Killing for the Company

Hussam Hayek was a little older than the other three and they looked to him as a leader on account of this. Two years ago he had become a father, but he only remained so for three days. His wife and baby son had died within an hour of each other — she for want of antibiotics, he for reasons overworked doctors couldn’t fathom. The child’s death was not a surprise to anyone. It was just the way things were in Gaza, its borders blockaded, the importation of medicines strictly controlled. Some entered the country via a smugglers’ route — the subterranean tunnels that ran under the border with Egypt — but these were a precious commodity and never found their way into the hands of poor men like Hussam Hayek.

Small wonder, then, that these four, like many before them, were radicalised beyond the point of return. That hatred was in their DNA. They had nothing to live for.

But they had everything to die for.

Hussam was wearing a Red Hot Chili Peppers baseball cap he’d bought just the day before because he thought it made him look more Western. The rest of their clothes were loose-fitting, but this wasn’t a fashion statement. Beneath their T-shirts and M amp;S raincoats, each man wore a vest packed with acetone peroxide, or TATP. It was a relatively simple explosive to make — all you needed was drain cleaner, bleach and acetone — but the end result was extremely volatile. In Gaza, you could always recognise the TATP engineers. They were the men with missing fingers.

Some people called this crystalline white powder Mother of Satan: a good name, because it was indeed capable of giving birth to the diabolical. Hussam Hayek smiled to himself. It wouldn’t be long before the whole world took notice of Gaza.

As fields and woodland sped past, Hussam fiddled somewhat absent-mindedly with the small switch attached to a wire peeking out from below his left sleeve. All four men wore the same set-up. It was already dark outside, and he could see his anxious reflection in the glass of the side door. He felt weak with nerves. He hadn’t expected to. In the days leading up to today there had been a sense of anticipation. Of excitement almost. He’d hoped to feel that excitement now. He was, after all, to be reunited with his loved ones in just a few minutes. But his skin was soaked in sweat and his hand trembled. What if it went wrong? What if somebody stopped them before the critical moment?

He leaned as nonchalantly as he could against a small poster warning that CCTV was operating on this train and looked at his watch. 17.11 hrs. Six minutes until they started.

Six minutes until paradise.

It was crucial to wait. Their controller had been most emphatic about that when handing out their weapons and ammunition and explaining the details of their evening’s mission. At 17.17 precisely the train would be equidistant from the two stations furthest apart on their route. That was the prime spot — far away from any possibility of interference. And there were other reasons for waiting until that exact moment, too. This was just one of a series of coordinated events, all planned to take place at the same time. Hussam Hayek and his team didn’t know the details — it was better that way — but they knew they were part of something big.

Like, 9/11 big.

17.13. Hussam glanced at his partner. The kid was sweating too as the movement of the train jolted his thin body rhythmically up and down.

Up and down.

Up and down.

Time check. 17.14. One of the passengers — a pregnant woman who was clearly almost at term — waddled along the aisle and into the toilet. Hussam felt another trickle of sweat down the nape of his neck.

The train jolted.

Up and down.

Up and down.

It brought back a game his father had played with him as a toddler, bouncing him up and down on his knee. His companion glanced at his watch. Hussam did the same. 17.16. One minute to go.

The two men removed the rucksacks from their backs. Hussam fished inside his with his right hand. He felt very comfortable with the weapon that his fingers touched. They’d already spent a long time firing them, as well as practising how to change the magazine swiftly. ‘AKS-74U,’ they’d been told. Hussam knew a little about guns. He knew that these were shortened variants of the standard 74, somewhere between a submachine gun and an assault rifle. Ideal for close-quarters combat, and for keeping concealed. They had probably been made in the old Soviet Union. How they had made the journey from there to the rucksacks of Hussam’s team was anybody’s guess, but it wasn’t important now: they were coming to the end of their lives.

‘You’ll be firing 7.62 shorts. Hard-hitting rounds, thirty-round magazines. You get nine to ten bursts per magazine. Count them. When you pack your weapon, be sure you do it barrel downwards. You don’t want to be rummaging around when the time comes.’

They had nodded, but not said anything, as they followed the advice.