Valek Stahl turned off Avenue de Tervuren, drove a few blocks and parked next to a small, neighborhood restaurant, the St. Bernard, where he’d eaten several months ago. He parked and went inside.
The Daily Special, Boeuf aux Champignons, steak and mushrooms, smelled delicious. And it was delicious. He’d eaten it last time he was here.
But not today. He never ate before an assignment. Food sedated the brain, and he wanted to be razor sharp in the next few hours. He ordered black coffee.
The restaurant looked the same. Regular customers sat at tables with red checkerboard tablecloths. The walls held pictures of St. Bernard rescue dogs. A juke box played Elvis singing Love Me Tender. In the corner, two older couples speaking Flemish, played cards, including a gray-haired woman who seemed to glance at him from time to time. Did she maybe recognize him from the last time he was here. He didn’t remember seeing her then.
A wall-mounted television showed the G8 leaders preparing to leave the Hôtel de Ville. The announcer said:
“This just in… three armed terrorists,
members of Al Qaeda, were killed by an ESI
SWAT team in the small alcove of a Grand
Place building minutes before the G8 leaders
arrived.”
Exactly as planned, Stahl thought.
He thought back to when he’d phoned de Waha last night and given him a heads up on the attack. Then today, he called him again and told him “Stahl and the brothers are in the secret room.”
Then, as he expected, the SWAT team broke in, massacred the brothers and found Axel Braun’s passport in Yusef’s police jacket. They looked at the passport photo, a photo that Stahl had computer-altered to merge his face with Yusef’s, and then concluded they’d killed Valek Stahl.
Finally, they congratulated themselves, let their guard down.
Idiots!
Perhaps, he should feel some remorse for sacrificing Yusef and his brothers, but he didn’t. They were merely bullets in Jihad’s gun. A means to a much more important goal. His! And they had long voiced their willingness to die for the jihad.
Of course, they died martyrs. Maybe not willing, but still, martyrs who died believing they were furthering the Al Qaeda cause and that paradise and seventy-two virgins awaited them. They died achieving their goal. They died happy. And he was happy to accommodate them.
Stahl removed his sunglasses and noticed the gray-haired woman paying extra attention to him. Perhaps because he was a stranger. To be safe, Stahl lifted a newspaper in front of his face.
And saw his own face.
His old face actually. Nothing like his new look.
Which made him wonder again, why the old woman was so interested in him?
He drank more coffee and read about the one-on-one meetings between the President of the United States and the President of Russia. Their last, of course.
A minute later, as Stahl lowered the paper, he caught the woman staring at him again.
What’s with her? She can’t possibly recognize me. My hair, beard and collagen injections have transformed my face.
But he decided not to take any chances. He’d read about studies that prove some people have a rare genetic gift, a unique and uncanny ability to identify faces, even identify an aged adult from their baby picture. She could be one.
He put his sunglasses on, finished his coffee, placed money on the table and walked out. The nosy woman watched him leave. Let her watch. It would all be over very soon.
Stahl drove out onto the Avenue Tervuren where crowds were already forming to watch the leaders drive by.
He drove through the large forest, the Forêt de Soignes. He’d knew this forest well. He liked how the tall thick trees bent over the road, blocking out the sun, creating darkness.
He was about to cast the world into darkness.
Minutes later, he saw the sprawling Royal Museum of Central Africa. Locals called it the Congo Museum. He drove through the iron gates at the side of the Congo Museum. The leaders would soon enter through the same gates.
And soon after, they would enter the gates of hell.
Stahl pulled into the side lot. He drove behind rows of parked cars and vans to his pre-determined spot next to the wide stairs that descended into the massive gardens.
He was precisely eighty-six-yards from what American television announcers would soon call Europe’s ‘ground zero.’
A yellow mini-bus with elementary school children parked beside him. He smiled at them and they smiled back. He wondered if later they’d tell their parents they parked next to the man who assassinated the eight most powerful leaders in the world. They probably would. After all, he’d be part of history. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin.
Only I’m killing eight world leaders.
He felt good about that.
A Peugeot with a family parked in front of him. He reached over, picked up his hand-sized television he’d bought at the nearby INNO store and turned it on. The picture flickered to life and he watched the smiling G8 leaders waving at people in the crowds from the limousines crawling out of the Grand Place.
He turned his special cell phone on, and the little red light glowed. The battery icon indicated full power. The system was set.
He leaned back and smiled at the television, his partner in the righteous jihad today. He would watch the leaders walk into the museum and gather around the fascinating display.
He would speed-dial G 8.
He would watch them die.
And… he would vanish in the panic and chaos.
Soon, Papa… soon I will repay them for you…
Stahl watched more police and anti-terrorist teams arrive and take up positions. On the roof, snipers perched like hawks. They held what looked like Belgian A3G sniper rifles, or the Carabine Automatique Leger, a scaled-down weapon Stahl liked. Excellent weapons.
Just one problem. By the time the police realized what happened, they wouldn’t know who to aim the guns at… and he’d be long gone.
Stahl glanced at his television. The leaders were driving toward the Congo Museum in their shiny limousines.
They would leave the Congo Museum in hearses.