Rotten Gods (53 page)

SURREY, ENGLAND

LOCAL TIME: 1900

PJ has no firearm, having checked in his latest carry, a SIG 320 in .40 calibre, when he came off duty. He does, however, have a Gerber De Facto knife in an ankle holster. He moves his hand from the wheel, slides it down his leg and grips the rubberised hilt. One of the best things about this knife is that, with its double-edged, serrated blade, it looks formidable, and works well as a deterrent. Even a man with a gun in his hand will hesitate at the thought of such a blade twisting in his gut.

Men exit the cars, ghostly figures in the night. They look like they were born wearing suits. There are no weapons to be seen, only bulges under their armpits. They ring the car, making escape impossible. Yet these are not criminals, PJ has already decided, nor are they terrorists. These are men from his own world, unmistakeable with their clean-shaven faces and athletic bodies.

The passenger door of PJ’s BMW opens, and a man slips onto the leather seat. He is in his fifties, built like a tree trunk, wearing a dark paletot coat with a scarf tied loosely around his throat. His breathing is heavy and slow.

The face turns so it is fully illuminated in the glow of the other vehicle’s lights. PJ unconsciously draws breath. If every line on a man’s face is a page in the story of his life, this man has lived volumes. The dimple in his chin is like a crater, the creases below his eyes dark ravines.

PJ recognises a face legendary in intelligence circles. He has seen it just twice. Once at a reception at Whitehall where this man was seated next to the previous PM. The second time was in Iraq. After an American Pave Low IIIE chopper went down near Fallujah on a Black Op and PJ’s team were sent in to secure the site.

He had a name … delivered the briefing. He called himself Samuel. No rank or honorific.

‘Hello, Johnson.’ The voice is as well travelled as its owner. ‘Sorry for the approach, but we don’t like to advertise.’ There is no offer of a handshake or other pleasantries.

‘I understand.’

‘You know who I am, don’t you?’

‘We met once. People call you Samuel.’

‘Indeed. That will suffice for the moment. Do you know what I do?’

‘Not really, sir.’

‘Drop the sir. We don’t go in for that kind of crap. Let me explain a few things. It won’t take long.’

PJ listens to the carefully modulated voice. He looks away often, out into the dull countryside, beginning a long segue into night. Cows, ruined buildings; a windmill on a hill in the distance, standing above the mist. Occasionally he asks a question, and he can’t help the slow build of excitement as he starts to understand. Samuel represents another level of intelligence that he always knew was there. Deeper — hidden, unknown to the public. Almost beyond government itself.

Something that PJ knows he wants, badly. The chance to really make a difference. To alter lives — attack problems at the source. What he does in his current position is to merely react — the other side are calling the shots. Samuel represents people who delve deeper.

The voice goes on, ‘I’m here to offer you a job — more than a job. A vocation and a new life. Your identity would change. You would have to leave everything behind. That’s not negotiable.’

‘Everything?’

‘Everything. House. Parents. Friends. On the positive side you would do more in a working day than most people manage in a lifetime. I’ll make no bones about this — we have studied you very carefully indeed. You are ideally suited.’

‘I need to think about it.’

‘You have a couple of weeks. You’ll be contacted.’

PJ has hundreds more questions echoing in his mind, but before he can put them into words, the older man has opened the door, closed it, and walked away. The men in suits follow, getting into the black vehicles and driving away.

The two cars have moved in convoy back towards Gatwick before PJ starts the BMW and pulls slowly back out onto the lane, hands shaking ever so slightly on the wheel.

OFFSHORE, PAKISTAN

LOCAL TIME: 2400

The owner’s cabin is located in the towering aft deck, high above the rest of the ship. The décor is luxurious, generous windows allowing a view of the dark ocean. Against one bulkhead is a bust sculpture by famous Egyptian artist Adam Henein. On the floor a hand-knotted
farsh
carpet worth more than the ship. On the mahogany table sits a silver Macbook, beside it a gold cigarette case.

Badi enters the cabin, takes a filter-tipped cigarette from the case, taps it twice against his wrist then flips it up to his lips, lighting it with a jewelled Dunhill lighter from his pocket. He looks up as a beautifully groomed woman with a cascade of light red hair appears from a side room, closing the door behind her.

‘Hello,’ she says, ‘you’re back. Did it go well?’

‘Pour a glass of arak for me, Cassandra,’ he says, then takes a deep drag of his cigarette, chest swelling, exhaling through his nostrils.

The woman wafts back in with a milky-coloured liquid, ice cubes tinkling, in a crystal tumbler. The scent of her perfume follows on the breeze. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘The Sikh is dead, yes.’

Cassie nods, her perfectly made-up face shining. ‘Nothing stops you. You are the only person I’ve ever met who will do
anything.’

Badi takes a swig of arak. ‘You don’t even know who I am.’

‘No. Not really.’

‘Now that the voyage has begun, perhaps it is time for you to know more.’

Badi studies the way her hips move as she takes a seat at the table. She is an American, and had been working as a hostess in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, one of three young Caucasian women hired for a private reception in his room at the Ritz Carlton. Something about her fascinated him then. Her three-hour stay became a week. Then a month. The fascination ebbs and fades, but he cannot quite bear to let her go. Her attraction to violence is undeniable. He has never met a woman like that before.

‘My father,’ he says, strangely excited to see her reaction, ‘was Bashar al-Assad of Syria.’

‘Really? Like the actual President? The one they hanged?’

‘Yes. May God rest his soul. My mother was his mistress, their union never consecrated. So I am what the English call a bastard. When my father became president of Syria, he had a villa built for my mother and me, deep in the An-Nusayriyah Mountains, surrounded by cypress forests and olive groves. Even now, my senses reel at the memory of hyacinth blooms and damask roses from our gardens. Snow-tipped peaks surrounded our valley, and corn fields glowed iridescent green in the sun. I will never forget the wild poppies in the foothills, and crystal pools of water where I learned to swim.

‘I became a teenager there. I roamed free under the sky. My father visited weekly, sometimes staying just a few hours, sometimes overnight. He never failed to bring me a gift. I worshipped him like a god even as I grew so tall that I could look into the jewelled eyes of the marble lions supporting the pillars of the atrium. As my voice lowered and my muscles thickened, my father took me aside and told me the secrets of ruling a scattered and diverse people.

‘“You are the smartest and most gifted of all my children,” he told me. My exulted father’s words were true. God blessed me with a memory more like a computer than a man. I remember everything. I was given the best tutors money could buy. I studied music with the masters. I learned six languages and the secrets of military strategy. I joined the Ba’ath political party. I learned its history, and how it will save the Arab people. I was taught the techniques of my father and grandfather, but also of the great dictators of the modern era — Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi, Ben Ali and Mubarak. I learned that every Arab, in his heart, wants stability, and instinctively trusts family-based regimes.’

Cassie moves closer, sitting so her knee almost touches his. Her eyes glow with hero worship. There is something of the witch in her, Badi has long known, despite the glowing beauty that makes men stare wherever she goes.

‘I learned,’ he goes on, ‘how the master dictator favours and rewards his own tribe. How he gives them prosperity, builds them roads and infrastructure, universities and opportunities.’ He stubs out his cigarette, drains most of his arak in one long sip, then stands and crosses to where a calf-skin instrument case leans against a corner. Kneeling to open it he brings out a twelve-stringed oud. The guitar-like instrument has been lovingly made with exotic woods, with a pear-shaped bowl. Badi sits back down and produces a
risha
— a long plectrum — from his pocket and starts to play chords and notes combined, stroking the strings in a skilled arpeggio.

‘I learned that the smart leader depicts himself as the underdog facing a world of hatred and subversion. He sends his loyal secret police and networks of informers across the land. One word criticising the leader means a knock on the door at midnight. Torture. Perhaps death. No one knows. Everyone is afraid. I learned all these things in preparation for taking the reins of power in Syria. The “official” sons of my father, Karim and Hafez, were intellectual weaklings, and lacked the fire that filled my heart. I knew that I would kill them both, if and when it became necessary.

‘The terrorist uprisings that the Western press called the Arab Spring began when I was seventeen years old. By my early twenties I commanded my own
shabiha
— ghost battalion — a paramilitary squad operating outside the rules of law. We carried out beatings and killings on children and adults alike. Those who might be able to provide information we took to a special wing of Idlib Central Prison. We dumped mutilated bodies back on doorsteps, and laughed as we stayed to watch wives, sons, brothers and sisters find the result of our endeavours. Sometimes we left our victims alive — blind, deaf and dumb — often crazed out of their minds, or with body parts removed.’ He stops, stares at her. ‘Am I shocking you?’

Cassie’s blue eyes remain fixed on his as she shakes her head. ‘No.’

‘My father’s government fell, worn down by terrorists with weapons supplied by Jews and Americans. The kings of the Middle East, however, my father and his contemporaries, were not unprepared. Their wealth was measured in the tens of billions. It was estimated that Mubarak alone counted his personal fortune at between forty and seventy billion dollars. Between them all it was the greatest accumulation of private wealth the world has ever seen.

‘Over decades my father and the others built a business empire with the ownership so well hidden it would take an army of lawyers to reveal. We pulled strings from afar. I flew often to confer with Hannibal Qaddafi in Oman, and Mubarak’s daughter in the same country. In Europe, that empire, known as EMK Corporation, is becoming a multinational behemoth, a growing player in the petroleum industry. It is a genuine publicly traded company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. I do not attend board meetings, but through proxies and fear I control it all. The cash from hidden accounts flows into the balance sheets, the wealth of five family dynasties, ensuring the future prosperity of our siblings, children and their families.

‘We are the descendants of the Middle Eastern kings. Antiochus of Syria. Ramses II of Egypt. Hannibal of Carthage. Together we are united against the new Rome. The future is nothing without the stories of our ancestors. Saladin, who commanded a Saracen army and defeated the crusaders was born in Tikrit, the same town as Saddam Hussein, whose grandsons have now joined hands with us.

‘Soon we will rule again. We are older even than Islam. We count Christians and Jews among our membership. The West is a fortress, and we are at the gates, surrounding the walls. Yet the walls that they believe are impregnable can be overflown like a bird of prey on the wing. Here, on this ship, I hold the instrument of our return to power. The death of the West as we know it. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

Cassie leans forwards and places her mouth over his, thrusting her tongue inside. Starting with the inside of his bottom lip she runs the tip a complete circle inside before he pushes her gently away.

‘Not now. Leave me,’ he says. ‘I have work to do. The day of our triumph is too close for distraction.’

ARABIAN SEA

JUNE 21, LOCAL TIME: 0200

Rehan Asmi, like many of the young men who boarded the
Isra
that night, is university educated. Twenty-four years of age, he graduated with a Diploma of Journalism from the University of Karachi some months before, but after countless job applications he has been unable to find paid work. Graduates, in so much of the developing world, are the new unemployed, computer savvy and worldly, often making up the backbone of protest movements.

For Rehan, who married twelve months earlier, the reality is that blogging does not pay rent and buy food. The decision to go offshore to work was jointly made with his wife, Fehmida. He is determined to work hard, send the bulk of his salary home, then return with enough of a nest egg to start a business.

With his trained journalist’s mind, he finds the ship strange. Each of the converted passenger holds has a strong locking door, with thick rubber seals. None of the windows open. The doors aren’t locked, but they have been told not to leave.

Why must they be locked in? Why are there rubber seals on the doors?

The men sleep on hammocks, hanging so close that each man’s body touches his neighbour’s on both sides. They were too excited to sleep at first; talking, playing cards. Now, however, two hours past midnight, the sounds of snores and occasional sleep-talking in three or more languages fills the iron chamber.

Rehan is still too wound up to sleep. He cried, earlier, remembering leaving Fehmida, and tiny Kishwar. Fehmida had sought to become pregnant again before he left, but her monthly course had come again just three days ago. That is a small regret. He knows she is disappointed. As he left, they had hugged tightly Finally, he walked out the door of their apartment, looking back once at the poor and ramshackle lodging, gripping the handle of his bag firmly in his determination to improve their lives.

Now, lying in the darkness with the rumble of the engines and the hammocks swinging in unison from the motion of the ship, he switches on his phone, a cheap little Huawei. There is no service but the GPS function still works.

The geography of the journey fascinates Rehan. He has never left Pakistan before, and only ventured out of Karachi twice. Looking at the Google Map image, his thick brows knit together in surprise. This is not the direction in which they should be going, surely their course should be further to the north? Is there a weather system preventing them from following the usual route?

Rehan has no means of knowing. Either way, in order to save batteries, he switches off the phone and slips it into his pocket. He tries to lie on his side, but sweat runs into his eyes. It is hot here in the hold, without air movement. Sweat forms first on his forehead, then the small of his back and armpits, soaking his clothes.

He looks across at the open door. It is ludicrous that the ship’s master would keep them locked in here like cattle instead of letting them out on the cool decks above. What if he goes up there anyway? What will they do? Surely nothing but ask him to return.

And I will say no,
he says to himself. That, he decides, is the spirit of protest, the spirit of the world-citizen journalist that he would so dearly love to be.

He sits up and slides from the hammock, moving like a ghost among the sleeping men. He slips through the open door, up a ladder and onto the open deck, where the breeze of their passage across the ocean is a sweet and blessed relief on his skin, and the sea is open to a sky more glorious and wide than anything he has ever seen, lit with stars and a moon shaped like a cupped hand. There are no crewmen on deck, just vague figures high above, behind the sloped windows of the wheelhouse deck.

It is difficult, in the half darkness, to find a hiding place — somewhere he can sleep in peace. Scouting around, he locates a tiny corner in the space between the two passenger holds, and there, among a mess of old ropes and drums, he settles down to rest.

When Rehan awakens there is a surprising amount of activity. People talking. Flashlights. Thumping footsteps on the deck. He wonders again if there is bad weather coming. He checks his phone and sees that they have moved even further south, far from the traditional shipping lanes where they should be. It is a little after four in the morning.

He moves, ignoring the pain in his hip from that uncomfortable sleeping place. His instincts are aroused now. Journalism school has taught him to treat his environment and the actions of others suspiciously. Doors slam, locking lugs turn.

Rehan creeps back towards the passenger holds. The doors have indeed been shut and locked. There is a guard at the door. There is no way back in. He feels a surge of fear.

Along with the rumble of the engines, there is now a new hum that sounds like air conditioning.
Are they cooling the rooms?
He hopes so. He stays for a few minutes more, but nothing happens, so he returns to his hiding place.

Yet, by dawn, it is as if he dreamed it all. He can see inside through the windows. Nothing has changed. No one has been harmed. The men rise and eat from cardboard cartons stacked near the doors. Rehan begins to wonder if he should try to steal back inside if the doors open and the opportunity arises.

By dusk, however, angry protests have broken out inside. Words come over the PA system that the ship has been diverted from its usual course by a storm to the north, and that they will continue to be locked in for their own protection.

Rehan is starving and thirsty, surviving on a half-full bucket of water mixed with ropes in his filthy hiding place. At least he is out of the sun, but the hours are interminable.

The next afternoon the nightmare begins. Rehan can see what happens through the glass windows into the hold in the narrow corridor between. He sees his former comrades start to cough, then red mucus stream from their noses. Watches them die in agony in their hundreds; drowning in the blood that fills their lungs; twisting, rolling, panicking and screaming for help. The young men who had walked, trusting, onto that ship are dying, one after another, until the hold is a hell of screams and scratching fingernails as they pry at the windows and doors.

Rehan cannot control his weeping. Thirst and hunger have weakened him. But this is like a scene from the end of the world. By the following afternoon they are all dead. More activity. The smell of chlorine. The rooms fogged up with mist.

After dark the doors open finally, and men with yellow suits and masks drag bodies to the ship’s rail, dropping each one overboard to splash their way to the depths with a brick tied to their waist or extremities.

Rehan marks the spot with the phone GPS. He vows that the world will know about this.

Finally, all the corpses are gone, the engines start, and the
Isra
steams away. Rehan stays aboard long enough to ascertain their direction of travel, then, in the dead of night, wraps his precious cell phone in multiple layers of plastic litter. He takes down a life ring and plunges from the side into the warm sea.

The bow wave tosses him, threatens to pull him under, but then that ship of death passes by, with all the timelessness and power of some dark celestial body.

Lethal Sky
, available July 2014