36

The man on the other end of Märta’s phone is one of the worst people she has ever had the misfortune of dealing with. He is cut from the same cloth as the man Tigger is threatening with a pistol. He is the man Märta saved on the Syrian border yesterday morning.

He is a character assembled from the stuff of human misery — Abu Malik al-Almani. At the border, he had been shot in the gut after he and his group killed one hundred women in front of their families for dressing inappropriately. He was suffering a bleed from his femoral artery. How his men got him to the unit before he bled out was some kind of satanic miracle. His people had occupied a Syrian town near al-Maabadah after their murder spree, and were rounding up more women and starting public executions when the Kurds, on the outskirts of the city, started giving them hell.

The Kurds were no longer respecting international borders, and they considered the invasion of ISIL into Kurdistan to be a threat to their autonomy. Abu Malik joined his forces for a counteroffensive and, one way or another, was wounded. As the Syrian government was assassinating doctors and nurses who helped the people he was trying to kill, Abu Malik’s only chance was to make the journey through Kurdish-held land, past the border, and into Märta’s tent. Which is what he did.

On the stretcher, before the surgery, he reached up and held her shirt in his bloody hand.

‘You know who I am?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said.

‘And you will still help me?’

‘I’ve taken an oath,’ she said.

‘To help me is to help my cause. You are with us?’

‘To help any person is to ensure that all people will be helped. That is my cause,’ she had said. And — unlike now — she was not scared. Because then, at least, she knew what she was doing and was prepared for it, and she knew it was right. Helping him was not in itself a good thing; obviously, poisoning him on the table would have been the right thing to do. But it was right, because after he was patched up he allowed her team access to the refugees. Whether, in doing this, she would be helping more people live in the long run, or whether she was instead killing even more people by having saved this mass murderer, she could not know. Sleeping with Benton last night had been a helpful, if temporary, way to stop asking herself these questions.

All she could do to make it worthwhile was approach him after the surgery. ‘I need something,’ she had said to him. ‘We need access to people on land you control. That means I need to be in contact with those who can grant it. I want your phone number.’

‘So the Americans can send a drone after me? Send a Tomahawk missile to my encampment? I don’t think so.’

‘Something, then. An email address. A solution.’

So he left her something. Someone else’s number. And this morning she called it and made an appointment to speak to him personally at 8.30 a.m. It was, as she said, a bold move.

Abu Malik speaks in a low and quiet voice through the speakerphone as Abu Saleh listens. Once Abu Saleh realises who it is on the phone, he shrugs Tigger off his arm and sits down. A pistol trained on his heart, he lifts the tea and sips it as Abu Malik speaks.

Märta’s Arabic is not good enough to understand the details of what is being said, but she can follow the sequence of topics. A word here, a word there. She connects the dots.

Abu Malik greets his comrade, who evidently knows who he is. Then he speaks about Märta. And jihad. And Iraq and Syria. He speaks of the umma and the community of Muslims. He speaks of dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, the realms of submission, and of war.

As Abu Malik speaks, and lectures, Tigger realises he has no idea what is happening, his attention isn’t required, and that it would be a good time to check in with Herb.

He hands his own phone to Märta and asks her to dial and press it to his ear. He is not an amateur, and is not going to take his eyes off his mark.

The phone rings only twice, and Herb answers it. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘It has been a busy day at the office,’ Tigger says, aiming the Webley at Saleh.

Märta watches Tigger’s expression grow grave as he listens to Herb. He glances once at her, and she knows their plans have changed even further. And yet he says nothing, because it is information Tigger does not want Abu Saleh to know.

‘I’m done,’ Tigger says to her. She takes the phone away.

Soon, Abu Malik is done, too. He stops talking, and, as befits custom, it is Abu Saleh’s turn to speak. He greets Abu Malik in the traditional way, but after uttering abbreviated pleasantries, his tone turns argumentative and insulting. Märta hears him talk about power and money and corruption. He mentions Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He talks about Tal Afar. He talks about al-Qaeda, and spits on the ground. He, too, talks about the caliphate. He rages.

Tigger, for no reason she can understand, smells the Webley. She has never seen him hold a gun before. She has never imagined him capable of harming someone. Now she is certain he can, and that he absolutely will if called upon.

When Abu Saleh has finished, Abu Malik speaks again. When he does, it is in English, so Märta can understand. He sounds tired, as though talking to such people has worn him down over the years. Inter-terrorist politics, Märta concedes, must be exhausting.

‘You are going to release them,’ he says in a quiet voice. ‘And if you do not, Abu Saleh, I will raze your home village in Tunis and kill your children, who attend not a madrassa, but the British International School on rue du Parc. I know your wife’s favourite flower is the lily. I will kill not only them, but all your extended family, so that your line does not continue. I am tired of disobedience. I am healing from a bullet wound, and my energy is elsewhere. If I learn by sundown tonight that you have not done as I say, your family will die. And if you call them to warn them, and my people see their routine change, they will die. And when I find you myself, I will strap a bomb to you and use you in my war. These people you have captured, Saleh, are not our enemy. Even our correct reading of the Koran does not direct us to jihad against everyone. And if you are such a fool that you cannot understand this, then I will think for you. Ms Märta? You and your people will be released. What happens to these people after you go is no concern of mine. They are petty thieves and not Muslims. Can you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

‘Peace be unto you.’

Then, in a small mercy, he does not wait for Märta to say the same, and instead hangs up.

‘I suggest,’ Tigger says to Abu Saleh, who has been left holding the phone at the other end of the line, ‘you accept that we have an agreement, and that we now go to collect my people before you start thinking better of the idea. It is also very clear to me now that if I kill you, with your own gun, no one will avenge you. So call your men on this phone and let them know we’re coming. I prefer to show up invited.’