Heartbreaker: Love, secrets and terror

by Nick Louth

  Rifat was stunned. The Base, Al Qaeda, had achieved international notoriety, but for Saudis the meaning was more nuanced. He knew that even for followers of the strict Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, Al Qaeda was a symbol of dangerous extremity in righteousness. But for the young, the angry and for the devout it was an alluring symbol of Islamic assertiveness, of resistance to western values, of power and self determination. Those, like the imam, who had in his sermons subtly criticised the house of Saud for its craven alliance with the West, saw in Al Qaeda and the Sharia law caliphate it advocated an assertion of historic Islam. Rifat remembered many references from the imam to ‘the shining days when righteous horsemen swept the world with their message and none could resist.’ He now wondered whether he should become a new messenger, perhaps using a mobile phone instead of a scroll.

  ‘Before you go, I want you to watch this video,’ the imam said. He handed Rifat a padded envelope. ‘This will explain what The Base expects of initiates and what it can offer. If you are not absolutely sure to have privacy at home, you can watch it here. Either way, you must return it to me by tomorrow.’

  Rifat nodded, and took the package as he stood.

  The imam looked up. ‘Rifat, don’t forget. Heaven awaits those who follow the true path to light and glory. Pick up the proffered sword. It has your name written upon it.’

  * * *

  Rifat was too nervous to take the video home, so watched it at the mosque. He was taken by the imam’s assistant to a windowless private room, bare except for a square of worn carpet and an old TV and VCR. Once the assistant was confident Rifat knew how to use the equipment, he was told to lock the door and use headphones, and not to mention to anyone what he was doing. The video was grainy and of much poorer quality than the DVDs he had at home, and opened with the organisation’s flag, a full yellow moon on a black background, above it the Islamic declaration of faith: There is no god but God, Muhammed is the messenger of God. After several minutes of recitations from the Koran, the video opened onto a turbaned and bearded man, a face shockingly familiar. Osama bin Laden, right there in the room with him, addressing him in a soft voice through the headphones, as dearest initiate, believer and confidante. The camera zoomed in on the face, whose luminous pallor outshone the dim bulb in the ceiling. Bin Laden had soft brown eyes, an almost puppyish face quite at odds with his fearsome reputation. It filled Rifat with enormous pride to have this one-to-one audience with the world’s most wanted man, even if this video had been seen by hundreds or thousands of others. Bin Laden was speaking directly into his head, and everything he said, seemed reasonable, sensible and not extreme at all. The hypocrisy of the West, the injustices against Islam, the attacks upon Muslim nations were threads woven into a carefully-planned tapestry by the Western crusader, determined to roll back centuries of the One True Faith. Bin Laden was almost contemptuous of his enemies: their softness, their obsession with comfort and materialism, their fear of death, and their crass commercialism which so easily delivered into righteous hands the tools for their own downfall. Above all he was contemptuous of their unbelief, not only of the One True Faith, but even their own. How they had twisted the words of Christ, a prophet in Islam and a messiah to the tribes of Israel. They had been helped by the apostates within Islam, those who said they were Muslims but in private drank alcohol, fornicated, and failed to seek penance. At this Rifat’s face glowed with embarrassment, thinking of his discovery of the pornographic magazine. Finally, Bin Laden spoke of his own death, of the inevitability that new leaders would be one day needed to continue the process of reinstating the caliphate. Bin Laden reached out a hand towards the screen and gave a final invitation: ‘Initiate, your faith will through holy jihad redeem this world in the sight of God.’

  * * *

  Rifat was unable to sleep for the five days before his appointment. He couldn’t study, he couldn’t think straight, he couldn’t do anything until he had the chance to bind his energy into this righteous force. The prospect of joining Al Qaeda wasn’t the only thing exercising his mind. He recalled that there were some letters in his father’s locked drawer that he hadn’t had the chance to look at. Of course, he well knew that he could have looked at them if he had not instead been swept up by lust to look at the magazine. How Satan weaves his snares! Even as he, Rifat, was on the cusp of finding out what he needed to know, to find out which infidel crusader had defiled his bloodline, he had fallen for the first devilish temptation thrown at him. Now the apartment was fully occupied, busy with two clucking gossiping mothers, and his nosy younger brothers Usman and Ali. Getting to the office now was impossible, at least during daylight. His father would take his briefcase to work, and there would only be the slightest opportunity in the evening if he was willing to take the risk of being caught. But he was bound to be caught. The Playboy magazine, dried but still stained, was under his bed. He had stashed it in the envelope with his electronics manuals, in his trunk. At some stage Rifat knew he should still throw that magazine out, but something had stayed his hand every time the decision had been made. He had already sneaked looks at the Playboy in the evening, on the days when his brother went to the madrassah, so he could be sure that he wouldn’t be surprised. He always avoiding the pictures of Amma Tazi, but he looked at the other women, the curve of their breasts, their flawless skin, their perfect and enticing smiles. He was drawn most of all to those mysterious hairy areas between their legs, and the lips glimpsed beneath. Above all, so many of these pictures were taken in the open air, during bright daylight, in the sight of God. In these countries, in America or in Europe, it seemed that there was just no shame at all to the exposure of the womanhood.

  Rifat felt he needed to understand the nature of his enemy. That was why he retained the magazine, but it was risky. He tested himself, feeling excitement building, his erection throbbing long before he even opened the magazine. When he felt he must touch himself, he put the magazine away. This was sometimes very hard to do, and occasionally he failed, and abandoned himself to the pleasures of Lucifer, better to know how to defeat them next time. It was only easy when he convinced himself that noises elsewhere in the apartment indicated that Mother Umniya or Mother Badriyeh were about to come through the door. Sometimes he intensified the imagination of the slightest noise, to scare himself and force him to put the magazine away. Duelling with the dark angel, that was how he recorded it in his diary. Good, testing its resolve against the lowest callings of darkness. This test would be useful in future, he was sure of it. Especially now he was being called to do important work.

  Still there was the matter of the letters. Late one night, he was lying awake thinking about the magazine, when he decided he must take a positive step to find out more. Rifat went to his father’s briefcase, located the keys and unlocked the office. By torchlight he found the desk drawer he was looking for. Underneath the banking magazines he found three or four hand-written letters. The oldest one was stamped March 1990.

  Esteemed and beloved brother,

  Your kindness and generosity on this issue will live with me always. After our phone call the other day I wept with gratitude and with joy. I couldn’t ask to have a more understanding family, considering what has occurred. No doubt to some I will always be the bad sister, but I thank the Almighty that a sense of duty will protect the child from whatever blame is attached to me, and keep him (for, no feminist in this respect, I hope it is a boy) free of taint in the years ahead, in the bosom of your family. The child is innocent, and deserves the warmth of an open heart and the light of an open mind.

  I thought about what you said, but I haven’t dared mention to Chris that I intend to keep the child, in spite of agreeing otherwise. The BBC is sending him to Yugoslavia next week. There are bad things happening there, and he fears there will be civil war. He will be away for months before I could hope to join him. He won’t see me pregnant, and will not guess that I would have chosen to keep the child. I have always understood that he sees me as a taste of exot
ic eastern glamour. He would not be impressed by dirty nappies and a pushchair in the hallway. He has had that at home, and I fear I would lose him. This I know is a strange love, and not of your understanding. Perhaps not of mine either. But he is a good man, and I yearn for him.

  Brother, your trust in me is like the sweetest water from a familiar well on my long journey of the heart. Bless your spirit, and keep safe and well. I still pray for you, even bad Muslim that I am. You honour me beyond words, as do your esteemed wives with their generosity.

  Your wayward sister

  Tazi

  Rifat fiercely wiped away the tears that were threatening to drip on the page, and stuffed the letter back in its envelope and into the desk. Sympathy, a weakness like lust, was a miasma around him and he fought it. The letter had provided him with what he needed. A name, Chris. An employer, the BBC. That would be all that he needed to find this crusader. Then he will learn justice.

  * * *

  Finally, the moment arrived. The imam’s directions led to a dirty alleyway in the old quarter, through a courtyard where two tethered donkeys stood side by side with an aged Honda motorcycle and a handcart with a broken wheel. There was a bad smell of sewage, and the distant sound of power tools and shouted conversation. The courtyard split into four other stained passageways squeezed between cement block buildings, under looping bundles of cables.

  As Rifat considered his choice, a young woman bustled by with a plastic basket of laundry on her shoulder. Rifat stood aside to let her pass, but noticed that her load had dislodged her hijab which now sat limply around her neck, unleashing a carpet of dark curls. She was past him when she stopped to re-tie it. After she walked away, Rifat noticed that along the alley she had come from a banknote was lying on the ground. He was sure it hadn’t been there before. Picking it up, he saw it was a hundred riyal note, a good week’s pay. He turned and called after the woman. She hadn’t got far, and turned to him.

  ‘You have dropped your money,’ Rifat said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Is it not yours?’

  ‘It’s a hundred riyals. It isn’t mine, so I think it must be yours.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ She put down her washing basket, and again it tugged her hijab back. As she bent down to her basket, Rifat observed her pretty face, moist pink lips and dark kohl-rimmed eyes, all framed in tendrils of exquisite black hair. With slim hennaed fingers she quickly felt through the laundry until she found a pair of trousers and gasped. ‘My father has left his wallet in his pocket! It must have come from there.’

  She faced him and smiled; a wide wonderful smile. ‘Thank you so much. You are kind, honest and honourable.’

  ‘It was my privilege,’ he responded, proudly.

  Her expression then turned shy. ‘I think you may have dropped a piece of paper yourself.’

  Rifat looked puzzled ‘What?’

  From the pocket of her robe she produced a laundry receipt. ‘You dropped this. It has your phone number on it.’

  Rifat looked at the receipt, which listed clothing, nothing more. There was no phone number on it. ‘Sorry?’ he burbled.

  ‘Your mobile number is written on it I believe,’ she emphasised. ‘Here.’ She handed him a pencil, and nodded at the paper. As Rifat hesitated she added: ‘My father need not know. I can text you a meeting place.’

  Rifat suddenly realised her intent, and a wave of excitement and embarrassment came over him. He was paralysed, the pencil poised over the paper. Then he remembered the lewd pictures he had so recently seen, and those of his own mother. He now felt a frisson of that same power, that destructive lust. A wave of revulsion over came him, and he stepped back. ‘No, I’m sorry. I cannot do that. But can you direct me to this address?’

  The girl shrugged, and told him to follow the line of a thick bunch of phone and electricity cables, swagged along a whitewashed but rubbish-strewn alleyway which went around the back of a goat butcher’s shop. He followed the cables, up a flight of cement stairs to a simple wooden door. Rifat’s knock was answered by a large man with a pale green keffayah and a long beard. He was speaking on a mobile phone in a foreign language, but waved Rifat in. Two other men, rough-looking with the thick hands and darkened faces of labourers, were sitting cross-legged on threadbare cushions in a grubby and unfurnished room. Rifat guessed that they might be Yemenis. One of the men was chewing qat, his cheek bulging with the mashed compress of leaves, and his teeth rotten. His father would be horrified to see him in the company of these low class tribal types.

  ‘Phone?’ the qat-chewer said.

  ‘No. I left it behind, as requested,’ replied Rifat.

  The qat-chewer asked Rifat to lift his arms, and then searched him, thoroughly. He even squeezed his genitals, and Rifat’s squeak of surprise brought a gale of laughter from the other man, whose dark janbia jacket now flapped open. Rifat noticed that he had a pistol in his waistband as well as the traditional curved Yemeni dagger.

  The men indicated Rifat should sit down. They waited without talking while the other man finished his phone call. The only sound was the dragging of the wooden spittoon and the occasional spit of yellowish fluid. The call finished, and the keffayahed man came in.

  ‘Your name?’ he demanded. Rifat gave it.

  ‘Understand that what happens here, in this room, stays in here. You mentioned to no one that you were coming here?’

  Rifat shook his head.

  ‘Not to brothers, not friends? If you ever reveal anything you are told here to an outsider, the penalty is death. Not glorious death, not heavenly jihadi death, but ignominious traitor death. No heaven, no virgins. Just eternal torment. Anwar, here, will cut off your scrotum first.’

  The qat-chewer, laughed enthusiastically, pointed to Rifat’s groin and mimed a rough cut as if it was some kind of joke. Rifat gulped, and he could feel his balls shrink as if they were trying to climb back into his body.

  ‘Good. Understand that this is a life-long commitment. You may have great uses to The Base, but there may be months or years when we do not get in contact with you. You will be required to hone whatever skills are required to the highest possible level and be patient. You will never, ever come again to this place, nor will you try to contact us unless you have been given specific instruction to do so. Is that clear?’

  Rifat, too terrified to speak, nodded.

  ‘At some stage you will be required to visit a training camp in another country. You will be given instructions near the time. For the rest, you must carry on the rest of your life as normal, holding to all Islamic principles of cleanliness in thought and deed, and with utter faith to the one true God. Is that clear?’

  Rifat nodded. One of the men brought in a bright red cushion on which a battered copy of the Koran sat, open and bookmarked with a cord.

  ‘Repeat after me the oath, which will bind you to us for eternity, until the highest mountains are ground to dust, and the sun has turned to darkness.’ The oath was long and blood-curdling. Rifat repeated it carefully. He was in no doubt that these people were in deadly earnest. There was no way out now, he knew that. He was theirs for life. But he felt ready for the tasks ahead.

  ‘Now,’ said green keffayah, ‘come with me.’ He led Rifat and the qat-chewer out of the room, towards a set of dimly-lit cement stairs leading down to a basement room. They clattered down the stairs and waited while a door was unlocked. The room beyond was low and windowless, but brightly lit with strip-lights. There was a large plastic table, a typist’s adjustable chair and a lightweight and expensive-looking jeweller’s bench lamp with attached magnifying glass. Through a rough hole in the ceiling dangled an electric cord leading to a gang socket on the table. On the table were half a dozen mobile phones, a plastic case of jewellery tools, several rolls of thin electric wires, one of insulation tape, and a collection of mobile phone service manuals in Arabic and English. Green keffayah pulled out a small clear plastic bag from his pocket, containing three small metal discs the size of ca
mera batteries, and flourished them in front of Rifat.

  ‘Know what these are?’ he demanded.

  ‘Lithium batteries?’ Rifat queried.

  ‘No. They are sample-sized incendiary detonators. Electric current on equals instant combustion. These are used in the mining industry. In themselves they have tiny charges, a pop like opening a drink can, but quite good enough for demonstration purposes. Now, what you have here should be all you need. I hear that you are an electronics genius. Well, we shall see. Your task is to turn one of these phones into a device linked to the detonator, with timer control and remote activation by mobile phone. It must be small enough to fit into this.’ He tossed an empty cigarette packet onto the table.’

  ‘A device?’ Rifat asked. ‘You mean a…’

  ‘Yes, of course! I mean a bomb,’ green keffayah said. That is why you were recruited. I want you to show me that you can build me something to make our martyrs’ blood sacrifice worthwhile. Small, efficient, reliable, that is what we need you to build. Always we need better mechanisms. You need not concern yourself with explosives. When the time comes we can supply what is needed to make it powerful enough to echo through the halls of the crusaders.’

  The qat-chewer laughed and spat, a green foam-flecked stain spread across the cement floor.