‘So where will this first warning attack occur?’ President Harrison seemed rattled, as if events were spiralling out of his control. ‘Does it have anything to do with the threat from anthrax and smallpox?’ he asked, looking around the table for answers.
‘The content of the message is something of an enigma, Mr President,’ O’Connor continued. ‘This is the first time al-Qaeda have employed this sort of vague coding and we’re uncertain if Kadeer’s been able to develop any biological weapons. Our initial impression is that the first warning attack will be carried out either here in the United States or against either of our two major allies – Britain or Australia.’
‘And the Chinese?’
‘The Han Chinese Government see the Uighur Muslims in western Xinjiang on the border with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan as ‘different’ and a threat to the unity of the country, and they’re determined to crush them. For decades the Chinese police and armed forces have been carrying out brutal attacks against Muslims in Xinjiang, which is so remote from the rest of the world the attacks are not widely reported, Mr President. Kadeer’s final attack will not only be directed against the United States, Britain and Australia, but at the Chinese as well.’ Curtis O’Connor had no way of knowing just how large and devastating that attack might be.
‘And this business about eternity?’ the President asked edgily.
‘Depending on the translation, Mr President, the Qu’ran mentions eternity in only eighteen of its suras or chapters, mostly in relation to gardens of eternity, although some scholars translate the Arabic as gardens of Eden. Interestingly enough, in six of those suras, the Qu’ran speaks of rivers flowing beneath these gardens or beneath eternity. We’re now looking at possible attacks on major rivers, perhaps with the aim of poisoning our water supplies. The Qu’ran also makes it clear that where the rivers flow under eternity, the righteous dwell there as a reward from Allah, rather than as a punishment, so at first glance, the theory on the rivers doesn’t seem to add up.’ Without realising it, O’Connor was getting tantalisingly close.
‘You seem to be forgetting the stolen windmill and that the country most associated with windmills is the Netherlands,’ the Secretary of Defense interjected. ‘An attack on the dykes would devastate vast low lying areas and cause untold damage.’
‘We haven’t ruled that out, Secretary,’ Curtis O’Connor replied evenly, ‘but the Netherlands were not one of the three original members of the coalition.’ O’Connor disliked the pompous Secretary of Defense almost as much as Esposito, and he would have liked to add that the Dutch had not reported any of their windmills as ‘missing’, but he held his tongue.
‘And the mushrikeen and what was it – strands?’ the Secretary of Defense asked, his irritation palpable.
‘When the single strand meets its double has got us puzzled as well,’ O’Connor responded candidly. ‘That would appear to be associated with Kadeer’s final solution and we’re still working on that, although the use of mushrikeen is clear enough. Mushrikeen is Arabic for those who worship more than one God. The Islamists in particular reject any notion that Allah can be worshipped in conjunction with any other God. For example Hindus and Buddhists who partner their idols with God, or Christians who also worship Christ and the Holy Spirit.’ O’Connor knew that he was trespassing on dangerous ground with President Harrison, but he didn’t back off. In O’Connor’s mind, a quick readiness to wage brutal and debilitating wars on behalf of various versions of a God was dangerous nonsense. Unless something was done to get religion out of the foreign policy equation, the resultant clash could lead the world to an unmitigated catastrophe.
As night fell over Atlanta, Richard Halliwell was waiting for the Vice President in his office on the thirty-seventh floor of the Halliwell Tower situated on the outskirts of the central business district. For Richard Halliwell the new laboratories represented another significant step in his own quest for power. The sinister tentacles of the huge international conglomerate reached into the very top echelons of power in the United States and into intelligence agencies and governments in a hundred other countries around the globe. None was more important than China.
CHAPTER 4
T he dusty city of Peshawar, the capital of the wild and remote North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, was bathed in the eerie light of a half moon. Nearly 18 kilometres to the west of Peshawar, the ancient Khyber Pass began its narrow, steep and stony journey up towards the border with Afghanistan. In 1893, when Pakistan had been part of India, the British Foreign Secretary of the colonial government, Sir Mortimer Durand, had drawn an arbitrary line on a rudimentary map. The establishment of the Durand Line as the border between Afghanistan and India had been typically colonial and typically designed to serve British interests. With little consultation, arrogant hands had once again ignored centuries of culture and tribal lands. The new border sliced through the middle of the Pashtun tribes, dividing them between two different countries. The vehemently disputed area now provided sanctuary for a resurgent Taliban who were attacking the coalition and NATO forces in Afghanistan on a daily basis. The lawless North-West Frontier Province also provided sanctuary for an even more sinister group, al-Qaeda.
In the foothills of the Hindu Kush, a few kilometres to the north of the Khyber Pass, the forward scout of the patrol protecting one of al-Qaeda’s most senior generals had seen a movement in front of him. He held up his hand, signalling those behind him to stop. Instinctively, twenty of the fiercest fighters in the world fanned out silently over the snow-covered rocks, taking up positions on either side of the path, their Kalashnikovs loaded and ready, their dark eyes calmly scanning the rocky hills. Each wore two bandoleers of 7.62mm rounds over their shoulders and the dull brass casings glinted menacingly in the moonlight. The donkeys carrying the other supplies, together with their handlers, propped obediently on the path. The small group had come from Xinjiang, and they’d been moving through the soaring mountains of the Hindu Kush for nearly two months, travelling at night and retreating to rest in the caves during the day. The infidels with their noisy helicopters were clumsy and easily avoided, but Khalid Kadeer’s fighters were taking no chances. The Taliban who provided the guides through each of the areas they controlled were jumpy. Taliban fighters needed to be approached with caution.
Kadeer sat calmly on an icy rock at the side of track. In the distance, a thousand metres below them, he could see the lights of Peshawar, shrouded among the smoke from the house fires. He looked back behind him. The moonlight was reflected on the snow and granite of the higher peaks, and despite the enormity of what he was planning, Khalid Kadeer felt strangely at peace. He reflected on the different moods of the mountains. Sometimes thick clouds would roll in, swirling around the peaks and foothills, signalling an angry change. The blizzards would howl for days, with temperatures plunging to minus 40 degrees centigrade. The stinging sago snow would tear at the flesh of anyone who was foolish enough to try and move, then just as quickly the anger would dissipate. Tonight, Khalid mused, the towering mountains were majestically peaceful. They reminded him of another mountain and his thoughts turned to the Prophet Muhammad and the Archangel Gabriel. God’s message, Kadeer knew, had been delivered to the Jews through Moses and the prophets, and the Christians had received theirs through Christ, but for centuries it seemed that God had ignored the Arab nations. Rabbis and priests had been quick to ridicule his Arab countrymen, preaching to anyone who’d listen that the Arabs were not part of God’s divine plan, but in the year 610, Gabriel appeared before Muhammad on the top of Mount Hira in Arabia and the balance had been restored. God’s revelations had finally been delivered in the Arab language. If only the West would accept those revelations as being the equal of the messages of Moses and Christ, Khalid thought bitterly, it might be a different world. Instead, evangelists in the United States and elsewhere in the West had described Islam as an evil religion and the die was cast. If humankind would not accept the various religions’ core messages and embrace the beauty of diversity and difference, those very same religions would become the source of humankind’s destruction.