Sword of Allah

by David Rollins

  He reached for the television remote and touched the button, the dark rectangle that hung on the wall coming quietly to life. He switched to Al Jazeera. The picture instantly caught his eye. He increased the volume several bars so that he could hear the accompanying sound but not wake the woman snoring softly. A building had been blown up somewhere. A US embassy…but where, which one? More than eighty dead…many wounded…structural damage…suicide bomber…Jakarta. The Saudi smiled. The sign. This would certainly boost the confidence of his partners in the Indonesian enterprise.

  ‘What’s on?’ asked the woman, looking at the television. His movement about the room had woken her.

  The Saudi turned to look at her and his heart skipped a beat. She was naked, sitting up unself-consciously in bed, pink nipples the colour of her lips on cream-coloured breasts that pointed towards the ceiling.

  The Saudi was reminded of an ice-cream sundae with cherries on top. Oh happy day, he thought, licking his lips. He said, ‘Nothing, moonshine, just the news.’

  ‘I think you should come back to bed right now,’ she responded, pouting.

  The Saudi was suddenly aware of his erection. Was it the event in Jakarta or the fact that the woman was now tickling her breasts lightly with her fingertips? He shrugged. It was a joyous dilemma.

  Jakarta, Indonesia

  Atticus Monroe arrived at the bombsite around twenty-four hours after the blast and was shattered by the devastation. Most of the bodies had been removed but there were still thought to be possible survivors trapped in air pockets under the rubble. The entire face of the building appeared to have fallen into the front courtyard. There was a large hole blown out of the ground floor, the epicentre of the explosion: the visa section.

  Senior embassy staff had all been absent, attending a conference for regional cooperation in Seoul, South Korea. That, at least, was something. Most of the fatalities were clerks, secretarial staff and US citizens, many of them tourists, going about their business in and around the building.

  Indonesian forensic and bomb experts were picking over the scene, collecting evidence in bloody plastic bins. The local army and police were getting pretty good at this kind of job now; they’d certainly had enough practice over the past few years. Nevertheless, the US had asked the Indonesian government for permission to send in its own battery of experts and investigators. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the locals to do a good job, but it was felt that many hands would make lighter work of finding clues and, ultimately, tracking down and punishing the perpetrators. Jakarta agreed.

  Monroe was by no means the first outside American on the scene. Two US Army majors, bomb disposal experts on an information exchange program with Australian law enforcement officers in Darwin, had been flown immediately to the embassy, arriving within hours. As chance would have it, there was also an international forensics seminar being held in Jakarta, and half a dozen of America’s top forensic experts from various law enforcement agencies had rushed to the scene. They were busily helping their Indonesian counterparts with the gruesome job of identifying bodies and sifting for clues. Fire had not been a major factor in this attack, making the identification process easier than it otherwise might have been, although there were many victims crushed and cut beyond recognition by falling masonry and glass.

  Atticus Monroe didn’t know where to start. CIA Canberra had sent him there to get a leg up on the investigation, but the scene was still too chaotic to extract much sense out of anyone. So he rolled up his sleeves and busied himself helping the rescue effort, removing and tagging body parts and listening for trapped survivors. So far, none had been found.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said a US Army soldier covered in concrete dust and streaked with sweat. ‘Are you Atticus Monroe, CIA?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Monroe, swinging a chunk of broken brickwork behind him and standing up.

  ‘Sir, Captain Stokes, one of the doctors, wants to see you if you can spare a moment.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Atticus, wiping the sweat on his forehead with the inside of his shirt. ‘Let’s go.’

  Monroe followed the young soldier to the makeshift medical facility set up in the courtyard of the nearby French Embassy. It was like a battlefield. The survivors were people who, moments before the explosion, had every expectation that the day ahead of them would be like all the days behind them, unaware that within seconds their lives would be irrevocably changed because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Family, friends and relatives were crying over victims sedated by morphine, their bodies crushed, makeshift tourniquets above bloody, shattered limbs. There were people wandering around dazed between the stretchers, searching for loved ones amongst the pathetic survivors, hoping to find them here rather than in the flyblown morgue out the back.

  Monroe followed the PFC as he wound his way through the harrowing scene towards a man wielding a saw behind a jury-rigged curtain of opaque plastic sheeting. He looked up. ‘CIA?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Atticus Monroe.’ It wasn’t necessary to present identification.

  ‘Captain Stokes. I won’t shake your hand.’

  Monroe nodded. The doctor’s hands were sheathed in gloves streaked with gore.

  ‘Someone over here you should talk to,’ said the doctor.

  Stokes handed the saw to his assistant, an Indonesian, and moved to another gurney. A woman dressed in filthy battle fatigues lay on it, both legs ending in bloody cotton gauze dressing just below the knees. A morphine drip fed into her arm.

  ‘This is Sergeant Jane Hennert. She was on the front entrance when the bomb went off. Whoever did this went through her.’

  ‘Sergeant…’ said the doctor quietly. The woman opened her eyes.

  In a whisper, she said, ‘Cameras…cameras.’ The woman’s eyes closed, moistened with tears, as the morphine took her away.

  The doctor peeled off his gloves and dropped them in the bucket under the gurney. He put a hand on her forehead and stroked it. The sergeant’s conscious mind had retreated way back from the light, where it was dark and cool and safe.

  The doctor looked up. ‘She didn’t want me to give her morphine,’ he said, indicating the drip, ‘but the shock of the injuries would have killed her. She told me she let the bomber in, a photographer. Something about the feel of the cameras. It’s not much…’ he said again.

  ‘Okay, thanks, doc,’ said Monroe. ‘Will she live?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ said the doctor. ‘Four broken vertebrae, broken arm, her legs gone. She also has a sub capsular bleed in her spleen.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Monroe.

  ‘It’s not as bad as a ruptured spleen, but almost. Extremely painful and dangerous, but,’ he said, taking a deep breath, ‘we’ve got worse on our hands and she’ll have to wait. As to whether she survives or not…’ The doctor looked her over as if considering the verdict. ‘Well, she’s fit, but…who knows? A lot depends on her mental fitness. If she holds herself responsible for this…I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry, Mr Monroe. Gotta get back to it. Find your own way out?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  ‘If we get anything else, I’ll send for you,’ said the doctor behind him as he walked off to settle a man who had started screaming.

  An Indonesian nurse scurried past carrying a bucket of water with a hand towel in it. Atticus stopped her and took the towel, squeezing the excess water from it. He wiped the streaked dirt from the sergeant’s face and whispered. ‘It’s not your fault…not your fault…’

  Townsville, Queensland, Australia

  Annabelle Gilbert prided herself on her detachment when reading the news, but as the report she read revealed the deterioration in Indonesia, her stomach began to churn.Tom will be leaving again soon, I know it…

  The news service footage from Indonesia and Malaysia was frightening. Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, the capital cities of both countries, were filled with demonstrators burning and looting in support of the US Embassy bombers, whoever they w
ere. The governments of these countries were doing their best to contain the anger – armoured vehicles, army and police were on the streets – but it was difficult for them to stamp hard on the demonstrations because the uprisings appeared to be mainstream rather than promoted by fringe elements.

  She watched as an Indonesian policeman fell under a charge from people wielding sticks, their faces covered by handkerchiefs and balaclavas. They kicked and beat him brutally until other police could come to his aid. Then the tables turned and it was the civilians’ turn to receive a hammering. People were throwing Molotov cocktails at the police line and several cars were burning fiercely.

  The autocue on the clear glass plate in front of the camera rolled forward and Annabelle read, present in body but not in mind: ‘Similar demonstrations in apparent support of the bombing have broken out in many other major cities in the region, but nowhere more so than in Indonesia. Australian authorities have reiterated that travel warnings are in force for Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, as well as for Great Britain and the United States. The United States as well as Britain and the Netherlands have issued similar alerts, including Australia in their assessment of high-risk countries. To find out how the US is reacting to this latest outrage, we’ll be back after this…’

  The program producer cut to an ad break featuring several sporting personalities singing badly about the virtues of a particular breakfast cereal. It was banal but reassuring at the same time, a superficial reminder of what the world used to be like. A movement in the corner of Annabelle’s eye caught her attention as she shuffled the papers in front of her. It was Tom, smiling, but rubbing the top of his head with his hand. Shit… She knew he hated coming to the studio, and he only came when he had to depart in a hurry – it was better than leaving a note.

  Wilkes looked at his fiancée. Even under the hot television lights she seemed calm and cool. He shuffled uncomfortably, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’d have been more comfortable on his belly, wriggling through the bush under a stream of machine gun tracer than in this place. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Hey, Wilko, how’s it hangin’, dude?’

  Wilkes knew who it was before he looked. Barry Weaver, the producer.

  ‘New Guinea rocked, eh?’ he said.

  ‘Hi, yeah. How’s it going?’ said Wilkes, making a supreme effort to be polite.

  ‘Sweet. So, still saving the world?’

  ‘Oh, you know…’ Wilkes didn’t have a clue what to say. He couldn’t relate to some of these people on any level and he prayed for rescue. Just as the thought formed, he felt a pair of lips on his cheek and a familiar perfume enveloped him.

  ‘Hi, Tom,’ Annabelle said, slipping an arm through his. ‘Barry…’ And just like that, the man was dismissed. Annabelle had that kind of power. ‘Let’s get out of here and get naked,’ she whispered in Wilkes’s ear.

  Warrant Officer Tom Wilkes looked at the digital clock beside the bed. It was just before midnight. He and Annabelle had argued back and forth for most of the evening. The subject of the argument had once again been his job, that he regularly put his life on the line any time his superiors deemed it necessary to do so. Nothing new there, but the disturbing twist was Annabelle’s attitude, her moral upper hand in the discussion. They were getting married and that meant she now had a say. In him, what he did. Wilkes lay in the darkness, looking at the ceiling, and thought about the not-so-subtle shift in the dynamic between them. It occurred to him that the older he became, the less he was his own man. He’d seen this happen often enough to others in the regiment. Things went reasonably well until a man got married, and not particularly well after it. Annabelle’s point was a common refrain: she wanted him to get a regular job, whatever that was. Wilkes knew what it wasn’t – jumping out of planes, storming buildings, his usual nine to five. Annabelle hadn’t been able to tell him what kind of job she thought would be regular, probably because she knew him well enough not to suggest the ones on the tip of her tongue. The discussion had progressed to argument and then on to a full-blown fight, which had become pretty heated. Things had been silent for five minutes, but he could hear Annabelle breathing and see her ribs expanding, rising and falling. She was sucking it in, pissed off.

  They’d gone to bed to make love and instead they’d fought. He followed the curve of her narrow waist to the point of her hip, tracing the folds of her silk nightgown. Her body was long and lean, and as close to perfection as he could have imagined. Absently, he stroked her back, making circles, soothing her and himself with the motion. He was trying to control his own anger, concentrating on the touch rather than on the barrier between them.

  At first Annabelle’s body was rigid, muscles tensed. But then she began to relax. And so did Tom. He unconsciously followed the swell of her breasts under the silk, tracing circles that ended at the point of her nipples. He was suddenly aware that they were hard, and that so was he. Annabelle’s breathing had also changed, subtly but fundamentally. She shifted position to bring his skin into contact with hers. He continued to stroke her softly, running the backs of his fingers around her belly. She cooed softly and reached behind, holding his erection in her cool hand. Annabelle parted her legs. Tom gently touched her between her thighs and her body shuddered subtly, as if charged by a mild electric shock. Annabelle guided him inside. He felt her warmth encircle and invade him, the ultimate softness.

  They lay there for a time, each feeling the other’s presence within. And then he started to move, slowly. Her breathing quickened. The pleasure rose unbearably, both aware of the other but at the same time lost in a white-out of ecstasy. They came together noisily, Annabelle letting go of her voice, Tom holding on to his breath and then exhaling as the tension between them reached a climax. The stress melted away with the dissolving strength in their muscles. They lay quietly together, remaining coupled for as long as possible.

  ‘When do you go?’ she finally asked in the darkness.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Annabelle…’

  ‘I know, I know. You can’t tell me…’

  Annabelle woke from a fitful sleep in the grey light of early dawn. The space beside her was empty. Somehow she had known that it would be before she opened her eyes, the reassurance of his breathing no longer in the room. Tom was gone, replaced by an emptiness so total it made her cry.

  Australian Defence Force HQ, Russell Offices, Canberra, Australia

  Like many Australians, Wilkes felt uncomfortable in the nation’s capital. It wasn’t a real city, more of a concept town from an architect’s portfolio, the streets too smoothly surfaced, the lawns too neatly manicured, the buildings too monumental, the shirts too stuffed, the cats too fat, and so on. It was a city built to house public servants and politicians, about as remote from the real world they were supposed to be administering as it was possible to get.

  The commercial flight arrived bang on 1000 hours, the 737 touching down on a rain-swept runway. Wilkes was surprised to be met by a white government car, the sort reserved for the obese felines high on the totem pole. He looked out the window but only saw Annabelle’s face. Nothing had been resolved between them. Wilkes momentarily regretted slipping the ring on her finger. No, Annabelle is The One, he told himself. The details of their lovemaking flooded into his mind. Yeah, we’ll sort it out. The conviction that things would improve allowed Tom to mentally leave Annabelle at home, just as he had done physically before dawn, and concentrate on the day ahead. His mobile phone had gone off while he was in a taxi on the way to meet Annabelle at the television station the previous evening. The voice on the phone summoned him to Canberra. He’d had a feeling the call would come when he heard the news of the embassy bombing.

  Australian representatives at USCENTCOM, the US military’s eye on the Middle East, had managed to convince the US Joint Chiefs of Staff that Australia should be deputised to patrol South East Asia, the argument being
that Australia was a stable democracy with close proximity to potential trouble spots and, most importantly, national interests in common with the US. Since Afghanistan and Iraq, the SAS had become the sharp end of this new American appreciation of Australia.

  The big Ford glided past the barricaded square dedicated to Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey, one of the great Australian leaders of the first two world wars. Wilkes looked out the window and allowed his eyes to drift up the single column on top of which perched an eagle. The Ford bucked slightly as its front wheels took on the driveway entrance to the Australian Defence Force HQ, the Australian strategic command centre. Wilkes knew the building well. It was unprepossessing, built in the sixties from the materials popular at the time, and was sorely in need of a makeover. Scrap that, thought Tom as he looked up at the featureless concrete and glass block. What it needed was a wrecking ball.

  The vehicle drove up to the temporary, sandbagged boom gate, a row of steel spikes set in the road twenty metres beyond it. Two troopers in full battledress, Kevlar helmets, body armour and Steyr assault carbines approached the car carefully from the rear three-quarter position, one soldier covering the other with his weapon raised and, Tom speculated, off safety. He lowered his window and produced his identity card for inspection. The hit on the US Embassy had obviously made everyone jumpy. The soldier relaxed when he saw who and what Tom Wilkes was. He let his rifle hang beside his arm by its strap, and called in the warrant officer’s numbers through a portable police-style microphone clipped to one shoulder. The boom rose. He was expected. The Ford rolled forward over the road spikes and headed for the front entrance.

  Things had certainly changed, thought Wilkes. Within a couple of months of Bali, when the intelligence services gained some true inkling of the malice towards America and its allies in the region, all major government buildings had come under the control and protection of the military. Now, after Jakarta, caution would again be an around-the-clock reality until everyone got bored with it. Terrorists would just have to wait a little until things relaxed before driving a truck bomb into the foyer and giving the bell on the front desk a ping. This protection duty added to the enormous pressure on the ADF’s resources. There simply weren’t enough soldiers to go round, which was why the task had recently fallen to the Army Reserve, the part-time soldiers. Wilkes wondered what the two men on the front gate did when they weren’t wearing combat fatigues. Ad execs? Estate agents? Hairdressers? Enough of that, he reminded himself, we need these guys.