The man’s toenails were long and yellowing and there was dirt under them. Chaudhry shuddered. He could never understand why people who followed 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’ll 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 Allah and to do it half-heartedly was worse than not doing it at all. Not that he found it a chore. In fact he relished the inner peace that came with focused prayer, the way that all extraneous thoughts were pushed away, all worries, all concerns, all fears. All 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 pulled 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.
‘Hello, 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 tall, 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 eventually 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.
‘All is well?’ asked Khalid, addressing them both.
Chaudhry and Malik nodded. ‘We are all 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 will be retribution, won’t there?’ asked Chaudhry.
Khalid smiled easily, showing abnormally 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 will pay, the British will pay, they will all pay,’ he said.
Chaudhry could see the irony in the fact that all 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 Allah on his lips,’ said Khalid. ‘And that the kafir that killed him will burn in hell for all 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 satellites 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 walls?’
‘But why would they betray him?’
Khalid shrugged. ‘For money. For influence. Who knows?’
‘May they also burn in hell,’ said Malik.
‘Inshallah,’ agreed Khalid. God willing.
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 will not be used until the time is right.’
‘And how will we be used?’ asked Malik. ‘Can you at least tell us that?’
‘When I know, you will know,’ said Khalid.
‘All 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 tell you to storm the American Embassy and you might kill 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 will 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, will change the world for ever, you have my word on that.’
‘When?’ asked Malik.
‘All in good time,’ said Khalid. ‘We will strike when the time is right and not before.’
It was early September when Sam Hargrove called. Shepherd had spent the weekend in Hereford and was on his way back to London when his mobile rang and he took the call using his hands-free. ‘Can you talk?’ asked Hargrove. He spoke with no introduction because he had no way of knowing if Shepherd was alone.