be.’ He could have done with some coffee but it was important to stay in character. He couldn’t afford to give the impression that he was more than a criminal facing a jail term.
The Saudi toyed with his salad of seared tuna niΜoise and looked over Circular Quay towards the Sydney Opera House, which squatted by the water like a huge beetle unfolding its wings. It would have been a superb target, but the area around it was too open, the tourists too spread out, and casualties, even from a large bomb, would be limited. He was sitting in a much better target, logistically and politically. The Hyatt Hotel was at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which spanned the entrance to Circular Quay and was one of the most recognisable structures in the world. A bomb in the hotel’s restaurant on a Sunday lunchtime would kill up to a hundred people, and images of the devastation would be shown round the world, the aftermath of the explosion and, behind it, the bridge. It would be as powerful an image as that of the airliners flying into the Twin Towers in New York.
Hotels were practically the perfect target, the Saudi knew, especially American-owned chains. Embassies were good for shock value, but generally more locals were killed than foreign nationals. Hotels were full of wealthy foreigners. The sort that newspaper editors liked to splash across their front pages. It was the way the world worked. Kill a hundred Pakistanis in Lahore and no one outside the country would care. Kill five hundred Nigerians in Lagos and the world’s newspapers wouldn’t devote more than a few paragraphs to the story. But kill a single American in Sydney and it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the United States, and a breaking story on every television channel.
The Saudi chewed a sliver of tuna, but barely tasted it. A young couple were sitting at a table by the window, drinking cappuccino and discussing whether or not to take one of the guided walking tours across the bridge. They had London accents, and the man was wearing a Chelsea football shirt. A German couple at the next table were drinking a bottle of white wine and encouraging their two young children to eat their pasta. One of the children, a chubby-faced toddler, smiled at the Saudi and waved a fork at him. The Saudi smiled back. He imagined a bomb going off in the middle of the restaurant. The flash of light, the explosion, the shrapnel ripping through bodies, the glass exploding across the walkway and into the blue-green waters of the harbour. Dismembered limbs, blood, entrails, the moans of the injured and dying, the screams of the living. The Saudi didn’t make a habit of visiting the targets he intended to destroy, but sometimes it was too good an opportunity to miss. There was little police presence at the harbour, and he’d seen hardly any CCTV cameras. Not that it mattered. There was nothing to connect him with what was about to happen. By the time the bombs exploded he would already be out of the country. His flight to the United Kingdom left at just before five o’clock in the afternoon but the cell who would carry out the operation wouldn’t arrive for another week. They had all been trained and the explosives and detonators were already in the country, hidden in a self-storage facility in Melbourne.
The Saudi sipped his white wine. He liked Australian wine, especially the whites: it was unpretentious, like the Australian people.
A blonde woman in a beige hijab walked by, a flowing blue coat over her shirt and jeans. A convert after marriage, the Saudi was sure. An Australian, maybe. She was talking into a mobile phone, and laughing. The Saudi hoped there wouldn’t be any Muslims in the vicinity when the bomb went off, but if there were, so be it. There were always casualties in a war, and the jihad was no exception. Hundreds of Muslims had died when the World Trade Center collapsed, but what had happened on that September morning had been a clarion
The Saudi toyed with his salad of seared tuna niΜoise and looked over Circular Quay towards the Sydney Opera House, which squatted by the water like a huge beetle unfolding its wings. It would have been a superb target, but the area around it was too open, the tourists too spread out, and casualties, even from a large bomb, would be limited. He was sitting in a much better target, logistically and politically. The Hyatt Hotel was at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which spanned the entrance to Circular Quay and was one of the most recognisable structures in the world. A bomb in the hotel’s restaurant on a Sunday lunchtime would kill up to a hundred people, and images of the devastation would be shown round the world, the aftermath of the explosion and, behind it, the bridge. It would be as powerful an image as that of the airliners flying into the Twin Towers in New York.
Hotels were practically the perfect target, the Saudi knew, especially American-owned chains. Embassies were good for shock value, but generally more locals were killed than foreign nationals. Hotels were full of wealthy foreigners. The sort that newspaper editors liked to splash across their front pages. It was the way the world worked. Kill a hundred Pakistanis in Lahore and no one outside the country would care. Kill five hundred Nigerians in Lagos and the world’s newspapers wouldn’t devote more than a few paragraphs to the story. But kill a single American in Sydney and it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the United States, and a breaking story on every television channel.
The Saudi chewed a sliver of tuna, but barely tasted it. A young couple were sitting at a table by the window, drinking cappuccino and discussing whether or not to take one of the guided walking tours across the bridge. They had London accents, and the man was wearing a Chelsea football shirt. A German couple at the next table were drinking a bottle of white wine and encouraging their two young children to eat their pasta. One of the children, a chubby-faced toddler, smiled at the Saudi and waved a fork at him. The Saudi smiled back. He imagined a bomb going off in the middle of the restaurant. The flash of light, the explosion, the shrapnel ripping through bodies, the glass exploding across the walkway and into the blue-green waters of the harbour. Dismembered limbs, blood, entrails, the moans of the injured and dying, the screams of the living. The Saudi didn’t make a habit of visiting the targets he intended to destroy, but sometimes it was too good an opportunity to miss. There was little police presence at the harbour, and he’d seen hardly any CCTV cameras. Not that it mattered. There was nothing to connect him with what was about to happen. By the time the bombs exploded he would already be out of the country. His flight to the United Kingdom left at just before five o’clock in the afternoon but the cell who would carry out the operation wouldn’t arrive for another week. They had all been trained and the explosives and detonators were already in the country, hidden in a self-storage facility in Melbourne.
The Saudi sipped his white wine. He liked Australian wine, especially the whites: it was unpretentious, like the Australian people.
A blonde woman in a beige hijab walked by, a flowing blue coat over her shirt and jeans. A convert after marriage, the Saudi was sure. An Australian, maybe. She was talking into a mobile phone, and laughing. The Saudi hoped there wouldn’t be any Muslims in the vicinity when the bomb went off, but if there were, so be it. There were always casualties in a war, and the jihad was no exception. Hundreds of Muslims had died when the World Trade Center collapsed, but what had happened on that September morning had been a clarion
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