Redback (11 page)

'Do not be too eager with your promises,' she said. 'You will soon grow tired of me.'

'Never. And I am already growing eager again, Ilia,' he announced, fingering his penis as an
offering. 'Come back to bed and I will show you.'

'You will miss your train, Justin.'

'I've got hours yet,' he said, with a delicious pout.

Ilia smiled. 'Your stepmother and friends will not like it if you keep them waiting.'

'Do I look like I care?' he asked, already doe-eyed as he stroked himself and got to his knees.

Ilia laughed and joined him on the bed, turning her back to him and spreading her legs so he
could enter her from behind. His thumbs stroked the intriguing tattoos of stone-carved Greek statues
that graced her lower back, on each side of her spine. 'To keep her body strong', she had told him.

'You will come with me then?' he asked, thrusting into her.

'Yes,' she breathed, gripping the sheets.

'I meant to Paris,' his right hand squeezed her nipple, 'on the train,' he said, finding a rhythm
that was perfect for them both at this angle.

'Yes. I will catch it from near my place. And we will go to Paris together.'

'Excellent,' he said, slapping his groin into her arse and discovering again what heaven really
was. 'Fu…fucking, excellent.'

Khyber Hotel, Peshawar, Pakistan
Tuesday 5.25 pm

'Pass me a cola Bamm-Bamm,' Mudge requested.

'Why do you call me that? It's really irritating.'

'Gawd, you don't like being called anything today. What's up your clacker?'

'Nothing, Mudge. And it's the not knowing that's irritating; not the name.'

'Well you only had to ask, you didn't need to be irritated all this time.'

'Well?'

Brody, out on the balcony, took a break from scoping the narrow street, pinched the bridge of his
nose and squinted at his companions. They're both fuckwits, he thought, at a loss as to how he came
to be stuck here with them. Granted Mudge was his best friend, but that was only half a good reason.

'Okay,' Mudge began, using the edge of his bed to whack the top off the drink bottle. 'Your
name's Dwayne, right? Same as The Rock, you know, the actor. Only he's a Johnson not a Kennedy.'

'And?' Kennedy said after a few seconds silence. 'So?'

Mudge rolled his eyes as if his explanation had been enough. 'Well duh. We couldn't call you The
Rock coz it's already taken by a Dwayne, Dwayne. And you'd have had your Agency buds send us to
Gitmo if we'd chosen Pebbles, right? So, you get Bamm-Bamm.'

'What's wrong with calling me Dwayne?'

'Um,' Mudge began, 'nothin mate, if you don't…'

'We Aussies never do real names,' Brody interjected before Mudge could launch into his awful
Duh-Wayne limerick; then continued the lie. 'It's like friendly code. And in our line of work it's
safer that way.'

'Yeah?' Kennedy said, as if Brody had made sense; then he shook his head. 'Do you have to go to
special classes to learn how to think so convoluted though?'

'No mate,' Brody laughed. 'But there is an Aussie slang-gene.'

'So why did you think we call you Bamm-Bamm?' Mudge asked.

'Because I'm all muscle?' Kennedy suggested. 'So how do you get to 'Mudge' from Jason…'

'You don't,' Mudge snorted, as if that too was bloody obvious. 'I come from Mudgegonga, mate.'

Kennedy closed his eyes as if he didn't want to go where that statement had taken him.

'Bugger me!' Brody exclaimed looking down at the street. 'Of all the gin-less joints, ours is
getting screwier by the day.'

'What?' asked the other two men.

'We're sitting in this flea pit waiting - according to your intel Bamm-Bamm - for mid-ranking
al-Qaeda stooges to front, but all these other bastards keep turning up instead.'

'Like who?' Kennedy slid from his bed onto his knees and stuck his head out the door.

'Like Jamal Zahkri,' Brody stated, grinning like he'd won the eighth at Flemington.

'You're kidding me?'

'Nuh. Here, take a look.' Brody tossed the scope over and picked up his camera instead. 'He's
about mid-street, on the right. Him and three other blokes are approaching Ashraf's home away from
home.'

Kennedy zeroed in on the relevant 'blokes' and focussed on the tallest one. 'Christ!'

'Wrong prophet, I reckon.' Brody declared, taking photos as they watched the casual progress,
down their street, of one of the West's most wanted men.

Jamal Zahkri al Khudri: American-born, Moroccan-based, arms dealer, drug smuggler, hijacker and
international terrorist.

There wasn't a lot that was known about Jamal Zahkri; but all of what
was
known was bad.
He'd put his mark on a shit-load of bloody carnage in the last five years: bombs in Paris and
London; plane hijackings in Germany, Australia and Turkey; and hostage-taking all over Europe. The
biggest mystery was his lineage. Born in New York he was variously of Iraqi, Saudi, Turkish, Afghan,
Chechen and/or Canadian descent. The Yanks really didn't want to claim any part of him.

Brody smiled. Zahkri's origins might be unknown, to all bar his long-dead mother, but right now
there was one thing for sure: the murdering bastard was within easy, easy sniping range.

Fuck that! The arsehole is practically in spitting distance
.

Brody rubbed his head in frustration, as that was about all they could do. None of them had a
rifle.

'It's too bad spitting would just draw attention to us,' he said aloud.

'There was talk Zahkri had been meeting with Osama's boys,' Kennedy said. 'Guess this clinches
it.'

Brody looked at the CIA's official North-West Frontier Rep in astonishment. 'Where on earth do
you guys get your intel, Dwayne? Osama nearly killed Zahkri years ago for mutiny. The guy's been
running with Atarsa Kára for at least 18 months that we know of.'

'What the hell is he doing here then?'

'Dunno,' Brody shrugged. 'But he's about to join Ashraf, which would support our intel that
al-Qaeda has no part in whatever is really going on here.'

'Fuck. So what do we do about this?' Kennedy asked, primed to bolt out and do whatever it was.

'We watch. We wait. We take pictures,' said Brody.

'Oh, that's crap, man,' Kennedy complained. 'This sitting around is aggravating.'

Mudge snorted. 'Quit whingeing. We've been doing it a month longer than you.'

'Yeah, but I so want to shoot someone.'

Café Baba, Peshawar, Pakistan
Tuesday 5.25 pm

Ashraf Majid was about to ask for more tea when he noticed the boy with the pot was
rooted to the spot, his mouth agape. He looked to see what had caught the child's attention.

Majid's past and future collided in that moment, with the sharp and silent intake of his next
breath. The Emissary had arrived, escorted by Kali and two others. Majid's life was now
different.

Bashir Kali ushered his companions into the teashop. Majid stood to welcome the men, noting that
all but one wore the
shalwar qamiz
, the local garb of baggy pants, loose shirts and dark
vest. But, while they could disappear in a moment into the crowded streets outside, the Emissary cut
such an imposing figure that he would always stand out. So even here, in public in Peshawar, he
chose to wear his trade- mark dark-blue Egyptian-style
galabeya
tunic and loosely wound white
turban.

Majid was almost overwhelmed. Even without his signature robes, there would have been no
mistaking the man who now stood before him.

Jamal Zahkri al Khudri was legendary. He was hero not just to the recruits of
Rashmana
and
the blooded warriors of Kúrus but to all
mujahedeen
, to
jihadis
in all the
nations of Islam, to the faithful across the world. Even before he became the Emissary of
Dárayavaus, Jamal Zahkri was the crusaders' greatest curse, America's worst nightmare, and
his wondrous acts had left a searing scar across the West.

The tea boy, on words growled from the old man on the day bed, quickly ran to drag an extra stool
across the uneven floor.

Majid offered his seat, the tallest, to the Emissary and waited. The silence was broken by the
man himself.

'Sit, my brother,' Jamal Zahkri requested. He actually spoke to him in English.

Majid did as he was told and sat on the stool to the Emissary's right. It was only then that Kali
and the other two men took their places, and they all began talking and ordering food.

Majid could not help that he was speechless with awe but he hoped it would pass soon, so he could
appear less like an idiot. It was in those moments, though, that he recalled the Emissary most
likely did not speak more than a few words of Urdu. English then, sadly, was the common language for
so many who had come to the cause through
Rashmana
. Kali had told Majid that the Emissary
deliberately sought his high-level recruits from amongst those educated in the West.

Of course there was the rumour, which most chose to disbelieve, that Jamal Zahkri was himself not
simply born in the United States, but that he was half Anglo-American. Certainly his blue eyes
hinted at the possibility but then Majid had met many Chitrali, and even a Mongolian once, who had
the same blue - but not so deep and wise as the man beside him. This possible lineage also clashed
with other stories that his father's father came from Istanbul or perhaps Syria.

When the roti, rice and two huge curries, one with panar and palak and the other with meat, were
laid on the table the men took to eating as if they had not done so for days.

The Emissary commented on the meat and asked what it was.

Majid flicked his outstretched hand questioningly at the boy and said, '
bakri ka mans, ji
ha
?' The boy nodded, and Majid, glad to have found an easy way to test his voice, turned back to
the Emissary. 'It is goat.'

'Then it is very good goat.' The Emissary added something else, in a language Majid did not
recognise, but only one of the other men laughed. This was apparently not done to exclude anyone;
but rather to include the small foreign man who was still grinning.

'I reminded our southern friend,' Zahkri explained, switching back to English without hesitation,
'of the last time we had eaten goat together. It was near the Thai-Burmese border, and the meat was
hot and tough like the cloven one himself. The flavour of this meal is much more to our liking.'

Majid tilted his head and smiled, yet he could not believe his first conversation with the great
Jamal Zahkri al Khudri was about meat.

'Kali tells me you have taken to the
Rashmana
like a duck.'

A duck
? Majid couldn't help but look taken-aback. That his friend should make such a
report to the Emissary about his studies being apparently less than fitting, could not be true.
First goats, now birds; perhaps there is some code I am missing.

Zahkri looked puzzled with his latest recruit's odd reaction. He glanced questioningly at his
other companions, then tore a piece of roti with his right hand, used it to envelop a piece of meat
and pushed it into his mouth.

Kali meanwhile launched into a quick exchange in Urdu to find out what was wrong with his
best-friend-in-all-the- world. He then laughed out loud and even Majid managed to smile at his own
mistake.

'He didn't understand the duck to water reference,' Kali explained, again in English. 'He thought
it might be a code.'

Everyone laughed, except the little man who Majid suspected was neither Thai nor Burmese despite
the previous reference. He's Malay perhaps or Indonesian, Majid decided.

Jamal Zahkri put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands in front of his face. As all the
others followed suit, Majid did the same.

'This,' explained Kali, 'is just in case we are being watched or perhaps filmed. The CIA has been
known to use lip readers when they have not been able to leave their bugs.'

'I swept here every day for devices,' Majid stated.

'We know,' said the fourth man in the group.

'Samir has been watching you waiting,' Kali grinned.

'For three days?' Majid was astonished. He looked around to see how this could have been so.

'For three days indeed,' Samir replied. 'And I helped sell a good many copper pots.'

For a moment, Majid thought the Emissary was smiling at his discomfort, but realised he was in
reality simply smiling at him.

'It is okay,
arkadasim
, my friend,' Zahkri said. 'Samir was simply observing your patience
and capacity for waiting. He was also making sure that no one else was watching you.'

'And were they? Are they?'

'Oh yes. But that too is okay, Ashraf Majid. Someone is always watching us. It is only when they
stop that we should be worried, for it means we are not irritating them enough.'

Majid looked puzzled. 'Should we not then meet behind closed doors, given that we are speaking
English?'

'A valid point, but from experience we have learned that whenever we hold secret meetings the
Americans seem to think we are up to no good and they invariably send a large missile to ensure we
are dissuaded.'

'And with pinpoint accuracy, their not-very-smart-at-all long- range death dealer usually hits
the empty house next door, or kills the wedding party up the street,' Kali said.

'Which they then deny,' added Samir, 'while claiming they 'got' a most-wanted but often imaginary
terrorist.'

'So we meet in crowded places,' the Emissary said, flicking his hands at their surroundings
before reclasping them, 'and we enjoy good food. We speak in English and mix it up with the words of
our many nations, and a few others. And while the duck was not a code, the goat . . .' He glanced
across the table.

Kali dropped his hands just long enough to say, '
Bakri ka
'.

'The
bakri ka
might just confuse them a little. So, apropos of that, today Ashraf Majid I
make you my
aga
. Do you know this word? '