Juan Gómez-Jurado - Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

Orville looked at him with his mouth open.

‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

‘That’s lucky for you: if you did then I’d have to kill you. Only joking. Listen, Orville, I didn’t rush out to save your life because I’m an agent with the CIA. I’m not. I’m just a simple link in the chain, doing a favour for a friend. And that friend is in serious danger, in part because of the report you gave Kayn about him. Fowler is in Jordan, on a crazy expedition to recover the Ark of the Covenant. And as strange as it might seem, the expedition may prove a success.’

‘Huqan,’ Orville said, barely audible. ‘I found something out by chance about Jordan and Huqan. I gave the information to Kayn.’

‘The guys at the Company retrieved that from your hard disks, but nothing else.’

‘I managed to find a mention of Kayn on one of the web-mail servers used by terrorists. Do you know much about Islamic terrorism?’

‘Only what I’ve read in the New York Times .’

‘Then we’re not even at square one. Here’s a crash course. The media’s high opinion of Osama Bin Laden, the villain in this film, makes no sense. Al Qaeda as a super-evil organisation doesn’t exist. There’s no head to chop off. The jihad doesn’t have a head. The jihad is a commandment from God. There are thousands of cells at different levels. They drive and inspire each other without having anything to do with each other.’

‘It’s impossible to fight against that.’

‘Exactly. It’s like trying to cure an illness. There isn’t a miracle cure, like the invasion of Iraq, or Lebanon, or of Iran. We can only produce white blood cells to kill the germs one by one.’

‘That’s your job.’

‘The problem is that it’s not possible to infiltrate Islamic terrorist cells. They can’t be bribed. What motivates them is religion, or at least the twisted notion they have of it. You can understand that, I suppose.’

Albert’s expression was sheepish.

‘They use a different vocabulary,’ Orville went on. ‘It’s a language that’s too complex for this country. They can have dozens of different aliases, they use a different calendar… a westerner needs dozens of checks and mental codes for each piece of information. That’s where I come in. With one click of a mouse I’m right there, in between one of these fanatics and another three thousand miles away.’

‘The Internet.’

‘It looks much prettier on a computer screen,’ Orville said, caressing his flattened nose, which was now orange from the Betadine. Albert had tried to set the nose straight using a piece of cardboard and some tape, but he was aware that if he didn’t get Orville to a hospital soon, in a month they’d have to break the nose again to straighten it.

Albert thought for a moment.

‘So this Huqan, he was going to go after Kayn.’

‘I don’t remember too much, other than that the guy seemed pretty serious. The truth is that what I gave Kayn was raw information. I hadn’t had a chance to analyse anything in detail.’

‘Then…’

‘It was like a free sample, you know. You give them a little then sit back and wait. In time they’ll ask for more. Don’t look at me like that. People have to earn a living.’

‘We have to get that information back,’ Albert said, drumming his fingers on his armchair. ‘First, because the people who attacked you were worried about what you knew. And second, because if Huqan is part of the expedition-’

‘All my files have disappeared or been burned.’

‘Not all of them. There’s a copy.’

Orville was slow to understand what Albert meant.

‘No way. Don’t even joke about it. That place is impregnable.’

‘Nothing is impossible, except one thing – that I go another minute without eating,’ Albert said, picking up his car keys. ‘Try to relax. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

The priest was about to go out the door when Orville called to him. Just the idea of breaking into the fortress that was Kayn Tower was making Orville feel anxious. There was only one way to overcome his nerves.

‘Albert…?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve changed my mind about the chocolate.’

The imam was right.

He had told him that the jihad would enter his soul and his heart. He had warned him about the ones he called weak Muslims because they called true believers radicals.

‘You cannot be afraid of how other Muslims will feel about what we do. God did not prepare them for the task. He didn’t temper their hearts and souls with the fire that is within us. Let them think that Islam is a religion of peace. That helps us. It weakens the defences of our enemies; it creates holes through which we can penetrate. Cracks.’

He felt it. He could hear the screams in his heart that were only mumblings on others’ lips.

He felt it for the first time when he was asked to be a leader in the jihad. He was asked because he had special talent. Gaining the respect of his brothers had not been easy. He had never been in the fields of Afghanistan or Lebanon. He had not followed the orthodox path, and still the Word had clung to the deepest part of his being like a vine to a young tree.

It happened outside the city, in a warehouse. Some brothers were holding another who had let the temptations of the outside world interfere with God’s commandments.

The imam had told him he must remain firm, prove himself worthy. All eyes would be watching him.

On the way to the warehouse he had bought a hypodermic needle and bent the end of it lightly against the car door. He was supposed to go in and talk with the traitor, with the one who wanted to embrace the comforts that they had been called to erase from the face of the Earth. His job was to convince him of his error. Completely naked, his hands and feet tied, the man was sure to listen.

Instead of talking, he had walked into the warehouse, gone directly to the traitor and plunged the bent syringe into the man’s eye. Ignoring the screams, he had yanked out the syringe, lacerating the eye. Without waiting, he had then stabbed the other eye and pulled.

Not even five minutes had passed before the traitor was begging them to kill him. Huqan smiled. The message had been clear. His job was to cause pain and make those who went against God want to die.

Huqan. Syringe.

That day he had earned his name.

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

Saturday, 15 July 2006. 12:34 p.m.

‘A white Russian, please.’

‘You surprise me, Ms Otero. I imagined you would drink a Manhattan, something more trendy and post-modern,’ Raymond Kayn said, smiling. ‘Let me mix it myself. Thank you, Jacob.’

‘Are you sure, sir?’ said Russell, who didn’t seem too happy about leaving the old man alone with Andrea.

‘Relax, Jacob. I’m not going to jump on Ms Otero. That is, unless she wants me to.’

Andrea realised she was blushing like a schoolgirl. As the billionaire made the drink, she took in her surroundings. Three minutes before, when Jacob Russell had come to the infirmary to get her, she’d been so nervous her hands were shaking. After a couple of hours spent correcting, polishing, then rewriting her questions, she had ripped out the five pages from her notebook, crushed them into a ball, and stuck them in a pocket. That man wasn’t normal and she wasn’t going to ask him the normal questions.

When she entered Kayn’s tent she had begun to doubt her decision. The tent was divided into two rooms. One was a kind of foyer in which Jacob Russell obviously worked. It contained a desk, a laptop, and, as Andrea had suspected, a shortwave radio.