The Horse at the Gates (2 page)

They left the bazaar behind them, and Raza was thankful to be free of the stifling press of humanity. He held his jacket over his arm as the afternoon sun beat the earth, hammering the asphalt roads and dusty pavements. He took a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his clammy brow, wincing as a sharp pain shot up his arm and pierced his neck. The boy hadn’t noticed, striding ahead and clearly untroubled by the heat, dressed as he was in a white, full-length disha dasha, his bald head protected from the sun by a knitted kufi. They turned off the main road and into a shady side street where the battered Toyota pickup waited. Raza almost sighed with relief.

They climbed inside, rusted door hinges creaking loudly, Raza fumbling with the air conditioning as the boy coaxed the engine into life. The dark blue pickup threaded its way through quiet back streets and out onto Jinnah Avenue, where it merged with the heavy eastbound traffic. As the Toyota cruised along in the nearside lane, Raza watched the passing landscape, the roadside advertising hoardings, the flame trees that lined the busy avenue, the looming towers of the city’s financial district, glass and steel facades sparkling beneath the hot sun.

‘Look around you, Abbas, look how our country tries to mimic the west, how our leaders crave their acceptance, how they flood our markets with western goods, undermining the laws of sharia with their twisted values.’ He glanced to his right. The boy said nothing, his eyes glued to the road. ‘Europe is another matter,’ Raza continued in a low voice, massaging the ache in his left arm. ‘Their governments and institutions are slaves to political correctness. Their leaders are wary of our growing power, our willingness to defend our beliefs with violence, but are too shackled by their liberal ways to challenge us. Instead, they appease us with weak words and fear in their eyes.’

Ahead, through the dirt-streaked windshield, Raza saw the Aiwan-e-Sadr, Islamabad’s Presidential Palace, squatting majestically between the Parliament and the National Assembly buildings. For a moment, Raza ignored the numbness in his hands. For the average citizen, the regal cluster of modern architecture represented absolute power and authority in Pakistan, yet for those like Raza it offered nothing more than a charade of stability, the corrupt politicians inside seeking to paper over the cracks of Pakistan’s fractious existence, to smother its deep religious and political divisions. Raza despised those that occupied the buildings’ marble halls.

‘A house of cards,’ he hissed through his teeth, ‘ready to fall.’ He pointed through the windshield. ‘Turn here.’

The boy yanked the wheel to the left and soon the Toyota was cruising the shaded streets of the Markaz district, less than a mile from the Presidential Palace. At Raza’s instruction he turned again, pulling the vehicle up onto the driveway of a residential property. It was nondescript, a whitewashed bungalow with red roof tiles set back from the road, the door and windows secured behind steel grills, the type of dwelling fancied by a senior government worker or moderately successful businessman. Raza looked up and down the street, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. Nothing moved, not a single person, a vehicle, or even a stray dog. The risk of being seen was minimal, yet decades of clandestine operations and covert training dictated his movements whether he like it or not. He climbed out of the pickup, making a struggle of getting into his jacket, his chin held low, sweeping an arm across his sweating face. Then he was in the shade of the arched portico, a set of keys in his hand. He unlocked the heavy brass padlock that secured the steel security gate and swung it wide. The varnished wooden front door behind it was opened and Raza led the boy inside, flicking on the lights. Bare bulbs glowed overhead, revealing a large, open living area, whitewashed walls, the floors covered in simple stone tiles. The windows were boarded on the inside with thick sheets of plywood. There were no pictures or furniture to speak of. They passed a kitchen to the left, empty cupboard doors left open like mouths waiting to be fed. A short hallway led them to a rear bedroom and Raza unlocked the door with a thick brass key. Inside, the room was in darkness, the window sealed with another sheet of plywood. There was no bed, only a table, barely visible in the gloom, an indistinct lump on its surface. Raza ran his hand around the wall and found the light switch. An overhead strip light hummed and blinked into life, washing the room in its harsh industrial glare. A green military rucksack occupied the table top. A very large rucksack.

‘How many people does it take to create chaos?’ asked Raza rhetorically, checking the snap-locks on the rucksack for signs of tampering. ‘Long ago, nineteen martyrs armed with box cutters crippled the world’s largest superpower in a matter of hours. London and Madrid suffered similar chaos when a mere handful of our soldiers-’

Raza’s words caught in his throat. His head swam, then his stomach lurched violently. ‘Wait here,’ he commanded. He walked quickly along the corridor to the bathroom, where he performed two tasks. The first was to throw up, his knuckles white as his hands grasped the cool rim of the sink. After his exertions he let the water run, splashing his face and neck. He stood upright and looked in the mirror. Not good, he realised. His brown skin had taken on a grey hue, the rings beneath his eyes darker than usual. The collar and front of his shirt were soaked, the thick hair on his chest visible through the damp material. He didn’t have much time.

The wave of nausea temporarily sated, he moved on to task number two, which required him to stand on the toilet seat and reach up into the small roof space above. From the dark recess he retrieved a thin aluminium briefcase and headed back to the bedroom.

‘You are unwell,’ the boy said. This time it wasn’t a question.

‘It does not matter.’ Raza placed the briefcase on the table and snapped open the locks. Inside, cushioned within thick foam compartments, were two brushed-steel tubes with distinctive red caps. ‘You recognise these?’ he asked. The boy snorted, almost indignantly, Raza noticed.
Such confidence.
He spun the briefcase around and the boy ran a finger along the grey foam, lifting out the bridge wire detonators from their compartments and inspecting them with a practised eye. He nestled them carefully back inside the foam then turned his attention to the rucksack.

‘It is not as I expected.’

‘These things rarely are.’

‘It looks smaller.’ The boy unzipped a fastener around the outside of the rucksack and removed a green nylon flap. Behind it was a panel, the writing on its green casing clearly Urdu. ‘One of ours,’ he remarked.

Raza nodded. ‘Based on the Russian RA-One One Five tactical model. This one was originally intended to take out the Indian naval base at Karwar. The design is crude. No timing mechanism, no remote detonation…’

‘A martyr’s weapon,’ the boy finished. He embraced the rucksack in his arms and dragged it towards him. He unfastened the top snap locks and rolled the nylon material down, partly revealing the smooth metallic tube inside. He peeled away several Velcro flaps until the inspection and access panels were visible, then stood back. Raza watched him run a hand along the metal casing of the warhead. ‘It is a thing of beauty,’ he said quietly, almost reverently.

Raza stepped forward and lifted the foam panel containing the detonators out of the briefcase, revealing a comprehensive and sophisticated set of screwdrivers and a pair of small electronic devices that he didn’t even pretend to understand. He pushed the case towards the boy.

‘You have all you need?’

The boy ran a finger over the screwdrivers then removed the devices, checking power levels and nodding approvingly. ‘Everything.’

The older man mopped his sweating face and neck with his handkerchief. ‘Good. Then I must leave.’ He checked the digital Timex on his wrist. ‘The President will begin his address to Parliament in one hour and twelve minutes. You should detonate the device at exactly two forty-five.’

The boy checked his own watch and nodded. Already Raza could see his mind was elsewhere as he laid his tools carefully on the table in a precise and specific order. There would be no cries of
Allahu Akbar
here today, no other jihadi proclamations or exhortations of violence. They were both professionals, men of faith to be sure, but professionals first and foremost. He left the boy alone, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Raza secured the front of the house, the boy now sealed safely inside. He started up the Toyota and backed off the driveway, idling by the pavement as he searched the street for inquisitive eyes, for waiting army trucks or hovering helicopters. There were none. He jammed the vehicle into gear and headed north, towards the Pir Sohawa Road, the winding, twisting route that would take him up over the Margalla Hills and beyond the range of the blast.

He’d travelled less than two miles when the pain gripped him, his chest constricting as if a steel wire had been curled around his torso and violently tightened. He cried out and swerved the Toyota off the road, the front tyres bouncing over the kerb as it slewed to a halt in a cloud of red dust by the roadside. He clutched his chest, arms wrapped around his body, then turned and vomited onto the passenger seat. He finished retching after several moments, cuffing silvery strands of bile from his mouth as sweat poured down his face. He needed help, fast. Cars drove by him on the road, oblivious to his plight, the pickup stalled deep in the shade of a stand of eucalyptus trees. He considered calling an ambulance, but that was pointless. The hospital was less than a mile from where the boy now worked. No, he had to get away.

He pulled himself upright and leaned back in his seat, moaning softly, willing the pain to pass. Through the windshield his eyes searched the densely wooded hills before him, seeking the road that would lead him to safety in the valleys beyond. Another wave of pain jolted him sideways, pulling him down onto the passenger seat, his body settling into the puddle of bile and barely-digested lumps of food already congealing on the cracked leather. With a trembling right hand he reached into his trouser pocket, his thick fingers desperately seeking the familiar shape of his pill box. He withdrew it, flicking open the lid as another knife of pain stabbed his chest. He fumbled the box, spilling the contents out into the foot well below him before he could catch one. He panted heavily, his lungs labouring under the strain, his damp face resting on the hot leather of the door panel, a thin string of saliva dangling from his lower lip. He stared down at them, a constellation of heart pills arranged against the backdrop of the rubber matting, as distant as the milky way itself, and equally pointless. The sound of the nearby traffic faded to a distant hum as he stared up through the windshield, the blue sky barely visible between the dark leaves of the eucalyptus. The thick overhead covering swayed back and forth, the branches bowing and waving before a gentle afternoon breeze. The motion seemed to calm him and the pain gradually subsided, his damaged heart slowing its frantic, erratic rhythms. His breathing retuned to something like normality, yet still he could not move. Instead, he lay still, staring at the shifting trees until they blurred, then faded from view...

His eyes snapped open, his heart quickening, the palpitations increasing. His breath came in ragged gasps and, once again, he felt the first ripples of pain fanning out around his body. Something was wrong. He was still alive. With a dangerous effort he dragged his left arm from beneath his body. The blue LCD display of the Timex pulsed before his eyes – 14:43. He let his arm drop, moaning in temporary relief. The pain ebbed and flowed across his chest, his arms, his neck, getting sharper with each wave, building towards its deadly finale. Raza settled onto his back and waited for it to be over, briefly wondering what Paradise would be like. He hoped it would be as he’d been taught, that the rewards for martyrdom would be as described, that his heart would be whole and strong once more. He hoped it would be all of that.

Through the windshield the branches ceased their rhythmic swaying as the breeze suddenly faded, then died. Everything became still. With his good arm Raza tried to shield his eyes as the sky overhead suddenly brightened, turning from blue to a dazzling, burning, searing white.

The leaves vanished. The trees, vaporised.

The two-megaton detonation wiped the administrative heart of Islamabad off the face of the earth, killing the President, the Senate, all of the National Assembly, plus every other living organism within a two-mile radius. Beyond that, roads melted and tall buildings were levelled, the blast wave rolling across the flat plain to the west and destroying everything in its deadly path. Thousands died in an instant, thousands more were buried, blackened and burnt.

High above the earth, in the cold vacuum of space, orbiting satellites and remote sensor platforms recorded the light pulse and the resulting heat bloom, downloading real-time images and digital data to frantic controllers in scores of monitoring stations across a dozen countries. World leaders were woken, or interrupted, or whisked to emergency facilities, depending on their proximity to the ruins of Islamabad. The Indian government was first to denounce the ghastly event, immediately denying any involvement while ordering their armed forces to go to full nuclear alert. The world held its breath and waited.