ML Stewart - THE FACEBOOK KILLER: Part 2

The Facebook Killer: Part Two.

Chapter 1.

I hate flying. I always have. The take-off and landings have always terrified me and tonight was no different. A strong crosswind made things even worse. One wheel thudded onto the tarmac, lurching the plane steeply to the left. It felt like we momentarily lifted off again, when the other wheel suddenly made contact with planet Earth. I kept my eyes tightly closed, my heart pounding. A child was screaming his lungs out somewhere to the rear of the plane. A woman, opposite, was muttering something I could only assume was a prayer. We lurched heavily, once again, this time to the right, before slamming down on both wheels. The shrill screech of the flaps being raised drowned out the prayers and the screaming child. The seat belt cut into my pelvis as my forward momentum overtook that of the slowing plane.

The Captains announcement meant nothing to me the first time round, but my fellow passengers seemed to take some comfort in his words.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore. The current temperature is five degrees Celsius and we are experiencing heavy rain. We would like to thank you for flying with Pakistan International Airlines and we hope to see you again soon.

Norman waited by luggage carousel number five. Half-expecting to stand out a mile from the crowd, we were pleasantly surprised to see at least another forty white Europeans had taken the same flight from London.

We had travelled light. We had been forced to. That bastard Gerradines newspaper article had almost messed up everything. On that last drive back to Epping Forest, wed heard on the radio that the police had intensified their search for Adrian Devoy but were also pursuing another line of interest. The bastard had put them onto me.

Gary Pearsons death hadnt made the news by the time we fled London and we had no reason to worry that it would be linked to the apple picking. My only regret had been that we didnt have time to wrap things up properly, we still had one of the original thirteen left to deal with.

Laputa was all locked up and we had covered the path with dead tree branches, leaving nothing to indicate anyone had been there. The camper van was put back in the storage unit, where Devoy was doing well and still being fed and watered. I paid the doctor another months salary and informed him of our expected return date. We then took a taxi to Heathrow airport. My hand luggage held the laptop. The suitcase contained Norman, the rest of the cash, a copy of the Koran in braille, a gas mask, a hijab and burka.

And so it was that we found ourselves almost 4,000 miles away from home, lost in a city of over ten million people, of which, we had to track down a mere five. But before we could even think about that, there was some unfinished business to take care of.

Norman, Albert and I had booked into the Avari Hotel. Wed decided that since this may be our last few weeks of freedom, we would take the Executive Club Suite. It wasnt the twenty-four butler service which attracted me to the Avari, more the armed security guards and wifi connection.

Abdul Basir

Born Thomas Wilson, 1985. Struck down and blinded by Meningitis aged 4. Converted to Islam aged 20. Known as Taliban Tommy to his former friends and Abdul Basir, which ironically means servant of the all-seeing, to his new friends.

Location: Chelsea. Status: Single and living with mum and dad. Likes: Music and discussions on radio. Dislikes: Extremism, bigotry and war.

Now Tommy didnt try and make a secret of his favourite place of worship, a converted flat in South Kensington, with a capacity to hold thirty people. As Albert so cleverly pointed out, it wasnt going to be too difficult to spot the blind white man.

However, what wouldnt prove so simple, was gaining access to Tommy. It turned out his father was the owner of BEA Industries, one of the countrys most prolific manufacturers of armaments. Tommy had been deemed a kidnap-threat from an early age and was therefore accompanied by a bodyguard wherever he went. He was driven to the micro-mosque in a bulletproof car; his guard never leaving his side. To make matters worse, his family home was comparable only to Fort Knox.

Unbeknown to Mr. Gerradine, his newspaper article was actually a blessing in disguise. It was the catalyst for Tommy Talibans death. Think about it. The man lives in a bulletproof world, an Exocet missile probably couldnt get into that house. But I knew something that could.

Serge had transferred the VX nerve agent into a small insulin vial, allowing easy passage through the airport security checks. I followed his instructions to the letter. Id been warned of its strength, and so, wearing the gas mask and gloves, I slowly drew the lethal liquid into the syringe. Six milligrams is all it would take to kill a man, he had assured me, but for good measure, I had bought fifteen. As I placed a microscopic drop on each raised letter of Braille, I found it hard to believe that the Americans had listed such an innocuous-looking liquid, a weapon of mass destruction. Serge had proudly explained to me that he had mixed it with dimethylsulphoxide, to act as a skin-penetrant. It was a strange feeling to think of young Tommy Taliban opening the package in a week or so, the feeling of pride that his prayers had been answered. He hadnt been able to find a Braille copy of the holy book for over a year. He had plastered websites with requests in search of one, and I was about to make his day.

It would be around page thirty that his breathing would start to falter, five pages later, he ought to be feeling dizzy and a little nauseous. By my reckoning, the spasms should kick in a couple of pages after that, quickly followed by total paralysis and then death by asphyxiation.

The book was mailed in an airtight, padded envelope. The enclosed letter simply read, May Allah be with you.

We had been forced to leave England in such a hurry that we hadnt had time to plan properly. The VX was the only thing we could bring. The rest of the hardware was still in the storage unit. I had had great plans for the Pakistani apples.

I was once waiting to meet a friend flying into Gatwick airport, when I saw a man, around Normans age, pushing his elderly mother, in a wheelchair, through the security checks. She was asleep and connected to an oxygen tank via a facemask. No one woke her; they just checked her passport, which her son was holding. I couldnt help but think to myself, now if I ever wanted to smuggle a load of drugs into the country, thats how I would do it. And that had been the plan, bizarre as it may sound. I was going to have a one hundred year-old woman made from latex, together with an accompanying passport. Her insides would have been hollow; to allow us to transport everything we needed to achieve our goals in Pakistan. Yet, that bastard journalist had screwed things up for us.

The only downside to our Executive Suite was the complimentary drinks service provided; of which Norman had taken full advantage from the moment we arrived. Aside from that, the suite, itself, was of a reasonable standard. A large living area, led to a quite luxurious bedroom, complete with a four-poster bed. There was a separate office, which also contained a safe. This is where the laptop slept, alongside our cash.

I spent four hours the first night trying to get used to wearing the burka. I found it disorientating, hot and almost soundproof. My second attempt wasnt so uncomfortable and I was thankful that we hadnt arrived here in Lahores one hundred degree summer.

And so there I sat, in front of my laptop at twelve midnight, wearing a burka, my belly full of vodka and orange and proceeded to make, potentially, the biggest mistake of my entire life.

Dear Mr. Gerradine,