The Hammer of God

Tom Avitabile The Hammer of God

— BOOK 1 -

The Bug

CHAPTER ONE

Highway To Heaven

The M1 motorway was already a clogged and congested artery in the awakening heart of London this early morning. Amidst the lorries, panel vans, and a host of imported cars, a small Nissan was wedged, nose-to-tail, between two big cement haulers. Inside, its occupants were finally relaxing after a successful night’s work. They even had time to stop along the roadside and unfurl their prayer mats and praise Allah on the occasion of the new day. After the three months of planning and intense training, that led up to last night’s successful completion, Hassad allowed his team this earned respite. This break tempered his instinct to tell Doueed, in the back seat, to lower the volume and hence the tinny racket coming from the ear buds of the young Yemeni’s iPod.

“Are you pleased with our performance?” Amil asked Hassad, who was driving.

“Very smooth, very professional, all of your time in Afghanistan was good training.”

“I am glad you are pleased: maybe you’ll recommend us to another mission. I like the feeling of success.” Amil said.

Hassad let slip a smile but then turned his head with a look of annoyance at Doueed, who didn’t catch his stern eye, as he was bobbing with his head to the beat and staring out at the hideous facades of the council flats and other bad English architecture passing by his rear window. “We started a drip; Allah’s will be done, it will become an ocean.”

Amil, flushed with satisfaction, commented no further because Hassad, their leader, was the only one of them with field experience and so his compliment was like a graduation to him and the rest of this team.

When the “ocean” was amassed, it would be a tsunami more effective and more devastating than any other to have befallen the pompous, arrogant American bastards. An ordained act of retribution for their defying and defiling the kingdom of Allah. From this triggering point forward, they would have to do nothing. The system would ensure the extermination of at least 10 million, maybe 100 million, of the soulless Infidels.

Hassad focused on the glow of the morning sun rising, inhaled and then said, “It is a divine irony…”

Amil turned with amazement because Hassad never spoke without first having been prompted.

The leader continued, “The people of the West love their systems; they place their trust in numbers, science, and manmade laws. Soon they would be humbled and learn that a man should only place his trust in Allah.” He looked to Doueed in the rear view mirror, “Doueed! Turn that thing down!” He barked trying to penetrate the headphones, then continued in the somber voice of an Imam at a funeral, “Only the Koran speaks for God, through the laws of Muhammad himself. Solely through Islam lay the one path to God and the glory of his kingdom. All other roads are destined to destruction at the hands of Allah.”

Those in the car nodded in reverence and deep belief. Hassad knew the hand of God had guided them this night, even when, as in this case, Allah was surely working through the unworthy hands of Hassad Baracus.

Now that their mission was complete, all that remained was for Hassad and his team to wait a few days, and then, one by one, innocently leave Britain headed for various “friendly” regimes. In two weeks time, they would all meet in the Sudan, secure in the knowledge that no one in the world would be any the wiser about their part in the mission. Their safe house, the London home of a true believer, proved to be the perfect base for their operation. Their host, not knowing their actual mission, believed them to be students on a spiritual quest with the local Sheik from a Knightsbridge mosque.

In total, the plan was perfection. Allah be praised!