The Rozabal Line (18 page)

'Right. So, what if his children continue to live here? Wouldn't it be ironic if they were Muslim? After all, Islam came into India rather violently through Muslim invasions from the eighth century onwards.'

'Be that as it may, what is your point, Vincent?' asked an exasperated Martha.

'Well, any such offspring having a bloodline of Jesus and following Islam as a faith today would be a problem for Christians and Muslims alike.'

'Why?'

'First of all, the Church would not want to acknowledge that there's a bloodline at all . . . it destroys the fundamental belief that Jesus died on the cross in order to bear the burden of human sin. It means that there was no death, no resurrection, and no divine status. Also, to tell the world that Christ's own bloodline renounced the faith founded by Christ, would be to acknowledge that Islam has won the battle with Christianity!'

'Point taken. But why would such a descendant of Jesus be a problem for Islam?'

persisted Martha.

'According to the Qur'an, there is only a single religion that is acceptable to God, and that is one in which there is complete submission to God's will. To that extent, Muslims believe that Islam was also the religion of earlier prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus, because they also submitted themselves completely to the will and obedience of God. Islam not only recognises officially the bona fides of all earlier prophets, including Jesus, but also of any future prophets that may come.'130

'So?'

'Wouldn't such a prophet in the present day be a threat to the power structure of Islam? If such a person were indeed to claim prophethood, what would happen to all the present- day Imams?'

Goa, India, 2012

Goa, located along the Konkan coastline of India that runs along its western edge, is India's party capital. Flights arrive in the state's capital, Panjim, but its business and commerce are in a town called Vasco, named after the famous explorer Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese traders who had landed here in the sixteenth century had 108

succeeded in colonising Goa, and it had remained a colony of Portugal till it was annexed by an independent India in 1961.

At every bend along the Goa coastline are picturesque coves and bays, each unique in its beauty. Along the sun-washed coast are delightful little sleepy villages with whitewashed churches and uniformly quaint houses with red-tiled roofs. The lush green and verdant miles of coconut and palm trees are breathtakingly beautiful, irrespective of the season. It is precisely because of this Hawaii-like experience, at a fraction of the cost, that many foreign tourists who visit Goa are reluctant to return home.

Towards the northern part of Goa, around eighteen kilometres away from Goa's capital, Panaji, lies Anjuna Beach. Commonly called 'the freak capital of the world', Anjuna is quite notorious for its trance and rave parties as well as the abundance of hippies. Surrounded by dense coconut groves, it is the most happening place on Wednesdays when 'flea market mania' takes over. The market is always a wonderful cauldron of flavours, colours, smells and textures.

Rents in Goa vary from one area to the next, but Vincent's railway friend had succeeded in getting them a very rustic yet functional cottage near Anjuna Beach for about two hundred dollars for the week. It had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a delightful sit-out for relaxing evenings. Luckily, their cottage was not in the heart of the trance circuit but nearer the sleepy hamlet. This location offered them best of both worlds--proximity to civilisation as well as the tranquillity of the quiet cove.

As their taxi, which had definitely seen better days, rattled towards their new home, it was overtaken by a fast motorbike. Under the jacket and helmet was a pretty young Japanese woman, who sped off very quickly.

She had stared at Martha.

Seated on the motorbike and surveying the lush green countryside around her, Swakilki realised that Goa reminded her a great deal of the little village that her mother, Aki, used to take her to on holidays when she was a little girl. The village was called Shingo and was located in the Sannohe district of Aomori in Japan. This had been her mother Aki's birthplace.

Unknown to little Swakilki, the little village of Shingo had been in the eye of a storm in 1935. A gentleman called Kiyomaro Takeuchi had discovered a 1,900-year-old document stored in the Ibaraki prefecture containing evidence that Jesus lay buried in Shingo. The document was considered so authentic and explosive that the Imperial Japanese government had banned the document from public view and had kept it locked in a museum in Tokyo. During the bombing raids of World War II, the museum with all its documents was allegedly destroyed. Rather convenient for the Japanese government.131

What was unknown to the villagers was the fact that Jesus had certainly not visited them. What was also unknown was the fact that his daughter had.

Chapter Eighteen

109

Vatican City, 2012

His Eminence was reading the verses from the Book of Revelation in the Holy Bible.132 His mind was focused on the seven angels mentioned in the book: The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth. One-third of the trees were burnt, and all green grass was burnt.And the second angel sounded, and a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea. One-third of the sea became blood. One-third of life in the sea died.And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from the heavens, burning as if it were a lamp. It fell upon one-third of the rivers, which became undrinkable and killed many.And a fourth angel sounded, and one-third of the sun, moon and stars was darkened so that one-third of the day became dark.And the fifth angel sounded, and a star fell from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key of a bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke like that of a great furnace and the atmosphere became black.Out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth and unto them was given the power to hurt men that did not have the seal of God upon their foreheads.And the sixth angel sounded, and was asked to let loose two hundred thousand horsemen to kill one-third of humanity.And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.'

Chamonix, French Alps, France, 2012

Chamonix, in Haute-Savoie, offered some of the most stunning views of Mont Blanc. Savoy became part of France in 1860, bordering Switzerland to the north and Italy to the east.133 The region boasted Mont Blanc, the roof of Europe, rising to a height of 4,807 metres.

No one tooknotice of Ataullah al-Liby boarding the cable car for the Aiguille du Midi. The first part of the journey, a nine-minute trip to the Plan des l'Aguille located at a height of 2,263 metres, was not too bad. The second part of the cable car trip to the Aiguille du Midi station at 3,781 metres was nerve-wracking; Ataullah feared heights.

Reaching his destination, Ataullah was around a hundred metres from the peak of Mont Blanc and had a commanding view of the Aiguilles of Chamonix and Vallee Blanche, the largest glacier in Europe. It was here that he would conveniently slip away into the darkness. His ski jacket had been specially fitted with high-powered Semtex.

He quickly took it off.

The delayed blast on 21 January 2012 sent a wall of hailand fire ripping through Chamonix, killing 332 people. Assignment completed, Attaullah headed for Chamonix airport to catch a flight to Geneva and thereon to his rendezvous in Frederick County in America.

And the first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth . . .

Riberalta, Bolivia, 2012

The epicentre of the blast was 25 kilometres from Riberalta, 850 kilometres northeast of Bolivia's capital, La Paz.

No one could have spotted the crude IED, the Improvised Explosive Device, 110

fashioned from potassium perchlorate, aluminium powder and sulphur that had been left under the dense cover of the Amazon forest by Boutros Ahmad. The intense heat applied by a welding torch was enough to set off the highly unstable mixture.134

The fire on 21 February 2012 would destroy over 4,48,000 acres of tropical forest besides killing 113 people.

Job done, Boutros drove to Gen Buech Airport to catch his Lloyd Aereo Boliviano flight that tookhim to his meeting in Frederick County.

One-third of the trees, and all green grass was burnt.

Hubei Province, China, 2012

The Three Gorges Dam spanned the Yangtze River at Sandouping, Yichang and Hubei. Construction of the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam, had begun in 1993. The dam had become fully operational in 2009. The reservoir now held 39.3 billion cubic metres of water. The twenty-six power generators had a combined generating capacity of 18.2 GW.135

The Three Gorges Dam was strong enough to resist terrorist attacks--China had enough manpower and equipment to guard the important parts, such as the dam itself, power plants and the lock of the Three Gorges.

What could not be guarded was the cargo aboard the ships that went through the massive ship lift. The ship lift at the Three Gorges Dam had been designed to lift ships of up to 3,000 tonnes displacement through a vertical distance of 113 metres. The size of the basin through which ships would ascend or descend was a massive 120 by 18 by 3.5 metres. Each ship would take around thirty minutes to go up or down.

The 3,000-tonne ship Daiyang had done this route several times before. No one could have guessed the presence of ammonium nitrate in the diesel. The technical grade ammonium nitrate granules mixed with diesel were extremely porous, resulting in better fuel absorption and thus significantly higher reactivity.136

The ship's crew was aware of their cargo. They were all Uighurs ready to die for their leader, Faris Kadeer. The sudden heat application created a reaction: The combination with the diesel resulted in a detonation rate of around 914

metres per second. The dam was strong enough to resist the explosion, but the lift and locks were not.

Some 39.3 billion cubic metres of water began to flow on 21 March 2012 as the manmade mountain, the Three Gorges Dam, was cast into the frothy sea. The death toll was over a thousand people.

Faris was not there. He was on an Air China flight to London. From there he boarded a flight headed for Baltimore-Washington International Airport. This gothim to his appointment in Frederick County on time.

And the second angel sounded, and a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea . . .

English Channel, Dover, 2012

The accident happened around 1.3 kilometres north of the Dover coast on 21

April 2012. It resulted in a hole measuring 15 by 4 metres in the side of the 111

Panama-registered tanker, the Gulf Princess. The tanker had been carrying 3,00,000

tonnes of oil from the Middle East to Dover, when the English fishing boat collided with it.

It was one of the worst oil spills in history. More than 2,39,000 metric tonnes of oil poured into the English Channel. The next two months would be hell--putting out oil fires, bringing all shipping through the channel to a virtual halt and pulling out thousands of dead fish from the ocean.

Subsequent enquiries revealed that the English fishing boat that had caused the collision, the Wilson Flyer, had been sold for PS16,005 by its previous owner in East Sussex through a broker, Powertech Marine, to a wealthy boat enthusiast only the previous week. The money had been transferred electronically to the seller from an account in Guernsey belonging to the Isabel Madonna trust.

Fouad al-Noor had done his job well. He had personally trained his men to do the job of steering the fishing boat into the hull of the tanker. Fouad was now on a British Midland flight headed for the United States. His diary indicated an appointment in Frederick County.

One-third of the sea became blood. One-third of life in the sea died.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2012

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur used to be the world's tallest buildings until they were surpassed by the Taipei-101 in 2004. The twin towers had one very striking feature, though--a sky bridge between the two towers on the forty-first and forty-second floors. The bridge lay 170 metres off the ground. The sky bridge was strategically located on the podium floor because visitors wanting to travel to higher floors necessarily had to change elevators on that floor.137

The bridge was open to all visitors but the 1,400 passes that were rationed out each day were only available on a first-come first-served basis. Tau'am Zin Hassan and his men from the Darul Islam had managed to secure over thirty passes that day. Each one of them went up to the bridge and placed a small strip of what looked like modelling clay into the grooves that formed the design element of the supporting pillars. The modelling clay was actually C-4, a deadly military plastic explosive containing RDX. Each little strip had a small NEC credit card-size cellphone hanging from it. Once all the strips were in place, the thirty visitors congregated together at Kuala Lumpur International airport. All thirty of them pressed the speed dial keys on their phones that had been pre-set on the letter 'A'. Each cellphone was calling its partner phone inside the Petronas sky bridge.

As the miniphone rang inside the bridge, a small electrical current was sent to the speaker of each phone. However, none of the thirty phones inside the sky bridge rang. The phone wires to the speakers had been disconnected and then reconnected instead to small transistors that could be turned on by a mild electrical current. Each transistor, in turn, activated a detonator.138

At exactly 5:03 pm on 21 May 2012, the sky bridge of the Petronas Towers exploded in a ball of fire. The inferno eventually came crashing down to earth. There were over a hundred visitors on the bridge when it exploded. It came crashing down on 112

fifty-four onlookers.

Tau'am did not wait to see the press coverage. He was on a Singapore Airlines flight that took him to the west coast of the United States. From Los Angeles, he took a United flight to reach his destination at Frederick County.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from the heavens, burning as if it were a lamp.

Katra, Jammu & Kashmir, India, 2012

Nearly five-and-a-half million devotees paid homage to the Goddess in 2003: an average of 14,794 visits each day of the year. A pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi was considered to be one of the holiest pilgrimages by one billion Hindus in the world. The holy cave of the divine Goddess was situated at an altitude of 5,200

feet. The pilgrims had to trek around twelve kilometres uphill from the base camp at Katra in order to reach the shrine.139

A virtual sea of humanity would make the trek during the holiest period of the year, Navratri, or the Festival of Nine Nights. The nine days were divided into three sets of three days each. Each set of three days would be used to worship three different manifestations of the Supreme Mother.140

On the first three days, the Goddess would be worshipped as the nurturer and the provider of spiritual and material wealth, Lakshmi. The next three days would be spent worshipping the divine feminine as Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom. Finally, the divine Mother would be worshipped as the force of destruc-tion, Kali.

A Shiva temple was located about fifteen kilometres away from Katra. A spring ran from the rocks in a wooded grove and flowed into a holy rivulet that eventually merged with the Chenab river.

The truck-mounted water tank was one among hundreds that supplied drinking water to pilgrims. This one, however, was different. Instead of water, it contained a deadly cocktail consisting of cyanide, arsenic, mercury, parathion, sodium fluoroacetate, cadmium, sarin, sulphur mustard and dieldrin.

Theaccident was perfectly targeted--at the mouth of the river. It resulted in the immediate death of the driver. Kali was about to manifest her awesome powers of destruction that day on 21 June 2012. More than 500 pilgrims were killed and over 2,000 lay sick or critical in various hospitals due to the poisoned river water.

Bin Fadan was neither sick nor dead. He headed for the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi from where he caught a KLM flight through Amsterdam to New York. He then drove to Frederick County in an Avis rental car.

. . .it fell upon one-third of the rivers, which became undrinkable and killed many.

Baghdad, Iraq, 2012

Camp War Eagle, initially used by the 1st Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, was located in the Tisa Nissan district of Baghdad. Conditions at Camp War Eagle had improved dramatically over the years of occupation by American forces. Air-conditioners and generators hummed all over the place. A spanking new basketball court stood in the centre of the camp. Payphones allowed the men to be in direct touch with their 113

families. New barracks were continuously being erected to accommodate additional men.141

Unfortunately, these things did not help keep the men safe. Almost all the residents of the camp had already had close encounters with incoming explosives.

Thousands of soldiers had been injured in the sixty-acre camp, mostly when they were walking towards the mess room. Luckily, there had been no fatalities; not till today anyway.

They could not have envisioned Kader al-Zarqawi's men launching rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices at Bayji, Daura and Basra in simultaneous and coordinated attacks.

At the same time, multiple cargo containers at various ports, including Al Faw, Khawr Al Amaya, Mina Al Bakr, Umm Qasr, and Al Basraha, exploded. Four of these ships contained flammable liquids. Two of the flaming boats contained resins and coatings including isocyanates, nitriles, and epoxy resins. Winds began carrying thick black smoke and releasing toxic chemicals and metals into the air.