Nexus - 0221 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Carefully placing his left foot up on the low table and cocking the Heckler & Koch with his left hand, he wound his left arm firmly through the sling to steady the weapon, then pressed the fire selec- tor down to semi-automatic with his right thumb, Next, Mike- Alpha-Delta-3 rested the weapon alongside his left knee and took up the slack on the sling to reduce recoil effect. Because he was fir- . ing a long way back from the window to avoid detection, there was only a limited field of fire but he knew the killing-zone by heart. Looking through the scope and studying the area, Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 moved the weapon slightly until he could see the exact killing-zone and a small part of the inner pavement and central gar- dens. Breathing slowly and steadily, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 waited for the two quick flashes of light that would tell him the selected target was just about to enter the killing-zone. It was not up-to Mike- Alpha-Delta-3 to pick random targets: that job was reserved for his special operations controller. A helmeted man in a blue uniform walked straight through the cross-hairs of his telescopic sight, but Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 ignored him. Then there were two brief flash- es of brilliant white light in the upper left quadrant of the scope, and his finger automatically took up the first pressure on the Heckler & Koch's trigger. One second later, a slim, blond woman walked slowly into the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3's eyes showed no emotion, his strict code of conduct completely destroyed by covert conditioning: the target had to die to protect true democracy for the world as a whole. His tigger-finger a blur, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 fired three aimed shots so fast, the muzzle blasts blended into a single cacophony of sound that echoed round the square. The first bullet hit the woman in the stomach and she doubled over, her hat flying into the gutter, while the second and third bullets exploded on the inner pavement, hurl- ing shrapnel into the small crowd of demonstrators. Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 placed his weapon back on the table and watched briefly as a television cameraman rushed in to film the woman rolling on the ground in agony. She was already dying as Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 tumed swiftly away from the table and removed his balaclava. Then, as he walked downstairs and closed the back door of 8 St James Square softly behind him, the carefully precalculated media. hype started in earnest: "This is an urgent news flash. Minutes ago, shots rang out from the Libyan People's Bureau at No. 5 St James Square..." And so it was that Julia Long achieved her objective of creating intense public anger by staging an obscene mission that shocked the British public. As the news flashed round the country, millions were outraged by the slaughter in St James Square, their perception of the Libyans forcibly distorted for all time. Less than 24 months later, US F-111 bombers took off from British bases and headed south to destroy the “terrorists” responsible, and their wives and children. With the British media pack in full cry, the American bombers launched a premeditated attack on the civilian populations of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya, and special operations scored a small personal bonus—a token sacrifice for true democracy for the world as a whole. Colonel Al Qadhafi's fifteen-month-old daughter Hannah was murdered by a monstrous 2,000-pound laser bomb, guided unerringly to its tiny target by an American F-111 bomber. Listening to the news on the radio, Julia Long nodded approvingly as she lit a cigarette, before turning triumphantly to her two Marine Special Operations technicians. “That should teach the terrorist sonofabitch a lesson, huh?" eo 28¢NEXUS Continued from page 27 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1994