The Prism 2049
public transport, social facilities. There were few jobs, sports facilities or recreation areas.
With the rate of unemployment at its highest level ever in France all the ingredients for an explosion were assembled as riots and pitched battles with police became regular events. Across the country over two hundred such cités were considered no-go zones by the police, places where the instant the police arrived, crowds of violent youths assembled ready to do battle, Molotov cocktails were thrown, ambushes set up, and cars burnt. The scene was set for an explosion of hatred whilst politicians totally out of contact with reality announced ineffectual programmes to rock the Gallo voters into complacency and the gauche caviar preached their pretentious leftist ideas from a safe distance in their bourgeois comfort in the smart districts of Paris.
A Bomb
Ennis chose a café with a good view across Place de la Bastille. He picked up morning newspaper from the rack and settled himself at a table ordering a coffee from the waiter. The headlines announced that late the previous evening the National Marine had seized a ship carrying fifty tons of weapons and ammunition for a terrorist organisation. He was astonished to read ‘the shipment was believed to have been coordinated by the American John Ennis, a suspected terrorist sympathiser, who is currently sought by the police of Algharb on murder charges’.
The report described how a naval commando force seized the ship and its crew, some 100 km off the coast of Algharb. The ship was carrying a variety of weaponry; among them were short and long-range rockets, anti-tank missiles, mortars, mines, explosives and sniper rifles. The Caliphate is undeniably linked to this arms smuggling attempt. Intelligence reports that the Caliphate purchased the ship and was responsible for shipping the arms it to Algharb. The financing of the whole operation was carried out subversively by the Caliphate.
The captain of the ship has been identified as a senior officer in the Caliphate military forces. This attempt confirms the terrorist organisations are intent on carrying out their attacks against Algharb deep within its territory. This smuggling contradicts the agreements between the Nation de France and the Caliphate. Once again it clearly demonstrates that the Caliphate has not intention of respecting international agreements.
If the weapons were to reach the hands of the terrorist organizations it would totally transform the nature of their attacks against Algharb. The seizure has saved the lives of numerous innocent people.
The editorial cried out, ‘We are witnessing the double standards of the Caliphate that is sponsoring a terrorist organisation. The Caliphate and other terrorist states are dedicated to the overthrow of the President bin Ibrani and the instauration of an Islamic state.
On the public TS, Ennis watched the image of le Martel, he had difficulty in hearing what was being said, but it appeared to be a grave declaration. Straining over the noise of the café he heard the word ‘operation’ mentioned several times. Albignac denounced a terrorist complot against the Capital by extremist politico-religious elements that had infiltrated the Paris SRZ. They had planned to destabilise the Nation by terror and chaos through a biological attack creating an epidemic by spreading a deadly filovirus.
He announced to the Nation that the Special Residential Zone in the Capital was at that moment being invested by specialist National Biological Warfare Defence units. A total quarantine was declared and the population of the Temporary Guest Workers SRZ would be immediately evacuated under the responsibility of the National Armed Security Enforcement Brigade.
A state of emergency was declared for the duration of the crisis, but le Martel reassured the country that there was no danger for the population of the capital, a curfew would be declared so that the humanitarian operations could be carried out efficiently.
He declared the SRZ a hotbed of violent radical ideas aimed at destabilising the Nation and that very morning cowardly attacks had been perpetrated by the terrorists against the sanitary and humanitarian services that had gone to the aid of the SRZ population.
His announced the government’s decision to quarantine the population of the SRZ to avoid all risk of contamination. The Zone would be decontaminated and at the end of the quarantine period a vast programme of reconstruction would be undertaken to transform the SRZ. In addition “slum dwellings, inherited from the pre-Restoration period, would be demolished and parks created, new residences would be built to provide worthy accommodation for our Temporary Sojourn Workers, so to make their stay in the Nation an agreeable one for them and us”.
Ennis left the café plunged deep into his thoughts. The situation was becoming too complicated and it was urgent to quit France. He walked towards the Magnotram stop, several people waited. A few metres away were two Guards. A tall dark skinned young man wearing a black leather pilot’s jacket joined the waiting queue next to several teenage girls; he flirted with one of the girls. Ennis could not help thinking that he looked out of place. One of the Guards nodded to the other and the moved forward, they recognised a Zonard.
Ennis looked at the young man, who had also seen the Guards move, it did not seem to worry him. As Ennis watched the scene he locked eyes with the Zonard, he was probably an Arab, his face paled and he seemed to freeze. He had switched off, showing no emotion. Something instinctive told Ennis to move on as he saw the Guards approach. He turned and walked towards the Metro entrance.
As he descended the steps he glanced back, the young man was slowly unbuttoning his jacket, the two Guards were within arms reach, he slipped his hand inside the jacket, there was a blinding flash. The young man was gone, obliterated.
The blast was so intense that it tore limbs from the victims' bodies, scattering body parts across Place de la Bastille, the bomber was vaporised, the two Guards and the teenage girl with him.
Bodies lay everywhere, there was a silence before the screams and the moans started. Twelve people were killed and dozens injured.
Ennis felt some wet on his face, it was blood, he was not hurt. Blood and limbs had been thrown everywhere by the blast. He stepped over a man's left leg, without trousers, but still with a sock on the foot, there was flesh virtually everywhere.
The carnage and destruction was unbelievable. The front of the Magnotram that had just arrived at the moment of the explosion was covered in blood, a passing hydro had its windows blown out, its doors crumpled in.
Ennis wiped his face and hurried towards Line 1. A Metro was waiting with its doors open. It was stopped following the explosion, passengers stood on the platform. They looked at him.
“What’s happened?” a man asked.
“A suicide bombing.”
Who, where, when, the questions came fast and furious. The anger of the Parisians boiled over.
“They should shot!” cried a woman.
“Guillotined!” shouted a man.
Ennis, shocked, was taken to one of the first aid vehicle that was quickly on the scene of the bombing, he was checked over by a young paramedic who offered him a mild sedative that he declined. He pulled himself together wiping the blood from his face and dust from his clothes, he then headed back to the safe house by foot, along rue Charonne, reaching the run-down three story town house that faced the Zone alley some minutes later. There he found Poiget and together they returned into the zone through the maze of ancient underground cellars.
Poiget informed him that the bombing that been perpetrated by a group of freedom fighters led by an Islamist named Jamil Assloum whose goal was to transform France into a multi-ethnic society based on the model of New England in the hope that they could win back their lost rights
The bombings, which spread fear and despair across the Nation, proved to be the deadliest weapon in the terrorist’s arsenal against le Martel’s regime. The bombings and other attacks had already claimed dozens of lives.
That evening they ate in a small café that served couscous and tagine to its Maghribi regulars. They sat at a table in a back corner of the small café, a table for four persons. After eating they ordered cof
fee and a man joined them discretely slipping onto the chair with his back to the doorway.
Poiget introduced him to Ennis. It was Jamil Assloum.
“My friend I am pleased to meet you, Philippe has told me about you. If you need our help just ask me, we shall look after you, inshallah!”
Ennis felt revolt and disgust at the man who had been responsible for the terrible attack, but he was in no position to judge.
“Tell me about your objectives.”
“Our struggle is for a just society, where we can all live together as before.”
“Are you for Algharb?”
“No, we did not want partition, we are French. We are against the fascists, whether they are here in Paris or in Medina Hurriya. Even if we can’t reach our goal to end the Zones and Ethnic Laws and the right to a normal life, we are inflicting losses on the fascists,” he said with a quiet passion. “Le Martel’s regime will have no stability and no security until the Ethnics Laws are abolished. Our heroes that they call ‘suicide bombers’ are the future of our multi-ethnic nation.”
“When I talk to our young men they say, ‘More bombing will deliver us,’ and I cannot disappoint them. They don't have to wait long our moment is at hand.”
Another young man joined them at the table. Assloum introduced him as a Rachid, a