by Unknown
The third pilot took no evasive action, and flew rock steady through the fiery turbulence. Suddenly, Mehta understood the plan: the diversions, the suicidal firefights inside the grounds, the single repeated trajectory of the mortar to weaken the roof, while people were being brought inside the building to safety. He watched as the Cessna bucked. The pilot was alone, but all around him was what? God, if it was - Mehta thought. It could be nothing else but. A solitary, concentrated figure, with the other spare five seats of the single-engined plane stacked up with boxes. The luggage compartment as well would be laden with high explosives and detonators charged to go off on impact.
The plane adjusted its direction towards the gaping hole in the roof, and as Mehta saw the fuselage plunge in, flames leapt out, then a rumble, then a tearing, ghastly, roar, like the scream of a great animal in the first stages of slaughter, as it exploded halfway down the four storeys of the historic building, crammed with people who had fled there to safety.
*****
'I'm not taking any calls,' insisted Mehta. 'I'll call them when I'm ready. West, Nolan, Song, Kozlov and any of those simplistic humanitarians from the European Union. None of them, do you hear?' He sat down angrily as his private secretary melted away, closing the door and leaving him alone.
When the internal phone rang, Mehta's hand hovered over it before picking it up. Deepak Suri, the Chief of Defence Staff, was on the other end. 'It's Khan,' he said gently. 'I urge you, Prime Minister, if you talk to no one else today, talk to him.'
Mehta nodded and heard the click as Suri transferred the call, and he recognized the distinctive Punjabi accent of President Asif Latif Khan of Pakistan. 'Vasant, it is a tragedy,' said Khan. 'The pilot told me the news as we were coming in to land. I will do all I can--'
'You must, Asif. You must,' said Mehta. 'I don't want to have to fight you.'
'You won't,' replied Khan, but his wasn't a safe answer because both he and Mehta knew he might not have the power to keep his promise. Khan was his friend. Their parents had been educated at the same Karachi school. Mehta had photographs of them playing together as children - until Partition had separated them. The Muslim Khans stayed in Pakistan; the Hindu Mehtas went to India.
'I am offering my condolences to the whole nation, to the families of the victims, to you Vasantji, to Meenakshi and to your family.'
'Thank you,' said Mehta softly. 'Where are you?' he asked, guessing that Pakistan's intelligence agencies would be listening in to their president's call.
'We've just arrived in Malaysia. Should I return?'
'No,' said Mehta firmly. 'No. The less we respond, the less they win. This is character-building time for India and the whole of South Asia.' There was no more to say, unless Khan offered something. Mehta let a silence hang between them, although his temptation was to let fly his anger, to let his friend know the true wrath of the people he governed.
'We were in no way responsible,' Khan said, his voice faltering as if Mehta had made the direct accusation.
'Is that your word, Asif?' Mehta challenged. 'Or is it the word of your armed forces and intelligence agencies?' He knew Khan would never have ordered the attack, but the nation, its institutions, its agencies, its ideology had created the men who would carry it out. For generations, Pakistan had been a breeding ground for terror.
'Before I called you, I spoke to Islamabad. A full and transparent investigation has begun. On that you have my word.'
Mehta looked across at the television screen. The cameras were switching location. They were on the US President, Jim West, walking across the White House lawn from Marine One, the presidential helicopter. A reporter shouted a question about the attack and West, waving a hand, refused to comment. The screen then went live to the Indian home minister visiting the clear-up operation around the parliament building in Delhi.
'If you're serious - after Malaysia - come to Delhi,' said Mehta, upping the stakes. 'Meet me here. Announce it now. Visit the disaster. Pledge to punish. Make it real. Come here before you return to Islamabad.'
For a few seconds the line stayed quiet again, the Pakistani President genuine in intent but politically wrong-footed. The press releases ready to go from the propaganda machine in Islamabad second-guessed by the insistence of a peace summit in the victim country to get things sorted before the vultures overshadowed everything with talk of war.
'Yes. Yes,' said Khan with a sudden weariness in his voice. 'We must meet. I will be in contact with you shortly.' Mehta thought he was ending the call, but Khan continued. 'Vasant, you are my friend. For God's sake trust me. The consequences of not doing so are too serious.'
Before Mehta had replaced the receiver, Deepak Suri walked straight in without knocking. 'Vasantji, with all due respect, what on earth are you playing at? If Khan comes to Delhi, if he visits the parliament site, he'll be lynched. With the best will in the world, we cannot guarantee his safety.'
'He won't come,' said Mehta, distracted by the row of newspapers on his desk. Page after page of pictures of the carnage.
Some chose the intensity of the destruction, showing the inferno across a whole page. Others opted for the sequence of pictures leading to the attack. The tiny speck approaching the building, becoming recognizable as a single-engined plane, to a close-up of the pilot, determined, eyes fixed on his destiny, then the plane plummeting as a missile of high explosives through the roof. It was a chilling symbol of a lone and deadly mission. From inside came the carnage. Nothing was spared. Rows of bodies, draped in shared sheets, seeped with blood. Shocked survivors, dazed, wounded and without help. The mutilated symbols of India. Incongruously, the propeller of the aircraft had survived, twisted but intact. The photographer had framed it hanging from dislodged electrical wires in the Central Hall in front of a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, the founding father of India, torn and splattered with fragments of war.
The pilot had not chosen his target at random. He would have known the layout of the building and would probably have sat in the public gallery to familiarize himself with the target. The Central Hall was decorated with twelve gilded emblems representing the original twelve provinces of India before independence. It was here that the transfer of power had taken place on 15 August 1947 - and it was here that parliamentarians had been gathering to hear Prime Minister Vasant Mehta deliver his address to a joint sitting of both houses. That was why the death toll had reached 476.
On the first-floor balustraded balcony, some of which had come through with barely a scratch, the attackers had daubed the name Laskar-e-Jannat. They had even translated it into English - Army of Paradise. One photograph showed pamphlets caught in a breeze and swirling about like leaves. Next to it was a close-up of one pamphlet. 'Why Are We Waging Jihad?' it asked. And the answer: 'To Restore Islamic Rule Over All Parts of India.'
Yet there was one picture that all newspapers ran prominently on their front pages. It was the one that would rally India through its darkest moments: it showed Mehta changing a magazine in the Uzi and shouting a command while his daughter, Meenakshi, stripped to her bra, applied a tourniquet to the wounded attacker. Both of them were framed between two bullet-chipped sandstone pillars of the parliament building. 'Attacked. Defending. Caring' ran one caption. 'The image of our great nation.'
'Has he talked yet?' asked Mehta, referring to the attacker whose life Meenakshi had saved.
'Not yet, Prime Minister.'
'Documents? Fingerprints?'
Suri put his hands on the desk and looked his friend straight in the eye. 'Fingerprints are being checked by Interpol, Europol and the FBI right now. We have identification of two of the dead, and if we want to trace them to Pakistan, we can. Who ordered them precisely to do what they did, we don't know yet.'
Mehta stood up. 'I need a strike plan by missiles and aircraft on the Pakistani missile bunkers at Sarghoda, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi and Multan. One strike only. Whatever it takes. Prime the Agni for launch, both from silos, and deploy two on the rail launchers.
Close the lines if necessary. And on your way out ask Ashish to get me Andrei Kozlov in Moscow.'
Suri left, but the phone rang again too quickly for it to be Moscow. Ashish Uddin had been working in the Prime Minister's South Block office since the attack. Never once had his diffident, but efficient, method of handling Mehta wavered, except now, when he began in a jumble of words, hesitant and apologetic. 'I didn't want to disturb you with this, Prime Minister, and I've already said no many times, and I understand it is the last thing--'
'To the point, Ashish. To the bloody point,' said Mehta, reaching over and pouring himself a glass of water from a jug which had been on his desk far too long. He was about to drink it when Uddin answered. 'It's your wife. She's insisting on speaking to you.'
His hand paused as he brought the glass to the surface of the desk. They used to leave love notes for each other in the kitchen as they led busy and young lives. He couldn't remember who stopped first, or why, or whether the ending of the notes was the first step towards the end of the marriage. Oh Geeta - dear, wild, Geeta, who had given him two wonderful daughters and more misery and love than a man could ever need. Mehta leant back in his chair and gazed at the high ceiling, empty of colour and in need of a coat of paint. He shook his head. 'No, Ashish. Tell her I will call her later today,' he said. 'And has Suri asked you to get me Moscow?'
'On the line, sir. But Mrs Mehta insisted I pass on to you that she thinks you are wonderful.'
'Only because she saw my picture in the paper,' muttered Mehta to himself, as the twitter of a broadband satellite line came through the telephone, followed by the calm and authoritative voice of the Russian President. 'Russia grieves, Vasant,' said Kozlov. 'Russia is angry. We can talk properly later. You are leading your nation right now. How can Russia help?'
****
Penang, Malaysia*
According to the schedule, after the speech, the President of Pakistan would walk with the Malaysian Prime Minister from the conference hall, through the hotel lobby, and out into the forecourt of the sweeping driveway. His limousine would take him to the airport, from where he would fly to Kuala Lumpur. In the morning, he was to be in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
Never had Captain Ibrahim Hassan Albar imagined he would be setting up a sniping position to kill his principal, and never had he thought that his own life would have to be taken by one of his closest friends. Looking around, he expected it would be Anwar. Although, as a fellow Muslim, he might not be able to pull the trigger - in which case it would be Lim, a Chinese.
Albar, just two days off his thirtieth birthday, was a man of few words. This was not the time to reflect on how he had come to this situation. Unmarried and without children, Albar was breaking no religious laws. He had been called upon and had agreed automatically. The War against Terror, which had started so many years ago and had altered so many alliances, had finally reached Albar himself, and that was all there was to it.
Now was the time to concentrate on the dozens of little adjustments he had to make to ensure that his one shot would hit and kill. He had decided to lie up outside the hotel, in undergrowth across from the driveway, where the President was bound to linger to thank his hosts.
Albar had chosen the furthest sniper position. He had thought about using a suppressor to dull the sound, but nightfall in Penang was a bad time for a sniper. All day, the air would be heavy and still. Then as the sun went and darkness came within minutes, the change of temperature whipped up unpredictable gusts of wind and rain.
Albar could handle wind on a shot under four hundred yards. Any more than that and the trajectory of the bullet would become too fragile for him to be sure.
He took off the safety catch, and felt the butt of the 7.62mm Dragunov sniper rifle against his shoulder. The weapon was his proudest possession, bought from a Russian marksman when they were both serving on UN duty in Iraq. He settled into the gun. In his earpiece, he heard the Pakistani President wrapping up his opening address: ' . . . refused to admit that in so many areas we have failed as a civil society and failed to confront the demons inside us.'
Albar slowed his breathing, half a lungful in, half a lungful out, to make his body ready for the shot. He was hearing the President's voice, but not listening. 'We will, God willing, act as a beacon to those societies still brooding on medieval or colonial injustices. We will lead our nation to create great institutions of learning and genuine debate and ideas. And if any person or group chooses to challenge this policy, outside parliament and democracy, they will be met by the full wrath of my will. My mission is not the destruction of rival societies, but the creation of new ones.'
'They're coming out,' Albar heard in his earpiece, as applause rippled through the conference hall. His instincts took over, watching the wind in the undergrowth, feeling a light drop of rain on his face, hearing voices in his earpiece, finding the principal through the glass door of the hotel. As he waited for the door to open and for his target to walk out, Albar was enveloped in a great sense of clarity.
His eye focusing through the scope on President Asif Latif Khan, he let his body take over, feeling the trigger edge back, the buck of the rifle, and the rush of satisfaction when he knew he had sent the shot to its target as professionally and effortlessly as ever he could.
****
Zamboanga, southern Philippines*
The assassination of the President of Pakistan was the signal that the offensive for Daulah Islamiah Nusantara should begin.
Ahmed Memed, Professor of history at Zamboanga University in the southern Philippines, locked his study door and logged on to the Internet. He flicked through the BBC News site, visited a couple of Islamic websites, then entered a site bookmarked www.onlylesbian.com where a full picture came up of an Asian girl and a European girl making love in a rock pool underneath a waterfall.
On a message board attached to the site, Memed typed in the simple words, 'We'll do it together, now.' He lingered longer than usual to ensure that it had been accepted, knowing the risk of his Internet surfing patterns being picked up by the US National Security Agency at Fort Meade, near Baltimore. But it would be impossible for the NSA to track the dozens of young men and women flicking through the same site at Internet cafes throughout the Philippines. While just about any other site would profile an Internet user, the surfing of pornography was in high demand from men regardless of age, religion or politics.
Memed used a dated one-use keypad to coordinate his surfing with his allies in Pakistan. Without ever having direct contact, messages were transferred through a different sequence of web pages. A back-up sequence was in place, in case the web server was down. The sequence could only be matched between the sequence on the pads.
Having spent much of his career in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Memed had moved to the southern Philippines after the 2001 War on Terror began. Since the US campaign had then pitted Christians against Muslims, the southern Philippines became fertile ground for Memed. When asked where he came from, Memed said he had no nation except the nation of Islam. In truth, he was the son of a Saudi Arabian diplomat and had been educated in London and Melbourne. He went against his father by leaving Melbourne University in his first year and returning to Saudi Arabia, where he became a disciple of the eighteenth-century preacher Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. He had helped spread Wahhabism through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had now successfully instilled it in the Muslim heartlands of the Philippines.
In his preachings in the historic Talangkusay mosque in Zamboanga, he spoke about the fourth Moro Jihad. The first was against the Spanish invasion lasting from 1521 to 1898, a total of 377 years. The second began immediately against the American colonizers whom the Muslims fought for forty-seven years until 1946. The third phase challenged their new Filipino masters. It saw the great Moro wars of the 1970s, and was peppered with failed peace agreements and treacherous leaders until 2001, when America's War against Terror galvanized them into another, less reckless campaign, which Memed hoped would
now be the end game.
Now in his early fifties, Memed's life had been one of extreme luxury and extreme hardship. Yet his hair, which he wore down past his ears, still retained its colour, and only recently had streaks of grey appeared in his beard. Memed himself was not a fighter: he was an academic. Nor was he in any sense a practical politician. His speeches were too ethereal, the vision too loosely defined. His moods were often dark, alienating all but his closest friends. But he did stir the emotions of the poor. Steeped as he was in Islamic history, he became famous for his speeches and was spoken of as their new Ayatollah.
Memed closed down the laptop, stepped briefly out on to the balcony, but heard nothing yet except the normal barking of dogs, shouts between neighbours and impatient traffic horns of a Zamboanga night. He came back in, turned on CNN and waited.
For Memed, Zamboanga was a perfect staging post, a city built as if on the edge of the world, a hot, impatient trading town whose filthy harbour and slums marked the beginning of the great Sulu Archipelago, a scattering of islands stretching down to Malaysia and Indonesia, inhabited by poor, untamed and honourable people who still defied the sovereignty of the Philippine flag. They were violent, proud and brooding with resentment.