Chapter 26

 

Apartment above The Madrassa, Al Safa, Dubai:

25th February; 8am.

 

Jamil left Mullah Khaweini snoring in their large bed. The bedclothes were cast aside, and the hairy Englishman was wearing only the white cotton knee length shorts that he wore under his robes. The Mullah’s uncut hair was long and unkempt, and was the same unnatural black as his beard.

Closing the door quietly, Jamil left the apartment and, rather than going straight into the Madrassa, he turned and went into the small tea shop beside the Mosque. It was quite common in this part of the world to have a tea shop and laundry beside a Mosque. Jamil bought tea and a pastry to take away. It was still cool enough to enjoy the park in comfort at this time of year, as the temperature was still below eighty degrees and there was little humidity.

The young man enjoyed the solitude as he walked into Al Safa Park and sat beneath the trees overlooking the green parkland. The grass only survived here with constant watering. An occasional jogger ran by, and if it was a lady jogger he would lower his eyes as he had been commanded to do by his teachers, so as not to look upon her.

He was looking down at his pastry when a man sat down on the bench beside him. Jamil was surprised, as theirs was the only bench occupied. He was more surprised when the man addressed him by name.

Good day, Jamil. It’s a lovely morning. If there was a kookaburra laughing in the trees I could almost be back in Oz.”

Jamil looked into the weathered face of the Australian, noting the sparkling green eyes. Almost everyone Jamil knew had brown eyes and wished that they hadn’t.

The name is Todd. Todd Michaelson.” The Australian extended his hand, and Jamil wiped his own right hand on a napkin before shaking the hand of the erstwhile stranger. The handshake was firm and certain, and Todd emphasised the shake with a smile and a twinkle in his green eyes. “Don’t worry, mate, you aren’t in any trouble. Yet.”

 

***

Khaweini awoke and stretched his limbs, making a grunting sound as he did so. Noticing that he was alone in the room, he scratched himself and slid off the bed to relieve himself in the bathroom. He paid scant attention to the ritual cleansing he demanded of others, and quickly donned his robes and head dress, tucking his unruly hair out of sight.

As Trevor George Baker, he had never been too closely acquainted with bodily hygiene, and his conversion to Islam had not moved him any closer. Khaweini abhorred the scented Arab Muslims who came into the Mosque for prayers primped and pressed, their white thobes shining like the sun, almost as much as he despised Westerners.

He knew that some of the higher ranking worshippers preferred other leaders, shying away from Khaweini’s Western roots and his slightly malodourous scent. “Do they think that Usama Bin Laden smells like a girl?” he would mutter to himself when a nose wrinkled in his presence.

Khaweini drank lustily from the large bottle of water on the bedside table before crossing the landing and entering the study, which had bare plastered walls and only a thin rug on the wooden floorboards. There was, however, a very modern computer set up on a plain wooden table. The computer was fast, and had over a terabyte of storage. The child in Khaweini had insisted on the best Radeon graphics card available when they purchased the Hewlett Packard desktop computer, as he loved to unwind playing games. The computer was encrypted and password protected, but even so, very little was stored on it. The data was accessed via the cloud, a distant server in Pakistan which held all of the controversial plans and strategies his cell were working on.

He sat down in a comfortable leather office chair and kicked off his sandals. He typed in the password and the screen asked for a datacard. The Mullah lifted a USB stick with the encryption software on it from a chain around his neck and plugged it in.

The screen sprang to life and the email box opened rapidly, scrolling through numbers until it settled on twenty three new emails. Khaweini ignored the emails; Jamil could deal with those. They would be from needy followers who could not think for themselves. He quickly tired of answering their shallow questions, such as, is it acceptable to eat halal meat if it is sold by a Jew?

The Mullah clicked on the box entitled ‘Drafts’, which was accompanied by a bold number 1, suggesting that a new draft was waiting.

The bus has been cleaned and is ready for service. Do you want it delivering to destination A or B?” I was signed Thil, or the Shadow. The Mullah pondered for a moment. Both targets were equally attractive, and the devastation the blast would cause at either venue excited him. Was it to be the Imperialists’ pride and joy, or the symbol of the scented princes? He decided that the Western-leaning leaders of the Emirates could wait. He typed a new draft.

Thank you, Thil. The bus should be delivered to destination A, all as the agreed timetable. The children will be excited to see their bus again.”

If all went according to plan, the news of the first major atrocity in the region would be in all of the Western newspapers the day after tomorrow.

***

Jamil felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but the Australian told him he must stay and listen first. He would then be allowed to leave. Jamil knew that he could not escape this man easily, and so he sat and listened, tears welling in his eyes as he learned just how much the Australian man knew.

***

Max stood out of sight with the Canon Eos digital camcorder trained on the bench opposite. At full zoom the two men filled the frame. Through headphones Max could hear every word picked up by Todd’s radio microphone.

***

Todd watched as the boy’s shoulders slumped when he explained that they knew all about Jamil’s regular trips to Djibouti, and that Jamil had been followed the whole way before his laptop was compromised. The boy showed visible signs of distress when the Australian showed him a warrant bearing the stamp of the Crown Prince, authorising him to ‘eliminate criminality in the Emirate’. Jamil knew as well as anyone that justice was swift and merciless in the Middle East, especially if you were accused of treason. It was not just you who suffered but your whole family. He thought of his mother and his little sister; they would be left to starve if he and his father were taken, and they surely would be if Jamil had done wrong.

Jamil, you’re hardly more than a boy. The Mullah had no right to use your love of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, for his criminal acts. The authorities know that you are innocent, but someone must be punished, because the money you have transported has been used to kill Muslims and non-Muslims alike. What does the Holy Quran say about that, Jamil? What would the prophet want you to do now?”

Todd allowed the question to permeate the boy’s consciousness. He hoped that the young man was not so radicalised that he would follow Khaweini into the jaws of Hell.

Jamil’s mind was filled with confusion. He could not reconcile his reading of the Holy book with the ranting sermons delivered by the Mullah, but he was young and the Mullah appeared to know so much. Then there was the filthiness. He knew it was wrong, but the Mullah had told him that Allah had given the boy to him, to allow him the pleasures of the flesh without straying outside the faith.

The boy could not believe that the Mullah would deliberately target innocent people of any faith, but he had seen vacant-eyed boys from poor families prepared for their ‘service’ before they were flown out of Dubai, never to be seen again.

All we ask is that you serve Allah and your leaders here in Dubai. You are betraying no-one, you are just being the best Muslim you can be. If you can help avoid needless deaths and casualties, call me on this number.” Todd slipped the boy a piece of paper with a number on it beginning 056, a mobile number. “I’ll be here again tomorrow, in this same place, if you want to meet again.”

Todd rose from the bench and began to walk away, but turned back to face him. “Jamil, you need to get to classes before you are missed.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, Khaweini led the class in prayers before passing them onto a Palestinian Cleric for conditioning training. As he left, he caught Jamil’s eye and smiled. He noted that the boy looked troubled, and made a mental note to see if he could help, a mental note that would be forgotten in the passing of the day.