Disgusted at his son’s obsequious behaviour in the face of infidels, Jamal’s father sat up from his death bed and, wielding an ornamental curved sword, a saif, flailed at the lead soldier screaming “Alahu Akbar”.

Gunfire erupted in the small enclosure and in seconds the old man, his wife and all three children were riddled with bullets. When the Taliban returned to the compound, only Jamal and two others were alive, and then only barely.

Jamal’s rich sponsor sent the boy to Saudi for treatment, and when he returned ready to take up arms he was trained and sent back to the USA to study.

For the summer of 2001 Jamal was appointed as an unpaid intern for Galliard-Delaney, the contractors responsible for maintaining the fire protection services in the World Trade Centre, where he made it his business to copy and distribute every drawing, sketch and specification he could find on the twin structures to his sponsor back in the Middle East.

Since 2001 Jamal had been constantly on the move, but he was often caught on camera in locations where individuals had been assassinated to order.

***

Sister Margaret Rose was entertaining the visitors with the story of Pueblo the Catholic donkey when she noticed Jamal crossing the Apse and heading to the door leading to the nuns’ accommodations. She knew that she had to act. She quickly delivered the humorous punch line to the story and excused herself, her right hand slipping deep into her left sleeve as she moved to the door just feet behind Jamal.

***

Jamal had a pretty good idea where the traitor Hasan Yasin would be hiding. The Fatwah for the blasphemous author had been issued in Iran almost a year ago, and Jamal knew that the successful assassin would reap rich spiritual and monetary rewards. His leaders knew where Jamal was and what he was doing, and he carried their blessings with him.

From Muslim to Catholic: One Easy Step had been a New York Times and worldwide bestseller. Tracing one man’s conversion, the book belittled Islam and its Prophet, alleging that Islam was not a religion of love. Worse still was the author’s use of humour when referring to some of Islam’s most sacred texts. Hasan Yasin could not be allowed to profit from his blasphemy, and Jamal would ensure that he did not.

Jamal stood outside the library and took out his Sig Sauer P250 handgun. The polymer handgrip felt comfortable in his hand. He fired one shot into the door lock and then reached forward to push open the door. In the library he saw Yasin cowering behind a nun. Sister Angelica looked calm and serene and ready to die for her sanctuary seeker.

***

Sister Margaret Rose hated handguns. She was an expert in their use but they were notoriously inaccurate, prone to jamming and were just tools. Rifles, however, were a different matter entirely. They weren’t tools, they were works of art. When asked whether she could place a round in a victim’s heart from five hundred yards she didn’t say yes, she asked which ventricle. That was a real gun. Nonetheless, she could not use a rifle this time. It had to be a handgun, and so she slipped the safety off her Austrian made Glock 19. Over the last five days, since its arrival in the diplomatic pouch, she had assembled, disasssembled and cleaned the gun no fewer than seven times. She couldn’t afford any failures on this assignment, hence the choice of the old school but reliable Glock.

She had already kicked off her flat shoes and was now following Jamal in bare feet and in silence. Despite the warmth in the air, the stone flags beneath her feet were cold to the touch. She liked the feeling. As she rounded the curve in the dormitory block she heard a shot and then a shout. As he came into her view, Sister Margaret Rose saw Jamal pointing his handgun into the library and ordering a nun to step aside or die.

Sister Margaret Rose did some shouting of her own.

“Drop the gun, Jamal, or I WILL fire.”

They were less than twenty feet apart when Jamal turned his head to see what was happening in the corridor. He almost smiled at the comical nature of the scene before him. He saw a barefoot nun holding out what appeared to be an old Glock pistol in target shooting stance. The nun was standing in profile to him with her right hand, her gun hand, extended and her left hand on her hip for stability. Her head was turned at ninety degrees and she was looking down the barrel of her gun.

She looked to all intents and purposes like a dedicated amateur, but he could not be sure. Why was she not adopting the double handed grip, so beloved of police movies? Why wasn’t she crouching to make herself a smaller target? These thoughts took barely a fraction of a second to process as he instinctively spun in the nun’s direction, the Sig Sauer P250 gripped tightly in his right hand and cupped in his left hand. As he completed the turn his finger found the trigger.

***

Sister Margaret Rose’s view on life was quite different from those of her counterparts in the service. True, there was a time for a two handed grip and for a crouch, but anyone issuing a warning in such circumstances would require the protection of body armour because, no matter how low a person could crouch, the chest makes a big target.

Despite the ‘blow back’ or recoil from her own weapon, she was quite happy standing upright, offering a slimmer target, knowing that any opponent would have to go for her head if he wanted a kill shot and that was a near impossibility whilst turning ninety degrees, aiming and firing in one smooth movement.

The Sister was not surprised that, despite being faced by a nun with a gun, Jamal reacted instantly, and so she waited for him to turn. In a second he was facing her and squeezing the trigger, but he was too late. She had anticipated her shot and had aimed at the point where his chest would be when he had fully positioned himself. Another advantage of the target shooting stance, she thought.

Jamal fell back under the impact of the shot to his chest, his trigger finger tensing and sending a round high and wide into the stonework a metre in front of the nun and way above her head.

As he fell backwards a second carefully placed round found exactly the same spot, but now that spot was occupied by Jamal’s lower jaw, and the nine millimetre round entered just between the jawbone and the chin, passing through his tongue and the roof of his mouth before destroying his ear canal and exiting through his skull just above his ear. By sheer good fortune, the 9mm parabellum grazed his brain without inflicting a fatal blow.

Jamal fell to the floor, his gun skittering loudly across the well scrubbed stone floor. Sister Margaret Rose walked slowly towards him, keeping her gun trained on him the whole time. The would be assassin was lying on his back, eyes open, fear of dying written on his face. His body went into a series of massive spasms which lifted his body from the ground. Brain damage, the Sister thought to herself.

“Sister Margaret Rose, that is enough. There will be no cold blooded killing in God’s house.”

If she was being honest, the nun with the gun would probably have put one more slug into his head if she had not been interrupted, more out of mercy than out of any need to protect herself. Instead she stepped over the dying man and retrieved his gun. Sister Angelica was already kneeling over the failing terrorist, holding his hand and speaking calmly as she promised him that he would soon see his God and he would be released from his mortal anguish.

Sister Margaret Rose watched in stunned amazement as Sister Angelica placed he hand gently on Jamal’s forehead and whispered;

“Your mother and sisters are waiting for you.” On hearing the words, Jamal stopped shaking, his body relaxed and the fear that had shown in his eyes disappeared. His brown eyes widened, softened and teared up. Five minutes later he was pronounced dead by the paramedics.