The four men shuffled awkwardly around al-Qasr’s sitting-room coffee table. Al-Qasr checked their names off a list on his laptop: Abu Ja’far Suyuti, Muhammad ibn Abu Talib, Ahmad al-Din bin Ali, and Hashim Bukhari. Suyuti was the tallest and clearly the leader of the group.
‘OK to smoke?’
‘Please. Sit down. I’ll bring the tea.’ Al-Qasr served tea in crimson glasses.
‘Good tea!’ offered Suyuti.
‘British.’
‘Great.’
Al-Qasr laughed. ‘Tell me, how did you get here?’
Suyuti turned to Muhammad ibn Abu Talib, the youngest of the group. ‘You tell him. You’re the talker.’
Muhammad’s eyes had a tired, glazed air. Just twenty-one, he had seen his share of fighting. ‘We’re all Arabs from the Iranian side of the northern border. We were about to leave Chechnya for northern Iraq. So we were looking forward to seeing our families again. Then we got the order to join an Iranian-Russian educational exchange. They said we looked like students. One day we’re killing Russians, the next we’re taking lessons from them! We were in St Petersburg a bit, then we got the order to head for Estonia. We had internal passes and stuff. I speak Russian.’
‘Weren’t you missed in St Petersburg?’
‘Summer holidays!’
The other three men laughed. ‘Travel broadens the mind!’ Suyuti chipped in. ‘We got a ship from the Baltic to Hamburg. No problems.’
‘Customs?’
Suyuti shrugged his shoulders. ‘When do we start?’
Al-Qasr sat back in his armchair. ‘Today. Soon you will meet my friend. Cemal Goksel. Trust him.’
‘A Kurd!’
‘He’s a Kurd. So am I – for the moment. You’d better like Kurds round here, Hashim! They’re everywhere.’
The other three laughed. Suyuti chided Hashim. ‘You’re smallminded, Hashim. Most Kurds are believers.’
‘Shia!’ snorted Hashim.
‘Not all of them.’
‘Kurds kill our brothers in Ansar al-Sunna.’
‘And Kurds let us into Iraq to get revenge.’
Al-Qasr was dismayed to hear the old hatreds and rivalries. It had been a long time since he’d shared tea with fellow Arabs. ‘Come on, brothers! I thought we were united in our cause! Allah is one. The Arabs are one.’
The men looked unconvinced. ‘So, what do we do?’
‘Goksel has made contact with a Kurdish doctor. He is coming to the Kurdish Centre close to here at six.’
‘Then we take him!’
‘Hold on, Muhammad! Not so fast. He’s not the one we want. One of you will follow him home, with Goksel.’
‘What do the rest of us do?’
‘You, Ahmad? You can fix up my kitchen.’