No One Takes My Child

Chapter 3

Half an hour earlier they had waited for the traffic light to turn green. The five men were squeezed inside an old Mini Minor, facing southwest on Via Pinciana and listening to a recording of Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Khalil. All the windows were closed and his impassioned voice filled the pockets of empty space between them. 

‘The Prophet, peace be upon him, ordered believers to take the initiative, saying, “Kill the idolaters wherever you find them.” To “Fight those who do not believe in God” is a fard al-kifaya, a duty for all believers.’

The light turned green and the driver moved the tiny car forward, alongside the grey walls of the Villa Borghese Gardens, the second largest public park in Rome. Behind them was another Mini, with another five men, listening to the same recording.

‘These verses from the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, praise jihad. The entire history of Islam is full of jihad, so the heart of every Muslim must reject the explanation that jihad is a temporary injunction concerned only with the defense of its borders, but instead a fight against all the polytheists, wherever we find them.’

The driver stopped the cassette. This had been a long war and he was tired. That would end today. Up ahead, where the high walls stopped and a wrought-iron fence began, was the entrance to the gardens. There was a gate, closed to traffic, but large enough to allow pedestrians and perhaps a very small vehicle. 

It was time. 

‘Allahu Akbar.’ God is greatest.

The driver yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. A pedestrian screamed. Her dogs barked. Someone blasted a car horn and the two Mini Minors shot up across the pavement and through the gate, then down the path. The passengers watched as trees and statues flew past their windows. 

Ahyad was in the second car. He was the youngest of the group and all the confidence that he showed at the training camp was draining out of him now. 

The others pulled their balaclavas over their heads and adjusted them until their vision was clear. Ahyad did the same. It dawned on him that his cheeks would never see the sunlight again.

The two vehicles split up, one taking a left, the other a right, flying up the avenues between the gardens and fountains. The men lifted their Kalashnikov assault rifles from the floor and made sure everyone was ready. 

The Galleria Borghese, an imposing, weathered-white sixteenth-century mansion surrounded by English gardens and old Roman sculptures drew hundreds of tourists, who today dotted the forecourt like pigeons. And like pigeons they scattered when the first vehicle careered across the plaza and halted in front of the small entrance into the museum’s basement. 

The five men leapt from the car and ran down the stairs to the services and amenities level. Ahyad was fourth into the building, his hands frozen to his weapon. To his right, tickets and information, to the left, a cloakroom. People began screaming and the gunfire began. The mechanical cracks filled the lower level like the sounds of hail on a car roof. Two of the others had already split from the group, heading straight for the security station. They burst into the room, firing quickly. Two guards fell and the third raised his hands high in defensive impulse.

‘Stop the cameras!’ the first gunman screamed. The guard scrambled back to the desk, punching things into the keyboard until the screens went blank. Then they opened fire again.

The second Mini had gone to the back of the building. The other five men leapt out and one ran to a sealed back entrance. He attached a homemade plastic explosive to it, flicked a switch and ran back to the group as it blasted the door open. The men ran in through the smoke to the ground floor of the gallery. Stunned tourists began to run as the men opened fire indiscriminately. People ran from room to room, and through the Entrance Hall to the main front entrance, down the steps and out into the courtyard. The five men followed until they had shot or herded everyone from the ground floor of the building. Then they shut the main gates and locked themselves in.

Back in the basement, the other team of five had reached the elaborate spiral staircase and was running up it to the first floor, which is the third and final level of public access. Here, rather than shooting, they began screaming.

‘On the floor! Get on the floor!’

Visitors tried to hide behind sculptures and in some of the smaller rooms, but as they did, they were shot in the back. The gunmen then went from doorway to doorway, gathering people from where they lay face down on the floor. 

‘We’ve found him!’ Ahyad heard someone shout in Arabic. 

While he and two others began amassing the hostages in room fourteen, the Gallery of Lanfranco, three of the men from the ground-floor team arrived on the first floor, and they went through to room nine, the Florentine School. By the door stood one of their brothers, and another in the center. At his feet was Cardinal Alfredo Felici of Vatican City, still reeling from the recent blow of a rifle butt.

Surrounded by great works of religious art — Raphael’s The Deposition, Perugino’s Madonna with Child — the young Islamic extremist knelt down next to the bleeding Father, sprawled on the floor in his black cassock and scarlet fascia, and whispered in his ear. ‘Before the sun sets today you will declare before the world the Shahadah. There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet.’