked. Chen ducked and threw an uppercut that hit Tank under the chin. Tank`s knees buckled and he collapsed, stunned on the canvas, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Chen stood over him laughing.
“You cheat, you horrible, nasty little man, I don’t believe I fell for that.” Tank spat out his gum shield and rubbed his jaw dramatically for effect. He rolled over onto his belly looking at Faz for sympathy or support. None was forthcoming. Faz had her hand over her mouth mimicking that she wasn’t laughing.
“Nothing wrong with that he never tapped out. You`re getting slow in your old age, Big Fellah!” She laughed and threw her towel over Tank`s head.
“We`d better call that a day, and get back to the office.” Tank stood and walked toward the shower room with his arm around Chen’s shoulders.
“You know I`m going to have to get you back for that bloody liberty you`ve just taken don’t you.” Tank laughed. The three Terrorist Task Force officers met in the gym car park and climbed into Faz`s Jeep Cherokee.
“How’s the research into the Axe group going, Chen?” Faz asked as she started the Jeep and turned the radio down simultaneously as the Arctic Monkeys blared out from the speakers. Chen was an expert on terror groups and their operational histories. What he didn’t know, he researched.
“It`s been very interesting so far. It seems our man Yasser Ahmed fell out of favour with the more mainstream leaders of al-Qaeda about the time of his sister`s reported death. We don’t know for sure, but it looks like he reported her death to cover up that he was smuggling her and his brother out of the country. It would seem somebody threatened to kill his family if he didn’t conform to the group`s demands,” Chen paused.
“So he reports that his brother and sister have been killed in an air strike, and makes them disappear. He is obviously a smart boy. What`s his relationship with al-Qaeda like now then?” Tank asked.
“It appears they don’t have one at all. Yasser’s` methods were extreme and he was just as ruthless with his Islamic enemies; he wouldn’t conform to the leadership so he set up his own group, Axe. It seems he is very popular with the fanatics. All their funding comes from Saudi and Syria we think. We know he had recently been to Spain shortly before the Madrid bombings,” Chen said excitedly. “The Madrid Bombings took place on March 11, 2004 and targeted the busy commuter train network that serviced the city, killing one hundred and ninety two people, and injuring over two thousand more. Although it was originally blamed on a Spanish terrorist group it had soon become clear that it had been carried out by members of a Moroccan based Islamic group. Again we can only assume that Yasser Ahmed was involved. We also know that he was in the Somali camps at the same time as Omar Khan, six months before he carried out the London bomb attacks on 7/7. We think the fact that the Spanish immediately pulled their troops out of Iraq after the Madrid attacks gained Yasser Ahmed a great deal of support and more financial backing.” Chen finished speaking and he wound down the window, still hot from his workout.
“So what does a bloke have to do to be more extreme than the guys in al-Qaeda? How can you be more extreme than the extremists?” Faz asked exasperated.
“Yasser Ahmed and his cronies hijacked a minibus containing an Iraq basket ball team that were planning to begin a tour of America. They beheaded them on video with a kitchen knife. Ahmed sent the tape to Islamic news stations and internet sites as a warning to anyone else wanting to play Western sport; enter the Olympics etc. etc. Ahmed did most of the cutting himself. He`s a first class psychopath. He also seems to be very good at recruiting other psychopaths, to go and kill innocent people and themselves, in the name of his cause. Some incidents we can link to him directly, but there are plenty of incidents that we think he was the inspiration behind, rather than the logistical brains.” Chen knew that Yasser Ahmed had been linked to far too many terror attacks to have been physically involved in them himself. However, he was definitely the inspirational motivation for thousands of extremists to follow.
“We have been told he takes his inspiration from some of the early Egyptian extremists. For instance on the 17th of November 1997, six terrorists disguised themselves as security guards at a temple in Luxor. They were armed with automatic weapons and knives and they followed a group of Swiss tourists to the tomb of the Pharaoh Hapshepsut. They launched an all out attack on the tourists killing them all. By the time the Egyptian police arrived many of the victims had been disembowelled or beheaded. All the terrorists were killed in the ensuing gun battle but the horror of their methods and the impact it had worldwide did not go unnoticed by the likes of Yasser Ahmed.” Chen added to enforce the point that the more terrifying the attack, the further reaching its affects become.
“Wasn`t there some link with the Axe group and what happened at the university shooting in Virginia Tec? I seem to remember something about `Axe` being mentioned in the SWAT team`s reports,” Tank asked
“Surely that was one mentally deranged student who lost the plot?” Faz said.
“We will never know that for sure but there are some interesting theories. This guy Sueng Hui Cho was a Korean Muslim. He was studying English literature at the University but the building where he killed thirty of his thirty two victims was the engineering department. People have speculated that he may have had a grievance against them in particular. On the day itself he`d left the dorm room by 5.15 am. According to statements accredited to his roommates this was unusual, not his normal pattern of behaviour. No one seems to know what he did between leaving the dorm and 7.15 am when he killed his first female victim. The resident caretaker of the building was killed next, they think that he ran to her assistance and was also shot by Cho. Then Cho takes chains and locks with him to the Engineering building and chains all three entrance and exit doors shut. He goes up to the second floor and manages to shoot fifty five students and teachers. A total of thirty two dead and one hundred and seventy rounds fired. He had enough ammo to cause mayhem on him. One man with two guns caused fifty seven wounded, and thirty two dead. All caused by just one man on a mission.” Chen recounted the details demonstrating his enormous capacity for retaining information.
“That could have been just like the Las Vegas plot if the NSA hadn’t stopped the perpetrator. The Grand Canyon could have been much worse too if the SERT hadn’t arrived when they did,” Faz interrupted.
“That`s exactly my point these attacks don’t need to be complicated. We know that the SWAT teams that responded to the shooting in the Virginia Tech breached the entrance doors by shooting through the chains with 00 gauge shotguns. The noise of the shotguns tipped Cho to the fact that they`d arrived, so he put the gun to his head and blew his brains out. We don’t know what was troubling this kid and we never will, but he sent a package to NBC News giving us some clues. The tape rants on about cruel students and criticizes the Christian faith. The kid also has the words `ISMAEL AX` written on his arm in red ink. Now there are two famous literary characters called Ishmael. One is from the novel, Moby Dick and the other is a religious character. Ishmael was one of the two sons of Abraham in the bible. He was eventually sent away from Abraham and his story is revered in the Muslim faith. There they tell the story of how Ishmael took plates of food to the statue idols in the mosque. He goes back later the same day and of course the food is still there. The statues have not eaten the offerings. Therefore, he determined that the idols are false. In the story, he took an axe and destroyed them all. Therefore Ishmaels Axe was the destroyer of false gods.”
“You can’t be implying that Cho was a terrorist?” Tank asked thoughtfully.
“No, of course we can’t say that for certain but beyond his mental stability what was his motivation? We can`t dismiss that this could have been his own act of Jihad. Look at his videotape when we get back to the office. Compare them to the images of homicide bombers and other martyrs, you can`t ignore the similarities. He displays himself with several weapons depicting himself as a warrior or soldier. He shows his willingness to commit acts of violence and to accept his own death. Look how long he took to plan this. You can`t say the man just suddenly shot people in a fit of rage. The evidence shows he made videos; he bought weapons. He bought chains and padlocks to keep his victims in the building, and the police outside. This amount of preparation is not the actions of a lunatic. It is all premeditated and planned. The connection to the Ishmael legend is just speculation but think about it. I am convinced that the Axe group has taken their name from Ishmael’s story.”
“Yasser Ahmed is a dangerous man. If he can persuade and motivate individuals or small groups of people to go out and kill indiscriminately in this country, as he has done elsewhere then we have a serious problem. Question is what’s he planning next and where is he now?” Tank said, more to himself than anyone else.