False Friends (7 page)

‘But if they’d done an air strike or something it wouldn’t have looked so bad,’ said Malik. ‘Flying in troops was like invading the country, wasn’t it?’

He looked over his shoulder. ‘Do you know why they didn’t do an air strike, John?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Mate, that’s wel above my pay grade,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but you must have an opinion. Why would they piss around with helicopters and guns and that? Why not use one of them Predator things?’

‘Maybe they wanted to make sure,’ said Shepherd. It was something he’d asked Charlotte Button when she’d first told him that he would be going on the mission as an observer. Usual y the Americans preferred to strike from the sky using the unmanned drones that were piloted from the other side of the world. Malik had referred to the Predator but the American military’s death-dealer of choice was now the Reaper, bigger and faster than the Predator and able to stay in the air for more than twelve hours before firing its fourteen Hel fire missiles. Button had explained that the Americans wanted to col ect DNA evidence to make absolutely sure that they had the right man, but that hadn’t made sense to Shepherd, especial y when the Seals had gone and buried the body at sea. A body was proof of death, a DNA sample wasn’t. ‘Also they’re saying that there were women and children in buildings nearby.’

‘That’s never worried them before, has it?’ said Malik.

‘You know, the Americans are a law unto themselves,’ said Shepherd. ‘The important thing is that he’s dead. And the fact that he’s dead makes it much more likely that they’l do something with you guys, sooner rather than later.’

‘You think?’ asked Chaudhry.

‘Al-Qaeda wil want revenge, there’s no question of that,’ said Shepherd. ‘And you guys are in place.’

‘At what point do you arrest them?’ asked Chaudhry.

‘That’s above my pay grade too,’ said Shepherd.

‘But they’l stop them before anyone gets hurt, won’t they?’

‘I’m sure they wil ,’ said Shepherd.

‘What about if we wore a wire or something?’ said Malik. ‘Wouldn’t that help? We could record Khalid talking about what he wanted us to do –

that would be conspiracy, wouldn’t it?’

‘And what if they found the wire?’ said Chaudhry.

‘Why would they find it?’ He looked at Shepherd. ‘They’re real y smal , aren’t they? They can put them in buttons, can’t they? Cameras too.’

‘Raj is right,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’d be taking too much of a risk. And Khalid is very unlikely to start revealing his plans al of a sudden; he’s only ever going to tel you what you need to know. He’l give you the mushroom treatment.’

Malik frowned. ‘Mushroom treatment? What’s that?’

Chaudhry laughed. ‘It’s when they keep you in the dark and feed you bul shit,’ he said. ‘And John’s right. That’s how terrorist cel s work: the upper echelons restrict the information that goes to the individual cel s. That way the damage is limited if a cel is blown.’ He nodded at Shepherd. ‘Right?’

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Raj,’ said Shepherd. ‘But even a tape of Khalid saying what he wants to do isn’t enough. He could claim to be a fantasist, he could say that he was joking, or that you were acting as an agent provocateur. We need him with weapons, or bombs – hard evidence that no jury can ignore. So we just carry on playing the waiting game.’

‘And you have him under surveil ance al the time, right?’ said Malik.

‘Best you don’t know about the operational details,’ said Shepherd.

‘Now who’s treating us like mushrooms?’ said Malik.

‘There’s a difference, Harvey,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m doing it because I’ve got your best interests at heart. I’m on your side. Khalid just wants to use you.’

Even as the words were leaving his lips, Shepherd wondered just how truthful he was being. Yes, he was looking out for the two men and didn’t want them in harm’s way, but he was also being very selective about what he was tel ing them and in that respect he wasn’t much different from the men planning to use them as terrorists.

‘You’re doing a great job, and I’m watching your backs every step of the way,’ he said, smiling confidently.

Chaudhry and Malik joined the queue of men, mainly Pakistani, waiting to enter the Musal aa An-noorthe mosque in Dynevor Road. It was close to where they lived and catered for mainly Pakistani Muslims, with room for about a hundred worshippers at any one time. They nodded to those that they recognised but didn’t talk to anyone. The man in front of them was in his seventies, wearing a grey dishdash and a crocheted skul cap. He flicked a cigarette butt into the street before heading through the door at the side of a run-down sportswear shop. Chaudhry and Malik went down the stairs after him, keeping their hands on the wal s either side for balance. At the bottom of the stairs they slipped off their shoes and put them in one of the wooden racks by the door. They were both dressed comfortably but respectful y in long-sleeved shirts and trousers and they were wearing ties. It had been drummed into Chaudhry as a child that the mosque was a place where men went to commune with Al ah and that it was important to dress accordingly. But as he looked around he could see that most of the Muslims who had come to pray had not had the same upbringing. There were men in grimy sweatshirts and loose tracksuit bottoms, loose shirts and baggy jeans, stained overal s; there were even two teenagers wearing footbal shirts and shorts who were obviously on their way to a match. They were both chewing gum, and Chaudhry considered going over to them and admonishing them but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that. He was there to pray, not to get into arguments with Muslims who should know better.

At just after sunset it was time for the Maghrib prayers, the fourth of five formal daily prayers that every good Muslim carries out. The man standing directly in front of Chaudhry rol ed up his jeans to make it easier to kneel when praying, but he did it casual y, one leg rol ed right up to the knee, the other to mid-calf, and when he did kneel the jeans rode down and revealed his underwear. Chaudhry shook his head at the lack of respect.

He looked over at Malik and nodded at the uneven trousers of the man in front of them. Malik grinned. Like Chaudhry he had been born in Britain to hard-working middle-class Pakistani parents and had been brought up to respect the sanctity of the mosque.

The man’s toenails were long and yel owing and there was dirt under them. Chaudhry shuddered. He could never understand why people who fol owed a religion where shoes were always being removed didn’t make more of an effort to take care of their feet. It didn’t take much to clip nails and to wash before heading to the mosque. He took a deep breath and looked away. There was no point in worrying about the personal grooming habits of others.

He knelt down and began to pray. As his face got close to the prayer mat the stench of sweat and tobacco hit him and his stomach lurched.

Whoever had last been on the mat had obviously been a heavy smoker and hadn’t been overzealous on the personal-hygiene front. He sat back on his heels and sighed.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Malik.

‘The mat stinks,’ said Chaudhry. ‘What’s wrong with people? Why can’t they shower before they come to pray? Or at least spray on some cologne.’

‘Do you want to move? There are spaces at the back.’

Chaudhry looked over his shoulder. The mosque was busy and moving would mean threading their way through the rows and even then he couldn’t see two places together. ‘I’l put up with it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t understand why the imams don’t say something.’

‘I think they’re more worried about numbers than hygiene,’ whispered Malik. ‘Come on, let’s finish and get out.’

Chaudhry nodded and began to pray, as always forcing himself to concentrate on the words even though he had said them tens of thousands of times before. He knew that many of the men around him were simply going through the motions, their lips moving on autopilot while their minds were elsewhere, their thoughts on their work, on their families, or more likely on what they were missing on television or on what they would be eating for dinner. That wasn’t how Chaudhry had been brought up to pray. Prayer was the time when one communed with Al ah and to do it half-heartedly was worse than not doing it at al . Not that he found it a chore. In fact he relished the inner peace that came with focused prayer, the way that al extraneous thoughts were pushed away, al worries, al concerns, al fears. Al that mattered were the prayers, and once he had begun he wasn’t even aware of the stench of stale sweat and cigarette smoke.

When they finished they made their way out and slipped on their shoes. They headed up the stairs and out into Dynevor Road. It was a cold day and Malik pul ed up the fur-lined hood of his parka as they turned right towards their flat, but they stopped when they heard a voice behind them.

‘Hel o, brothers.’

They turned round. It was Kamran Khalid, their friend and mentor. And the man who had sent them to Pakistan for al-Qaeda training. Khalid was tal , just over six feet, and stick-thin. He had a close-cropped beard and a hooked nose between piercing eyes that rarely seemed to blink.

‘Brother,’ said Chaudhry, and Khalid stepped forward and hugged him, kissing him softly on both cheeks. He did the same with Malik.

Khalid claimed to be from Karachi but never spoke about his family or schooling in Pakistan. He spoke good English, albeit with a thick accent, but Chaudhry had also heard him talking in Arabic on several occasions. As far as the authorities were concerned, Khalid was an Afghan, a refugee from the Taliban. He had claimed that his family had been massacred by Taliban tribesmen and that had been enough to get him refugee status and eventual y citizenship, but Chaudhry doubted that he was an Afghan. On the few occasions that he’d talked to Khalid about his background, the man had been vague rather than evasive and had smoothly changed the subject.

‘Al is wel ?’ asked Khalid, addressing them both.

Chaudhry and Malik nodded. ‘We are al in mourning for what happened,’ said Chaudhry, keeping his voice low.

Khalid smiled tightly. ‘At least we know that The Sheik is in Paradise reaping the rewards of a holy life. And how lucky were you to be blessed by the man himself.’

‘There wil be retribution, won’t there?’ asked Chaudhry.

Khalid smiled easily, showing abnormal y large teeth that were gleaming white and almost square. ‘Not here, brothers,’ he whispered. ‘Walk with me.’

He took them along to Stoke Newington High Street and into a Turkish-run coffee shop. The Turks ran most of the restaurants and shops in the area and they guarded their territory jealously, which was why none of the major chains were represented. It was clammy and hot inside the shop and Malik and Chaudhry took off their coats. Khalid waited until a young Turkish boy had set down three espressos on their table and gone back to the cash register before leaning across the table and addressing them in a hushed voice. ‘The Americans wil pay, the British wil pay, they wil al pay,’ he said.

Chaudhry could see the irony in the fact that al three of them were British citizens, but it was clearly lost on Khalid. No matter how long he lived in the UK, Khalid would never think of himself as British. The British, like the Americans, were the enemy.

‘Do you know what happened, brother?’

‘I know that The Sheik died bravely with the name of Al ah on his lips,’ said Khalid. ‘And that the kafir that kil ed him wil burn in hel for al eternity.’

‘How did they know where he was?’ asked Malik.

‘They are saying that a courier led them to the compound, but who knows? The Americans always lie. And they have satel ites in the sky that can read a number plate. Or it could have been the Pakistani military who betrayed him.’

‘You think they knew he was there?’

‘How could they not, brother? He was not in London, where strangers are ignored. People would see who came and went. Do you think they would not ask who was living behind such high wal s?’

‘But why would they betray him?’

Khalid shrugged. ‘For money. For influence. Who knows?’

‘May they also burn in hel ,’ said Malik.

‘Inshal ah,’ agreed Khalid. God wil ing.

Chaudhry stirred two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. ‘And what about us, brother?’ he asked. ‘How much longer must we wait?’

‘Not much longer,’ said Khalid. ‘Your impatience is understandable but you are resources that must not be squandered. You wil not be used until the time is right.’

‘And how wil we be used?’ asked Malik. ‘Can you at least tel us that?’

‘When I know, you wil know,’ said Khalid.

‘Al the training we did, and yet now it’s as if it never happened,’ said Malik. ‘I had assumed that by this time we’d . . .’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

‘Brother, I understand your frustration. But we cannot rush. We never do. That is why we are so successful. We watch, we wait, we bide our time and only when we are sure of victory do we strike. We could give you arms now and tel you to storm the American Embassy and you might kil a few kafirs and it would be a news story for a couple of days, but then life would go on and you would soon be forgotten. That’s not what we are about, brothers. What we want is another Nine-Eleven.’

Malik frowned. ‘Planes, you mean? We’re going to crash planes?’

Khalid looked around as if he feared they were being overheard, then he shook his head. ‘No, brothers. This is not about planes. Nor do we plan to make you martyrs. You are no shahid. You are warriors, warriors who wil strike again and again.’ He reached across the table and held each of them by the hand, his nails digging into their flesh. ‘What we are planning, brothers, wil change the world for ever, you have my word on that.’

‘When?’ asked Malik.

‘Al in good time,’ said Khalid. ‘We wil strike when the time is right and not before.’