Читать книгу Choices - Jeff Edwards - Страница 8

Abu Bin Ahmad stepped from his house surrounded by his bodyguards.

As an electrical engineer Ahmad had never needed protection, but after falling under the spell of the late cleric Din Nassir Abbas and becoming his bomb maker, all that had changed. Murphy’s Bar had been a triumph of his workmanship, and although the attack on the Australian High Commission had resulted in casualties amongst the locals only, the message had been made loud and clear. Foreigners and their views were not wanted in this country.

As he had been for the last few days, the old beggar was waiting for Ahmad in his place, propped up against the stone wall with his brass begging bowl in hand, praying loudly for Allah’s blessings to be showered upon his benefactor.

Ahmad smiled at the unfortunate old man as he took a small note from his wallet and dropped it in the battered bowl.

Just as he did so the old man seemed to lose his footing, and staggered toward the engineer.

Ahmad thought the beggar was grabbing for the hand holding the wallet, and he swiftly raised it out of the old man’s reach. At the same moment his ever alert bodyguards moved in to pin the arms of the old man.

The beggar screeched his apologies for touching his benefactor as the bodyguards were dragging him away from their client. They pushed him roughly into the roadway, where the old man stood bowing and calling further apologies as Ahmad and his entourage moved off.

* * *

From his vantage point further down the street the Australian smiled. If he hadn’t know what was about to happen he would have missed the beggar’s movements entirely.

Now he followed the group from a safe distance, waiting for his opportunity.

A break in the pedestrian traffic had the bomber and his men isolated at last, and the Australian quickly took the opportunity to place a call on his phone.

Inside Ahmad’s pocket his mobile phone began to vibrate, and he took it out while wondering which of his children had been playing with it and switched off the ringtone.

Unconcerned, he placed the phone to his ear. ‘Yes?’

Ahmad had barely registered the fact that the voice on the other end spoke with a distinctively foreign accent. ‘He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword,’ he heard a microsecond before the small shaped charge of C4 explosive within the ear-piece erupted, removing half of Ahmad’s head from his shoulders and spraying his ineffectual protectors with blood and bone.

The Australian dropped his phone on the roadway and crushed it under his foot, making sure to break it into several pieces. These he collected and scattered in numerous rubbish bins as he made his way back to the beach. The call could be traced, but the phone that made the call would never be found, nor its owner detected.

I hope the surf has picked up, he thought to himself. There was nothing worth riding when I left my room this morning.