Stephen Leather - The Hunting

Amer put down his kebab. ‘Bruv, there’s no way I’m doing the shahid thing. I joined to fight, not to fucking die.’

‘No one said anything about dying,’ said Jaffar. ‘What was it the imam said? Construct explosive devices, that’s what he said. And yeah, I’m up for that.’

‘What if they want you to wear a vest and blow yourself up?’ asked Amer.

Faaz held up his hands. ‘Brothers, we are all here to serve Allah as best we can. It’s not for us to query the instructions we are given, it is to carry out those instructions as professionally as we can. Now is not the time for second-guessing our betters. It is time to eat, and to celebrate our victory.’

‘Fuck yeah!’ said Jaffar, punching the air. He lowered his hand when he saw Faaz’s eyes narrow disapprovingly. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and reached for a stuffed vine leaf.

CHAPTER 7

Van der Sandt stared out of the window, his face a blank mask. ‘Mr Van der Sandt?’ It sounded as if the woman’s voice was underwater. He felt a gentle touch on his arm and he turned to see Kimmy looking at him anxiously. Kimmy Lee was officially a flight attendant but she was more of a flying PA. She made sure he was fed and watered during his flights, but also handled incoming and outgoing calls and had access to his address book, containing the numbers of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Kimmy was Korean. She was forty years old but could pass for half that. She was wearing a black suit and had sensible flat shoes on that kept her just below five feet tall. She flashed him a worried smile. She had spent the flight at the rear of the plane, leaving him alone with his grief. ‘Toni asked me to tell you that we’re coming up to the closest we’ll get to Paris. On our left.’

‘Thank you, Kimmy.’

He looked out of the window. He could make out lights in the distance.

‘Shall I serve the champagne?’

‘Yes, please, Kimmy.’

She went back to the galley. He stared at the lights. Laura was in the hold, with Sophie, Karl and Lucy. Konuk had managed to arrange coffins despite the short notice and they had been delivered to the airport in four hearses. There had been no paperwork; the bodies had been removed unofficially and everyone who needed paying had been paid. Van der Sandt had watched as the coffins had been placed in the hold by men in dark suits and he had waited until they had driven away before climbing the steps and settling into his seat. Part of him had wanted to put the coffins in the cabin, but the hold would be colder and that would slow the decomposition. He felt tears well up in his eyes and he blinked them away. He could barely believe what had happened. Every time he turned around he expected to see Laura and the kids. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Kimmy appeared at his shoulder with a bottle of Krug in an ice bucket. It was Laura’s favourite champagne. She placed two glasses on the table, and suddenly the tears came. He wiped them and Kimmy looked away as she deftly popped the cork. She poured champagne into both glasses and then left him to it. He picked up one of the glasses and raised it to the window. ‘I love you so much, honey. I should have spent more time with you in Paris. I’m sorry. God bless.’ He sipped his champagne as tears ran down his cheeks. ‘I can promise you one thing,’ he said quietly. ‘I will make the bastards pay. Every single one of them.’

CHAPTER 8

Sid said the final words of his prayer, touched his forehead to the prayer mat, and got to his feet. Back in Kilburn he had prayed maybe once or twice a day, but at the camp everyone had to fulfil the full quota of prayers. They started with Fajr, the dawn prayer, then that was followed by Zuhr, the early afternoon prayer, Asr, the late afternoon prayer, Maghrib, the sunset prayer, and finally the night prayer, Isha’a. After the night prayer they went to the barracks to sleep. There were no fires and no electricity and even if there had been power they were forbidden from switching on their phones. It had been explained to them that the Americans could track all phones and they could use them to target the Hellfire missiles fired from killer drones high up in the sky. That was how the Americans liked to fight, from a distance. It was the coward’s way, the imams always said. Real men, real warriors, looked their enemy in the eyes when they killed them. Cowards fought from the safety of their desks, thousands of kilometres away from the battlefield. That was why the West would eventually lose the fight and Islam would win.

Life in the camp was tough, but Sid had known it would be before he joined up. The men showered first thing in the morning and before Isha’a prayers, and washed with a wet towel for the rest of the prayers. Water was pumped from an underground well and was in relatively short supply. Food and other supplies came in on a truck once a day, or when new fighters arrived for training. The meal they had been given when they returned from Cyprus had been a celebration feast; usually they ate twice a day – a piece of meat, some bread, yoghurt and fruit.

Days were filled with praying, physical fitness, being taught about the Koran, and military training. It was only the training that interested Sid. He prayed because he had to pray and did it so many times that his mind almost always wandered as he went through the motions. Fitness training was fine, but Sid was already as fit as the proverbial butcher’s dog. He could do sit-ups and press-ups by the score, and as with praying his mind would wander freely as he toiled away.

He had to be more focused during Koran studies, as the imams were expert at spotting anyone who wasn’t giving their full attention. Teaching took place in the tent where they had had their victory feast, usually in groups of between ten and twenty. The imams were all in their sixties and seventies. They had long beards and skin as dark as molasses from exposure to the fierce Syrian sun, their faces and hands mottled and wrinkled. But while their bodies were aging, their minds were sharp and they knew every word of the Koran by heart. They tended to be selective in their teachings, though, concentrating on those passages that encouraged violence against disbelievers. According to the imams, the disbelievers were filthy and untouchable and impure and were destined for hell. It was the duty of every Muslim to fight and kill all disbelievers until Islam was the only religion. They seemed to relish one particular phrase – that all Muslims should ‘slay or crucify or cut off the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in the world hereafter.’

The imams made it clear that they were never to befriend a non-believer. A theme that came up again and again was that the Koran wanted good Muslims to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies and that jihad was not a matter of choice, it was compulsory.

There were no women in the camp and there was a distinct misogynistic tone to the teaching. They were left in no doubt that the book of Allah regarded women as inferior to men and that if they were disobedient they could be beaten. Sid had suppressed a smile at that – he knew plenty of Muslim sisters back in London who would not react well to having a finger laid on them. The jihadists were free to have four wives, but they could have sex with as many slave maids or captives as they wanted, and it was permitted – in fact encouraged – for soldiers to rape the women of any country they subdued. The imams had explained that it was the duty of every good Muslim to have sex with as many kafir girls as possible and to impregnate them.

Sid struggled to pay attention and to even appear to be interested in the lectures – in reality all he cared about was the military training. That was why he had come to Syria in the first place, to acquire the skills he needed to fight and kill for Islam. They trained with various pistols and with AK-47s, and they were drilled in the use of RPGs, though they had never been allowed to actually fire one. They were taught how to storm houses, and how to defend them. They were shown the best way to kill close up, and how to ensure the maximum number of casualties when attacking a group. Much of the training was done without ammunition as supplies were running low, but they had been assured that more bullets were on the way. There had been extensive training in explosives, too. Grizzled ISIS warriors had showed them how to construct bombs from generally available substances such as weedkiller and fuel oil, but they had also been taught how to use Semtex and C4, how to use commercial detonators and how to set up trip wires and timers. It was all good stuff, and while Sid was happy enough in Syria he looked forward to the day when he could use the skills he had acquired against his own country.