Jonathan Taylor: Meyer-Hofmann AG

Crouched in the boat, two figures surveyed the island coastline and prepared for their landing. The cloudless night sky filled the North Atlantic bay with moonlight. A dormant ocean swell heaved upwards, its smooth back broken by the bow wave of the small craft. The sound of the outboard motor, which coughed and sputtered through the cold water, was drowned out by waves breaking over a rapidly approaching shoreline. The light ground fog had been visible from the sea, but now, even though it surrounded the men in its icy cloak, their night-vision glasses gave them a clear view of the route for their approach. Steering the boat expertly between the rocks and boulders that protected the island beach, they cut the motor and allowed the craft’s forward momentum to carry them to the shore. With only the sound of water slapping against the boat’s hull, their advance was undetected.

They jumped from the boat and hit dry land simultaneously. Grasping the small aluminium craft with one hand each, they carried it over the pebble beach and set it gently down on a grassy bank. Handguns drawn, they broke into a run and made for the big house set back from the water’s edge. Effortlessly, they vaulted the house’s tall perimeter wall and landed softly in the garden, the sound of their landing suppressed by the autumn leaves blown from the garden’s two large ash trees. The athletic prowess of the men was shown to be all the more remarkable as each carried two heavy scuba diving tanks strapped to their backs. Crouching down under the trees, they would have been as good as invisible from the house. Black face paint accentuated the whites of their eyes, and tight black clothing hugged their muscular frames as they waited, primed like two panthers preparing to attack their prey. The men let their eyes pass over the property and synchronised their watches for the second time that night, communicating with hand gestures.

Moonlight lent the Colonial house’s white exterior a bluish tinge. It was a large property, with countless rooms and corridors, but the men knew it inside and out. Floor plans had been committed to memory, along with their targets’ presumed locations within the building. Despite the house’s prodigious size, it belonged to a family of four. They had bought it as a holiday home. It sat close to the point of the island and was only a stone’s throw from the beach. It was to be their haven, an escape from the hectic lives they led in New York. Chebeague Island attracted many New Yorkers, although not many could have afforded this house’s multimillion-dollar price tag. The house sat on two acres of gardens and included both a guesthouse and a boathouse on the beach.

From the cover of the trees, the men had a good ninety metres to cover across the gardens. Their chosen point of entry was the kitchen door at the back of the house. Their training enabled them to keep low, weaving from side to side, making their path unpredictable should armed guards lie in wait. It was 3:00 am, and the members of the Singh family were not expecting them. The men had exactly one hour, before they expected an armed neighbourhood security firm to check the property.

At exactly 3:05 am, they entered the kitchen using a key. With rubber-soled boots, they moved silently across both the kitchen’s terracotta tiled flooring and the hardwood flooring of the main house. A staircase with white bannisters rose over forty steps in a gentle curve from the vast entrance hall, leading to the first-floor bedrooms.

The first man nodded and watched his partner take the stairs two at a time. He followed, passed him on the landing, and stopped outside the first bedroom door. Gripping the cut glass doorknob, he turned it gently to the right. The door opened without resistance, giving them both access to the parents’ room. Rahul and Rani Singh lay asleep in their four-poster bed, both exhausted by the long drive up from the city. The men continued with stealth, and splitting up, they went to both sides of the bed, moving as close to the sleepers as the bedside cabinets would allow.

At 3:15 am they placed masks over Rahul’s and Rani’s faces. These were not diving masks, but much smaller rubber surgical masks that covered their noses and mouths. The men leant forward over their victims, prepared should they wake and try to resist.

Reaching over their shoulders, they opened the valves of their right tanks. The hiss of escaping gas broke the stony silence of the room. Neither of the Singhs stirred. Sevoflurane is a light sedative, commonly used to sedate paediatric outpatients during minor exploratory operations; it renders the patient unconscious but has few adverse effects.

At 3:21 am, the men switched to the second bottles on their backs. At a concentration of 12,800 parts per million, carbon monoxide will kill in less than three minutes. The gas is odourless and gives its victim no warning of their imminent demise.

At 3:24 am, the men checked the Singhs for a pulse, then made their way to the children’s rooms. They had orders to kill the children as well. Neither of the men had been involved in making that decision, but they knew there was no other way.

At 3:26 am, they entered the two rooms separately. The boy’s room was considerably smaller than his parents’. The room’s decorations were more typical of a child’s room from the ’70s than the present day. The wallpaper depicted a scene from the battle of Britain; a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt chased one another across two walls, whilst a squadron of Lancaster Bombers closed in on an industrial target ahead of them. Small model airplanes of the same era hung from the ceiling, giving the room a cinematic quality. The child was asleep on the top bunk of the bunk bed on the room’s far wall, his matching duvet cover offering little protection from his aggressor. The bed had not been in the plan, and the man stood for a moment, deciding how best to continue. He would not be able to get above the child to administer the poison. His best hope was to perch on the bottom bunk and use it as a stepladder.

At 3:27 am, a squeal came from the bedroom next door. The girl had awakened. Obviously, she had no chance against her attacker, but still, the man in the boy’s room glanced in the direction of the sound, as if able to see past the circling planes and into the little girl’s room.

When he turned back to the bed, the boy was sitting bolt upright, staring down at him, eyes wild with fear. Two swift steps and he was next to the bunk, stretching up with his right arm and taking the boy’s neck in his hand. He squeezed, blocking the child’s windpipe. The same arm swung out in an arc, carrying the child into the air towards him, his free hand catching the child’s right leg.

Suspended above the man, his eyes bulging, feeling the life being stolen from him, the boy lashed out with his right hand. His mother had reprimanded him for not cutting his fingernails that very evening, and he gouged the man’s face with them. The boy’s middle fingernail pierced the man’s skin under his left eye before ripping up through the lower eyelid and raking across his eyeball. The man did not make a sound. He pulled the boy down onto the floor, allowing him to land hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him.

Looking up into his attacker’s disfigured face, the boy gasped for breath, but none came. The boy felt strangely calm, considering his situation, just puzzled as to why the wound had not had more effect on his assailant. In all of his books and magazines, such an attack would have been rewarded with the chance to flee. Even as the man’s blood dripped down onto his face, he seemed totally unaware of the injury. Then a second man appeared, and the boy knew he had lost the fight.