Live Fire

by Stephen Leather

  The man dropped three cubes of sugar into his glass. ‘When did you leave the army?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘Was anyone in your cell trained abroad?’ asked the man.

  ‘Two,’ said Bradshaw. ‘But they went prior to the July-seventh attacks and have not left the country since. Trips to Pakistan by British nationals are a red flag to the security services now.’

  ‘Their names?’

  ‘Jamal Kundi and Samil Chaudhry.’

  ‘Before the car bombs, they did nothing else?’ The man stirred his tea methodically.

  ‘Their handler was killed by the police two years ago. I had met them and persuaded them to wait. To become sleepers.’

  ‘They trusted you?’ He dropped a fourth sugar cube into his tea as he watched Bradshaw’s face closely.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Even though they are older and more experienced than you?’

  Bradshaw smiled. ‘Before they met me their dream was to blow themselves to oblivion. I explained that a true fighter for Islam wants to fight, not die.’

  ‘You are smarter than them? So they listen to you?’

  ‘I am able to guide them, as Allah guides me.’

  The man’s eyes sparkled. ‘So Allah guides you, does He?’

  ‘We are all following the will of Allah, nothing else,’ said Bradshaw, choosing his words carefully. ‘Everything I do is at His behest. I’m thankful that He allows me to guide Jamal and Samil to serve Him better.’

  ‘The fact that you are Caucasian, has that been a problem?’

  ‘I am a Muslim, and that is all that matters. My brothers do not care about the colour of my skin, only that I am a good Muslim and a true follower of jihad.’

  ‘And when did you first decide that you wanted to follow jihad and lead men like Jamal and Samil?’

  ‘It was a slow process. A gradual realisation.’

  ‘You were in Iraq, with the British Army?’

  Bradshaw nodded.

  ‘But you were not then a Muslim?’

  ‘I was nothing. My parents were not religious and I had no idea of what Islam was. I just thought we were in Iraq to fight for democracy.’

  ‘You knew about Islam, though?’

  ‘I’m from Bradford, which is full of Asians, so I had grown up with Muslims and went to school with them, but I had no interest in their religion.’

  ‘So what changed this?’

  ‘I had an interpreter in Baghdad. He used to be an English teacher in an international school but after the Americans moved in there was no money to pay his wages so he began working as a translator.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Yusuf. He was a good man. He just wanted to be a teacher. But his country was turned upside down and he had to work for us to feed his family.’

  ‘And what happened to him?’

  Bradshaw narrowed his eyes. ‘How do you know something happened to him?’

  ‘I can tell from your voice. And because you said he was a good man. You didn’t say he is a good man.’

  Bradshaw smiled ruefully. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Yusuf is dead.’

  ‘And how did that happen?’

  ‘You want to know why I am a Muslim?’

  ‘I want to understand you,’ said the man, ‘because from understanding grows trust.’

  ‘And you think Yusuf is the key?’

  The man said nothing. He sat quietly and waited for Bradshaw to continue.

  ‘Yusuf was killed by the Americans,’ said Bradshaw, eventually. ‘His wife was pregnant and the baby came early. There were no ambulances so he borrowed his uncle’s car and they drove her. There was a roadblock about a mile from the hospital. American soldiers told him to stop and he slowed the car and shouted that his wife was giving birth but they kept yelling at him to stop the car and get out. Then they started shooting. They killed him. His wife took a bullet in the belly and the baby died.’

  ‘You were there?’

  Bradshaw shook his head. ‘I heard about it afterwards. There was an inquiry but the Americans lied. They said that Yusuf was shouting at them in Arabic and refusing to obey instructions. But Yusuf spoke almost perfect English. There’s no way he would have used Arabic with American soldiers. They killed him, they killed his kid and his wife’s in a wheelchair but no one was even reprimanded.’

  ‘And that made you angry?’

  ‘You have no idea,’ said Bradshaw. ‘It opened my eyes to what was going on out there. Do you know what the rules of engagement were for the contractors – not the army, but the contractors? If an Iraqi car got too close to their convoy, they would fire a warning burst in front of it. If the car didn’t back off, it was okay to shoot at it. Can you believe that? They could shoot to kill with no ramifications. And, believe me, they did. It was as if the Americans stopped treating the Iraqis as human beings. The contractors were getting rich while the Iraqi people were starving, yet they wouldn’t even afford them basic human rights.’

  ‘And because of that you became a Muslim?’

  ‘Because of that I started to hate Americans,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I hated them for what they did to Iraq and for what they’re trying to do to the rest of the world. But it was afterwards, after Yusuf was killed, that I began to read the Koran. To really read it, and then to understand. Islam is the true religion, the only religion, and Allah is the only God. And what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is about the West’s determination to crush Islam and its followers.’

  ‘So why the car bombs in London?’ said the man. ‘Why not turn your anger against the Americans? Why not bomb New York or Los Angeles?’

  ‘Because it’s not just about the Americans, is it? The British are as much to blame. It’s not about countries fighting each other, it’s about one system of belief trying to crush another. And if we don’t fight back now, we won’t get another chance.’

  ‘We?’ said the man, with an amused smile.

  ‘I am a Muslim now,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I have chosen which side I’m standing with. And I will stand with the Muslims so long as Allah permits me to live.’

  ‘But why attack your own country? That is what I find difficult to understand.’

  ‘I’m not attacking the country. I’m attacking the system. I love my country but I hate what it has become and I want to do what is necessary to change it. When I got back to England, I started to see Muslims here for what they are, and to see the trials they now face. I started to see how the British hated Muslims and hated Islam. They put brothers and sisters in prison just for visiting Islamic websites. They banned the headscarf – they treated Muslims like they were the enemy. They broke in the doors of good Muslim homes, dragged fathers and sons away from their families and kept them in prison for weeks, then released them without so much as an apology. Mosques were desecrated, girls were spat at in the street because they dressed modestly. I saw the hatred that was directed towards Muslims and I knew I had to do something about it.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ asked the man.

  ‘I read,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I read books, and then I went onto the Internet. I’d enrolled on an engineering course in London and I never used my own computer or computers at the university. I went to Internet cafés so I could not be tracked. And I studied the Koran in a way I had never looked at it before. Then I came across Sheik Abdullah Azzam’s Join the Caravan. It opened my eyes to jihad.’

  The man smiled. ‘Ilhaq bi l-q filah. It is a work that every Muslim should know by heart. You know the main reasons that Sheik Abdullah gave for jihad? There are eight.’

  ‘I do,’ said Bradshaw, coldly. ‘Am I now to be tested on Join the Caravan? I didn’t realise I was coming here to be tested on my memory.’

  The man ignored Bradshaw’s sarcasm. ‘Of the eight reasons, which is the one that you most identified with?’

  ‘There are two that inspired me,’ said Bradshaw. ‘That the disbelievers do not dominate, and establishing a solid foundation as a ba
se for Islam. Both seem to me to be reason enough for jihad.’

  ‘And when was your eureka moment? The moment when you saw that reading was not enough, that you had to take action.’

  Bradshaw smiled, but his eyes remained flint-hard. ‘It was Prince Harry, going to Afghanistan.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘That started the fire, did it?’

  ‘It fanned the flames,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I couldn’t believe that the British Government would allow a member of the Royal Family to prance and preen in the desert, as if Afghanistan was his personal sandpit. Do you remember the pictures? Prince Harry firing a machine-gun, playing around with a motorcycle, kicking a football with his soldier friends? As if he was holiday, while all around him our brothers and sisters were suffering. And do you know what task he was given while he was in Afghanistan? Do you know what his duties were?’

  ‘He was a forward air controller,’ said the man.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bradshaw. ‘The controllers call in bombers and planes to attack, to bring death and destruction raining down on innocent civilians, on women and children, our brothers and sisters. That was my eureka moment, as you call it, the realisation that the Government and the Royal Family didn’t care about our religion or our people. That was when I decided it was time to do something. That the time for reading and talking were over.’

  ‘You know that his first choice was Iraq? He wanted to join the army of occupation.’

  Bradshaw nodded enthusiastically. ‘It was a slap in the face to all Muslims in the UK. But it showed us once and for all where the Establishment stood. Before that the public was happy to blame the invasion on Bush and Blair, but when they sent the prince to fight we saw the true face of the great British public. They supported him, which meant they supported the war, which meant they approved of the fight against Islam. That is why I decided I had to fight back.’

  ‘Do you know why the casualties were not higher,’ the man asked thoughtfully, ‘when your two bombs exploded?’

  Bradshaw had been expecting the question but the sudden change of subject took him by surprise. It was a tactic to wrong-foot him, but he knew he had no alternative other than to be truthful. He took a deep breath. ‘It was the design of the bomb,’ he said. ‘I did not have access to high explosives. It was designed to start as a simple petrol fire, which would then cause the gas cylinders to explode. They would add to the shrapnel.’

  ‘Because it is the shrapnel that does the damage?’

  ‘Exactly. But in both cases only the petrol ignited. The cylinders remained intact.’

  ‘So the design was flawed?’ The man studied Bradshaw’s face to see how he would react to the implied criticism.

  Bradshaw didn’t answer and returned the man’s baleful stare.

  ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of, brother,’ said the man. ‘You are on a learning curve. And you have achieved on your own far more than many of your brothers have, even those who have been through the training camps in Pakistan.’

  ‘I want to do more.’ His eyes burned with a fierce intensity. ‘That is why I need the funding. With the money I can strike fear into their hearts like never before.’

  ‘And when you were in the army, you were trained in the use of the equipment you are seeking to purchase?’

  ‘No.’

  The man frowned. ‘Then who is going to operate it?’

  ‘The two men who were in Pakistan have been fully trained.’

  ‘Live fire?’

  ‘Live fire,’ repeated Bradshaw. ‘They were trained in Pakistan but spent three months in Afghanistan. They were with a team that brought down an American helicopter.’

  ‘And where do you plan to buy the equipment?’

  ‘It is available in the former Yugoslavia, for a price.’

  ‘You have a connection?’

  ‘A man has promised me a connection. A former soldier I served with has a friend in the arms trade.’

  ‘And you will travel there to make the purchase?’

  ‘That is my intention,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘You understand that if you lose the money we give you, there will be consequences?’ said the man.

  ‘I understand,’ said Bradshaw. ‘So when will I get the funds I seek?’

  ‘When you have proved yourself.’

  Bradshaw felt a flare of anger deep inside, but he quelled it and smiled good-naturedly. ‘Have I not done that already?’

  The man stood up and took off his jacket. ‘You think what you have done is proof?’ he said. ‘It proves nothing.’ He pulled off his sweater to reveal a chest pockmarked with irregular scars. ‘This was a fragmentation grenade in Afghanistan,’ he said. ‘It killed two brothers, blinded a third, and it was only Allah’s mercy that saved my life that day.’ He removed the shirt and turned around. He raised his left arm. A chunk of muscle was missing just above the elbow, as if a dog had taken a bite, and the skin was puckered and wrinkled, like plastic that had come into contact with a naked flame. ‘This was an American bullet from a machine-gun in Baghdad,’ he said. ‘Again, it was only Allah’s mercy that kept me alive. That, and the three brothers who bound my arm and took me to a doctor.’ The wound had healed but the scarring was horrific. The medical care he had received had been basic, to say the least. ‘It is not pretty, is it?’ said the man.

  ‘No,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘I am proud of this arm,’ he said. ‘It shows that I faced the enemy and I survived. What about you? Do you have any scars to show me?’ He slipped on his shirt.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I was in the army but Allah in His benevolence kept me from harm.’

  ‘Scars are proof, and you have no scars,’ said the man. ‘And it is proof that we need. Proof of who you are and proof of what you say you have done. Yes, two bombs exploded in London and, yes, you provided us with photographs of the bombs being constructed. But what do we really know about them? Do we really know that two people died?’ He finished buttoning his shirt.

  ‘It was on the television,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘And do you believe everything you see on the television, brother?’ asked the man, sitting down again. ‘Do you think that the security services do not feed false information to the media? Did you believe it when the BBC told you Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?’

  ‘The car bombs were real,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘I am sure they were,’ said the man. He sat down, picked up another cigarette paper and sprinkled tobacco onto it. ‘But the bombs alone are not proof that you are a true soldier of Islam. It shows only that you had access to the bombs while they were being constructed.’

  ‘You think I’m a spy?’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘Not a spy,’ said the man. ‘But a trap, perhaps. Bait, to lure in the true soldiers of Islam.’

  ‘I’m an engineering student,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I used to be a soldier.’

  ‘Yes, you said.’

  ‘And now I am fighting for jihad,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Jihad is my life.’

  ‘That you must prove,’ said the man. He lit the cigarette and took a deep pull on it.

  ‘You think that MI5 set off two bombs in central London so that I could claim credit for it and get close to you? Is that what you really think?’

  ‘You would be surprised what MI5 has tried,’ said the man, flicking ash into the ashtray.

  ‘Why would MI5 send someone white? Someone who has been in the army? On paper I’m the last person they’d send to infiltrate the Muslim fundamentalist movement.’

  ‘It is not easy to persuade a true Muslim to spy on his own people,’ said the man. He smiled. ‘Perhaps you are a double bluff. Perhaps they think you are the last person we would trust, and therefore we would trust you. Who knows how they think?’

  Bradshaw took a deep breath and interlinked his fingers. There was logic to the man’s argument, and it was not of the sort that could be overruled by a raised voice or a display of anger. It was up to Bradshaw to prove himself
worthy of the man’s trust. He bowed his head. ‘Tell me what you want done and, inshallah, I shall do it.’ Inshallah. God willing. The phrase that all Muslims used to show that everything a mere human did was only accomplished because the all-powerful God permitted it.

  The man put down his cigarette. He rested a hand on Bradshaw’s shoulder and, in a low, hushed voice, spelled out slowly what he wanted him to do.

  Shepherd woke, and for a few seconds he was disoriented. Hotel rooms were always the same, no matter where in the world they were. A bed, a dressing-table, a cupboard with a television on it and a fridge. The television was still on and this time it was Bruce Willis preparing to save the day. Pattaya. He was in Pattaya. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and squinted at the Breitling. It was three o’clock and beams of sunlight were lancing through the gaps in the curtains so Shepherd figured it was three o’clock in the afternoon, but then he realised he hadn’t reset his watch to Thai time so he had to add six, which meant it was nine o’clock in the morning.

  He rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom to shower and shave. Then he he pulled on a polo shirt and a pair of jeans. He opened the curtains. The sky was an unrelenting azure blue and the sun was blinding. Jet-skis with plumes of water spurting from the back sped across the bay. The floating restaurants he’d seen the previous night were still there, bobbing in the water amid dozens of smaller craft, motor-cruisers and sailing-boats. Half a dozen speedboats were zipping to and fro, towing parachutes behind them. On the hill overlooking the bay giant orange letters spelled out ‘PATTAYA’ and, in smaller white letters, ‘CITY’. The view to his left was less inspiring, a patchwork of roofs and terraces with rusting metalwork and peeling paint, forests of television aerials and mobile-phone masts, and clothes strung from lines, flapping in the wind blowing towards the sea.

  His room looked down on the hotel’s swimming-pool where already a dozen men were lying on loungers, their skin glistening with suntan lotion. They were all overweight and flabby, with almost no muscle tone. One was face down while a young Thai girl in a dark blue bikini gave him a massage. She had a large scorpion tattooed across her left shoulder. Her face was a blank mask as she stared into the middle distance, her fingers working on the man’s back.