Chapter 32

 

Apartment above The Madrassa, Al Safa, Dubai:

26^th February; 2pm.

 

Mullah Khaweini had always felt like an outsider in Islam. It was true that the faith welcomed converts, but the Imams and Mullahs always viewed converts from the West with some suspicion. Khaweini had raised millions of dollars for the Jihad with his criminal scams in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, but he always felt that he had to do more to win the approbation of his peers in the leadership of Al Qaeda.

At a meeting in Pakistan a year before, he had listed the achievements of his group; over four hundred young men radicalised, three of his students had become martyrs in Europe, dying to further the cause, and, he had raised $6.2 million. His immediate superior, and the second most wanted man in Al Qaeda, shrugged off his achievements by noting that in 2011 alone four Saudi sympathisers had given that amount each when some American or Western Government had slighted them, thwarted their plans or had otherwise annoyed them. Khaweini wanted to mention that the sympathisers in question would give six million and by the end of the week the interest from their oil investments would have replaced it, and that his money was hard earned, but he said nothing.

Televisions were banned in the grounds of the Mosque and the Madrassa and so Khaweini was watching a live news feed on the internet, and the first reports had not been good. The reporter had announced that, although there were rumoured to be many injuries, the death toll was thought to be small, perhaps less than five. Khaweini was not too discouraged, as the local news channels often underplayed serious security issues. Nonetheless, he was still watching when there was a tap at his door.

The door opened and Samir, who taught Islamic History, slipped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Mullah, you have a problem with the council.”

“What? The council are in session? How? And why am I not invited?”

“The meeting is about you, Mullah. I fear you are about to be suspended by the council.” Samir cowered as the Mullah raged.

“These men are cowards and supplicants of the playboy princes of Islam! They have always been uncomfortable with Jihad and with radicalisation, but why raise their concerns now, when we are on the cusp of achieving so much?”

“The suspension is not due to the plans for Dubai, it is due to allegations of abuse and homosexual rape of one of the students.” Jamal looked directly into the Mullah’s eyes for any sign of guilt, and he was rewarded. It was brief and transient, but it was there.

“This is insanity! I am a chosen vessel for Allah, a soldier of the Jihad. Why would I stoop to below the lowest, Samir? Tell me that.”

“We were told that Child Protective Services were outside the Mosque this morning. An investigator was looking for Jamil, but he is at the hospital in protective custody.”

“Nonsense! He is at the hospital because he is ill. Isn’t he?”

Samir shook his head. “Mullah, it appears that Jamil asked to be taken to a place of safety, and the hospital was chosen. The illness was just a cover story.”

“This smells of Javid. It has his Western sympathiser stink all over it. When does the council rule, Samir?”

“Within the hour, Mullah. Then you will have no protection from the civil police or authorities.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, with Samir back in council, Khaweini had packed his bags and was halfway through overwriting his computer hard drive. He had been provided with software that deluged the formatted drive with nonsensical digital data, mostly random 1’s and zeroes, seven times before shutting down. Any original data would be so fragmented as to be useless, even to the most skilled forensic technicians.

He picked up his mobile phone and spoke to his sponsor at the Madrassa, who was angry on Khaweini’s behalf.

“Do they not know that these simple farm boys lie to get out of their duty as warriors for Islam? They are cowardly and craven and I do not see how the council could doubt you.” He paused. “Especially when we are only days away from our goal. Today, many Americans will have died, and by the end of the month the remainder will be running back to their homeland, fear etched on their hearts.”

 

“I cannot be distracted, father of my soul, I must leave and carry on the Jihad. We are so close. But I fear that my absence will be portrayed falsely as guilt of this heinous crime,” Khaweini said respectfully.

“My son, you must do God’s will. May Allah bless your efforts. Go. We will defend your honour.”

Within the hour Khaweini would be at the safe house he had purchased with funds he pilfered from the Jihadist bank accounts. He believed it was right and proper for him to do so, as he was in the pursuit of a righteous cause.

***

Jamie was on her way back to the hospital, although she had argued so vigorously that she had to be sedated first. She believed she was being given simple pain relief, but there was more in the syringe than she knew.

Todd and Max had been detained, and were awaiting representatives of law enforcement to question them. The Sheikh had assured them that they would be free to go once they had been debriefed.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion everyone had been ushered onto the Enterprise, out of harm’s way. The vessel was secure and was protected at all times in port by armed guards. The sailors had tried to make the unexpected visit to the Aircraft Carrier seem like an adventure, but many of the smaller children just wanted their mothers.

Max and Todd stood on the afterdeck and looked at the water where the bus had gone down. Ron Styles was one hell of a man. He must have known from the moment he put that bus in gear he was a dead man, but he got on with the job without a complaint. In fact, as Max noted, his concern was for Jamie, who received the man’s last ever smile as she turned around to wish him luck.

“We were lucky, Todd. It doesn’t feel like any kind of luck I’ve ever encountered, but luck it is, all the same.”

Todd nodded. Had it not been for the heroics of Jamie and Ron Styles, dozens if not hundreds of kids and sailors would have been killed or maimed. Todd shuddered at the thought.

***

The Shadow was back in Business Bay and was livid. The second instalment of his payment had not been wired to his account. At first he had thought it was because only one lousy American had died, but that was not the case, according to the bank. All that the Bank of Burundi would say was that they had a wire transfer approved but the account had been rendered inoperative earlier that day. They would not say why. Kwong Chong Lee tried Khaweini’s phone for the fourth time in as many minutes. If the man did not pick up soon, Chong would invoke the cloud protocol and seek the man that way.

***

Khaweini had walked across the park to the prayer room in the facility buildings. He entered as a Mullah, dressed in full robes, and emerged casually dressed in khaki shorts, Ralph Lauren polo shirt and a baseball cap. His hair was tied in a ponytail. With his large Ray Ban sunglasses, he was almost unrecognisable. By tonight, the beard and hair would be gone. It was strictly against his beliefs, but he had a greater cause - the downfall of Dubai - and in order to achieve that, he had to become a Brit again.

Khaweini adopted a mid-Atlantic accent as he instructed the taxi driver to take him to the Mall of the Emirates, from where he would walk to his safe house.

“Where are you coming from, sir?” the Indian driver enquired, in a clumsy attempt to build a rapport worthy of a tip.

“I, my man, am a citizen of the world, but I was born in England.”

“You like cricket, sir? England do good now…” The conversation consumed the fifteen minute taxi ride.

***

Todd and Max had been kept waiting for hours, and they were tired. The rush of adrenaline they had experienced earlier had evaporated, and their blood sugar was low as they needed to eat.

The school buses had all gone, and the two friends were sitting in a cabin on board the Enterprise with a sailor standing guard at the door. They had been told that they were not prisoners, but that the guard was there to assist them because it was easy to get lost on board the giant carrier.

“Todd, I am not at all comfortable with this. I just don’t understand what Khaweini was thinking. Why import a huge amount of explosives and use them all in killing school kids? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“US school kids in the main, Max. He was striking back at the Great Satan.”

“But why the overkill? It would still have had the desired effect if he killed a handful of innocent kids. I still don’t get it. Unless….”

Max paused for thought, and Todd jumped in.

“Unless this is just a diversion. We’re meant to think this is the great disaster they had planned, but they actually have something else up their sleeves.”

“My thinking exactly. I know the bus went up in a fiery inferno, but just how much of the explosive was on board? They may still have a significant amount left.”

“Enough to blow up something like the Burj Khalifa, d’you think?” Todd asked, referring back to their original idea that the world’s tallest building was under threat. Max thought.

“We have to think like that madman, Todd. He said in his email that he would bring down Dubai and impoverish its playboy princes. How would he do that? Would damaging the Burj be enough?” Max rubbed his temples; he could feel a headache coming on.

“How about we go to the Madrassa, drag the fake Mullah from his room and beat him until he gives up his plan?”

“That isn’t going to happen.” The two men looked around to see Sheikh Mahmoud standing at the doorway.

***

Kwong Chong Lee sat in his workshop, surround by plastic lunch boxes. Each box contained C4 explosive and a simple detonator switch and battery. The explosion they would create would be small and focussed, but if the Mullah’s plan worked, this dozen lunch boxes would bring down Dubai.

His computer pinged. Mullah Khaweini was online and would soon receive the Shadow’s message, or ultimatum, depending on how you viewed it.

***

Trevor George Baker looked back at himself from the mirror. He looked strange without his black beard. He seemed to have no chin. And the mane of black hair was substantially gone, and what was left was now blonde. The man in the mirror was sporting a serious buzz cut. Khaweini seriously doubted that his friends at the Mosque would recognise him now.

As he stepped out of the bathroom he saw a light flashing on his private mobile phone. He opened a text message which read, “click here for our latest offers - Bloomingdales”. Khaweini clicked on the link, which led to a clone of the Bloomingdales Dubai Mall website. He looked at the offers and chose the blue child’s duvet liberally scattered with fluffy clouds. He clicked on the image and a link appeared, labelled PAY NOW. One more click led him to a password protected cloud account. He typed in the password, opened the folder titled ‘payments’ and read the message.

“You need to call the bank. My funds have not been made available.” Khaweini was punching out the number of the bank before he even finished reading the message. If the funds were not available, the whole master plan could fail, and the Shadow would seek him out and kill him. He assumed that was what an assassin who had been denied his promised fee would do.

***

The Djibouti Branch of the Bank of Burundi had never seen such activity in a single day, perhaps in the whole seventeen years it had been open. The Djibouti minister for finance had called in, unannounced, and had hand delivered a sequestration order for six bank accounts. The accounts were to be frozen, and the funds held in trust for the Government. A government trustee was nominated, and the bank was obliged to accept the nomination. No funds could leave the account without his permission.

The manager had barely gathered his wits when a second unannounced visitor appeared at his bank, this one wearing a US Naval uniform. The manager recognised him as the ranking serving officer in Djibouti. The Admiral passed him a communiqué sent under diplomatic cover. The letter and attachments provided the base evidence required under the international banking charter and the interbank money laundering regulations for suspension of a bank account. The manager explained that the account had already been sequestered by the Government. The Admiral seemed content. “Just covering all bases, Mr Vanois”, the Admiral said as he shook the banker’s hand.

Thirty minutes later the banker was in the middle of a conference call with his head office, suggesting that the account holders must have seriously annoyed someone in authority, when his assistant came into his office uninvited. He ushered her away with an annoyed wave of his hand, but she held her ground.

“Please hold, Mr Vanois. I have a situation.” The banker placed the conference call on hold. “What is it?” he barked.

“I have Interpol on the line for you,” the assistant announced. “They say it is urgent.” The banker dropped his head into his hands.

***

For a man who had spent many years in the Middle East, Trevor George Baker, or Mullah Khaweini, was very pale skinned. He looked as white as a sheet as he spoke to his contact at the bank.

Francois Renart had a French name. Indeed, he had spent his entire life in France before travelling to Djibouti to take up this job, but he believed with all of his heart he was Algerian. A covert Western Muslim, he looked just like the banker that he was, but for all of his wealth and home comforts he could not overcome his disdain of the West. His father had been killed by the French before he was born. His mother had been deported back to Algeria when he was just four years old because she was a troublemaker and an illegal immigrant. Francois had been adopted by a French couple after he was forcibly taken from his mother on her departure from France. They were good and kindly and he loved them deeply, but the cause of the Algerian people and their constant supporters, Al Qaeda, was never far from his thoughts.

Francois Renart had made it possible for Khaweini to operate six bank accounts, under different offshore company names, simply because of his loyalty to Jihad. He had covered his path well, and anyone auditing the accounts would find that they had been set up by the previous, and long dead, bank manager, using convincing but fake documentation. As he picked up the phone his heart was heavy and his mind was racing. Khaweini would blame him.

Taking the call in his office with the door firmly closed, Renart whispered into the phone. “Mullah, there is nothing I can do. The accounts were frozen before I could act. Someone has pressurised the Government and obliged them to act swiftly. In any case, we have received two further injunctive notices from the US and from Interpol. You will never see these funds again. You must use the local account. That has not been listed.”

“Listed? You mean they had listed the accounts? How could they know?” Khaweini raged.

“Sir, they came to us with a complete list of accounts and balances. They attached evidence that the companies involved were involved in criminal activity and cited the international money laundering agreements. Mr Vanois acted immediately.”

Khaweini thought for a second and then sighed a name; Jamil. The banker heard the name and responded. “It is the only explanation. The boy had memorised the account numbers to avoid writing them down. Jamil always knew to the dollar exactly how much of the total deposit was to go into each account. But you should be able to continue with the local account money. I have transferred over half a million dollars into that account over the years, covering my tracks, just as you asked. Surely, it is not the seven millions we have lost today but it is enough to continue our Jihad.”

Khaweini put down the phone without responding. The leadership would blame him. He would be punished. The Shadow would pursue him for his fee, and Khaweini’s secret Dubai account, meant to provide him an easy retirement, would have to be spent in the cause.

It took the Mullah a while to work things through, but he had a plan. He would use the quarter of a million dollars in his bank account to pay the Shadow and have the bomb maker move to Phase two, then, when Dubai was on its knees, the leadership would welcome him back. They would pay the Shadow and all thoughts of the lost money would be forgotten.

Phase two had to proceed as quickly as possible.