Soft Target 01 - Soft Target Read online

  FIRST PUBLISHED 2008

  BY GERRICON BOOKS

  www.gerriconbooks.com

  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

  Nine Angels

  Undisputed

  Death Tax

  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 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, the fixed cartoon grins on the costume masks disguising the evil intent 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 it. One by one, the cartoon characters stepped out into the hot evening air, and headed toward the lights of the Downtown Disney market place. They had made this journey many times before, dressed as tourists wearing shorts and sunglasses, 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 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 a 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 and restaurants, not to mention 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, 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 had once seemed a world away; what was once an impossible American dream had become 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; he smiled at her, Pamela’s heart flipped, even now after all this time when he smiled at her that way she would have the same reaction. 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 leave the Air Force for Civvie 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!” 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, hoping that someone could give him an explanation as to what was going on. The Disney characters appeared on scheduled days and 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 what 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, exposing the half chewed chicken nuggets in his mouth. The mouse stood still for what seemed an age; the cartoon grin never fading however, 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 the photo opportunity, being so close to the mouse. “It’s still perfect for the kids. We are so lucky that he came 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 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 t
o 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 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 still rising. “Now it is my turn, my brothers,” he said to the man reading the news on the screen. The man at the CNN desk ignored him and continued to read the news. Hassan had no doubt that what he was about to do was right and just, however 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 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 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 for each 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 their marriage blessed there. The tours pointed it out because the postal address was ‘666’, the sign of the devil, and Hassan thought that 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, 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; 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 original plan was to take a cab to the area where the vehicle had been parked, but he decided time was on his side and that 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 started up the hill toward 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 Tenderloin’, and it had been the centre of the drugs and vice trade since the 1900’s. The nickname had come to fruition, as the only people in the city that could afford such expensive cuts of meat as ‘Tenderloin’, 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 signs flashed from windows on every block, and a myriad of colours promised sex for money from dusk till dawn. 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 police tolerated their presence. Even the well-trimmed lawns in front of 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, 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 a society that accepted the vagrants and sex shops so freely. He hated the homosexuality and the drug abuse that the city’s inhabitants and 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 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 signs of its age. Its position next to the sea made it vulnerable to erosion from the weather. Construction workers covered the scaffold’s walkways 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 congratulation of 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. He put his head down and walked faster, his face flushed red with anger, his fists felt sweaty as he clenched them tightly. 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 anymore 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; small stones rolled over it and fell toward the canyon floor thousands of feet below. He stood when he felt that it was safe to do so, 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, then he walked down the path in the opposite direction and looked again. Eventually he was happy that it could not be seen. Even if an eagle-eyed tourist spotted the green baize material that he had wrapped it 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 colour 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 sti
ll quiet as the tourists had not arrived yet, or were still sleeping.

  He had booked into his room at the Bright Angel Lodge a week before. The rooms were basic to say the least, there were no televisions and the shower facilities were shared. 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 had 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. Western governments had always associated these attacks with al-Qaeda, however it was never clear who was responsible for them. It appeared to Muktar and his associates that in general, these were attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, against 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.