‘Perfect,’ Qureshi whispered as he took a last look at the view across South Melbourne and the magnificent Port Phillip Bay. ‘The tennis is on at Rod Laver Arena, and those women exposing themselves are about to play their last matches,’ he hissed, his voice laden with contempt. The sight of the scantily clad players, their knickers in plain view when they served, had more than once brought him to a point of apoplexy.
‘That’s why they need Sharia law in this country,’ Said agreed. ‘I would stone them to death.’
In Sydney, Iqbal Safar and Hazim Gerges were unaware of what their colleagues were up to in Melbourne. Al Qaeda, far from being the cohesive terrorist group that was sometimes portrayed in the media, consisted of disparate groups of young fanatics, increasingly beholden to no one but themselves.
Radicalised at an early age by a fiery Muslim preacher who had blamed Australian women for their own rapes, Safar and Gerges hated the West with a passion, and particularly Western women. Their Imam was right. Women who did not cover up and wear the veil were like meat left out on the footpath that would be eaten by cats. They were inviting assault. Like their Imam, they believed that women were used by Satan to control men. Now, both were looking forward to the pure virgins and appetising vaginas they knew they would find in heaven.
‘The best approach will be along the Heathcote Road,’ Safar suggested, as he spread the map out on the kitchen table of the flat they’d rented in Liverpool. ‘If you look here,’ he said, bringing up the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor on Google Earth, ‘the shortest way in is through the thick bush to the south of the perimeter fence. That’s the decommissioned HIFAR reactor there, and the new OPAL core is in this building here.’
‘Yes, but why must we wait?’ the fiery young Gerges complained. ‘Fuck them. Let’s hit them now!’
‘We shall see, Hazim. If we don’t hear anything soon, that might be our best approach.’
Nasib Touma picked the lock on the door to the stairway that led to the 110th floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago, although 110 didn’t appear on any Willis Tower public elevator – for very good reasons. Formerly known as the Sears Tower, the 110th floor was the nickname electricians used for the 442-metre-high roof of what was now the second tallest building in the whole of the United States, just behind New York’s new One World Trade Centre constructed on the site decimated by the September 11 attacks. Dressed in khaki electrician’s overalls embossed with ‘Willis Tower’, Touma and his accomplice, Hassan Botros, made their way on to the roof of the building.
‘We are lucky today, Alhamdulillah . . . praise be to Allah,’ Touma said. ‘The wind is coming from the north. This is going to spread right across his business district.’
‘Allah is on our side, Nasib,’ Botros agreed. He walked up to the chest-high ledge and looked down across the Chicago River and the massive city below. ‘There are nearly three million of the Infidel down there,’ he said, steadying himself against the wind.
‘And you can add another 100 000 visitors who won’t be going home, Insha’Allah. And look, over there,’ Touma said, pointing to the south-east. ‘There’s LaSalle Street and his Federal Reserve building and the Chicago Stock Exchange.’ Touma held on to the ledge. Already the deadly cobalt was starting to affect him. ‘This is not only the Great Satan’s second-largest business city . . . it’s a world financial centre,’ he said. ‘There are sixty-six Fortune 1000 companies down there and this will send shock waves through their share market.’ Touma had done his research, but he needn’t have bothered. Crowley had personally chosen the densely populated city.
Kaliq Sarraf and Lutfi Ghanem motored quietly up the Hudson River in the small cruiser they’d rented for six months. They passed the memorial to the Battle for Stony Point on the west bank, where in 1779, during the American Revolution, a small group from George Washington’s Continental Army, under the command of General ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne, had defeated the British troops in a daring raid against the colonial outpost.
‘Like the Infidel’s General Wayne, we will defeat them at their own game,’ he said, as the nuclear power plant came into view on the east bank of the river.
‘Look at it, Kaliq,’ said Ghanem, staring in awe at the huge Indian Point reactors.
44 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Dallas, Texas
Rachel watched from the wings of the stage in the ballroom of the fashionable five-star Ritz-Carlton in Dallas. She had done all she could, and provided Davis didn’t put his foot in it, she was quietly confident they would not only win this fourth and final debate of the presidential election, but the election itself – particularly since a segment of the night’s topic on foreign policy and global issues included climate change, Campbell’s Achilles heel.
Her thoughts turned to Sheldon Crowley. In the long months apart, she’d been more than a little surprised at how much she’d missed being around him. Was it the power of power? she’d wondered. After all, Crowley was not particularly physically attractive. Rachel had read somewhere that men and women who had a high need for power had sex more often than those who did not. Not for the first time she wondered if Miranda had somehow managed to usurp her position in Crowley’s inner circle, but she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand.
‘Good evening from the grand ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dallas,’ Walter Cronkwell intoned from the centre of the stage. ‘I’m Walter Cronkwell of CNC news. This is the fourth and last debate of the presidential campaign, which is brought to you by the Commission on Presidential Debates, and tonight’s debate is on foreign policy and global issues. With President McGovern completing the eighth year of his presidency, we have two new candidates vying for election. The questions are mine, and I have not shared them with the candidates or their aides.’
Rachel smiled to herself. Davis didn’t know it, but Area 15 had found hacking into Cronkwell’s computer child’s play.
‘The audience has taken a vow of silence – no applause, no reaction of any kind, except right now when we welcome former secretary of energy Hailey Campbell and Governor Carter Davis of Montana.’
The audience applauded wildly, taking advantage of their opportunity. Rachel watched the reaction with interest. It was impossible to know who the wolf whistles were for, but even if the audience was supporting Campbell, it didn’t matter; from now on the vow of silence would apply. The two candidates shook hands, and Rachel picked up on Campbell’s reluctance as Davis got closer and kissed her on the cheek. Rachel had dressed Davis in a conservative and expensive dark-blue suit, white shirt and a soft red tie. But as distinguished as she’d made her candidate look, she had to admire Hailey Campbell. The woman was all style, and her dark blue Armani pantsuit and scarf reflected that in spades. In turn, both candidates shook hands with Cronkwell, and then took their places at the table, Cronkwell with his back to the audience, the candidates facing them.
‘Both your campaigns have agreed to certain rules,’ Cronkwell began, ‘and the evening will be divided into segments for discussion, including one on global warming, which has been such a feature of this campaign, and one on the Middle East. Given the attacks on the two supertankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the subsequent stock market crash, the Middle East remains a critical foreign policy challenge for the next occupant of the White House. You will each have three minutes to respond to the questions, then we’ll move on to general discussion. Now, as Governor Davis has won the toss, the first question goes to you, Governor. The United States has now been involved in two very costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq . . .’
Neither candidate was allowed briefing notes, and Rachel listened as Davis outlined the Republican policy on the Middle East as she’d coached him. Armed with the questions, she’d only needed to prep Davis on what would be asked, which cut the amount of information down immeasurably, whereas Campbell, she knew, would have spent days on hypotheticals, with her staff peppering her with ‘What if Cronkwell asks this?’
‘The United States cannot cont
inue to be the world’s policeman,’ Davis concluded, ‘and as your president, I will always be willing to facilitate a peaceful solution, but that does not include taking the lead. In the past, the young men and women of our defence forces have shed far too much blood on the battlefield, while other countries have sat back and allowed the United States to do the heavy lifting. We need to put our energy into jobs and the economy at home.’
EVRAN had spent millions and Rachel was armed with the best research money could buy; research that showed very clearly Americans were sick of foreign wars that cost trillions when the jobless rate was still high, with over four million in the long-term unemployed bracket. Davis’s answers were designed to appeal exactly to what Americans hoped for.
Even so, as the debate came to the final topic, Rachel judged her candidate was behind. Davis had performed well in the set answers, but the super-intelligent Campbell was measured and balanced, and she consistently outdebated her candidate in the freestyle discussions. Rachel listened approvingly to Davis as the topic of climate change came up; and he concluded his response in the manner she’d painstakingly rehearsed him.
‘In summary, I would say to the people of America, as you’ve shovelled snow off your driveways, you can rest assured, global warming is a figment of the Left’s imagination. A few months ago, Professor Ahlstrom, one of the finest scientists alive today, summed it up when he said “We need to consign this morally bankrupt green agenda to the trashcan.” ’
Rachel scanned the audience. Many of them were nodding furiously.
Hailey Campbell’s eyes flashed with determination and courage as she began her response.
‘I’ve noted with interest Governor Davis’s remarks on global warming, and indeed similar views put forward in the media, particularly Omega Centauri, who seem to think it is they, rather than the American public, who will decide this election.’ She paused for a moment, looking around the room. ‘But my position has not changed, and if it costs me the presidency, so be it. Let me tell you why. The snow-storms we’ve experienced are unprecedented, as is the increased frequency and ferocity of tsunamis like the one that destroyed the Fukishima nuclear plant in Japan, volcanic eruptions, wildfires in California and Australia, hurricanes like Katrina which devastated New Orleans, and typhoons like Haiyan which killed over 6000 people in the Philippines. And while we can’t point to a single event like Katrina and say “Aha, that’s because of climate change!”, we can look at trends. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that it is now 95 per cent certain that global temperatures are rising and that human activity is to blame. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that devastating weather trends are directly related to our warming of the planet. In the time available, let me deal with just one issue that is at the centre of this very hot debate,’ Campbell said. When some in the audience smiled at her intentional pun, she smiled back, reaching out to them.
Rachel looked on in admiration. The woman had guts, and the audience was listening.
‘According to NASA, the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. In 2006, as a result of warmer winter temperatures, Lake Erie, the fourth largest in the Great Lakes and the tenth largest lake in the world, failed to freeze for the first time in recorded history. As a result, this caused heavier snowstorms. Why? Because more water was available for evaporation and precipitation.’ Hailey Campbell paused, aware of the looks of surprise on some in the audience.
‘And without getting too technical, many distinguished scientists point to global warming as being a major factor in the snow-storms we’ve had across America.’ She and Megan Becker had spent many hours working on how to best communicate the science to the layperson. Both were aware that all Louis Walden and his gutter-dwelling tabloids in the Omega Centauri Corporation had to do was whistle up a ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ headline alongside frustrated Americans shovelling snow, and with the help of social media like Facebook and Twitter, the message would go viral.
‘The recent snow-storms in the United States are related to something scientists refer to as the “polar vortex”, which, as you’d expect, is a whirlwind of extremely cold air near the poles. Winds of around 100 miles per hour keep that cold air locked up unless something causes the winds to weaken. And what causes that? You will be relieved to know,’ Campbell said with a smile, ‘that there isn’t time to go into Rossby waves that transport energy from the troposphere to the stratosphere, throwing the winds off balance.’
Some in the audience smiled back, others looked bemused, but Rachel detected a man in the front row nodding in furious agreement.
‘Suffice to say, as the air in the arctic warms, the vortex can be split, and as one scientist put it, the vortex starts to “wobble like a drunk on his fourth martini”. That powerful, icy blast escapes southward, creating the snowstorms the Republicans are using as “proof” that global warming is a myth. Global warming is actually causing the snowstorms. And it’s not only snow – as the oceans warm, the air will contain more moisture, generating the monster storms we’ve seen here and in the United Kingdom, and the recent lethal mudslides in São Paulo, in Brazil. If we don’t do something about this, get used to extreme weather, and get used to it becoming much worse.
‘The big polluters are driven by just two things, profit and share price,’ Campbell continued. ‘They couldn’t care less about the average Joe in the street, but I do! Along with poverty, and the activities of religious extremists, global warming is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. If we are to have any hope of avoiding even greater catastrophic destruction, this is an area where the United States does need to do the heavy lifting, so that other big polluters like China and India will come on board. We need a world leader to set the example, and as your president, I will do just that!’
Across town on the eighty-second floor of EVRAN Towers, Crowley looked at the message on his encrypted phone and muted the debate on the television. Miranda lifted her head from his shoulder.
‘I’ve got to take a call, but I think we can open another Romanée Conti.’ At over US $3500 a bottle, few people ever got to taste the legendary Grand Cru Pinot Noir from the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy. It had been described as one of the greatest wines in the world.
‘Should I put my bra back on?’ Miranda asked, a mischievous smile on her face.
‘We’ll only have to take it off again when I fuck you on the couch,’ Crowley said. Their relationship had progressed to the point where Crowley was spending more and more time with the leggy blonde.
Crowley listened intently while Aboud described the conversation he’d recorded in Professor Badawi’s office. ‘So where are they now?’ he demanded when Aboud had finished.
‘They’re staying at the Mena House Hotel.’
‘It’s critical we recover that papyrus. I’ll have someone there in the next twenty-four hours. In the meantime, keep the listening device on, and keep me informed.’
Crowley put a call through to Ruger. ‘You’re to leave immediately for Cairo,’ he concluded. ‘I’ll have one of our jets made ready. I want them under twenty-four-seven surveillance, and at the very first chance you get, I want both the papyrus and the bitch . . . and the professor. I’ll need them to decipher it. Borg El Arab in Alexandria is far easier than Cairo International, so you can operate in and out of there. Once we get them to the villa on Corsica and the document’s deciphered, we’ll get rid of them. As for O’Connor, eliminate him, but watch him . . . he won’t be easy.’
Within minutes of the debate concluding, Omega’s attack-dog editor in chief, Joe Humphrey, had masterminded the headlines and held discussions with his boss, Louis Walden.
‘That’s a pretty quick poll,’ Walden said.
‘There wasn’t time to take a large sample, but come Tuesday that’ll be lost in the noise. We’ve got the momentum, and it’s building,’ Humphrey said, neglecting to tell his boss the poll had been taken around the office. There were som
e things Louis didn’t need to know.
CAMPBELL INSISTS ON CLIMATE TAX
An Omega Centauri poll taken just after the fourth presidential debate gave it to the Republican Party’s candidate, Governor Carter Davis of Montana, by a decisive margin. After the Democratic candidate, former Energy Secretary Hailey Campbell, foreshadowed a tax on carbon emissions that will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and stall an already fragile economy, some analysts are predicting Governor Davis will take the White House in a landslide. By next Tuesday, it’s almost certain that Governor Davis will be the president-elect.
Rachel nodded in approval as she read Omega’s internet coverage, which she knew would be replicated in all their news outlets the following morning.
It was five a.m. in Giza, but O’Connor and Aleta had risen early to watch the debate. Now they sat sipping coffee together, staring at the early poll that put Davis ahead.
‘I can’t believe the American people would vote for someone like Carter Davis,’ Aleta said, looking at her laptop, ‘but if this poll is right, he’ll soon be in the White House.’
‘And that asshole Walden’s pushing it for all it’s worth,’ O’Connor said, ‘although it wouldn’t be the first time a major media organisation has sought to change a government.’
O’Connor’s encrypted phone beeped.
‘Oh no,’ Aleta said, holding her hand to her mouth.
‘ ’Fraid so . . . A ship we’ve been tracking is getting ready to depart Manaus. I think you’d better come back with me to the States . . . I don’t like the idea of you being here on your own. There are powerful forces at work here.’
The Alexandria Connection Page 35