Read Online A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sebastian Faulks
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fiction - General, Christmas stories, London (England), English Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors
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and fizzed across his cortex.
Fetching his laptop from the window seat, Finn went to the Dream Team website to see how his virtual eleven were doing. He had read good reports online of a new Polish striker, Tadeusz 'Spike' Borowski, who had just joined one of the big London clubs, and wanted to register him before his price became prohibitive.
One of his strikers had suffered a knee injury in the first match of the season, and although he was back in action he seemed to have lost his edge. This guy Borowski looked quick and lethal - like Carlton King with a first touch, the Buyers' Guide said, or Gary Fowler with an IQ.
Finn dragged the names of players from his subs' bench on to the numbered icon on the pitch. It was time for a major rethink, a shake-up before the January window. The best players in his shadow team came from clubs that in reality he detested. When he watched Arsenal or Liverpool, he naturally wanted them to be whipped by the Turks or the Spanish in Europe; yet without the steady income of virtual points from their star players, his fantasy eleven would have dropped to Division Two of the Dream Team league.
Finn closed his eyes for a moment as Shanghai Radio Gang sang the dreamy, robotic start to 'People of the New Frontier' before the Alternative smash-and-grab began. The skunk had sharpened his deep appreciation of the sound. The synapses in his brain were charged with electronic joy and solitude. He fell asleep, leaning back against the bed, his face adopting the seraphic look his mother had so loved when he was two or three years old, watched over in his cot by toy bears and monkeys.
In the background, now unseen by him, the first night at the Barking Bungalow was being played out on the plasma screen.
Somebody was crying.
Two
Monday, December 17
I
At about nine o'clock, after the morning rush had subsided, Hassan al-Rashid took the Piccadilly Line to Manor House. He had received an address on a piece of paper sent from Salim, the head of his group, Muslim Youth Coalition, which was based in Bethnal Green. Salim believed the post was a safer way of contacting the members of the cell than e-mail. 'You might just as well write a letter to the local newspaper,' he told them. 'The spooks intercept all that stuff. Also, they can get your computer IP number from the websites you visit and they can track down your phone line and then your address, so if any of you have visited jihadist sites you'd better ditch your hard drive right now. If that means getting a new computer that stays completely clean, so be it. I have funds. I'll show you how to get rid of the old one.'
Following Salim's instructions, Hassan first downloaded some software called Drive+Nuke and selected 'Total' from the 'Level of Erasure' menu. He then took a hammer to the casing of his computer and extracted the hard disk. Rather to his surprise, it really was a disc, like a shiny CD and about the same size. In his father's shed he mixed fine-powdered iron oxide and aluminium, both of which he had taken from the lab at college, poured them through a funnel into an empty drinks can, then stuck a magnesium strip in the top. He took this, along with the hard drive, up on to the common at night, put the can on the disk, lit the magnesium strip and retreated. The drive was eliminated, as was the earth to a depth of more than a foot below it. Thermite, Salim told them, could reach a temperature of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hassan kicked some loose earth over the hole in the ground and made for home. Salim certainly didn't like to take chances.
His new machine, unfouled by Internet and e-mail history, remained in its box for a week. He couldn't find any legitimate use for it. Eventually, he thought he'd better download some songs, go on YourPlace or do a few of the things young people were supposed to do, so that if the police did come calling it would look normal. YourPlace was one of the most boring things he had ever seen. Pictures of
Fetching his laptop from the window seat, Finn went to the Dream Team website to see how his virtual eleven were doing. He had read good reports online of a new Polish striker, Tadeusz 'Spike' Borowski, who had just joined one of the big London clubs, and wanted to register him before his price became prohibitive.
One of his strikers had suffered a knee injury in the first match of the season, and although he was back in action he seemed to have lost his edge. This guy Borowski looked quick and lethal - like Carlton King with a first touch, the Buyers' Guide said, or Gary Fowler with an IQ.
Finn dragged the names of players from his subs' bench on to the numbered icon on the pitch. It was time for a major rethink, a shake-up before the January window. The best players in his shadow team came from clubs that in reality he detested. When he watched Arsenal or Liverpool, he naturally wanted them to be whipped by the Turks or the Spanish in Europe; yet without the steady income of virtual points from their star players, his fantasy eleven would have dropped to Division Two of the Dream Team league.
Finn closed his eyes for a moment as Shanghai Radio Gang sang the dreamy, robotic start to 'People of the New Frontier' before the Alternative smash-and-grab began. The skunk had sharpened his deep appreciation of the sound. The synapses in his brain were charged with electronic joy and solitude. He fell asleep, leaning back against the bed, his face adopting the seraphic look his mother had so loved when he was two or three years old, watched over in his cot by toy bears and monkeys.
In the background, now unseen by him, the first night at the Barking Bungalow was being played out on the plasma screen.
Somebody was crying.
Two
Monday, December 17
I
At about nine o'clock, after the morning rush had subsided, Hassan al-Rashid took the Piccadilly Line to Manor House. He had received an address on a piece of paper sent from Salim, the head of his group, Muslim Youth Coalition, which was based in Bethnal Green. Salim believed the post was a safer way of contacting the members of the cell than e-mail. 'You might just as well write a letter to the local newspaper,' he told them. 'The spooks intercept all that stuff. Also, they can get your computer IP number from the websites you visit and they can track down your phone line and then your address, so if any of you have visited jihadist sites you'd better ditch your hard drive right now. If that means getting a new computer that stays completely clean, so be it. I have funds. I'll show you how to get rid of the old one.'
Following Salim's instructions, Hassan first downloaded some software called Drive+Nuke and selected 'Total' from the 'Level of Erasure' menu. He then took a hammer to the casing of his computer and extracted the hard disk. Rather to his surprise, it really was a disc, like a shiny CD and about the same size. In his father's shed he mixed fine-powdered iron oxide and aluminium, both of which he had taken from the lab at college, poured them through a funnel into an empty drinks can, then stuck a magnesium strip in the top. He took this, along with the hard drive, up on to the common at night, put the can on the disk, lit the magnesium strip and retreated. The drive was eliminated, as was the earth to a depth of more than a foot below it. Thermite, Salim told them, could reach a temperature of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hassan kicked some loose earth over the hole in the ground and made for home. Salim certainly didn't like to take chances.
His new machine, unfouled by Internet and e-mail history, remained in its box for a week. He couldn't find any legitimate use for it. Eventually, he thought he'd better download some songs, go on YourPlace or do a few of the things young people were supposed to do, so that if the police did come calling it would look normal. YourPlace was one of the most boring things he had ever seen. Pictures of
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