Hayrinisahan. She was like a second mother, although more fun. As he put the pile of kindling he’d cut next to the wood-fired stove his aunt smiled at him, but her smile faded as first one truck, and then another, followed by several more roared past the house. Khalid and Abdul rushed to the door and peered through the beads at the convoy of Han Chinese soldiers tearing down towards the village square. A staff car was travelling in the middle of the convoy and Khalid caught sight of the most hated man in Xinjiang, the ruthless Chinese Captain Ho Feng. His skin was oily and his fine, black hair was parted in the middle and fell either side of an oval face. Ho Feng’s dark eyes were inscrutable. He was responsible for the murders of hundreds of Uighurs and even the mention of his name struck fear into the peaceful Muslims.
‘Khalid! Abdul! Come back inside, both of you!’ Hayrinisahan scolded, covering her mouth and nose as a thick cloud of dust swept into the house, settling on the elegant Uighur carpets covering the walls.
A short while later, Hayrinisahan’s face paled as the sounds of systematic gunfire rent the air. Friday prayers at the little village mosque would have finished and although she’d expected her husband, Ali, to be home by now, he often dropped in to see Khalid’s parents and was sometimes a little late. She hadn’t worried unduly.
The day before, one of Ho’s soldiers patrolling in the village square had been knocked down and killed by a runaway horse.
‘Make an example of them!’ Captain Ho ordered. ‘That house over there!’
Twenty Chinese soldiers stormed into Khalid’s house, rounding up Khalid’s mother, father, uncle, brother and his little sister. With his mother crying and his sister screaming in fright, they were roughly paraded in front of the captain.
‘String them up!’ he commanded, ‘and leave them there for three days, so these people learn how to keep their animals under control.’ Captain Ho caught sight of the village Imam in the door of the little mosque. ‘And set fire to their mosque,’ he added with a sinister smile. ‘Perhaps Allah will help them put it out.’
Khalid woke with a start. The images of his mother and father, uncle, brother and baby sister, their heads twisting grotesquely as they swung from wooden poles beside the burned down mosque were seared indelibly on his soul.
Khalid’s forward scout scanned the foothills below. He’d seen a movement behind a large rock that stood sentinel-like on a bend ahead. The scout moved forward cautiously, keeping off the narrow, rocky track, alert in case the infidel had chosen to put in an ambush. He caught the movement again, a shadowy figure with a weapon, and he stopped, holding his position on the dominating high ground.
CHAPTER 5
A s Agent O’Connor had predicted, his explanation of the mushrikeen and the Muslims’ belief in only one God infuriated President Harrison, especially when he compared it with the Christian worship of the Trinity: God, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
‘This is a Christian country with Christian values, and we need to smoke these little Muslim terrorists out of their hideouts and round ’em up,’ the President responded angrily, in no mood for a theological discussion on the Qu’ran.
As a plan, it was a little short on detail. O’Connor said nothing.
‘I couldn’t agree more, Mr President.’ The video link to the Vice President in Atlanta, despite going through a complex series of unbreakable encryptions, was clear and the image of the Vice President seemed to dominate the entire room. ‘I’ve just finished addressing the National Rifle Association, and you have their full support. This is just bluff.’
‘In the meantime, Mr President, we’ll need to make a public response,’ Dan Esposito stipulated.
Curtis O’Connor reflected that it had not taken President Harrison’s powerful and cunning little advisor long to reduce a discussion on a terrorist threat that might affect millions of lives to one of politics and votes.
‘We will need to reassure the public that Kadeer is bluffing and stick to the agreed line that we are winning this war on terror and that it is a war that is crucially important for all freedom-loving people around the world.’ Dan Esposito’s voice had a touch of steel, daring anyone, including the President, to disagree with him.
‘I don’t think Kadeer is bluffing, Mr President,’ Curtis O’Connor said quietly, glancing towards the camera so that the Vice President would also be left in no doubt as to what O’Connor thought of his views.
‘And what facts do you have to base that on, Officer O’Connor?’ Esposito spat the words across the room.
Curtis O’Connor suppressed a wry smile. The use of his CIA rank was a none-too-subtle reminder from Esposito that opinions that did not support the White House line were not welcome. The Administration and the Party’s private polling was probably a lot worse than what was being published, Curtis thought to himself.
‘I’ve been involved with Islam and Islamic terrorists for nearly twenty years, Dan,’ Curtis replied, ignoring Esposito’s bullying rank tactics. ‘Dr Kadeer is not only a brilliant microbiologist, he is a deep thinker and philosopher and his threats should not be dismissed lightly. He trained as an undergraduate in Beijing and he did his doctorate at Harvard. He knows this country well and knows how to strike fear into the population. His hatred of both the West and the Han Chinese is deep-seated, but his struggle is not confined to the West and the Chinese. Kadeer is first and foremost a Sunni, and although he is very tolerant of other religions, he is committed to a return of the Caliphate.’
‘Meaning?’ President Harrison’s exasperation was reaching breaking point, but he wasn’t the only one in his Administration who was struggling to comprehend Islam. Most of his senior advisors and his own cabinet had completely misjudged what might be driving Jihad, the call to action amongst the Islamic fundamentalists or Islamists as they had become known. Some of the cabinet, including the President, had not realised there was a difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
Curtis again answered calmly. ‘Islam is translated literally as “surrender”. A true Muslim surrenders his or her entire being to Allah, and strives to meet Allah’s demand that human beings treat each other with justice, equity and compassion.’
‘You’ve got to be fucking joking,’ Esposito muttered.
O’Connor ignored him. ‘For Kadeer, the future of Islam depends on its ability to return to its past. For thirteen centuries, until 1923, Islam was always responsible to a supreme authority. The last such authority able to trace his lineage back through Baghdad and Damascus to the Prophet Muhammad was the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet VI in Istanbul. In 1922-’
‘Mr President,’ Dan Esposito interrupted, irritated that they were straying from the main game of winning the next election but the President held up his hand for silence.
‘In 1922,’ Curtis continued, ‘Ataturk overthrew the last Sultan and replaced the Caliphate with a secular government and moved the Turkish capital to Ankara. Kadeer is a Sunni, and he wants to re-unite Muslims under a single Caliphate which not only pits him against the West but also against Shiite countries like Iran and large parts of Iraq and Lebanon.’
The President and more than one member of his cabinet were still looking puzzled.
‘The Sunni-Shiite divide dates back to the death of Muhammad in 632,’ Curtis explained. His mind was racing as to how he might distill the long-running feud into a few simple sentences. ‘The Sunni are those who accept that the Caliph can be elected for his qualities of being the most competent and knowledgeable to lead Muslims by the Sunna – or the laws of the Prophet – and when the Prophet died they prevailed with the election of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, as Muhammad’s khalifah or representative. The Shia, on the other hand, have always believed that the Caliph should have a lineage back to Muhammad’s family, and the Prophet’s cousin Ali, who was not elected as the fourth Caliph until 656, only to be murdered in 661. Kadeer knows it’s a huge ask to achieve unity but despite the arguments over succession, in terms of what they believe, Sunnis and Shiites have much in common and he’s still prepared to try. In that sense Kadeer and bin Laden are united. Both are Sunni and for them the end of the Caliphate was a catastrophe which the West has only exacerbated by attacking Iraq and supporting Israel against Lebanon and Palestine.’
It was too much for the Vice President, and once again he dominated the room from the video screen. ‘Mr
