Rotten Gods (44 page)

Day 6, 19:00

Zhyogal calls them to Salat-ul-'isha, the night prayer, with a whispered, haunting voice.

Allah is most great,

I bear witness that there is no God but Allah,

I bear witness that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah,

Come to prayer,

Come to the good,

Allah is most great …

After the qa'dah, Zhyogal bades them linger with a commanding gesture. ‘It is apt,' he says, ‘to consider our souls on this night, on the eve of martyrdom, to reaffirm our faith in God, and in the word of the Prophet, may his name be forever praised. You are fortunate, for to die shahid is to confirm your place in Paradise. Let me remind you of what it will be like for us.'

Ali closes his eyes, tears of shame and anger boiling below the surface. The sight of death and murder is taking its toll on his faith. He tries to hide his weeping. He wants to shout at Zhyogal that their martyrdom is not yet assured, that there is still time for the West to comply with all demands. Is that not a more
important outcome? He looks around at the others. Some have already begun their preparations for martyrdom: shaving body and facial hair and cleaning the skin.

As Zhyogal speaks, Ali finds himself relaxing, falling under the spell of those words. Drinking them in, shivering with religious fervour that is as potent as any drug, as sweet as love and as beautiful as sunrise.

‘In Paradise are rivers of water, whose taste and colour never change, never running turbid after flood, nor rank in drought. The taste is of honey, sweet and wholesome. There, basking in God's favour, we will recline each to a throne, with shady trees shielding us from sun, bountiful fruit of all kinds hanging low where no effort is required to pluck whatever one requires. Adorned with silken robes we shall drink from goblets of crystal, served by young men of perpetual youth. In Paradise, each tree has a trunk of gold, and there are palaces beyond imagination. There are virgins, yes, for the taking, and we who die shahid will sit beside our God, with jewelled thrones and the choicest fruit of all. Since the death of the first martyr, Sumayyah bint Khabbab, at the hands of the polytheists of Maccah, many thousands of our Muslim brothers have joined God in Jannah, to live a life of ecstasy, remembering always that God has promised pleasures and rewards that are beyond comprehension.'

Ali tries to visualise such rewards, but all he can imagine is a blinding light and oblivion. Other men weep with longing.

Zhyogal smiles back at them. ‘Remember the founder of al-Muwahhidun, Ibn Tumart, so long ago, and his vision of an empire of Muslim states across North Africa, Arabia, and Europe. Let it be so. Let us make it so, seeded with our own blood and that of our enemies.' He glares around the small group, as if daring
contradiction or comment. Then: ‘Now, there is more work to be done. The greatest war criminal of all. It is time for him to die.'

 

The President of the United States of America has been on the dais for six days. Forced to kneel for much of that time, his knees are rubbed raw from contact with the carpet. When he has been able to sleep it has been curled up into a foetus-like ball.

Fear has kept the shrinking line of those around him silent, and he has not had a meaningful conversation for many days. There are bruises on his body where the mujahedin have kicked him as they pass, and one of his ears bled after one such attack.

All this time he has watched the so-called trials of the leaders of other nations, and has flinched each time the executioner's bullet found its target. Now, hearing his own name called, he understands that it is his turn to die, that no matter what might befall the world from here, this is his own ending.

From the time of his election as congressman for Missouri's District Three fifteen years earlier, he has understood, in an abstract kind of way, that the population of a large proportion of the world does not love America. That they see a brutal military machine, and the cinema world of apple pie, blonde cheerleaders, sorority parties, free sex, and drug dealers. They do not understand how America has improved the quality of life for so many, powering the technological revolution through vast investment in research and development. Organisations devoted to knowledge: the Battelle Institute; the Glenn Research Center; the Carnegie Building; the Jackson Lab; the Enrico Fermi Institute. Purcell could have listed a dozen more off the top of his head. Americans, he knows, have a Grecian zeal for, and belief in, democracy and science.

Yet even Edward Purcell did not understand until five days earlier just how much he and his country are hated. Pure, consuming hatred. He did not understand that attempts by his country to seek out and destroy threats to world peace are not appreciated by the victims. That somehow belief in democracy can go too far. Combined with religion, it can become an imperialistic fervour that was so effective in building the British Empire a few centuries earlier.

Hands reach down for his arms and he reacts angrily. ‘Let go of me,' he shouts. ‘I will stand on my own, damn you.' The innate political instinct that took him to the highest office in the land tells him that the best thing he can do now is die well.

The faces of the mujahedin are as haggard and tired as his own, the eyes red moons of drug-enforced wakefulness. Indecision shows on their faces and they leave him for long enough that he finds his way to his feet, staggering yet determined, moving with them over to where Zhyogal waits.

‘You are charged with the mass murder of untold thousands of Muslim civilians, you are charged with sending missiles raining down upon husbands and wives, sons and daughters. You are charged with policies that have brought chaos and division to the world.

‘In the year of the Hijra 1424 by our reckoning — 2003 in your calendar — the weaponry of America turned on the people of Iraq. Sources within your own puppet organisation, the United Nations, estimate that more than one million Muslims died, and five times that number were left without homes. Just as your predecessors tore apart Korea and Vietnam, your legacy to the world was the slaughter of hapless villagers and the urban poor of Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Basrah. This you followed up with strikes on the Muslim people of the Middle East. Libya. Iran. Yemen. Somalia.'

Purcell stands firm. They got smarter after Iraq and Afghanistan. No more large-scale invasions, no GI body counts for the press to get in a froth about, just targeted UAV missions, missiles, and precision bombing raids.

Zhyogal went on: ‘You supported the Zionist state in its blockade of Gaza, a policy that led to famine and death. You stand judged before God, may praise be upon Him. How do you plead?'

Edward Purcell lowers his chin. ‘I plead guilty of attempting to protect the people who chose me to represent them. I plead guilty of seeking to destroy the forces of terror wherever they exist in the world, and I plead guilty of attempting to build a better life for those who placed their trust in me.'

Zhyogal stamps one foot, and the President remembers an eighty-year-old newsreel showing Adolf Hitler doing the same thing. The same incapacity to see that what he did was wrong. The same rage when others did not click their heels and say ‘Jawohl, mein Führer'.

The President finds himself pondering the nature of evil. It is a word he has used often  — a word that probably helped him pluck the presidency from a field of hopefuls. Was Hitler wholly evil? He was ultimately responsible for the deaths of thirty or forty million people, yet he loved and cared for his Alsatian dog, Blondi, had a taste for music, painted, enjoyed cinema, and played practical jokes on his staff. Bashar al-Assad, the tyrant of Syria, was a trained eye surgeon.

The President sees the gun come up and even the trigger finger moving. He does not see his body falling to the carpet and Zhyogal firing the gun over and over again, long after his heart has been shattered into a bloody mess of tissue.

 

Marika picks up her assault rifle and stands, staring out at the night horizon. Neither the shifta nor the aardvark have reappeared, the only sign of life being a horned viper that wriggles across the sand near the acacia, burying itself in leaf litter near the base.

‘What will their tactics be?' she asks Madoowbe when he comes up beside her.

‘They will sneak up close and try to take us out one by one, if they can. Chances are that we won't even see them come.'

Marika shivers, not just from the growing cold. ‘Great.'

‘They are afraid of one thing: the machine gun. We need to stay close to it.'

‘Up on the tray?'

There is a pause. ‘Too exposed.'

‘Can we get the gun down, and the mount? Is it too heavy, do you think?'

‘We can try. There is a stony rise just over there. More defensible than here.'

They stand together, almost close enough to touch. Impulsively she reaches up to kiss him on the lips. His eyes glow like bulbs, staring back at her in shock, as if what happened between them is a secret to be kept, never mentioned.

‘Do you regret what happened between us,' she asks, ‘on the night of the sandstorm?'

‘Is such a question necessary?'

‘I know I'm a crazy Westerner, who wears her heart on her sleeve, but I want to know what you think.'

His eyes narrow, and for a few seconds he rests his chin on his palm. ‘No. I do not regret it. Do you?'

Marika thinks for a moment. Even on the most basic level, it was a special moment, a special night. ‘I'll remember it for the rest of my life.'

Now Madoowbe does something incomprehensible. He touches her face, whispers a soft and melodic sentence in Arabic, then appears to blow dust from the palm of his hand into her eyes.

Marika stares as he completes the strange ritual. ‘What are you doing?'

‘It is an ancient charm from the Qur'an that will make you invisible to your enemies. To protect you.'

‘I thought you didn't believe in that kind of thing?'

‘You misunderstood my words. There are some things I will never stop believing.'

The Somali seems pleased with himself, for when he walks away a smile touches his lips.

 

Manhandling the heavy gun down from its mount is more difficult than Marika expects. Mounting screws have corroded in place, holding the heavy flat base to the tray floor. Madoowbe uses a hammer to smash the bolt heads off and together they lug the heavy weapon, then the boxes of ammunition to the rise. Marika begins to dig, using a folding shovel from the vehicle. ‘My granddad was an infantry officer in Vietnam — when I joined up he gave me some damn good advice: If in doubt, run. If you can't run, dig.'

‘Here, let me help,' Sufia says, and, taking turns with the tool, they work until the trench is deep enough to squat in, and thereby shield their bodies to the neck. On the earth ahead of the trench Madoowbe sets up the gun, sliding back the action and chambering a round, the long belt of cartridges drooping into the ammunition box.

For the hundredth time that day, Marika raises her eyes skyward. ‘Where are they? For God's sake.'

 

An hour later the shifta come, moving with the stealth of clouds.

‘I'd give a thousand bucks for an infrared scope,' Marika says, then changes position, checking the load on her assault rifle, selecting semi automatic and lying prone, gun butt against her shoulder. Turning to Madoowbe, she whispers, ‘Don't shoot unless they come this way, OK? They might think we've gone.'

The noncommittal grunt communicates what he thinks of this advice. Marika grins to herself.
How could anyone disappear across the desert with a ninety-kilo gun and its mount?

The shadows are many in number, and Marika sees that reinforcements have arrived. These are men born in the desert, hardened to the business of killing to survive. Their rifles are extensions of their bodies, as familiar as a limb. There are many of them, thirty perhaps, and despite the machine gun, Marika knows that her chances of surviving the night are slim.

They still don't know where we are
, she says to herself, watching them make for the technical and the smouldering rubber pyre nearby. The grip of the assault rifle becomes sweaty in her hand and she snugs the butt into her shoulder, lowering her head so she can see through the sights, taking one dark head in the ring and resting the pip high in the chest, moving the weapon to follow the man's erratic movement. How many can they kill if they open fire now? Maybe four or five before the others fall flat on the sand. Not enough.

Minutes pass before the leading members of the party reach the technical. Now she hears voices, sharp angry words, indecipherable. It becomes difficult to discern who is where, for they start to disperse.

‘Get down,' Madoowbe hisses, ‘they're looking for us. Whatever you do, don't lift your head.'

Marika turns to look at Sufia, crouching between them, still giving no indication of fear, and she experiences a strong feeling of protectiveness. In a short time this tall, proud woman has come to trust her. Dr Abukar, Sufia's husband, the one who holds the remote control that might mean death for hundreds of human beings, is a man to take seriously. Marika senses that this woman would not have given herself lightly. Looking out into the night, she reaffirms to herself her commitment to protect Sufia and take her to safety, not just because it is her duty to do so, but because people like her are important to the world.

As the shadows disperse across the night, Marika's unease deepens, and she feels again a conviction that these minutes might be her last on earth. She finds that she is not afraid, but saddened for the feelings of those she will leave behind. Family, friends. Then there are things. Places. The cobalt blue Pacific Ocean, the mountain ranges of eastern Australia. Gum trees. Her flat in Pimlico, London. Even her Macbook.

Finally, there is the god of the church that figured so strongly in her early life. No prayer comes to her lips. No last-minute reconciliation. Only nothing. The realisation that her destiny is in her own hands. That life and death are so closely intertwined that one cannot be without the other.