by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric
Koglu reached under the pile of photographs and pulled out a printed sheet. ‘It’s all here. Please phrase it in appropriate language. Thank you, Colonel. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay in Turkey’s capital a pleasant one…’
‘I’m expected back in Istanbul this afternoon, General.’
‘As you will.’ Koglu patted Aslan on the back and led him out of his office to the reception elevator. ‘We admire your loyalty to the state. You have friends here, Colonel. Don’t forget that.’
Aslan entered the brushed-steel lift and pulled the sheet out of his pocket:
In view of recent events, military staff request the authorities to gather intelligence that will enable us to take effective measures against incidents that could arise. Information is required concerning ethnic minorities, including Circassians, Gypsies, Albanians, Bosnians.
Information is sought on magicians, people who practise meditation, supporters of the EU and the USA, the socially elite, members of artistic groups, children of wealthy families, foreigners living in Turkey, Satanists, Freemasons, sympathisers with white supremacists in the Ku Klux Klan, and groups that congregate on the internet.
Aslan shook his head. More ‘usual suspects’? This was ridiculous.
Or was it?
8
Reynolds hovered over the table, dispensing Parma ham onto porcelain plates heaped with salad.
‘Thank you, Reynolds.’
‘Ma’am.’
Karla Lindars, a strikingly attractive fifty-year-old, ultra-smart in a purple corduroy miniskirt and matching jacket, glanced admiringly at Ashe. ‘You know, Toby, I found your exposition fascinating, but I want to know what the mythology is that inspires all this hatred and mayhem. We all know that politics is about manipulating dreams.’
Ashe sipped his glass of fine Florentine white and pondered the question. ‘The anti-Masonic myth is a contributory factor, Karla. But I wouldn’t say it was a mainspring of terrorist motivation.’
‘But if you’re going to attack a Masonic Lodge specifically, it must be pretty important.’
Ashe thought for a few seconds. ‘Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it?’
Marston caught the edge of the conversation. ‘I don’t find it at all amusing, Ashe.’
‘Not funny in that way, Commodore. But sort of uncanny the way these things can come together.’
‘What blasted things, Ashe?’
‘Esoteric things. Let me explain. I was asked to examine a CD not so long ago. The CD was produced at a studio in London and sold from a market-stall in Brixton. Professionally produced, using English and Asian actors’ voices – very much in the style of a slick documentary. The cover announced it contained a sensational revelation of how the Knights Templar secretly control world events.’
‘Come on, Ashe! We’ve all heard this story over and over. Balls, all of it.’
‘I know, Commodore. But this wasn’t just Holy Blood, Holy Grail kind of stuff. It was fundamentalist propaganda. Sophisticated. Even sinister.’
‘Sinister?’
‘A sinister conspiracy, Commodore, is what it describes. And it starts, according to the propaganda on the CD, with the Crusades. According to the myth, the Crusades were not an attempt to liberate Christian holy sites following the Turkish capture of Jerusalem in 1099.’
‘Really, Ashe? What were they then?’
‘The Crusades were a deliberate attempt to destroy Islam itself.’
‘Preposterous!’
‘Yes, Commodore. You know that – but people hearing this story for the first time are probably hearing about the Crusades for the first time as well. According to the myth, or propaganda, the Crusaders failed, ultimately, because God was against them. It’s a small step then to say that the Crusaders were… against God.’
‘I presume then we can extend the Almighty’s disapproval to any troops on Islamic territory.’
‘Precisely, Brigadier. That’s the inference. As the narrative goes, the Pope’s own shock troops – the Knights Templar – were kicked out of Jerusalem in 1187. By 1312, even the Pope was wondering whether or not the Templars had been corrupted and so earned God’s condemnation – hence their military failure. The Templars’ secrecy didn’t help matters. The question was, and remains: had the Templars succumbed to Satan?’
The Brigadier interjected. ‘I get it. In case Westerners say that all that “Great Satan” stuff about the US is just Iranian propaganda, the militants can argue it was the Christian Church’s own view that the Crusaders were dupes of the Devil.’
‘Spot on, Brigadier. As we all know, the Templars were condemned, despite quite justified claims of innocence. As the story goes, in spite of being tried for diabolical practices, some Templars escaped to the Western Isles of Scotland. Driven underground, the Templars – according to the story – metamorphosed into yet another secret organisation.’
‘I wonder who?’ asked the archdeacon, with a twinkle.
‘The bloody Freemasons, of course,’ chipped in the Commodore.
‘Not the Priory of Sion? We’ve all read The Da Vinci Code, you know!’
‘Not quite, Karla! Another trump card up the militants’ sleeve is that if anyone says this is just propaganda, they can point to the fact that the story of Freemasonry’s Templar origins has been repeated by Freemasons themselves for over two hundred years.’
‘But all that’s just a load of old myth, isn’t it, Toby?’
‘Myths can be very powerful, Archdeacon. This one certainly is.’
‘Dr Ashe is right, Commander,’ agreed Brigadier Radclyffe. ‘You hear this kind of thing all over the Middle East: medieval Templars fought the armies of Islam, therefore Templars were evil. Templars became Freemasons, therefore Freemasons must be evil. Modern armies are also fighting Muslims, therefore those armies must be led by Templar-Freemasons, ancient masters of secret evil. The response? Jihad. The enemy has to be an enemy of God to inspire the real jihad.’
Ashe took up from Radclyffe. ‘And it gets worse. The fact that the Templars secured the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as their headquarters immediately connects them to the Palestinian–Jewish situation. A big part of the myth is the idea that the Freemasons are somehow in league with Jewish interests to establish a Masonic–Jewish temple in Jerusalem: a temple, they say, to the “false God”.’
Karla Lindars shook her head. ‘This is all very sad. Is there any truth at all in this myth, Toby?’
‘None. But there’s a problem. Freemasons have been constructing myths around their rituals for centuries. Harmless, really. They call them “traditional histories”. They were meant as moral teaching lessons, not political history. They use myths and legends. Masonic descriptions of Templars, for example, emphasise chivalry, courtesy and the idea of life as a spiritual pilgrimage, not fighting specific religious conflicts! Religious conflict is something Freemasonry is expressly against. It’s a nasty trick of history that the Middle Eastern situation has become so hot at precisely the same time that old Masonic myths have found their way into post-sixties sensationalist books.’
‘As you say, Toby, a nasty trick.’
‘I’m sorry, Karla, but history is often a legacy we’d prefer not to inherit. Take our own role in the redrawing of the Middle Eastern political map.’
‘What do you mean, Toby?’
‘After the withdrawal of the Turks from the region in 1918, the dividing up of newly liberated lands between British and French influence was, for many Arabs, a betrayal.’
‘And the myth explains how this so-called betrayal came about?’
‘Right, Archdeacon. The alleged betrayal of Arab hopes at the end of the First World War is, according to the myth, simply a prelude to the re-establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Israel’s existence is then seen as the fulfilment of a pre-arranged, anti-Islamic plan going back centuries.’
‘What bloody plan?’
‘Come on, Adrian! If I follow Dr Ashe correctly, the myth suggests a
secret plan that required the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate in Istanbul.’
Ashe was impressed. ‘Thank you, Brigadier. The alleged plan required the break-up of the Turkish Empire so that the Jews could take back their ancient homeland without serious opposition.’
Ashe paused for effect. ‘In short, the Devil runs Freemasonry and the Jews used Freemasonry for their own purposes. Britain, France and America have been manipulated by Satanic powers. Only militant Islam – al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbollah – stand up against Zionists and the US. The US, Israel, and also, apparently, the UK, allegedly want to neutralise Islam and conquer the world by supplanting Allah’s rule with that of the Dajjal.’
‘Dajjal?’
‘The Islamic false Messiah or anti-God, Commodore. Militants learn that there’s a secret god in Masonry, and this secret god is Shaitan, Arabic for Satan.’
The table went quiet.
‘All right, Ashe. We get the idea. Fundamentalist militants bombed the Masonic Lodge in Istanbul because by doing so they thought they were striking a blow against Turkey’s involvement with the Unites States’ pro-Israeli foreign policy.’
‘That’s basically it, I think, Commodore. The myth provides motivation and, in this case, the target. And the justification for the cause is secret, hidden.’
‘And the cause provides the terrorist with the satisfying feeling of doing it all for God.’
‘Yes, Commodore.’
Marston put his hands together beneath his nose, as if in prayer. He then arched his knuckles and, somewhat out of character, bit his lip before speaking. In spite of himself, he had been gripped by Ashe’s exposition. He addressed the committee. ‘Well, we have our Oddball myth. But do we have our actual Oddball?’
Ashe withdrew an old file from his briefcase, its cover marked in red: ‘RESTRICTED’.
9
Paradise, California
Sami al-Qasr stared at the rows and rows of black chromosomes flickering on the computer screen. These bar codes of silent soldiers spoke a language al-Qasr understood. The Iraqi doctor had devoted practically the whole of his mind to the strange inner life of the cellular nucleus. Was it any wonder, he asked himself, that he was now, perhaps, a little mad?
Tired of waiting, he smacked his large hand on the white Formica desk and looked out of the plate-glass laboratory window into the car park below. His crimson Jaguar was attracting the usual admiring comments from staff enjoying a cigarette break in the sunshine. Otherwise, RIBOTech’s steel-and-glass precincts were silent.
A knock at the door.
Al-Qasr breathed deeply, then twisted his thick black moustache.
‘Come!’
‘Excuse me, Dr al-Qasr, Nancy left instructions—’
‘Instructions?’
‘You like a good strong cup of coffee around this time.’
Al-Qasr looked at the clock. ‘Ah! Elevenses. Very good. And you are?’
‘Ms Normanton, sir. Temporary intern. What’s “elevenses”, Dr al-Qasr?’
‘Old habit I picked up in Cambridge.’
‘You’re from Massachusetts, Doctor?’
‘No, no, no, my dear. Cambridge in England.’
The pretty girl put the coffee down by his computer. ‘Gee, you’ve come a long way!’
‘Yes… in forty years. All the way to Paradise, California. Quite a journey. Full of the unexpected.’ He eyed her slender hips and long, bronzed legs. ‘And please, call me Sami.’
The girl giggled, caught in al-Qasr’s charming smile.
‘See you soon, Ms Normanton.’
‘Oh. Call me Fiona. I’ll be here for a while.’
‘Good.’
Fiona giggled again and closed the lab door.
Al-Qasr gulped his coffee. The chromosomes were staring at him again. They didn’t carry flags; they weren’t fighting each other; they didn’t speak different languages. They spoke the same language. They spoke the language of science. They spoke the language of nature. Maybe they spoke the language of God. No, not God. Not God.
Al-Qasr was fed up with talk of God, especially in connection with science.
Who made the DNA? That was always the question. There was only one rational answer. It was a mystery. The mystery of evolution, of biological change. Why was it a mystery? Because it was there and no one knew why. In the absence of scientific explanation, mysteries seemed irrational.
Talk of God didn’t help science; it only made religious people feel better.
Al-Qasr thought about the billions of ‘bases’ in the genome – billions in number but still only four varieties. It was beautiful, logical, but not moral.
Every kid doing science had heard of the bases: adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. A, T, G and C had become the sugary apostles at the cornerstones of life. But they didn’t make anyone feel better, or behave any better. There was nothing to believe in, only to accept. What had once seemed a revelation had soon settled down to become common knowledge.
And what had all these molecules of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen made? They had made men and women. And what did men and women want? What came naturally: power. Power over their lives, power over other lives. The will to go on, to multiply: nature’s neutral imperative.
You had to have power, but you had to have limits. You had to have a State. You had to have limits. That was always the problem. You had to belong to something. Something you could see. Something you could touch. Something that had real power.
Real power for real Arabs. Trust your own people – that’s what his father had taught him. That’s why he’d joined the Ba’ath Socialist Party in Iraq all those years ago.
For thousands of years before the Prophet, the desert Arabs had been despised as nomads, outsiders. Then the Prophet Muhammad had given them a lead role in history: all they had to do was bond together, submit to the Anvil and be new-forged into a mighty sword of destiny. The world had quaked before; it would quake again. Rebirth… The genes from the past reborn in the present. It was a mystery. It had been a mystery ever since God’s wrath at the Tower of Babel had led Him to divide the children of Noah into the many races of the world, unable to communicate, anxious to fight. It was still a mystery.
Al-Qasr reached for the worn old paperback he kept stuffed in the bottom drawer of his desk. For years, whenever he experienced doubts, he’d looked at it for inspiration: The Ba’ath Revolution – An Unfolding Future, printed in Baghdad in 1968. His fingers touched the grainy black-and-white image of its author, Jalal al-Qasr, a proud man: his father.
He turned to page 78 and to a quotation underlined heavily in pencil:
While the State of the future will harmonise the morality of all religions in an Arab unity, Arabs will always draw inspiration from He who came to them as the Seal of the Prophets. Even in a secular Arab State, the voice of the Prophet will be on the lips of those who no longer hunger. The Party will hold the allegiance of the heart because the Ba’athist State is good for all Arabs, but the heart of many citizens will ultimately belong to Allah. The State will not compel it; it is simply natural.
Al-Qasr had added a note to the side of the passage: ‘Is science the search for His will in nature?’
Jalal had wanted Sami to follow him into politics. Sami had wanted to be a scientist, above politics, pursuing reality at its core. Now it seemed the promise of the Ba’ath movement had faded, for the time being at least. What future for the Arabs now? What future for Iraq?
Shit! He would be too late! Al-Qasr pulled out the laptop from under his desk; he was sweating. His fingers flew over the keys as he followed the links to the encrypted websites that were buried in messages from his distant family in Jordan. An image exploded onto the screen: a US Humvee blown off a distant road by a mine, shot in digital video and cut into four segments, each showing the blast from a different angle.
Then, from out of the flames, in golden Arabic script, burst the slogan:
DAGGERS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, BROTHERS OF AL-QAEDA<
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10
The Tower, Little Brickenden, Hertfordshire
‘The point, my dear Ashe, is that if we’re to take your line any further we need… well, more than inspired guesswork. How does all this anti-Masonic activity give us a departmental programme? We can’t simply take on a global or semi-global prejudice, however ill informed or perverted. Our official task is to isolate the Oddball, not to redeem the world from darkness, propaganda and superstition. We leave that job to politicians.’
The archdeacon nearly coughed up his wine.
Ashe slammed his glass hard on the table. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Commodore, not to have been able to name the perpetrators of the Kartal Lodge bombing today, or reveal who funded them and why.’
‘Steady on, Ashe! Please, please don’t get me wrong! This old file you’ve dug up may be important; it may not. Perhaps if you could just summarise for us what you think is significant about it, and more importantly, what you propose we should do about it?’
Ashe flicked through the pages of the old file. ‘It is a very old file, I admit. In fact it’s two files combined. One from the late sixties and one from the early nineties. And I’d like to thank Karla for tracing it for me at such very short notice.’
‘I second that.’
‘Thank you, Archdeacon. Now, the subject of the first file is one Jalal al-Qasr.’
‘Never heard of him!’
‘Jalal al-Qasr, Commodore, was a fanatical supporter of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party. The Party gained control of Iraq in the 1968 coup. Even fellow Ba’athists considered Jalal al-Qasr extreme on two issues. He was rabidly anti-Masonic and irrationally hostile to Israel. Not that these were issues on which he would find much essential disagreement among his associates in the Party, but it was a question of the degrees to which he was prepared to go in furthering his hostility. Jalal was instrumental in securing the death penalty for Freemasons that became statute law under Saddam until the Coalition invasion – and Jalal linked Freemasonry to Zionism at every opportunity. Even though Jalal was an unreconstructed Stalinist socialist with no fundamentalist religious convictions, he was one of the few Ba’athists to make an impression on Egyptian radical circles, out of which al-Qaeda would eventually emerge. Though secular, Jalal’s politics were drenched with a quasi-mystical flavour. His political statements could be read like prayers, his rants against enemies like incantations.’