11

0900HRS. HE stared in the mirror and finished trimming his beard. It was neat and tidy just like everything else about his appearance.

He stared at his reflection; the brown eyes his patients had told him were so full of kindness and so appropriate for a doctor. A frown spread across his forehead as he considered all the pain and suffering he had eased over recent months, all the people he had cared for, the joy he had gained from a profession he believed he had been born to enter.

It never ceased to amaze him how readily he had been accepted into his new community. But then it was the same for a physician in any society, people always elevated you, knowing that in many cases the healer possessed the power of life and death over his patient.

He supposed that being a member of a caring profession had played a large part in his acceptance and in truth he enjoyed the status and the respect that came with being a doctor. Once people knew you practised medicine and were there to help them it was amazing how they were prepared to trust you with that almost mythical power of life and death.

Their secrets poured out as if you were a trusted member of their family. His patients had wanted to please him, with some even showering gifts upon him. From the bottles of whisky which seemed to be the ultimate indication of gratitude in Scotland, to offers of clothing and even sexual gratification from some of the female patients who had found his smouldering yet soulful brown eyes hypnotic.

He replaced his spectacles. In truth he had no need of the glasses but they helped to make him seem that bit more studious, perhaps even vulnerable. Today he needed to appear the victim, not the victor.

Breakfast was something he was looking forward to that morning with particular relish.

He would wash the nashta down with kahwah; he welcomed the first drop as he scraped the roof of his mouth with his tongue and realised that nervousness had left it dry as the desert.

He took a bite from the khatchapuri and savoured its familiar charms as he waited for his omelette to cook. If this was to be his last breakfast before he entered paradise then he would make sure he left this world with a full belly. After finishing his food and washing it down with the last of the green tea he took an apple from the bowl and placed it in the pocket of his gown.

The satisfaction at having a full belly with which to go about Allah’s work saw more memories of his stay in Glasgow flood back. Yet his chosen path beckoned. The path to paradise.

This was Allah’s work and it had to be done.

Washed and cleansed, he walked back into the bedroom and dressed in simple shalwar kameez and placed his taqiya on his head. The only prayers from him today had been those said in private at dawn. But he would not answer the muezzin's call this Friday afternoon at the mosque. Instead he hoped prayers would be said for him by those who mattered. The true believers; the devout followers of the Imam who knew that what he did, he did for Allah.

Hassan Ressan took a glance at the chest of drawers in front of him and his eyes swept over the name badge belonging to Dr Mustafa Mohammed, S.H.O. A&E, Glasgow Western Infirmary. The man he had been for the past 18 months. Strange how he had begun to take pleasure in a life built on a tissue of lies; enjoyed the conventions that had come with his revered position in Western society. In truth he’d lived a double life but now at last he would find eternal truth. The deception would be over.

He had been careless leaving documents, and of course the filofax, at the other address but really, what did it matter? Here, ten storeys up in the Red Road flats, he was part of a burgeoning asylum community, anonymous and irrelevant: the two most important qualities for a man about to execute an act of Jihad.

1530hrs. Hassan wandered through the automatic doorway, his manner humble and non-threatening. He kept his eyes downcast in a manner that would ensure anyone taking the time to look at him would feel sorry for him rather than view him as a threat.

His day had been spent rehearsing his route to the shopping centre and exactly what he would do when he got there. All doubt, all guilt had been gradually erased from his mind. He was fully focused just like the brothers of the 9/11 attack must have been.

The voice in his head spoke. ‘What is that phrase they use? In the zone. That is it! And now I am in the zone, the killing zone. And death is my companion.’ Hassan allowed himself a smile at the realisation of the impact his work would surely have.

His mind flashed back to the training camp on the northwest frontier of Pakistan where he had been taught the techniques of the Jihadist. An impressionable teenager, meeting with the freedom fighters and teachers of al-Quaeda who had changed his whole way of looking at the world.

When one of the veterans of Afghanistan, Naif, or White Eye as he was known, had come to Glasgow and attended mosque Hassan had been captivated by his stories of the fight to the death being waged against the evil West. His growing awareness that there was far more to life than books and studies had hardened into a conviction.

It was at that point Hassan Ressan had been targeted by al-Quaeda, who had become aware of his brilliance as a medical student with a particular flare for chemistry, and one whose own perspective was becoming increasingly compliant with their own.

All that mattered were the words of the prophet and the Holy War against the infidel and now he was going to play his own part in taking that war onto Crusader shores. Yet he had enjoyed his four years in Glasgow. Perhaps, if he was completely honest with himself, he had secretly hoped that the day his training would be required would never dawn.

Today was that day.

He had been well trained; his teacher was the best, and he was a very good student. He knew how to assess a target in order to calculate the exact quantities of hexogen, a volatile explosive that would be required to be added to the equally unstable nytroglycerin to produce the desired carnage.

He remembered the words of his teachers as they explained the part oxidizers, desensitizers, plasticizers and freezing-point depressants had to play. Now Hassan believed himself to be every bit as skillful a bomb maker as those teachers four years back, and he had been very busy.

He placed his hand under his kameez and felt for the reassurance of the belt he had strapped around his middle which carried his deadly cargo, and he tasted the salt from a bead of sweat as it dropped onto his lip and entered his mouth.

‘Nerves. Always a good thing. My senses are heightened as they should be, Allah be praised!’ said the voice in his head.

Yet still the troubling images persisted. The kindness he had been shown by the family of the teenage female stab victim he had saved in A&E just ten days back; the warmth of the staff and the closeness that had evolved between them during his months in his post.

Another image seeped into his consciousness; the face of the nurse he knew that in another life he would have loved with all his heart. The voice in his head said her name over and over ‘Aisha, Aisha.’ With all the might of his willpower he quietened the voice and the seed of doubt that was beginning to gnaw through him.

What happened here today would send a message and set the tone for what was to come. Mentally he weighed up the cost of his actions and the carnage that would ensue from them and the other Improvised Explosive Devices he had already placed in key locations in the centre. But now was the time for payback for the thousands that had died in Afghanistan and Iraq since the infidels had invaded. Countless innocents slaughtered for what?

The Imam had been right; it was time for the Crusaders to feel the pain and fear of Jihad within their own borders, in the heart of their cities, in the souls of their very beings. It was his role to make that happen.

He walked on, for he knew exactly where the detonation point lay. The position at which he must stop and slip his hand under his kameez and press the button that would set off the lethally positioned IEDs which would cause carnage and chaos in equal measures throughout Braehead shopping centre. Then he would pull the rip chord to send him and everyone else within a 100 yard radius to oblivion.

The prospect of carnage was at its maximum today for it was, as Allah had surely ordained, the opening day of the Davis Cup Tie; being played in the same building as the shopping centre, within the sports arena. The location he sought was the seat he had purchased only five rows back from the court which would, in 30 minutes be graced by one of Great Britain’s most famous sportsmen: Murray Fury.

There, concealed in the crowds of people desperate to gain entry for the opening singles match featuring Scotland’s finest sporting son, he would be completely anonymous. With the event unpoliced and only guarded by stewards, his entry to courtside would be simple and his admission to eternity guaranteed.

Gaining entry to the courtside and detonating himself within feet of Fury and in full view of the TV cameras beaming the tie against Belarus around Europe would guarantee that this was a moment of supreme triumph. A triumph that would send a shockwave around the globe, thanks to the death of one of the most famous UK sportsmen and Britain’s finest tennis player.

As he arrived on the top floor and began his walk towards the arena doors he was aware that his senses were indeed heightened. Everything seemed to be viewed in high definition.

The scar running down the side of the track-suited male’s face grabbed Hassan’s attention as he passed by. His lingering look suggested that if their encounter had been away from the safety of the congested confines of Glasgow’s busiest shopping mall Hassan would have indeed been the victim he wished to be perceived as. But the man moved on with no more than an evil leer at the downtrodden Asian male who looked hopelessly out with his comfort zone in the bustling shopping centre.

A young woman pushed a double buggy towards him, apparently determined to make sure that he moved out the way or was run down by her self-propelled juggernaut. Aware that there was some instability in the cargo he carried and warned by the female’s harsh Glaswegian voice: “Get oota the fuckin’ way will ye? Ya half-wit!” Hassan sidestepped the child-bearing express train with a dexterity that belied his appearance.

Now the fast food centres situated just outside the arena entrance came within his view. Pizza Hut opposite and McDonald’s to his right and the sight of families enjoying lunch in a happy and safe environment sent a shiver of uncertainty, or was it guilt, through Hassan Ressan’s soul. But it was a fleeting moment, for it was immediately replaced by images of the charred bodies of the Pakistani family. Victims of a US drone strike he had witnessed, murdered and butchered at a family wedding on a day that should have been filled with the greatest of family joys. He kept walking.

Now the yellow-vested stewards were just thirty yards away checking tickets. Hassan looked at the female steward who was about to ask for his ticket. Red-faced with dyed blonde hair and stinking of a heavy scent that was almost as cheap and tacky as the rouge on her cheeks.

“Ticket please, sir?” she asked and he duly passed his ticket to her, taking care to keep his eyes averted and offering a courteous “Thank you,” into the bargain.

Then he was through and the doors to the courtside were just twenty yards on his left. He took a deep breath and walked on, silently reciting the Shahada over and over again: “Allah is the one true god.” And he was about to meet him.

He looked at the gold watch on his left wrist, the one mark of ostentation he had allowed himself. Hassan had an obsession with time and today it was ticking fast. He saw that it was 15.45: Fury would be on court in less than fifteen minutes. He allowed himself a small smile of anticipation, knowing that all the training he had received, all the hours of self sacrifice and the time spent concealed within Western society had all been for this moment of maximum impact.

He had drawn level with the toilets when to his surprise he heard a voice in his right ear.

“Awright Gupta! Into the fuckin’ toilets and get the fuckin’ Rolex off pronto mate!” He turned and saw the track suit, recognised the cruel scar running down the face of the male he had passed in the shopping centre moments earlier.

He felt a fist smash into his side and knock him sideways, the impact of his body propelling him through the door as it gave way. In the background another voice shouted.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

But none of that mattered anymore, for Hassan knew that his moment had come, perhaps prematurely, but he trusted in the skill with which he had crafted the explosive belt. He fingered the button then ripped the chord free.

As the device exploded he saw the look of fear and the light of the bomb blast envelope his attacker’s face. Hassan uttered his last word: “Kafir . . . ”