THE BLOODSTAINED BRACELETS

BLACK DIAMOND

December 18,2009.

United Arab Emirates

Black diamond hospital , like many other hospitals was a place where innocence was overstretched , I noticed this on my first ever visit to the hospital , it was one of those clinics where everyone was considered either too weak or sick to cause harm and those who are not , are considered too worried or aggrieved to actively seek to cause harm , this is despite the fact that they serve a very Cosmopolitan clientele dominated by very rich black Africans.

I had enough time to plan; for I was in no hurry , there was no need for that heralder of mistakes and miscalculations , I was the type to plan carefully and execute even more carefully , my time at the MM castle in jos ,the Abubakar fortress in the Federal capital territory and various other places had already cemented that.

It was well secured if I'm going to be honest but it's security was far from being watertight, not something to stop anyone with a firm resolve and some brainpower.

It was a very large hospital and a quite chaotic one at that , for this i was tremendously grateful , for blending in among the health workers in this kind of hospital was like the easiest part of the job , no body knew everyone else and that was exactly the catch, it was easy to mention some far part of the hospital to any nurse or doctor asking and that would be the end of the conversation.

I had only one problem here , even though I knew luck was enough to make the scheme successful , I was not one to trust a two edged sword with something that vital , I needed to know exactly where each unit of the hospital was located , the internal mechanism of running the hospital , the staff strength and a number of other things .

Much of the information I needed was already lying in waiting for me on the hospital's website , it had about 250 medical doctors , about 1000 nurses and about 200 pharmacists and allied health workers .

The most critical missing part was the distribution of the hospital's departments and units .

I looked up the most popular architects in the united arab emirate and spoke to each of them under the guise of wanting to build a mega hospital , I would then ask for the samples of hospitals the architects had already planned, this streamlined my visit and cut down the time spent drastically.

The first architect , an Israeli national was a muscularly built man with powerfully intense blue eyes that gave you the impression that his eyes were boring through you , apart from that he was quite warm .

His resume was quite impressive except that he wasn't the one who designed black diamond hospital , he had however designed a number of impressive hospitals , we exchanged complimentary cards while I promised to call .

I found what I was looking for on my third visit, this was to an Indian architect with a very fleshy face and a rather supple red skin , Mr. Aditya Singh.

He was one of those men whose politeness was almost too much offering me a cup of Indian chai which although spicy tasted very excellent.

As I mentioned my intentions of building a mega hospital he went on a confession spree immediately , " Do you know that I built black diamond hospital in Abu Dhabi" , I felt like asking him to bring me the hospital's plan right away,I however decided against that and instead asked him if he had designed any other hospital apart from the black diamond ,the older man was somewhat taken aback by my aparent lack of enthusiasm but he continued anyway , the " Qalam children hospital in the emirate of Sharjah " , " Fatimah hospital in Dubaii as well " , he paused after this as if waiting for me to digest his words .

"Let me see the plans of all three hospitals" , I said in a well rehearsed British accent , Mr Singh most likely thought I had no idea what and where the Black diamond hospital was , thus he brought its plan first and together we went over it .

He made sure I understood how grand the BDH was and how it was the most architecturally grand structure in the entire health sector of the UAE , I made sure to give the impression of someone who had no idea how enormous the hospital was , his boasting wrapped carefully around advertisement made it very easy for me to go deeply into the details of the building , I paid rapt attention even though my spy camera captured everything .

We checked the plans of the remaining two hospitals , Mr Singh was much less enthusiastic now and I did the most of the talking asking various questions about structures I had absolutely zero interest in , once we were done , I promised to get in touch and with this the second part of my plan fell in place .

The third part of the plan was a little more tricky and as a matter of fact , I spent days pondering about it , it involved my actual entry into the hospital and the attendant performance of my duty .

After a few days , I finally devised a method , there were no assurances in things like this but meticulous planning is usually a game changer.

On the day I had chosen for the task , it was the hospital's outpatient day , there was quite a tumult of people around the hospital on this day and this was one of the reasons why I had chosen it .

I walked into the hospital in a charcoal dark burqa , it was very uncomfortable but it did its job quite alright , I also glazed my skin with some makeup to appear considerably lighter while also dyeing parts of my beard white , I looked into the mirror and almost couldn't recognize myself anymore , proof of a perfectly done work .

I went into the general outpatient clinic where I was told to pay and get my hospital card , I promptly paid with my card and typed my PIN in , I had no fears regarding the fingerprints since I wore gloves .

The nurse on duty asked for my name , " zaynab zubair " I said without much of a thought , seeing there was a number of patients on ground and the nurse almost couldn't wait to be done with me , I thus seized the opportunity and asked to use the restroom , I was promptly directed there .

Once in the restroom , I went towards the other end of the clinic which housed both accident and emergency units and the ICU,it was quite easy to loiter around without being noticed since there were quite a number of people around .

And once darkness drew in , I braced myself for what was to come , i walked into the A and E unit and moved into Its restroom ,I quickly produced the ward coat which I had carefully arranged into the small bag I was carrying and promptly changed into a nurse's scrub making my way towards the intensive Care unit .

The passageway into the hospital was well illuminated , the dark ceramic tiles were quite cooperative enough as I made my way to the intensive Care unit on the third floor .

Not that anyone would find anything strange with a nurse walking the hospital even though it was late at night , but wasn't it better if no one saw me?

The door to the ward slid open without letting out even the slightest creak , for this i was tremendously appreciative , the patient was fast asleep on his bed and one could have mistaken him for a dead patient if not for the ECG machine by his side which showed that he was breathing just fine .

I hesitated a little to catch my breath and regain my composure as there won't be the chance for that once I'm done with my assignment.

It was hard to believe that he didn't notice my presence as he began to shift uncomfortably on his bed just a few minutes after I entered .

The shot was perfect , the bullet went straight through the chest and the report was far louder than I expected , bracelet in place I began to shuffle towards the door from where I would make my way to the backdoor , outside the hospital .

The shot didn't seem to elicit much response as there were no feet shuffling, the nurses on duty were probably asleep and even if they were awake the ICU is in a very far portion of the hospital .

I readjusted my mask , and walked out through the backdoor , manipulated the stairs and was on the last floor in a matter of minutes .

I stripped off my mask and walked towards the gate , a wide smile played itself across my face I quickly erased it , I produced the false identification card I had already produced for the purpose and showed it at the gate , the man at the gate looked so tired that he didn't bother checking the ID .

Back on the streets , I made my way to my temporary apartment , removed all of my makeover and started preparing for my departure , for my job here was done .