M kicked the soccer ball high into the air. As it sailed across, it suddenly bent from its trajectory and found its way into the goal, at the top right corner. The little boy, his son, came rushing towards him, “Fantastic goal, dad”. Kicking the ball with his 10-year-old son every evening had become a ritual for M. He picked up the boy, threw him up in the air and caught him on his way down, the boy squealing in delight.
The boy was soccer crazy. He would sleep with a soccer ball next to him. His hero was Lionel Messi, the Argentinian footballer. His bedroom wall was covered, from top to bottom, with Messi posters. He was fairly good at playing soccer.
M was a security guard at the sports stadium in the city. The modern stadium, with a capacity to hold about 80,000 people, was built when the city had hosted its Olympics Games. His job was crowd control and general security duties.
As they were finishing the game, M saw the black car cruising slowly and stopped not too far from them. A man got out and whistled to M. M walked up to him. The man said, “Are you ready for the fishing trip on Friday?”. He was M’s best friend. M nodded his head and then they split up.
M’s wife noticed that M had come back a changed man after his recent holidays alone. He had become an introvert, which was very unlike him. He would spend considerable amount of time surfing the net. He had grown aloof from his friends and was taking great interest in reading books. He was still friendly with his son though, his pride and joy. M’s wife sensed that there was something wrong with him. Their physical intimacy, in the bedroom, was on the decline.
“Dad” asked the son, at the dinner table, “Are we going to the soccer match on Sunday?”. He was eagerly looking forward to it ever since he came to know that his idol, Messi, would be playing in an exhibition match against the national team in the stadium.
“Not this time son. I have work to do on Sunday at the stadium”, said M.
“Why can’t you take me with you, then?” Shot back the son. M said nothing. The silence meant that it was not going to happen. The boy sulked, got up from the unfinished dinner and ran into his bedroom, closing the door shut after him with a bang.
On Friday evening, M left home in a taxi, with his fishing rods and a duffel bag packed with his clothes for the overnight stay. “I’ll be back on Sunday morning” he said to his wife, on his way out, without even looking at her.
The taxi deposited him in an unlit cul-de-sac in the next suburb. He waited patiently as instructed. A couple of minutes later, a battered car pulled up near where he stood. The car door opened for him. He jumped into the back seat and sat next to his friend. There was another man in the back seat. He threw a thick black bag over M’s head and the car sped away quickly.
The drive was long, about an hour, and it sounded to M that they were travelling on the motorway. Suddenly, they were are on a dirt track judging by the bumpy ride. After another hour of driving, the car stopped.
M was pulled out of the car and taken by foot into the woods. Finally, when the bag was taken off his head, he found himself standing inside a cave. There was a bunch of men before him, all wearing balaclavas. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, asked M, “Are you committed to the cause?”.
“Yes, Boss”, M replied confidently. His friend had told him to address the leader as the “Boss”.
Boss snapped his fingers for everyone to leave the room except for M. He grilled M for a long time with tough questions and finally appeared to be satisfied. He got up, shook M’s hand and pointing to a door said, “Go through that door. Best of luck”. M opened and passed through the door into another room.
On the table, was the “bomb” as large as a 20-kg potato bag and there were three hooded guys huddled over it.
One was soldering wires and the other was inserting a microchip in a circuit board. The third guy shoved a paper towards M and growled, “Study the circuit diagram”.
M was now the lynchpin in a terrorist group’s plot to blow up the stadium during Messi’s soccer match on Sunday.
The bomb team trained M in all aspects of setting up and detonating the bomb which used a remote control. The training finished quite late into the night after which all of the men retired to sleep in bunkbeds. The training continued the next day. M had now been fully trained to do the devil’s work.
On Sunday morning, when he woke up, he found that the bomb had already been loaded in the back of a van, in a timber crate. The bomb team, still in their masks, slapped M on his back, wished him well and disappeared into the bowels of the cave.
M threw his fishing gear and duffel bag in the back of the van & climbed into the driver’s seat. He set the car navigation system and drove off. After some length of driving, he decided to pull over into a roadside Macca’s to change over into his stadium security office uniform.
In Macca’s toilet, as he was rummaging through his duffel bag to get his uniform out, panic struck him. A string of sweat beads formed on his forehead. He hadn’t packed his uniform!. His ID card and access cards were still at home. He rushed back to his van. He had been ordered to drive straight to the stadium with the bomb!. Now, he had to go home to pick up his uniform. Should he inform the Boss? But there was no way to contact him. He declined against contacting anyone and decided to go home to get into his uniform.
He stepped on the gas to gain the time lost, constantly reminding himself not to commit any traffic offence and be detained by the highway patrol police.
He reached home safely relieved he had enough time to carry on with the plan. He barged into his bedroom, threw on his uniform and knocked on his son’s bedroom and said, “When I get back, I promise to take you to your favourite ice cream parlour” and rushed out.
Soon, M was driving past the stadium car park boom gate. The plan was working like clockwork. He arrived at the designated car spot which he had blocked off earlier. He removed the barriers and drove the van in and parked it carefully. The car park position was deliberately picked so as to cause the maximum damage when the bomb exploded. He opened the van’s back door, reached into the open crate and plugged in the jumper wires of the bomb. The bomb was now set. He closed the doors.
He ran towards the cloak room which was at a safe distance from the impending explosion. He had deactivated a number of CCTV cameras along the way, the previous day, so that he would not be caught on camera. He entered the cloak room to find his camera, that he had perfectly positioned the previous day, on the tripod, to film the explosion. Boss had wanted to have the explosion recorded for propaganda material.
He took out the small remote out of his pocket and pressed the red button. He immediately threw it into the toilet and flushed it away. 15 seconds to explosion. He approached the camera and focussed the lens to take in the complete view. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 …. The countdown had begun.
At this point, his heart skipped a beat when he saw the back door of the van open slowly, a head poke out and then the little body stood in the doorway.
It was his son, wearing Messi’s blue and white No 10 jersey. The little lad was desperate to see his hero Messi, in action!
A searing pain shot through M’s heart. He clutched at his chest and screamed loudly but no sound came out of his mouth. M crumbled to the ground in a heap and felt life ebbing away from him.
….9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 BOOM!
The massive explosion threw the van up in the air with the little boy in it. A huge part of the stadium collapsed. The heat was unbearable.
The camera kept on rolling.
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