Rotten Gods

by Greg Barron

  Ali walks on twenty or more steps before he stops. Amplified voices from the chamber echo through the walls. He looks ahead, sees the Englishwoman again.

  Thank God she is still here.

  The dog handler follows, trying to control the animal. ‘Excuse me. Surely the dog is mistaken, but …’

  Isabella Thompson is on the spot in a moment, hands on hips. ‘How dare you be so impertinent? This man is due to address the conference in a moment. Your dog is as poorly trained as you are ill-mannered.’

  The animal seems to lose interest at that point, turning to look back down the walkway. The handler lowers his eyes. ‘Of course, madam, please accept my apologies.’ With a jerk on the leash he steers the dog away.

  Marika watches Isabella Thompson escort Dr Abukar into the conference room. Disquiet narrows her eyes. Why did she react so strongly to the dog handler? Why was an FCO diplomat outside the conference room at all?

  Thumbs in her pockets, Marika hovers near the entrance. Even now she is not worried. The room is secure. Hydraulically operated steel doors are hidden in the jambs, capable of isolating the room from any threat, to be opened again only with cooperation from both inside and outside. Marika has studied the specifications — manufactured by the German engineering firm Schroeder, weighing three-point-four tonnes, sealed by a chemically resistant polymer. The double-skinned 316 stainless steel face, thirty-five millimetres thick, will defeat any but the most determined, industrial strength attack.

  An amplified voice echoes out through the walls. ‘Please welcome Dr Ali Khalid Abukar, one of a number of silent achievers who has worked at the coal face of international aid. He holds a PhD in Human Rights and Democratisation from Debub University in Ethiopia. Dr Abukar sits on dozens of committees including the Economic and Social Council and the Committee for Climate Change in Africa. He is widely published, and speaks eight languages …’

  Swallowing her unease, telling herself that she is foolish to have misgivings about this gentle man, Marika climbs a discreet set of stairs up to the control room. This area is longer than it is wide, crammed with 3D monitor screens, and young men and women tapping at keyboards.

  Marika has met more than a few of them; drunk Stella Artois at the bar with the non-Muslims, most of them delegates from various security forces from around the world. Nikulina, the Russian, lifts his eyes from the screen to give her a wave, black body hair crawling out of his cuffs and halfway down the backs of his hands.

  The gaunt frame of Abdullah bin al-Rhoumi, Head of Security for Rabi al-Salah, Director of GDOIS, Dubai’s General Department of Organisation, Protective Security and Emergency, dominates the room. He turns to look at her as she enters. Eyes like cameras. In just two weeks they have developed a close rapport.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asks.

  Marika shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Various camera angles from inside the conference room are projected onto a series of screens mounted along one wall, as well as smaller monitors scattered around the room. Marika reverses a chair and sits with folded arms leaning on the back, watching the feed from a ceiling-mounted camera as it pans around the conference room — a vast space, eighty metres by one hundred and ten, an amphitheatre with eighteen concentric rings of benches, all made from the latest mycobond organic plastics.

  Representatives of nations sit in rows flanked by aides and advisors, equipped with wafer-thin touch screens that allow them to call up the databases — the proportion of women dying in childbirth in Africa and Asia; AIDS deaths per capita; seismic patterns and predictions; melt rates of the polar ice caps; global temperatures; national debt for every nation — the maddening, depressing, endless statistics churned out by the committees and agencies of the United Nations.

  The camera settles on Dr Abukar, reaching the dais, using a shaking forefinger to push the rim of his glasses up off the bridge of his nose, rubbing the area. So nervous. Too nervous?

  Marika rationalises that he is about to address a television and online audience that might number in the billions. It’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. Just another speech. A gabfest; a talkathon.

  The general cynicism in the control room about the conference surprises her. No one Marika has talked to believes that this latest summit will achieve anything at all. Yet surely it must — here are the leaders of every nation. The President of the United States, surrounded by a dozen aides and assistants. Britain’s Prime Minister. The leaders of France, Australia, Canada, Germany, and a hundred other nations, veterans of Copenhagen, Cancún, Durban, and Rio+20. All have agreed that they must act now to prevent what has been described as the end of Western civilisation.

  The camera zooms in on Dr Abukar taking a folded paper from his top pocket. Something moves in Marika’s gut. Why would he carry his speech in his pocket? Why not in the briefcase? Why did he bring the case at all?

  Turning her head, Marika sees Abdullah still hovering, eyes haunted with the same fear they all know. That something will happen.

  ‘Sir,’ she calls. Sharp and clipped.

  For a man of his years, Abdullah reacts fast. She knows already that his hearing is near perfect, and that he is fit enough to run a regular ten kilometres with the rest of them, albeit at the rear of the pack.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s something wrong.’

  Dr Abukar, on the screen, clears his throat and begins to speak. ‘Good day to you. My name is Ali Khalid Abukar. I have worked for the United Nations for twenty-six years.’

  The control room freezes. All eyes are on her. Marika wonders if she is about to make a fool of herself.

  Abdullah’s mouth sets in a single hard line. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The briefcase, maybe. Oh, hell … I don’t know.’

  ‘The West,’ Dr Abukar continues, his voice taking on a new gravitas unmistakeable even over the speakers, ‘is a gluttonous pig, wallowing in unrepayable debt and consumerism, stripping the world of resources faster than they can be replenished. Policies of intervention in order to secure these natural resources are dividing the world.’

  Marika feels her breath catch and has to force herself to resume breathing.

  ‘The Western economic system, after many warning shocks, is on the brink of collapse. Bankers and company CEOs, whose greed has fed this unsustainable cycle, collect obscene salaries while others starve. European nations who have stripped the world to sustain lavish lifestyles, first with colonialism and now with debt, face bankruptcy and ruin. Soaring temperatures caused by industrialised countries threaten the Third World. Rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, drought. Unprecedented seismic activity. Famine. Today, I act for my people. The dispossessed, the starving, the millions in refugee camps and on the road. I act for every child screaming out his hunger in the night, and each baby born into a family who cannot feed, clothe or educate him. I act for the thirty million souls now fleeing famine and disaster in Africa and Asia …’

  Marika locks eyes with Abdullah. There is agreement in that gaze. Better to act now and look like fools than to … He barks two names into the lapel transmitter. ‘Shadi, Badr, get him out of there. Him and the briefcase. Now. Go.’

  Marika watches the two men at extreme sides of the conference room converge on the dais, feeling herself tingling from head to toe, floating off in space, cheeks flushing — about to disrupt a speaker at the most important international conference in a decade. Rabi al-Salah. The breeze of righteousness. Eyes flick back to the screen and Dr Abukar’s words continue to sear into her head.

  ‘I come here today as the instrument of the true God. The God of Mohammed. The God of Mercy. Having realised that there is no other way but for men and women everywhere to submit to His wisdom.’

  Marika’s eyes lock onto the screen. She whispers, ‘God no. Please, don’t let it happen …’

  The two security guards approach the dais, clearly visible, but Dr Abukar opens his hand, revealing a black plastic switch, holding it h
igh so there can be no doubt.

  ‘Go back,’ he shrieks, ‘No one must come close. This briefcase contains eleven kilograms of high explosive …’

  Pandemonium. Voices crash out through the room. Marika’s lungs stop dead, as if captured by a barbed hook.

  ‘ … the device will explode by remote control. I can close the circuit by pressing this switch. If I am attacked, or physically threatened, I will trigger the explosion. My initial instructions are for all security staff to leave the conference room, and the doors and windows sealed.

  ‘My next requirement is for your security forces to allow a group of my comrades to enter this room. They will arrive at the Ja-noob car park by motor vehicle. Please let them through without delay.’ His voice becomes hollow and empty. ‘If these instructions are not followed I will kill most of the men and women in this room. For those who doubt the authenticity of this threat, I have left samples of these explosives in my room on level three at the residential complex …’

  At sixteen years of age, the East Sydney Bushwalking Club, with its close affiliation to the Wilderness Society, drew Marika in like a slow-moving vortex. Journeys into the forests and woodlands of eastern Australia became her passion. Weekend treks deep into the Blue Mountains, the Warrumbungles, the Budawangs; the trusty green Karrimor pack sweaty against her back while she negotiated steep ridges with that dry grass crunching beneath her boots.

  Campfires in deep riven stone gorges, songs echoing from the cliffs. As she moved overseas for work, more opportunities presented themselves. South Africa’s Drakensberg; Canada’s Rockies above Banff in summer with air like cold crystal through which she could see a hundred miles of dark, snow-capped stone peaks. Once or twice it had all gone sour. A fall here and there, a twisted ankle, and once, in the rugged Gledíc mountains of Serbia, a flash flood punching through the valley floor at three in the morning. A wall of water pouring through the tent, picking it up and tossing her around as if in a washing machine, leaving her bruised and battered, recuperating in a Trstenik guesthouse for days before she was able to continue the holiday.

  This memory flashes across her consciousness as the speaker stands back from the lectern. The same disorientation. Images. Visions. Passing into the cortex but not responded to. The sound of hydraulic motors and moving machinery.

  Dreamlike and surreal. The control room goes from order to chaos. Chairs crash sideways. Nikulina’s coffee falls, droplets of brown liquid spilling up like high tide. Sunflowers in a vase on the sill. Shouts and running. The screen going blank as the man inside cuts off communications, leaving them blind.

  Marika is unable to move, deep in a shocked spell she cannot break. A click as the giant door seals slide into place. A helpless cry from inside the room.

  Silence from below as the protesters stop the shouting. Time passing. A cheer, stifled and high pitched from somewhere, then a crash. A burning vehicle on its side. Security forces trying to cordon off the complex, pushing the crowd away violently now. The sound of a gunshot, then another. A flush begins in her cheek and burns all the way across her neck and face.

  Marika runs down the steps, head pounding, mouth dry. Dr Abukar’s words ring in her ears: I have left samples of these explosives in my room on level three at the residential complex.

  At the first checkpoint plastic chain gates have closed. An agitated security guard asks for identification, and they are forced to slow. Troops brandish automatic weapons, looking for a target. Marika gets through last, begrudging every moment of the slow examination of her ID.

  Nikulina and three young Dubai policemen are ahead of her now, down the long corridor into the residential complex. Marika makes up ground on the straight, then turns into the stairwell, faster than an elevator for just a couple of floors. The steel capped shoes of the men in front ring on the marble steps.

  Reaching the floor above, swinging onto the next flight of stairs, Marika recognises the danger. Dr Abukar will not wait for forensics and processing labs to test his samples. The demonstration of the efficacy of his explosives will, by necessity, be immediate. God, how can such a gentle man do this?

  ‘Stop!’ she screams at the others, but the sound of echoing feet drowns her out. She tries again, throat tearing with the strain, then attempts to move faster, knowing that the men ahead are as fit as she, and probably a little quicker.

  What had he said that morning? Fifty million people unable to procure sufficient calories to sustain themselves. Is this his way of redressing the balance?

  The sound of a door opening so hard that the handle pounds against the wall. Footsteps receding. Marika makes the third floor in time to see two figures sprint away down the carpeted corridor.

  ‘Stop!’ she tries again.

  Marika comes around the corner as Nikulina opens the door to room 308. He is two paces inside when there is a roar, and a flash of light, the explosion slamming him back against the corridor wall, collecting a Dubai police sergeant on the way. Marika’s ears ring, and her feet falter from the proximity to the blast. An explosive stench fills the air, mingling with the burned pork smell of Nikulina, his body and clothes smoking.

  Sirens whoop through the sudden stillness. Hesitating at the door, Marika clears her head and charges inside. Blackened, cracked, sagging plaster. Shattered windows. Flames scale the curtains like rope climbers. Cotton bed sheets smoulder. No sign of human presence.

  Out in the corridor men scream for medics. Others move inside. Marika backs away, eyes streaming from the gathering smoke, throat burning. Forensics will comb the room. There will be nothing to find here until they have done their work.

  From deep within rises a terrible and irrepressible guilt. One man is dead. One injured. More will surely follow.

  The nine mujahedin stroll through the checkpoints like celebrities. Some are pale skinned, some dark. Most wear full beards, jeans, T-shirts, and light jackets.

  Marika stands back with the rest of the security staff, lining the corridors, helpless and sullen as the mujahedin pass through, pausing to pull compact automatic weapons from sports bags. Marika recognises an Uzi, and a PM63.

  One walks ahead of the others, his cheeks sunken and lean, proud and watchful, with the glare and stride of a predatory animal. Marika realises that Dr Abukar is not the architect of this event. Here is the real commander, and her job is to know such people. Her mind trawls through hundreds of grainy snapshots. The leaders have histories. All of them do.

  The man who walks in front of the others is known to Marika from just two file pictures. The name he goes by is Zhyogal. Hunted on three continents. Key member of the African Salafi terror group, known as al-Muwahhidun, or Almohad. Spearhead of the new wave of terror.

  Please God, not them, she pleads. Please, why did it have to be them?

  The antechamber is almost empty of people now, but those who remain cower back from the nine men as they walk through the entrance, into the amphitheatre, down the tiers and to the front. The gunmen take up their positions around the room.

  Head thrown back, face engorged with blood, veins and tendons standing proud on his neck, the leader raises his right hand, index finger pointing skywards. The others follow his lead, all shouting, ‘Allahu akbar.’

  Zhyogal’s voice is filled with triumph and a religious fervour so visceral and powerful it might be sexual.

  ‘In the name of God, the most gracious and merciful. Your faithful have taken possession of this room and everyone inside it. Let the overlords of taghut, of tyranny, prepare to die.’

  The main doors hiss closed and Marika stands, still staring, a feeling of dread in the pit of her belly.

  Faces recoil from the horror of what is coming, remembering stories and recalling images of beheadings and executions, each aware of their own mortality — that no matter how important a man or woman might be in this life, they are still no stronger nor less fallible than a beating heart and a collection of tissue and nerve endings.

  The President of the Unit
ed States, halfway through his term, imagines the media frenzy back home. Wonders how his media director will shape his image in the wake of this disaster. The Republican grip on power is tenuous at best, and is predicted to become even more shaky after the impending midterm elections.

  How can this happen, he thinks to himself, when his country spends untold billions every year to hold back terrorism? When the sharpened point of the enemy is five hundred or, at most, a thousand, Islamists with the funds, skills and organisational backing to pose any real threat. He wonders how the little people of America will react if he is killed here. Wonders if anyone apart from his wife and three sons will give a damn.

  The prime ministers of Britain and Australia tuck themselves back into their less ostentatious circles of advisors and force a phlegmatic front over the inner panic. And beneath it all is an unfounded, yet ingrained, belief that Western civilisation will always dominate.

  They cannot win, because they are not like us. They cannot win because they do not have our institutions, our facilities, our industrial strength, and our veneer of invincibility.

  Neither man remembers the lessons of history: that it was no industrial power, but the Goths and Vandals who reduced Rome to a smoking ruin.

  Isabella Thompson, four rows back, feels the hammering of her heart, recites a prayer over and over again, the lone survivor from memories of Sunday school, the vicar’s spinster daughter leading hushed voices from the front of the room, eyes closed and fingers interlocked.

  Our Father, who art in Heaven,

  Hallowed be Thy name …

  If You truly exist, if You love me You will bring my beautiful girls back to me now. You will remove these bastards from the face of the earth and give my girls back to me. I will do anything You want in return … give thanks for the rest of my life if only You spare them and bring them to me alive … and punish these men who stole them away from me …

  The mujahedin place bricks of semtex, carried in the sports bags, around the room, wired together with thin red cable to a central control box. Wired to blow from the plastic remote control Ali Khalid Abukar carries: an electronic gadget so clever it uses fine tendrils of water as conductors, tuned to explode all the charges, including those in the briefcase.