LIVERPOOL ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL

               Yasser Ahmed stepped out of the black Hackney taxi and pulled his baseball hat firmly onto his head. His long black hair was tied in a ponytail, which hung between his shoulder blades. Yasser fastened the zip on his leather jacket. He placed on his dark sunglasses and paid the driver with a five-pound note, and then he tucked his black wallet into his faded blue jeans. It had been a short journey from his apartment in Anfield to Liverpool city centre, and now he looked around at the busy city and contemplated his plans. The infidel had killed his sister. He found out from his informers that the taskforce that hounded him were based in the city, so this would be the target of his revenge. They had made it personal. He adjusted a small camera that he was wearing beneath his jacket; he intended to film his reconnaissance trip. The building in front of him was the Adelphi Hotel, once one of the country`s finest hotels. The square shaped building was built from grey marble and it had large columns either side of the wide entrance. The doorway consisted of a large wooden revolving door with etched glass panels and brass handrails. It stood at the bottom of Mount Pleasant just five hundred yards from the catholic cathedral, which was built on Brownlow Hill.

              Opposite him was an enormous department store, which sported a twenty-foot high statue of a naked man above the main entrance. Liverpudlians called the statue Dickie Lewis.  To his right was The Vines, a massive Victorian pub that looked more like a stately home than a public house. Yasser looked up the hill toward the catholic place of worship.

              The cathedral was an unusual circular building. The base was a circular shape beneath enormous metal girders that comprised the roof. The girders met two hundred feet above in a cone shape. Local people affectionately called it `Paddy`s Wigwam` because of its shape. From a distance it looked like an enormous Red Indians` Tee Pee made from glass and stone. Paddy` is a reference to the city`s large Irish catholic community that worshiped there. Yasser walked up Mount Pleasant toward the holy building. The construction of the cathedral was started in 1933 when the foundation stone was laid. The original plans would have made it the second biggest church in the world. It would have had the largest dome in the world on top. The outbreak of The Second World War interrupted the building work and by 1958, the plans were scrapped. The newly designed `Paddy`s Wigwam` was opened and consecrated in 1967 and was the spiritual centre for the catholic faith in the North of England.

            Yasser reached the wide slate steps that led to the main entrance and started to climb them. As he climbed Liverpool`s historic skyline unfolded. Just a half-mile away was the sandstone monolith of the Anglican cathedral, the biggest cathedral in the United Kingdom. Its wide gothic arches and gigantic bell tower were an iconic landmark that could be seen from forty miles away. Between the two huge places of worship, he could see the St. Johns Tower. The tower resembled a gigantic concrete pole 70-foot wide and 150-ft high, with a flying saucer stuck on the top. The flying saucer had once contained a revolving restaurant that boasted panoramic views of the city; it was now home to a local radio station. The two cathedrals with the St. Johns tower between them, and the gigantic bronze Liverbirds in the distance made a truly awesome skyline. Each of the famous landmarks was also a potential target.

              Yasser looked toward the catholic cathedral that was now in front of him. The circular building incorporates a nine-acre site at its base. The vast space inside the cathedral can seat two thousand people, who can participate closely in the services. Yasser stepped into the huge cathedral and looked up. The top of the building was an enormous cylindrical shape made entirely from coloured glass. The effect of the light as it filtered through this huge prism was breath taking. Yasser walked around the perimeter of the cathedral secretly filming everything that he saw. The hushed voices and footsteps of eager tourists echoed around the enormous holy chasm. He stopped for a moment when he spotted a metal cleaning gantry high up in the glass conical ceiling. He followed the perimeter wall searching for the access door that would lead to the maintenance walkways. From above, the cathedral`s base would look like a huge cogwheel. The main body of the church was surrounded by smaller chapels, which would be the cog teeth. At the back of one of these smaller chapels was a velvet curtain. The curtain was billowing gently as if it was being blown by a draft. Yasser lifted it away from the wall slightly. There was a door marked `maintenance` that had been left slightly ajar. The perimeter of the building has great concrete buttresses that bear the weight of the glass and steel structure. Inside this particular buttress was a labyrinth of service tunnels and access stairwells. Yasser noted its position and moved on.     

               This holy building definitely had potential. He marked a mental tick next to it as a possible future target. He completed walking the full circumference of the building and walked outside into the drizzling rain. He stood at the top of the wide slate steps and scanned the city`s skyline again.

             The skyline of a city and the buildings that compose it give its inhabitants a feeling of ownership. A feeling of belonging can grow even in the short time a tourist spends in its presence. The loss of the Twin Towers was felt worldwide. Sales of pictures of the New York skyline that still contained the towers in them, still out sell those pictures that don’t contain them.

             In February 2006 Yasser`s affiliates blew up the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, Iraq, destroying one of the holiest sites in Shi`a Islam. The domes of the mosque however remained standing, as if in defiance of the bombers. The skyline was still intact despite the destruction of the revered place of worship. 165 Sunni Muslims were slaughtered in revenge attacks over the days following the attacks and guards were placed to stop the bombers returning to destroy the holy domes. The Sunni insurgents eventually returned and murdered the guards. They destroyed the magnificent domes with explosives bringing them to the ground in pieces. Despite the fact that the mosque was ruined and unusable, the Sunnis needed to remove the domes from view. The skyline itself can be symbolic of a people and their religion. Mosques and cathedrals alike are visible beacons of hope to the people that live and work beneath them.

              Yasser descended the steps of the catholic cathedral and saw the Everyman Theatre. He made his way down Rodney Street toward the biggest cathedral in the country.

              Rodney Street was once home to many famous private medical practices. The doorframes of the street were once adorned with shiny brass plaques proudly displaying the doctors` names and their speciality. As private medicine became more mainstream, the doctors moved to new private hospitals and the area became the haunt of Liverpool`s street girls. This was the red light district. Yasser crossed Hardman St. and looked in awe at the gigantic gothic cathedral. Its dark sandstone colour emphasised the sheer scale of the building. The cathedral has three towers, one at the head of the transept above the main alter; the two centre towers are at the middle of the transept forming the shape of a cross, if the building was viewed from above. Yasser looked at 260-foot high towers and ruled out sniper rifles. They were simply too high. The time reached 10`clock and the cathedral bells started to boom. At 219-feet above floor level, the bells of Liverpool Cathedral are the highest and heaviest ringing peal in the world. They consist of thirteen bells, which are grouped in a circle around the great 14.5-ton Bourbon bell. The whole peal weighed 31-tonnes. Yasser listened to the bells ringing the hour and could feel the noise vibrating in his chest. He stepped into the cathedral; the enormous vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows gave the transept a feeling of immense space surrounding you. He walked through the cavernous naves surveying the building, looking for its weak spots. He arrived beneath the bell tower and gazed at its size. The plaque on the wall informed him that this was the highest and heaviest peal of bells in the world. What a blow to Christianity it would be to bring them crashing down. He smiled as a plan began to form in his evil brain. There was little thought given to the human cost of his attacks. All faiths had their martyrs, Muslim, Christian, Jews, it mattered little to Yasser. His faith was under attack and had been since its conception; there would be no respite in his Jihad until the one true faith had triumphed over the infidels of other religions. Yasser checked that his camera was still filming his reconnaissance and he headed toward the exit. It was still raining outside.

              Yasser walked down the hill of Duke St. toward the city centre. He counted thirteen giant construction cranes dotted about the skyline as he walked toward the river. The city was enjoying a massive period of regeneration and rebuilding due to receiving City of Culture status. The tall tee shaped cranes worked nonstop like giant robots lifting girders up to build new structures. Museums, art galleries and bright new shopping precincts were springing up all over the city. He turned toward the dock road and looked right toward the Albert Docks. Just by the old dock building was the looming fortress shape of Merseyside Police Headquarters. The Terrorist Task Force was stationed on the top floor. Yasser smiled as he toyed with the idea that the country`s top agents could be stood at the window of their offices looking right at him. He walked toward the ferry terminal at the Pier Head, directly in front of the police buildings.

              There had been a ferry service from Liverpool across the River Mersey since the year 1150. Yasser bought a return tourist ticket and walked up to the top viewing deck of the Royal Iris. The old ferry had seen action at Zeebrugge in World War 1 and was granted the prefix `Royal` shortly after returning to her home on the Mersey. The seats on the ferry quickly filled with eager tourists who wanted to see the city and its buildings from the river. The view from across the wide river estuary allowed one to put the city in perspective.

              Yasser wasn’t interested in the history of the city that the tour guide was explaining over the loudspeaker system. He was more interested in the river view of the oil refinery at Stanlow and the airport that occupied the opposite bank. The tourist ferry gave him an ideal opportunity to scout these potential targets without arousing suspicion.  Yasser took a small digital camera from his pocket and snapped the coastline on both riverbanks. He was disturbed only once when a small Japanese girl tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to take a photograph of her with her grinning parents. The three of them never stopped nodding their heads in appreciation of the favour. The cold wind from the Irish Sea made him shiver but it did not dampen his enthusiasm. He wished he had more explosives; there were just so many potential opportunities to cause utter destruction.