‘Will you listen to yourself?’ I cried. ‘I actually feel sorry for you.’ For one time in my life, I refused to back down. Salma’s bossing days were done.
‘OK. Why you?’ she asked, placing a hand on her hip.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Think about it. He can have any girl he wants. So why pick you?’
Her words hit harder than a slap. Tears rushed to my eyes.
‘Come on, Muzi,’ she relented, seeing my hurt. ‘Not putting you down or nothing, but you’re way too smart for this. What’s this guy’s agenda?’
‘He likes my mind!’ I said, ashamed of how lame it sounded outside my head. ‘He likes my deen.’
My ego was more fragile than sugar glass. I had to be right about Arif. Because if I messed up, if I’d got it wrong, it was proof that I needed Ami and Dad to run my life. I couldn’t bear that.
‘Oh please!’ Salma snapped. ‘Sixteen-year-old boys aren’t cruising for brains and faith. How dumb are you? You’re being used, Muzna. Face facts and dump his ass.’
I could taste metal at the back of my throat. Could Salma be awakening fears I’d carried around for so long they’d been lost to white noise?
She sighed. ‘Guess I’ve done my duty as an ex-mate. So long, Muzi. Hope this phase you’re going through doesn’t land you in prison or get you killed.’
‘Salma!’ I called after her. ‘You invite Allah into your life, nothing can ever go wrong again. Trust me. Just give it a try, OK?’ I held out my precious little prayer book – a gift from Arif – to make up for abandoning her all those months ago.
Salma stared at the book for a long time. ‘Nah, life’s good just the way it is.’
And with that, she turned on her heel and sashayed out of the gates.
It was the last time I ever saw her.
CHAPTER 41
‘Excuse me, sister,’ Jameel said. ‘But I must take this call.’
He walked out of the sitting room. I breathed the hugest sigh of relief. It was hot and stuffy, and having him around only made things worse. I’d swung by looking for Arif and ended up with Jameel. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d started lecturing me about my duties as a wife. The man was bare jarring.
‘A problem?’ he said, out in the corridor. ‘One minute . . .’
I heard the diminishing sound of footfalls as he ran up the stairs. A few seconds later a bedroom door closed.
I threw open a window to let some air in. Man, was I parched. Woody attar tickled my nostrils as I passed through the narrow corridor on my way to the kitchen. Suddenly something snagged my sleeve. Alarmed, I cried out.
It was just the handle on the cellar door. I relaxed. The door stood slightly ajar, quivering in a draught. I unhooked my sleeve and was about to close the door when I spotted a blue glow coming from deep inside. I knew it was none of my business, but my sixth sense was pinging.
Glancing upstairs, I made sure Jameel hadn’t finished his call, then crossed the threshold, padding softly down the basement stairs. It was dark and humid, and a monotonous hum pervaded the air. Boiler, probably – or ancient electrics. The deeper I went, the stronger the feeling of being a moth drawn to a flame became. But by then, I couldn’t be stopped.
A battery of eight laptops were behind the misty blue glow. They were placed four a side on adjacent workbenches. Cables ran between them in an electrical cat’s cradle. Other bits of hardware were strewn about, almost carelessly, but their LEDs flickered with life. Some stuff I recognized (webcams, Ethernet hubs, headphones); others, not so much. I knew Jameel was supposed to be a computer guru, but this was like something off a sci-fi show.
I glanced at the screen next to a half-empty crate of disposable phones. An indigo programming box lay open, filled with white lines of code. I recognized a ‘loop’ and a ‘repeat’ command, but the rest was next-level programming.
A second screen displayed a map of the London Underground. The cursor hovered over Paddington station, and a small tag, a bit like a Post-it note, lay open. On it was a bad selfie of a guy who looked stoned, with some confusing information next to it:
Dennis Sanders
07 25 B. L. Pl 3 North
4/10
07 40 GMT
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something come rushing towards me. Nearly jumping out of my skin, I threw my hands out defensively. At the last second, I caught the hurtling laptop, its cable taut as a cheese cutter against my hip. Somehow I’d got myself tangled up in the network of cables. If I wasn’t careful, I’d have every last laptop come crashing down. Eight humpty-dumpties’ worth more than my family had in the bank.
My breath whistled between my teeth. Trapped in a Twister game from hell, I contorted my body, desperate to free myself. With enough slack, I was able to push the runaway laptop back on to the bench, and step out of the mess of cables. The motion caused the darkened screen to awake.
A chat box. Time encoded and sent within the last hour. Cheesy flirtation between a couple of teens.
For one horrible moment, I wondered if Arif was having an online affair. But the profile image was of somebody else. A good-looking guy, for sure, but one I’d never seen before. So who was he?
I spotted an icon on the taskbar called ‘Hunters’. Weird. Clicking on it restored the program window to full size. To the left of the screen was a list of boys’ names, and beside each one a separate status box. Some were coded ‘active’; others as ‘dormant’. I clicked on a few of these. Each time, in the right-hand corner of the screen, a window popped open with a profile pic, a tab marked ‘gallery’, and stats for the boy. I was kind of surprised. Don’t get me wrong: I only had eyes for Arif, but each and every one of them was super-cute. Was Jameel secretly running a talent agency for teen male models? Surely he’d consider that haram?
Clicking randomly, I came across a subsection called ‘personality’, which opened up descriptions of what each user would and wouldn’t do. It was the kind of thing I jotted down when creating characters for a new story. A manual for keeping it real.
Are these profiles fake?
As I scrolled through the list, my heart skipped a bit. One of the characters was called ‘Kasim Iqbal’. Intense flashbacks of Year 8 summer holidays came flooding back to me, of the time I’d nearly been catfished straight into a body bag.
Heart galloping, I clicked on the link. Every last shred of doubt fell away as I came face-to-face with the image that had nearly destroyed my childhood. Kasim Iqbal: taking a shirtless selfie in a locker-room mirror.
I now had all the pieces of the puzzle. I knew what was going on here. Hunters was grooming software for multiple users. Not a paedophile network, but a radicalization one. Lonely girls who would be flattered by the attention of any one of these fit boys. And once she was hooked, what demands would be made of her? Steal Mum’s wedding jewellery so it could be used to pay for weapons? Throw away her future to fight ‘jihad’ in foreign lands?
My brother-in-law was a member of ISIS.
I’d had my suspicions. Had just gone and buried them under a mountain of denial with an icecap of excuses.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ demanded a voice that was unmistakably angry.
The spider had returned to his lair.
Every hair on my scalp felt like a sharp pinprick. Slowly I turned round to face my nemesis. Jameel had always been a bit scary, but knowing what I knew now, even staying conscious had become a mission.
‘The cellar door was open,’ I said, trying not to stutter. ‘I thought someone had left a light on in here. My parents are always going on about energy prices being too high.’
I scurried up the stairs. But Jameel did not step aside. He’d become a block of granite, barricading the only way out.
‘Indeed?’ he said.
Every laptop suddenly blue-screened. He’d done something to them. His eyes glistened in the pea soup darkness. I glanced longingly at the partially open cellar door behind him.
Beneath
me beckoned the murky depths of the cellar. Fear brought the worst of my imagination to life. One push was all it would take. One push, and Jameel’s terrible secret went with me to the grave. A note might surface later, claiming to be from me. Teachers would confirm I’d been unhappy at home. The police already had a report of me running away in the middle of the night. Verdict? Teen suicide. Case closed.
Jameel was part of an organization that had evaded the combined intelligence agencies of the UK, the US and the EU. What was one mediocre Asian girl to all of that?
Like a clap of thunder, the front door slammed shut, startling us both.
‘Yo! Jamjamz! You home, bro?’
Relief crashed over me. ‘It’s my husband!’ I said, nearly pushing Jameel over the edge in my haste to get out.
‘Muz, what you doin’?’ Arif asked, as I flew into his arms.
‘She lost her way,’ Jameel replied, emerging from the depths of the cellar, like Dracula rising from his crypt. ‘It’s a very dark cellar. There might’ve been an accident.’
‘What’d she find? Dead bodies of all your exes?’ Arif asked with a cheeky grin.
Jameel shot him a withering look, then his phone went off again. Glancing at the screen, his face became a thunderstorm. ‘By Allah, I am surrounded by fools!’ he hissed. Then brushing past, he vanished upstairs.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ I said. ‘One of these days he’s going to hurt you.’
Arif swallowed. ‘At least it’ll get me off having to sit my GCSEs.’
Then he was hugging me, cocooning me in his love.
Ignorance is bliss. But I reckon denial makes for a pretty good stand-in. My house of cards was on the verge of collapse.
Arif and I had been radicalized by Jameel. Jameel was in my brain, making me act and react in ways that weren’t me. A parasite who’d woven twisted ideologies round both our minds, filling our hearts with suspicion and hate.
I’d swapped the prison of my parents’ rules for the prison of Jameel’s radical Islam.
Bile filled my mouth remembering the videos I’d watched with other girls in the back room. ISIS propaganda on a 4K screen – though Jameel had been careful to keep their name out of it. I couldn’t believe I’d been so dumb. The material was beyond powerful, really pulled at your heartstrings, watching the terrible injustice your brothers and sisters were facing . . .
Now that I’d snapped out of the hateful trance, I had to shop Jameel to the police. But before I could so that, Arif had to be saved too.
Think he wants saving? asked the imaginary Salma in my head.
In all the time I’d known him, Arif had never once let me down. Good people like that were rarer than gold. Jameel had worked a number on him, for sure, but Arif was totally worth saving. It was going to be tough. Not only had Jameel been poisoning his mind for years and years unchallenged, but he’d also rescued him from a violent uncle. Could I even compete with that kind of hero worship?
Whatever it takes, Arif, I’m going to free you. You were just a kid when your brother started messing with your head. I’ll make you see the truth – then we’re both taking Jameel down.
CHAPTER 42
Sugarplum Hijabi – a poem by Muzna Saleem – version 1.0
I stand before you, and I am on trial.
Are you offended because of my style?
What do you see – the scarf or the girl?
While you consider, shall I give you a twirl?
Some call it ‘rag’: a sign of oppression.
Some want to ban it: a sign of aggression.
Your concern has been noted; politely turned down.
I don’t need rescuing. This hijab is my crown.
Who is the man who kills in my name?
Commands and demands I commit the same?
He says he’s a Muslim. I think he’s a liar.
Murder and torture, both sins of the Fire.
So many voices, shouting advice.
‘Do this!’ ‘Say that!’ ‘Cover your eyes!’
Show me the way, Lord; rescue my soul.
Keeping the faith, Lord; but it’s taking its toll.
I scowled at the poem I’d been working on for Latifah’s assembly. My mind was all over the place. I couldn’t tell whether it was any good or a smouldering pile of bad.
I heard the front door close. Dad was home. I cracked open my bedroom door to eavesdrop.
‘Is Muzna OK?’ he asked, yawning. He took a load off, feet presumably throbbing from another tough day of waiting on people down in the restaurant.
‘Don’t ask me about that girl!’ Ami snapped. ‘I’m nothing to her. All I’m good for is cooking and cleaning.’
‘Don’t worry, Parveen,’ Dad said, rubbing her back. ‘Pakistan will fix her. In two years’ time, she’ll be studying MBBS at King Edward Medical College, and you will forget this ever happened.’
Ami snorted.
‘She starts her GCSE exams in three weeks. We’ll leave straight after,’ Dad promised.
‘Tanveer makes you work like a donkey. Each day you’re coming home later and later. If that scoundrel tried this with a gora, he would take him to court!’
‘Hush, darling,’ Dad said. ‘I won’t hear you speak badly of the one who provided a roof over my family’s head when I failed in that responsibility.’
Slinking away from the crack in the door, I flopped on to my bed. There it was: the confirmation I had never wanted. The dreaded move to Pakistan – that idle threat that had drifted in and out of my life since I’d been about six years old – was going to happen after all. Cut all ties, wipe the slate clean: the ultimate cultural reboot.
The sad thing was I didn’t even care. My mind was consumed by the horror of Jameel being an actual terrorist. I urgently wanted to shut him down, but I’d backed myself into a fricking corner. If I picked up the phone and told the police, Arif would get dragged into it. If I told my parents, in around seven hours I’d be waking up in Lahore. And telling Mr Dunthorpe was ultimately the same thing as telling the police.
All that optimism I’d burned so brightly with yesterday, believing I could take Jameel down and deradicalize Arif, was dying embers.
The red-band headline on the TV screen made me sit up.
BREAKING NEWS: FAILED TUBE BOMBING
I turned up the sound.
. . . loss of life and the strategic placement of the bombs would have crippled the London Underground, bringing the entire network to a standstill. It remains unclear whether they were working alone, but Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the attempt via a post on social media. Tonight, all three men are being held in police custody. The prime minister was quick to condemn the attempt and released a defiant message to IS warning them that Britain and her allies would never be cowed.
I sat on the end of my bed, shaking like a leaf as the full significance of the plans dawned on me. I remembered the tube map on Jameel’s laptop. And though the names and faces of the would-be suicide bombers hadn’t been released yet, I was certain Dennis Sanders was one of them. I hadn’t known it at the time, had got distracted by the whole Kasim Iqbal bombshell, but what I’d been looking at on Jameel’s laptop was the blueprint for an actual terror attack.
My stomach churned. I’d sat on crucial information like a fat, selfish bitch. Saving Arif was my only concern. People could have died. Dead. Gone forever.
I fell on my side and began to bawl.
It was raining heavily by the time the bus pulled up to the stop. Just my luck, I’d left my umbrella back at the library. I clambered on, touching my Oyster to the card reader. I wove through the steaming passengers standing in the aisle. Humidity made the bus stink like old basketballs. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, stumbling over somebody’s handbag.
I practically crashed into the empty seat next to an old woman. Rain pelted the windows fiercely, reminding me of a time when Dad could afford to use the automatic carwash at the petrol station. Now every Saturday morning, Dad would carry two
buckets of water round the back to wash the Vectra by hand.
Guilt sat like a rock in my stomach. I didn’t know how to handle the Jameel situation. Every time I thought about it, I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. My life had become a living nightmare. At school, I sat through class after class, dazed and delirious, wishing I could change the past.
I took out my phone and flicked through the new apps Arif had installed. I tapped a Hadith one – authentic sayings of the Prophet:
The Compassionate has mercy on those who are merciful. If you show mercy to those who are on the earth, He who is in Heaven will show mercy to you.
The old lady next to me shifted, giving a small gasp. One of her legs was epically swollen.
Suddenly a woman with a pixie crop and enough piercings to make her ears look spiral-bound steamrollered her buggy over my foot. I caught the flash of glee in her eye. I tutted, looking down at the muddy pattern of treads left on my shoe.
‘What’s her problem?’ asked her friend, mousey-brown hair pulled so tight her forehead seemed to begin somewhere on the back of her head.
‘Why? What’d she say?’ demanded the woman with the buggy, rear-ending into a pram. Both kids woke up and started to bawl.
‘Gave you a dirty look, din’ she.’
I ignored them. The failed tube bombing had everyone on edge. Muslims would just have to ride out the storm.
‘Oi!’ Pixie Crop said, snapping her fingers inches from my nose. ‘Don’t give me lip, then act like you’re bloody deaf!’
I glanced at the doors, wishing there was some way I could get off the bus without looking like a loser.
‘Oi!’ the woman repeated, this time actually rapping her knuckles on my forehead.
‘Do you mind!’ I snapped.
‘Hear that, Shizza?’ said the woman with the wrap-around forehead. ‘Asked you if you mind her coming to your country, taking food out of your kids’ mouths, and blowing people up on the tube.’
‘Yes, I bloody well do mind!’ Shizza screeched, ripping off my hijab. The scarf pin grazed my forehead, drawing blood.
I Am Thunder Page 21