Seven Long Steps To Paradise

By John O'Neill

Mark Martin, a young Australian Nuclear Physicist falls hopelessly in love with Naida, a beautiful but innocent and protected Muslim girl. Naida's father strongly objects to the relationship. But the pair is deeply in love, and Mark is told he is to convert to Islam. This isn't a decision Mark takes lightly, but the local Imam teaches him Islamic philosophy to convince him that Islam is what he needs to be with Naida.

Their plan to live together is shattered when two thugs murder Naida because she is a Muslim. Mark is consumed by paralysing revenge. He finds the two thugs and murders them. Now with nothing to live for, Mark agrees to be sent to Afghanistan by the Imam to join a warlord called Sharif Nawaz, whose hidden village is high in the Hindu Kush mountains. Sharif admires Mark, whose Muslim name is now, Ishaq bin Martin, for his contribution to the strategy and tactics of the Mujahedeen.

Under Sharif's guidance, Ishaq becomes a strong, loyal Mujahedeen and a respected member of the group. At a secret meeting with Osama bin Laden, and all the Afghan warlords, Sharif finds himself outrageously excluded from bin Laden's inner circle of trust! Affronted and disrespected and, in a blind rage, he plots revenge. Ishaq recognises that Sharif's retribution must be extreme, to make Sharif the undoubted leader of all the Mujahideen and cause the world to acknowledge Islam as the only religion.

Ishaq constructs a plan to blow up the British House of Lords - with a nuclear bomb, that Sharif regards as bizarre but agrees.

This remarkable story takes the reader through the agony of forbidden love, a clash of cultures, an epic journey, the covert construction of a nuclear device, and the development of a plot that will be disastrous for the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mercadier Publishing
• Release date: Aug 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9780994268471

John O'Neill

About the Author John O’Neill is a retired Naval Commander of the Royal Australian Navy who served most of his time as a Submarine Engineering Officer. Those years provided him with a range of experiences that were at times tense, but mostly of achievement. He served as the Submarine Staff Officer in London during the IRA terrorist days and the build of the remaining Oberon Class Submarines for Australia. Upon retiring from the Navy, he joined the Swedish Submarine builder Kockums to build the Collins Class Submarine in Adelaide South Australia. John holds a master’s degree in Business and Technology from the University of New South Wales. Seven Long Steps To Paradise is John’s third book, the first two being Kafira, and Two Crowns. John was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2009.

Book preview

Prologue

––––––––

Wednesday 11th November 1987

He was woken by an evil-smelling creature pushing its nose into his ear. His involuntary scream shattered the night’s calm and, scuttling backwards, pushed the creature off him only to find his hand punctured by sharp needles. He couldn’t see what it was, and stifling another scream, leapt up and tripped over a log, falling heavily and twisting his right wrist. He was sure his scream had been heard and knew he must move away. But in which direction? There wasn’t enough moonlight for him to see very far in front of him, so he was virtually blind. He had heard that if he kept the sliver of the Moon to his right, he would be travelling northwards, so he must come across a road, but which road? He didn’t know.

***

As the sun rose it warmed his body, but his pounding headache remained, and his wrist hurt. The punctures to his hand were throbbing, and he wondered if there had been poison in the spikes of the creature; whatever it was. His legs were bleeding from scratches caused by the grabbing spiked leaves. Breathing heavily, he thought, I have to keep going and must get to a doctor. He came upon a small clearing and sat down to rest. He thought he was going to vomit, but he didn’t; although the feeling of nausea remained.

They were all dead. All his friends were dead. But he didn’t know what killed them. He was a war fighter; he knew nothing about what went on in the house. His job was to ensure that the people in the house went about their business without being harassed by curious strangers. They had been at the house for three months. Tariq, Sami, Haidar and Mamnon, together with four other people they didn’t know, had been smuggled into Australia on a yacht that picked them up in Pulau Pandjang, a small island off the northeast coast of Indonesia. Tariq was terrified of the water and stayed huddled in the cabin for most of the voyage. They didn’t know where they were going, and they didn’t ask.

***

Tariq had to keep going. He knew he had to see a medical person, but Tariq realised that even if he found the road, he didn’t know in which direction to go to find this person. He knew that the place called Bega would have medical facilities but he didn’t know which way to go; apart from going away from the sea. He dragged himself to his feet and with reference to the sun, set off in a direction he thought was west. It wasn’t. As he struggled through the grabbing undergrowth, he could smell something familiar. Different to the bush surrounding him. He could now feel a breeze on his face, but kept on climbing until at the top of the rise, he saw in front of him - the sparkling sea. The sparkling sea, calm now and quite beautiful, but Tariq could only feel despair. He had walked in a semi-circle! He knew he was nowhere near the road and on his left, he could see a white sandy beach curving away to the right, with rocks in front of him. Seagulls were strutting about oblivious to him as they sensed he was wounded and of no danger to them. He sat on the sand thinking, I am surely going to die. I am lost and beyond help, and put his head in his hands.

The screech of the seagulls made him look up toward the wide beach and there at the end of the curve at the water’s edge, was a person. It looked like he was fishing. He moved back into the bush and watched this person, trying to decide whether to ask him for help. He still felt nauseated, and he was weak. Of course, he wanted help, but he was afraid of the consequences. He was an illegal person in a strange country with no identification. He had fifteen Australian dollars in his pocket, but nothing more. Perhaps more importantly, he was thirsty and hungry, and the sea was tantalising but untouchable. His mouth was so dry that he found it hard to swallow. It would have been different if he entered a hospital or met a doctor; he would be treated as a matter of course. He made a decision and walked unsteadily along the sandy beach to the angler. The fisherman saw him coming and, putting down his rod, rushed to meet him. All Tariq could say was, I need water, in barely understandable English, although it wasn’t needed.

***

Twenty minutes later, Tariq found himself sitting in a moving truck with a water bottle in his hand, and a man smelling of fish, alongside him driving. He was drifting in and out of consciousness as the car drove along the rough country track. It smoothed when they came to a bitumen road where it picked up speed and, within the hour, they were at the Bega Hospital Emergency entrance. They arrived at 08:35 AM.

Part One

The Incident

Saturday 31st October 1987

There was no wild celebration, just a sense of ‘at last,’ The two scientists left on the yacht in the middle of the night and the four Afghani’s, together with the Pakistani technician, were tasked with packing up the equipment and preparing it for removal. Mushtaq left Friday afternoon. If the incident –accident- hadn’t occurred and there had been enough petrol in the truck, they would have been far away in some place that they had never heard of. At the time, they didn’t care either. They just wanted to leave the house. For four months, they had been keeping guard and checking the furtive figures coming and going. They became bored in the first two weeks. Their collective patience wore thin, and didn’t improve as the days, weeks and months went on. Of the original group, Mushtaq, and the scientists were the only ones that Sharif said could come and go as they pleased, and that irritated the Afghanis. They were under strict orders never to go out together, one of them always had to stay in the house. Moreover, the group was told that they shouldn’t be seen in Tathra, the nearest town to the Miller house. A visit to the town of Bega was safe, and it was in Bega that they all developed a distinct liking for Australian beer.

***

The decision to go into Bega on this night, leaving Tariq and the Pakistani at the house was unanimous. The Pakistani never came with them anyway; he was a studious, but colourless person and not much fun. They knew it was forbidden by Islamic law, but at the Bega Hotel, the beer was cheap and significantly better than the sharab plastiki (beer in a plastic bag), the locally made beer back in Afghanistan, besides, three prostitutes in Bega made them feel at home. The Afghanis kept to themselves and never made any trouble. Apart from the fact that they spoke little English, the Australians left them alone at the bar to drink their favourite beer. The locals didn’t pay much attention to the, except for the Bega Post Mistress.

Vera Middleton was sixty-two years old, had never married, and had been the Post Mistress in Bega for nearly forty years. She was able to say to anybody who didn’t ask, that she knew most of the four thousand five hundred people in Bega, and was clearly the source of gossip. She noticed the group when they first came into town and besides thinking they were strangely dressed and scruffy looking, put the sight of them into her mental gossip bag.

***

The night was balmy and started as usual with the three of them enjoying the refreshing, frothy beer until it was time to go to the brothel. Satiated in every sense, they had to get back to the house. Tomorrow they would pack the many boxes ready to be shipped although none of them knew what was in them, except that they had been told it was dangerous. The Pakistani had been left on his own, doing things that only he understood. They were drunk and had taken their shirts off to feel the cool breeze on their bare chests. Tariq said, We must pray, to which the others giggled. But they did perform the Isha,