Countdown to Terror

Chapter 29

Life in the house was pretty much routine – boring, in fact – despite knowing the call was imminent. Even Samir was bored; it was impossible to be on red-alert 24/7. When they were not playing chess, Ali and Abdullah spent hours sermonising and debating the depravity of the West and justifying the actions they were going to take to save the world. They could have been hippies from the sixties, except that bombs got you more attention than lying down in the street with a bunch of flowers. Got you dead, in fact!

Samir wondered why they couldn’t just twit and tweet, or even be hackers, but then Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, had fallen foul of the US authorities, hadn’t he? The barking duo was still barking: Ahmed and Jubail had been accepted by G4S and were to begin their training the following week.

Ali had raised questions after their last sermon from Abelgadar.

‘Do you think we will be given any weapons, sub-machines guns or grenades?’

Samir countered, ‘It’s not a game on your Sony PlayStation, you idiot.’

Abdullah concurred. ‘Don’t be daft, Ali, you know whatever is needed will be provided at the time. We only have to place it where instructed and we know Hussein will be with us.’

‘Yeah, that’s what worries me,’ Ali fired back, ending the debate.

Samir’s head was in turmoil. He was remorseful, doubtful, and he had turned on his friends. Yes, they were wrong, but strangely immature, believing what they were told without question by the imam and Hussein, who was the biggest loose cannon you could ever imagine. He anguished about how he was going to get the word out to the police, or that man, Jenny’s friend, (who the hell he was, anyway), unless he could get to Sainsbury’s again. He reasoned that they must be watching the place, so if an opportunity did not occur and word came that they were off, then they would be tailed. He hoped they were good at that job, otherwise the whole thing could be aborted, or was it too far gone now? It certainly felt that way when Abelgadar spoke only days ago. He kept going over and over it in his head: how he would respond, could he be rescued, at what point should he run, would he even get the chance, was he leading his friends into certain death? Hussein would not hesitate, and the police would have weapons. He was saved from further angst by Ali asking him to play chess.