Rotten Gods (37 page)

The third woman adds, ‘Just about everyone calls me Ellie.'

He kisses their hands one by one, seeing them swoon as he does so. His forward progress is then interrupted by the nearby table of drunks, the male members launching into some kind of drunken rugby song. The English inflection is unmistakeable, and the sound is loud enough to forestall any further attempt at conversation.

When it is over, Léon continues his work. ‘I suppose you three are old friends?'

‘Not at all — we're on a tour. Only known each other for a few days.'

‘Oh, OK.' That will make it easier.

‘What about you?'

Léon stops for a moment; the conversation at the other table has turned to Rabi al-Salah, and he pricks up his ears. ‘Fuckin' terrorists. Should all get fuckin' locked up …' It is nothing, he decides, just drunken ranting. Soon, one of the doormen will hear and eject the man from the bar. The sooner the better, he decides, then realises that he is being asked a question.

‘Sorry, what do you mean?'

The blonde brushes her hair back from her ears. ‘Are you here on business or pleasure?'

‘A little of both.' He smiles and gives his head that sexy little shake he knows women love. ‘You know how it is. Work. Play.'

‘What line of work are you in?'

‘Ah, security.'

‘Ooh, sounds exciting.'

And now it's like the other two aren't there. They fall silent, and the laughter stops, tension growing. Léon discovers that Cathy lectures at UCLA in Humanities, that she loves cats, and has taken a year off work to travel the world. Yes, she is going to Paris, and yes, it would be great if they met up there and he showed her around.

Again he finds himself distracted by the conversation across at the other table. Two of the men have been arm wrestling, but now that the contest is over the conversation returns to Rabi al-Salah.

‘I could fuckin' fix that up in five minutes flat,' one of the men is saying. ‘Shoot every one of those fuckers dead.'

‘Yeah sure, how?'

‘I just know, OK …'

On cue, the brunette shoulders her handbag. ‘Well. I'm off. Need my beauty sleep.' Elspeth stands also, excusing herself. Léon watches them go with a smile on his face. Now it's just him and Cathy, the blonde. He says nothing, just shifts in his seat until he is closer to her. ‘Would you like another drink?'

‘Not really, I think I've had enough.'

‘Perhaps a walk then …'

‘OK, if you like.'

Léon feels his groin tighten further. It is so easy; a stroll outside around the massive curved exterior of the hotel, and then back to her room, almost certainly here at the Emirates Towers. He stands, but now his brow knits with concentration. The drunken man at the adjacent table is still talking.

‘I done the fuckin' electrical work, see — worked for the main contractor. Supervised the whole job. When you put together a series of circuits you need to take into account maintenance in the future, and safety, see. Ya gotta have an override, a way of shutting down power so that future electricians can work in safety. So we had to have a way of both leaving the main door open, for access, and have power off to that circuit so that technicians can move in and out of the conference room, while working on the system without any risk of electrocution. That's how I could fix this up in five fuckin' minutes.'

Léon leans on the chair for balance, frozen to the spot.

The blonde reaches for his arm. ‘What's wrong? Are we going?'

Ignoring her, Léon is already moving across the floor, reaching out for the drunken electrician, grabbing him by the collar. ‘You installed an override that will do what you just said?'

The man tries to fight. ‘Get away from me, fuck ya. Leave me alone.'

Léon grips his arm and twists it. ‘Answer me.'

The contractor's jaw opens, panting. Tiny beads of sweat surround his lips. ‘Yeah. There's a switchboard locker in the cleaner's storeroom on the southern wall of the conference room. It has a manual switch for the doors and the power.'

‘You,' Léon says, ‘are coming with me.' With a shove he propels the drunken man towards the door.

He does not even turn to farewell the blonde, who sinks back to her seat, watching him go.

 

Within thirty minutes the contractor, Robert Collins  — Robbie to his mates — is showered and drinking coffee in an interview room, dazed and subdued. For an hour, Abdullah and Léon fire questions, establishing his bona fides, waking his employer from his London bed in a final check that he is who he says he is and not some red herring.

His authenticity established, it only remains to decide whether this new information is drunken fabrication or fact, and the level of detail provided soon points towards the latter. In the end, Abdullah sends him to the residential complex, under guard, to sleep off the alcohol.

When the door closes, the two men stand before the windows, curtain buffeting in the light sea breeze, staring out across the night. Léon cannot resist a flash of a smile at his own success in finding the electrician. The regret at not having the girl is a small thing in comparison. Perhaps when this thing is over …

‘Do you see the power station over there?' Abdullah asks.

It is impossible to miss the huge complex, with its rows of giant steel pylons carrying power to the most electricity hungry
city on earth. Beyond are the tall funnels of the station itself, painted red and white in bands. ‘Yes, sir.'

‘As you know, there is a maintenance platform near the top of one of the funnels, and we have had men with optical equipment up there observing the conference room since the crisis began.'

‘Yes, of course.' The conference room has just one window, and the power station funnel is the only point from which it is possible to see through it.

‘Dr Abukar has taken to occupying a particular seat, for part of the day and most of the night. Zhyogal moves around almost constantly, but Dr Abukar does not.'

Léon is starting to smile. ‘How far away from the conference room is your observation post at the power station?'

‘Nine hundred and thirty metres. Out of accurate range of conventional small arms, but what about a fifty-calibre sniper rifle firing an armour-piercing projectile, sighted in for precisely that distance? It'll make short work of even cyrolon. One or two rounds punching straight through the window, followed a moment later by a high-explosive round, striking Dr Abukar in the head or upper body, not just killing, but obliterating him. At the same moment someone on the inside flicks a switch that makes the doors open and the lights go out. In come our troops. Sound interesting?'

‘What if Dr Abukar presses the remote control before he dies?'

‘He does not always have the trigger in his hand. Much of the time he carries it in his pocket. Our man will not shoot if he is holding it.' Abdullah says nothing further, just stares out at the power station smokestacks.

 

The shadow beneath the tree is a welcome sanctuary, so dark that Captain Pennington's blackened face is invisible without the goggles.

PJ moves in on his hands and knees, then rises to his haunches, feeling the relief in the strained muscles of his thighs, abdomen and back. ‘They're in there. I saw them. Two girls and the nanny.'

‘That fits with this.' Pennington opens his hand, displaying something that shines even in the shadows.

PJ takes the object from his hand, holding it close to his right eye. ‘What the hell is it?'

‘A tiny gold star. Jewellery perhaps. Deepak found it on a recce down to the harbour. How many guards are there?'

‘Twelve at least, fifteen at most. Carrying AK47s, two heavy MGs.'

‘Their positions?'

PJ describes what he has seen.

Pennington says nothing for a moment then, ‘There's four or five more down at the harbour, guarding the boat.'

This information is sobering. At least twenty well-equipped militants, and these Almohad have proved in the past to be no pushover. These ones, moreover, occupy a strong defensive position. PJ's eyes lock on Pennington's, trying to gauge what he is thinking, knowing that it is going to be hard.

Dark shapes slither into the shadows under the tree. Sitting up, waiting, the silence thick and heavy. The tension is palpable. No one likes entering a hostile zone full of adrenalin then being forced to wait.

Pennington's voice is clear and emotionless in the night. ‘We're going to have to abort, I'm afraid.'

No one says anything for a moment, then PJ explodes, his voice still low, but thick with shock. ‘Sir? The hostages are there, and they are being mistreated.'

‘No. I can't see any way of taking out the terrorists without giving them an opportunity to slaughter the hostages. Therefore I have no choice.'

‘Forgive me for saying so, captain, but there is a way.'

‘How?'

‘The Enniskillen Drill. We've practised it a hundred times.' The name Enniskillen referred to an unpublicised hostage rescue in Northern Ireland. ‘Set Stewie and Dave up high with their rifles to take out the terrorists inside the hut with the girls, hit the guys around the fire with the rocket launcher. Disable the trench with grenades at the same time. We can be inside the hut in ten seconds.'

‘That might be too long,' the captain points out.

PJ thinks of the girls, knowing that if he walks away their captors will kill them — as soon as they are of no further use those monsters will kill them. ‘We have to take that chance. There is no other way.'

‘What about the harbour? There are another five men down there, maybe more.'

‘We have to leave it until after we've freed the hostages. We can't divide our forces.'

The silence stretches on for a long time, but finally: ‘OK, we do it, but we do it my way. The Enniskillen Drill, but I want CS gas into the hostage hut.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Does everyone understand what they have to do?'

Silence.

‘Take the lead, Johnson, and good luck.'

PJ stands and takes the first step towards his enemy, and the girls, and the tall woman with so much spirit.

 

The drill is so well rehearsed and understood that men move to their positions without a sound. PJ's eyes stray often to his watch, for timing is critical. A few seconds either way might be catastrophic.

The positions of the team are also important, yet there is no way of determining these apart from sheer instinct. Training. Having decided on his location, PJ wriggles forwards another few metres before planting his elbows, eyes squinting through the low power telescopic sight, picking out a target. Forefinger drawing up the fractional slack in the trigger.

Again a glance at the watch. Thirty seconds. Long seconds only a fighter knows. First comes the dull primer pop of the launchers out to the right, and the canisters landing. Grenades thumping, the area exploding into angry light. A dozen automatic weapons open up. PJ is already shooting, weapon on semi auto, firing one round after another.

 

Saif al-Din, eating a hurried meal of dates and cheese washed down by tepid Pepsi cola from the cab, hears the first gunshot and freezes. The suspicion that he should never have travelled to this island becomes a certainty in his mind.

Upon his arrival, Saif first led the mujahedin in prayer, then prepared a meeting with the factions. Agreement could not be reached, and he had resorted to the satellite telephone he carried — that implement as essential to the modern terrorist as guns — calling for instructions before the issue was resolved.

Now the men of the camp appear to be working together again. For an hour they have been listening to MP3 recordings played via iPod connected to a portable stereo, of that most famous speech by the movement's founder, Yaqub Yusuf. Saif sees how their faces light up with new fervour.

Bravery is essential for our brotherhood to win through over the oppressors; those who defile God's earth. Death to America and her allies. Death to the Jews. If you do not fight one day our world will be ended, and there will be anarchy — your wives raped, your sisters raped.

The gunshot tells Saif that the kufr have found them and attacked without warning, failing to set off any of the booby traps that he was assured they would blunder through.

This turn of events, Saif knows, might threaten the success of the operation, as well as others in the future. The island has become both base and storehouse, and a secure anchorage. Down in the harbour sits the eight-metre RIB, a sturdy vessel with a sheltered wheelhouse and berth down below. The hardware of jihad — five hundred kilograms of explosives, a hundred assault rifles, handguns and ammunition — are piled in an ancient and solid fisherman's hut on the shore.

Besides that, there is unfinished business. The two kufr girls are still alive. This failure weighs upon him, yet the business of reconciling the mujahedin has taken precedence, and he had intended to remedy the matter after the evening meal.

Quick thinking as always, smelling the gas as the canisters detonate, he throws his head back, lifts the can of Pepsi and pours the bubbling fluid down over his face, saturating his closed eyelids. The properties of the soft drink in resisting the effects of tear gas are well known and understood by freedom fighters across the world.

Thus protected he drops the empty can and sprints back into the building to where the children are held. The kufr soldiers will be after the girls, of course, and taking one as a hostage might be the only way of ensuring his survival. The other, of course, must die now. The lights are off, but there is enough light from
the outside fire and exploding munitions to see the hostages. His hand falls to the butt of his pistol, drawing it and aiming down at the larger of the two children, firing two rounds into her, watching her body jerk as the bullets strike before moving to the smaller child. Lifting and holding her against his chest, ignoring the sharp pain as the pressure of her body pushes the automatic pistol in its holster against his rib cage. The girl's cries and the beat of small hands against his chest are of no account.