Accountable

He took the mountain bike, the Bergen containing the jammer, camera and tripod and the rifle case from the back of the vehicle. It took him only ten minutes to reach the hill side. He hid the bike in the dense undergrowth and with the Bergen and the rifle case on his back; he crawled up to the position from where he would take his shot. He put an old camouflage hat on his head to hide his light blond hair. His first move was to set up the video camera on his tripod and zoomed it in on the entrance of the hospital, allowing a wide enough angle to encompass the spot where his bullet would strike. Satisfied with that, he took the Barrett out of its case and unfolded the bipod. He sighted the scope and found himself a comfortable position behind the rifle. He then took the jammer out of the Bergen and placed it slightly to the right of him, in a position where he could activate it the moment he had taken his shot and could set the timer on the destruction device at the same time. It was now close to one o’clock, so he had at least another hour to wait. He continuously scanned the front of the hospital through the scope. There were two police officers at the entrance, together with a member of the hospital staff, directing visitors to the entrance of A&E about 50 metres to the right of the main entrance. Down the bottom of the road leading up to the main entrance a police vehicle was parked, the single officer inside the vehicle seemed to be pretty bored with his non existing task as he was yawning on a regular basis. It amazed Pieter how lax the security was at events where it was in the control of the Police, not only here but he had seen the same in various other parts of the world. It was his firm opinion that security should only be taken serious when it was conducted by the armed forces or the security services. For what he was about to do he was more than happy that the Police seemed to be in charge here. Of course the PM would be accompanied by members of the ministerial protection squad, but they would be just as confused as the Police once the jammer had disrupted their communications. Now it was a matter of patience for Pieter, which he had in abundance, being used to stalk wild animals whilst working as a guide for safari customers on his estate in his native country. It was not until about twenty minutes to two o’clock when he noticed some activity at the entrance of the hospital. From the main car park a group of people walked up, several of them carrying cameras and film equipment, obviously journalists there to record the arrival of the PM and the following ceremony. Pieter thought to himself; “They will be recording more than they would have bargained for”, and sniggered. The next activity he noticed was the arrival of two Police motor bikes. They blocked of the road from the left of the entrance to the hospital. Immediately a queue was forming from vehicles that had been stopped. It was only a minute later that two vehicles swept onto the drive towards the entrance of the hospital. Both vehicles were Jaguars. The first one drew up just past the entrance and two men in civilian clothes got out and walked back to the second vehicle. One of them opened the rear passenger door and the PM got out of the vehicle. The other one just seemed to watch the people lining the way to the entrance, most of them nursing staff and hospital managers. To the right side of the entrance the journalists had congregated and Pieter could see cameras flashing and film crews doing their thing. He switched on the video camera and slowly aimed his rifle at the spot to the left of the entrance and after taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling, he pulled the trigger. He watched a big chunk of concrete come out of the wall where he had aimed his shot and for a second saw the pandemonium evolve as result of what had happened. He switched on the jammer, set the timer for the destruction device. He folded the camera tripod and placed it together with the camera in the Bergen. He then put the rifle back in its case. It took him less than a minute before he was on his bike with the Bergen and the rifle case on his back, racing down the track to where the Land Rover was hidden in the trees. For one moment when he had had the PM in the cross hairs, he thought how satisfying it would be to blow the hypocrite’s head off. Exactly ten minutes after the shot, he had the bike, Bergen and rifle case in the back of the vehicle and drove away towards the meeting point with John near Petersfield.