by Nick Louth
‘You have until sunrise. I shall be waiting upstairs.’
* * *
It was midnight. Rifat was hungry, thirsty and wanted to go to the toilet. He was locked in the featureless room with the qat-chewer, whose throat clearing, spitting and prayer bead rattling was driving him crazy. They had broken off twice for prayers, but that hadn’t overcome his difficulties. He really needed a PC or laptop where he could access testing software, and some YouTube ‘how-to’ videos for the more obscure phones. He was also unimpressed by the lack of latex gloves which could have ensured that electrical contacts remained grease-free.
For all that, things had gone well at the start. He had chosen a Nokia model, because it was the same brand he owned at home. This, however, was a different model. The SIM card, the brains of the phone, was pretty much on a single microchip. On this model, one he had not seen before, it could not be removed by the user without opening the casing. He turned to the other phones. Samsung, Hitachi, Ericsson, Siemens, Toshiba. Some of them did have user-accessible SIM cards, but he had never taken them apart before. Rifat had quickly identified the correct Nokia manual, removed the casing screws from the phone, and set them out carefully on a piece of paper in the same layout as required to reassemble them. He removed the blunt antenna, held in place by the largest screw. A case-opener tool, part of a bag of miscellaneous components on the table, made short work of separating the back casing and display screen. Beneath the screen was the green motherboard and credit card-sized power supply, which ran the more power-hungry screen functions. Two tiny screws held the motherboard in place, and an electrical ribbon still connected it to the screen. He released that by sliding out the contact. On the other side of the motherboard was the SIM card, not much larger or thicker than a thumbnail. It was held in place on its cradle with a tiny plastic clip. Using tweezers, he slid it out, and checked the electrical connection. Then he hit trouble. He needed to winkle out the SIM card holder too, away from the motherboard which really only drove the screen and which he wouldn’t need. The SIM card cradle would channel the charge reliably from the card to the detonator. He would then re-attach the antenna to the cradle, so he could redial the SIM card in it. But he didn’t have a tool that would fit the tiny screw, no more than one millimetre across, that held the cradle onto the motherboard. He worked at it for more than an hour with other tools, until his eyes began to hurt. He could break the screw, but that was crass, amateur, and idiotic. That was the last thing he wanted to appear to be. He could probably use a modelling knife to cut out the motherboard around the screw, but that too was lacking in elegance.
Rifat leaned back on the chair, and massaged his eyes. If he couldn’t get through the problem, he would get around it. Lateral thinking. He needed a cradle that fitted that SIM card. It was a Nokia, and that was the only Nokia among the seven phones he’d been given. But Nokia didn’t manufacture SIM cards. It bought them in. But who made it? Squinting at the card through the magnifier, he found the name of a Chinese-sounding firm. In the next hour he opened as many of the other phones as he could, checking for similar size and format SIM cards. If the cards were similar format, then the cradle should be. Finally, he found an identical SIM in a Siemens phone. This model used a different motherboard, and crucially retained the SIM card cradle with a clip, rather than a screw. Rifat released the cradle, unclipped the Siemens SIM card and replaced it with the Nokia SIM. It fitted the cradle perfectly. Now all he had to do was replicate the operation after setting the bomb timer. To do that he replaced the Nokia SIM in its original phone, reassembled it with the carefully placed screws, switched it on, and set the phone alarm for 1am. The reassembly took less than five minutes.
Once set, he removed the SIM card again, and slipped it into the Siemens cradle. By half past midnight, he had built an assembly of SIM card, cradle, and detonator that easily fitted into the cigarette packet. In fact it was no bigger than the top joint of his thumb. With a dab of surgical spirit on a cotton bud, he cleaned each and every part of the assembly of grease, paying particular attention to the point where the detonator was taped onto the SIM cradle. Finally satisfied, he attached the antenna and wrapped the package in insulation tape. He then wrapped it in a layer of polythene, cut out from one of the manual packets, and taped it in place. That would keep out dust and moisture.
The phone was set to explode in less than half an hour. But if he dialled it, that blast could come sooner. He tapped the qat-chewer, who had fallen asleep, and got him to unlock the door. This would be Rifat’s first bomb. He could already imagine using it on the man who had enwhored his mother. A man who had wanted him dead, even before his birth. Perhaps now he should return the compliment.
* * *
The explosion was bigger than Rifat had expected. The taped assembly jumped off the desk with a sharp crack, and smoke poured from the package. No-one had thought to bring any water into the basement, but the qat-chewer unhitched his trousers and urinated on it. Rifat, hoping to save some aspect of the assembly, was horrified, as the stink of hot urine reached his nostrils.
The green keffayah and the qat-chewer both laughed to see Rifat’s distress.
‘Do not worry, young one. There will be many more opportunities. You have today passed all three tests.’
‘Three tests?’ Rifat queried.
‘Yes. This was the test of the brain, one that I had little doubt that you would pass, based on reports from Imam Hosseini. Outside, this afternoon in the alley, the girl was two tests in one. The first, money, as a test of your Islamic incorruptibility. The second, lust, a test of the defences of your heart and soul against the devil’s sweet songs. Of that we could be less sure. But you were not found wanting. You have done well.’
* * *
A week later, Rifat was approached in an Internet café. A man sitting in the next booth to him passed a handwritten note under the desk, onto his lap. His attendance was required tonight at seven, for an important meeting. The address was a jeweller’s shop on the top floor of a shopping mall in the centre of the city. There he was to identify himself to the owner. There were no details of who else would be there, or what he was to be told. The message was passed so smoothly that when Rifat looked up, whoever it was that had sat in the next booth was gone.
Rifat knew of the shop, which was a slightly unfashionable store specialising in silver jewellery worn by matrons. He recalled it because Mother Badriyeh had labelled the owners ‘dogs and thieves’ selling poor quality merchandise which she said was made of tainted and impure metals. She didn’t know how it survived, given how little custom it attracted. Perhaps this was the reason, he thought.
When he arrived, Rifat could see what she had meant. The frontage was dirty and stained, the window display shoddy and disorganised. A small, balding and unhappy looking man was playing backgammon with himself at a desk next to an ancient cash register. He raised his eyebrows in a questioning fashion as Rifat arrived, and shook the dice, without altering his miserabilist expression. Rifat introduced himself, and the man canted his head to the right, indicating that he should pass behind the curtain at the rear of the store. As Rifat moved, he heard the click of the backgammon pieces behind him. The room behind was a workshop, much better equipped than the store in front of it. A door slid closed behind the curtain as he went in, and a familiar laugh revealed the qat-chewing Yemeni.
The Yemeni took him into another room, clearly used as a storeroom. It had a good view of Medina’s Al-Musallah al-Nabawī mosque and its many graceful minarets. Two pigeons were cooing on the window ledge. On a desk sat an open laptop, connected to a cable, with a small round TV camera, no bigger than a golf ball, clipped to its upper edge. The Yemeni bade Rifat sit on a chair facing the laptop. He then fixed a microphone on Rifat’s shirt, and pressed ‘Enter’ on the laptop keyboard.
Rifat suddenly realised that Al Qaeda, for all its supposed medieval world view, had arranged for him to be interviewed remotely. This is an organisation that takes what it ne
eds from technology, even US technology like Skype, to further its own creed. He remembered what Osama bin Laden had said in the video about using the tools of the West.
A video image popped up on the screen of a man sitting cross-legged, dressed in a simple open-necked white shirt, black trousers and sandals. The image was pixelated around the man’s face, but showed a neatly cut pepper and salt beard.
‘Hello Rifat. Thank you for paying this visit to us. I am Abu Kadeer. I can see you clearly, and I hope that you can see something of me.’ The voice, rich and deep, had a definite American twang to it though his Arabic was clear, precise and natural.
Rifat, still slightly shocked by the accent, nodded his assent.
‘The first thing I must say to you is don’t be alarmed. I’m not an American. I studied in the United States, led an Islamic ministry or two there, and left when it was clear that my work could be better done when based elsewhere. It does mean I have a great knowledge of what we are up against. I must also apologise for being only a virtual presence. I have heard quite a lot about you and the problems that took you to your imam, and how well you passed the tests we set you. I would of course like to meet you in person, but that may not be possible for a while.’
‘I understand,’ said Rifat.
‘The imam told me about your talents in electronics, something you have now clearly demonstrated. We think that this is something you should pursue with all energy. Now I am told that your father is a high-ranking diplomat, and travels to Europe regularly. I think that it would be a good idea if you were able to study electronics and particularly telecommunications. London, I think, would be a good place to do that, because it will give you a better grasp of that society, as well as improving your English. We will have need of all these attributes in the years ahead. You will be given an e-mail address, which you must never use for sending e-mails, as it is also an address I can use. There will be nothing from me in the inbox. My messages to you will be in the drafts box. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Rifat. ‘I presume it must be webmail, Hotmail or Gmail, for us to both access it?’
‘That’s right. I can see you are very intelligent. You may not know that saving drafts is much safer than sending e-mails because they don’t pass through the transmission servers that are filtered by the CIA’s computers to eavesdrop. You may check for new drafts once per week. You will need to be patient. I may not contact you for some time.’
‘I wondered if you could help me about another matter,’ Rifat said, hoping to get some clue to finding his father.
‘Ah yes,’ Abu Kadeer responded. ‘I was shocked to hear the tale that the imam told me, and the tragic fall of your birth mother into sin. Rifat, let me tell you about women. Women are the prime subjects of manipulation by the West. Their exposed images of bodily perfection, are beamed into every home and every woman’s heart. Instead of the modesty and constancy of Islam, they are expected to work in the world of men, to shape their faces and bodies to inflame men. It is an unforgiving but ever changing ideology; to lose weight, to please the world and flit from one inconsequential fad to another. They are flooded with guilt, get sick and depressed, and buzz with ephemeral concerns. No wonder they cannot see their own true worth before God. While the West attacks Islam for hiding women under the abaya, we offer them protection from the worldly gaze and from worldly judgment. We set family, faith and honour as the touchstones of their value, as sisters and mothers within families and tribes in which they are held dear. While the West cheapens these flowers in their youth, it sets no value at all on their later years. Instead of respect and veneration, older women are ignored in the media, divorced and cast out on a whim, and then in their last years, consigned to anonymous corporate care homes, where there is no family and no love. They die alone and confused. It is perhaps no surprise that Satan finds westernised women the perfect debased currency to buy his way into our faltering hearts. We must never make that transaction, Rifat. Never.’
Rifat found Abu Kadeer’s words struck a strong personal chord within him. His mother’s behaviour, the magazine pictures and the cheapening of marital relations had all been embodied in him, in his tainted bloodline. Such a thing could not be reversed overnight, because it was built in the Western system of values. That’s why they had to fight.
‘So what help do you require, brother,’ Abu Kadeer said.
‘I wish to exact a blood tribute against the infidel crusader who seduced my mother into sin,’ he said.
‘Do you know where to find this person?’
‘Not yet. I’m not even sure exactly who it is, but I am close to finding out. I think he is a journalist for the BBC. Once I am sure, I will kill him,’ Rifat responded.
‘How would you wish to do that?’
Rifat hesitated. In truth he had not considered how to dispatch the man. He had imagined blowing him up, shooting him, or stabbing him. ‘I do not know. A bullet perhaps.’
‘Have you ever taken a human life, Rifat?’
‘Not yet,’ he responded.
Abu Kadeer stroked his chin, and said nothing for a few moments. ‘Is this man not your father, Rifat?’
‘In blood perhaps, but not in the sight of Allah. I repudiate his fatherhood, which has stained me.’ Rifat surprised himself with his vehemence.
‘His is the sin of Adam. An account we share with Jews and indeed Christians, but which they have twisted. Remember the Koran. “That no sinner shall bear the sins of another. And that man can have nothing but what he does of good and bad. And that his deeds will be seen.” That is Sura fifty-three, verses thirty-eight to forty-one. Rifat, you are not tainted by original sin, as a Christian would believe. We are each responsible for our own actions. Blood carries no sin.’
‘Yes,’ said Rifat.
‘Do nothing to further your vengeance yet. You are inexperienced in such matters, and could cause us damage. But do find out everything about him. You say he works for the BBC? This could be useful.’
Chapter Sixteen
Saudi Arabia
July 2008
Rifat was feeling car sick. After six hundred kilometres in heavy traffic with the qat-chewing Yemeni, he was sick of asking for the window to be closed so the air-conditioning could kick in. But for the Yemeni, spitting out of the open window was a human right, one that he intended to continue using, even though it was thirty-five degrees in the vehicle, and the endless buses of Yemeni labourers coming the other way poisoned the air with their fumes. Rifat had drunk most of the water even before they had stopped briefly in Jeddah for grilled chicken and rice. The border to Yemen was just fifteen minutes away. Could they really be heading there?
He had been told nothing about his trip except that he would be away for at least a week. He wasn’t asked to bring his passport, and when he had checked this, the Yemeni merely shrugged. At a small village, within sight of the border, they turned off the black asphalt and left behind the queue of heavy fume-belching trucks and buses which had slowed down for the border checks. Security had become much more stringent since 2004, with the tribal revolts in the North. The Yemeni gunned the car up a rock-strewn dirt track which ran up a hill. There it passed behind a huge hoarding for the state-owned Saudi Aramco Oil Company. The picture of a glitzy cityscape and modern suited businessmen shaking hands on a deal was as big as a tennis court. Behind, in its gigantic shadow, several shepherds sat around a campfire. The track then wound on between low and rocky hills and passed a series of dark-tented Bedouin compounds. Within the rough fenced enclosures, camels and battered pick-up trucks were scattered among hundreds of sheep and goats which subsisted on low thorny bushes. The Yemeni stopped by one of the pick-ups, in which three youths were sitting listening to loud Egyptian rock music. They exchanged greetings.
Rifat was told to get his luggage and switch to the pick-up. There was nowhere to stow the holdall, except in the flatbed which was scattered with pellets of goat dung, and coated in sand. After he had tied the bag hand
les to the back of the cab, he waved off his driver and squeezed into the cab. The back window of the pick-up sported an AK47 automatic rifle, and some magazine pictures of Lebanese pop stars. The youths, with rotten qat-stained teeth, introduced themselves: Ali, a burly mechanic, who now sat in the flatbed, Mazan, the tousle-haired driver and Helliode, a slim and giggly adolescent who had lost an eye. Helliode explained that Rifat was going to be taken over the border by the tribal route used for hundreds of years, which was controlled by qat-traders who had paid off the police. Mazan, who drove barefoot, hurled the Toyota over every rough piece of ground and dried riverbed, turning sharply on gravelled slopes and trying it seemed to keep the truck airborne. For every gear change he had to reach between the legs of Helliode, who as the smallest of the three was straddling the gearbox. Every few seconds Mazan turned to look at Rifat, to see if his adventurous driving had impressed this well-dressed urban youth. Rifat, hiding behind his sunglasses tried to smile, but with his hands braced on the baking hot dashboard, he was sure his terror was obvious.
‘Hey,’ said Helliode to Mazan. ‘Let’s go see the Zanneh!’
Mazan whooped, and barrelled the vehicle over a rocky slope away from the track. After ten bumpy minutes heading down a narrow wadi, they emerged into an area of scorched ground, where some metallic wreckage was visible. The truck slewed to a halt and the Yemeni youths jumped out. Rifat eased himself from his seat. Helliode broke open a pack of Red Bull, and offered a can to Rifat.
‘So what is this?’ Rifat said.
‘An American drone crashed here,’ Helliode said.
‘I shot it down,’ said Ali. ‘General Atomics MQ1 Predator, my first kill!’
‘No he didn’t,’ laughed Mazan. ‘It was the Maqwan tribe.’
Rifat looked over the remains. The pilotless aircraft was about eight metres long, but huge chunks of the fuselage had been removed. The slender wings, and the tailplane had been smashed on impact. Ali showed off his personal prize, a piece of fuselage casing that bore an aluminium tag.
