Stephen Leather - Dead Men

The slightly taller of the two, who was sporting a small gold earring in his left ear, laughed at something the other had said, showing perfect white teeth. A waiter brought them cups of coffee and a hookah pipe, which he lit for them. The guy with the earring took the first smoke, then handed the mouthpiece to his friend. They were early. Salih had told them to be in the cafe at midday, but it was only half past eleven.

Salih toyed with the almond croissant on his plate. He preferred to work alone but there were times when he needed assistance and this was such an occasion. One person alone could not do what he had planned. There had to be three, which meant he needed Mazur and Tariq. He took out his mobile phone and called the number Hakeem had given him. A few seconds later an Asian pop tune sounded from the taller man’s pocket. He fished in his jacket and pressed his phone to his ear. ‘I am here,’ said Salih.

The man frowned. ‘What?’

‘Across the room.’

The man looked round and Salih held up his coffee cup, then cut the connection. The man said something to his friend and they both looked in Salih’s direction. Salih sipped his coffee, then put down his cup and beckoned them over.

‘You are Hassan?’ asked the taller of the two.

Salih held up the mobile phone and smiled.

‘Of course it is. He called you, didn’t he?’ said the other man. He held out his hand. ‘I am Mazur.’

Salih shook it. ‘Yes, I am Hassan. Please sit.’ Salih took the tall man’s hand. ‘You are Tariq?’

‘I am.’

He had a tight grip and his nails had been neatly trimmed. Salih could smell expensive cologne. Tariq sat down opposite Salih, and Mazur on Salih’s right.

The waiter brought over the hookah. Salih caught the fragrance of green apples from the smouldering tobacco. ‘May I?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ said Tariq.

Salih drew the fragrant smoke into his mouth, then blew it out and sighed. ‘That’s good,’ he said. He handed the pipe back to Tariq.

‘Hakeem said you needed help,’ said Tariq.

Salih kept his voice low. ‘There is something I need doing, and I need the services of men who are prepared to do whatever it takes to serve Allah.’

‘That’s us,’ said Mazur.

‘You were trained in Pakistan?’

Both men nodded.

‘Do you mind telling me why?’

‘We learnt what we could in London, through the Internet and books, but we needed real training,’ said Tariq. ‘We had to know how to use weapons and explosives.’

‘But why did you want such training?’ pressed Salih.

‘To fight for Islam,’ said Mazur.

‘But you’re British,’ said Salih.

‘We’re Muslims first,’said Tariq,‘Pakistanis second,British third. If we don’t stand and fight as Muslims, the infidels will crush us.’ His eyes were burning with the intensity of a zealot.

‘What started you on this journey?’he asked. ‘Nine Eleven?’

Mazur nodded, but Tariq shook his head. ‘I realised long ago that Muslims were in danger of being exterminated from the face of the earth,’ he said. ‘Look at what happened in Kosovo, in Palestine, in Chechnya. When I was a kid Abu Hamza came to our mosque to give a talk and collect funds. I had never heard a man who spoke like him. Afterwards he said he recognised something in me and that when I was ready I should seek him out at the Finsbury Park mosque. As soon as I was old enough I went to see him and that was when I learnt about jihad , that Muslims have to fight our oppressors until we have established a true Islamic state.’

‘It was Nine Eleven that changed me,’ said Mazur. ‘It was the way the Americans reacted. The Saudis flew the planes into the World Trade Center, but the Americans were too cowardly to attack them. Instead they attacked the Muslims in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. What did Afghanistan have to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center? Nothing. And the Iraqis? Saddam Hussein hated al-Qaeda. Hated bin Laden.’

‘It’s true,’ agreed Tariq. ‘And then what did the Americans do? They picked up Muslims around the world and took them to Cuba to interrogate and torture them. The Americans are on a crusade, a crusade to destroy all Muslims. We have to defend ourselves, we have to meet violence with violence.’ Tariq had a movie-star smile, but there was no doubting his sincerity.

Salih understood why the two men had become such hard-line fundamentalists. It had all been part of al-Qaeda’s grand plan. Until the moment that the four planes had been hijacked in the United States, most Western countries had given little thought to the Muslim populations in their midst. Muslims and Christians were getting on just fine, but Islamic fundamentalists knew that peaceful coexistence was a threat to their religion. Religions spread best when fired by fundamentalism, and fundamentalists need someone to struggle against. It was the backlash after Nine Eleven that had fired Muslims like Tariq and Mazur and thousands more like them. The man with the beard and the Kalashnikov had known exactly what he was doing when he attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He had no interest in the men, women and children who had died. Neither did he care about the damage to the buildings. What he wanted was for the West to lash out at Muslims, and he had succeeded. The West had gone to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and Muslims round the world had united to rise up in protest.

Salih had watched the second airliner smash into the World Trade Center live on CNN as he sat in a hotel room in Zurich. He had been paid a quarter of a million dollars to kill an Iraqi biochemist who was planning to defect to America with details of Saddam Hussein’s biological-warfare programme. Salih had watched the towers collapse and had realised then that the world had changed for ever – and changed for the worse.

Salih was a Muslim but he wasn’t a fundamentalist. He hated the Israelis but he hated them because of what they had done to his country, not because of their religion. Salih killed for money, not for his beliefs. He did it coldly and dispassionately. But men like Tariq and Mazur would kill because they were angry and because they hated non-Muslims. And because they believed that if they died for Allah, they would go to Heaven. That was what made them so dangerous.

Salih sipped his coffee. ‘I need your total obedience,’ he said. ‘Whatever I ask you to do, you must do without question.’

Mazur and Tariq looked at each other, then nodded. ‘Hakeem said we can trust you,’ said Tariq.

‘It’s not about trust,’ said Salih. ‘It’s about obedience. If I do not have that, we should part company now.’

‘We shall obey you,’ said Mazur. ‘Whatever you ask, we shall do.’

Salih stared at them for several seconds, then he nodded slowly. ‘There is a girl that has to die,’ he said quietly. ‘She betrayed two of our men in Pakistan, and because of that one of the men is dead and another is being held by the Americans.’

‘Bitch,’ said Tariq, venomously.

‘She has to be killed, and she has to be killed with violence,’ said Salih. ‘Are you prepared to do that?’

Mazur swallowed nervously. ‘I am,’ he said, his voice a hoarse croak.

Tariq nodded enthusiastically. ‘I am too,’ he said.

‘There is one more thing,’ said Salih.

Mazur and Tariq leant forward, eager to hear more.

Shepherd woke up just after eight. He shaved, showered, pulled on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, then went downstairs. He cooked himself eggs and bacon, made a cup of coffee and read the Belfast Telegraph as he ate. A packet of Marlboro lay on the table in front of him but at no point did he consider lighting up. The cigarettes were a prop, nothing more. He couldn’t go more than a few hours without a cup of coffee, but he had never craved nicotine.