

THRILLER BOX SET

THREE NOVELS

By Gary J Byrnes

PURE MAD - The Author's Cut

THE GOD VIRUS - Book One of The Seventh Coming

THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN - An Alternative History

Copyright 2011 - 2015 © Gary J Byrnes.

Smashwords Edition

The right of Gary J Byrnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright & Related Rights Act, Ireland, 2000. All rights reserved.

In this work of fiction, the characters, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Novels by Gary J Byrnes, in print and ebook formats, available from all good online retailers. A New York chef and her ex crash into a Nazi plot to enslave the world in my new thriller TO EAT THE WORLD, now on sale.

www.GaryJByrnes.com

@garyjbyrnes
Table of Contents

Pure Mad

Appendix 1 \- Limerick Slang Glossary

Appendix 2 \- Charlie's Proust Questionnaire

Appendix 3 \- The Doctor, a short story by Gary J Byrnes

Appendix 4 \- Champagne, a short story by Anton Chekhov

The God Virus

Appendix 1 \- Armageddon

Bibliography

The Death of Osama bin Laden - An Alternative History

Appendix 1 - Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places

About the author

Discover

Connect

PURE MAD - The Author's Cut

And so to Limerick City, in the Year of Our Lord 2005.

FOR GLOSSARY OF LIMERICK SLANG, SEE APPENDIX 1
PROLOGUE

From a high window, just beyond my reach, seven o'clock sunshine fills the little room, makes the thick white walls glow. Magical and calming.

'Pure mad? I dispute that. I'm just a bit frazzled is all.'

'Prove it.'

'Okay.'

'Tell me.'

'Everything?'

She nods. 'Start typing, please.'

'Careful what you wish for.'

'The first line is so important,' she chirps.

I hit the letter P. 'Here we go.' Then it flows.

'Just get it down, spill it out. It's therapeutic. Everybody loves a good story.'

CHAPTER 1. HEADWRECK

For about three seconds I'd been ready to jump into the black vastness of the Shannon, end it all. Three random seconds.

'You're a waste of space, Charlie. Other than that, you're all right, man. You're all right.'

I said this to my shimmering reflection.

Funny how a few miniscule biochemical spasms in my brain make me consider killing myself. First time ever and I almost did it. Bizarre shit.

'Tool.'

Damn coming down.

My head hurts, standing there by the dirty water, dead-buzzing, jaded, watching, waiting. The bottle of Volvic helps, but chemical intervention calls. I go back to the car. Open the boot and root around in my gadget bag. In amongst the receipts, torn fag boxes, camera bits and assorted junk, I find two Solpadeine. Soluble codeine - heroin's sister - heaven in an OTC tablet. Into the bottle. Down the hatch. Plop, fizz, gone.

That's life: plop, fizz, gone. When the sperm meets the egg, the fizzing starts, grabbing molecules, using DNA blueprints to make a human. I think I actually get it: I'm a chemistry set. With sentience. The chemical reaction is my body and brain, the resulting energy my soul. Me. This becomes clear as the city goes about its yawning business around me, its collar up and its head down.

So my lineage started with a virus or a bacterium in a primordial sea. Four billion years of evolution later and this is the best DNA can do? Fizzing me? Fuck's sake.

Soon to be gone.

But at least awareness is a beginning. A glimpse of some sort of understanding. Is life just the illusion of greatness? The transient byproduct of biochemistry, the rearrangement of molecules, media-driven consumption and self-propelled ego.

My system craves nicotine, so the cosmic chemical clarity fades, replaced by a fumbling search through my clothes and vehicle.

I nervously readjust to the slow, grey world after a four day weekend of slow death. Christ, it's all so slow, even the water is thick and heavy. My hands shake as I light a smoke.

The codeine molecules are shifted through my system, quickly suppressing the pain signals from my crucified brain. Thank fuck for the Periodic Table. I smoke.

Nothing doing across the river, so I root around again and find the tiny wrap of coke dregs I'd stashed in a film canister. Nobody about so up it goes, through a manky fiver.

My teeth go numb from the dental anaesthetic - Novocain - the dealers use to cut the cocaine. I sense my pupils dilating with a quiet clank and my brain welcoming the Class A narcotic, maybe twenty-five percent proof, with open receptors. Nice to see you, it says, betraying me yet again. Check the time. 9.52 AM. Due now. Everything sharper. Better. But the coke's all gone.

Double-check the SLR, my trusty old Canon EOS1 with a 300 zoom. Focus in on the little park behind the museum. There's a mean crow - grey black, lumpy beak - on a fence, across two hundred metres of high water. I take a picture of it. No drugs left. Damn you crow. Maybe it senses me. It flaps away to its friends, busy with last night's stinking burger and kebab debris over in Arthur's Quay park. Collective noun for crows? Murder. They'd eat shit. Focus is good and sharp.

Then in she comes, with big paper bags from expensive boutiques. Shakes fading, heart beating in my damn ears now. She waits in the shadows of a gazebo, half-hidden by a pillar. She lights a cigarette, stares out at the water. Nervous now it's going down.

There he is, walking quickly through the trees. Thinks he's real clever. Line up the shot. I'm yawning now, but wide, wide awake. He glances around, smiles, joins her in the half-light. I adjust exposure, check light levels. She says something to him. He shrugs and smiles. Click. The kiss. Click.

He pulls her against him. She doesn't resist and kisses him full on the lips, her tongue reaching deep inside his mouth. There's nobody else in the park, too early even for winos, and they won't be seen. This is a sexual liaison which needs to be kept between just two. They hide well. She puts a condom on. Laughs.

Yes, he's coming. There, her hand rubbing furiously. His expression, classic. And, with my Canon, I take quality snaps of their adultery. Someone was going to pay dearly for this ride. They always did when I witnessed.

There must be a few molecules left in the wrap?

Now, his hand up her skirt, her silent moans and her head thrown back in mute ecstasy. Nothing I can hear anyway. She's nice, even from this range. Dark - near black - hair in a bob, tanned, good smile. She was like a 1950s Italian movie star. Sophia Loren maybe.

I can almost smell the sex. I want to. Fuck it. So I mull over the worth of it all, the illicit fuck. Me taking pictures of it, a professional voyeur. My life in general. Everything.

I slowly respond to the visual stimulation, the knowledge of the act, the swishing cocktail in my veins. Don't blame me, don't judge: it's autonomic.

Look at them. Like dogs. Thirty-six. I glance about, stick in a fresh film in two seconds flat. Welcome to your life, Charlie Doyle. Sad, really.

Jesus, is she looking at me?

Christ, I need to score.

CHAPTER 2. SLICE

Skin. Fat. Muscle. Vein. Bone. Artery. Cartilage. Spinal cord. Windpipe. Blood.

Each parted at the right time, making way for the machete blade. There was no resistance, barely a sound. Just a wet whisper. The head remained in place for a long second. Then it fell off to the side, tumbled, came to rest - face up - on thick grass.

The brain inside, numbed by enough forcibly-injected heroin to calm a bull, felt nothing. But for four long seconds, it was alive on the grass.

The killer kicked the kneeling body forward, but not quickly enough to avoid all the blood jetting from the dead man's jugulars.

'Fuckin gowl,' he said, wiping the blood from his cheek with a sleeve.

The others stayed back, not a peep.

'Who's fuckin takin this?' asked the killer, holding the deadly weapon between thumb and forefinger.

'I've to get rid of it,' said a young kid, his face white, like a ghost in a baseball cap.

'Alright kid.'

The killer dropped the machete at the boy's feet, grabbed the head by its hair. He took a black plastic binliner from his pocket, shook it open, dropped the head into it. The bundle went into a rucksack. Then he took a cloth from his pocket and wiped his face dry, removed his latex gloves and tossed these and the cloth beside the blade.

The killer picked up his rucksack, nodded at the still-stunned group and walked away, up the overgrown path towards the houses.

The rest smoked fags, slowly calming down.

'Fuck's sake,' said one.

'I wouldn't trust that cunt as far as I could throw him,' said another, nodding after the killer.

'What the fuck did Luke do, anyway?' said the third, still staring at the limp body.

'Fuck knows,' said the kid. 'He did enough anyways. Snitch?'

'Fuck's sake. He'd never snitch. Never. This is cuntin civil war. There'll be wigs on the Green before this is played out.'

'Come on boys. Into the river with him. I'm gaggin for a pint of cider.'

'He's still pumpin.'

'Leave him a minute, so.'

So they smoked more cigarettes, watched the blood ooze. The twitching heart finally stalled completely. Two lifted the upper body - an arm and an armpit each - and the other took the feet. The ruined corpse slipped into the water and sank quickly, towards the deepest current. The machete followed, glinting. A flood was up.

The gloves and rags were put on the pool of blood and a pint of petrol and a match saw to them.

A dripping black cormorant - fishing relentlessly all afternoon - broke the surface nearby with a prize catch, a late salmon smoult. The fish wriggling in her beak, the proud bird's bottle green eye looked to shore. But her audience had vanished, leaving just a pall of dirty smoke.

CHAPTER 3. DEAD WATER

And just a couple of weeks before, didn't they have the craic away in the swamp?

'Gissum bullets. Gawan illuh?' said Mickey from Limerick.

The range assistant just a college kid working a summer job. Getting more nervous by the second. Only schmuck on today. What did the guy say? Sounded like he wants bullets. Jesus H. What's going on?

Mickey was agitated, taking tiny steps away from the water's edge, reflexively pointing his assault rifle at a disinterested reptile.

'Gawan, tis like he's scoffin at me.'

'I can't let you shoot the wildlife, sir,' stammered the manager. 'State law. Would you maybe like to get started? With the targets?'

Mickey took a final drag, then flicked his cigarette butt at the alligator. It didn't stir. The gang followed their sweating host across the empty parking area, past the big rusting sign that said ED'S TARGET RANGE, FLORIDA'S FAVOURITE FOR GUN FUN. Ed's was gouged out of the swamp, out of the endless patchwork of saw grass and stagnant water, everything flooded by the first heavy rains of summer. The crazy crew hired the place exclusively for the day. Five grand, plus ammo. Ed said they'd be gone by noon. The sun and the mosquitoes would win out. Then you get home early, do what you gotta do, okay? Figuring he'd been dumped in the shit by Ed, the kid offered them some cold beers, maybe it would calm them down.

'I'm goin to need a good few beers,' said Greg, the guy who was looking after the bills. 'I'm sweatin like a black.'

That the man who served him was African American didn't matter to Greg. Never even registered. He drank the bottle of Miller in one slug. There was another bottle in his hand three seconds later. Luke was driving their rented Ford Galaxy, so drank Coke. He smiled, hoping Greg would get shitfaced so he could maybe drop the hand on Jean at some stage. She sat across the rickety table from him, sipped a beer, gave him the eye when Greg wasn't looking. Mad bitch. Birds shrieked suddenly from nearby reeds.

'So,' said Mickey, 'how many have you fed to the crocodile?'

'Alligator. No sir, that kind of stuff only happens on TV.'

'We've the river back home,' said Luke, now armed. 'That'll get rid of antin. C'mon. Let's riddle these cardboard cunts!'

Mickey, Luke and Jean took it all really seriously, practicing with assorted handguns, rifles and shotguns. Greg and the other two had the odd go, but mostly just drank and smoked and talked about Disney World until their throats were hoarse. The great mountain of sand behind the targets took a pounding. After a break for lunch of fried chicken with biscuits and corncobs - from Chicken Ranch just off the turnpike - they shot some more, kill rates improving. They took photos with a disposable camera.

Greg O'Doherty took a break, sat on a folding chair by the water. Drank a beer, his eighth. The manager joined him.

'Sir?'

'Yep?'

'Your wife's a really good shot.'

'She's great, isn't she? Fuckin lethal.'

'Really hot sir. She'd be a good cover girl for that magazine, Guns & Ammo. If you don't mind me saying.'

Greg considered threatening the guy for leching after his wife. He could never take that shit. At all. But it was too fuckin hot, so he just said 'Yeah'.

Unaware of his close escape, the guy went further, saying 'This isn't just a bit of holiday fun, is it?'

Automatic fire crackled from the range, scarcely a pause between salvoes. The birds were long gone. The alligator had disappeared, but she lurked a couple of inches beneath the oily surface. Just in case.

'The AKs, they're so fuckin loud we can't have any kind of decent practice back home. Ye Yanks have the right setup. I love this. Now we're up to speed, the gun fear is gone. That first burst. Critical.'

The manager froze, harsh reality at last slapping him across his face. He instantly dismissed the idea of calling the cops. Six armed lunatics and him, middle of the Everglades? No, focus on survival.

'If your friend wants to shoot something, I can maybe arrange it.'

'Good lad,' said Greg.

Greg gave him five hundred dollars.

Then the guy, Danny was his name, took Mickey and Luke out in the airboat, let them shoot a couple of small gators. Mickey turned the gun on him, but only as a joke. Fuckin lighten up, kid. That night, after a few beers in his cockroach hotel, and not shaking so much, Danny called Ed. He told Ed where he could stick his job, spent the rest of the summer renting lounge chairs to fat girls on Fort Lauderdale beach, across the highway from the Westin where the steaks were good.

CHAPTER 4. CLEVER LUKE

He was up early and out of the house by six. She snored on. Christ, he hated her most of all when she was asleep.

He drove out the N7 in silence. No sign of tails, but he went the long way anyway. Then he met the boys in a rough field past the waterworks. At the end of a long boreen down to the fog-shrouded river. They were in a desolate mill ruin. Standing around. Smoking. Nervous.

'Where are they?' asked Luke.

One of the boys, Mick, nodded towards a crooked doorway, a dark room beyond. Luke took latex gloves from his jacket pocket and put them on. They all watched CSI, even CSI Miami and New York. Mick, who also wore gloves, also was well-tanned, handed him an automatic pistol, a Beretta nine mill. Luke cocked the pistol, had no fear of it.

Two men sat in the dewy dark, shivering. They wore damp shirts and had plastic shopping bags over their bruised heads, loosely. Their hands were cable-tied. They were slumped against the cold wall, jerking to life when Luke appeared.

'I've a message for ye from my brother,' he said. 'We're takin over Garryowen, right?'

Then he shot them both twice. In their faces. Before they could even start to beg for their lives.

He threw the gun into the river, where it would stay for a hundred years. A fat black bird flew low over the water, heading downstream to feed. It veered to avoid the Beretta.

Luke gave his gloves to the lads for burning and left the scene pronto.

Straight to the gym, made it by seven. Town dead quiet. A coffee and a smoke, a few exercises. The place busy enough, a couple of nice birds on the treadmills. A bit of banter with them, keeping his options wide open. They were nurses, just off the night shift. Unwinding. Nice arses, pounding away on the rubber.

But Luke was very wound up. So into the sauna, hours to kill, time to think. Two oldish guys in there, business types, tiny towels. Fucking dead if they tried anything.

'Morning,' said Luke, smiling, always conscious of the alibi and the forensics. Every second, unless he was pissed.

He sat in the empty corner, pine slats scorching, and closed his eyes. All he could think about was Jean. She was like no other woman he'd ever done. As well as the danger, which heightened every sensation, she was just so deadly. The smell of her, her skin, her hair. Man.

Doing the dirt with your brother's wife was about as low as you could go. Fuck it, no. No it's not. There's a dozen things worse than that and he'd done most of them. Just as long as Greg didn't find out. That would be major shit. Major. Greg would have to die. No two ways about it. Nothing else would cover his arse. Nothing.

Fuck it. Just don't get caught.

As far as the missus knew, he was in the gym from seven to eleven every single Wednesday and the odd Friday. Had to keep the old sex machine in shape. God, there's nothing so good in life as a good shag. Fucking nothing. He'd fly out, get screwed, get back for a shower to wash away the forensics. Beautiful. And it always worked. He'd had ten affairs in two years. But Jean was different. Unusual. Special care. Keep some distance. Avoid anyplace obvious. Today might be only a handjob, but fuck it. It would do.

Luke could wait no more. He knew she'd be waiting. He left the sauna, showered quickly. He dressed, threw on his long trenchcoat and left the gym by a quiet side entrance. Alibi covered. Forensics covered. He had a grin on his face, delighted with himself and his cleverness. Beautiful, Luke. You're a fuckin beaut.

CHAPTER 5. OLD

They finished. They kissed. He took off the condom, tied a knot in it, put it in his coat pocket. Classy.

With a wide smile, she left, heading back to her MasterCard grazing. He waited a short while, gazing into the river. Then, his face still flushed, hands in pockets and a cigarette at his blood-filled lips, he left too. Fine. I had photos of French kisses, a sticky handjob, a fingerfuck and that unmistakable look between a couple that says: I like to fuck you.

Dress it up in pink ribbons with roses, any old shit, it all boils down to fucking. Primal instincts delivered again. Job done.

Unloaded the film and labelled the two rolls. I looked at the river again. Stared. It was black as oil and just as dirty. Bubblyscum gathered in the quiet places, rubbish eased by, breaking the reflection of the mean sky.

I drove in across Sarsfield Bridge. Into town, towards Dave's. Time to get the pics developed. Deliver to the mystery client straight away. Get paid. Bling.

Parked. Across William Street to Dave's shop. The sign said: DAVE'S PHOTOGRAPHY, THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL. Dave was busy with a customer, a suit, trying to flog him a pricey digital camera. His highly desirable assistant, Fiona, stood at the counter. She smiled my way.

'Hi Fiona. You're looking dangerously sexy for a Wednesday.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah. How's the new dad?'

'Dave wants to keep the session goin at lunch. You comin?'

'It's been, what, five days already? But yeah.'

She came from the wrong side of the wrong side of town, but I could live with that. Her eyes were fixed on mine and I detected a slight increase in her breathing. She seemed interested. Or I was just delusional. I couldn't really tell anymore.

Jesus, I could see her on the cover of FHM magazine, she was that hot. Dave did those pictures - 'glamour' - on the side, actually had a Loaded cover once, long time ago now. I stared hard at Fiona's chest, copped myself, examined my fingernails instead. She made me feel old.

I haven't been laid in three months. Nearly a hundred days, but I'm not counting. Dave lost the sale, came over.

'How's your brain?'

'I genuinely can't believe I got a job done this morning. I'm that sideways. Have ye decided on a name yet?'

'I'm tied between Peter and Paul.'

He had the dreamy, sozzled look of a first-time father, worrying over which Munster rugby player to name his son after. Funny. Wait till he has to start changing nappies.

I gave him the two rolls of thirty-six. He had a pro black and white processing system, last one in town. I still used black and white because it gave me the most consistent results and I fucked up less on it. Plus, grainy mono photos always looked more private detective, more credible.

'Under an hour to contacts. That okay?'

'Great. This could be the handiest little job ever.'

As if.

CHAPTER 6. REVELATION

To the pub, which had mirrors, loud eighties music and a fair crowd. I ordered two vodka tonics, conscious of my breath that early in the day. It was barely noon. Explained my cashflow situation to Dave. He shrugged it off and handed me a fifty to keep me going. Tried to squeeze some dirt, like Was he shagging Fiona or what? No joy, he only wanted to talk about his son and Wasn't that the best wetting the baby's head ever?

An age later, Fiona came. She carried a large, brown envelope, which she handed to me. Our fingers touched for a not-negligible half a second.

'Drink, Fiona?'

'I can't. The shop.'

'You may as well lock up for lunch now, love,' said Dave. 'We'll eat here, okay?'

'For a change,' she said.

I opened the envelope and looked at the two contact sheets. The pictures were good, damned good. Excellent shot of her with his dick in her hand. No doubt about what was going on there. No fucking doubt whatsoever. Good job. I smiled. One shot looked like she was making eye contact with the camera. Coincidence.

'Let's see,' said Dave.

He was always eager to see my work, particularly if it involved people screwing.

I gave him the sheets of tiny pictures, all laid out for easy viewing and the selection of the half dozen or so that my client would accept as indisputable proof of his wife's infidelity.

'Well, well. This morning? Jesus, so that's how the other half lives. Exhibit A, your honour. Note the cock in the hand.'

Relieved by the quality of the shots, I stepped outside and called the client.

'I've got them. The castle? Okay, the castle courtyard, four o'clock. Fine. On the dot,' was my side of the conversation.

Returning to Dave, I found that Fiona had taken her seat. Dave hadn't gotten her a drink, so I jumped in.

'Bacardi and coke, Fiona?'

She smiled and nodded. Dave looked a bit pale, so I got us two more vodkas. In for a penny.

'Alright Dave?' I asked.

'Yeah,' he mumbled, sheepish.

'C'mon man. Spit it out.'

He glanced at Fiona.

'Tell me what's wrong. We've no secrets here, do we Fiona?'

'I think I recognise the guy. Do you know him?'

I looked closely at the little pictures. He looked vaguely familiar, as do most people when you live in a pocket-sized city. I shrugged.

Dave took a little fold-out magnifier from his arse pocket and held it to the contact sheet.

'Yep. It's him. No doubt.'

'Who?'

'One of the O'Dohertys. I don't know which one. Look.'

O'Doherty? My heart stopped for a second. Fiona nodded. I held my breath and looked at the man's grainy face through the magnifier. It was an O'Doherty, one of the gang. The gang. For sure. How did I miss it? Too busy looking at the woman, I guessed. Imagine a young Jane Fonda with a black bob.

CHAPTER 7. GOOD COP, BAD COP

Detective Pat O'Connor was in good form as he drove alone to Karpov's spread. Since he'd transferred back home from a two-year stint in Tallaght and Blanchardstown - Dublin's Wild West - things had been looking up. The Dublin cops used to slag him, saying Well Pat, isn't this a nice rest from Stab City anyways? and he'd say Give me Limerick any day. So he did his job well, worked on his connections, got promoted back to home.

He got the best of assignments now, like tagging along with Russell Crowe the time he came to town to pay homage to the memory of Richard Harris.

Pat was a clever cop, a very good shot, a natural. And confident. His public persona: clean-cut stand-up guy. Any Limerick-visiting VIP that needed armed protection got to meet Pat. Bill Clinton, even. Now there was a man that Pat bragged about meeting. He had this charisma. Pat framed a photo of himself and Bill having a pint in Ballybunion. He hung it on his living room wall, in his house out in Castletroy. He also admired JFK and James Bond. The Fleming Bond.

But inside Pat was something much grimmer, hiding from the cameras in the darkest cul-de-sacs of his practical, busy mind. As his brain ticked through his tasks at hand - it always did, even while he slept - he worked on the details of his biggest operation yet. People would die, maybe three or four. Maybe a woman. Maybe. He shouldn't have to get his hands dirty, but you never know. Anyhow, he was making it all happen. Karpov was ready to fork out a few million for the job. He didn't know how much. Just that he stood to take well over a million. A million fucking euro! Just hide it well and early retirement was a certainty. Contacts could fix everything. Every damned thing.

He smiled at his prospects. To pass the time, he stuck registration numbers of cars ahead of him - out the Ennis road - into the car's Pulse computer database. It was slow as fuck, a piece of shit, but sometimes hit paydirt. Nothing today. He banged the machine with the heel of his palm as it stalled again.

He arrived at Karpov's place. High wall, heavy gates, cameras, the lot. A sign said to approach the intercom and gave all the usual warnings.

His job today was official. He would check the guns that Karpov's bodyguards were legally allowed to carry.

He buzzed and a deep Russian voice boomed back at him, like The Wizard of Oz or something. It sounded like Welcome, come on in. Or it could've been Russian. The gates clicked, then opened quickly. Pat got back into the car and drove in slowly. A man sat on a deckchair, walkie-talkie in his hand, just inside the gate. He smiled and waved.

Pat parked on the wide sweep of pebbles outside the house, beside a burgundy Rolls Royce, a fat jeep and a couple of seven series black BMWs. Place was huge. Brideshead Revisited. One time. But the Russians have taken over now. It's all about the money.

A strong-looking, familiar man bounded down the steps. Tanned, dripping with white gold and dressed in a shining silk shirt, grey pants and deck shoes, he exuded wealth. Simply, relaxed billionaire at home. He grabbed Pat in a fierce bearhug, a faint smell of drink off his breath.

'Pat, Pat. So good to see you.'

'You too, Mikhail. You been working out?'

'I like you. You are my main man, you know that?'

Pat flushed. He couldn't help it. This was a good thing to hear from the world's twelfth richest man. Twelfth and rising. Christ. This was it. Never a better chance. And he'd only been introduced a week before.

'I'm only following orders, Mikhail. You know that. The fact that you're sound as a pound only helps. You don't have to butter me up at all.'

He said Sound as a pound, laughed again and led Pat in for a drink. It was champagne, the good stuff, and caviar - Chekhov's favourite food, said Karpov - on funny little crackers. Pat didn't like caviar much, but he ate it anyway, pretending that he loved it and was reared on it.

Karpov talked a mile a minute. Pat couldn't really keep up, though he was considered by many to be razor sharp. He touched on the meteoric oil prices, Iraq, Irish politics, personal friend Bill Clinton, George W Bush: The W makes him, don't you think, Pat?, al-Qaeda, the price of vodka. This guy was unreal. Pat was dizzy, like a kid meeting a movie star.

The subject changed to Pat's business. Just when Karpov wanted it to. He called to a man, dressed in a kind of butler outfit - white jacket, white gloves - who stood in the hall outside the lounge. They conversed in Russian, master and servant. The man nodded formally and glided away. Pat always felt uneasy when within a foreign language conversation. You just never knew what the fuckers could be saying about you. So he made a mental note to take some language lessons, learn some Russian.

'Come, Pat. To the garden.'

Karpov held an arm outstretched, pointing to the back garden. Pat followed him through the vast conservatory.

The garden lay below a wide veranda, all cast-iron furniture, lion statues and flowers in pots. Must be an acre of manicured lawn.

Karpov led Pat across the lawn and through a gap in the bushes. A rough path brought them to a long clearing. Two men waited, standing to attention, army-style. They wore black fatigues. Fortyish, impassive faces, crewcut hair, fit. One had a snake tattoo on his forearm, probably a unit logo. They watched Pat from out of the corners of their eyes. Didn't miss anything.

Karpov spoke Russian and the men relaxed. He turned to Pat.

'These are my personal bodyguards. They travel with me at all times. They are the only members of my staff to carry guns.'

'Background?'

'Russian special forces. They both fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Very bitter wars, but very good experience, yes? I would trust them with my life.'

Pat nodded, knowing that these guys had killed, no empathy.

'Any sign of post-traumatic stress?'

'In what way?'

'I don't know. Rages? Alcoholism? Depression?'

'Nothing.'

'And the weapons?'

Karpov gave an order and one of the men turned to a suitcase-sized metal case on the grass beside them. He unlocked and opened the case. Inside were four Glock pistols with silencers, four stun grenades, two nightvision goggles and two commando daggers. The pistol magazines held bullets. Pat found a folded A4 sheet in his inside pocket. He went through the motions of comparing serial numbers on the weapons against his Excel printout on Garda letterhead. The list of authorised weapons checked out, except for the silencers and stun grenades. So he signed and dated the sheet.

'All done,' said Pat, smiling.

Karpov nodded and gave an order in Russian. His men got the Glocks and proceeded to load and cock them. For the briefest instant, Pat considered reaching for his revolver, a standard issue Smith & Wesson snubnose thirty-eight.

'Time for their practice,' said Karpov. 'Three times a day they must shoot.'

Over lunch, Pat told Karpov about his plan. How it was in motion. How it would all work out fine, leading to Greg O'Doherty's funeral and Karpov dominance in the mid-west.

Pat said There were only two potentially loose cannon. The IRA, who better stay out. And Charlie Doyle, who better play his part and not mess things up. Or he would die, the fucking loser.

CHAPTER 8. TOTAL DISCRETION

I stared at the pictures. I thought through my options, chancing to say that the processor went on fire or I slept it out.

'How did you get the job?' asked Dave.

My head was reeling as the reality sank in. I had in my possession proof that a member of one of Limerick's most notorious crime families was doing the dirt. This was the kind of information that got people killed. And the client. Who's the client?

'I got a call last week, from my ad in the phone book, I supposed.'

CHARLES A. DOYLE

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

CASES INVOLVING INFIDELITY HANDLED WITH TOTAL DISCRETION

'The guy told me where and when to take the pictures. He said he thought his wife was fucking around. Offered two grand cash for fast photos. I'm meeting him later. He did sound a bit rough, but who doesn't these days? Fuck.'

'I guess he made you an offer you couldn't refuse, ha?'

I ordered more drinks.

'Shouldn't you be keeping your wits about you for meeting this guy?'

Was he insinuating that my client would try to bump me off to keep his secret safe? Was he a criminal, one of the O'Doherty circle of friends? Does he already know that his wife is being shagged by a member of the most feared crime empire Limerick has ever known?

'Where you meeting him?'

'King John's Castle. Four.'

'Uh oh, Chongo! Just don't go up the towers. It's easy to slip and fall, you know.'

'You're fucking hilarious Dave, you know that?'

'That's what people keep telling me, bud. I'm wasted in this damn town.'

'Yeah man. Try Vegas.'

Fiona offered to head back early to print up the shots I wanted. Without emotion, I selected the best half-dozen, marked them and off she went. Dave said he'd be over to collect the prints in a while. Then he turned to me, looking serious.

'You need some back-up, dude? I'll come with you, if you want.'

It was sinking in. At last.

'If I'm to die today, there's sweet fuck all that you or I or anyone can do about it.'

'The cops, maybe? Pat? You know he's gagging to put the O'Dohertys out of business. They're pure mad, those fuckers.'

'I know, I know. But if I involve the cops, then I'm dead for sure. No, I'll play it by ear for now.'

'You sure you don't smell Pat in this?'

'Why?'

He shrugged and we dropped it. Pat was a mate.

We clinked glasses and Dave got in another round. If I was to die, then I was damn sure going to enjoy my last few hours.

'Pints tonight, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

'Now, while I make excuses to my lovely wife, can you try and organise some Charlie, Charlie?'

'Yes, I hear there's snow forecast.'

'Good. I hope to have a hot young thing to keep me warm well into the night. You're my excuse, okay?'

'What's new?'

Dave went back to the shop to ring his wife, see how the baby was doing, no pub noises in the background. I called my dealer and he said I could call to his place any time. There was always a steady supply of Colombia's finest. Limerick, you are a lady. I was starting to feel good. A few drinks and the prospect of some coke and a shag will do any man the world of good, even with the vague threat of sudden, untimely death hanging over his head.

Dave got back and handed me an envelope. I checked the photos, making sure that nobody in the pub could see over my shoulder. Printed up as ten by eights, the images were startling. Pure sex jumped from the photos. And yes, he was clearly an O'Doherty. I recognised the face from the newspaper coverage of an aborted murder case. This guy had been up for the brutal slaying of a young street dealer from a different gang. Though it had happened in town in broad daylight, no witness was insane enough to take the stand. He got off scotfree.

Luke O'Doherty. He was trouble. Disgusted with myself for not smelling a rat sooner, I shoved the pictures back inside the envelope and held on tight. It wasn't leaving my hand until delivered to the client. Whoever the hell he was. More drink.

So the time came for me to go to my possible doom. Dave finished his drink, wished me luck, went back to the shop half-cut.

Assuming I wouldn't be dead, we'd arranged to meet at my place at six.

I strolled off down the street towards the river, thinking Janey Mac! Why me?

CHAPTER 9. THE ISLAND

Just fourteen, Robert Dunne rode like the wind, clipclopping along a quiet Long Pavement Road. He held on tight to the package, bagged and wrapped up in his horse blanket, holding the rope reins with his left hand. By the feel of it, there were two handguns inside. Revolvers. And what felt like a machete. About two foot of a one.

They were from a secret stash, one he never heard about before. Mr O'Doherty had been specific when he rang the night before. Go to Parteen. Early. Get a package from behind a wall near the bridge. Deliver it the back way. No problem.

And nobody else was to know about it. On pain of death. Par for the course, but stressed this time more than normal.

With the pieball doing ninety and the job half done, Robert began to relax. Mistake. He didn't spot the squad car until the cops were beside him, slowing down as they approached. He galloped on, trying to look nonchalant, but taking care not to ignore the cops. He and his kind wouldn't. The cops were the Ying to the gangs' Yang. Each side needed the other, to affirm existence.

They passed smoothly by and he turned his head. They swung a u-turn, lights flashing, siren like a banshee.

In a second, he calculated that across the old dump was his best chance. A twist of the rope and heels dug in and the horse responded, clearing the concrete fence at the side of the road with ease.

Across the tricky stream, the weedy plain and into the foothills of the vast piles of old rubbish they went, tearing up clods of newspapers, plastic bags and nappies through the thin layer of topsoil. He felt like John Wayne. Robert breathed through his mouth and spoke words of encouragement to Betty.

He stole a glance back towards the road and saw the police car pulled in at the dump entrance. They weren't coming on foot. His ears didn't pick up the distinctive low thudding of the pork chopper, so he allowed himself a smile.

At the crest of the waste mountain, Robert stopped the horse. The tinker camp squatted to his left, all smoulder and junk. In front, past the squad car, the railway tracks led to the Moyross sprawl, endless acres of corner territories and horseland. The cops turned back around and continued on their way, towards Parteen. Robert knew he was in the clear. The cops must've figured he was on the mitch from school, that's all. Luke and Greg told him he was still clean and to keep it that way: worth more. Just another loose kid. Chasing him across the dump wasn't worth the hassle. For no good reason anyway.

'Lazy old fools,' he said, and 'Good girl,' continuing down to the river and across the ghostly railway bridge to the Island. No sentry saw him. All in bed, signing on later, all I'm off to work, love and Sure, amint I an artist; I draw the dole.

The sun broke through and his - of course - brilliant white horse shone for a moment, flashing behind the rusty girders. The hills behind slept in a gloomy blue haze. Robert opened the bundle and held the deadly blade to the sky. His horse galloped across the open spaces between the heavy sleepers. One false step would mean disaster. So he smiled and roared, urging his horse on. The Shannon rushed by below. It was more like a scene from Excalibur than True Grit. He stopped when he reached the Island, resting the horse and smoking a little rock of crack cocaine, thinking to relax his heart, but actually making it beat one hundred and thirty times every minute for a full seven minutes.

Along by the busy river, passed the spot where I had taken the bastard pictures. My spine ached.

Crossed Thomond Bridge - popular spot for fishing, photos, suicide - the castle looming. I realised, with a nasty taste in my mouth, that I was on the Island.

This was the oldest part of the city, an island on the Shannon that offered some protection from the marauding Vikings and psychos who regularly sailed up the estuary in the olden days. When the British took over, they put their garrison on the island and the castle built by King John eight hundred years ago still stands.

Now the Island belonged to the O'Dohertys. They ran their massive drug business from safe houses in the middle of a huge housing estate, right behind the castle. The corporation-built housing scheme could be entered by just one road. The Island was a place of random murder, casual prostitution, endemic drug abuse, organised depravity. Funny really, that it was also the focal point of Limerick's tourist industry. You couldn't make it up.

It would make sense to meet me in the castle if it was an O'Doherty that had hired me. It would be suicidal for their rivals to meet me on O'Doherty turf. But why would an O'Doherty need me? Was it Luke testing me? Some stupid game? It was common knowledge that the police had set up night vision cameras on one of the castle's lofty turrets, as it gave a good view of the road into the Island. The cops would be unlikely to be there during the day and even more unlikely to be looking back over their shoulders into the courtyard. Clever.

As I walked with deliberate casualness towards the entrance, I noticed two tough-looking guys sitting in a spang-new black Ford Mondeo. They looked at me, but I couldn't make them. Dublin plates, so possibly cops. Or O'Doherty goons. Or common or garden drug dealers. Or just people. Or serious tourists, Russians maybe. Sweet paranoia, no harm. They weren't looking at me and they didn't seem to be play-acting.

I paid my entrance fee, bitched like a child about how expensive it was and said it was no wonder there were no Americans about. The woman at the counter just smiled and asked me to enjoy my visit.

I passed through the foyer and the crappy tinwhistles and teatowels of the gift shop. Down the steel staircase into the wide open courtyard. I'd never been in the castle before, like how many Londoners have been to Madame Tussaud's? But I was actually mildly impressed, life being full of surprises.

The cobbled ground stretched down towards the river, with the rooms and towers to the right and the museumy bit and tat shop behind me, in the modern entrance annex. Standing alone in the middle of the large yard by a smoky fire was a big, unpleasant-looking guy, wearing a heavy, black leather coat. He was chubby, bald and unshaven. Normally I love stereotypes. He made eye contact with me. My man.

I strolled over, trying to look relaxed. It wasn't easy, especially after I tripped on a cobblestone and nearly fell on my semi-drunken ass. I made it to him. He kept his hands deep in his pockets, so no pleasantries required.

'Got um?'

'You mean the pictures? Yeah, here.'

I handed him the envelope, which was now fairly grubby from my nervous hands. He opened it and pulled out the pictures, looking around to make sure nobody was watching us. He had ACAB inked across his knuckles. All cops are bastards. I suppose, if you're a gangster. His beady eyes nearly popped.

'The fuckin slut bitch. I knew it. Whore! I fuckin knew it.'

I was used to seeing the reactions of people who've just received proof that their spouse was doing the dirt on them. It was never easy, so I adopted the professional approach of not caring, not getting involved on any level. This guy was little different. I stayed dead quiet and looked at the ground. He pulled his mobile from a pocket and sent a fast text.

'Okay, that's that' he said finally, his pockmarked face red with controlled rage. 'Here's your cash. Good job, kid.'

He took a fat envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I didn't feel it would be a good idea to check it.

'It's all there. On the nail.'

Like the fucker read my mind. Okay mister, so are you going to bump me off?

'As long as this doesn't get out, there'll be no trouble from me. Understand? You were recommended to me, to be trusted.'

'Recommended by whom?'

'Has anyone else seen these? Did you do um up yourself?' he asked, changing the subject forcefully.

I slurred something, then pulled myself together.

'Yes. No. I mean nobody's seen them and I did do them myself.'

I was starting to lose it. He grabbed me roughly by my chin and stared into my bleary eyes. He was a strong fucker.

'Good. Now, wipe my number out of your phone and make like you never even heard of me. If I need you again, I'll ring you.'

He turned to walk away while I was going through my mobile's phonebook looking for the entry labelled NEWCLIENT2. All fingers. But I had to find out who he was and called to his wide, receding back.

'Who are you? So I can forget you properly.'

That was probably the dumbest thing I'd said all year, but he replied anyway.

'I'm Greg O'Doherty and these pictures are of my wife and my cuntin brother. My ex-brother. You never met me, aright?'

What I'd give for a brother, even a bollicks of a one. Growing up an only child was no fun at all.

'Right, thanks,' but he was gone, clanging up the steel staircase.

I was not in good shape. I went into one of the towers, quickly checked the cash, which was fine, and thought about climbing up for the view. But my dreadful stomach and fearful vertigo said Bad idea. I needed to escape.

Outside on the street, the two goons had gone, so I deduced they were O'Doherty's muscle. Greg O'Doherty, normally described in the media as The Godfather of Limerick. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I flagged down a perfectly-timed taxi, glancing around Castle Street uneasily, tumbled in and patted the leather seat in thanks. For I would not stumble around the Island alone with fifty cents in my pocket, let alone two grand.

CHAPTER 10. HEAVEN

The taxi hurtled back to town by Bridge Street past the city courthouse - gangs, armed cops, kids, media all hanging about - then up O'Connell Street. Turned right towards the new bridge, took me to my dealer's place, in one of the new dockside apartment complexes. Steamboat Quay (and he a steamer!), just around the corner from my own house. I was delighted with myself. Appreciated my easy life for a few choice seconds.

Brian's pad was fairly swanky, with deadly views of the river. I stood on his rooftop balcony and smoked a fag while he fixed some vodka tonics, complete with umbrellas, ice and lime. Quality.

'I could do with going on the rip tonight, I'll tell you.'

'Well, this should help.'

He handed me a small Ziploc bag, full almost to the top with white powder. Two grams, maybe? There was a logo printed in white on the bag, one I hadn't seen. It was a snow-capped mountain, with the word HEAVEN under it. Sweet as a fucking nut.

'Mind if I do a line?' I said, eager. Too eager.

'I'll join you. Let me get the stuff.'

Good-looking, into intelligent chat, always sorted. If I was gay, Brian would be my type.

So I leaned against the balcony railing, watching the river in its quiet progress to the sea. A number of excited people had gathered by the quayside just upriver from my position, towards Poor Man's Kilkee. They were pointing at something trapped in the eddies downstream from the wall of stone that jutted into the river. A police launch arrived on the scene, flashing blue. I got Brian's binoculars, normally used for watching people undressing across the river and up in the Clarion hotel. Much better.

He laid out four lines on a vanity mirror and we took two each. The hit rushed forward and assaulted us, resistance futile.

I was filled with energy, clarity, vitality. Fake, chemical, but tangible and lovely all the same. With supreme confidence, I took my drink to the balcony, master of all I surveyed. I gushed like a demented idiot about how great life was, half-watching the drama on the river below, babbling. There was a bit of a shimmer to my vision, amplified by the binoculars. But things were sharper, edges cleaner. I felt fucking fantastic. The crash would come, I knew that.

But I didn't care. As long as I had cash, there would always be more. The stereo pumped out a Verve CD, Bittersweet Symphony at full tilt. Try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die. Fuck. But the drugs do work. Now. For me. So I sang.

'Hang on, action,' said Brian, his wide eyes drawn to the river.

More of a commotion on the water. Cries, a diver, dayglo jackets. The Coast Guard Sikorsky, all red and white, swooped up the estuary and hovered near us, its rotors forcing spray from the river in kaleidoscopic patterns that lured me down. Then a body was pulled from the water, on to the launch's deck. It was headless. A no-brainer, I knew in my aching gut that it was O'Doherty's cheating brother. Luke.

'Rather you than me, sunshine,' I said.

Then I raised my glass and said Clink.

She sat on the bed, propped up on four pillows so she could see out the narrow sash window. The bottom panes of glass were frosted, so she couldn't see the others walking around in their endless circles or sometimes going crazy in the big field below. So she looked at the sky. Today, the clouds were like snakes in a blue sea. Any meaning eluded her. She'd once heard of snakes called water moccasins and thought What a lovely name for a snake. What peace she enjoyed.

At the time it happened, she wasn't in control. But she understood now. Christ, they'd all drive you mad in the general ward. But this was nicer, with a nice nurse to look after you and a bit of peace and quiet. And the food was better, too. She'd have to stay here. Just keep cutting the wrists. Sure, it didn't even hurt and look at this for a fine time. She genuinely felt better.

Time evaporated.

But some things stayed with her, like feeling sorry for her poor husband, who had to get the two doctors to sign for her to come in and get herself straightened out. After what he'd put her through, serves him right. Slashing her wrists probably gave him a fright, too. Still, she worried about him and how he was getting along without her. Sure, he couldn't even boil an egg.

And, most of all, she fretted over her poor boys. She didn't know what would become of them. She imagined so many fearful events, tragedies, manias. And her tarot rarely lied. It must end like this for all of us, she concluded. Lonely, confused, frightened. When the thoughts came on too strong, she asked the nurse for more medication. Then she'd stop worrying. Instead, she'd look at the clouds.

CHAPTER 11. BETRAYED

Deirdre Doyle often listened to Leonard Cohen. Charlie would give out to her, saying Any chance of some happy music? But she didn't want his druggy reggae or trance on in the house. Anyway, Cohen was a poet.

The days had dragged by while he set up his private detective business. She wasn't happy about him chucking in his steady security job and taking out a fat credit union loan on a whim. Her main problems: he obtained his detection expertise from Elmore Leonard novels and a mail order course. Plus, he spent all his working days and nights looking for adultery. Finally, he could get killed if he took on the wrong client.

Actually, the last problem wasn't such a biggie.

So she listened to the CD to the end, packed the essentials, drove the kids out to her mother, went to meet her lover. Charlie wouldn't get home until the middle of the night, out of his head, full of shit about how he was finally going to make a killing. But no more audience.

Driving to see her lover - at his sprawling modernist pile past Killaloe - gave her a unique thrill, an electric buzz through her nervous system. Why do women cheat? Because the simple act of having sex with someone on the sly was enough to give a buzz just like the first time, the very first orgasm. There was never any real risk of getting caught so the thrill just came from knowing that she was screwing behind Charlie's back. And he, with all his detective bullshit, didn't have a clue. She smiled. Anyway, it was his big mistake, screwing Sara. Snotty bitch. He still thought she didn't know.

And he didn't even have a clue about her revenge fuck with his so-called best friend. The dope. But, all over now.

CHAPTER 12. WIRED

I sent Dave a text to let him know we were sorted and that I was still alive. His reply said Body in rvr! Ur mate? I told him Yeah. He was due at my place at six, so I scooted back to mine. Put a slab of those tiny French beers from Tesco on the floor beside me. Drank eight watching Richard and Judy. Couldn't sit though, kept walking around, doing pointless shit, like dusting picture frames and arranging magazines on the coffee table so all the corners were squared off. I was wired for sound.

Then Dave came, pounding on the door like he was the fuzz or something. I changed the TV channel.

'Listen, latest news is two more fuckin' bodies have turned up. No IDs yet, but there's talk of connections to the O'Dohertys.'

'Fuck me. What in the name of Jesus is going on? In. Quick.'

I locked the door, checked it, then checked the back door and low windows. Secure. My head began to spin, which I feared was becoming its normal rest state. I sat down heavily on the couch. Dave joined me, started on the beer.

'Like I say, there's talk that the O'Dohertys did it,' he said.

'Talk?'

'Yeah, in the pub.'

'You went back?'

'Why the fuck not? They're dropping like flies around here. Why not enjoy what time we have?'

He had a point.

'I honestly thought the body they fished out earlier was you, Charlie, I really did!'

'No worries, man. O'Doherty was grand, he just threatened me lightly and paid up. Who are these new two?'

'No clue yet, might come out later. So where's the coke, dude? Let's get cracking man. Carpe diem and all that.'

'Here's the coke, there's the mirror. Now can you look after yourself while I have a shower?'

The shower radio crackled as a breathless reporter on a dodgy mobile filled the presenter in on the latest killings. The cops were saying, off the record, that the two were heavies from O'Doherty's rival gang, the Brownes. They'd been found a few miles outside town. Both shot twice in the face. There was a big forensics operation going on and it looked like there wouldn't be any positive IDs until morning. No major doubts about how they died though. The radio batteries died.

'Gowl of a thing!,' I roared.

I shaved badly with my near-blunt blade, ripped that little web under my right ear for good measure. I stood in the weak shower, blood flowing generously from my cut and down my body. I just stared at it, hoping it wasn't some kind of freakish symbolism.

Out of the shower and the cut still bled. I found an old container of talcum powder and put a lump on the cut. It soaked up the flow and, after a little more was applied, the blood clotted. I dressed quickly, loose jeans, clean shoes and a stripy shirt.

A small photo was wedged into the top corner of the bedroom mirror frame. It was of me and my family, back in the days when I had one. I looked bored, she looked pissed off. The kids looked happy enough, but how were they to know? Now it's all dysfunction. Officially. A choke in my throat turned out to be a lump of coke. Down to Dave. He was really eager now.

'Listen, we're going disco dancing tonight.'

'What's wrong with a club?'

'And the shots are half price 'til midnight,' he said, knowing exactly how to push my buttons.

'That's sorted then. Let's go.'

'Doesn't kick off until ten. We might as well chill here for a while?'

'Nah. I feel like pastures new. Let's go.'

'Where?'

'Let's just follow our noses.'

We finished our drinks and found bars. The Old Quarter, The Cornmarket, Smyths, The Icon, Nancy's. After some bleary, condensed hours talking gibberish to disinterested strangers, we decided to make our way up to the Royal George and the disco.

This decision would unleash two new chains of events. One of violence, fear and confusion. One of outright horror.

CHAPTER 13. WHAT SHE FOUND MOST STRANGE

Human depravity no longer held any surprises for her. She'd seen too much. So she swapped Nigeria's urban chaos, scorching grassland and steaming rain forest for concrete streets, corner shops, new cars.

Her trip began with a regular job that went wrong one day. She'd met the guy - a sweating German, about sixty, backpack - at Lagos Airport. She held up a name sign as the passengers from the Lufthansa flight came through arrivals. He was in shock, like the other first-timers, smiled gratefully when she caught his eye. It was her job to put him at ease. She took his arm and led him straight through the gangs of pickpockets and muggers in the airport building. She said nothing, even when a young boy tripped the man and he fell heavily. She helped him up and pulled him faster.

Outside, the air was thick with heat, smoke and mosquitoes. She took him past the line of taxis to an unmarked car. The driver smiled a mouthful of golden teeth, the man beside him fidgeted with a machine gun. The German froze.

'Show him your ID,' she said.

The man with the gun handed his police ID to the driver, who held it open for the German to see.

'Okay,' he said and got into the car.

'Without protection, we wouldn't make it into the city,' she explained as the car lurched into traffic and sped away from the roaring jets and screaming travellers.

On the bumpy highway, she advised the German to keep his head down to avoid the searching eyes of the gunmen who drive up and down the airport road.

'I need to stop, please,' he said. 'I need a drink or I will have a heart attack.'

His English was good. He seemed intelligent. So why had he fallen for this?

'We can't stop now,' she said, rubbing his shoulder. 'When we get to Lagos, then we will stop for a drink before we complete the contract. You have the deposit?'

'Yes, yes. Okay.' A smile. 'Thank you.'

Before they left the highway, a car ahead of them was attacked by robbers. They shot the driver dead and, when the car crashed off the road, they attacked the passengers, taking everything, leaving them bleeding in the bush.

Night fell quickly.

She sighed with relief when they reached the suburbs. There was a drinking shack where they could take a private room. Let him have his drink, she thought. Poor fool.

They stopped in a dark laneway so he could get into the bar without being seen, attracting attention. The driver and the cop waited in the car.

He wanted whiskey so she ordered a clean bottle and two glasses and took him through a filthy passageway to a tiny room with a tea chest table and a tattered couch. On the wall, pictures of topless women, some white, some black. On the floor, spilt drink and bloodstains. Local music - unknowable chanting against a backbeat of jungle drums and synthesisers - blared from a wired speaker. He gulped a drink. And another. He paced the room, holding onto his rucksack, fearing he would be robbed at any minute.

Not yet, she thought.

She was tired, poured herself a drink.

Suddenly he was on her, forcing her neck back with his forearm while his right hand explored her new panties. Strong for an old guy. She tried to scream, couldn't. His whiskey breath was all over her as he whispered to her in German. 'Meine Schönheit.' She managed to reach her handbag, groped for her nail file.

She found it and swung it hard into his neck. He stopped his assault, stood up. He tried to speak, but all that came from his mouth were bubbles of spit and a trickle of blood. He fell backwards heavily, hit his head on the ground, spasmed.

She got to her feet and quickly explored his rucksack. A bundle of euros in an envelope. She knew she would be blamed for this trouble, that she would sacrifice her life to appease the German consul. So she took the money and ran, ran through cholera-ridden alleys to the ID maker.

Getting to the promised land was arduous. But she was now a UN-registered potential genocide victim. With nobody to protect her, she'd be in line for having her genitals mutilated or her limbs chopped off for muti rituals or just for the hell of it by children with AKs. She had her proof: family death certs, photos, a genuine passport and official stamps, so she was shown a sort of tolerance on her journey through officialdom. That made it bearable and she appreciated that. Others, millions more across Africa and Asia, had no luck at all. But all her money was spent.

The bureaucrats in Ireland still struggled to show human emotion, their brows creased by the endless floods of poor and dispossessed. So many hopefuls amazed at Ireland's economic excesses, minimum wage opportunity and actual welfare system. It's all relative, the Irish would say. Still, she got on with it.

What she found most strange: Gangs of women drunk and falling around the streets at night. None but the very old and very crazy in church on Sundays. White men desperate for her body. Police not interested in anyone unless they had committed murder. Nobody able to speak French.

Her payday came in a white envelope marked Department of Justice, Euality and Law Reform. Inside, a work permit conditional on her joining a list for a council house in Limerick. She'd never heard of Limerick, knowing only Dublin's north inner city and a seedy State-financed hostel. Multi-ethnic. Packed with Eastern Europeans, too coarse for her, with their constant come-ons and bootleg vodka. She survived on a paltry hand-out, vouchers. So she walked down a threatening, addict-infested O'Connell Street, under the gleaming Spike and sat on the Liffey boardwalk with the junkies and winos and Spanish students and thought about it.

She went back to the hostel and started packing.

So she wound up in Knockalisheen, just outside Limerick. Her new home used to be a 1940s army barracks. Now it was home to immigrants from twenty-seven different countries. Etoile lived in a corrugated iron-clad billet, a dozen tiny partitioned rooms down each wall. The military Zen was gone, replaced by a barrage of photos, art and smells from all over the planet, every bedspace a desperate statement of identity.

She made certain to become friends with a powerful woman, Precious, a woman who worked muti magic. Precious took an interest in Etoile, began to teach her the many secrets of her ancient gift.

One evening, Etoile helped Precious perform an abortion on a woman from Sudan. It was Friday, so all the guards - private security, alcoholics to a man - were drinking in their Portacabin and playing cards, forty-five. They went to the woman's room. Then Precious gave her a herbal drink which contained an abortificant, RU-486.

'Relax, child,' she said.

Precious and Etoile went outside and smoked cigarettes.

'She is lucky,' said Precious. 'She is from Darfur. She has been given asylum and doesn't need the baby now. Do you like it here, child?'

'I want to stay. The air is so fresh against my skin. Yes, I like it.'

'There are fortunes to be made. Trust me. I will teach you my ways. You will be my apprentice.'

Precious saw something of herself in Etoile, but she also saw an insecurity, a kind of fear.

They returned to the patient after two hours. Precious gave her another drug, this time a prostaglandin to help dilate her cervix. Then she used a vacuum aspirator to suck out the embryo. Though abortion was illegal in Ireland, she got the drugs and the tools and the clients easily enough.

Etoile flinched as the little glass jar filled with globs of flesh and clotted blood. The job done, Precious rubbed the woman's forehead and gave her a morphine injection. The husband paid Precious five hundred euros in fifties and stayed with his wife.

Precious washed her gear, then packed it into a small black leather bag. The jar of wasted life she gazed at.

'How will you dispose of it?' asked Etoile.

'You have much to learn child,' laughed Precious. 'This is worth many times more than the operation itself. Almost pure stem cells! The highest bidder will get this.'

She placed the jar inside a fold in her robe and went to her room to prepare potions.

So Etoile found a job in a supermarket and got to see how a developed Western economy functioned.

Then she applied for a better job, doing massage therapy for a fake doctor who offered holistic healing to bored women with lots of money. He liked her, thought she had an exotic air about her, felt his clients would enjoy having her around, felt her bottom at the end of the interview. She took the groping, then took the job.

The system caught up with her in the form of an inspector from the Department. He was waiting when she came out from town on the special bus, one evening after work. The manager met the bus and took Etoile to an interview room in the administration block. The man looked like a cop, showed a nondescript ID. He quizzed her at length about her allegedly dead family. Showed her a document supposedly signed by her father - a Nigerian national, not Senegalese at all - just weeks before. She kept her story up and cried with fear and confusion. She wasn't sure if he bought it. He said he'd have to make enquiries, that he'd be back soon and that she could keep working, but not to leave Limerick. And to sign a book in Henry Street Garda Station every week. She said Yes of course.

But inside she screamed, raged.

CHAPTER 14. WELL HELLO

Approaching the club where the disco had just kicked off, I realised that I was officially out of it. Two ugly bouncers lurked by the open doors, watching me closely. There didn't seem to be anybody else going in.

I feared a deserted disco, club being too fancy a description for the place. But no, the place was mobbed. YMCA played, floor-shakingly loud. We paid, a tenner each, my treat. We stuck our coats in the cloakroom.

'Three fucking quid to hang up a coat? They've some cheek,' muttered Dave.

'Chill, man. I'm just hoping it's not gay night.'

I gazed at a delicious African-looking woman who stood by the bar. She'd been watching me. The gap on her!

She smiled back. Bingo. Closer so.

'My name's Charlie. What are you drinking?'

'Whatever.'

My kind of woman. I shouted and shouted and shouted and eventually got three vodka Red Bulls. I felt a boogie coming on. It started at my feet, then my chin got going. I looked at her and drank in the sight. She wore a skin tight red dress. She had a figure to go to hell for and she knew it.

'You here alone?' I asked.

'I'm with a couple of friends. Thanks for the drink.'

'No probs. Boyfriends or girlfriends?'

'Girlfriends. My husband's at home minding the kids.'

Okay so.

'Doesn't he mind you being here?'

'Do I look like I care what he thinks?'

'No. It's rapid here tonight, isn't it?'

'Rapid.'

My radar switched on. As did a tingle in my groin. If I played my cards right, I could be on. I took her by the elbow and led her towards a quieter corner, where we could talk, not shout. I had enough of that lark in my marriage.

'Where you from?'

'Garryowen.'

'No, originally. You weren't born in Garryowen, were you?'

'I'm from Senegal, Dakar.'

'Is that where the Paris-Dakar rally ends up?'

'Very good. You impress me.'

'And isn't it where Patrick Vieira's from?'

'Qui? Who?'

'Plays for Arsenal. Football.'

'Ah, oui.' She pronounced it way.

'I used to live near Highbury. Big fan.'

'Formidable.'

Her French accent was gorgeous, arousing.

'How did you manage to get in? Is Senegal so bad?'

'Economically, is not too bad, I suppose. But my family suffered religious persecution. That's how I got a visa for Ireland. My father was butchered. And my mother. And my sisters.'

'Christ.'

'Yes. We're Catholic. We were. Just two percent of the population. The rest are Muslims, with a few indigenous religions thrown in, witch doctors, muti, all that craziness.'

'Did your husband come here with you?'

'No. I met him here,' she smiled. 'He's an Irishman, just like you.'

'Fuck me. This is getting just a little too complicated.'

'Let's dance.'

She led me by the hand to the crowded dance floor. The slow set.

'So what's your name?'

'Etoile. It means star.'

'Star? Nice. Apt.'

'How charming you are, Charlie.'

If she was trying to sweet talk me, she was succeeding. As well as the flattery, her hands caressed my arse and her big, juicy breasts crushed my chest. I'd never had sex with a black woman before, never even kissed one. My brain said Be careful, but my crotch said Do your bit for race relations, son.

She lifted her head, and its smell of lilies and sandalwood, from my shoulder and brought her lips closer to mine. This was it. Her lips were big and soft, yes, but she didn't kiss or taste any different from any other women. I was slightly disappointed. Only slightly. We snogged the whole way through George Michael's Careless Whisper, eighties love songs never having gone out of fashion in Limerick. My heart was beating too fast. My dick was too hard. Fucking coke, no blood left for my brain. I needed to sit down before I fainted.

We found a soft seat and she sat on my lap, her arms around my neck. We talked for a while. Her friends came round. Not as hot, unfortunately. But that didn't bother Dave, who'd hooked up with an amazing babe from someplace well east of Limerick. Funny how all these people wound up in Europe's last outpost.

I was dizzy, beginning to hallucinate, throbbing nausea at the pit of my stomach.

Dave disappeared again and I asked Etoile if she'd like to come back to my place for a while. She said 'Yes, but I have to get home by four.'

No problem.

CHAPTER 15. GHOST TOWN

We got our coats back and headed out into a humid, still night. Town was dead. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. That night it was bad. We walked through empty streets, her heels clicking, my mouth laughing. I felt good, holding her hand, imagining the sex, until we turned a corner and saw the three teenage knackers walking towards us.

They were eating chips out of brown paper bags, the stink of vinegar drifting, burning my tender sinuses.

Each had a shaven head, wore the knacker uniform: hoodies, sports gear, Nike logos. Eyes of sharks, predatory and emotionless. Out of it on something serious. Big fucking trouble, in other words. My muscles tensed, adrenaline flooding my alcohol-sodden bloodstream. My fists were clenched before they even registered me. I held Etoile's hand tightly.

Suddenly, contact.

'Look at the nigger lover, lads!' one cried, 'Do you like niggers, shom?'

I said nothing. She looked at me, scared. We kept walking.

'Stupid gowl. Look at you, shom! What's wrong with Irish birds?'

'Fuckin gowl,' chirped the last.

I thought they'd just take the piss and pass by. They didn't seem much older than thirteen or fourteen, but those little fuckers are often the most dangerous. They can kill or rape and only get a couple of measly years in a home. And the fuckers know it, as do the gangsters who use them to transport drugs and guns.

They got closer, staring into our faces, ready for their feeding frenzy. Etoile tightened her grip on my hand. They stopped, blocking our way.

'I hear they like it up the arse, shom.'

'You'll have a brown langer tonight, you gowl. One way or the other.'

'I bet she's a cheap whore an all, the dirty fuckin monkey.'

This last comment was too much for me. First rule of streetfighting: Get In First. My heart was crashing through my chest, every muscle ready. Cocaine literally makes you feel invincible. I let go of Etoile's hand.

'Finished?' I asked.

Dead eyes looked back, especially on the biggest one, in the Man U tracksuit. Wasn't used to getting lip back. Slow bewilderment. He reached a hand inside his jacket. My cue.

I flicked my cigarette into the middle-sized one's face and loafed the big one first, right between his vacant eyes. A satisfying crack and he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, his knife clattering. The others were stunned, which gave me time enough to kick the little one hard in the balls before he had a chance to react. Number three lashed out at me with his fist, but he only caught me a glancing blow off the side of my head. I felt nothing, turned to face him.

I saw surprise in his baby face - this wasn't how it normally went - and he backed off, just a fraction. I lunged for him and managed to grab him by his shellsuit, gave him a headbutt just as squarely as I'd done his buddy. He was a little shorter than me, so my skull's arc ended on the bridge of his nose, which made a wet crunch and then bled heavily.

He was on the ground then, while the guy with the sore balls just stood there, clutched his crotch, a look of pained confusion on him. There were tears in his eyes, just a fucking child. Anger welled up inside me. I hadn't been in a fight in years. I'd always used my mouth to avoid aggro, but now I was relishing the fight, close to losing it completely.

'Now, ye little cunts. Are ye finished?'

Silence. Good for them. I was ready to kick them to death. I really, really wanted to. Etoile held my arm, pulling me away.

'I'll take that as a yes.'

She was unscathed, and she took my hand. The knackers shouted after us - You're fucking dead, you gowl - but I wasn't listening. The main cop shop was up ahead and I didn't want to risk a public order charge. Not tonight, no fucking way. Etoile kept telling me how brave I was and how much of a gentleman I was. That helped, but a heavy, throbbing pain began to boil up in my forehead, while the nausea in my stomach was overtaken by a sense of dark foreboding. I thanked God they'd only one knife on them.

CHAPTER 16. NEARLY NEVER WON ANYTHING

So we got back to my place. My head wasn't bad. Some bruising and a little blood. It would be shit in the morning, but there was no need to interrupt the planned romance with a late night trip to casualty in the pain-wracked hellhole that is Limerick Regional Hospital. I fixed some screwdrivers and offered her a line of coke. She'd never taken it before, so I coaxed her into trying a little line. She snorted it and coughed and sneezed for about ten whole minutes. We laughed. I had no such trouble and the drug helped to ease the throbbing in my forehead, to forestall the agony that would surely come. I fished out my favourite Bob Marley CD, Babylon By Bus, and stuck it on.

'Not all black people are obsessed with Bob Marley, you know.'

'Sorry, I just thought - '

'Like you said yourself, colour is only skin deep.'

'So what do you like?'

'Got any Bowie or U2?'

'U2? You what? Only every album they've ever done. Hang on. Are you fond of sand dunes and salty air?'

'Of course.'

'Then it'll have to be Groove Armada, won't it?'

We kissed for an age on the couch, happy mood music, just a little lamp lit. I wanted to make love to her right there, but she'd only let me fondle her remarkable breasts. This Catholic thing seemed genuine. 'Too soon,' she said. 'Too soon.'

We talked and she seemed to get me. After three, I called her a cab. She kissed me for a long time while the cab waited outside. I gave the driver a tenner. Before they drove off, she opened her window and kissed me again.

'See you next week at the disco?'

'For sure! Good night!' Something jumped in my brain. 'Hey! What age are you, by the way?'

She looked me straight in the eye and smiled.

'Nineteen.'

And she was gone.

Half my age. For fuck's sake.

There was no way out. She'd tried to force the door open with her feet, her back arched against the back wall. No good. It was pitch dark, but the surfaces smelt and felt like wood. She figured she was in a wardrobe or something.

She could have been in there a day or just a few hours. She had nothing to which she could relate time. The prick'd taken her watch, her rings, her necklace. When he grabbed her off the street and into his van, this was the last thing she expected. She knew him to see him, knew he was a hard man in Moyross, knew he was a fucking nutter.

'Let me go, you prick,' she screamed at him.

He slapped her hard in the face and warned her to shut up. He pushed her face into the passenger seat as he drove. She knew that nobody outside could see her. She was in deep shit.

He drove to a house out the road, a quiet place with not a sinner around. He took her by the hair and dragged her into the house. Up the stairs and into a bedroom. She was afraid he was going to rape her. It was what she feared most.

'Be quiet and be good and you'll be alright,' he said.

His face was impassive, showed no emotion. Then he put a rag over her mouth. It smelt of chemicals, went right through her mind and she blacked out.

When she woke up, she was in the wardrobe. She was thankful that she hadn't been raped and expected the police or her mother to open the door any minute.

'Thanks mam,' she'd say. 'I promise I'll be a good girl from now on. For always. I love you mam.'

She practiced this over and over, whispering to herself, not knowing that she had much more to fear.

CHAPTER 17. BLACK LABRADOR

The rest of the night passed slowly, with sleep a distant, formless desire.

My ticker was still going ninety and the pain in my head was back more than ever. I spent the night pacing the house, turning things on and off. Then the sky woke up, so I closed the curtains and made tea.

I smoked cigarettes with early morning Sky News on low. I almost choked when LIMERICK GANGLAND SLAUGHTER scrolled across the screen. Volume, quick.

'Police in Limerick in the Irish Republic are investigating three brutal murders which have shocked a city that has seen more than its fair share of violence in recent years. Yesterday afternoon, the decapitated body of a man was pulled from the River Shannon,' said the talking head.

Cue footage of the scene I'd witnessed from Brian's balcony.

'The man was identified as a member of one of the city's top drug gangs. The rest of his body hasn't yet been found. Later that day, a grisly scene unfolded just outside the city, when the bodies of two men were found in a derelict mill, by a woman walking her dog.'

Cue footage of police tape across an open gateway into an old ruin. Nightfall. Powerful floodlights on metal tripods and forensics guys in white plastic overalls milling about.

'Police have not yet formally identified the two men, who had been shot in the head, but local sources believe that they were members of a rival gang. It is now feared that a tit-for-tat war has broken out between the gangs, the prize being control of Limerick's drugs market.'

They skipped on to the next item, which was yet another suicide bombing in a Baghdad restaurant, so I turned the volume back down low.

'Now Limerick tops the Iraq war.'

I often spoke aloud to myself. It was part of the adjustment from family to single life. My heart, which had become relatively relaxed, was now pumping full blast again. My hands shook as I made another joint. The penny dropped, rattling my brain as it bounced off every tangled neuron. O'Doherty was using his brother's death to start a turf war. If he planned it right, the Brownes would be confused and scared shitless and the cops would stand back and let him get on with it.

Why so keen to kill? Limerick has more than its share of big colleges. That's over fifteen thousand students who like nothing better than a couple of Es a week and hash every night. Add in the demand for speed coming up to exam times, plus the indigenous drug-using population - coke is their preferred buzz - and you've got a massive market. It's been said many times that drug dealing is just capitalism taken to its logical conclusion. And so it is.

So O'Doherty used me. But why? I'm the only one who can connect him with his brother's murder and upset his plan. So why? What does this fucker have in store yet?

Bollocks. What a fucking dupe. My addled brain couldn't comprehend which cog in the machine I was supposed to be, besides the spare prick who was taken for a ride.

I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my groaning stomach, a feeling of dread and impending fucking doom. Good morning.

TV recycled the Limerick story every hour, but they had nothing new to add, so I switched on the radio in the kitchen. The local stations were full of it, nationals too.

The dog was a black Labrador, name of Dora.

I caught sight of my face in a small round mirror on the fridge. I looked like shit. My forehead was a massive purple and red bruise. It would have been obvious to a nun that I'd headbutted someone. Fuck. And the pain. Plus, there was this tedious ache. Deep inside, right of my bellybutton. Liver or kidneys or something. Fuck again. I fished in the drawers for some Solpadeine. Eureka! I took the last four. They fizzed gently in a glass of tap water and the pain in my head began to ease within minutes of drinking the foul concoction. If I had to vote for the best invention in human history, headache tablets would be right up there with the Pill. And vodka. And cocaine. All chemicals.

I washed my face with a wet cloth. I made a mental note to go into town later, find something for my bruise. Holistic, pharmaceutical, anything. For now, a bag of frozen peas ought to help. The freezer was bare, save for some frozen pancakes, assorted bread ends and half a bag of corn-on-the-cobs. So I held a Green Giant against my tender skull, worried about winding up in a freezer myself.

CHAPTER 18. HARD DOUGHNUTS

So Dave arrived, carrying a bag of doughnuts.

'They're from yesterday. What happened your head? You look like the fucking elephant man.'

'I was bringing that bird back, whole other story, I'll tell you, and three little knackers called her a nigger whore. There, on Henry Street.'

'Little fuckers. And you nutted them?'

'Two. One I gave an unmerciful kick in the balls, ruptured him.'

We laughed at my exploits.

'Who were they?' asked Dave, some concern on his face for the first time. 'You know you'll see them again, yeah? This fucking kip of a town is too small for you not to. Did you recognise any of them?'

'To be honest, no. All I saw was the skinhead haircuts and the Nike suits. They were just standard knackers.'

'Fuck. We'll have to ask around. They should be easy enough to spot for a few days, anyway.'

'Would they have gone to a hospital?'

'Who'd know that? Sara?'

'Yeah. If they went to the Regional, she'd have names and addresses. I'll call her. Coffee?'

'Cool.'

We went to the kitchen, which faced north and was always the coldest and darkest room in the house. Not pleasant. Maybe it helped to mess up my life in that house, my days always beginning with dark cereal and frigid coffee.

There was a week's worth of dirty dishes and spoiled food, every work surface hidden.

'So, you reckon O'Doherty's behind everything?' I asked, clearing a space in the chaos.

'No doubt. He is the puppet master, your Svengali.'

'Or Geppetto. Am I Pinocchio? Am I next?'

'I don't know. I don't know why he'd bother using you for the pictures. He could have just killed him anyway.'

Dave pondered, rubbing his chin in an exaggerated way.

'Fuck this for a game of soldiers,' I said.

'Maybe for his family? Whatever about framing the Brownes for it, he knows the truth'll come out at some stage. The pictures are his insurance for the family,' said Dave, making sense.

'But how can the truth come out if I'm the only one who knows? Did he kill him himself?'

'Fucking weird.'

'Hang on a sec. In the castle, as soon as he saw the pics, he sent a text, like he was giving the execution order.'

'Well, there was no fucking around anyway. The body was found just a bit after you met O'Doherty. It must have been dumped at the far end of the Island and floated downstream towards Brian's when you got there. The timing's right.'

'So O'Doherty's heavies, or some contracted fuckers, killed him, cut off his head, then fucked him in the river. Nothing to connect O'Doherty. No forensics, nothing. And I'm his alibi.'

'Clever.'

'You don't get to rule Limerick's biggest gang without being a special breed of fucker. This guy's something else. I'm in deep fucking trouble, Dave. Deep shit.'

'Up Shit's Creek.'

I drank some coffee quietly. The day was off to a horrific start and it was only just gone nine. I thought again of Sara, rang her. It was a calculated gamble.

I hadn't called her in a couple of weeks. We used to be shag buddies, meeting every so often for a late night or early morning bit of sex, depending on her shifts. The chemical spark between us – once unstoppable – had died quickly. She was a doctor: nice car, access to drugs, fabulous arse and a definite mad streak. But too serious, too analytical, too controlling to put up with me forever. And she cost me my marriage. Okay, she was the straw that broke the camel's back, so.

'Hi babe, how you doing?'

'Long time no hear. Got yourself a new girlfriend?'

'No, not really. What can I say?'

'Say you're sorry.'

'Sorry.'

'That's better.'

'Okay,' I said.

'And?'

'And I was wondering if you were working last night?'

'No, I'm only after starting. Why?'

'I'm just trying to track down a couple of young fellahs. They were in a fight in town around two or three this morning. Two head injuries. They might have gone out to ye for dressings or whatever.'

'Age?'

'Early teens. Standard knacker types.'

'You were in a fight with them weren't you?'

'Yeah.'

She was quiet for a few long seconds.

'Well I'm not sure if I want to give you the information you need to go after them.'

'I'm not going to, I promise.'

The thought hadn't really occurred to me. What would I do? Call to their houses in Moyross or Southill or Weston and threaten them? What a damned mess.

'I just want to know where they're from, self-preservation, that's all.'

'Okay. I'll look it up on the system. Call you in a while. Later.'

I turned to Dave, who'd been listening in.

'If we can find them, it might be better to scare them off,' he suggested.

I looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

'Go on.'

'You know what it's like. You will meet them again sometime. If they recognise you, they'll stick a knife in you. It's not good news, but it's reality.'

'It bites.'

We sat down for a while, smoking joints, watching the news. I began to melt into the couch. Then my phone rang. The display flashed Sara.

'What's the story?'

'I suppose it's a case of do you want the good news first or the bad news?'

CHAPTER 19. REALLY BAD NEWS

Sara sounded just a tad anxious. And she was used to dealing with stress. So, not good.

'Good news, please. Good news always gets priority.'

'Good news is that none of them was seriously injured. We got one with a broken nose and one with, wait for it, a ruptured testicle.'

'Shit. Who are they?'

'Well, that's the bad news. They're from Moyross. One's called Jimmy O'Rourke and the other's Sam Flynn, of the Flynns.'

'Flynn, from Moyross,' I repeated, so Dave could hear. The colour dropped from his face and he mouthed a silent Fuuuck.

'Yeah. He's the one with the busted ball. He's, let's say, upset. Broken nose was allowed home, but ball boy is still in. I checked. He's got a few blokes in with him now.'

'Blokes?' My blood froze.

'Yep. Real heavy-looking. Three of them. And their language is worse than yours,' she laughed. 'Do the names mean anything to you?'

'One, yeah. The Flynns in Moyross are part of a Provo splinter cell. Hardcore, well-armed nasties.'

'IRA?' she whispered.

'Not exactly. Maybe Real IRA. It's just a handy cover for their dealing and thievery. Helps scare the competition away.'

'Well you better be careful. Sounds like they're coming after you. Have you called the police?'

'No. I don't think I want to. Not yet, anyway. Can you go back and try and overhear anything?'

'I'll see.'

'Be careful. Oh, Sara?'

'Yeah?'

'Any idea how long he'll be kept in?'

'Could be a couple of days. I'll try and find out.'

'You're an angel.'

Dave was still quiet. He shook his head, as if trying to dismiss what he'd just heard. But it wouldn't go away.

'This is deep, deep shit, bwana.'

'I know, man. I know.'

My hands began trembling and I made my way to the stash box for my drugs. My crutches. I imagined I heard the squealing tyres of a stolen car as it crashed through my front door. I looked through a narrow gap in the curtains to see three huge seagulls ripping open my rubbish bags, which hadn't been collected. Again. The birds looked at me derisively and continued their work. They had my number, the bastards. I cursed them and went back to Dave in the kitchen.

'Maybe you could call O'Doherty?'

'For what?'

'To put some pressure on the Flynns, as a favour to you.'

'Why would he want to do me a favour?'

'You're his alibi. You're worth more to him alive than dead.'

'Thanks, Dave.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I'm just trying to think of a way out.'

He had a point.

'You're right. It might be my best bet, now that you mention it.'

'Do the Flynns work on their own?'

'As far as I know, yeah. I'm not sure where they get their drugs from. I'll have to find out.'

'Who'd know?'

'A copper. I'll call Pat.'

'Won't he finger you for the ball-breaking?'

'Probably. I don't think he'd care.'

'Give him a ring.'

I called Pat, who was at work and couldn't talk. He sent me a text twenty minutes later, saying he'd meet me after work for a pint. He'd confirm later. I replied Cool.

'Okay. We should know more about the Flynns by tonight.'

'Should you stay here or head to my place?'

'With your wife and heir there? Nah.'

'What am I supposed to do for you so?'

'You know what you could do? Make me another set of O'Doherty's dirty pictures. As an insurance policy.'

'Okay. Where did you put the negatives?

'They should still be in my jacket. Hang on.'

Got my jacket and rummaged in its many pockets, found the negatives, thanked the stars that they hadn't been lifted by the cloakroom jockeys at the disco.

He held the negs up to the light, what light there was.

'You know what, Charlie?'

'What?'

'These could be worth a fortune to the papers. A mint. Maybe ten grand.'

'Are you insane?'

'Think about it. If we could do it so there was no connection to you, who'd know? It would frame O'Doherty for the murder of his brother as the jealous husband and we'd get the cash. Or you'd get the cash, they're your pics.'

'O'Doherty would kill me in a second.'

'If he could get hold of you, maybe.'

'You mean leave town?'

'Why not? You hate it here anyway.'

'No, Dave. Just get the set of pics for me. Please.'

I said I'd call him around noon. I double-locked the front door after him and looked out through the crack in the curtains. Black clouds tumbled in from the south and spat gobs of tepid rain at my window. Spat at me.

My phone rang. It was Sara, reporting that Flynn's testicle was fucked and would have to come out. He'd be in for a week either way.

Worse, she overheard him talking to his brothers. There were two older Flynns and they did most of the business. They were old-fashioned nutcases. Sara heard them talk of getting the boys out and catching whoever did the ball breaking. But they didn't seem to know my name, which was good news. They spent lots of time on their phones, which meant that the bush telegraph was crackling with questions about an incident on Henry Street in the early hours. Maybe I had a breathing space. Maybe I was clear. I thanked Sara and asked her to keep tabs as much as she could.

I drank more coffee, then decided to risk a trip to the health food shop and the chemist. My forehead bruising was getting blacker and I didn't want to be recognised as Flynn's attacker for very long. I wore a Yankees baseball cap, pulled right down at the front. It really worked, totally hiding the damage. My confidence returned.

Dave's suggestion that I get out of town played on my mind. Maybe he had a point: I realised that I didn't really like what Ireland had become. What it had made me. What it could yet do to me.

CHAPTER 20. SEX WORK

The brothel in Limerick was a disappointment. During the day, with all the lights on and no distractions, the filth and stink disillusioned her further. The Romanian cleaners did their best but the place was beyond redemption. Used to be a cheap hotel. Nothing like the gleaming, purpose-built clubs back home where she'd learnt the business and caught Karpov's eye.

A late spring in Moscow and, over a frigid glass of Dom Perignon, he was delighted to learn of her degree in business and her desire to manage. He immediately offered her a position.

'Believe me, Leila, if I'd known you before, you would have won Miss Russia. Third was the best you could have done without connections.'

'You know me now,' she laughed.

Weeks later, Leila found herself in Limerick, a place she'd never even heard of.

She was made manager of Pussy Galore, of which Karpov owned half. Indirectly, of course. He would soon own it all and he had great plans for the Irish market, so Leila's role had superb growth potential. He insisted that she dance also.

'You are so beautiful, it would be bad business to keep your divine body covered up.'

She didn't mind. She also didn't mind having sex with him when he needed it. To Leila, sex was simply a biological function, like eating or going to the toilet.

So she was generally happy. She'd just have to put up with the customers, which was easy for her. They were all the same, the Irish, the Chinese, the Arabs, the Russians, the blacks. All were easy to read, easy to manipulate, easy to exploit. Some thought they were cleverer, in control. They were simply deluded. Their wealth was sucked from them over time, by a highly professional operation, run according to the mantras of the Harvard Business School.

Karpov promised that he was grooming her to run his operations in Ireland, everything. So she learned about human-trafficking, the drugs trade, weapons and the smuggling secrets that made everything possible. Taught by the master.

'The front is what's most important,' he told her repeatedly. 'That's our cover, our visible means of support. All else comes from that.'

'You have so much money already,' she teased. 'Why risk it all?'

'Risk? There is no risk. We have friends at the highest levels of government, society and police. They all want money and I can give them that. Sex and thrills also. The local criminals are illiterates, mere thugs. They are but a slight distraction, one that will soon be erased.'

'How?'

'All in good time, Leila. Remember, there is one advantage I have over all the players.'

'Your good looks? Your charm? Your sophistication?'

'I'm smarter,' he laughed. 'Now let's go over your Excel projections.'

CHAPTER 21. LUCKY?

The nearest bookies was just around the block, under Sarsfield Bridge. I whistled in and chose a few bets after a leisurely read of the form. There were one or two names I'd been watching out for. That was a good omen. I put a hundred each on the noses of five horses. I would stand to win about four grand if they all came in. I checked my slips, took a slow look around the roomful of wily delinquents and split.

I picked up some stuff in a chemist's, then shot into Tesco, weaving past the small army of security men that kept the barbarians from the gate.

My eye was caught by a TV monitor. It was still Limerick on the news. The face had changed, but the story was the same. They named Luke O'Doherty and showed a grainy old photo of him, with a bushy head of sandy hair and a thick moustache. He was good-looking, in his way.

'Where's your head, Luke?' I muttered.

I strolled home with the shopping bags cutting into my fingers and was at my door in five minutes.

I cleaned the house. It took two hours and I was shagged by the end of it, despite having drunk a few cans. Sara rang. On her way. I checked the bed and positioned two condoms under my pillow in case I got lucky. Kept the third in my pocket.

I lit some candles and answered Sara's knock just before five. She looked good and gushed with sympathy after a look at my forehead. I was ordered to lay on the couch and was fussed over for a good ten minutes as she cleaned and dressed the wound. She washed her hands and disposed of the medical waste. I now had a big dressing stuck to my forehead. I looked like the victim, no more the aggressor.

'Don't worry. You can take it off in two days. It's just to protect the bruising while it heals. I put some cream on to help. You still look okay.'

'Promise?'

'I'll prove it,' she said, sitting down beside me then.

She kissed me slowly and firmly. Her hands squeezed my hips and her legs shifted.

'Would you like a drink?' I asked, changing the subject, uncomfortable.

'I thought I was getting something else.'

'I just feel - '

'Feel what, Charlie?'

'I feel guilty. I know it's stupid. This house, the past, whatever.'

'You're right. It's the past. Why don't you sell up and get a nice new apartment or something? Is it really permanent with Deirdre?'

'I'd say so. I'm just empty, no feelings for her. I'd have to give her half, even though she's with her rich mammy and daddy.'

'You'd have enough. A small mortgage on top of your share and you'd be fixed.'

'You could be telling the truth.'

'You know I am.'

She kissed me again and gently pulled me closer to her. She undressed us both. I put a condom on.

My guilt grew heavier as I lay on her for long minutes. The baggage. She writhed, but nothing happened.

'You're hurting my hips, love.'

'Sorry, must be the stress and all.'

Our love was a zero. All gone.

I pushed myself off her and she pulled her legs up. We sat on the couch together and switched on TV. We watched the news with glasses of Beaujolais and ordered in a pizza.

Drinking more wine we caught a movie on TV, Barbarella with Jane Fonda. Then we went to bed and she fell asleep straight away. My forehead ached like a bitch and I was pissed off, felt useless, decrepit. I drifted into an uneasy sleep, all my contradictions jostling for attention as I wondered exactly who was out to get me.

A tiny white cottage. By the beach. A dog. Hammocks. Me with a little fishing boat on the sand. Fixing nets, painting the boat. Small work, but deeply satisfying. There's someone in the house, a woman - dark hair, tanned skin - and she's waving out at me. She looks happy.

The smell of the sea and the screeching of gulls. Looking out to sea to sense the swell. Come go with me. Do I hear kids laughing, or is that the birds?

This doesn't fit, complains my brain.

CHAPTER 22. THE VALUE OF LIFE

Precious had learned her skills in South Africa, under her grandmother's guidance. It amazed her that, given how science had come to dominate the world - even eclipsing religion in the developed north \- muti continued to grow in popularity. But she wasn't complaining, for it had made her the richest woman in the shanty. She was respected.

She'd been travelling for seven years, had worked her way up to Zimbabwe, across to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal and on to Europe. Europe was easily the most profitable leg of her long business trip. There were many migrants who had done comparatively well in England, yet still desired the muti magic. And every euro or pound she earned was worth twenty times as much back home, where she would soon be the Muti Queen of Jo'burg.

After London, she found herself in Ireland. Her agents advised that she base herself in Limerick, near the growing immigrant population, and the clients would be sent to her.

A house in Moyross was rented for cash, no names, no trails. The crazy man who rented it to her - Mickey Flynn - showed great interest in muti and was excited by her mubobobo. This potion would allow a man to become invisible, so that he could have sex with any woman and she wouldn't even know it was happening. Like a mystical Rohypnol. Flynn used mubobobo successfully, raping a young mother while she slept. So his belief in muti grew stronger.

He demanded more powerful magic. And a Nigerian businessman from Dublin wanted to cure his AIDS. And a woman she'd befriended wanted to entrap a husband for citizenship. And a South African couple wanted their business to grow stronger. All these demands led to one essential requirement: a virgin girl.

Flynn brought the girl, just a child. The ceremony was performed in a field out past Cappanty Woods, at midnight, with a pregnant moon in the sky. All who would benefit from her death were gathered. The mood was nervous, excited. They each took a sip of opiate-laced potion.

After the girl was drugged, the Muti Queen made her incantations. The man with AIDS had sex with her, the others holding her down. And so he believed he was cured.

The Muti Queen opened a big patchwork handbag, drawing a long blade with an evil glint and a heavy meat cleaver. She kissed the blades and made a deep incision on the girl's neck. The girl's screams increased the potency of her parts. She died. Then her chest was neatly torn open and her heart was cut out and given to the woman who wanted a husband.

Then her hands were cut off for the restaurant owners, to attract more customers. Her Atlas bone - which connected her neck to her spine - was removed and given to Flynn. This most powerful of human parts would ensure he had control over the minds and bodies of his chosen women, and give him the strength of a horse.

Then the girl's nipples, tongue and vulva were cut off by the Muti Queen for use in vuka-vuka, sexual stimulant. Finally the bellybutton, which she wrapped with care in a velvet cloth. These parts she put in her case.

Everybody helped cut the child's remains into small pieces. The magic had taken them. The bloody bits were placed in a black refuse sack and the sack was thrown into the rushing stream.

It was over. The Muti Queen was two thousand euros richer. The group dispersed and she went back to her house, where she washed all traces of AIDS-infected semen from the vulva and worked with herbs and spells until dawn preparing the vuka-vuka, which would be worth at least another two thousand up in Dublin. A good night's work.

CHAPTER 23. GALILEO, FIGARO

In the morning, Sara was gone. I woke with confused memories of the seaside. Everything hurt as I pulled the stupid-looking dressing from my brow.

To work. Thank fuck it's Friday, my mantra.

Inside the office building's front door, in the grubby hallway, was a list of the businesses that lived there. Including DOYLE & ASSOCIATES. No associates really, it just sounds better. Of the twenty or so businesses listed, I figured only a couple were genuine. The others were fronts for various schemes and scams. Mainly run by Margaret's husband. Margaret, who managed the place, was on her own at reception.

'Morning Margaret, how are you this fine Friday?'

'As in Thank feck it's - ?'

'You better believe it.'

She was fifty-odd, grey-haired and overweight. And she loved her gin, always a bottle stashed in her desk somewhere. Came in handy a few times. Wonder if she ever sussed it was watered down?

'I've to get to the bookies at some stage. I put a few bets on yesterday.'

'Oh? I've the paper here if you want to check.'

She handed me her copy of the Racing Post, along with my mail and messages. A fondness for the nags was an interest we shared. I flicked through to the results.

'Yes! Come on baby. Where's number two? Yes! And, incredibly, yes again.'

'Any good?'

'Three winners, Margaret. Three glorious answers to my daily question Do the Gods conspire against me or am I just an unlucky bastard? The answer is a resounding triple-no! How sweet it is!'

'I thought you didn't believe in God? How much?'

'Let's see. On Fat Larry, five hundred, on Fandango, three and on Beach Bum Bono, seven hundred. That's - '

'Fifteen hundred!'

I sang a verse from Bohemian Rhapsody. 'Nice or what?'

'Very nice. Will you buy me something?'

'Sure haven't I to pay my excessive bills in this place, Margaret? I'll have nothing left.'

'Just chancing my arm, Charlie.'

'As you must, Margaret.'

Elated, I took my bundle of mail and messages and floated up the two flights of dusty wooden stairs to my office. Three steps from the top, my phone rang. I stopped. I looked at the flashing screen and read NEWCLIENT1.

'Hello, Charles Doyle here,' I said, in my poshest phone voice.

'Good day, Mr Doyle.' She wasn't in great form. 'I need you to go ahead with the job, please. At the price we agreed?'

'Certainly. I'll get started today at the daily rate and report next week. Okay?'

'Very good. Will you please call me if you have any news?'

'I will.'

'Goodbye, Mr Doyle.'

'Have a nice weekend.'

My heart pounded so I could hear it in my head. She called! She'd been in a couple of weeks before. Inquiring about having her husband tailed. Doing the dirt, she figured. She'd left a picture of him and went away to think about it. I'd offered her my highest rates, a grand a day. A gamble. Her tan, her genuine Louis Vuitton bag, her Chanel suit, her understated gold. Real wealth. Her husband was a solicitor, clearly up to his armpits in everything and a bit of fluff besides. I'd get him. And make a fast grand or two in the process. She'd mulled. She'd realised that she was taking a step towards a different life. And she was hot. Mid forties, fit, blond, lovely teeth and a nice smile. A bit of class. Charlie was her man.

As I rooted through my desk drawer for her husband's photo, I muttered the usual Buy a filing cabinet and What a mess. Papers, pictures, betting slips, empty Coke cans, a flick knife, parking tickets, flotsam, jetsam. Gotcha. Old, boring, ugly. Typical. Brian Smythe, if you don't mind. Smythe-Ross solicitors, O'Connell Avenue. Fuck. Best time to start would be after work on Friday. Today.

I rang Dave, who wanted to meet for a lunchtime drink. That gave me half an hour.

The post was all the usual. Final Demand notices from my How To Be A Private Detective home study course, junk mail asking me to invest in some African kids or European wine, a bank statement with my balance squatting miserably in overdraft, a bill for the use of the office, three other bills, four final reminders, eight pieces of utterly pointless crap. Filed all under Jetsam.

Paid Margaret a few quid, got out of there.

The streets were busy and the bookies was full. With relish, I counted my winnings, placed a ton on Cleopatra's Ass, Uttoxeter, 2.10, and whistled my way to Dave's. He was quiet, no customers. Fiona stood smoking outside the front door. As usual, she was dressed all in black.

'Hi Fiona. When's the funeral?'

'What?'

'Dave about?'

'The back.'

'Coming for a drink?'

'If he'll let me close. We haven't done a feckin' thing all morning.'

'Let's ask, shall we?'

I knocked at the back office door. Dave shouted that he was finishing my prints and he'd just be a sec. I turned to Fiona, giving her my full attention.

'So, any news?'

'Just about that missin kid. Isn't it awful?'

'What kid?'

'It was on the radio a few minutes ago. There's a kid gone missin in Moyross, just up the road from me.'

'Today?'

'It happened last night, but it only came out today. A girl. Thirteen. Walked to the shop on her own. Never came back.'

'She's probably just run away or something, hiding out in the woods.'

'I hope so. The cops don't sound too happy. Fuckin useless they are.'

'Fuck's sake.'

Dave emerged, looking pale. What happens to people who work in darkrooms. He gave me the prints and I gave him two fifties, insisted he took them.

'Right, drinks,' he said, happy. 'My treat.'

'Fine,' I said.

Fiona looked in good form. Across to the local. The lunchtime news came on the TVs as we tasted our first drinks. The kid was all over it. Witnesses said they saw her being dragged into a white van. Not a good sign. Her picture flashed up, the cops pleaded for information, her mother cried her eyes out.

CHAPTER 24. ESCAPE

So I drank to escape. By two I was half-langers, good feeling. It was the weekend, I had a full wallet and felt a session coming on. While Dave was at the bar and Fiona was in the jacks, I took out my notebook and pen and wrote myself a memo of events before I lost the plot.

Fiona split back to open up the shop.

'So I forgot to ask you about the other night. How was your ladyboy?'

'She was no ladyboy,' Dave said.

'What?' I asked, incredulously. 'She was too beautiful to be a woman, too perfect.'

'She's a fucking lapdancer, Charlie, enhanced in every way. Perfection personified.'

He was smiling now, delighted with himself.

'You serious? A lapdancer? You?'

'What,' he asked, 'can't I score with a perfect babe?'

'Jesus man, you normally prefer a bit of rough. What about those two last weekend? Christ, I'd prefer a ladyboy myself.'

'Whatever.'

We talked about my forehead. We chilled.

'The Flynns are pure mad. Worse than the O'Dohertys.'

'Think they're connected?' I asked.

'I don't know. Why?'

'Dunno. Just a niggling feeling in the pit of my langer.'

We laughed, clinked glasses and time passed. The horses were on the box and Dave also had a few bets on. He couldn't believe the luck I'd had and was determined to top me. He failed miserably. I rubbed salt in his wounds when Cleopatra's Ass romped home at six to one. I was elated, yet full of self-doubt. How long could my lucky streak last?

Dave asked 'Have you much work on?'

'I'm supposed to be tailing a guy around now. Fuck.'

'Where to?'

'I'm expecting him to go to South's for a pint after work. Hopefully with a bit of fluff from the office.'

'I can do it for you.'

'What?'

'I'm in no rush home. He cries all the fucking time, I could swear.'

'It doesn't get any easier.'

'Fuck's sake.'

'Sorry. But thanks for the help. Okay. Here's his picture. I want some pics of him with a bird. You know the score.'

'Sound. I'll deal with this, you see if you can reach Pat. Ask him if he can sort you out with a gun.'

So I tried Pat's mobile, pictured him. He was the fast success. I was some kind of slow motion failure. That's why the Sara thing shouldn't - realistically - have happened. I was wrong for her. Pat was right. But his coolness towards me was starting to thaw.

Got through. Told him the facts and he said Okay, it's time you got a dog.

'So when can I get it?'

'Any time, I'd say. Call this number, ask for Mr White and say Mr Red sent you.'

'Reservoir Dogs code?'

'Something like that. Got a pen?'

Took down the number.

'Where is he?'

'In Garryowen.'

'How much, do you reckon?'

'I'd say about four hundred. Be wide, though. He's a cute hoor.'

'How heavy are the others, Pat?'

'Pretty serious. They're not on my side of town, so I'd only know generalities.'

'Such as?'

'Such as there are three brothers. Nobody fucks with them. Worth about two million a year.'

'Not bad. And what about the RA connections?'

'Non-existent, we think. Since the peace process kicked in, anyway. The Flynns were handy at one time, not anymore. Now they're a liability.'

'Any connection with the Island?'

'Not that I know. I'll try and get you some current pictures so you can watch your back better. I reckon they'll let it blow over. They wouldn't want to end up getting collared over one little bollock.'

'I sure hope. Thanks a million, Pat. Good man.'

'Be careful Charlie.'

I called the number.

'How are you? I'm looking for Mr White. Mr Red sent me.'

'Riiiiight,' he said.

'Would it be possible to meet up today?'

'Why, kid? Are you in a hurry?'

'Actually, yeah. I am.'

'Do you like dogs?'

'They're alright.'

'Meet me at the track in ten minutes. Can you do that, yeah? Knock at the staff entrance, Garryowen side. Tell them you're seeing a man about a dog.'

He laughed, delighted with his joke. I felt uncomfortable.

'How much should I bring?'

'For a decent dog? Bring a few hundred.'

'Okay.'

'And one more thing. No messin. Clear?'

'Clear.' Cranky old fuck.

He ended the call and I had one more dodgy number in my call register. I got a cab easy enough. We chugged through shitty traffic, past my old cunt of a school - CBS, Christian Brother Sadists, Paedo Central- around by St John's Cathedral, tallest spire in Ireland, and up the hill to the Markets Field. The cab driver asked why I was going to the track, so I told him To see a man about a dog. He didn't laugh, just sneered and stared at me hard in his mirror.

Like he knew what I was up to.

CHAPTER 25. ACE OF SPADES

Landed at the dogtrack. Knocked on the side door and waited. Gazed across at the wide fields in the middle of Garryowen. Pylons crossed the space where football was played, horses were run and heads were broken. Big guy with a black puffer jacket and earpiece opens up.

'How's it going? I'm here to see someone,' I said.

'Yeah? Who?'

'A man about a dog. Mr White.'

'What's your name?'

'Doyle. Charlie Doyle.'

'Over by the traps, so.'

I could hear dogs now, barking, whining. The track was old, decrepit, crappy. Some greyhounds were having a run, the sad hare whirring past, the dogs chasing it stupidly, eyes glazed, tongues hanging. Crowds were coming in the far side, their gates just opened.

The leading dog, totally black, looked handy. He won easily and a guy with a stony look smiled for a second, left the group and walked towards me. My man.

'He's a beauty. What's his name?' I asked.

'Ace of Spades.'

'Nice.'

I didn't know what to say next, so I kept my trap shut. He looked at me closely, searching for signs of excessive nervousness, or a setup.

'I'm Mr White.'

'Nice to meet you. I'm Charlie Doyle.'

With a flick of his head, we went back into the lobby, up four flights of concrete steps and into his office. Old photos of greyhounds on the walls and a nice view of the track. He gestured to a plastic chair, one of the bright orange ones with the tubular metal frame. I sat.

'Right. Three rules. Number one: if you tell anyone where you got the gun, you're dead. End of story. Is that clear?' I nodded Yes. 'Two: when you're finished with it, you fuck it into the Shannon. Rule three: refer to rule one and say it over and over in your head. Now, do you still want to go ahead with this?'

'Yes. I don't think I've any choice.'

'Fair enough. Show me your money.'

I went through my pockets and assembled over nine hundred. He smiled and unlocked his desk drawer. He reached in and put on latex gloves. Then he pulled out a revolver.

'Any experience with firearms?' he asked, an eyebrow raised above his glasses.

'No. I've shot a shotgun. Hunting.'

'Did you hit antin?'

'No.'

'Right, well this shouldn't frighten you too much. Loud as a shotgun, though. This is a snub-nose Smith & Wesson thirty-eight, six rounds. Just safety off and fire. Easy to conceal. And you can see when it's empty.'

He was a persuasive salesman.

'How much?'

'Five. Bullets, two hundred for twenty four.'

'I'll only need six.'

'Right. I'll throw those in, so.'

I counted out five hundred and he showed me how to load and shoot the gun. Then he gave me six bullets in a transparent Ziploc bag.

'Don't take off the safety until you're ready to use it. These things have a habit of blowin guys' balls off.'

Another smile. The guy was warming to me.

'Okay. What's the best way to carry it?'

'Don't, would be my advice. Leave it in your car or your house. Get it when you need it. Then carry it in your inside jacket pocket. And keep a cool head with it. If everyone in Limerick carried a gun, we'd all be fucked.'

'So, be cool.'

'Yeah. Be cool.'

He was right. If I carried this thing around with me, I'd end up shooting someone, anyone. I put the gun and bullets into my jacket pocket. He took off the gloves and locked the drawer, then walked me down to the entrance and opened the door for me.

'When's the Ace running next?' Always looking for a tip.

'Tuesday night. Here.'

'Nice one. Thanks for everything.'

'See you round.'

So I was on the streets of Garryowen with a gun in my pocket. As I passed St John's, Dave rang. In the pub. My stomach growled, needed lining before I met that lush, so I strolled around by Donkey Ford's for a burger and a battered whiting and two battered sausages and chips. Old-school, proper food and all for under a fiver. Two knackers ate their grub on the kerb outside. They gave me dirty looks. I felt for the revolver, sneered at them. Fuck, I wanted them to start. They looked away. I ate on the hoof.

In the bar, Scissor Sisters played loud.

My pulse raced as I put a vodka and orange juice - the healthy option - to my lips. I saw my reflection in the Jack Daniel's mirror behind the bar. My forehead was much better, just a hint of bruise. But everything else was falling apart to my twisted Midas touch, all turns to shit. Maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just made a complete break, got the fuck out of Limerick, set up as a private dick in Malaga or somewhere.

'How'd it go in South's?' I asked.

'Grand.'

'I've something to show you.'

'What?'

I opened my jacket and lifted the butt of the revolver out of the inside pocket.

'Fuck me! Where did you get that?'

'I really, really can't tell. Rule number one. Nice, huh?'

'Deadly, man. Bring on the Flynns.'

'Bring 'em on.'

'Hey, why don't we head out to Moyross and find them ourselves, finish the job?'

'Sure.'

'Any chance of a go?'

'No chance.'

'How many bullets have you?'

'Six.'

'Should be enough. There's only three Flynns.'

'Two each!'

'Haha. I'd rather not shoot it, but if that little fucker from the hospital comes near me, I'll blow his other bollick off. You can chalk that down.'

'So what's the plan?'

'A quiet night in, I reckon.'

'Well I'm definitely heading out.'

'Good luck,' I said, thinking of my couch and a movie and a rest

CHAPTER 26. FEAR AND SMOKING IN LIMERICK

I called Brian, mentioned greenery and he said Yeah, no problem. I walked towards the evening sun, in good form. But I kept my head down, glancing around and behind every few steps, for once glad to see cops on the beat, in their shirt sleeves, stab vests, shades, living out their Miami Vice fantasies. I made it to Brian's without incident. My day was made when I saw his red eyes and he handed me a bank coin bag full to bursting with skunk buds. We skinned up.

Brian opened the windows and the pungent smoke wafted out over the river.

'Do the neighbours ever complain?'

'About the smell? Nah. They'd know better. And I've got even better news.'

'Even better than this mighty fine skunk?'

I was staring intently into the design on the Rizla pack. It sucked me in. Lazy, stoned musings. Musings that felt like a life's work but lasted just seconds. If I chanced upon the meaning of life or a cure for cancer while stoned on skunk, it would have been lost to humanity.

Brian said 'Acid.'

That got my attention.

'Acid? You're shitting me?'

'Check it out.'

Brian went to his kitchen drawer and rummaged about. He had different drugs stashed in different places, mostly in the kitchen. You'd have to be careful if you were cooking there. He pulled out a large, dark Ziploc and, from this, lifted a sheaf of A4s. Must have been fifty sheets. Each sheet was perforated into scores of tiny tabs. Lysergic acid. LSD. The key to unlocking the Doors of Perception. Time to drop out of reality for a while. Perfect.

'It's been fucking ages, man!'

'I know. They're just in from Holland.'

Each tab had a little image printed on it. A cartoon picture of an assault rifle. Underneath, printed in red stencil lettering was AK-47. To me, this was a bit like Alice finding the bottle that said DRINK ME.

I ate an AK. Then one more. Brian suggested I wait to feel the effects before trying any more. Word was, they were mighty strong. He took two as well. When his back was turned, searching for skins or something, I sneaked another two. I like to do hallucinogenic drugs properly, no farting around. I drank some water straight from the tap. My mouth tingled. A strange sensation in my stomach, like being pregnant, maybe. It was anticipation. I lost myself in a shiny haze of wondering what it must be like to be a woman and be screwed. I didn't mention this to Brian in case he suggested I try taking one up the arse.

We chilled and smoked more skunk and had a couple of beers. Miller in clear bottles. We went and stood on the balcony as the day gave up. The evening rush was over and the frantic buzz of traffic across the whistling bridge was dying. The river was extra cool, all oranges and reds from the sky twisting around on the sleepy surface. Herring gulls hovered in the warm evening breeze. Then I saw a gull \- a monster - peel off from his mates and make for me like a Jap Zero. He screamed towards me, spitting gull venom and pity. I cowered, crying like an senile fool.

'Whoa, Charlie.'

'Jesus Christ! Did you see that fucker?'

'Me man down below with the mad baldy head?'

'What? The fucking seagull, man!'

'The what?'

'That fucker there, he fucking attacked me.'

Brian leaned over the balcony rail, gazed out at the seagulls, strangely calm. I stayed in the flat, hiding in the kitchen, my tongue hanging now like one of those bastard greyhounds.

'It's okay, Charlie,' called Brian over his shoulder, 'They've fucked off. You're safe.'

It sounded good. But I knew it was just a ploy. Seagulls are very clever birds. And fucking vicious. Ever see their beaks? Hooks on the end, man! Cut you to pieces. I cowered in the kitchen on my knees, in the filthy corner where the sweeping brush and the dustpan lived. The evilness of the bird had unsettled me greatly. I saw hatred there, directed right at me. I was a mess. Again.

Brian managed to put on some music and it calmed me some. Ibiza trance, mellow and relaxing to my confused brain. Is this the real life? I made it out of the kitchen and drank some beer. The hallucinations seemed to come in waves. Every few minutes, my mind was seized by convulsions. My deepest memories came to the fore and were warped into new sensations. Sex. Holidays. Childbirth. Jellyfish. Words. All these and more flashed through my head, changing into dark creatures and bizarre shapes from other worlds, other dimensions. My brain was deeply addled. I decided to go for a walk.

'But it's dark out, Charlie,' said Brian.

'I don't give a fuck. I need to get away from these demons.'

'They're only in your head, man.'

'Like the seagulls, is it? I'm off. Bye.'

Brian stuffed the bag of skunk into my jacket pocket and stuck on Pet Sounds. He stood in front of the stereo, his body swaying, his arms flapping in the air.

'I can see the music, Charlie. I can see it! Can you?'

'Yeah man, the source.'

I retreated into my brain, the potent chemical having delivered its punch, frazzling my neural connections into clarity overload. Deep inside my frightened mind I made startling connections. I saw fantastic possibilities. I caressed utter madness.

I made all the coming badness possible, maybe made it real.

CHAPTER 27. CHARLIE DON'T SURF

The memory - after the seagull in Brian's - is of me and my gun. Flick out the chamber. Load a single bullet. Give the chamber a spin. Flick it back in. Point at mirror. Aim at head.

And Apocalypse Now, first with Robert Duvall and his surf commandoes, falling from the sky all rockets and Wagner and prayer and complex breaks. Then, with Martin Sheen and the riverboat crew, high on LSD, at the Do-Long bridge. A psychedelic battle with a relentless, unseen enemy. Confusion, panic and disorientation. The asshole of the world. Also subtle pains in my skull and a tendency to drop things. And Kurtz. Where's Kurtz? Who's Kurtz?

The moon was there too, laughing, pouring twisted rainbows onto my world where mysterious, lab-concocted lysergic acid was launching my neural pathways into a new place.

He'd been in the desert for days. He was thirsty, but otherwise fine: like he was a ghost, not really there. So the sun beat down by day and the wind howled by night, but still he walked on.

Once, a seagull swooped down out of the blazing sunset and landed on the hard sand just ahead. He walked up to it.

'Hello, brother seagull,' he said. 'Do you know where I can find a drink?'

'Aren't you afraid of me?' asked the seagull, twisting its head.

'No. Should I be?'

'Not really. If you were dead and I was starving, maybe. But then you wouldn't be afraid of anything, would you?'

'I suppose not.'

'Don't you know who I am?'

'Sorry. You all look the same to me.'

'Likewise. I'll give you a clue. I'm famous. I'm in a book.'

'Sorry.'

'I'm Jonathan Livingstone. Seagull. Ring any bells?'

'No. Sorry.'

'You should try to read more.'

'Okay. I will.'

'Didn't you even do me at school?'

'No. I can only remember Lord of the Flies. Now about that drink?'

'I can't believe you've never heard of me. I Googled myself and got nearly a billion hits. Impressed?'

'Yeah. Well done. I've a website. I think.'

'Www.lostinthedesert.com?'

'Haha.'

'Okay. Your drink. You see that snow-capped mountain over there?' he asked, cocking a wing towards the horizon.

'The one shaped a bit like a champagne bottle?'

'At the foot of that, you'll find a bar you'll like.'

'Cool. Why will I like it?'

'Because it has drink.'

'Cool.'

'I've to go. Book signings and all that.'

The seagull turned to face the breeze, stretched its wings, then lifted easily into the azure sky.

'Thanks a million!'

'You're welcome. Now don't forget the books.'

She'd just never get it. Ever. Pat was his partner and there was nothing he could do about that. Except get promoted. But that hadn't happened in fifteen years as a detective, so it was unlikely to start now. Anyway, Pat was the one set for stardom, he'd be onwards and upwards in a few months. No doubt there. Meanwhile, she'd have to just put up with the few late nights and the rest.

The rest. That was the main problem. Pat liked to burn his candle at both ends. Nothing strictly illegal as far as Frank knew, just not what he was used to.

Pat was mixing in high circles, mainly through family connections, but also school and rugby and the horses. Sometimes Frank would have to go with him while he fixed something. Pat the fixer. Good name.

While Frank would prefer to unwind with a quiet pint after a shift, Pat wanted champagne and strippers. Christ, what a night. But Frank was only sussed by the wife once. Leave him to it. Bad for the ticker. And the marriage.

Frank had so many things on his mind, he could barely keep up. Murder and carnage on the streets, Liz's moods and jealousy at home.

He checked the digital clock beside the bed. It was nearly six, time to get up soon. So he kept reading. For the eighteenth time in his life, he read about Michael Corleone's sojourn in Sicily, a smile creeping on to his worn-out face.

'I will go to Sicily some day,' he said.

After a minute, his wife said 'Unh?'.

Frank ignored her, kept reading.

CHAPTER 28. LOW

The killer ducked under the shutters and through the door. The shop was dark, Dave in the back office on the computer. Loud music, Bowie's Low.

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

He held the pistol behind his back, an old Colt.45 automatic with wet suppressor. Because it was in town and that. Closed the door.

'Hi Dave,' he shouted.

Dave turned, frowned, smiled. 'What's the story, man? Good to see you.'

And he was shot dead, a bullet through his forehead.

Dave'd been on the brink for ages. One or two little things would be enough to flip him into breakdown or escape. His mind was too active, too busy, as it tried to come to a decision. Should he stay or should he go? The Clash song was always there. Mostly hummed, but he'd break into it out loud when he was on his own.

He hadn't been ecstatic about his life for a few years, finding himself in that rut that hits everyone in their mid-thirties. Is this it? Is this all? Dead marriage, boring job, self-made crappy life, mortgaged. So everything successfully achieved from society's point of view. Except a kid. Okay, let's get one of those so. So. So another thirty, forty, fifty years of the same? No, he finally decided. Jesus Christ no.

But something clicked for him when he was called by the lapdancing club for a bit of glamour work. He thought, Yes I love my job and Now your life isn't so bad, is it? He assumed that he'd add an edge to his dull life, no more. It opened a door into a new perception of existence: a life with no conventional rules, where sex was an omnipresent commodity, where secrecy was critical, where sudden death was never too far away.

She was the third girl to call into him for a shoot. The first two hadn't much English, so they were accompanied by a Russian heavy. The heavy stood around in the front of the closed shop while Dave took some highly professional shots of the women - alone and together - in the back studio.

Woman Number Three called around alone, one Monday evening in winter. Her English was perfect. She was perfect. Stop the lights, thought Dave.

He had no intention trying anything on. The rules of engagement had been made perfectly clear to him. So he just chatted away to her as she undressed, finally revealing a red bra and knickers combo which perfectly complemented her dark hair and pale complexion. His erection was uncomfortable, so he had to lean really far forward into the camera, giving some room for manoeuvre.

'That's lovely. Nice colours.'

'Thank you.'

'So are ye making much above?'

'Not as much as you might think. The club makes a fortune, we get by.'

'I suppose that's the way of the world, isn't it?'

'I suppose.'

'That's it. Now look straight at the camera, hands on your hips. Yeah. Just spread your legs apart slightly. Perfect.'

'There's only one way we can make some extra income.'

He looked at the last few shots on the camera's LCD screen, happy with the levels.

'Lovely.' He looked at her now. 'What's that?'

'We offer our services to gentlemen.'

Dave stepped away from the camera, raised an eyebrow.

'Oh?'

'Yes, full sex for two hundred euro.'

'Two hundred?' he said calmly, thinking, Jesus Christ on a bike!

'For you, one hundred.'

'Let me check the till, so.'

The connection was perfect. Then came the parties. Dave was paid an absolute fortune to edit footage that was given to him by a middleman, someone he knew. He'd clean the footage, edit it and put it onto DVD. About twenty copies at a time. Piece of piss for him, but what an earner. Oh, and keep it to yourself, on pain of death.

The footage was a dream, mainly orgies. Meant he worked nights - when he wasn't on the drink - and weekends. But, as was always stressed, it was nothing illegal.

So he worked Saturday, waited to hear from Charlie who was AWOL. Dave was doing a bit for the Russians, for Leila.

The previous job was a bit of a pain, client wanted the masters. No way was Dave handing them over until he knew what was what and got a decent few quid. It's the professional ethics. He'd hold off for a couple of days yet, then Fox and Smythe would pay up, the rich fucks.

That's what he was thinking, right when his friend called by and the bullet easily pierced his skull and sprayed the whole place red. A bad poet might have called it a brain shower.

CHAPTER 29. DAMAGED

I woke to hot morning sunshine, blood and bullet holes. My head was exhausted, fragments of thought forming into a jungle tiger, a large bird, a machine gun. Then the dreams dissipated and my reality dawned.

Somehow, I'd made it to my own bed. I sat up and broken glass fell from the quilt. My window had been shot through, the glass all over me, curtains in tatters. My forearms were cut, but not badly. Half a dozen deep holes peppered the wall opposite the window. Bullets had whizzed over my unconscious body.

'What the fuck? What?'

Dazed and confused. A sharp but vaguely pleasant throbbing in the back of my head suggested psychedelics. Thought I must still be tripping. I got out of bed and, when I stood on some glass and felt the pain and saw the blood, I figured No, it's real. I looked out the window, saw a police car, a cop standing at the front gate. He saw me, was startled, gestured me down. I threw on my jeans out on the landing and stumbled downstairs, my brain fried stupid. The front door was minced, as was the front room and hallway. Like a bomb went off.

'What the hell happened?' I asked the cop. He was young, a fucking kid really.

'Have you been in there all this time?'

'What?'

'Have you been in there?'

'I was conked out. What happened man?'

'Someone emptied a magazine from an assault rifle into your house, about half seven this morning. Look at it.'

'Jesus H Christ!'

'When we came round the neighbours said the place was unoccupied. We saw the pile of post inside the door. That's why we didn't break in. Forensics are due soon, they would have put the door in. What's left of it.'

'Fuck's sake.'

The house was riddled with bullet holes. Every single pane of glass in the front was broken and the door was in bits too. Lumps of plaster and masonry littered the front garden. Proper bullets.

'And you heard nothing?' asked the cop, incredulous.

'I dreamt I was in Apocalypse Now. That must have been it.'

'Are you serious? Were you drunk?'

'Fairly locked.' You can't handle the truth.

'Hang on a sec.'

He stepped away and used the radio on his chest to call in and tell the boys back at the station his funny story. Yes, we found the resident and he slept through it. Haha. The talk of the cop shop. The laughing stock. When he came back, I asked if he'd like a cup of coffee, eager to escape the neighbours, a few standing at their front gates, staring at me. We carefully made our way to the dank kitchen.

'You're lucky, you know that?'

'Yeah, so my mam always told me. Instant okay?'

'Fine. So who do you think did this?'

Eager. Too fucking eager for my brain.

'No clue. I've never had this kind of trouble. Ever. I'm a private detective. Could be to do with that. I know a Garda detective, Pat O'Brien. Can you contact him?'

'Pat? He's due in a while with the forensics boys.'

'Forensics? What for?'

'We need to be sure what kind of weapon was used, for starters. Looks like an AK-47, based on the shells. We can try for prints on them and who knows what else.'

He shrugged, nodding his head towards the brass evidence that littered the footpath outside the front garden. Plastic crime scene tape hung limply from fence and poles.

'Any witnesses?'

'The neighbours on your right saw a car speeding off. No real ID on it, though.'

He pulled his notebook out of his breast pocket and started asking me questions. The same ones he'd asked before and some new ones. I needed a joint so badly. Really badly.

'Listen, would you mind if I went up and had a quick shower? Get some blood off me and put some shoes on?'

'No, I suppose not,' he said, disappointed.

'Great. Here's your coffee. There's your milk and sugar. I'll be down in ten minutes.'

I took my coffee to the bedroom with me, strong and black. It tasted like shit. I felt the urge to call Mr White. So I did.

'This is Charlie. Charlie Doyle. I met you yesterday.'

'What is it, Charlie?'

'I'm going to need something bigger.'

'Bigger?'

'Yeah, like I have a Jack Russell but I need a Pitbull.'

'Leave it with me.'

Sounded sorted. I looked out the window again and saw a TV camera and a couple of journalist heads across the street. Scanning, I saw a TV news van with its roof dish. Bullet-riddled houses make good news filler.

'You don't need to be on TV. Christ, once in my fucking life they want me and I can't play ball.'

Then I remembered the gun I already had. Jesus, what kind of fucking dope gets out of his head on acid while carrying a hot gun? My coat was hanging over a chair by the dressing table where my wife used to put on her war paint. I lifted the jacket, half afraid to check the pockets, but the weight told me the gun was still there. I patted it gently and realised that the house would shortly be crawling with nosy cops.

In for a shower. Assessed cuts. Both feet, left arm and shoulder, knuckles on right hand. Only little bastards, but sore all the same. Pain in the back of my head, deep, right at the base of my skull. I put my jacket on, so there was no risk of the gun getting out of my sight and laughed at my descent into chaos. I genuinely laughed.

CHAPTER 30. FORENSICS

My doorbell rang, the cop's way of getting my attention. I went downstairs, my head spinning ninety now.

'Forensics are here,' the cop said chirpily.

An unmarked Transit van had pulled up, darkened windows, new-looking. Two guys got out. Both wore hooded white coveralls, pulled on orange latex gloves. They looked like Oompa-Loompas. Tall Oompa-Loompas. One of them whistled when he got a look at the house.

'You were in there?' he asked.

'Yep,' I replied. 'Up there.'

I pointed at the bedroom window. He whistled again. The other guy picked up a shell, one of the dozens that littered the footpath.

'Jeekist, AK alright. 7.62 mill. Serious. If one of these had hit you, torso or head, you'd be dead.'

'Looks like the gunman got out of the car,' said the other, 'stood about here,' \- he pointed an invisible gun at my house - 'let rip and got back in the car.'

'Why did he get out?' I asked.

'Two reasons,' said Oompa-Loompa One, 'better control when standing and no shells or firing residue in the car. Car was probably nicked and then burnt out anyway. All our evidence is right here. Without a positive ID on the car, we'd have to find the gun in the shooter's possession to make a case.'

'Fuck,' I said.

'What about the bullets?' asked the eager young cop.

'Yeah,' said Oompa-Loompa Two, 'we'll dig a few out of the wall and see if they register on the records up in Dublin.'

'How?' I asked. I had half a notion what he was talking about, but my brain was running on empty.

'Every rifle barrel has little spiraling grooves inside. This rifling makes the bullet rotate before it leaves the muzzle, keeping it on target. Every bullet fired by a gun will have similar marks on it from the rifling. It's as unique as a fingerprint on a person.'

'So,' said the other guy, 'we've got files on every 7.62 round fired in Limerick in the last ten years on computer. If this gun was used before, we'll find out.'

'Sound,' I said, 'so this could lead us to the shooter?'

'Maybe,' said Oompa-Loompa One. 'But I fucking doubt it.'

They both laughed.

'Look lads, do I need to be here? Can I get away for a while? Go for a proper coffee? I'm withered.'

'The detectives will want to have a word with you,' said the uniform.

'When're they due?' I asked.

'I don't know, thought they'd be here by now.'

'Can I maybe give you my number and you can call me when they're on their way?'

He looked a bit confused, unsure what to say. The older forensics guy gave him a nod.

'Okay so,' said the cop.

I fingered the drugs in my pocket and felt the gun against my breast, found a card.

'I'll be on the Dock Road. Two minutes away, okay?'

The cop nodded and went to watch the forensics guys, who were taking photos of the shell casings and the bullet holes. Some neighbours were standing around and the TV crew lapped up the CSI-like shots. The neighbours tried to talk to me, but I put on a verge-of-tears act, looked sad and walked on, turning away from the camera.

Stopped in the shop, picked up a paper.

'What's with all the Sunday papers?' I asked.

'It's Sunday,' said the woman.

'Sunday? Are you winding me up?'

She shook her head and stepped back. Nutter alarm.

'Sorry. I'll take one anyway. Sorry.'

Sunday.

I laughed again as I got to the deserted bar and ordered a vodka tonic.

'You're barred,' said the barman.

'What for, man?'

'You don't remember?' he laughed.

'I swear! Please, not now.'

'Go on, so.'

Got through a night and a day and I could remember nothing. I got out my mobile and searched through my call register and texts.

There were a few missed calls, mostly Dave. And O'Doherty. What the fuck was going on? Was someone checking my location before the attack? Did this prove that the Flynns did it? Or did O'Doherty do it? Fuck. I'd need to talk to Pat ASAP. Grateful he'd be the investigating detective.

Messages. One from Sara asking where I was. One from Dave asking where I was. Call register showed I'd been talking to both my wife and Greg O'Doherty. That really threw me.

I drank and leafed through the paper. My photos of O'Doherty's wife and brother getting it on made a big splash, front page and page three. No photographer credit. I glanced around, then laughed quietly. Then Pat rang. He asked me to come back to the house right away. I said I would.

I swamped one more drink and strolled up the road, singing On a Sunday morning sidewalk, wishing God that I was stoned. The sun was out and it would have been a nice day for a barbecue. But that that was something the old me did.

O'Doherty was stuck in the middle of my mind. What the fuck did he want? I still didn't know whether I should call him back to find out, so I long-fingered that one.

Outside my house, Pat stood on the path looking at the shells. The young cop stood by, the forensics guys' van still parked.

'You're some character, Charlie,' smiled Pat. So someone could see the funny side.

'I know, I know.'

'That was a close one. I saw your bedroom.'

'Tell me about it. I actually slept through it.'

'You think it was the Flynns?' he asked, his expression serious.

'I can't think who else it could be.'

He lowered his voice, 'Did you get hold of a gun?'

I nodded.

'It's not in the house, is it?'

I pointed to my breast.

'So what do you reckon?' I asked.

'I reckon you'll have to come clean about the fight.'

'Is there any chance they'd want to press charges?'

'I don't know if they're interested in that sort of justice. Do you?'

'No, but it's a risk, isn't it?'

'Yeah. It's a risk. Did they start the fight.'

I wanted to lie.

'No. I started it. They called a girl I was with a nigger. I was out of it and I lost it. One of them pulled a knife. You'd do the same.'

'Would she lie for you? Say they went for you first?'

'I don't know. I only met her once.'

'Did you shag her?'

'No. She's Catholic.'

He laughed.

'Immigrant?'

'Yep. Fuck. She's married.'

'Fuck is right. Do you have her number?'

'No.'

'Charlie, you're not spinning me a line are you?'

'No, Pat, God's honest truth. What can I say?'

'Is there any way you can contact her?'

'No, but I was planning to bump into her again. With Dave.'

'Dave? How much of this does he know about?'

'Most of it.'

'Not clever, Charlie. You know he's turned into a bit of a tool since the baby.'

'I know.'

'Okay. Here's how we play it. You're going to come clean about the fight with young Flynn and his mates. You say nothing about who they are or what you know about them. I'll put the jigsaw together. Clear?'

'Clear.'

The forensics guys came out of the house, gathered all the shells and left, telling Pat they'd have the bullet analysis in twenty-four. Pat said 'Grand job, you guys are the future of law enforcement and fuck Robocop.'

Then Pat's partner came out of the house, a heavy middle-aged guy, thick moustache, Columbo-style coat. Tired eyes.

'Charlie Doyle, this is Detective Sergeant Frank Ryan,' said Pat.

I shook hands with Ryan and he asked Pat what the story was.

'Mr Doyle was involved in an altercation with some youths last Wednesday night,' explained Pat. 'He didn't report it at the time, but he feels that it's the only possible motive for this incident.'

'Why didn't you report it?' asked Ryan.

'I didn't think anything would come of it. Sorry.'

'We'll check with the hospital, see if anyone fits the bill,' said Pat.

'Hang on,' went Ryan, 'wasn't one of the Moyross Flynns in the other night. Lost a bollock or something?'

'Yeah, I heard that. Okay Mr Doyle, we'll check up on this lead. I have your number and I'll call you if we need anything more.'

'What about the house? Can I get it fixed up now?'

'Yeah. Forensics are done. Hang on.'

Pat fished in his jacket for his wallet, found it, then pulled out a business card.

'Here,' he said. 'These guys do a good job fixing up houses after this kind of thing. Give them a call. Tell them I gave you their number. Your insurance should cover it.'

'I'd say they're kept busy,' I said.

'Run off their feet,' answered Pat, walking towards their battered red Ford. He turned to me and winked enigmatically. The uniformed cop took down the crime scene tape and took a lift back to Henry Street station.

Then I was on my own again, realised that I needed company. I felt naked, victimised. Christ, I felt like a target.

CHAPTER 31. MURDER

I called the window guys. Told them I was a friend of Pat's. They said Yeah, he called. They were on their way.

They came in a blizzard of chipboard, cordless screwdrivers and ladders. In half an hour, the windows and door were sealed, secure, blacked out. I thanked them and asked how much, sweating. I had no money on me. Just a couple of tenners, that's all. I had an idea that I'd won big on the horses, but couldn't pin it down. Broke now. I'd have to risk a cheque. Would they take it? They said No, it's a favour for Pat. I offered them some of my grass. They accepted and were gone.

Trying to find the gambling memory, I remembered the Ace of Spades. Running Tuesday. Sharp dog. Swore blind to myself that I'd get something on him.

I went inside. The house was a fucking mess. With the south-facing front windows now boarded up, there was just a meagre light through the odd crack. It was like being in a tomb after the robbers had been. The air was stifling, unpleasant. Faint chemical stink of cordite, surely my imagination. I had to get out. I put on my shades, walked.

I worried about my low funds situation and figured Dave would be the best to tap until I could get to the credit union, which was up to date. Go Monday, apply for a loan, get me through the current phase of despair. I checked voicemails. One from Dave. Said he'd be in the shop, doing a bit, to call in, something special to show me. Grand. There was a message from my dad, too. He asked if I could call around some time. Said there was news about mam.

So I walked through quiet Sunday streets. Some shops were open early. The Kinks blared from the speakers in the boutiques, women and teenage girls hunting for the shortest skirts. More zombie shoppers lolled about, licking ice cream cones and complaining about the sun, saying Jesus, it's a dead heat, isn't it? Most people were off at the beach. Kilkee, Lahinch, Ballybunion, eating periwinkles and dillisk.

Dave's street, just off William Street, was quiet. Everything closed, even the pub opposite. His shutter was half down, no other sign of life. I rapped the shutter. This broke a scab on my knuckle. I left a smudge of red on the shutter and winced with the pain.

'Dave?'

No answer.

I bent to get under the shutter and pushed the door in.

'Dave! It's me, man. You in the back?'

Nothing. The stereo was blaring, some Bowie song I wasn't familiar with. The shop lights were on, little light getting outside. I went to the back office, briefly pausing to admire the bikini-clad model on the cover of Dave's Sunday paper. It lay on the counter along with his bunch of keys and a small bottle of Club Orange, unopened. That was his hangover cure.

The office door was closed. I knocked. He could be developing some black and whites, I figured, or editing. I knocked again. Nothing.

'Dave. You in there?'

Silence. So I opened the door. The room was dark. I fumbled and found the light switch. In a flash, I saw my own downfall, rushing, eager.

Dave sat in his chair, head back. A small, black hole was in his forehead. From it, blood had trickled lazily down his face, then congealed. A lot of blood was splashed across the posters behind Dave's desk. Pictures of sexy girls and sports cars, now spoiled with brain and skull and tissue. I stood, frozen with fear and confusion, unable to look at his face.

After a few long seconds, adrenaline took over. I had to get out. Immediately. Unseen. What about my photos? Oh fuck. His hiding place. That's where he always left stuff for me. Porno movies, drugs, things like that. I'd have to look.

The place had been ransacked, prints and papers thrown everywhere. The killer had been looking for something. I took the Manhattan skyline statue off the filing cabinet, a 9/11 memento from his aunt in Queens. Dave's cousin was a fireman. He died. I shook New York and heard noise. Bingo! The base slid off easily. The photos, in two wallets with my name on them. I glanced inside one. Yes, Smythe. Anything else? A nice little lump of hash and a DVD in a blank case. Probably a porno. Lovely. I pocketed the stuff and remembered my reason for going to see Dave. Cash.

'Dave, I'm sorry,' I said to my friend's body.

I saw his wallet bulge in his shirt's breast pocket. I pulled it out, fearing the body. Inside, I found about four hundred, all fifties, which I took. I put the wallet back. I inhaled deeply and got ready to split the crime scene.

I moved quickly, lifting Dave's bottle of orange. He wouldn't be needing it and I was parched. The street outside was still quiet. Thank Christ. Head down, avoiding street cameras. Crowds coming out from mass. I blended. On towards Arthur's Quay, the riverside park. I sat on a bench and drank. Dave was dead. Butchered while working for me. I thought of his wife. The baby. Fiona. Me. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it, not for a sec.

The sun was belting down and swans glided by on the heavy, swirling river. My phone rang. It was O'Doherty.

'Charlie. I tried to call you last night.'

'Ahm, yeah. I saw that. I had a bit of a messy one.'

My voice was cracking. I was in danger of losing my nerve. He sensed it.

'You don't sound so hot, kid. Antin wrong?'

Was the fucker toying with me?

'Nothing too major. I'm okay. Just need a drink is all.'

'I'm havin one now. Why don't you join me?'

'No thanks, I've tons of shit on today.'

'No, Charlie. Now.'

'It's okay. Maybe some other time.'

'Now, right?'

'Okay. Where are you?'

I touched my gun. Felt reassured.

'The pub by the Treaty Stone. Going to a funeral later.'

'Fine. See you in about fifteen?'

'Grand.'

I had no idea what he wanted. Clueless. Was he going to finish me off? Maybe he had nothing at all to do with my house being blasted or Dave getting wasted. Or maybe everything. And now he was pulling me even closer to his centre of misery. So I went.

CHAPTER 32. THE KILLING FIELDS

Looking at the grass, all was a blur, a green shimmer. The shaking in me was bad. Everyone in the car stared at me, smiled. A high-pitched whine in my head shrieked Flight or fight! Now! But I could do neither. This was it. I could see where I would die. There, on the Island Field.

Crossing Sarsfield Bridge, I fucked the empty orange bottle into the Shannon. Going along Clancy Strand, I cried two tears for Dave. They came easily enough, with a dry pain in my throat and my teeth clenched tight enough to hurt. I dried my face with my sleeve and stopped off in a little park that juts into the river for a cigarette. I needed to lose the bleary look or O'Doherty would spot it.

I stood and smoked and gazed. I realised, with a grim smile, that this was the very spot where it began. Just four days before, I took snaps of O'Doherty's brother getting a handjob from right here. Now, it occurred, I was on my way to his funeral. Was this karma? Did I make my own fate? Was I in some sort of bad loop and, if so, would the centrifugal force trap me forever? My energy felt very low.

The Treaty Stone sat quietly on its pedestal, just a couple of Americans taking pictures, with King John's Castle across the river, reminding me of my proximity to O'Doherty's island heartland. The church, St Munchin's, was quiet, so the funeral must be still some time off. I crossed the street, into the bar, a gloomy place which stank of stale beer and residual Saturday night.

O'Doherty sat in an alcove with three mean-looking fuckers. They all wore black, didn't look happy. I figured they were depressed about the funeral, so tried to display some bravado. After all, I had a gun in my pocket. I allowed myself a tiny smirk.

'Drinks, lads?'

'We're alright, kid. Just got a round in, sit down.'

'But I - '

'Sit. Jack, get the man a drink, yeah?'

'What are you havin, shom?' asked Jack.

O'Doherty looked at me. Hard eyes. Someone whose orders were always obeyed. Jesus, he was really starting to come across like Don Corleone.

'Vodka and tonic, thanks.'

'Now sit.'

I sat beside O'Doherty, on the badly-upholstered and stained velvet seat. Jack, who stood out among the goons as the ugliest, most-tattooed - complete with spider's web on his neck and a tear from the outside corner of his left eye - and nastiest-looking, went to the bar, jangling his pocket as he fished for four quid and change.

'You see the paper, Charlie?'

'No, what's the story?'

O'Doherty looked at me closely, as did his two buddies. When Jack returned with my drink, I gulped it. Wasn't quite right. Maybe bootleg vodka. Still I drank. Still they watched me. Uncomfortable.

'Check this out,' said O'Doherty as he flicked through the Sunday paper. He opened it on page three and laid it flat on the sticky-topped table. I'd seen it, but acted well-shocked. The headline shouted.

GANGLAND MURDER VICTIM IN SECRET AFFAIR

That thing where your heart physically lurches happened to me then. The loop got faster. The point of overload came one notch closer. I could feel it click.

All eyes were still on me, so I read the story quickly. They had fuck-all to go on. No surprise.

'How the fuck did this happen?' I asked incredulously.

'You know nuttin about this, Charlie?' asked O'Doherty.

'Nothing. I swear.'

O'Doherty looked around the bar, which was starting to fill up.

'Let's go somewhere quieter. Just for a chat.'

'I - '

O'Doherty must have seen my fear, so he reassured me.

'Just for a chat. Let's go.'

The heavies gathered round me and one put his arm on my shoulder as we left the pub and went around the corner to their car. A big black Mercedes, probably their funeral car. I was put in the back, a heavy on either side, their stink almost raising puke. O'Doherty sat in the front passenger seat, his head turned to me.

'We'll just head to my place for a while. The wake is on there now, but you'll be safe. So don't be worryin.'

We crossed Thomond Bridge, some youngfellas fishing idly for passing salmon. Then left and down the far side of the river, past the broken frames of once-popular diving platforms, now rusting steel poking up like a rotten beached beast. The Baths. I pictured a fifty-year-old Limerick Chronicle shot of dozens of proud swimmers posing before their swanky new equipment. Swimming there now would require tetanus shots.

Rows of council houses stretched off in every direction. Most were small, poor, kept by houseproud mothers, battling against all odds. Litter covered the roads and footpaths. Most council workers afraid to work there, most residents not giving two fucks about the world outside the front door, gave up on it.

Past the houses were open green spaces that served as grazing land for horses and safe drug dealing zones. Beyond the grass was thick undergrowth and the river. I knew it was often used for killings, it was just so far from the system's reach.

When O'Doherty turned his head towards the wasteland, I knew it was where his brother had been killed. I held my breath, fearing the worst. The car slowed and stopped. Nobody around now.

'What's up?' I asked, my mouth dry, head spinning.

O'Doherty turned, faced me fully, eye contact. Fuck, this is it. The gun was in my jacket, but my arms were pinned to me by the sheer bulk of the heavies. Nut the one on the left and grab for it? Scanned the street for police, anyone. Nothing, just a knackered white horse, tethered to a rusty truck axle. Fuck.

He saw my confusion, smiled.

'Just lettin you know what's what, Charlie. You with me?'

'I'm with you.'

'Did you give those pictures to the paper?'

'I swear to God I didn't. I swear.'

He looked into my eyes and I held his stare.

At last he turned and nodded to the driver. We drove on past the Banks, up Googoo's Hill and to O'Doherty's house. I began to breathe, though I still sweated badly.

O'Doherty's house stood out easily. The riches were obvious in the new roof, extensions, tarmacced garden, security gates, CCTV cameras, expensive cars parked outside, satellite dishes and sparkling windows. And they'd knocked into the house next door. Place was huge. About a dozen men hung around at the gate, stepping aside when they spotted our car. We pulled into the drive and stopped beside a beautiful BMW convertible with the roof down. We got out and walked to the house, O'Doherty saluting the guys at the gate, each of them giving me a cruel, interrogating look, saying to each other Who the fuck is that little cunt?

'Welcome to my humble abode,' said O'Doherty to me.

He gestured to the heavies to hang on outside and put his arm on my shoulder as we went in his front door. The front room was full of relatives, mainly grannies, aunts and that. They drank tea or whiskey and every one of them smoked.

He led me through the hall and towards the kitchen, where his wife made sandwiches on a large, oak table. Lettuce and tomato, ham, chicken. At least twenty bottles of spirits sat on one end of the table, along with mixers, a bucket of ice and slices of lemon. Nice.

'Would ye like a drink,' asked his wife, not looking up from her sandwiches. Her lip was split but healing and she had a black smudge under her left eye. She looked like she'd been crying. Her lover would soon be placed in a deep hole, minus his head. When the affair was confirmed, she'd been thumped around, no doubt. I had a feeling that the worst bruises were hidden. She winced as she turned, her ribs sore, if not broken. She straightened and looked at me.

'Yes please,' I replied, my voice faltering as I saw her up close for the first time. 'Got any vodka and tonic?'

'No tonic,' she replied, looking into me with clear blue eyes. Crystal clear, like a fantasy ocean. '7up or Coke any good?'

'Coke would be lovely, thanks.'

'I'm Jean,' she said.

Oh shit, I thought. You are beautiful trouble.

She smiled at me, eyes lowered, and I knew I was looking at deep, potentially fatal hassle. Hassle with a history.

CHAPTER 33. PRESUMPTIONS

While she made my drink, half vodka, half Coke, O'Doherty fixed himself a whiskey on ice, no mixer. I figured that somebody would feel the O'Doherty wrath before the day was out. I just had to ensure it wouldn't be me. I felt slightly more relaxed now, drink in hand. Limerick people wouldn't waste drink on someone they planned to bump off. That would be a sin.

'Come on, Charlie,' muttered O'Doherty, leading me to the back door.

'Thanks for the drink,' I said to his wife, who was an oasis in a strange and dangerous land.

She gave me a look that I didn't quite understand. My heart picked up again.

O'Doherty brought me out on to a lovely big wooden deck, and we sat on upholstered wicker chairs. The garden was huge, stretching off towards the river, finishing with a real view of the Clare Hills. A few kids played around at the bottom of the garden, which was littered with Tayto crisp bags and plastic tumblers. It was the kind of garden you'd kill for. Ordinarily.

'So, Charlie, what we gonna do with you?' he asked, smiling.

'I don't know. All I do know is that I didn't leak the picture to the paper. Why the fuck would I? You'd finger me right away. I'm not completely insane.'

'I didn't think so, to be honest. Now I want you to be straight with me. Who else saw those pictures?'

I drank my vodka, wincing at its strength. I figured that I could deliver Dave up without risking anything. O'Doherty had probably worked it out for himself. He'd probably had Dave killed, the fucker. This was just a game.

'I lied when I said I developed the pictures myself. My mate did it. He has a photo shop in town.'

'Do you think he would have sold the pictures?'

'He never said it to me. But I'd say he wouldn't. He's a bit mad but, again, he's not insane.'

'Anyone else seen the pictures?'

'No.'

'Sure?'

'A hundred and ten percent.'

'Are there any more copies?'

'None. Dave must have made duplicates when he was processing. That's all I can think of.'

'Where's he based?'

I didn't answer, acting as though I was protecting my friend.

'Tell me, Charlie. If not, I'll find him anyways and start treating you like someone I can't trust anymore.'

'Are you gonna kill him? I'm not setting up my friend to get killed.'

'And I wouldn't expect you to,' he replied, a coldness in his eyes. 'I just want to have a word, that's all. See who he showed the pictures to. I want to be sure the cops aren't in any of this.'

'Won't they see the paper today?' I asked, trying to deflect his attention from Dave.

'Of course they will and they'll start askin questions. But I'd say they're too fuckin stupid to make it all add up.'

In that sentence, he'd admitted to me that he'd killed Luke and that he was supremely confident of getting away with murder. His wife was hot, granted, but would you kill for her? Your own brother? I didn't know. I felt sure there was something I was missing. I gave him one of Dave's business cards with the shop address on it. I begged that he wouldn't hurt Dave and he smiled.

'Do you smoke a bit of hash, Charlie?' he asked.

I nodded.

'Anything else? Coke? Speed? Any of that?'

I shrugged.

'I take what's going, I suppose. Like anyone.'

'That's very honest of you Charlie, a man in your position.'

What did he mean? My position? Pillar of the community? I think not.

'What do you mean,' I asked.

'I mean your job. You deal with all sorts, I'm sure. You handle lots of sensitive information. Information that could get people killed. But you still like to get out of your head?'

'I do. I don't like what's inside my head half the time.'

'Very honest. Look, hang on there a minute. I'll get Jean out to look after you.'

He disappeared into the house - I assumed he was sending the heavy squad into Dave's - and his wife came out, holding two tall glasses of vodka and Coke.

'I thought you'd need a refill,' she said, handing me a glass.

'Beautiful,' I said, taking the glass and looking down her top as she bent down to me. Unreal. She knew exactly what she was doing and smiled. Women always know. She sat opposite me.

'You goin to the funeral?' she asked.

'I hadn't planned to. Then again, I have no idea what's going on any more. So you never know.'

'Ever feel like a pet mouse in one of those runnin wheels?' she asked, lighting a cigarette and offering me her pack.

'Thanks. I do feel like a mouse in a wheel, actually. More so, these last few days. Why do you ask?'

'No reason, really. Do you have a business card?'

'Yeah, why?'

'I might need a private detective some time. And you're good at your job.'

'There's no way I'm spying on your husband. Not a fucking chance, if you'll pardon my French.'

'I didn't mean that,' she giggled, 'I meant for fun.'

She opened her eyes widely and licked her split lip. Jesus Christ! O'Doherty's wife. Coming on to me. In his house. On the day of her ex-lover's funeral. Are we all mad?

I drained the drink and found a business card in my pocket anyway. Dizzy and half-drunk already, I gave it to her. She put it in against her left breast, winked and went back into the house and its mourners as O'Doherty came out.

'You look a bit cheerier, Charlie. Things lookin up?'

'Yeah, the drink is having the desired effect.'

'Good stuff. Listen. I'm glad you were straight with me. So I'm going to be straight with you. Hold out your hand.'

I held out my hand, palm open. He put his clenched fist over it. When he opened his fist, two small aluminium wraps fell.

'Put those in your pocket,' he commanded.

I did as he said.

'Drugs?'

'Enough to keep you going. Listen Charlie. The shit's goin to hit the fan. Probably this week. All these funerals. All the suspicions. People are lookin for blood. Not just my boys, either. I just want to keep you on my side. That okay?'

'Okay. But the shit's already hit my fan. My house was machine-gunned last night.'

'That your place on the news?'

I nodded.

'Fuck me, Charlie. Who did it?'

'I've no clue. You didn't hear anything yourself, did you?'

He was smiling broadly as he shook his head. I had no idea if he was spoofing me. I asked if he could make some enquiries and he said he would. He looked at his watch.

'Right. Time for us to make tracks to the funeral. You don't need to come.'

'Fine. Suits me. Closed coffin I presume?'

He exploded with laughter, loud enough for the kids at the bottom of the garden to freeze and look in our direction.

'Closed coffin. Very good. I like you Charlie. Look, would you do us a big favour?'

The kids played on.

'What kind of favour?' I asked.

'There's a grand in it for you.'

'Tell me more.'

'It's like this. I don't think Jean at the funeral would go down well. The family's askin questions after the cuntin photos in the paper. So I need you to look after her for a few hours til it's all over. I know I can trust you with her, can't I?'

I gulped.

'Yeah, of course you can trust me. I mean, look what happened to the other guy.'

'Closed coffin,' he laughed, this time with menace. He could switch it on and off like a tap, the bastard.

'Hang on there while I make it clear to Jean.'

He went back in the house and I sneaked a peek inside the packages he'd given me. The first contained a good lump of hash, about half an ounce, the standard Pakistani blend that had flooded the city. The other had uncut cocaine inside, hard and lumpy. A couple of hundred quid's worth by the looks of it. Result. All this and his hot wife too.

Right then, just as all was becoming right with the world, Pat calls me.

'Where are you?'

'On a job.'

'The Island, yeah?'

Shit.

'Yeah. What's up, Pat?'

'Just letting you know we've eyes and ears everywhere.'

Did he slur just there?

'Okay.'

'I know what you did last night, Charlie. I know all about it, buddy.'

'Like what, Pat?'

I didn't know what I'd been up to, so surprise me.

'Like Dave, Charlie. Like Dave.'

And he hung up, leaving me with an open mouth, a dazed expression and an actual, physical sinking feeling.

CHAPTER 34. PICNIC

Bells tolled in the middle distance. For Luke.

'All set,' he said. 'You two hang on here for half an hour. When we're all gone to the church, get out of here. A few of the lads will be hangin around outside. Don't worry about them. Go for some food, go to the pictures, I don't care. You be back here for six or seven, Jean. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Charlie.'

The kids were called, he handed me a wad of fifties and left. Jean brought a small tray of sandwiches out to the patio. The house was now empty but for us, but I had the feeling of being watched, plenty of houses around. I ate in silence. Good bread, real butter, decent Limerick ham. Tasty, but not enough bite.

'Any mustard, Jean?'

'I'll see.'

I watched her hunt around the kitchen, like she wasn't too used to searching for condiments, finally bending over, arse cocked right at me, as she discovered an ancient jar of Colman's English in a press. Christ, what an arse.

She read the label as she brought the mustard out to me.

'Best before date's up. Just a couple of months.'

'Doesn't matter to me. There's nothing in mustard that'll kill you.'

'Unless it's gone green.'

I spread the - still yellow - mustard generously over the thick slice of ham in a new sandwich. My taste buds were in terminal decline from all my smoking, drinking and drugtaking. I needed strong flavours if I was to taste anything. Happens to everyone.

'So what would you like to do, Jean?'

'Jesus, I just want out of the city. Want to go for a bit of a drive?'

'Sounds good, but I'm a bit locked and I've no car with me.'

'Oh no,' she wagged a finger, 'I'm drivin, mister.'

The curvy new BMW Z4 convertible was, of course, Jean's. I'd read about it, seen one or two about. Its body was perfectly sculpted. Three litres, six speed, one hundred and eighty-four horsepower.

'It's a cunt with the petrol, though,' she said, as my eyes popped at the brushed alloy interior detailing.

I had the growing impression that O'Doherty had married above his social standing and was desperate to keep his wife happy. He would give her everything short of the freedom to screw around. She, meanwhile, felt trapped. She told me about the hiding he'd given her after he'd had his brother killed. She'd a cracked rib and bruising on her back and thighs. But she said she was used to it. Ominous.

All this I learned as we cruised out of the Island and on to the Dublin Road. Summery music played loud on the Bose stereo as we inched past the Parkway shopping centre and the gridlocked retail hell that had mushroomed around it. Her dark hair danced and, under her ludicrously expensive Prada shades, I knew that her eyes were smiling. I felt like someone special in that car with her. Don't matter what I do, 'cause I end up hurtin you, she sang. I kept one eye on the rear view mirror, but there was no sign of any of O'Doherty's goons tailing us.

As we reached Castletroy, the hill full of the most expensive and exclusive homes in the city, she took a left.

'Where we headed?' I asked. I didn't really care. I enjoyed her company and learned a lot about O'Doherty and his history. My fear of him grew. And my fear for her.

'Plassey,' she said, 'nice and quiet.'

We drove past the monster flagpoles and through the tree-lined avenue to the University of Limerick. There were plenty of students about, studying like fools on a glorious Sunday afternoon.

'You know the study rooms are open twentyfourseven?' I asked.

'Feckin eejits,' she replied.

We went to the car park near the new sports centre.

'We're not going for a swim are we?'

'Not a chance, I thought a picnic might be nice.'

'Very nice.'

We parked and, as the roof went up automatically, she opened the boot and took out a wicker basket and a blanket. This seemed well-planned.

'Do you always carry the makings of a picnic?' I enquired.

'No, this is just for you,' she smiled.

I carried the stuff and we strolled down to the river, passing various lecture rooms and offices. And tower cranes, always tower cranes. We crossed a small steel bridge, got on to the riverside path and turned right, heading further from the city with each step. The fat, lazy river was on our left, blithely ignoring us. A lone sign stood, menaced the place.

VISITORS ARE ADVISED NOT TO WALK THE RIVERBANK ALONE

'Janey Mac,' she said. 'I thought the Island was bad.'

She took my arm. I switched my phone off. Joggers and walkers passed by every so often. Cute little wagtails skipped ahead of us along the path, playing some bird game, and giant hogweeds towered on the right. We came to the end of the official trail, at the smashed walls of an old castle. Then we were in a meadow, the river on the left, the blank back walls of a massive computer plant far off on the right. We came to a strange bridge which led on to a small island. The bridge had a strong steel framework - all triangles - but nothing to walk on.

'Come on,' she said, clambering on to the frame and edging along.

'Jesus, Jean. I've to carry all this stuff.'

'Come on. I'll make it worth your while,' she laughed.

I needed no further encouragement. With the blanket under my arm, I had one free hand. I sweated, but made it. She led the way through a thicket of trees to a little clearing in the middle of the island. I laid the blanket out on the grass and she opened the picnic basket. I took off my heavily-laden jacket and laid it gently on the grass beside me. Inside the basket, she'd packed some of the sandwiches from earlier, the old mustard, a bottle of chilled champagne - Moet & Chandon 2002 - and two flutes. There was also a bag of cherries and two packs of cheese and onion Taytos.

I opened the champagne, filled our glasses and appreciated the surroundings. The tree cover kept us completely hidden from the meadow behind, but the river was open to the front. Insects buzzed happily in the afternoon sunshine and a steel-grey heron stood motionless by the water's edge.

'This is lovely, Jean.'

'I'm glad you like it. Charlie?'

'Yeah?'

'Would you kiss me?'

I'd been expecting this, but that didn't make it any easier to cope with. I'd figured that, on balance, she would be worth the risk. She had the look. She also had gleaming eyes and, Lord, after the twenty four hours I'd just been through, some affection would be sweet. But I needed to be sure I could trust her.

'What about your husband? Remember why you're here?'

'How could I forget?'

She shimmied across the blanket until she was sitting right up against me. I could smell her now, expensive perfume, Chanel No 5 maybe. She wasn't at all like O'Doherty or anyone from the Island. Her accent was so wrong as well.

'Jean, this isn't a set-up or anything, is it?'

'What do you mean?'

'Like, your husband isn't testing me or something?'

'I hate that prick. Look.'

She whipped off her top. This had the effect of showing me that her husband was, indeed, a brute. Heavy bruises covered her abdomen. She had definitely broken a rib, as a painful-looking red lump testified.

There was a secondary effect. She was down to her bra, a black Wonderbra that pushed her breasts at me, her deep cleavage casting a spell.

'Jesus, Jean. Talk about between a rock and a hard place.'

So I kissed her, felt her, wanted her. She had crisp breath that made me gag at first, and little bits on her tongue, but I soon got used to that. We held back from full sex but, God, I couldn't have stopped myself if she'd said Take me, Charlie, you fool.

Tasting her lips, I closed my eyes, felt my idyll. But I couldn't stop worrying. How in the name of Jesus was I doing this, that and the other with the wife of a gangster who was, at that exact moment, burying his own brother for doing the very same damned thing? And shouldn't I have been mourning my best friend? And what about bloody Pat? Too much, too much. So I eased away from her, switched off, turned on.

CHAPTER 35. TELL ME YOUR PROBLEMS

She always asked about their sex lives, that's what she'd been ordered to do. She was massaging this woman one Wednesday. The woman talked about her husband and how she's tired of him and how his days are numbered and here's his photo.

Etoile took it all in, asked more and more.

'Do you report all this to the doctor?' asked Deirdre one morning, in her pre-orgasmic fever.

Etoile rubbed ylang-ylang into her, relaxing muscles, removing tension.

'Yes. I must complete a report on your karmic state before you see the doctor. It's all part of the cure.'

'And I love the cure.'

'So does Charlie have a future?'

'Not with me. He'll always get by, I suppose.'

More oil.

'What you want Mrs Doyle, is what you need. You must take it. I, too, yearn for something.'

'That's so nice. I like you, Etoile. You have this kind of earthiness, you know? Yearning for something, but sexually evolved.'

'They say humans evolved in Africa. We're all African really.'

'Some day the whole world will be like Africa, I fear.'

So ideas evolved into plans. She had her target. As Deirdre prepared to lay on the guru's bed, Etoile worked out how to get into her husband's. Give him the sex that he craves so badly. Get engaged, get a stay on her deportation, marry him, get citizenship, get him killed. Nobody would miss him, it seemed.

Key to it all was the Muti Queen and her dark strategies. While the office was quiet, Etoile looked over Deirdre's personal file, took notes, smiled.

'My gods are more powerful than yours, Charlie Doyle,' she whispered.

CHAPTER 36. CHASE

To cover any possible sightings of us, we parked outside Castletroy church and Jean went in and prayed for a short while. Sorted, unless her husband smelled me from her. I suggested she have a shower before the night was out. She said she would.

Still time to kill, so I directed her out the Dublin Road and left to Castleconnell. We passed the swans and castle and Sunday afternooners and went straight to the pub on the hill. Sitting there at the bar on rickety high chairs, with a cool Guinness, the sunbeams catching the dust motes, the bric-a-brac of decades, the fishing tackle and mounted giant salmon, the radio playing some music station from another time, Jean sitting beside me, sipping soda water and lime and resting her right hand on my knee, a bizarre feeling crept over me. I wondered if I was dead and in actual heaven.

Two pints later, drove back towards town, stopped by a light. I was hit by a hot, blue funk, faded into the passenger seat. She sensed it in me and asked what was wrong. I told her about Dave being murdered and how I found him. She said Shit and I sat quietly with my confusion.

Gazing wearily into my side mirror, I figured that the red Toyota with the twin aerials and the three guys inside had been there for a good while. I looked closer and made their uniforms and the Dublin registration. Patrol cops in an unmarked car.

'Jean?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you ever get pulled by the fuzz or anything? I mean really. Not, you know, euphemistically.'

She smiled and said 'Yeah, they hassle us. Stops, searches and that. Just to annoy us. They can't get to Greg, though. He's got inside contacts.'

'Really? Well I think we've a couple of redneck uniforms on our ass.'

'Fuck. Give us a fag, handsome.'

I lit her a cigarette and then lit one for myself, hands shaking as we rushed smoothly into town.

'Are you carryin antin?' she asked, looking at me.

We got on the Parkway roundabout and took a left up Childers Road, the city ring road that passed by Southill and Weston, two of Europe's most lawless estates.

'Nothing much. Plenty of drugs and an unlicensed gun.'

'Christ. Okay. I'll lose these guys as close to your place as I can. Where do you live?'

'Down near the docks.'

'Perfect.'

She took a right off the ring road, heading down Mulgrave Street, towards town. We sped by the mental hospital, the jail.

'Be ready to jump when I say. I'll call you durin the week.'

'Great!' I was delighted to hear this. She intoxicated me.

'Wait a sec. They might connect you to me if I drop you there.'

'Why?'

'You're in the news, aren't you?'

'I suppose I am the man of the moment.'

'So what do you think?'

'You're right. I don't want to stay there anyway. It's fucking destroyed. I'll stay with my old fellah. There's nowhere else.'

'Sounds good. Where is he?' She kept watching the cops in the rear view mirror. They were stuck to us like flies to a dog's arse. We passed St John's.

'Not far. Just over the bridge. Off Clancy Strand.'

'Cool. You grew up there?'

'Yeah. I used to fish a lot with dad.'

'And is it just your dad there now?' asked Jean as she used the open stretches of street to put the boot down and make some distance. The cops were now a few cars and a good distance behind us. But still on us.

'Yeah.'

'So what happened your mother? She dead?'

I liked her directness back on the blanket. But this line of questioning made me uncomfortable. My palms oozed sweat and I could feel a trickle down my spine.

'No. She's in a nursing home. She went a bit loopy a few years back, on and off. When she can't cope, she goes in the home for a while. Do you find it hot?'

'Oh. That's sad. It's warm alright. Get ready.'

We crossed Sarsfield bridge at speed. Lights with us, Jean took a sharp right on the north side of the bridge, down Clancy Strand.

'It's the little lane just there,' I said.

There was no sign of the cops, so she jumped on the brake. I kissed her hard and jumped out. In seconds, I was hidden in the quiet cul-de-sac and she was half way home. Catching my breath, a strange feeling came over me. I worried about having caught something from her then decided, No, I feel strange because I feel happy.

How could it last?

CHAPTER 37. HOME

Dad's car was there and the windows were open. I rang the bell. Nothing. I rang again. Moving blobs behind the patterned glass in the front door. The blobs become my father.

He opened up, surprised to see me. Wearing his purple leisure suit, brand new tackies and a slightly embarrassed smile.

'Hey dad. How you doing?'

'Hi son. What brings you here?'

'Mind if I kip here tonight?'

'You what?'

'I need to. My house was shot up last night. You must've seen the news?'

'Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Are you okay? I heard it, yeah.'

'I slept through it. Can you believe that? It was like Vietnam.'

He smiled. We shared a love of Vietnam movies. I'll never forget the time he let me stay up late to watch The Deerhunter with Robert DeNiro before a Las Vegas boxing match. I was only twelve and didn't really get the film. But it was an exciting night, a pure, glistening memory of childhood.

'Apocalypse Now or Deerhunter?' he asked, his eyes glinting.

'Apocalypse Now. Definitely Apocalypse Now. The bridge scene. And I'm now Martin Sheen, in the middle of some shit I just don't understand.'

'It was on the other night all right. I watched it. What about Deirdre and the kids? Are they okay?'

'She left me. Last week. They're all gone.'

'She'll be back. She always comes back.'

'I don't know, dad.'

'Okay son,' he said, putting a hand on my shoulder, 'we'll talk later. Now come on out the back, we'll catch the last of the day.'

He stopped, raised his left arm, rotated the shoulder, grimaced.

'You okay?'

'Just pains in my chest and now my arm.'

'Get it checked out?'

'No. I should.'

I followed him down the hall and through the kitchen. The kitchen table was covered in goodies. Vodka, orange, gin, lemons. I knew the fridge would contain chilled beer, so I grabbed a cold can of Stella on the way. The patio doors to the garden had been flung open since sunrise and, though the sun was low, a decent heat remained. Towels were laid on the grass, a small radio played its tinny music and two deckchairs rested in the shade of my old apple tree. Dad made a call while I had a drink.

We chatted for a short while and I excused myself and went to my room. Just to smell it and to do a quick line. Up the carpeted stairs and along the landing. I peeked into dad's room. The door was half open anyway. The bed was a mess, quilt and pillows on the ground. Tube of KY Jelly on the bedside table. I got a whiff of sex, a primeval tingle in my spine. The crafty old fucker had set himself up as the local widows' stud. But everywhere, overpowering everything else, was the whiff of old age. A bizarre mixture of air fresheners, bowel gases and slow decay. The smell of human life fading.

Grinning stupidly with misguided pride, I went into my room. To think, I spent most of my formative years in this musty little place. Only long enough for my bed, only wide enough for a desk and a wardrobe. The curtains were closed, so I whipped them open and tried to encourage some dust out by opening the window. The view was the same as always, the blank gable wall of the neighbours' and, on the far left, a little patch of river, bridge and sky.

My little old Aiwa stereo waited patiently before me, so I turned it on. There was an actual cassette tape in it. I missed tapes, so I hit play. The Joshua Tree, U2's first classic. Where the Streets Have No Name, what pure class. I increased the hissing volume, no Dolby.

My phone beeped a text message. It was Jean, asking if I'd made it in okay and telling me she loved me. She was infatuated with me. Fuck it, I'm probably like the most urbane sophisticate next to the Neanderthals that surround her. How bad? I told her that I was safe and that I enjoyed the day. I couldn't risk sending her a filthy message in case her husband spotted it. For all I knew, the cheeky fucker could have sent me that text himself. I'd always been fairly carefree, naive even. Now I questioned everything and everyone. It's called survival instinct. I saved her number anyway.

I hid my contraband in the secret compartment behind the desk, the place where a dozen Playboys and Penthouses had done time, where I used to hide cigarettes, for Christ's sake. Now I'm hiding a gun and cocaine. Is that growing-up?

I went into the sunny, yellow bathroom and washed my face. In the mirror, I saw a wreck of a man. But at least the headbutt bruises were almost gone.

Fuck it, you'll be grand. Back down to the garden. Dad had cranked up the gas barbecue and the smell of old grease burning made me salivate.

'Fancy a steak, son?' he asked.

I said 'Does the Pope shit in the woods?'

'Did you turn the immersion off?'

'Yeah. Don't panic.'

Two decent steaks were dropped on the grille. I sat on the grass with a fresh beer and watched as my father nursed the grub.

'I just wish your mam was here.'

'Don't worry about mam. You have to get on with your life. It wasn't your fault.'

'Maybe it was.'

'What do you mean?'

He looked at his feet.

'I was doing the dirt behind your mother's back since the day we were married.'

I was shocked. I'd never dreamed it was that bad.

'Constantly,' he continued. 'I have some kind of sex addiction, I suppose.'

'Yeah, yeah. Did mam know about this carry on?'

'Only much later. She caught me in bed with another woman. Right upstairs.'

'Who?'

'I can't tell you. I feel like such a flute about it.'

'Who, dad?'

'Later. She was never right anyway. Not since you were born.'

We ate in silence and I had a doze on the grass. I woke up an hour later, dinner just a residual smell and the garden in full shadow. The sky was that intense electric blue after sunset. A star - more likely Venus - twinkled on its own. So I made a wish. I wished that I could get out of my hole and find true love. Really.

Dad had moved inside and it took me a minute to get my bearings. For a sec, I thought I was a kid again.

Then we sat in the living room. He opened a bottle of Paddy whiskey and we drank until I puked.

He told me about how he'd shagged his wife's sister, my auntie. Bitch. Bastard. I couldn't believe it and accused him of driving my mother crazy. He denied this but I didn't care.

'And there's something else, Charlie.'

'What the fuck else could there be?'

'I had to get your mam taken out of the nursing home.'

'So where is she? Is she coming home?'

'Not for a while. I had to get her signed into St Joseph's on Friday. It's doing my noggin in.'

'The nuthouse? Are you for real?'

He nodded, resigned to taking it from me, knowing there was nothing I could actually do about it.

'Well fuck that for a game of soldiers,' I said.

I went to my room in a temper, snorted some cocaine, then sat on the bed for an hour, spitting my dinner and a pint of acidic yellow bile into a plastic bag.

And that was my best day.

CHAPTER 38. TINGLE

He was still in his black funeral suit, pissed out of his face. Even more repulsive than usual, asleep and snoring, legs up, in his Italian leather recliner. The Sopranos blared from the Bang & Olufsen flatscreen TV.

She'd been in the house for ages, waiting for him. She'd showered all the contact from her body so all that remained of the day was a distant tingling in her belly.

He'd come in from the garden after midnight, sent his cronies home.

'So was he okay? Did he try antin on?' he slurred.

'He was fine. He tried nothin. I'd say he's straight up. I'd trust him.'

'Okay. Give us another whiskey there, love.'

Shit, she thought. Don't tell me he's going to try and ride me. I don't know if I could take it. Or another hiding.

She took his tumbler and went to the kitchen, filling the glass almost to the brim. Then he drank greedily while she prayed he would pass out on his armchair. With the funeral over, maybe they'd get back to normal soon. Simmering resentment, casual disrespect and shouting matches, but nothing more.

But Luke was gone, her second lover to be murdered by her husband. New Guy Charlie could be handy to get her through and, if she kept him on a tight leash, maybe he'd be good for a lot more. She'd see. And if he copped it, well, that's an occupational hazard for desiring a gangster's wife. Didn't he know full well what he was getting in to? Actually no, he only saw the tip of the deadly iceberg.

Then Greg droned. The funeral, the pubs, the fights and the singing, how he did it for her, his own brother and all. Then his glass fell off his lap, spilling the dregs of his whiskey on to the deep, white carpet. She looked at him with resentment, considered getting the bread knife from the kitchen, pictured it stuck in his chest. But, too tired, she just went upstairs to bed.

His day would come.

CHAPTER 39. LEGACY

Later. Stomach emptied, my old room stopped spinning. I felt a little better, found some soluble painkillers in the bathroom cabinet. It was crammed full of dozens of medications. Old people like to hoard medicine. Sense of security. The large tablets fizzed excitedly in a glass of water, then slid down my parched throat like manna from heaven. Half came up again, but enough stayed down to make a difference. Downstairs to the kitchen for coffee. I sat at the kitchen table and filled in a Proust Questionnaire in the back of an old person's magazine. Made me think.

In walks dad.

'I just wanted to apologise for earlier. Sorry for messing your head up like that.'

He was watching the kitchen TV. CNN on Sky Digital. He was as obsessed with the news as I was. Mosque bombings in Baghdad, numbers raced across the screen, scorched flesh in bloody piles, splashes of crimson.

'It's okay,' I said, sensing his remorse.

'Bad business.'

I pressed on.

'Listen, dad. You couldn't do me a favour, could you?'

'You need money?'

'What else?'

I'd a grand and a half in my pockets, pretty much all of which would go on a machine gun, I figured. If I could score another grand, I'd be covered until the shit blew over or I got some cash in from other jobs. I was owed on a few and could get something in from the Smythe job this week if I pushed it. Dad said he'd help out and went off to the cash machine while I sat on the back porch and went through the photos from Dave's. Dave. I'd managed to block out the vicious murder of my best friend.

The pictures were dynamite, a fitting legacy to his skills. Smythe was in about a dozen. Must've been Saturday, while I was totally out of it. In some, Smythe chatted in a restaurant with businessmen, suits, freaks. Some I recognised, but one jumped out, setting off a million alarm bells in my numbed brain. It was Dr Robert Fox, one of the very richest dudes in town. He'd made his fortune in pharmaceuticals, invented some kind of fat-eating enzyme - morbidly huge in America - and now spent it on buying up the city and sticking a fat finger in every pie. He was a creepy-looking fucker, overweight, slick grey hair in a ponytail, trademark dark glasses, obvious smell of money. In the pictures, he and Smythe were obviously having a super time. Best of pals.

More pictures, more quality work from Dave. Smythe with a woman in South's. There they were, real chummy. And in a quiet doorway somewhere in town. He had his tongue down her throat and his hand on her tit. She was hot for him. It didn't add up, but it was enough for me get paid and wrap the job up.

The remaining dozen pictures were a different ballgame. Fiona. Luscious Fiona, former assistant of Dave. Naked as the day she was born and without even a trace of shyness. Christ! Seeing her bending over, arse into camera so you could literally count her pubes, I was getting hard. My heart couldn't cope, labouring in my chest.

The pictures got dirtier. Fiona, clearly in Dave's back office that was also a mini-studio, letting the camera look inside her, to her sex soul. It was almost hardcore stuff. I had the feeling that I was looking at professional porn, not just some messing around. I wondered if Dave could have been into this deeper than he let on. I knew he loved porn. Maybe too much. He'd done some glamour work, for sure, but I always figured that was just so he could screw around more.

As the newsreader droned on about the Middle East's descent into chaos, I got a call from Pat.

'I'm sorry about Dave, Charlie. Really sorry,' he began, like his earlier call hadn't happened.

'I know, man. You better get whatever fuck did this, Pat. Promise me,' I stammered, continuing the pretence.

'I promise, Charlie. We'll get the bastard. Any ideas? Was it whoever riddled your house?'

'I can't see it Pat,' I said, working it through in my head. 'Dave had nothing to do with the fight. He could've been seen with me, but I don't see why the Flynns would want him dead.'

'Well I thought you'd want to know straight away. His PC was full of porn. Hardcore stuff.'

'You looked at his PC?' I asked. I played dumb well.

'Obviously.'

'So what kind of porn?'

'All sorts. Mostly straight hardcore, including the women from Pussy Galore. Then there was some sadistic stuff too. Not my cup of tea.'

'Yeah?'

'Bad news. Really bad news.'

'Fuck it Pat, what is it?'

'I'm sorry bout this, but there was some child porn there as well.'

'You're fucking kidding me.'

'I'm not. I'm not sure how young they are yet but let's just say they weren't eighteen.'

'There's a chance that he was being given footage by our Russian friends,' I said, proposing a credible solution. 'Dave would do the editing, put it together for DVD duplication.'

'What I was thinking,' replied Pat, 'was that he found out something about the Russkis. Something they didn't want him to know. Maybe he was making movies for them, maybe just taking promo shots, I don't know. But he found out something. Somebody arranged to meet him at the shop on Saturday night or Sunday morning, then shot him.'

'Any time of death?'

'Inconclusive,' he said glumly.

'Inconclusive? How could it be inconclusive in this day and age?'

I needed to know when Dave was shot so I could strike myself off the suspect list.

'Any news from the CCTV?' I asked.

'One of them was broken and I'm still waiting on the other. I'm so fucking annoyed about that. Forensics showed up dozens of DNA traces. It's a shop, so that's no good. Nothing on the body. Only lead is some DNA off Dave's wallet and his hiding place. Oh yeah, and the outside shutter.'

My heart froze. That was my DNA.

'Really? You got a sample?'

'Yeah,' he smiled. 'All it takes is one cell from one drop of sweat off your finger and we can isolate it. The wallet only had Dave's DNA, plus one more. We found the one more on a stash box as well. Lucky the bastard had sweaty hands. The shutter's the best, though. Blood. Fresh blood. The best source. All matching.'

I couldn't answer. I glanced at the scabs on my hands.

'Still doesn't give us enough for a case though,' he continued.

'Really?' I breathed again.

'Yeah. A bit light. I could do with a solid suspect. Then link the DNA. Bingo. You know what I mean.'

'Shit.'

'Where were you again on Saturday night?' Before I could stutter an answer, he changed tack. 'Have you gone to see his missus yet?'

I hadn't even considered visiting Dave's widow. And we knew each other years.

'She doesn't like me,' I answered. 'It might be better if I went with you.'

'Maybe you're right. When would be good for you?'

'Any time tonight, I'd say. Best to get the condolences out of the way.'

'Grand. Be over in ten.'

'Cool.'

I fixed myself a light gin and tonic and smoked a mild joint. The drink tasted horrendous, but stayed down. Dad came back and handed me seven hundred - maximum withdrawal - in cash. I thanked him and told him about Dave's murder.

'Mother of God, I'm sorry for your troubles, Charlie. I'm hearing about it all day. I didn't know who it was. Oh Jesus.'

He was concerned that I might be involved in something dangerous. I told him not to worry.

'Jesus, Charlie. Dave. Your best pal all your life. Dead.'

Pat came into the house for a few minutes, to have a good natter with my old man. They'd always gotten along well and my dad was fascinated by police work. He asked a lot about Dave and the other murders and searched for a connection. Pat said he didn't see one, that it seemed to be more about a jealous husband or boyfriend or something. Or plain robbery.

Pat said the whole shop was being done over by the forensics boys, the Oompa-Loompas. He said that initial results were good, with prints, DNA and material evidence. Even blood. Pat glanced at me and grinned when he said that.

He said that Dave was still in there, his rigid body still thrown back on his chair. The blood from the bullet wounds would be congealed black by now, flies would have laid tiny eggs on him, the bacteria colony inside him would be cannibalising itself or trying to find a way out. I saw this as a technical event, not an emotional one. The curious detachment returned.

The thought crossed my mind again: Did I do it? I managed to dismiss that fear, but an awkward uneasiness stayed lodged in my guts.

CHAPTER 40. BOYS IN BLUE

Pat's police radio crackled, spat out bits of information. Units were on the lookout for a handbag snatcher on William Street. There were two gangs of drunken teenagers causing aggro on O'Connell Street. A few burglaries around. Domestics. The usual Sunday night shite.

Driving through town in the unmarked police car was an unnerving experience. Whenever we stopped or crawled through traffic, we were made for detectives immediately. People looked at me, stared at us. I turned my face, afraid that someone from O'Doherty's gang would spot me and make a connection.

'Can we go any faster, Pat?'

'The looks, ha?'

'Yeah. The looks.'

'Hang on.'

Pat grabbed his blue light from under his seat and plonked it on the outside roof, its coiled wire crossing his body to the dash. He flicked a switch on the dash and the light flashed and a siren wailed. He pulled out sharply as the immobile traffic ahead made space.

So we were there in a couple of minutes. Dave lived in Raheen, near the sprawling Crescent shopping centre and the hospital. Though it was late, the sky an ever-deepening blue - almost black - there were a few cars outside the house. Parking, Pat said that he'd do the talking and I nodded dimly. It was starting to hit. Inside, a few shocked relatives sat in the front room, drinking coffee and eating from a tin of Afternoon Tea biscuits. We both shook hands with Tina and gave her a hug. She took us out to the back garden, where she lit a cigarette.

She knew nothing. Dave and his wife had been living separate lives for months. They never had sex, never went out together, never talked. All this I knew. She mentioned his appetite for pornography and how he even asked her to pose naked for his new camera, just to test it, like. Other than that, no leads.

'And then there was the other prick, his partner in crime,' she said quietly.

I nodded and said nothing. God only knew how many times Dave had used me as an excuse when he was having affairs. No point telling her the truth, just rubbing salt.

'And he even wanted me to go swinging,' she said, full of poison now. 'Can you believe that? The very idea makes me sick to my stomach.'

Pat glanced at me, then stared at the floor.

The baby - Peter or Paul - suddenly began to wail from the next room. Tina didn't budge, wasn't interested. Her mother went and fussed, changed the nappy, got the bottle. Yes, Dave was gone, but his genes lived on.

Pat thanked Rita for her time and consoled with her again. He asked if there was any way we could help with the funeral and all and she said No thanks, all done. The body would be released tomorrow, so removal from funeral home to St John's Monday night, church to graveyard Tuesday morning. Plenty of drinking opportunities. Jesus, death in Ireland is such a boozy drag. I said nothing.

Pat said Dave's phone would be returned as soon as they'd finished checking its logs. Shit. There'd be plenty to and from me there, including on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Bollocks! Realised what a fucking dope I was not to have taken Dave's phone for my own leads. I wasn't half as sharp as I cracked on.

Driving back into town, I made up my mind.

'Pat, listen,' I began, as we crossed the new bridge, the oddly futuristic hotel and office block beside us making the scene like Poor Man's Miami.

'Yeah?' he seemed lost in thought.

'We have to get whatever bastard nailed Dave. Between us. Me and you. For our mate.'

'I agree. I've officially got the case. Well, me and the team. We've a meeting later.'

'Good. Then there's time for you to follow up a lead.'

'Which is?'

'I got some pictures off Dave on Saturday. He was doing some surveillance for me, a bit-on-the-side job. Interesting one. I'll tell you about it some time. Anyway, Dave dropped them off to mine about eight and split off straight away before I could check them. He'd only just taken them?'

'And where were you on Saturday night?'

'Like I say, at home.'

'All night?'

'Yeah, now can I please get to the point?'

'Fire away. Which way we headed?'

'Kileely-ish. Anyway, Fiona is, or was, Dave's hot assistant. Model material, I'm not joking you. Dave only told me last week he was shagging her.'

'Dirty bastard. And with a lovely wife at home?' he laughed. 'I'm only messing. I met her once or twice. Nice. Pity about the mouth on her.'

'So there were pictures of Fiona in with my ones. Porno pictures. Taken by Dave. In the shop.'

'Fuck. That's a good one, Charlie. Porn and the sex trade in general are fucking massive right now. These eastern Europeans are masters at it and they're pushing their weight around to take over. Even here. Where's Fiona? I've got to talk to her anyway. See who was in to see Dave and that.'

'That's the problem, Pat,' I said, gritting my teeth.

'Why?'

'She lives in Moyross. Feeling brave?

'No, my machine gun's back at the office.'

'So call your buddies with Dave's phone. Get them to send you Fiona's number. It has to be in there.'

Pat made a call and, within two minutes, had the number.

'I'll talk to her,' I volunteered, figuring I knew her better.

'Fine,' said Pat. He keyed her number into my phone and gave it to me to press the green button. She answered immediately.

'Charlie!' her voice excited.

'Hi Fiona. How did you know it was me?'

'Dave gave me your number. Made me save it. Oh Charlie, what'll I do?'

'Take it easy, Fiona. You're okay. Can we meet up? I know it's late. I'm with Pat. We're going to catch whoever did this.'

'I can meet you in ten minutes. That little hotel on the Ennis Road with the nice garden? The Woodfield? They've a late bar.'

'Beautiful. See you then. How will you get over?'

'I'll call a hackney. It'll only cost me a fiver.'

'Great. I'll fix up with you for it. See you soon.'

'Bye Charlie.'

'She sounded rattled,' I said.

'Could she be the key, do you think?' asked Pat. Maybe he could sense the promotion potential in solving a mysterious murder and busting an international sex ring into the bargain.

'Maybe,' I replied, keeping the O'Doherty photo connection to myself for a little longer. That would have been enough to warrant a bullet in Limerick. More than enough. I'm lucky it wasn't me that copped it.

Pat became quiet again, thinking about the permutations and taking the odd note in his little cop notebook. As we drove to the Ennis Road, Pat told me more about the sex traders. They came from all over. It was an all-encompassing racket for milking the biological need for sex. Prostitution and the exploitation of women was its bedrock, but its profits came from pornography, slavery and paedophilia too. You couldn't have one part of the sex trade without all the others. Everything was connected.

And it was, of course, one of the three highest-grossing industries on the planet, the others being drugs and weapons. Again, all connected. If Dave had gotten in with any of these characters, even on an innocent level, he'd be fair game if anything made them suspicious. Anything. Even like knowing and socialising with Pat, a known cop.

We passed Thomond Park rugby stadium, floodlights blazing, the Munster team preparing already for next year's Heineken Cup.

A call came through, general announcement. The remains of a child - butchered - found in a stream outside the city, past Moyross. No ID yet, no leads. The radio operator sounded pissed off.

'Fuck it,' I said. 'It can't get any worse now, can it?'

CHAPTER 41. SHATTERED

Ever feel like there was a little man inside your head, chipping away at your bits with a blunt icepick?

'That's her,' said Pat angrily. 'Shit!'

'Fuck it. A fucking childkiller on the loose on top of everything else.'

This wasn't a pleasant or helpful event. As a human being - whether animal or divine - I was sickened to my core, worried for my own kids, wherever they were. And resources would be shifted from Dave's investigation to catch the child's murderer. It might be up to me and Pat now.

My worst fears were confirmed when Pat got an order over the radio to get back to the station to help set up an incident room. He confirmed receipt of the order and said Fuck.

'Sorry Charlie. Can I drop you and you talk to Fiona.'

'No worries.'

'I trust you on this one, Charlie,' deadpan as usual.

'We're doing this for Dave,' I said as he screeched to a stop at the kerb opposite the hotel. I leapt out and slammed the door and Pat was gone in a second, his hand waving out the window.

I skipped through the traffic, relishing the prospect of a chat with Fiona. I checked around the packed bar and the outside seats. No sign of her, so I ordered a vodka and tonic and bought some cigarettes. Taking a corner of a bench out in the night, I smoked and went over my texts, looking for clues. Fiona arrived soon after, giving me a kiss on my cheek. She smelt good. I ordered her a rum from the waitress. When the drink arrived and I lit her cigarette, she began to lay her life with Dave bare, speaking quietly, fidgeting often.

'Dave and me had the hots for each other. I was only with him six months. He knows me father, that's how I got the job. He started tryin to kiss me and rub my arse on me second day. I gived in. He was nice to me. He brought me out for lunch. Once we even locked up early and went to the pictures in the afternoon. Can you believe that?'

'I can.'

'Then we started havin it off. First it was only in work, early or late or at lunch hour. He wanted sex all the time. It suited me. I really liked him, plus I could do what I liked at work and he paid me well.'

'Your candour is refreshing, Fiona. So what happened?' I asked, calling the waitress again. Fiona stayed quiet until our drinks order was away.

'We were out on the piss one night. Dave was blowin some cash. He'd coke and all sorts.'

'He was a right blackguard. I'll miss him.'

'So we were sluggin champers in one of the lapdancin clubs,' she went on. 'Dave was in top form and some guys came and started talkin to him. Said they heard he was a photographer and would he do pictures for the club. He said Of course. The girls there were all rides.'

'Any idea where from?'

'I thought they were all Russians. Anyway, by the end of the night, Dave is these blokes' new best friend in history. They gave him ten minutes in a private room with his favourite girl. And he fucked her too. He told me. I didn't care.'

'Can you describe the guys?' I asked, wondering about murderers.

'Not really. The place was dark and they all look the same to me.'

'Where, exactly?'

'Pussy Galore.'

'I know it. So did Dave do the work for them?'

'He spent a few afternoons at the club doin publicity shots. Then it turned into porn in his studio. The lapdancers make extra cash posin for hardcore shots. They're sold on. Then Dave branched out into findin local girls who'd pose for a few quid. Fast, easy, dirty.'

'Did he ever ask you to pose for him, Fiona?' I watched her closely, wondered if she'd lie to me.

'Yes,' she replied, without batting an eyelid. 'Once. I would only do it for Dave. Plus I made three hundred for an hour's work. We had sex afterwards.'

I'm sure.

'So Dave was supplying the porn pictures to these Russians?'

'I suppose so. Can you get us another drink, please Charlie? Dave forgot to pay me on Friday. I was supposed to get it Monday.'

'Jesus. That's rough. Can I give you a few quid to keep you going?'

'No thanks, I'll find a job soon enough' she said. And I knew she would, with her face and her figure. Plus a sharp head on her shoulders.

'You could always work for me, you know? I need some help with my filing,' I blurted.

My dick had taken over from my brain. But my brain began to see the potential as well. Worst case scenario, I find out if she's connected to Dave's death. Best case scenario, she'd be handy, do a good job and maybe fall for her new boss. What a sleaze.

'You mean as a private detective?' she asked. 'Really? Wow, that would be pure cool! Are you serious?'

'That depends. How much was Dave paying you?'

'Two fifty a week into my hand for thirty hours.'

I watched her eyes closely. She didn't seem to be lying.

'Well I can match that for now. If you can help me organise myself, I'll get more done. You can pick up some tricks of the trade as well. Before you know it, you'll be helping me on jobs. More jobs, more pay. How does that sound?'

'Great. Thanks Charlie. I appreciate it.'

'No problem. You're a sound girl. I hate to see you stuck because of what happened to Dave. He wouldn't want you to be not taken care of. I'm sure of that.'

'He was a sound man. I'll miss him.'

'Sound as a pound. I'll miss him too. So you free to start in the morning?'

'Really? Yeah, of course. Isn't your office down near Baal's Bridge?'

'Yeah, Riverside. Call in around eleven. You can meet Margaret, the receptionist and owner of the building. She's gas. I'll show you the ropes and you can get cracking. Any idea about computers?'

'I did a European Computer Driver's Licence course in the community centre. It was cool. I learnt all about Word, Excel, you name it.'

'Fuck me. Maybe you can help me computerise my jobs?'

'We'll give it a go anyway,' she smiled.

'See you in the morning so.'

We talked on. After one, she said Is that the time? and called a hackney on her mobile.

I gave her twenty to cover her cab home. She kissed me on the side of my mouth. Her kiss lingered for a second longer than was required by convention. I walked towards town, my head buzzing from drink, my thoughts erratic, everything leading me towards Fiona's altar of sex.

Found my way back to dad's.

'Shattered now,' I said to myself. And 'Can't take much more of this.'

CHAPTER 42. BISCUIT

Dr Robert Fox was born rich, stayed rich. As he dressed in a sober grey Armani suit, starched white shirt and cold blue tie, he considered his position. He was about to progress from being filthy rich to obscenely rich, thanks to his old school pal, Smythe, and some Russian money. And Pat, his latest MVP, another alumnus.

Adjusting his tie in the kitchen mirror, Fox's mind drifted back to boarding school - as it always did - to where he first met Smythie over a game of toss the biscuit. They were first years, totally naive, virgins. The older boys in the dorm say Come on, it's fun, you have to or you'll be sorry. So they play. It's still so clear in his mind.

Six boys kneeling in a circle, a digestive biscuit in the middle. Go! Each boy drops his shorts and starts to masturbate. One by one, they come.

But one boy doesn't. The loser. The biscuit a soggy mess, swimming in a pool of semen. An older boy carefully picks it up with thumb and forefinger and orders the crying Smythe to open wide. The soggy, disgusting biscuit is forced into his mouth and a hand held in place until Fox's friend, gagging, swallows it.

Fox lay in bed that night with a curiously elated feeling, smiling as he listened to the wretched sounds of vomiting from the toilet. He had enjoyed seeing Smythe eat his spunk, eat everyone's spunk. Fox would never lose a game. He'd been tipped off and had started rubbing himself in the toilet beforehand. Family connections. Everybody played it at boarding school, didn't they?

There were countless more games of toss the biscuit during those five school years. And more, much more. Mutual masturbation between boys wasn't seen as anything weird, so it was normal behaviour. Some of the queer boys did more, but away from the dorms. Some of the boys had relationships with the staff, male and female. It was all perfectly normal. Helped to pass the endless winter nights, fill in the weekends.

Now his old school chums were the pillars of society - the high-flying lawyers, judges, bankers, accountants and politicians that called the shots \- the very system itself. It was understandable that, having experienced boarding school puberty, one's views on sexuality and morality would be unconventional.

This explained how rapists escaped with three year sentences. How paedophiles often got off scotfree. How women were sometimes judged to have invited rape. How some of the obviously guilty never came before a judge. How the rich and privileged looked after the rich and privileged. But the proles would never understand the true complexity of power, the system.

So Fox got on with his career after university, doing very well in business relationships with Smythie and the other alumni. Thanks to that first night of soggy biscuit, Smythe would always be beneath Fox - lesser - it was an unspoken law.

Fox thought about his childhood games every day. They never left him. They had shaped his personality, his sexuality, his success in life and brought him, now, to the edge of something vast and powerful.

He dunked a digestive, finished his coffee, looked forward to Karpov's party. The party of the year is how the Leader or the Post would describe.
CHAPTER 43. HANDY

The intercom on my desk buzzed. Margaret announced Fiona's arrival. She had a quick look around and said You seriously don't have a PC?

'So how much is one going to set me back?'

'To buy, about a grand. We'll get a deal with printer and scanner thrown in.'

'You know how to work all that stuff?'

'Piece of piss. Or we could try an alternative supplier.'

'Such as?'

'One of me brother's mates works out in Dell. He gets stuff out the back door.'

'I thought that was impossible.'

'They watch um like hawks, for sure. But these boys have the best scams goin. They always get stuff out.'

'And how much?'

'About four hundred.'

'That's worth a risk.'

'For sure. You'd have to be pure mad not to go for it.'

'Pure mad?' I laughed. 'Can you give him a call, please?'

Fiona got on the phone and I looked through a catalogue full of office crap. I found a filing cabinet I liked the look of, so I ordered it for next day delivery. I made it clear that the cabinet would have to be brought up into my office if they wanted COD. No way was I putting my back out with a fucking filing cabinet. No fucking way when my sex life was finally starting to pick up.

Fiona's brother had a full system, boxed, ready for delivery. He said he'd be about in the afternoon and to have the cash ready. Progress. I used the time before lunch to talk Fiona through the cases I was working on and the ones that'd just been wrapped up. I left O'Doherty out of it. She was quick and took notes without being asked. She hit me with twenty questions about my procedures on cases. My head was spinning as I'd never had to try and explain my procedures to anyone. She seemed a bit confused, not surprisingly, so we knocked off for lunch.

Then the PC arrived and she set it up.

We went through the Smythe case and she began drawing up the invoice. I called his wife and told her I'd like to meet her. She said fine, she'd bring cash with her. I wanted to get her out of the way, so pushed for an immediate meeting. She said One hour, the coffee shop in the Parkway, a city limit shopping centre.

'Fiona,' I said, 'I've to do this and follow up on a couple of things. Would you be okay without me?'

She gave me a silent look, one eyebrow raised. She finished the invoice, printed it. It was perfect.

'Oh Charlie!' she cried as I was stepping out the door.

'Yeah?'

'Dave's removal from the funeral home. It's tonight. Seven.'

'Fuck's sake. I thought he was out of my life.'

CHAPTER 44. POSH

I drove east. The sun beat down, blinding me. I'd forgotten my shades. The road was backed up badly and the journey was a nightmare crawl.

Eventually, the Parkway loomed ahead on my right. The crazy roundabout was a test. By the time I parked, my mood was black.

I found Mrs Smythe at a quiet table in the coffee shop. A look from her made me smile. She had a cappuccino before her and stirred it anxiously as I approached. I shook her hand and ordered a Lavazza Americano from the waitress. My hands shook a little, but less than the day before. I ordered a large bottle of mineral water too. The Evian and coffee were delivered quickly and then I gave her the pictures.

'Do you think it's serious?' she asked calmly.

'I think the photos speak for themselves. In my professional opinion, he's having an affair. I'd say there's a lot of it going on at work.'

'Why do you say that?'

'He was socialising with his colleagues. I get the impression that the secretaries do the rounds.'

She looked closely at the pictures, her face registering disgust.

'I see. Well, you've done a very good job, Mr Doyle.'

'Thanks. What are you going to do?' I asked, though it was none of my business. My guess was Nothing. She thought for a moment, putting the pictures into her Chanel handbag.

'Nothing,' she answered, smiling now. 'I have no interest in him. Sexually anyway. I keep myself amused elsewhere.' Her eyes flashed, for the briefest instant. 'If I ever tire of him, this is my escape clause for a new life on the Med with half his fortune,' she continued. 'This has actually cheered me up. Thank you. Now, your bill, please.'

I gave her the envelope which had her neatly typed bill inside.

'Very professional, Mr Doyle,' she said, all business, examining every detail on the invoice. 'Excuse me while I go to the ladies.'

I half stood up out of manners and watched her, very fit for her age, as she went to the jacks to count out the cash for me. I finished my coffee and started on the water. She sat back down and handed me an envelope, different to the one I'd given her.

'Two thousand,' she said in a whisper, winking.

'Two? The bill is only one and a bit,' said an astonished me.

'One for a job well done and one for keeping quiet about it. I think that's fair.'

'But surely you know that, as a professional, I'm not going to blab about this.' I acted hurt.

'I fully accept that. This is just to cover all eventualities. Just take it Charlie. I like you.'

'Do you know a Dr Fox?' I asked, suddenly remembering his photo with Smythe.

'Only on the surface, socially. My husband does some work with him.'

'What kind of work?'

'I really don't know. Money games, golf.' She paused. There's just one thing.'

'What is it?' I asked gently.

'This cannot ever be repeated by you, do you understand?'

I nodded gravely. She moved her face close to mine, her smell sophisticated and understated. Her eyes showed emotion. Sadness there.

'There have been rumours going around about Dr Fox for years,' she began, glancing around the cafe. Then her eyes rested on mine. 'People say that he likes young women. The younger the better.'

'Kids?' I asked incredulously, that dead girl flashing into my mind.

She nodded, unable to say it. She said that she kept Fox at arm's length and just didn't want to know anything more about him. I sensed that the dead child had rattled her too. Maybe that's why she let this slip. I left a tenner tip because the service was good and I was now a - temporarily - rich man. So make someone's otherwise crappy day.

We shook hands at her flash car, a black Saab, and she thanked me again. I headed back into town, no traffic in that direction, thankfully. The call I'd been waiting for came while I passed the creamery on Clare Street, so I pulled in outside the art college.

It was the man about the big dog.

CHAPTER 45. FLIGHT K235

Karpov was pissed off. The Moscow airport authorities had delayed his flight on a security pretext. He knew it was done solely to annoy him, to squeeze an extra bribe. He finally got clearance to leave for Ireland an hour late. They would wait for him, it was his presentation after all, but he didn't like being late.

His private Boeing 737-800 - brand new - taxied to its takeoff position and, after another delay, darted into the black sky. As he crossed Germany, Karpov adjusted his watch to Irish time. His assistants worked on his speech and Powerpoint show, while the girls - ostensibly secretaries - who would work in Ireland for three months, chatted nervously.

'Sir, would you like to eat now?' asked his stewardess, a beautiful young woman from St Petersburg.

'What's on the menu, Katherina?'

'What would you like, sir?'

'I'd like you to come to my quarters with me. We have a shipment of the purest cocaine I have ever known. Let's try some.'

So they landed at Shannon Airport, passed near the US Military Zone, witnessed a CIA Gulfstream prepare for take-off, saw scores of Iraq-bound soldiers disembark from a huge transport for a last taste of the West.

'I feel sorry for them,' said Katherina.

'Why? They're getting paid, aren't they?'

'It's always the pawns that are sacrificed so that the kings may conquer,' she said sagely.

Though he was now very late for the presentation, he was in an increasingly positive frame of mind. The customs officials - who were on his payroll - nodded, had a cursory look over the plane and the mountains of luggage, gave clearance. I love this country, thought Karpov. Money talks here.

An airport greeter escorted the group to the arrivals hall, pointing out that Irish Coffee was invented in Shannon Airport as a means of warming up the transatlantic passengers from America back in the forties.

'Though they might dispute that over in Foynes.'

'Oh?'

'That was the first transatlantic airport, flying boats.'

Karpov smiled graciously, always the benign billionaire in public.

His security detail was waiting and, within minutes, he left the Shannon Free Zone in a convoy of armoured jeeps, headed towards the buzzing city that would soon be his.

CHAPTER 46. MADE IN CHINA

Mr White looked me straight in the eye, all serious. Alarmingly so.

'Who did you shoot, Charlie?'

'You what?'

Was this proof that I'd killed Dave?

I'd pulled up to the quarry gates after half-two. A deep rumble nearby. Like thunder, only deeper. I beeped. After a minute or two, a guy in dusty overalls came into view. He eyed me closely as he walked slowly out.

He quizzed me, let me in, pointed towards two huge steel silos, each with a huge excavator arm towering overhead and piles of rock on either side.

'Rock grinders,' said my guide. 'He's back there.'

The racket made me wince and I hurried after my guide, towards a long, low building to the left of the tower.

He took me through oily rooms of machinery and parts, then down a stairway and under the ground. We were in a more comfortable space, done up like a freakish lounge. A mahogany bar unit contained glasses, bottles of spirits and a little fridge with bottles of Budweiser inside. Three leather couches were arranged around a low coffee table, again mahogany. Posters of naked women draped over heavy earthmoving equipment covered the walls and the light came from a single, bright bulb hanging from the rough ceiling.

'Take a seat,' he said, keying a code into a door at the far side of the room, 'I'll get the boss.'

Mr White came through the door after a couple of minutes, wearing his trademark flat cap, this time with bright orange ear protectors over it. He smiled in greeting and beckoned me towards him.

The other room was a firing range. I was stunned. We were directly under the rock grinders. As long as they were on, you could fire an RPG down here and nobody'd hear. It was perfect, beautiful. A long, wooden bench went the length of the back wall. A variety of guns, including an AK-47 rested on it. Three firing posts were before the bench, each with a shelf for holding bullets and stuff. Beyond the firing posts was a thirty metre open space, with three targets at the far wall. They were of the standard torso and head outline like you see on TV and each hung from a wire. This was the real deal and Mr White looked quite proud of himself. Sure I'd taken it all in, he stood by the bench, pressed a big red button on the wall and waited. Then the roaring from above stopped, but it still echoed in my ears.

'That's better,' he said, lifting his hearing protectors off his ears. 'So you want somethin bigger.'

'Yeah. Whoever shot up my house is well-armed. The cops reckon it was an AK-47. I figure I need something heavy as backup, y'know?'

'And what about the revolver?'

'I'll give that back to you.'

I stood there while he thought about it. He went to the bench and pulled a canvas sheet over something he'd been working on, a mess of wires, cans of chemicals, batteries, an odd metal cone. He picked up a little machine gun.

'This is an Uzi. The cops use it.'

He put down the Uzi and picked up another familiar-looking submachine gun.

'Heckler and Koch MP5. Restricted to military and police use. The ERU has these. Nine millimetre again. Lovely gun.'

I held it, it was surprisingly light.

'Now, try this one. She's the best.'

He put the MP5 back on the bench and picked up the AK. He handed it to me with some reverence and I accepted it like I was being handed a new baby. An actual AK-47! It was a heavy fucker. Serious and mean.

'Kalashnikov?'

'Right, made in China. This came in with a shipment from Ghaddafi back in the eighties.'

The gun had a symbolic value that even outweighed its deadly performance. Osama bin Laden always has one in those grainy videos from Afghanistan. Every Vietnam movie, every clip of the IRA, every episode of the news, every child soldier in Africa, the AK is always there. It's the key product design of our time. Already the design icon of the twenty-first century.

He went through the essentials of the thing and how to shoot. Took about a minute.

'Six hundred rounds a minute, so you'll get through a mag of thirty in three seconds on full auto. Okay?' he said, nonchalantly.

'Okay,' I replied, trying to sound cool. I was shitting myself.

He handed me the gun and a full magazine. My hands shook as I fitted the magazine of gleaming brass bullets into the gun. I adopted firing position before a fresh target.

'Don't forget to cock her,' he reminded me.

I'd completely forgotten about that. Could be a fatal mistake, Charlie, I warned myself. So I pulled back the cocking handle, released it and then it sprang back home. Safety catch off, automatic selected, ready to go.

I pulled it tightly into my shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger. The gun exploded into life and my body shook. The noise, smell and recoil were overwhelming. Almost too much. And kids in Africa fire these? Four rounds had been fired in a fraction of a second. I checked the target, no contact.

I focused on the sights and fired again. This time I was delighted to see the target shake. Again and again I fired until the magazine was empty. Dead. It felt like I was firing for ages, but it couldn't have been more than ten seconds. I put the safety on and handed the gun to Mr White. He smiled and pressed a button. The target whirred towards me. I tasted the rounds in my dry mouth. The smell was horrible and exciting at the same time. I was delighted to see that I'd put eighteen of my thirty rounds on target.

'Not bad for your first go,' he said.

'So how much?'

'These are twelve-hundred normally, includin a couple of mags. If you give me back the revolver, we'll call it a grand. You didn't fire it, did you?'

'No, never even came close.'

'Good.'

'Right. Now, do you need another go or are you happy?'

I checked my watch and saw that the afternoon had slipped away from me.

'I've to get to a funeral, my best pal. I better split.'

'Fair enough. Give us the revolver and the few quid and I'll pack this up for you.'

He had a heavy canvas bag ready and loaded the rifle and two full magazines into it, after wrapping each item in a lightly-oiled rag. I put the revolver on the bench and counted out a grand from my healthy wad. Mr White checked the revolver and sniffed the barrel.

'Who did you shoot, Charlie?' he asked, all serious again.

'What? What are you talking about?'

'There's only five bullets here. I can't tell much from the smell, but this could've been fired. The empty cartridge is gone as well.'

'Fucking hell,' I blurted, surprised and confused. 'I've no idea, really and truly. I didn't shoot it, I swear to God.'

'Was anyone you know shot recently?' he asked, a mischievous grin on his face.

'Yeah,' I answered gravely, 'my best friend. Shot in the head. The weekend.'

'And where were you the weekend.'

I shrugged my shoulders, must've looked guilty as sin to the man.

He just nodded, smile gone. This was bizarre. There was no way I'd have shot Dave. No fucking way. But doubts lingered. The acid and all. There were maybe thirty blank hours. But no. Not possible.

'I need to know, Charlie. If this gun can be traced to antin and then to me, you know you're a fuckin dead man.'

'I know, I know. Trust me, I didn't shoot the damned thing.'

He stared me in the eye for a long few seconds. Then he nodded and handed me the bag with the AK-47.

'I believe you Charlie. Or at least I believe you're not lying to me. Find that bullet, will you? I won't be able to relax until I know where it is. You with me?'

'Yeah.'

'Well I won't be done for no fuckin murder so find me the bullet or we'll have to do somethin else about this.'

I prayed that it had just fallen out of the gun while I was arsing around with it, playing Clint Eastwood. Make my fucking day. He counted the cash, then put his arm on my shoulder, easing me towards the door.

'Why did you show me all this?' I asked, curious.

'You remember rule number one, don't you?'

'Yeah.'

'That and the fact that this'll all be gone soon.' He gestured to the room. 'Things are changin for us. This is the past here.'

He sounded a bit down. I figured he was an IRA quartermaster and, if they made good on decommissioning, he'd soon be out of a job.

'One more ting,' he said. 'There's a few fuckers screwin around with you. I can't tell you any more. Just watch your back.'

'I kind of guessed that. Can you tell me anything at all?'

'All's I can say is it's about to get very bad.'

He walked me to my car and I was away in a cloud of dust, marvelling at the IRA operation, wondering just how much Pat knew about it.

Time sped by. I didn't have time to stash the gun or freshen up, so I went straight to the funeral home, my hands oily and an assault rifle in the boot. It's called showing your respects.

CHAPTER 47. ALLEY

The funeral home was near Garryowen, on a dying street in whose many side alleys lurked rapists and muggers.

A crowd had gathered, all hushed conversations about how nice Dave was and an eye out for the widow. I spotted Fiona right away and went to stand with her. Dave was dead. The outside chance that I'd killed him wouldn't go away. A lingering, bitter taste in my mouth.

Tina arrived, looking deathly pale in her black outfit. Pat was with her, sober black suit and expressionless face. Tina held his arm for support.

She took her place inside and people began filing in. We joined the line and shuffled into the gloom. It was slow progress. We eventually reached the coffin, top half open. I looked at the corpse and shuddered involuntarily. It was like somebody'd made a wax copy of him. I guess that's what death does to you. Only the husk remained. His forehead was lumpy, like the bullet hole was filled in with putty. I guessed it really was.

We commiserated with Tina. What a couple. The best friend who took Dave away from her and the employee who shagged his brains out. I felt a pang of guilt in my gut, put it down to hunger. Glad that Tina didn't spit her usual dirty looks at me. She seemed resigned now. Going with the flow, playing the dutiful widow, the survivor.

A sudden wave of claustrophobia and nausea overwhelmed me. I had to get out. I nodded to Pat and whispered to Fiona that I was going for air. She stayed with Tina. Outside, I leant against the railings and smoked a cigarette. It tasted like shit, so I went to my car and rolled a joint as discretely as possible. I walked down a litter-strewn, stinking alley and smoked it. Feeling a lot better, I went and waited at the railings again.

Then the coffin came out, supported by Dave's two brothers, his dad, Pat and two guys I didn't know. The coffin was placed in a hearse and the procession to the church began. They were walking behind the hearse, the church just metres away.

My nausea returned, so I decided to skip the rest of the proceedings. Waited at the church door until all were in, sat in the car. Then, like when low tide exposes the river's secrets, I got to see some of the truth. A list of victims tied Greg O'Doherty into most of what had happened, which I knew. But there was also some unseen force at work. A dark, sneaky-as-fuck force.

When I factored my fucked-up house into the equation, that unknown force showed its hand. Those fucking Flynns, they were the killers, their shitty hands were all over the case. And I'd been too stoned, too dim to spot it.

O'Doherty is using the Flynns to do his dirty work. Chances are they've always worked together. Jesus, how did I miss it? They're so close together, they would have killed each other long ago if it wasn't for some sort of pact.

All I was missing was a reason why the dark force hadn't made sure to kill me stone dead.

I went home, stuck on the Lost In Translation soundtrack, smoked some joints, fondled my gun, tried to come up with a reason for the Flynns to kill Dave. Nothing. I put Dave's DVD in my player, thinking a wank might take my mind off stuff for half a minute. Only it wasn't regular porn, more of a home-made job, regular people, group sex. I jumped ahead again and again. It got filthier, weirder, scarier. What in the fuck was Dave doing with this shit?

More confused than before, I slipped into sleep on the armchair, the AK in my lap. This is hard.

CHAPTER 48. MYSTERY TOUR

Woken an hour later by the phone. Pat said We're going out tonight, get organised. I had a pain deep in my thighs from the damned gun. Stashed it in the closet under the stairs. Put the DVD away in my jacket. I smoked three cigarettes and drank a cup of black coffee. No milk.

I groaned, body clock confused. Then I shaved with lukewarm water.

Ready by nine, smelling good. Pat came. I asked him about the girl, Any news?

He said 'Nothing major, forensics were after the killer's DNA, nothing yet'.

I feared a serial killer on the way back up to my room. I snorted deeply, quietly. The rush was intense and I felt awake. Bounded down to Pat.

'All set?' I asked, eager to go.

'Yeah, just a sec. I've something to show you.'

'What?'

'Poop sheets on the Flynns. Interested?'

He took a bundle of rolled-up A4 sheets out of his jacket's inside pocket. He held them out to me, grinned.

'What's so funny,' I asked.

'Take a look,' he answered. Not much of an answer.

I took the sheets and sat on the couch. I lit a cigarette and studied the first page as Pat looked through my CD collection. Tony Flynn, twenty-nine, leader of the gang, served two years for the manslaughter of a rival dealer in Moyross. The Flynns came from the poor side of Moyross, Glenagross. A wasteland of burnt houses, shaven-headed kids and mean teenagers on every corner. Horses and Mercs, conspicuous wealth beside abject poverty. Tony Flynn was the brains behind the operation and had succeeded in building a drug business worth seven figures a year. No wonder he also owned the flashiest house in Killaloe.

His brother Mickey was a year younger and more brutal. He was the gang enforcer. He'd done four years in Limerick Prison for killing a traveller boss who got in their way. Mickey was a certifiable mental case. Oddly, he didn't look at all like his brothers, who were ugly as fuck. Mickey was good-looking, in a mental kind of way.

Pat stuck on a Thin Lizzy album, selecting Whiskey in the Jar. Classic.

Young Sam Flynn, the one I'd kicked the bollick off, was only fourteen, but already a handful. Involved in all sorts of petty larceny, fights, minor dealing and using insulting or abusive behaviour, you could see that the cops were already exasperated with him, but couldn't nail him on anything. It was clear from his sheet that this kid would eventually kill people, but there was sweet fuck all anyone could do to prevent this.

'What do you think?' asked Pat, who'd been watching me while I read.

'Not very pretty, are they. I mean, look at Mickey's haircut. Is this a mullet I see before me? And a lazy eye? Fuck me.'

'We reckon they've got about a dozen foot soldiers. Most of them would pull a trigger without hesitation.'

'So blasting my house would be no big deal?'

'Like a walk in the park. Just the outside risk of getting caught with the gun. In fairness, if any one of these fucks was ordered to get you proper, you'd be dead by now.'

'Jesus, thanks Pat.'

I didn't need the truth told so bluntly.

'Sorry. Just to let you know the gravity of this fucking mess.'

'Jesus.'

'Oh yeah, the boys in the station say Thanks.'

'For what?' I asked.

'With the two little langers you hospitalised off the streets, muggings are down twenty percent.'

'Are you serious?'

I stared at the photos of all three Flynns, imprinting their ugly mugs on my brain. I'd have to be able to spot them automatically if I was to have any chance of defending myself. Pat said I could keep the sheets, they were just copies. I folded them up neatly and put them in my jacket pocket, right beside the weird porn DVD.

Pat smoked another cigarette and brought the talk back to Dave.

'I'm just worried,' he said. 'If we can't turn up something concrete, I'm just going to make it fit somebody, anybody.'

'What? It was obviously a hit, wasn't it?'

'Maybe. But there's also evidence for the robbery.'

'Like what?'

'Like Dave's wallet was emptied. It looks like someone went through his drawers as well.'

'You kidding? What about the gun?'

'It was used in an armed robbery on a post office a couple of years back. Nobody was hurt and they got away with fifty grand. They fired a round into the ceiling to shut everyone up.'

'Shit. That can't be it. It can't be.'

I was worried. Dead worried that whoever killed Dave would get away because of my stupidity. The porn lead had to lead me somewhere.

'Oh yeah,' he said, 'Dave didn't give you any DVDs lately did he?'

'No. Why?'

'You sure, Charlie?'

'Sure I'm sure.'

He looked at me blankly, watching my reaction. I gritted my teeth and, to myself, said Fucking hell, where's this going?

'Cos I'm definitely going to have to pin this on somebody,' he muttered, only half to himself.

CHAPTER 49. STALKED

We drove into town in Pat's car. He was scanning, alert. I was half-worried he was driving me to the station to charge me with Dave's murder. Would he have his man, though?

'I thought we were going out, Pat.'

'We are. Relax Charlie. I'm working, but you do anything you want. Anything. Okay?'

'Mystery tour or what?'

'You got it, man. You got it. Time to kill, first.'

We stopped off for a pint in Nancy Blake's. No sooner had we grabbed a pew out back, than Etoile appeared beside me. With her aunt over from Africa, Emily.

This was a surprise, but not exactly a problem.

'Pat, this is Etoile, who I was with the other night.'

'Yes, Charlie defended my honour. My man.'

'Very good,' said Pat, winking at me.

Then Pat took a call and had to split back to the station. So I was left with the ladies.

Etoile was full-on, staring into my eyes and rubbing my thighs. My Fatal Attraction alarm bells began to ring, off in the recesses of my twisted skull. I didn't hear them. Her aunt was gas, not bad-looking for her age, wicked cat's eyes, full of gold, splashing the cash, rubbing my head. They flattered me and I asked them a hundred questions about Africa. After a while, we strolled up town for some grub. I sensed a long night ahead.

I texted Pat to find us in the Chicken Hut and that I'd get him a snack box. We walked the short distance and joined the long queue. I attracted a few dirty looks from little knackers. I sneered back, they turned away. After the previous week's fiasco, I figured that if anyone else started on me over Etoile, I should just kill them stone dead. Get it over with. I felt myself for the revolver. Gone back. Shit. I stopped sneering.

The queue moved quickly, so we got four snack boxes and found a table upstairs, with a great view of the night mobs as they searched for food, sex or fights. The gravy, a salty sauce with the look and consistency of pale diarrhoea, was not to the girls' taste, so I scoffed it all.

As we took our Formica seats, Pat came and tucked into his chicken.

'No gravy?' he asked, disappointed.

'All gone, man,' I said. 'Anyway, it's got to be bad for you.'

The girls smiled. Etoile kept looking at me and laughing to herself, touching me under the table. Nice, but I didn't really feel up to playing games. Pat devoured his food, licked the grease from his fingers.

'So ladies, will we walk you to your taxi?'

'So early, Charlie? Do we bore you?' said Etoile, pretending to be highly offended.

'Now, now. Don't cast aspersions on my manners. You have to get home to your husband, don't you?'

'Not really.'

'Why not?'

'I'm not really married. I'm sorry I lied to you. I say it to every man I meet. I have to.'

'Jesus.'

Pat winked at me again.

Etoile stared into my eyes, a wide smile on her lips. I couldn't decide whether this was a good or a bad turn.

'I've an idea,' began Pat, nodding at me. 'Myself and Charlie were going to go and check out a lapdancing club for an hour. Would you like to come along, see what it's about?'

Then they both said Yes and we were on our way. I wasn't sure about any of it. The city streets buzzed with drunks. Still very mild, t-shirt weather at ten. A glow to the west.

Etoile linked her arm through mine. I held a cigarette with the other and inhaled its ghastly smoke while trying to smell her hair. The club was just a block away and they joked, mixing English and French, about whether they'd dance for us or not. How cosmopolitan is that? I asked Pat if the club allowed this and imagined Etoile sliding down an oiled pole, glistening in the half-light. Began to feel more positive about it all.

The club was halfway down an alley off Thomas Street. A cluster of people waited at the entrance, which was well-lit, bright red. Discrete sign on the wall, cut-out metal letters, silver against the red brick wall. When it opened first, they had a big fat neon sign. People complained. They changed the sign. By then, everyone in five counties knew about Pussy Galore in Limerick. Pussies Galore, they called it. Two clean, smiling bouncers checked people, padding down some punters. Whether they were looking for weapons or camcorders, I do not know. They sounded Russian.

Inside, the club was dark, humid, jangling noises of strained conversations. And the odd yelp. Loud music, Coldplay's Yellow, pounded from unseen speakers as we passed through a narrow hall, framed photos of naked women, nipples and pubes hidden by fruit and other props. They were dancers in the club. Maybe Dave's work. I was simultaneously paying homage to the man and trying to discover why he died.

We found a dimly-lit booth and Pat ordered a bottle of white wine. Squeezed into the padded seats, Etoile's thigh pressed against mine. A dancer performed on the pole just in front of us. She looked Czech or something, tall, blond - long and dead straight - hair, fantastically built and not a hint of shyness. My kind of woman. She wrapped her legs around the pole, making eye contact with me straight off and licking her lips. Etoile saw this and took my chin in her hand. She twisted my face to hers and planted a wet kiss on my lips, while simultaneously rubbing her hand along my inner thigh. The tinted glass table did a good job of hiding my erection.

I'd been semi-hard since I walked in the door: the smell of sex, the idea of lapdancing. Now I was stuck in my seat until the blood in my engorged cock figured that the rest of my body needed a visit. Could take a while. Etoile took her mouth off me, flicking her tongue as she went. The pole dancer wasn't deterred. By now she was wearing only a red thong, her enhanced breasts calling to me, the crowd cheering her simulated sex acts. Lewd and I loved it. Sad fuck.

The blond finished her dance and there was a lull. People talked and drank. After a while, she came to our table and asked me if I'd like a lapdance. She spoke perfect English, in a clipped, direct tone. Like she was German. I looked at Etoile, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, knowing she couldn't stop me even if she'd wanted to. I said I'd need a voucher and the blond signalled to a guy waiting at the bar. He came over and sold me a voucher for twenty quid. This system was to stop the girls ripping off the club. No matter how many dances they did, they could take only vouchers. At the end of the night, they'd swap vouchers for cash, less the club's fifty percent, of course.

I gave her the voucher and asked her name. Leila. Just in from Moscow. She stood before me, a chiffon wrap over her red bikini outfit, tapping her feet, waiting. Other dancers who'd scored also waited with their punters. The DJ, hidden somewhere in the back, watching his monitor, took the cue and put on a dance track. Dance tracks were engineered to get straight into the song, then wrap it up after three minutes. That's what you got for your twenty. The song was from an Austin Powers movie. I Touch Myself. Christ above.

Leila rocked her hips in every direction, legs well-spread, then whipped off her wrap, bringing her perfect, firm curves within inches off my face. After much finger-licking, which - momentarily - brought me back to my fried chicken, she took her bra off and fondled herself.

Christ, she was perfect. I was in a reverie, her sexuality firing at me on every possible level, firing only for me. When I think about you, I touch myself.

As Leila played with her thong, pulling the sides up to give me a flash of trimmed pubes and turning around to stick her perfect arse in my face, the music faded and abruptly stopped. Game over. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and whispered in my ear.

'See you around, big boy,' she said, looking me straight in the eye. I wanted her so badly I couldn't speak.

She gathered her clothes and went out back to get ready for the next dance session. Meanwhile, background music filled the small room and another dancer took to the pole.

'Nice one, Charlie,' said Pat, his eyes gleaming. 'She's a beaut! I'd eat chips from her knickers.'

'Jesus.'

'I thought I was your girlfriend, Charlie,' said Etoile, not so happy now.

'What?'

'Do you know how demeaning it is for me to sit here and watch your behaviour with that whore?'

'Sorry, but - '

'This is your final warning, Charlie. I won't be treated with this disrespect again.'

She signalled her aunt, who gave me a stare that would knock a horse, and they stood up. They both said something in some African dialect. It sounded like a damned curse or something. Gave me the creeps. I hoped I wouldn't see them again, feared there was something going on with Etoile, something I didn't want to get involved with.

CHAPTER 50. TO BE RICH

So they left, hissing.

'What the fuck?' I asked Pat.

'I don't know where you get them from Charlie. But we're probably better off. You'll see.'

Confused to hell, I drank and looked around for Leila, my eyes resting on a tough dude with an elbow on the bar. He looked familiar. He drank a bottle of Heineken and seemed taken with the pole dancer, sweating profusely with his black leather jacket still on. Then I remembered. It was one of O'Doherty's goons I'd met in the pub the day before, Luke's funeral. He seemed to be just a punter, but I was learning fast that you don't take things at face value if you value your hide in this town. He hadn't spotted me.

I saw the manager of the place, who went behind the bar and emptied the till of fifties and twenties. He counted the money and stuck it in his inside pocket. The goon watched him closely, either eyeing the place for a hold-up or acting as muscle. When the manager came out and walked to the back of the club, where I figured the offices were, O'Doherty's muscle followed him. Leila was there too.

'Jesus,' said Pat quietly, 'that guy with him is one of O'Doherty's men.'

'O'Doherty?' I said.

'Yeah. I didn't know he had any connection with this place, though. Could be collecting protection money or something. I'll have to have a word with vice.'

Pat pondered the development. I made the connection. The dismembered bodies of two unidentified eastern European men had been found down the Shannon Estuary a year before, a mess of decayed flesh and sun-bleached bones on the mudflats, grub for the gulls. Once the lapdancing business had got going, O'Doherty must have forced his way in for a piece of the action. The Russian boys had a tough reputation, but they were on foreign soil and there was no way they could get to O'Doherty in his Island fiefdom. They must have bitten their tongues and allowed him in. I'd have to talk to Jean about this. And soon.

We relaxed over our beers and the place died down. Leila was gone, only one or two dancers remained.

'Time to go,' said Pat, checking his watch.

We drove out the Ennis Road in Pat's work car, the radio keeping us up to speed on the night's stabbings, muggings, rapes and shootings.

'You carrying Charlie?'

'No. I got rid of that.'

'So you've nothing?'

'Nothing at all, clean,' I lied. This was my friend, but I was still concerned. Cagey, worried about something as yet unclear.

'Okay. Clean.'

We drove out past the Two Mile Inn, heading towards Shannon Airport. The road was quiet, the moon nearly full. We turned at the Radisson, heading up Cratloe Hill. A mile or so up the road, we turned left into a private driveway, through a densely-wooded area and into an open clearing before a huge old house perched on the side of the hill. Floodlights lit up the freshly-painted house and a few people stood before it. Off to the side, I spotted a car park, full of gleaming Mercs and caterers' vans. Plenty of heavies lurking purposefully around the place.

I had a wrap of coke on me and figured it might make an appearance sharpish. Something big was happening.

We parked and merged with the group of people who were standing around. A few cabs pulled up and out popped Leila and a gaggle of excited lapdancers.

'Jesus fucking Christ, Pat! What's going on?'

'I figured you'd enjoy this.'

'Say, man. Whose party is this anyway?'

'It's in honour of a visitor from London. Well, he's from Russia, but he mainly lives in London now. Mikhail Karpov. Very nice man. Very rich. You could call him a tycoon. He should be here soon. He's flying in from Moscow. I'm here to keep an eye on him, casual like.'

'Nice.'

Pat led the way up the wide stone steps. Three heavies waited by the entrance. They stopped me. They weren't your standard rugby-playing muscle. They were older, Russian, fit. I figured them for ex-military or KGB. They wore formal jackets with telltale bulges and earpieces. Two used handheld scanners to check me for weapons while the other watched. I was passed; Pat was just waved through. They knew him.

In the entrance hallway was a huge crystal chandelier, a rug on the floor: some sort of Russian crest with a mermaid, and a woman in evening dress with a tray of champagne flutes. Two guys in servant outfits took our jackets and the woman gave us a drink. Leila and her friends looked absolutely stunning, wearing obviously expensive evening dresses, dangerously high heels and dripping in gold. Leila wore red. Her colour.

We walked through the hall and into a reception room. The house was a big Georgian job, high ceilings, plaster details and the smell of money. The crowd was mixed: plenty of Russians, a few local yokels and many more with permanent suntans and smug expressions.

Limerick was a natural base for the Russians. Aeroflot had been flying through Shannon, en route to Cuba, for years. Perfect for smuggling in both directions, coke one way, guns the other. Plus, Russian coal ships delivered to the Moneypoint power station just down the estuary. You could bring in a tank on one of those fuckers. Ireland was seen as a soft touch by international criminals, with its dysfunctional state apparatus and sleazy corruption at every level of society. Our Russian friends must feel right at home here.

'Hi Leila,' I said, after I made my way around the room to her.

'Hello. Nice to see you again.'

'I'm Charlie Doyle.'

'And I'm Leila, but you know that already.'

She offered her hand and, on impulse, I kissed it. This made her laugh. She had an easy laugh.

'Let's stand over there,' she said, tugging my elbow towards a quiet corner. A grand piano sat there, pregnant with sound, while a string quartet filled the air with class. No sign of Pat.

'So how's Mr Karpov so loaded, Leila?' I asked.

'Oil,' she replied, 'He bought stakes in three oil companies, right when the old regime collapsed. His stakes are now worth many billions of dollars.'

'Jesus.'

One of the richest men in the world, right here. I'd never seen a billionaire but I liked him already.

More people arrived and trays of caviar and foie gras on fancy crackers did the rounds. Whenever I emptied my glass, a woman with a bottle - Dom Perignon no less - was at my shoulder. It was certainly the classiest party I'd ever been to. Many people knew Leila and she introduced me to most of them.

One guy dragged me away from Leila and led me to the vodka table. Stolichnaya, the finest Russian vodka, served ice cold. I had a couple of shots, toasting our host. Then a nice long - really long \- vodka tonic with ice and lemon. Perfection.

Smythe arrived with a girl on his arm. Not his wife.

I met Leila again and we found a baroque chaise longue to sit on. I asked questions. She had a degree in Russian literature and business from Moscow University. A first.

'Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov. The greatest writers ever, the Golden Age of Literature. Just look at Chekhov. He invented modern literature with all its petty obsessions and inconclusiveness before Joyce even thought about Ulysses.'

I admitted my ignorance of Chekhov.

'And wasn't Ulysses just a rip-off of a Greek myth? Do you know Dublin much?'

She was animated, interested, holding my elbow with her free hand, though her bright eyes constantly darted around the room.

'You see this glass of champagne?' she asked, holding her bubbling nectar up to the light. Chekhov wrote a story about the effect it can have. Like I'm feeling now.'

'Really? What's it called?'

'Champagne. Look it up. You can get a collection of his stories in most bookshops for about two euro. New. The cheapest culture ever. I must mingle. Back soon.'

My head was light, happy again. I decided that sport, kids, DIY, shopping, golf, drinking, work or religion wouldn't do it for me, wouldn't fill my life, the long empty years stretching ahead. Golf? It would be books. Reading first - so many books, classics, I've never even picked up - then I'd write. Crime thrillers, maybe. Christ, you couldn't make up my life.

Leila flitted around the room, connected with everybody, only a couple of dozen yet. She made her way back to me. I told her I'd just decided to become a writer.

'So what would you like to write?' she asked. 'Something based on your own experiences, maybe?'

'Maybe. But nobody'd believe it. Anyhow my memory's fucked. I've had such blackouts lately you would not believe.'

'And what would be your quest?'

'Quest?'

'It's said that all fictional detectives are on a personal quest, that the case is just a means to an end.'

I'd never thought about that. We drank more and a crowd of people appeared suddenly, all suits. The music faded and the chatter dropped away.

From a far doorway, not the one we'd used, came Mikhail Karpov, flanked by two serious-looking bodyguards. There was a smattering of gentle applause. Karpov was not at all like a little Leon Trotsky, which was how I'd pictured him. He was tall, a bit chubby, but well-built, clean-shaven, bald. He wore a tailored suit - got to be Armani - in light grey, a white silk shirt and a mint green tie. Immaculate. I figured his outfit to be worth ten grand at least. A Rolex peeked from under his sleeve and his fingers were adorned with heavy gold rings. Karpov raised his hand and addressed us, again in perfect English.

'My friends,' he began, 'I am so happy to be with you, this wonderful night. Ireland is my second home now and this special house, where I am free to entertain you all, is one of my favourites. I trust you are all being looked after?'

There was an enthusiastic murmur of affirmation, a round of applause.

'Good, good. Now, to business, which won't take long. I have made this special trip tonight to tell you of my newest project.'

He nodded at someone off to the side and, with a quiet whirring, a projector screen slid down from the ceiling as the lights dimmed. An image appeared on the screen, Karpov's logo, a mermaid, Russian text underneath. It was like the bad guy's logo in a James Bond film.

I felt like I was in a damned movie.

CHAPTER 51. MASTER PLAN

The logo faded, replaced by a shot of a computer-generated low-rise building, all glass. It was maybe five stories and had choppers swirling around it. The viewpoint changed and began to swing around and through the building, showing luxury rooms, gyms, pools, a clinic, golf courses, forests and the ocean. The film paused on a frontal shot of the building, big graphics.

ATLANTIC RETREAT - A KARPOV DEVELOPMENT

Everyone applauded. Karpov held his hands up for silence and continued his presentation.

'This will be the most luxurious hotel in Europe,' he said. 'It will meet the most exacting standards in architecture, construction and facilities. Every room will have a view of the Atlantic Ocean. For relaxation, for doing business, for leading edge surgical procedures, for pleasure. Atlantic Retreat will cost three hundred million euro to build and equip. One of our main target markets will be Russia, so we will use many staff from my homeland. We will target the richest men in the world and offer them the finest destination on the planet.'

A new slide appeared on-screen, showing that all roads - South American, North American, European, Middle Eastern, Asian, African - will soon lead to Limerick.

He was beaming now, his cool front slipping. A trace of megalomania bubbled to the surface. He paused for effect.

'I could not hope to complete such a huge task,' he went on, 'without the assistance and partnership of one man. A man who has the power and connections to make our goals achievable. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my good friend and partner, Dr Fox.'

Fox left Smythe's side and walked up to Karpov. They shook hands like old friends. I spotted Pat standing beside the stage, scanning the room, but avoiding eye contact with me. Fox said a few words about how delighted he was to be involved and looked forward to the fancy Chamber of Commerce dinner the following night. Karpov, enjoying the limelight, then went on at length about how fabulous Ireland was and how he was applying for citizenship.

I had a feeling that the hotel development could be just a fresh cover for getting women, drugs and guns from eastern Europe and Russia into the EU by the back door. Karpov and Fox could be building the world's most exclusive knocking shop, with a little extra on the side for the richest perverts in the world. A scary thought. And Putin was putting pressure on Russia's oil barons, looking to take the industry back. Oil wealth was fleeing the Russian taxman. I wondered if Karpov was the moneyman behind everything going on in town. King Perv. And Fox his crown prince.

Then Karpov wound up the presentation and ordered everyone to enjoy the rest of the party. In the nicest possible way, of course.

Waiting staff reappeared and offered silver platters of caviar, king prawn in tempura batter and sushi. I tried a prawn. Best one I'd ever tasted. I tasted caviar for the very first time. Odd stuff. What a fantastic party.

I whispered into Leila's ear, enjoying her smell and asking if she'd like to do a line. She nodded.

'Come with me,' she said, taking my hand and leading me out of the room and towards the stairs. A heavy stood at the bottom of the plush stairway, blocking our way. Leila smiled at him and said a few words in Russian. He smiled back and stepped aside.

'What did you tell him?' I asked as we ascended.

'I told him I was taking you upstairs for a fuck.'

CHAPTER 52. COITUS -

I followed her up the wide stairs, admiring what looked like genuine Impressionist paintings on the wall. A Monet, for sure, now a Van Gogh. On the landing, she took my hand and put her finger to her lips, silently advising me to keep quiet. I nodded and we passed down a hallway with ornate doors on both sides. The first few doors were closed. We came to a door which was half ajar. She peeked inside. Nobody. She pulled me in and closed the door quietly.

'Closed doors no good,' she said. 'Open doors are free rooms.'

'You've done this before?'

She smiled and switched on the light. The room was like the Presidential Suite in a top hotel. The bed was huge, soft, white. Antique furniture and fittings, plus a well-stocked bar, added to the feeling of luxury. I strolled around and took it all in.

'Jesus Christ!' I exclaimed. 'Is that a Picasso?'

'Probably,' said Leila.

She walked over to me and we admired the early Cubist sketch of a woman carrying a jug of water.

'Yes,' she said then. 'It is a Picasso. Good, yes?'

'Fuck me, he could draw. A Picasso in a guest bedroom. A guest bedroom! How's that for class?'

Amazed by the wealth that surrounded me, I rummaged in my pockets and found the cocaine and began cutting it up on a silver tray. Leila sat on the bed and took her heels off.

'That feels better,' she said, laying back and feeling the soft quilt.

'All set here, Leila.'

I gave her a rolled-up fifty and she snorted two lines. I took the note back and inhaled some of Colombia's top export. Mighty. Seconds later, she was on top of me. She pushed me on to the bed, lifted up her red dress, then sat on me, grinding hard against my crotch. I tried to pull her down for a kiss. She resisted.

'My make-up, Charlie,' she protested.

'Hooker sex, then?'

'Hooker sex,' she laughed.

She stood up, released a hidden catch and her dress slid down to the floor. She wore red knickers and bra. These came off too. Her nakedness was astonishing. Even though I'd seen most of her before, the sight of her clipped, blond pubes made me as hard as a Russian bodyguard. She undid my belt and slipped my trousers off. The coke coursed through my veins with my sex hormones. The anticipatory delight was almost too much. My heart almost exploded. I could feel it. She pulled a condom from a pile on the bedside table and unrolled it over my pulsing penis. Then she got on the bed, ready to sit on me.

A knock at the door.

Christ!

Her face was in mine, nostrils flared, breaths shallow. There was a look too. I hoped it was disappointment.

More knocking, sharper, and some words in Russian.

'Da,' she said.

Then, without saying a word more, she raised herself, picked up her clothes and went into the bathroom. I took the disappointed condom off. I had a hint of her smell, complex and evocative. I regretted not having gone down on her - instead of farting around with the coke - and prayed to the God of Sex that I would, some day, be given the opportunity for cunnilingus with Leila.

I sat on the bed, waited for her, smoked a cigarette. My heart pounded on, confused.

Leila came out of the bathroom after a minute.

'I am needed. I will see you.'

She returned to the party, leaving me with a hard-on that could sink the Titanic and an indelible memory of her nakedness. What an idiot.

CHAPTER 53. HEARTBURN

After a little more coke and half a stupid inkling to lift the Picasso, I went downstairs. I joined a group of well-pissed suits, but the conversation centred on the hotel business. I laughed when everyone else laughed and nodded when they nodded. But I couldn't take my eyes off Leila as she flitted around the room. When she took the hand of a clammy suit from the Chamber of Commerce and led him from the room, jealousy welled up inside me. At least with you it was for pleasure, I told myself. Little consolation. Christ, I'd never felt this jealous before.

I wrote some mental notes, Karpov and every other name I heard. A beautiful Asian woman in blue silk handed out brochures. I took one.

I found a quiet spot in the conservatory and sat down to think things over some more. My conspiracy theories were beginning to gel. A waiter kept my glass topped up. What lives the rich lead.

I found myself sitting on the patio after five as the sun came up, a bottle of Dom Perignon in one hand and a cigarette in the other. From behind me, the sun cleared the ridge, illuminating the vista to the west, in front of the house. A flowing ribbon of pale grey burst into life as the sun rose over the hills. Patches of mist shimmered. Misty blotches became defined. The river glistened, showing off her lazy, serpentine curves as she neared the Atlantic.

Truthfully, a wonderful location for a swanky hotel. Wasn't Dromoland Castle, Ireland's most exclusive venue, only down the road? Bollocks or not, Karpov's grand plan at least had a ring of authenticity about it. Clever fuck. I guessed you had to be a clever fuck to become a billionaire. I wondered if I was up to all this. Could a drug-addled private dick from Limerick really hope to take on this guy? Self-doubt, always self-doubt.

I gazed at the stunning panorama, wondering if I should split, when Leila came and sat beside me. I offered her my bottle, which she took and swigged from.

'How are you?' I asked.

'I'm good. This is beautiful, isn't it?'

'Yeah, beautiful. Leila, do you mind me asking you a personal question?'

'No. If I can ask you one, too.'

'Okay. So, why is such a beautiful, intelligent girl like you, working as a lapdancer?'

'You mean a hooker?' she laughed.

'Well, you said it.'

'For the money, Charlie. For the money. I imagine we just don't have the kind of sexual hang-ups you have here. We never had organised religion under communism. No guilt, no sense that sex is dirty or wrong. And our history is very depressing. So we do what we must and we grab joy any way we can.'

'I can bring you joy. What's Russian for cunnilingus?'

'And in a couple of years, I'll have enough money to own a business back home.'

'Oh yeah? What?'

'Maybe a brothel, maybe a bookshop. I haven't decided yet.'

'Okay. That's a good answer. Now ask your question.'

She thought for a minute.

'Charlie, why are you not married?'

Jesus!

'I was married. It all fell apart. I suppose the main reason was me. I have this addictive, compulsive personality. Sex, drugs, booze, whatever. I just want the experience of the instant, the moment. I'm a selfish prick, really. I've fuck-all to show for my life. Fuck-all. I don't know where I'm going. All I know is I'm happy when I have sex or get high. Pathetic, really.'

'It's not pathetic. At least you're honest with yourself. You just have this Catholic guilt thing. There's nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy sensations. Living for the moment is actually an excellent philosophy. Just get over the guilt. Guilt is terrible.'

This made me feel better. Then she rested her head on my shoulder, which made me feel a bit special.

'I think I love you. That or I've heartburn.'

I don't know if she got the joke, she just smiled. We sat for a while and savoured the view. Then everyone was called for breakfast. Full Irish, huge plates alive with delicate pork flavours and saltiness and delicious grease. It was served on long tables in a huge dining room out back, glowing in the midsummer morning's sunshine. Karpov \- still wired - shook hands with everybody who was left. The man had a damned strong grip.

Then taxis arrived. Leila stayed on. I took a cab alone, Pat having disappeared during the night. It felt surreal, driving into town at nine on a Tuesday morning, after that bizarre and amazing and terrifying party. The car was quiet. But my head was buzzing, filled with hidden enemies, unseen killers and the awful awareness that I was hurtling towards some kind of resolution. And I finally realized the worst truth: someone else was behind everything. There was a missing link, someone close. But who was it?

I wrote some shaky notes as the cab belted in the Ennis Road. I felt alive and bright and the fog in my head began to fade.

CHAPTER 54. IF I WAS

Straight to the office, to find my new assistant at work. Fiona had the computer connected to the internet. She gave me a ten minute demo that made my head spin. She showed how to do Google searches, look up city maps, access newspaper archives, the works. I had an urge to look up seagulls, put that down to excessive drugtaking.

'Fucking CIA or what?' I laughed.

'Watch this,' she said. 'Microsoft Works projects.'

She'd set up project management files for jobs, linking all the bits of clues and background together off one page. I was amazed. She was good.

'You look rough.'

'Up all night. Here, have a look at this brochure, Karpov's new hotel. Maybe check on his business partners, Fox and the likes. I've to go home and freshen up.'

'Don't be late, Charlie.'

'I will in my hole be late for my best friend's funeral.'

She stayed on and I strolled up to my kip of a house. I made some coffee, feeling depressed at everything the day held in store. I showered and put on a charcoal grey suit with a blue shirt, no tie. I did a line of cocaine and rolled up half a dozen joints, which I would need just to get through the shit. I put the rifle back in the boot of the car, along with my heavily-laden jacket, and drove to the church.

Parking in the shadow of St John's spire, I hurried into the church right on ten-thirty.

The day was bright, clear, warm. Dave would have liked it. The priest was kicking off, Dave's closed coffin on a stand before the altar. There was a good crowd and I took a pew at the back. After some standard funeral prayers, the priest launched into a homage to Dave. I smiled when he spoke of Dave's teenage years and his prowess on the rugby field. Then he studied photography at art college - where I met him - and set up a successful business, providing well for his wife. He said that we should be grateful for the time he gave us and his legacy, a son. At this, Tina broke down in tears and had to be supported by her sisters, one on each side.

More prayers and then his younger brother said a few nervous words. I gazed at the coffin, imagined Dave's already-decomposing body, how easily a man could die. Just one little bullet, one killer, one reason.

I felt misplaced, left the church. Met Pat at the doorway.

'Have you anything?'

'Nada.'

'Really Charlie? Nothing? You surprise me,' said Pat, curious at my lack of ideas. I was normally the ideas man.

'Sorry man,' I apologised,' I've just been fucked up by this you know? It still hurts. And this paedophile thing has me in a daze, I swear to God. I don't know what the fuck is going on. Look, just a guess, right?'

'Yes?' he asked, happier now. We moved away from the door as Tina came out, crying like a child, eyes red. I blessed myself, displaying petty comfort in mystical tradition.

'How about if Dave was given some footage to put together for a DVD for paedophiles? Maybe by the Russians, maybe not. He sees someone he knows, maybe someone famous. Blackmails him, gets whacked.'

Pat nodded more and agreed that this would be plausible.

'I'll get someone to take a shot of every face on all his footage, men and women and children.'

'I don't want to see any of that stuff, Pat.'

'I know, just the faces. I promise.'

'Cool. I have to take my car. I've stuff in the boot.'

'Okay, pity,' he said. 'That everything?'

'I swear.'

He went to his work car and I went to mine as the car park filled with people wearing black. After a couple of chaotic minutes, I eased out on to the choked street and waited in line behind the hearse, which was moving ahead slowly. I put the radio on and lit a spliff. My mind was fixated on the notion that Dave had been given the paedophile footage, was disgusted and threatened either whoever gave it to him or someone in it. Or did he make it? If he had, I'd've killed him myself.

The DVD might contain a clue. I'd have to watch it closely, wait for Pat to get the face prints done up. Time of death inconclusive? Who the fuck are they kidding?

It was slow progress up past the jail. I lit up a second spliff as we passed the grey stone blocks of St Joseph's, unchanged since Victorian times, the four-faces of the clock stubbornly frozen at half-one. I imagined my mother at one of the windows, gazing blankly at the unmoving clock from her padded cell, thinking that time had actually stopped. This brought me closer to tears than anything else. I made a vow to go see her soon and mused that the one street contained the city's jail, mental hospital and graveyard. Always best to just pass through Mulgrave Street.

I parked beside the Munster Fair Tavern and snuck in for a fast vodka while the funeral got into position beside a hole in the ground. Used to be the Fair Green across the road, horse fairs, circuses, all that stuff. Duels to the death in the olden days, when wigs would fly. DIY superstores and council houses now.

Around to the graveyard, Mount St Lawrence's, biggest in town. You'd only get in there now if it was a family plot. Tina figured Dave would be happier with his parents than waiting for her, the one he'd lost so completely.

The graveyard was what you'd expect, ancient names and crumbling crosses. Flowers in all stages of decay, big trees, ash and sycamore. Heavy clouds gathered in the open sky, their edges glowing gold. A sense of calm. I like graveyards.

Pat found me and we stayed at the edge of proceedings. Dave's hole gaped, waiting. The priest started talking and there were plenty of Amens. This is the end, my friend, the end.

'I called the station on the way. I should have those stills later on,' said Pat.

'Great,' I said. 'What poor sap has to look at them?'

'We've two guys who've seen everything imaginable over the last few years. Doesn't seem to bother them. They did some course on it in the States, detachment training they call it. And a shrink checks them out every few months, makes sure they're not losing it.'

'Mad. Then what?'

'Then we look at the faces, show them to Fiona. There she is,' he said, waving.

Fiona left the crowd and walked over to us, on the gravel path that ran between rows of graves. She looked great, a black silk dress that stopped just below her knees, showing just a glimpse of shadowy cleavage up top.

'Hi,' she said as I kissed her lightly on the cheek.

'How are you doing?' I asked.

'Fine,' she said. 'Better today.'

'Good,' said Pat. 'We're making progress on finding the killer. We should have a lot more by the weekend.'

'You dig up anything?' I asked Fiona. Maybe the internet had thrown up something. Fuck, there was so much I knew and just couldn't tell him.

'Yes,' she answered brightly. 'Good stuff. The Pussy Galore site has links to all sorts of European porn sites. Most of them need your credit card number before they even let you in. Serious operations. Then there was a bit of a weird thing.'

'What?' I asked.

'I just done a general search of Pussy Galore, in Google. Besides all the James Bond connections and porn, I found a couple of news reports to do with our club.'

'How?' said Pat.

'Russian news sites with archives. There was a double murder in Moscow a few months ago. Really nasty it was, an all. Two young ones had their throats slashed in a brothel. Their families said they were goin to Ireland, to work in Pussy Galore, which they were told was a model agency.'

'Jesus,' said Pat, astonished. 'Far as I know, nobody got on to us about that. I'll have to check it out.'

'Probably didn't bother because they got their man. Right Fiona?'

'Dead right, Charlie,' she said. 'The guy was collared within twenty-four hours. Confessed it all. The Moscow law probably thought Fuck Pussy Galore, case closed.'

'Who was he?' asked Pat, pressing for everything.

'The guy worked in the brothel.'

'Well done, Fiona,' said Pat. 'This could tie our boys into international people-smuggling. Sounds like the standard slavery scam. Those women were conned into coming here for modelling work, given a few quid up front, probably complained when they discovered that they'd be sex slaves, got the chop.'

'Fucking scum,' I said.

Fiona nodded, her passion raised by her research.

'These guys are for real. If Fiona's lead is kosher, they've been getting away with murder,' concluded Pat. 'Human trafficking is the biggest racket of all and Europe is where it's at.'

'Fuck's sake,' I said. 'First we have to get the gowl that killed Dave. Let's get over. He's in.'

We moved closer to the graveside. Dave's coffin was lowered into the hole, the attendants puffing in their battle against gravity. Then the priest threw in a handful of earth and blessed everyone. Tina didn't bother with the token dirt or jumping into the grave and left immediately with her sisters. Then I threw in some earth, as did some of Dave's other friends and relatives. It rattled off the coffin, scuffing its deadly sheen. The reddish brown soil clung to my sweaty hand and, trying to wipe it off with the other, I ended up with both hands filthy. Fiona gave me a make-up wipe from her bag. It helped.

Looking around at the sadness - maybe eight people crying openly, maybe fifteen more truly gutted - I feared that killing would be easy. To me, the whole funeral affair was old-fashioned, pointless, overblown. If I was the killer, I would relish the power to unleash emotion, to release my own bitterness, to do what everybody else is scared to. If I was.

We drifted out and away. Fiona took a lift from me and we drove back down the road towards town. Everyone stopped off in Jerry O'Dea's pub for tea and ham sandwiches. I had a pint of Guinness. I saw that Tina was drinking brandy. Get locked, girl. Best thing for you today.

Everybody seemed to settle after the first drink and a bit of grub. It would turn into a session: what Dave would have wanted. I figured I'd ditch the car and the gun, get langers safely.

I explained to Pat and Fiona about the car. Pat said he'd stay with Fiona until I got back, but he had to get to the station then for a meeting about the dead girl. Forensics reports due any minute, he said. I promised to be quick.

Straight to the office. Nobody lurking at the entrance, so straight in with the gun in the bag, bold as brass. Margaret put on a sad face and consoled me on losing my friend. She liked Dave, he was always pretend-flirting with her, dropping filthy double-entendres. I shared her grief for a moment then slowly climbed the stairs.

I looked around for a suitable hiding place. The gun was long enough and bulky. I put myself in the mind of a thief and wondered where I'd miss if I was turning the place over. I figured behind the new filing cabinet would be good. It was in a corner, tight. I pulled it out a couple of inches. The gun went in snugly and got lost in the shadow. I found an old flipchart and jammed that in there as well, then put some dead fluorescent tubes leaning against the gap. Looked like plain old office clutter. Perfect. I'd have to warn Fiona to not go there, allude that I'd porn or drugs or something hidden.

Everything else looked fine. I left the car around the corner. Then I caught a hackney back up to the pub.

The wake was in full swing by now. Another funeral party had descended on the place since and they were going at it full pelt. A sing-song had started among the oldies. I joined in for the Fields of Athenry while waiting for my Guinness to settle. Spotted Fiona and Pat down the back, chatting with Tina. She looked completely locked already. Christ.

Got my pint, finally. I gently eased through the dense, swaying crowd. People I didn't know spoke to me and touched my arm. Dave's aunties and uncles, I figured. Most were well on it by then. Funerals. I smiled and nodded stoically at each one, my brain obsessing over the terrible fear that I'd caused it all.

CHAPTER 55. THE LOOKING GLASS

Greg O'Doherty rarely felt nervous. But his palms were sweaty and the back of his neck itched as he put the chalk to the tip of his cue and lined up the break.

The bar, a popular spot on the New Road in Thomondgate, was quiet enough with just a couple of seasoned drinkers nursing their pints of Guinness at the bar. Down the back, a couple of barwives drank cider over ice while their barkids guzzled Coke and munched crisps. It was a kind of no-man's land. But still O'Doherty carried a gun.

'Age before beauty,' said Mickey, pouring peanuts from the bag into his mouth.

Greg broke, potting a red and a yellow.

'Two shots,' said Mickey. He turned to the woman behind the bar. 'These cuntin things are dry. Have you the salt?'

She didn't answer, busy pulling pints.

'Have you the cuntin salt?' he shouted.

'There's no need for that sort of language with kids in the bar,' she said, placing the glass salt cellar on the wooden counter, slapping it down.

Mickey poured a lot of salt into his peanuts, slammed it harder on the bar, went back to the game. He scanned the table and selected a yellow. He potted it easily, the ball crashing into the worn pocket.

'I'm on yellows, so.'

He potted two more. Greg stared through a poem painted on the wall, the adventures of Drunken Thady.

'So what's the score, Greg?'

'Just a couple of things,' said Greg, looking around to ensure they had no audience.

'Go on.'

'There's a lot of shit goin down at the minute. I just want to see if you know antin about it.'

'Love to help you, Gregory. But I'm under strict orders from Belfast. Low profile and all that. Can't do shit. Cunts have me under their thumb. You wouldn't believe it. But I don't give a fuck as long as they pay me. Tiocfaidh ár lá.'

'So you're not up to antin?'

'Just the usual. Have to make a proper few fuckin quid, don't I?'

'Course. By the by, here's that'

Greg handed Luke a folded paper bag from his inside pocket.

'Muchos gracias, my man. Twenty?'

'That's all of it.'

'Cunt!' screamed Mickey, missing an easy pot.

The guys at the bar glanced over, swiftly turning back to their pints. The woman behind the bar consciously ignored the pool area, thinking Fuck off out of it, you gowl, I've a pain in my head looking at you. Mickey swamped his pint of Carling, then fixed his hair in the mirror by the blackboard. Greg thought Look at the cunt, thinks he's gorgeous. Doesn't he know he has a lazy eye?

Greg lined up a shot.

'Mickey?'

'Yeah?'

'Know antin about that kid gone missin up your way?'

'How the fuck would I know antin?'

'Your patch, isn't it?'

'I haven't the time to be worried about little sluts, have I?'

Greg potted the ball, a nice shot.

'So you haven't been up to your old tricks then?'

Mickey whacked his cue off the table. His eyes were wide, crazy.

'Don't even go there, Greg. I'm fuckin serious, right?'

'Alright kid. Calm down. Fuck's sake.'

'Fuck this. I'm off. I've to see a man about a dog.'

He threw his cue onto the table and marched out the door.

Greg took the discarded cue off the table and finished the game quietly, thinking Yes, I've some business to see to as well, you cunt.

CHAPTER 56. MATINEE

My eye was caught by a stunning face across the bar. It was Jean. She'd been watching me and caught my eye as soon as I looked in her direction. I scanned the pub on my way over to her, noting no sign of any goons or gangsters.

'Hey Jean,' I said, happy to see her, 'you on your own?'

'Yes. All on my lonesome,' she answered, staring hungrily into my eyes.

So I kissed her on the cheek, putting my hand on her waist. I felt a tremble.

'You okay for a drink?'

She held up her glass of white wine. We toasted Dave. She became downbeat.

'What is it, Jean?'

'Somethin about Dave. I heard talk.'

'Can you tell me?'

'That's why I'm here. They were drunk the night of the funeral, last Sunday. Our day out.'

She smiled a proper smile at this memory. I joined her.

'They were completely langers, sittin around the garden at midnight, whiskey,' she continued. 'So they start talkin about how everythin's goin accordin to plan and how they were goin to take over the whole town.'

'Did they mention Dave specifically?' I asked, 'Or the sex business?'

'The sex business? Sure, Greg's always been in that. For years now. He's into antin dirty, in all fairness. As long as there's money in it.'

'Go on.'

'He owns two knockin shops, one on the northside, one on the southside. And he has a half share in a lapdancin club in town.'

'Pussy Galore?'

'Yeah. He thinks the name is hilarious.'

'Anything else?'

'I think he's been fuckin his prostitutes and maybe the lapdancers too. If they're not prostitutes as well. I know he's been to some mad parties with all sorts of high flyers. He's a bit of a perverted bastard.'

I drank my pint as I took it all in. Deeper and deeper. I ordered more drinks and she hit me with the biggest bombshell.

'He's into swingin as well,' said Jean, taking her eyes off mine for the first time, now studying the bar counter. 'I've been to swingin parties with him. I don't care, I just want to fuck someone else every now and then. He's fat, ugly and useless in bed. Just gets himself off as fast as he can, game over. Anyways, they were braggin about the guy they shot on Saturday night. I thought it might be Dave.'

'Bastards.'

So Jean was a swinger too. Was she in my DVD? I'd have to have a close look. Idea.

'Jean, would you do me a favour?' I asked.

'Go on so. What is it?'

'Just say it if you think it's perverted.'

'Charlie, come on, spit it out.'

'I have this DVD. I found it at Dave's. I haven't seen it yet, could be nothing. Would you mind looking at it with me? Maybe you'd recognise someone.'

'Is that all? Jesus, we'll have to sort out your shyness. When do you want to watch it?'

'I've always been shy,' I said, pretending to be hurt. 'You free for long?'

'You mean now? What about all this?'

'I've had enough. He's dead, end of story,' I said flatly. 'I could handle watching dirty movies with you though.'

She nodded, downed her drink and shook her car keys at me.

'One more thing,' she said.

'Go on.'

'That guy back there who keeps lookin at us.'

'Pat. He's a cop.'

'Greg knows him. Well.'

'Figures.'

Fuck.

Out the door and to her car. Thankfully she hadn't brought the flashy convertible. My heart couldn't handle another police chase. Today's little number was a sober blue Volvo estate. Plenty of power under the hood, but concealed nicely.

We drove to my car and I retrieved my jacket from the boot. Stopped off at Tesco in town for champagne, strawberries and balsamic vinegar. We fought over paying, but I won. Home to a welcome mat of a pile of bills and the smell of ruin. Opened all the back windows and curtains. The champagne was chilled, so we opened it right away.

'It's pronounced mwet, by the way.'

Then I sliced up the strawberries and sprinkled some of the vinegar over them.

'That's disgustin,' said Jean. 'I'm not touchin them now.'

'Relax baby. I thought you were so open-minded and everything. Trust me, they taste delicious. Sure, why would I possibly want to make you sick?'

'Okay. I'll try one.'

Then she tasted it and laughed, amazed. We toasted Dave and put on the DVD. We sat on the couch. She rested her free hand lightly on my crotch. For comfort. I stirred.

The film started out promisingly enough, clearly made locally. I could tell by the accents. It was a swinging story, with couples meeting up in a big, flashy mansion and then fucking in a variety of positions. It was professionally edited. Looked like reality TV.

The crowd was mixed, maybe ten couples in all. Some hogged the limelight, enjoying the porn star fantasy. Others stayed in the shadows. The woman were drunk or on coke or both. She watched the film intently, commenting on the sexual antics, most of which she'd tried at one time or another. After a few minutes of girls pleasuring girls, some men came into the picture. She didn't recognise anyone she'd swung with, but her eye was caught by a big vase in the background.

'I know that vase from somewhere, that big white one with the blue pattern.'

'Is it Delft or Ming?' I asked, casually displaying my entire knowledge of ceramics.

'Oh, Ming. Definitely Ming. I saw it in the house of a rich prick. My husband knows him and we were at a swingin party in his place once.'

'Oh?' I sat up, really interested.

'Yeah, it was full of drugs, everytin. Most of them were doin lines and drinkin champers. Endless supplies of everytin. I was so hammered. I came to and found myself bein banged up the arse by some old cunt at seven in the mornin, surrounded by a twisted mess of bodies. I got out of there.'

'Doesn't sound pleasant at all.'

'It wasn't. I don't like that shit anymore. But I remember that vase. I know I do. The owner made sure to tell everyone not to mess with it, it's worth a million.'

'Who was he?'

She thought about this for a second, not sure if she should tell me. She finished her champagne and gently rocked the glass in my face. I got the bottle and topped us up.

'There he is. Look,' she said, pointing at the screen.

The scene was disturbing. Three men having sex with one woman. She looks in some pain, as her lovers screw her almost to death. People sitting around, watching, laughing, applauding. One guy in particular. He sits on a gilded Louis XVI chair, one that Marie Antoinette's own derrière had once warmed. His figure is in shadow, but he is close to the centre of everything. He leans forward, elbow on lap, chin resting in hand, taking it all in. His face catches the light. It's Dr Fox. Rich man, property tycoon, bigwig, pervert. Would he kill to protect his reputation? Maybe he would. When the sex act is over, the girl goes to Dr Fox, who puts something small into her hand. We can't tell what. I see her face and commit it to memory. Change of scene to a mass orgy, much later in the night. Some kind of Roman theme. Togas, grapes, not too many virgins. Camera stationary from well back, capturing the scene, too far for facial recognition. Lots of them wear masks. Fucking odd.

'Fox,' she said.

'My God,' I said to Jean. 'This is fucking huge. How many people know about him?'

'I don't know, maybe a few dozen, tops. But they're all from his circle, corrupt and perverted themselves. The rich protect the rich, else there'd be a revolution.'

'Bring it on. Tell me, would there be hookers at the parties too?'

'Of course,' she said. 'Lapdancers, hookers, sex slaves, they'd all get fucked at Fox's parties.'

'Jesus Christ. What about kids?'

With a look of disgust, she shook her head, no.

'I wouldn't put it past him. He rode me twice. I couldn't say no. Insisted on not usin a condom. I couldn't refuse him.'

'What? Are you insane?'

'I was on too much drugs to care.'

'That's fucking crazy debauchery, Jean. You could get AIDS off that fucking gowl. He's twisted. Or what about getting pregnant?'

'The pill, of course. I've been on it all my life. No way I'm having kids with Greg.'

'How did you end up with him anyway?'

'Not now, Charlie. That's a long story. Let's finish the champagne and go upstairs. To bed.'

I swallowed hard.

'Really?'

She took my hand and put it between her thighs, brushing her fanny, then put her hand on my cheek and kissed me in answer. I was ready.

Then she checked her watch, said Sorry, gotta go, Greg's waiting. She kissed me hard on the mouth, stuck her tongue in, apologised again, then split.

I was left alone, pointlessly aroused, again. And stunned by the news that I had, at last, a motive for Dave's murder.

I wondered if the longest day would ever end, daydreamed of sleep, feared a bullet in my forehead. Then I imagined my funeral and who'd be at it.

CHAPTER 57. HAWAII 5-0

I sat on the back step with a vodka - no ice, no lemon, no tonic - and listened to the one o'clock news on RTE One. Top headline was something I'd been half-expecting. The girl. Autopsy showed she'd been sexually tortured, raped, chopped to pieces while still alive. The details were almost too gory for a daytime news report, with a butcher's cleaver mentioned. And it was only radio. Police feared that the killer - almost certainly a male sexual predator - would strike again and warned parents to be vigilant. No news on DNA. The cops did seem satisfied that she was killed someplace other than where her body parts were found, caught by a fallen tree in the river. If not for the tree, she'd have gone into the Shannon, then the Atlantic, maybe never've been found.

The coverage went on and on. The brutality of the killing seemed to have stirred the nation. People were angry, sick and tired of it all. This murder brought clarity. Nobody cared about gangland killings any more. My life crystallised in an instant. Maybe for the first time, I knew that justice depended on me. To bring peace to Dave's memory, I had to nail his killer. I finished my drink and made another. Dave was mentioned in the report, along with the week's other bodies, but the cops saw no connection with the girl. A cop said that they were following definite lines of enquiry. We'll see, I thought.

The news changed to talk about Israel, Iraq, standard everyday bollocks. I went and shaved and took my shower. It was glorious. My choice of the best things in life varies constantly. It depends on what I'm enjoying at the time. When I'm in the shower, it's my favourite thing.

Then Pat rang to say he was on the way with the screen shots.

He was a bit pale around the gills, but happy with a ham sandwich and a cold beer. We made small talk for a while, mostly about Karpov's party and the funeral. On the surface, all was fine between us. I couldn't make him out, couldn't even guess at his motivations.

There were about forty faces captured from what was on Dave's PC. Each face was blown up to fill an A4 colour page. The graininess was exaggerated and the colours saturated. A dark shadow ran across everything. The pictures could have been taken at the bottom of the ocean, or on another world.

I looked at faces contorted in pleasure and in pain. My heart jumped when I saw the woman from the swinging party, the one who'd been fucked by three blokes. I recognised her face, her look immediately. Same footage, no doubt. I kept looking, waiting for the shot of Dr Fox, millionaire pervert. Nothing. I reached the end of the pile.

'This everyone?' I asked, 'That them all?'

'That's all. Turned out that there wasn't that much stuff at all. And nothing illegal either, if you know what I mean. I was wrong.'

So Dave wasn't a paedophile. That must be good news. But where was Fox? I knew now that either Pat was covering for Fox, or someone above him was. This was a fucking bad development. I kept my cool and played the fool.

'I don't see anyone I know.'

I got more beers.

'How's the head, Charlie?' he asked, noting my shaking hands.

'Pretty bad, Pat. Funerals and whiskey just don't agree with me, y'know?'

'I know. I'm the same. Don't know why I drink it. Makes me go a bit mad, sometimes.'

So I said, 'Ah, it's genetic. Makes every Irishman nuts.'

'Okay,' said Pat, putting the pictures back in a large manila envelope. 'Pity we couldn't get more from this. I still need to get my hands on that loose DVD. Badly. Oh well, what can you do?'

'What can you do?' I echoed, my mind racing. 'So what's next, Pat?'

'Well the DNA and a partial print or two are there. Now we just need to test them against a suspect. Motive is still hazy, but we'll get someone.'

'It's all fucked, man.'

'Fuck, I've just been totally wound up by this child murder. They're screaming for a result. Any gangland murders now would probably slip between the cracks, nobody'd give a shit. It's the ideal time for hitmen, actually. We're fairly stretched as it is.'

I felt that Pat was trying to tell me something, but in a very oblique way. Was he inferring that if I had anyone to kill that now would be good? Hardly. But what was he trying to say? That it would be a good time to kill me?

The sun emerged from behind a sooty cloud, blasting us with intense radiation.

'It's like being away foreign.'

So Pat asked me about my ex-wife. Ex. That's how I saw her.

'How is Deirdre?' he enquired casually.

'Deirdre? Oh, fine. As far as I know. Haven't seen her in eleven days now. You know that.'

'I do.'

'So she's probably still pissed off with me now. Nothing new there.'

'True. She hardly needs the aggro though, does she?'

'Probably not,' I agreed.

'And what about the kids?'

'Ah, I do miss them. Sometimes. And sometimes I don't.'

He'd become all serious. Melancholy. They say most cops become alcoholics, or worse. God, the relentless negativity of the work must be soul-destroying. The scum you have to deal with every damned day.

'Maybe you're better off.'

'Maybe. Would you like tea?'

'That's probably the meaning of life right there. Share a pot of tea with a pal. Trust. Yeah. Go on so.'

Pat's mobile rang. Hawaii 5-0 theme of course. Work. I went and made a pot.

Pat finished the call and gratefully took the tea.

'That was work,' he said, 'Karpov needs me. He's doing a function in town later and wants some extra armed protection.'

'No better man.'

And he was gone, just as I was warming to him again, convincing myself that he couldn't be the one: the question mark.

Then I was struck by the fear. I imagined the childkiller, saw him stalking my kids, pictured him as a stereotype in a parka with the hood up full, darkness inside, just two red eyes shining out. A demon, walking the streets of Limerick.

I feared what I would do if I met the bastard.

CHAPTER 58. YOU'RE SO FINE, YOU BLOW MY MIND

To the killer, it was just work. He'd had a busy few days. Driving the van to the latest job, the warning still rang in his ears: Don't kill him unless you have to.

'Fuckin DVD,' he said as he pushed in the CD he'd made, one song over and over.

'Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind,' he sang, tapping the steering wheel with his fingers.

Busy fuckin week, but worth it. Cuttin off Luke O'Doherty's head was a strange one. But fuck it. He did it and now Greg owed him big. Really fuckin big.

Fuckin loads of cops around this evening, sirens galore. What the fuck were they up to? His piece was under his seat, held up off the floor by a special bracket. Safe enough, but all the cop activity made him nervous anyway.

Then the kid. The whole business gave him a hard-on. He caressed the leather pouch that hung around his neck, the pouch that contained the key to invincible power.

'Hey Mickey! Hey Mickey!'

What was the big fucking deal about a cuntin porno DVD anyway? Didn't fuckin matter. All that mattered was getting the cunt and knowin that now, as long as he didn't go too fuckin mad, the cops wouldn't go near him and the boys. Fuckin ever. Then O'Doherty would be fucked. Big time. He'd probably cut that cunt's head off as well, just for the laugh. Then the Flynns would be top dogs. Top fuckin dogs over all of Limerick. He'd have to beat the women off with a big stick. Such a sweet, sweet plan, made real by a dirty cop. Would you fuckin credit it?

He pulled in near the office. More fuckin squad cars! He got his gun, a Browning nine-mill, cocked it and stuck it down his crotch, inside his shirt.

He felt hungry and figured he'd grab a pizza after the job was done. Then find some young one, always that desire.

'Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind,' he sang quietly, focused now on the job at hand. And he waited.

CHAPTER 59. SAME OL', SAME OL'

Time for food before anything else. What to eat? Chinese. Up to the Happy World sit-down, old-style Chinese restaurant. Nostalgia food.

'Nee-how. Table for one, if you have it, please,' I said to the ever-smiling waitress.

'We have it,' she said, waving her hand at the busy restaurant.

She led me to a little table at the back, beside a huge fish tank. It was perfect. The place was full of young couples, filling up before a night on the town. Later, there'd be middle-aged couples, for whom the restaurant itself was a night on the town. I checked the menu, but already knew what I wanted.

A waitress came to me within seconds and I ordered a Tiger beer, not strictly Chinese but Oriental all the same. When she brought the bottle of beer I gave her my food order, which she scrawled on the paper tablecloth as well as in her little order book. I slugged my beer as the sweating kitchen staff got to work on my grub.

There was a pleasant buzz in the place. My starters arrived, some spring rolls and dumplings, lovely chilli dip. I licked my fingers and remembered how I used to be there with Deirdre. When we were dating first, we'd often go for the old-fashioned kitsch look and quiet privacy. She'd rub my thigh under the table and give me that coy look from under her fringe. God, she was beautiful. My main arrived, deep-fried prawns in batter, fried rice, noodles in sauce on the side, more dips. More beer.

I stuck a napkin on my lap for spillages, damn chopsticks. So I tucked in, savouring the delicately-flavoured prawns, like smelling the sea from a great distance. They weren't as good as Karpov's, though. People came in and went out all the time. Place is a little goldmine.

I watched a couple over at the far side. They paid their bill. The woman was tall and dark-haired, with her back to me. She wore a tight dress, showing off a dynamite figure. I knew that ass. She rose, turned to take her cardigan from the back of her chair. It was Deirdre. She glanced in my direction, smiled. No eye contact, but she knew I was there. She knew it. She turned back to her company. A bloke.

My eyes flitted about the restaurant, resting on him every other second. He was a lot older than her, fifty maybe. Hair thinning on top, glasses. Wearing a tweedy jacket, shirt open at the neck to show some sort of silver medallion. The guru! I couldn't fucking believe it and had to restrain myself before I made a complete ass of me. Fuming, I drank beer and they went, out to who knew where. Now she's gone.

When Deirdre and I ran in to our marriage difficulties - months, maybe years before - she embarked on a quest for spiritual development. She said she wanted to fill her empty life with something positive. I chose to fill mine with drink, women and drugs. Different strokes.

She did yoga, pilates yoga, power yoga, every damn kind of yoga. She started reading books about Yogis, spiritual masters from the east who claimed to know the answers to everything. She got into herbalism, homeopathy, anything to do with the opposite to conventional wisdom. I'm happy to go with the flow, eat, have sex, get stoned, die, that's me. She wasn't satisfied with that. But I didn't stop her, no way. I even went along with her tantric sex. I couldn't handle that though, too slow. Just wanted to get on in there.

Even when she discovered her guru, I left her off. A doctor of psychiatry, Dr John was recommended to her by one of her twittering, tree-hugging friends from yoga class. This guy offered hands-on training in unleashing the true you. Pseudo-scientific, Post-Freudian nonsense. She fell for his scam hook, line and sinker.

She went to his practice every week and sometimes off on group retreats to some shitty camp in the middle of nowhere in the Burren. I gladly went along with it all, minding the kids, wishing her well. I was supportive. Then she came home from a session on the Thursday. The kids were asleep in bed and I was drunk. She told me that her spirit was trapped in our marriage. I said Yeah, whatever and fell asleep on the couch, watching late night Italian league football. I went to work next day, came home, and she was gone. Kids, everything. Bitch was out of my life.

I should've seen it coming, but didn't. I got mad and threw some stuff around. I tried to call her, but her number was out of use. I figured she was at her parents' pad and nearly went out there to cause a scene. Instead, I had a drink. A week of drinks. Now, here she was, out with the fucking guru, the bastard who told her to leave me in the first place. Fuck's sake, that kind of shit just isn't fair. My hunger was gone and I couldn't touch the rest of my food. I was disgusted with myself. Now it all made sense. How dumb are you, Charlie Doyle?

I asked for my bill and fidgeted, fuming. I called the waitress back and asked for a double brandy as well. I sussed Dr John right away. He didn't need Deirdre for sex, he'd have plenty of that, with his posse of bored housewife nymphos. So he was after her money. That or he loved her. I wanted it to be the money and felt sure I had him sussed. My brandy arrived and its warm glow behind my breast bone helped me to relax a little.

I paid the bill, twenty three quid, and left a tip of seven. I got smiles from the waitress on the way out. I bowed and said Konichi-wa.

The streets were busy, drinkers buzzing into town and office clowns stumbling home for a bollicking for getting locked after work. There was no sign of Deirdre and her guru, thank fuck: the AK had flitted across my mind. I strolled towards home, down William Street and up O'Connell Street in just a few minutes, slowing to admire the gorgeous young ones waiting for their dates outside Brown Thomas. Glad to see micro mini skirts making a comeback.

I had to get it off my chest, so I called Pat.

'I was up having a Chinese and who did I see with a bloke, only Deirdre.'

'Fuck, who was he?'

'Her fucking guru,' I said, disgusted.

'You mean that cunt was using his influence to take your wife away?'

'Something like that.'

'That fucker deserves to have his legs broken.'

I half-hoped he'd say that. Half-hoped he'd do it.

'Fucking gowl.'

'Later, Charlie.'

'Later.'

My first reaction when I saw them in the Chinese was anger. That had subsided, in tune with my general laissez-faire attitude. But Pat had brought rage to the fore again. I clenched and unclenched my fists, cursing my stupidity. Duped, and so easily!

CHAPTER 60. HOUSE GUEST

I switched on the radio to catch the seven o'clock news headlines. There had been another murder. One of O'Doherty's goons had been found in an alley with a bullet in the back of his head, execution-style. I figured this was revenge for his gang's double killing. A police helicopter buzzed overhead as the newsreader announced that the heavily-armed Emergency Response Unit - paramilitary police - was back on the streets of Limerick. This was standard cop reaction. I'd have to be extra careful driving about, as they tended to set up snap checkpoints, checking for unusual reactions as they stuck their machine guns in your face. Hardly rocket science.

I wondered how O'Doherty would be dealing with this. Likely, he was holed up in his Island fortress, planning a counterattack, aiming to wipe out the opposition. My mobile rang. Surprise, surprise, it was O'Doherty.

'Hey Charlie. Hear the news?'

'Yeah. Nasty. One of your lads?'

'Jack, my right hand fuckin man,' he said. He actually sounded upset, an emotion I wouldn't have associated with him.

'Jesus,' I said.

'Yeah. Look, I can't say too much over the phone, but the shit's about to hit the fan. I'm worried about Jean and I want her out of here in case they come gunnin for me. Anyway, I just haven't the time to be thinkin about her. So I want to hire you.'

'Go on,' I said, elated - throbbing - at the prospect of seeing Jean.

'I just want you to look after her for a couple of days max. That's it. I'll pay you a grand a day, plus expenses. I'm preparin for the worst.'

'Okay, so. What's the catch?'

'If antin happens to her, you're dead.'

'That's some catch.'

'I just want you to be on the ball. Deal?'

'If anyone comes after her, I can't defend her.'

'I'll look after that. Deal?' he sounded impatient now.

'Deal,' I said.

'Okay, I'll send her to you in a taxi. Now. Where do you want to meet?'

'Can you send her to my place?'

'The house that got shot up?'

'Lightning rarely strikes twice,' I said.

'For your sake, I hope that's fuckin true. Good luck.'

And he hung up. I stood in the garden, trying to think the scenario through. Worst case, O'Doherty would win the gang war, Jean would go home to him and I'd be a couple of grand richer. Best case, O'Doherty would get nailed by the opposition or the cops and then some totally new scenarios would present themselves. Not bad. Jean getting killed while in my care wasn't a possibility worth considering. I'd have to die defending her, if it came to that.

I did a quick tidy-up around the house. As I splashed some after shave on my face and chest, a car hooted outside. I peeked through a gap in the boards. It was a cab, Jean in the back seat.

I jumped down the stairs in three bounds and was out the door to her. She got out of the cab, carrying two bags. The cab split and I took the bags. I made no effort to kiss her until we got inside. I dropped the bags on the couch and kissed her. She kissed back hard, squeezing my arse. I got lead.

'This is for you,' she said, handing me the smaller bag.

I unzipped it. Inside was a thick wad of cash, two grand I guessed. There was also a plastic bag, taped up, with something heavy inside. I ripped the plastic and found a gun. A revolver, thankfully. I opened the cylinder. Loaded. I made sure the safety was on and stuck the gun under my belt, covering it with my shirt. Bit of a deluded expert.

'Do you think anyone's going to come after you, Jean?' I asked.

For the first time, she looked a bit scared.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Jack gettin killed was a fright for us all. A right fuckin shock. Greg thought he'd the other gang pretty much wiped out. This wasn't supposed to happen.'

'Is he sure it was the other gang?' I asked.

'Sure, who else would it be?' she asked.

'I wonder. Drink?'

She nodded, so we went into the kitchen. I mixed a couple of vodka cranberries. She took a call from her husband.

'He asked if you were treatin me okay,' she said.

'I hope you said I was.'

'I did. But if you don't give me a cuddle, a proper cuddle, I'll tell him you whipped me.'

'Oh yeah?' I laughed, 'Show me the bruises, so.'

She sat forward and pulled her top up at the back. There were five or six heavy bruises on her, on that lovely curve of her hips, like she'd been battered with a length of lead pipe. Nasty Cluedo. They were fresh.

'Did he do this?' I asked, staring at the wound.

'Yes.'

'Was it because of us?' I asked, confused as to why he'd send her to me if he knew about us.

'No. Over Luke. Again. He tells me that even though he loves me, he has to punish me. Says it's only right. It'll go on and on.'

'Jesus Christ,' I said, feeling like a prick for giving her this pain. At the end, it was my fault.

'And Charlie -'

'Yeah?'

'I'm beginnin to think he's right.'

I put my arms around her and my face in her hair.

'He's not right,' I said, 'He's a psycho. I don't know why you did it with his brother, but that's no excuse to beat you. He's a prick,' I said, 'And he deserves to die.'

'Well he thinks someone's gunnin for him, that's for sure.'

'Jesus, how many murders have we had now in the last week? Six? Must be some sort of record, even for Limerick.'

'Life is cheap.'

'I wouldn't be brave enough to put a bet on the final tally, though.'

'And you a gamblin man and all.'

CHAPTER 61. THE CALM

When my phone rang then, the real world sank its teeth into my heart, making it colder still.

'Hey dad. What's up?' I said, confused as to why he'd call me, scared. Normally it was one-way traffic, me looking for money or whatever.

'Bad news, son,' he said, sounding like he'd been crying, 'It's your mam. She tried to kill herself.' Silence.

'Jesus Christ, dad. Don't blame yourself, man. You didn't do it. She doesn't know what she's doing.'

'I do blame myself, though.'

'Well don't.'

I was in danger of losing my temper with him, so I calmed myself down a bit, lighting a cigarette.

'She wants to see you,' he said.

I'd been meaning to pay her a visit. Just it was so easy to put off.

'Okay. I'll go see her. I'll head straight away.'

'Fair play, son.'

'How did she do it, dad?'

'Tried to cut her wrist open with a broken bottle.'

'How the hell did she get hold of a bottle?' I asked, angry that she couldn't have been properly looked after.

'Don't know, son. They're trying to suss that out. She keeps asking for you, though.'

'Okay. I'll get there ASAP.'

'Good boy. I'll probably see you there later, then.'

'Okay so. Bye.'

He hung up and Jean turned to face me. I was thinking, trying to cope, to understand.

'Bad news?' she asked.

'Yeah. Bad news. My mam tried to kill herself.'

'Jesus.'

I told her the latest about mam and how I figured her experience had maybe fucked up my own ability to have a proper relationship.

She said 'An I thought my life was in the shit,' which made me smile, then she let me talk, smoked her cigarettes.

We drove to the hospital, Jean wasn't leaving my sight. Anyway, she didn't mind. I stuck my new gun in the glove box. Passed through fairly serious security doors and a fat guy in a pseudo-cop outfit. He looked a bit mad himself. I supposed if you work around mental people all the time, a bit of the craziness must rub off on you eventually. I told the woman at the desk who I was and she said Isn't it awful? She pointed us to a waiting room and said that someone would be out to me in a minute.

Then a male orderly came in and asked me to follow him. Jean waited in the strange little room with the old magazines. I figured she'd be safe enough there.

I followed the guy through another security door and down a long corridor. I had fear in the back of mind, that the thing about my mam was all a ploy to get me here and that I was about to be shown my new home, my very own cell.

My fear evaporated when we entered a small nurses' station. Single rooms, all with their doors locked, radiated from the round central area, with its computer screens and transparent drawer units filled with plastic tubes, syringes, medication. I saw my mother through the glass of her door, the tough glass with diamond patterns of steel wire through it. She was sitting up in her bed, playing cards.

She saw me too, all smiles and waves and bandages. The orderly left and the nurse unlocked the door. Christ, how did it come to this?

'Charlie, my boy. Come give your mother a kiss,' she said, her voice cracking, strained.

I sat on the side of her bed and gave her a hug and a kiss. She was weak, fragile. I worried that my hug could break her. Her hair was long and grey, unbrushed, wild. She'd lost a lot of weight and her hospital-issue nightdress hung from her shoulders like it was on a clothes hanger.

'What are you playing, mam?' I asked looking at her cards.

'Oh, it's not a game, Charlie. It's the tarot. I've been doing a reading for you.'

'Really? What's the story so?'

'Not too good, you poor crater. Not too good. Still, it might point you in the right direction.'

'For what?'

'The truth,' she said, staring into my eyes, a hint of madness about her. 'Isn't it the truth that you're after?'

'Yeah. Of course. Can you be more specific.'

I was entertaining her in her confusion, not expecting to hear anything much.

'Your first card,' she began, 'is The Tower of Destruction, the past. A great revelation, truth shattering an illusion. You must be very careful, son. Expect the unexpected. Change is afoot. But be confident, as the changes will be to your advantage.'

'Okay. What else?'

'The Hanged Man, the present.'

'Oh Christ, that's all I need.'

'It's okay, son. This doesn't symbolise your death or anything. No this says that you are now in a moment of calm. All will change for you. And soon. This is your time to prepare, physically and mentally.'

She'd started getting into the tarot just before she'd lost it completely. Dad thought the cards had helped tip her over the edge. I wasn't sure. But I could see that they certainly animated her. There was life in her eyes now, a life I hadn't seen in a long time.

'Another thing about The Hanged Man,' she continued, 'Don't relax your guard. Someone is working against you. A rival. Or maybe a friend will blackguard you.'

'Well I have felt as though everything is stacked up against me,' I confessed. Fuck, could she be on to something?

'Finally, Charlie, The Wheel of Fortune. Your future. This is all about change. You're coming to the end of one cycle and entering another. I hope it represents success for you. You deserve it.'

'Thanks, mam. You've given me a lot to think about.'

'Ah, this is only rubbish, Charlie. You know that. All it does is help us to shine some light on the darkest parts of our hearts. All the answers are within,' she put a hand on her bony chest, 'not in some old deck of cards from the Middle Ages.'

Lucid, smiling, she lay her head back on her mound of pillows, looking exhausted again.

'And how are you, mam?' I asked, taking her so-skinny hand.

'I'm fine. Just passing the time.'

She didn't look at me, just stared at the ceiling.

'If you're going to keep cutting yourself, they'll never let you out. I mean it.'

Now she looked like a kid again, being scolded by a parent, half smiling to herself.

'Okay,' she said, eventually. 'I'll stop. I promise.'

'Do you mean it?'

'Yes, Charlie. Thanks for coming to see me.'

I felt like a shit for not having been to see her before. The suicide attempt was probably just a cry for help, looking for attention, wanting a visit from her only son. You cunt, Charlie Doyle, after all she's done for you. Jesus, I almost cried with self-pity. I cleared my throat, so I could make a commitment to her.

'Look mam,' I said, 'If you promise to be good and do nothing stupid, I'll come and see you every day. I promise. How's that?'

'And will you bring me something nice, son?'

'You know I will.'

Then the nurse came in and said it was time for mam to take her medication. She'd doubtless be tranquilised to the gills, knocked out for her own good. But I felt that maybe I'd helped, just by coming to see her. I resolved to be less of a shit in future. I asked the nurse if I could see her doctor. She said Not today, maybe tomorrow. I gave my mother a kiss and said I'd see her tomorrow. Then I waited outside, out of her sight. I glanced into the other rooms. In one, a young woman, maybe twenty, sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the palms of her hands. In another, a woman about my own age lay on her bed, covers off, staring up at the ceiling, unaware of me. She was attractive enough and I wondered if those stories about orderlies screwing drugged-up patients at night were true. Poor woman. The nurse came back out and I had a quick word.

'So how bad is she?' I asked.

'Oh, not bad at all. She barely broke her skin. It was just for attention, really.'

'Well it worked.'

'I can see that.'

'I promised her I'd come see her every day.'

The nurse raised an eyebrow.

'That's good,' she said, 'If you mean it. Giving her false hope wouldn't be good. Most of the poor souls in here deteriorate rapidly once the visits stop. And they always stop.'

'I suppose it's not easy coming in here from the outside world. I know I'm freaked out. If you don't mind me saying it.'

'Not at all. If it didn't freak you out, you should be locked up yourself,' she said, smiling at me for the first time.

'What about my father? Has he come to see her?'

She checked through the visitor book on her desk.

'He's been here every day since she came in,' she said. 'Some days, she won't see him. Some days he just sits in there with her for hours. He's very good.'

He's very guilty, I thought. Guilty as sin. I thanked the nurse and said I'd see her more often. She buzzed for an orderly to take me back to reception. Back down the long corridor, with its smell of bleach and hidden secrets.

Jean wasn't in the waiting room, the woman at reception pointing a finger outside. I passed through, observing that the security goon had his eyes planted on Jean's lovely arse. Dream on, twat. She was on the phone, smoking a cigarette. I lit up and waited for her to finish. Christ, we were both smoking like troopers.

'Your husband?' I asked as she hung up and put the phone in her pocket.

'The one and only,' she said. 'He thinks he knows what's really goin on.'

'What?' I asked, excited at the prospect.

'He wouldn't say,' she answered. 'He just said to keep a low profile and that he'd be in touch with you himself.'

'Maybe mam was right.'

'About what?'

'The Wheel of Fortune. Ah, it's nothing. She's mad, God love her. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.'

CHAPTER 62. FRIENDS LIKE THAT

So Pat rang and said he wanted to drop around. For a chat. Sounded ominous, but I said Come on over.

The radio news babbled as we drove to my place. There had been a hit and run in town. A man was smacked by a fast-moving car. He was thrown on to the bonnet and then bounced on to the road. The car fucked off at speed. The victim had a smashed hip and two broken legs, but would survive.

Jean went to the bedroom, locked herself in.

Pat arrived and I made fresh tea. He was quiet, his face set, like he was trying to keep something in. We sat in the garden, on white plastic chairs. Evening stretched on.

'Charlie,' he began, 'I need something from you.'

'Anything Pat,' I said.

'The DVD. Dave's DVD. I know you have it and I need it.'

This hit me hard. He stared me straight in the eye, watching my every reaction. I flinched at the shock of the question, betrayed my position. And he knew it.

'What?' I said.

It was all I could muster, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

'Charlie, we're friends and I don't want to change that. But I have to get the DVD.'

There was a hardness to his voice now, a stiffness in his expression. He was serious, scarily serious. I expected him to nonchalantly flash his gun at any time.

'Jesus, it's hot,' he said, standing to take off his sports coat and put his shoulder holster and automatic pistol on display. No fucking around.

'What DVD, Pat?' I asked, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands. I offered him one but he didn't take it.

'Porno movie, Charlie. Dave was putting it together for some friends of mine. But there's stuff on the disc that shouldn't be there. Dangerous stuff.'

'Powerful friends, maybe?' I asked.

'You know exactly what I'm talking about,' he slapped his thigh, smiling now. 'Just hand it over, will you?'

'What makes you think I have it, Pat'

'Please don't play with me, Charlie. Please.'

He stood in front of me, hands on hips.

'Okay,' he sighed, 'Dave's phone records show multiple calls to and from you in the twenty-four hours before he was killed. I can guarantee that the DNA and partial prints we found in the shop will match yours. Also, there's a bit of CCTV, taken around the corner from the murder scene. You're on it, moving quickly away from the shop.'

I nodded, dumbfounded. He'd known all along. I tried to think where I'd left the revolver O'Doherty'd sent with Jean. Couldn't remember. Fuck.

'So,' he continued, 'you went to the shop on Sunday morning, having planned to meet Dave there. You saw the body and took what you could, figuring his cash would be no more use to him. Am I right?'

I nodded, dumbly.

'Good,' he said. 'So you spotted the DVD as well and took it, thinking you'd have some new wank material. I can see it was an honest mistake. So now, you just have to give it to me and we're square. I've even done you a favour already, as a thank you. We are friends.'

'What favour?' I asked, confused.

'Your wife's guru. The prick had a nasty little accident, didn't he?'

'Christ. That was him? You did that?' You're insane!

'All I'll say is that one good turn deserves another, Charlie. I could've got Deirdre as well. But that would've been a waste, wouldn't it? She's a sweetie. Now, the DVD. Please.'

'What if I don't play ball?' I asked, wanting to see how desperate he was.

He shook his head and tutted.

'Don't even go there, Charlie.'

I looked at him blankly, insisting that he spin it out for me.

'Okay,' he said, 'We can place you at the crime scene with forensics. Plus, I know you had a gun at the time, the same kind that was used to kill Dave. I also have a witness, your little druggie friend Brian, who will testify that you were out of your head on acid late Friday night. He'll say you were delusional, waving your gun around, making stupid threats. That kind of thing.'

'In all fairness Pat, what was my motive so?'

'Anything. Maybe the drugs made you crazy? Maybe you were arguing with Dave over a woman? Fiona, maybe? Most motives are mixed anyway. People kill their friends all the time.'

This struck home like he'd held a gun to my nose. He didn't have to say any more. I knew I was dead unless I handed over the DVD, which was sitting in my jacket, in the front room. Or I'd have to kill him myself. Time to buy some breathing space.

'What's in it for you, Pat?' was all I could muster.

'I'll make it fit. Capeesh?'

He was right. I was well-fitted up.

'Capeesh.'

'Good. So where is it?'

'Not here,' I said, holding my hands out, palms upwards. He relaxed.

'Good man, Charlie. Where?'

'In a safe place. It'll take me a while to get it. Can I meet you later?'

'Okay, where and when?'

'My office, ten?'

'Okay, fine. I've to get back to work, big night tonight with my new buddy the billionaire.'

He winked at me as he picked up his jacket and headed into the house. I started to get up. With difficulty.

'I'll see myself out, Charlie,' he said. 'One more thing,' he said, deadly serious again, 'Don't fuck with me, Charlie. I mean it. Okay?'

'Okay.'

'I'm just looking after number one, kid. In the end, that's all that matters to me. You should try it some time. I'm going to be a very rich man soon, so just don't get in my way, okay?'

I was getting sick of being threatened.

'See you later. Oh, one last thing.'

'What the fuck else could there be?'

'The Flynns have no clue who you are. No clue.'

'So you're the question mark.'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

And off he went, to protect the decent people of Limerick from the scumbags. Only he was the biggest scumbag of all. But how would the endgame play out?

Jean came down and we smoked cigarettes. I filled her in.

'What a complete cunt,' she said.

Then O'Doherty rang me. I jumped when I saw his identity flash up. I was nervous, surprised at how badly I'd done reading Pat, confused by how many people were fucking with my head.

'Evenin, Charlie,' he said. 'How we doin?'

'Not great, truth be told.'

'Listen kid, I'm about to fuck your head up a bit, okay?'

'Shoot.'

'Okay. Know your pal, the cop?'

'Pat, yeah.'

'He's playin you for a fool.'

CHAPTER 63. CLARITY

O'Doherty's story had the unmistakable ring of truth to it. No less stunning for that.

'What? How do you know?'

'I think the fucker's been playin every side in the game.'

'What game?' I asked, my confusion growing, my stomach falling, my head heavy.

'Ah, just a bit of a power struggle. I've somethin goin on with the Russians. It turns out we've been fucked around with. Remember the little incident with my wife in the park? I was told to contact you and only you, Charlie, and tell you where and when to take the pictures.'

'By Pat,' I said.

'Yep. Told me he was doin me a favour, the prick.'

'He was working for you?'

'A bit. He'd give me the odd tip-off before a raid or warn me about what the other gangs were up to. He never pulled a trigger for me or antin. I paid him well. You can never have too many cops on side in my business.'

'Jesus Christ,' I said.

'Yeah. It's always cat when you find out what your friends have been hidin from you.

'So why did he tip you off?'

'Probably to fuck with my head and maybe use me to rub out the other gang before he fixes me.'

'Fixes you?' I asked.

'Yeah. That was, like I say, a distraction. The real game is with the Russians and their buddies. Their powerful buddies.'

'Go on.'

'When the Russians moved in a couple of years back, I muscled my way in. Made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and everytin was fine. I protected their sex operations, even did some work with them in drugs and guns and that. But they made their own contacts too, playin for time. Now some big rich cunt from Russia has bought in and they've decided they don't need me anymore.'

'Karpov,' I said. Pat's new buddy.

'That's the cunt,' said O'Doherty. 'But they're not goin to have it their own way. No sir.'

'What have you planned?' I asked.

'Let's just say that your pal won't see tomorrow and Karpov won't be buildin any fuckin hotels here.'

'You're going to kill Karpov?' I asked, incredulous. 'He has heavy security. Ex-army types, I reckon. I'd say they're well-armed.'

'Not a bother. I've twenty good men if I need um, plus somethin special in reserve. He won't know what hit him.'

'What about Pat?'

'He's bein watched. He was at your place a while ago, wasn't he?'

It was another one of those defining moments, when all my smugness was blown away. I was the amateur in all this. I decided to be straight up, to use O'Doherty.

'Yeah. I've this porn DVD that he wants. This fucker called Dr Fox, Karpov's local contact, is in one of them, doing some perverted shit.'

'Fox,' he said, 'Yeah I know Fox. He's dirty enough.'

'Planning to kill him too?' I asked.

'That I haven't decided yet,' he said. 'I put all the blame squarely at Karpov's feet for now.'

'But is he giving Pat his orders or is Fox? Like, Karpov wouldn't know or care about porno, would he?'

'Probably not. Probably not.'

'We'll have to keep tabs on that cunt Fox so,' he said. 'Just in case. Thanks Charlie.'

Fox was too close to Pat not to be involved in the greater machinations for control of the city's vice trade. Plus, there was a good chance he was a paedophile. I'd cry no tears for him.

'Pat's meeting me at my office at ten tonight, to collect the DVD,' I said, hoping that O'Doherty would take care of the dirty work.

'Really?' he said. 'That's good, Charlie. Very good. That suits, that suits. Have you still that gun I sent you?'

'Yeah, somewhere.'

'Keep it on you. Okay, that's all for now. I'll call you back by nine, let you know the plan. That okay?'

'Grand.'

I filled Jean in on all the shit. We sat in the garden, smoked like troopers, enjoyed the evening heat.

'So what would you do if you knew you had only a couple of hours to live?' I asked her.

She got her bag, took out a bottle of chilled Dom Perignon and a blanket. We put the blanket on the grass, drank the Champagne from the bottle.

'Sit here with you, maybe.'

'Same,' I said.

I was getting nervous, my palms sweating. Time passed slowly as we sat in silence.

'And make love to you, maybe.'

She stood up and pulled down her skirt. Then she took off her knickers and sat on my knees. She bent down and began to lick and suck and nibble. I was stiff in a millisecond. She moved up my body and kissed me on the mouth, her lips with the salty sweet flavour of champagne and me. Then she sat back up and reached across for her handbag. She found a condom and ripped the pack open with her teeth.

As she prepared the condom, I fondled her breasts and her nipples became as hard as my cock. She sat back a bit and unrolled the condom over my penis. Then she lifted herself and, holding me from behind, came down slowly, gently guiding me inside her. She pushed her pelvis down hard and I was in deep. She rocked up and down and began to groan involuntarily. I kept my hands on her and she put hers on me. She pushed down really hard, so hard I was afraid she'd damage her ribs more. She wasn't in pain, her eyes closed, her mouth open.

After a long minute, she lay down fully on me. Her tongue was in my mouth, touching every tooth. This was a perfect opportunity to fondle her arse. I grabbed a cheek in each hand, pulling her vagina down around me.

'What will the neighbours say?' she breathed into my ear.

'Fuck them. No, fuck me instead.'

So she did.

I felt a subtle trembling inside her. She was hot. She jumped up off me and turned so she was on her hands and knees, her wet pussy almost in my face.

'From behind, Charlie. Doggy-style, please,' she gasped, her breathing fast and shallow.

I struggled into position, got a view that almost made me cry.

At last, she began to cry out, wordless sounds that meant she was close. I pulled her tighter and pushed more. Then I grabbed her breasts and roughly twisted her nipples, all the while marvelling at her arse as a grateful me slid in and out between her cheeks. With a scream, she came. Then I could let go and my orgasm erupted deep inside her, her vagina pulsing with pleasure. We panted like greyhounds. Then I grabbed the base of the condom and withdrew slowly, tingling intensely.

I fell back on to the blanket. She turned and fell beside me, then rolled her side of the blanket around her. I found my cigarettes. I lay beside her on the blanket and smoked. The betrayal was complete.

'Doggylicious,' I said.

Right then O'Doherty rang, like he knew. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

'I'm dealin with the other in a minute. You go ahead with your ting and we'll be waitin outside. Stick her in a hotel room, stay low. Got that?' he breathed, his voice low, controlled.

'Got it.'

End of conversation.

'What's the plan?' Jean asked, looking a little worried as she lit a cigarette.

'You've to wait in a hotel. I've to go ahead and meet Pat at ten. They'll be waiting for him.'

'They'll kill him.'

'Probably. It's inevitable now. Pat's on the enemy side. Whether or not that's the losing side, we'll see. I think Karpov's going to be nailed first. Take out the top man, scare the rest of them. Then pick them off one at a time. If they get Karpov, Pat's dead. If your husband gets killed instead, Pat's on the winning side. Either way, I'm giving him the DVD.'

'You can't lose,' she said, smiling now. Better.

'I reckon so. Unless Pat decides to kill me.'

'Would he? He's your friend, isn't he?'

'True. That's what I always thought. Until all this shit happened. Until he threatened me. No more friendship. I'll just have to convince him that my professionalism means I'll keep my trap shut. I think he'll take that. I've genuinely never spilt the beans on any client.'

'Well,' she said, 'If he knows that, you'll be grand. Won't you feel like you're settin him up?'

'No way, Jean. This is all his doing. I'm not going to feel guilty about anything that happens tonight. Fuck no! I just hope to fuck you're not on his hitlist. I'll mind you, don't worry.'

She gave me a hug for that. She knew where I was coming from and left it there. There was a chance that myself or her husband would die before the night was out. And under it all, she knew that there might well be a Russian bullet waiting patiently somewhere with her own name on it.

We dressed, last meal over.

CHAPTER 64. HIDEAWAY, GETAWAY

Time was 9.10. We got in the car and decided to head for a hotel on the Dublin Road, past the University. Ideal for a fast getaway to Dublin.

On the way, Jean sent texts, gave orders for her BMW to be brought out for her. I wasn't sure about it, but she insisted it would be okay.

'This piece of shit won't get us very far, will it?'

'No.'

We stopped at a petrol station to get her some John Player Blue, magazines and chocolate. To help pass the time.

At the hotel, we checked in as Mr and Mrs O'Donoghue. Guy behind the desk insisted on a credit card, but I insisted I didn't have one. Too easy to trace us. Sorry, sir, hotel policy. I said I'd pay for a night in advance, ninety quid, and gave the twat a fifty into his blazer pocket. Then he said No problem with the card, sir. Fine.

There was a gang of kids playing in the reception area, looked like the remnants of a wedding party. Passing the function room, my worst fears were realized: a travellers' wedding. The singing was fucking woeful and everyone was shitfaced and itching for a fight. I winced to Jean and she laughed, keeping her eyes straight ahead in case she knew someone.

We found our room, one-one-nine, and opened the door with the swipe card.

The room was okay, nothing too special. I put Jean's bag on the bed and looked out the window. Good view of the front car park. Nice and busy. I closed the curtains and advised her to keep them closed and stay away from the window.

'Can I go to the bar?,' she asked, 'If I get bored.'

'I suppose,' I replied. 'Just keep your phone on you. If you see anything suspicious, get clear.'

'Okay. Thanks. What about my husband?'

'What?'

'You going to tell him where I am? Should I?'

'No. Everything's gone operational now. Now we stay quiet. I'm calling nobody until this is all over. You should try and do the same.'

'How will we know?'

'Know what?'

'How will we know when it's all over?'

CHAPTER 65. SHITSTORM

At first, O'Doherty's plan went smoothly. As I drove back into town, admiring the silhouetted city skyline against a deepening azure sky, a newsflash came on the radio.

Holy Christ! There had been an explosion at a Chamber of Commerce dinner in town. Only minutes before. No word on casualties. May have been a bomb. Then they played a Radiohead song, High and Dry. Apt. I scanned the skyline for palls of smoke as I crossed the Groody River in light traffic, heading for the office and my meeting with Pat. All I saw was a dense flock of starlings crossing the swollen, rising moon.

I passed the bright lights of the dog track and heard a roar go up.

'And that was the Ace of Spades winning his race, you dope.'

I was in town by 9.50, so figured I had time to check out the explosion before I went to the office. I parked handily enough and strolled up towards the hotel where the Chamber always had their dos. A large crowd had gathered. Fire engines, police cars and ambulances filled the street. A cordon was put up at either end, so I could only get to within about a hundred metres of the action. An ambulance siren roared to life and it sped up the far end of the street, off to the Regional.

Two fat jeeps were parked near my position. They were unmarked, but guys in blue fatigues, carrying machine guns - MP5s, as I now knew - stood around them with purpose. The Emergency Response Unit, must have been escorting Karpov. Yeah, off behind them, the dull gleam of a BMW 7-series. Armoured, you could tell from the extra bulges and folds. Custom job. Could take anything up to a well-placed RPG warhead or a hefty roadside bomb. Not worth hitting, especially with ERU footsoldiers swarming around it. It made sense to hit Karpov in a neutral venue, someplace with easy enough access, an event that was well-flagged. I listened to the talk in the crowd, plenty of old ladies and youngfellas.

'I heard there's two dead,' said one, a woman with a little mongrel.

'Look at their guns,' said a kid, 'They tink they're hard. Fuckin gowls.'

'There's the chopper,' said another, as the police helicopter arrived, circling low, its powerful searchlight on.

Then I spotted the forensics Oompa-Loompas in their white van. As they pulled up to try and get a fix on the explosives used, Pat left the hotel, pushing through a swarm of uniforms, leading Dr Fox. Pat's partner was with them.

They looked uninjured, just a bit shook. The three went over to a parked black Merc and got in. Pat drove. They left the scene and the rest of the guests started to come out for air. They were kept within the cordon, but a few came over to us and told about what had happened inside. They were in shock, desperate to share it all.

Karpov had taken the podium to make his big speech about investing in the dynamic local economy. In front of all the wankjobs that pass for local dignitaries, the podium exploded. He was killed instantly, his head in bits. The bomb had been fierce but measured. Nobody else was badly injured, some scratches, some bleeding ears. Just everyone freaked out.

Medics arrived within minutes, but Karpov was clearly dead. I mean, where's his head, dude? He was pronounced dead at the scene and brought to the hospital, along with the injured, plus another few who lost the plot about the whole thing. The attack was clean, efficient, and made for perfect TV. A clear warning to the world. Round one to O'Doherty, I figured, as I walked to the office, my head beating as loudly as my heart. Now for round two.

CHAPTER 66. THUNDER

Heavy black clouds rolled in and it got darker again, like the summer is nearly over when it's barely fucking begun. I heard a distant rumbling.

Plenty of squad cars and all sorts around, sometimes squawking, sometimes not. Dangerous for an armed confrontation now. What was planned for Fox, I had no clue. But surely it wouldn't be easy. Pat must be taking him somewhere pretty safe, for sure. Had he forgotten about meeting me? Maybe. I'd be waiting anyway. I worried about Jean and hoped she was safe. Christ, so many cops around.

My stomach was screaming, hurting. A problem with Class As, like coke. The crash is as intense as the high. But only when you run out. This explains the desperation of heroin junkies. How far was I from that shit?

Streets weren't too quiet. The explosion had electrified the place, brought a kind of buzz. Couples were going out drinking, a good few students and Spanish kids hanging about. I grabbed a bag of chips in the Golden Grill. I turned off a busy Patrick Street and on to a much quieter Ellen Street.

Around the corner, past the library and the Trinity Rooms nightclub and the office was ahead. The approach was clear, nobody hanging around. The entrance was clean, no lurkers. I couldn't make any of O'Doherty's goons anywhere.

I opened up and gave the alarm the numbers it demanded. It went back to sleep. I closed the door gently behind me and trudged upstairs.

I decided to play everything in the open, so I switched the lights on and left the blinds open. I stood there, drinking water and watching the street, making myself obvious. Scenarios raced through my mind. Maybe O'Doherty has a sniper across the street, waiting for Pat to stand exactly where I am? Maybe they're sitting in a car around the corner, waiting for his car? Maybe they'll hit him and Fox and he won't even get here? All maybes.

I left the office door wide open, so I'd hear the buzzer downstairs. Plus, it helped conceal the assault rifle, which was exactly where I'd left it. I fitted a magazine, cocked it and put it in position. I sat at my desk, head spinning.

My mobile rang, startling me. Christ, I'd been zoning out. I looked at the display.

'Christ, not now. Hello Deirdre.'

'Where did it all go wrong, Charlie?'

What?

'What?'

'With us. Weren't we happy?'

'I can't really talk now.'

'I want to know. I want you to tell me,' she said, some kind of childish tone in her voice. Odd.

'Okay. When we first met, we fell in love, had a laugh, had sex a lot and lived for the moment. Then we got kids, loans, no sex, boredom. We tried swinging. Then I had an affair with Sara. You had an affair with your guru. You went home to your mammy and daddy. Now I live alone like a saddo. Plus I'm in deep shit at the moment. It's all my fault. Everything is my fault.'

'Mummy and daddy have asked me to speak to you. They cashed some stocks. They say if we can make a fresh start, they'll give us some money. A lot. To spend together on whatever.'

'Better late than never.'

'We could afford an au pair to help with the kids.'

'A cute French girl?'

'We'll see.'

'Okay, this is a bit Stepford Wives. Why the change of heart? Why now?'

I wasn't going to mention the guru's little accident. Let her do that.

'Lots of things. And nothing.'

'Look Deirdre, I'm intrigued and thanks for calling. But I'm literally in the middle of something big. People might be trying to get through to me.'

'Always the same excuse with you Charlie, never a good time to talk,' she said, sounded hurt, but just putting on the hurt.

'Well this time I'm serious. I know I exaggerate and fantasise my life away, but this is genuine. Can I call you?'

She said nothing for a long second.

'One more thing.'

'Yeah?'

Silence. Spit it out, for fuck's sake!

'Charlie, I feel really bad, but I have to tell you.'

'Just bloody tell me.'

'You don't remember our talk the other night?'

'Not a word of it.'

'I was afraid of that. Well, I'll tell you again. I slept with Dave a few weeks back. Just once.'

'You what?'

'I did it to hurt you. I'm sorry, Charlie.'

And she hung up.

Jesus fucking Christ. Just once! Dave?

The buzzer went down below. Fuck, Pat. I went to the window and looked down. The angle was bad and it was clouded over, much darker. Just a shadow waiting. 10.24. Shit, I'd completely lost track of time. Drugs do that. And panic. And hearing terrible, stinking news.

I went downstairs quickly and opened up. Not Pat. Mickey fucking Flynn, I recognised him from Pat's poop sheets. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

'Yeah?'

'Doyle?'

He glanced behind him, worried. He was clearly concerned about all the cop activity. He pushed forward, I stepped back and opened the door wide for him. In he came. I looked around outside, nobody on the street. Nobody I could see.

I shut the door and turned to face him, puzzled. I figured I'd have to get him upstairs, maybe pretend I had wads of cash, get to my AK.

'Pat sent me,' he said, hands tight in the pockets of his leather jacket. 'He said you have somethin for him.'

'I do. Come on up,' I said, leading the way to my office.

'How much of what's going on do you know about?' I asked as I opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. The disk was there. I handed it over. The rifle was within reach.

'Just doin my job, that's all.'

He stood there for another second. I waited for him to make his move. Then he turned and walked out. I followed him down the stairs and opened the front door. He glanced at me with one eye. The lazy one looked over my shoulder. Then he was gone.

As I made to close the door, two shots cracked off. Close by.

I ran out on to the steps, searching. Flynn was on the ground only a few car lengths away, a pool of blackness spreading. I saw a car speed off, squealing around the corner.

'In like fuckin Flynn.'

I ran to him. He was dead as fuck, his chest all blood, just blood. I grabbed the DVD from the dead man's grip and tore back into the office, upstairs, switched off the lights. I took the assault rifle and, moving good and fast, locked the front door just as a siren wailed in the distance.

The police Eurocopter whined overhead as I drove through town, a target-rich environment tonight. I thought about going to Jean but decided it was too early. It would put her at risk. A showdown with Pat still loomed. I aimed for home, figuring to have a smoke, a drink, watch Sky News, listen to the local radio, put together a picture. Be prepared. Hoped I wouldn't have to fire a shot.

I was lucky to avoid all checkpoints. My business tonight was all city centre, the police would be concentrating on the gang strongholds and the outer ring roads and protection. I got home easily and went into the house, trying to act normal. Harder than it sounds. Left the rifle in the boot. The street was dead.

I left the lights off in the front room and made do with a little lamp in the kitchen. I put my phone on the counter, charging, and sat at the back doorstep, smoking cigarettes, thinking What the fuck is going on?

TV babbled in the background. Time pushed on. The eleven o'clock headlines had footage of the blast, bored TV cameras got more than they expected.

It was unreal. One second, Karpov was stood there, talking shite to tossers. Then Bang! and he was gone in a puff of smoke. Maddest fucking thing I've ever seen on TV. After 9/11, of course.

O'Doherty rang. He sounded jubilant.

'Well Charlie. All set?' he laughed.

'Yeah. But that wasn't Pat.'

'What?'

'At the office. It was Mickey Flynn.'

'You sure?' He wasn't laughing anymore.

'Yeah. I'm sure.'

'Fuck. Okay. That fucker had it comin soon enough anyway.'

And he hung up. Not one for pleasantries, the old bastard. He was worried now. Pat was a loose cannon for O'Doherty.

'Where the fuck are you Pat?' I asked the sky. I was a little relieved when he didn't step up out of the shadows and answer.

On TV, it started to become obvious that Karpov's death was linked to the gang murders. O'Doherty was mentioned as a local boss. Then a report from Moscow said that Karpov was under investigation back in the Motherland. Tax evasion. Even a dim cop would make this for what it was. O'Doherty would be starting to feel some intense heat about now.

I guessed he was away from home, holed up somewhere with his men, waiting to hear where Pat was. Pat would be protecting Fox until O'Doherty was arrested or dead. Either Fox or O'Doherty would have to go before anything could settle. Whichever was left would make peace with whoever took over from Karpov, probably whoever runs the club. No more ego clashes. Back to business.

News coverage switched to Paris, and the miraculous appearance of the face of Jesus Christ on a croque-monsieur ham and cheese sandwich. Hundreds kneeled in adoration of the sandwich, like an insane Weightwatchers' club meeting. Jesus Christ is right.

The sight of the Divine and Godly Snack caused my stomach to scream at me again, so I called in some Indian, a Vindaloo. Ate and decided to take a holiday. Straight away. Get the fuck out and let the dust settle on everybody else. Fucking right. Just return Jean in one piece and go. I wished I could've called in an airstrike, but who to hit?

I packed a bag and put my passport on top. I stuck the bag in the boot, behind the AK-47. Then I figured the gun would be more useful in the house if the phantom house-shooter turned up again. That must've been Pat. What a prick.

I took the gun in, wondering about the neighbours. Was anyone watching me now? So many goings-on for the oldies to natter about. I whistled as I carried the bagged assault rifle into the house, checking the street, seeing nothing.

Back at my post by the back door, I got the AK out and admired it more.

A to the motherfucking K.

I sat there, against the doorframe, the gun in my lap, my trigger finger itchy. The sense of impending doom grew. I decided to call Jean, see how she was doing.

'Hi, can you put me through to Mrs O'Donoghue in one-nineteen, please?' I asked the receptionist.

'Certainly, sir. Just a moment.'

She put me on hold. No music, just a vague hiss.

'Sorry sir, she checked out?'

'Checked out?'

This wasn't supposed to happen.

'Yes, just an hour ago. With her husband.'

'But I'm her husband,' I roared, realising how weird I felt, just saying that.

'Sorry?'

Shit.

'No. No. It's just a misunderstanding. Thanks for your help.'

I hung up on a confused and panicked receptionist, cursing myself for being so dumb. I tried Jean's mobile. After six rings, she answered.

'Hi Charlie,' she said, sounding sleepy, distant.

I was now very alarmed.

'Hi Jean, what's going on? Why did you check out?'

There was a bump and a rustling sound.

'Hi buddy,' said Pat.

I said nothing. I literally couldn't speak.

'I said, Hi buddy,' he repeated.

'Hi Pat,' I said. That was all.

'Okay listen bud, I need you to get on to Jean's little man and tell him to get some money together. Two million. Cash. Only if he wants his lovely wife back. Got that?'

'You're holding her for ransom? Is that what this is all about?' I asked, my heart racing once again towards an early heart attack.

'It is now,' he said. 'Just do it, okay? I'll call you back in an hour.'

Then he hung up. I called O'Doherty straight away.

Told him everything.

'What the fuck?' he screamed. 'Where were you?'

'I had to come to meet Pat, didn't I?' I roared back. He wasn't going to pin this on me. I was shouting for my life.

'Well how the fuck did he find her?' he shouted, not caring who was listening now.

'All I can think of,' I said, working fast, 'is that she called a friend to take her car out to her.'

'You're not fuckin serious? Ah, Jesus Christ, the fuckin stupid cunt. Where?'

'The Plassey Hotel. Would Jean's car have been at your house?'

His place was now being watched twentyfourseven.

'Yeah,' said O'Doherty, quieter now.

'They must have tailed the car, told Pat and he went and had her identified from a photo or something. I hear they're planting bugs and tracking devices in cars now, tailing by chopper.'

'Yeah.'

'So let's get her back,' I said, wanting to save her. Not to cover my own arse, just to save her.

'Right. Shoot.'

'Okay,' I said, 'I reckon it's just a ploy to kill you.'

'Go on,' he said, agreeing with me.

'So the best plan might be to just follow instructions and have some firepower in reserve.'

'Won't he have the same?' asked O'Doherty.

'I'm not sure. Maybe he's out on his own now. The thing earlier must've really shattered all his illusions. Now he's just stuck in Limerick again with Dr Fox for company. Speaking of which, how is he?'

'I'll tell you later,' said O'Doherty. 'We need to meet up. I want to hear the prick when he calls.'

'Where?' I asked. Where the fuck was there for me to meet a hunted gangster at midnight?

'I'll send one of the lads for you,' he replied. 'He'll take you to me. If you're stopped, play dumb.'

'Okay,' I said. 'I'm at home.'

He hung up. Then I had time to think. Fucking Pat. What's he on? Maybe it was just about the money, I mused. His big payday had exploded before his eyes and, if he could make a couple of million as a consolation prize, why not? Ideally, he could kill the man who fucked things up for him as well. So he'd want O'Doherty to deliver the cash. Nail him. War over. Loaded, nice promotion, the main man. Their past business was simply forgotten. This was gangster morality.

And my strings kept twitching.

CHAPTER 67. NIGHT DRIVE

My head was pounding so hard. Truly painful. I looked for the Solpadeine and found only the empty box, which I crushed with anger. I rooted around in the kitchen drawer and found organic aspirin. Praised the Lord for ecologically-sustainable drugs. I swallowed three, washed them down with beer. I gathered my thoughts and put the AK-47 back in its bag. It was coming with me. I watched the street through a gap in the curtains, lights off.

A car stopped outside, engine running, lights still on. It was a new black Mercedes, nondescript. The driver got out and waved at the house. There was nobody else in the car. I slipped out of the house, closing the door gently behind me.

I reached the car fully expecting some new twist, like I was about to be abducted by fucking aliens or something. But it was just one of O'Doherty's goons. I'd met him a couple of times. Well, if not met, been in the same room as.

He smiled and opened the passenger door for me. I got in, put the gun between my knees and belted up.

'What's that?' he said.

'AK-47. Insurance policy.'

'Nice,' he said, smiling broadly. 'I'm Mick.'

'Good man Mick. You know who I am, I suppose. Where we headed?'

'A safe house. Up in Southill.'

'Jesus Christ. What's he doing up there?'

'We've done business up there for a long time. It's like our test market,' he smirked. 'We're safer there than on the Island, even. They'd need to get the army out to find us.'

I nodded and looked straight ahead as we sped through town and up past the railway station. The city was pure dead, just a few drunks staggering to the late chipper and bored taxi drivers talking shite at the rank. Mick was about forty. He looked hard, like the kind of guy you simply wouldn't start with if he accidentally knocked your pint. But he was getting fat, like so many whose means exceed their needs. He was bald-shaven and had a gold earring in his left ear. He wore a black leather jacket and black jeans. Uniform.

'And what about Fox?' I asked, eager to find out more.

'We lost him,' he answered. 'Prick was taken away by your buddy. They have him at home now, surrounded by the fuckin ERU. We can't get near him.'

'Shit. Pat must have got him home and come back to finish things off. He knows there's no way he can get your boss in Southill, so he's using Jean to flush him out.'

'Fuckin tool's goin to get more'n he bargained for. Stupid gowl.'

'Yeah.'

'Nice one with Flynn earlier, wasn't it?'

'You do it?'

'I was there, yeah. We made him, the mullet gave him away.'

'And you killed him anyway?'

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

He relaxed a bit and turned up the stereo - The Doors, sweet - as we passed the Roxboro shopping centre and saw Southill looming before us. We veered left off the roundabout, heading towards the Dublin Road.

'Which way we going?' I asked.

The time to hesitate is through.

'Main road in's got a checkpoint,' he said, using his phone as we coasted down the wide, deserted streets.

'Yeah, me,' he said when the call was answered. 'Okay?'

He turned to me.

'We're clear. The boys have torched a car at the top, our way in is empty.'

Come on baby light my fire.

We turned right, off the main road, passed under a railway bridge and up the hill. Swinging left, passing vacant industrial units, tinkers' caravans, bonfires and car wrecks. Then right and into the darkest depths of Southill, which was like another planet entirely.

CHAPTER 68. THE GANG'S ALL HERE

Half a dozen tough-looking shaven-headed teenagers stood at the first corner, watching us like hawks. They recognised Mick and waved us through. After a few sharp twists and turns, we arrived at a tiny cul-de-sac. The police helicopter buzzed nearby and more cornerboys lurked in the shadows. Otherwise, all was quiet. Mick expertly reversed the big car in, positioning it both to block access and to make a quick getaway if required.

We got out and I followed him to the door of an unassuming house, carrying my gun in its bag.

Mick knocked twice on the steel door. A small hatch slid aside, revealing a tiny glass pane. Dark glass. Then the hatch closed again and the door opened, the lock sounding heavy and well-oiled. The door was opened by a really young guy, just a kid. He nodded to Mick and eyed me suspiciously. He had an automatic pistol in his hand.

Mick led the way through a hallway like any other, flecked wallpaper painted beige, dark red carpet, painted woodwork on the stairs. The proportions were narrow and the air smelt sick and heavy, stale cigarette smoke and urine. The door into the front room was open and I saw a really old lady sitting with a cup of tea, watching Will & Grace with the volume up really high. O'Doherty's mother. Fucking bizarre, but nothing spooked me anymore. She smiled at me and nodded.

At the end of the hallway, Mick knocked on a door. A lock was opened and O'Doherty was there. He smiled when he saw me and asked Mick if we'd been tailed. He said No, no sign. O'Doherty nodded and invited us in with a twitch of his head.

The kitchen was warm and bright. O'Doherty had been seated at the table, drinking a cup of tea. He nodded to a chair and I sat down. He was listening to a police radio scanner, crackling with coded conversation.

He poked the scanner and said 'ERU.'

This made him smile.

'How did you get their frequency? Wouldn't they be using scramblers?'

'There's tea in the pot,' he said to Mick.

Mick filled two mugs and gave one to me. I put some milk in it. The tea was good, hot and strong. I put my mobile on the table.

'What's that?' he asked, pointing at my gun.

'An AK-47,' I said.

'Okay,' he said, smiling.

I must have seemed a right mystery: a drug-addled gangster wannabe, carrying an assault rifle around in the middle of the biggest shitstorm to ever hit Limerick.

'That was some attack,' I said. 'Fair play to you. A surgical strike, that's what it was.'

'Yeah, it was good, wasn't it?' said O'Doherty, looking delighted with himself.

'How come they didn't spot it?' I asked. It had been bugging me.

'It was a shaped charge, straight up,' he explained, making an inverted V with his hands, 'but made out of some new kind of explosive. No dog can pick it up. One of my pals put in the sound system and the podium and all. He gets all those kinds of contracts. We just put the bomb in the podium, mobile phone detonator. The phone was called by someone in the room. Bada-bing, end of story.'

'Fuck's sake,' I said.

'They swept the place twice before he got there,' continued O'Doherty, relishing his story. 'They didn't suss a fuckin thing.'

'Who made it for you?' I asked. There was no way he'd done it himself. That was a military-style device.

'Where'd you get your gun?' he asked, rhetorically.

'I see,' I said.

'Cost me a hundred grand. Money well spent, I'd say.'

'What about Karpov's men?' I asked. 'Surely they're gunning for revenge?'

'Ah, they only think they're hard nuts, most of um,' he said, dismissing the threat. 'Half of um are gone already. Scared shitless.'

'They could be dangerous, though,' I said.

'Well now they have to play ball with me. If they don't, there'll be more killins yet.'

Leila flashed into my mind. I hoped she wasn't involved in any of this shit and that she wouldn't get caught in any crossfire.

'What about the cops?' I asked.

'They know it was me,' he said. 'That's what I hear. But they've no way to pin it on me. Your mad friend Pat's thrown everyone. Made it easier for me to get stuff done.'

'He's fucking nuts, alright,' I said.

Of course the phone rang right then. And it was Pat. I answered it and put it on speaker so O'Doherty and Mick could hear it too.

'Hi Pat,' I said.

'Hi Charlie,' he said, the sound crackly. 'O'Doherty there with you, yeah? Good.'

O'Doherty glanced at me then, taking his eyes off the phone. He took over.

'I have your money, pig,' he said. 'Put on my wife.'

Jean's fractured voice filled the kitchen.

'I'm okay,' she said. 'Just pay him and get me home.'

The muffled sound of a phone being taken from someone.

'Where and when?' said O'Doherty.

'Thirty minutes,' said Pat. 'You and you alone. Poor Man's Kilkee. Stand in the middle and leave the cash in one bag on the bollard nearest the road. Got that?'

'Got it,' said O'Doherty.

'I'll stop, check the cash, then let Jean out. Then I'm gone, okay? We never talk again, okay?'

'Okay.'

'Don't try anything or she's dead. Got that?'

'Okay.'

'Okay so,' said Pat.

The phone clicked and the line was dead.

O'Doherty was angry now, his face red. He pounded the table in disgust.

'Right,' he said then, 'Let's make a plan.'

He called together his three best men. Mick, plus the young guy Robert who'd answered the door and a guy I hadn't seen before. O'Doherty drew a rough sketch of ground zero on a piece of paper. Poor Man's Kilkee jutted out into the river from a one-way road that passed along beside a strip of riverside pubs and offices and under Sarsfield Bridge. You could get down from the bridge on stone steps. Behind Poor Man's Kilkee was a rowing club building. There were plenty of spots for snipers, which made Pat's choice of drop-off spot more understandable.

'He must have a sniper there waiting,' I said. 'He figures you'll try the same. Maybe he'll try and get you before he even gets out of the car.'

'Could be,' said O'Doherty. 'I want ye here and here,' he said to his men, indicating the rowing club and the area under the bridge. Both locations offered concealment and would give good crossfire to where Pat would stop his car. 'Charlie, you stay up top on the bridge. He has to come towards you to escape.'

'With this thing?' I asked, lifting my gun.

'Yeah, with that ting. If anyone looks like they're about to collar you, run and drop it into the river. Otherwise you might need it. Okay, let's lock and load and go.'

The goon I hadn't seen before left the kitchen and came back a few seconds later, carrying three guns. Two were Heckler & Koch MP5s. Each weapon had a flashlight below the barrel and a second magazine taped to the one that was ready to fire. There was also an AK-47. Each man took a gun and they checked, loaded and cocked them. Mick got the AK and he winked at me. O'Doherty took a Beretta pistol from a kitchen drawer, cocked it and tucked it into the back of his jeans. I checked my gun too, just to join in with the lads. All set, so.

As we walked out the front door, the old woman hugged O'Doherty.

'Now you be a good boy, won't you son? There's all sorts of lunatics out at this hour.'

We drove in two cars. I went with O'Doherty, the three lads took the scanner and sped on ahead to get into position. O'Doherty drove, slowly. He was quiet, his attention focused on the job ahead. He knew he was the prime target. He knew he'd be lucky to get through this scenario alive. I had to respect him, risking his life for Jean. Or maybe he just knew that this would be his best chance to finish Pat off, wipe out the Russians' main inside man. Win the battle, finish Fox off at his leisure, win the war.

'How do you think the cops'll react if you kill Pat?' I asked.

'Hopefully they'll just do another cover-up,' he answered. 'They're good at that shit.'

We drove back towards the river, through deserted city streets. O'Doherty got a call from Mick, telling him about a checkpoint at the top of William Street. We went through King's Island and around by the castle. Into town on Sarsfield Bridge, he stopped halfway across, hazard lights blinking. We got out of the car and crossed over the road. Poor Man's Kilkee was below, to our left. There was nobody around at all. Suspiciously quiet, except for distant sirens and the thudding of the pork chopper, sounding like it was out over Moyross. I wished him luck. He nodded and sped off over the bridge, to take a left to Arthur's Quay, where he'd park.

I continued across the bridge, the gun bag under my arm, trying to look uninvolved to any hidden eyes. When I got near my designated position, I crossed the road and got a good view of Poor Man's Kilkee down below. A couple of lads sat there, eating chips. I could actually smell the vinegar.

O'Doherty soon appeared, walking straight out to the guys eating the chips. They immediately got up and walked away quickly, under me and towards Arthur's Quay Park. O'Doherty walked back and put his bag of cash on the only bollard near the road. Then he went and stood in the middle of the grass, nervously looking around, trying to make eye contact with his men. He glanced towards me. He saw me, but didn't give my position away.

So we waited. I checked my watch. Pat was due any minute. Then the roar of a powerful car. There, coming towards me, down the riverside drive, was Jean's BMW. It screeched to a stop beside O'Doherty. I could make out Jean's dark hair in the passenger seat. Pat got out the driver's side, the engine still running. Leaving his door open, he went to the money bag. He had his gun in his hand and used it to gesture to O'Doherty to open the bag. Clever after the Karpov episode. O'Doherty went and opened the bag. Pat ordered him back and looked inside. Happy, he picked up the bag, frisked O'Doherty quickly and went back to the car. He got in and O'Doherty started forward, calling Jean. I got my gun out and held it at my waist, resting on the parapet.

The passenger door opened and Jean got out. She looked shaky but okay. The door closed behind her and the car roared and sped off. Jean stood in the middle of the road while O'Doherty reached for his arse and grabbed his gun.

'Lads!' he screamed, looking under the bridge to where his men should be.

No reply.

He raised his gun, taking aim at Pat. There was only one shot, one chance. As he squeezed the trigger, a volley of fire ripped into him. It came from directly under me. O'Doherty managed to get his shot off, but the guns kept firing and he collapsed in a heap. The noise was low enough, muffled by the bridge. Jean dropped to the ground as I raised my gun, waiting for whoever was under the bridge to show themselves. She rolled behind a parked car as bullets sparked off the ground all around her, slamming into cars and walls and windows.

CHAPTER 69. BANG, BANG

Two figures appeared from the shadows, each clad in black, wearing a balaclava with some kind of night vision goggles. They slowly moved towards Jean, firing their big pistols every few paces. Professionals. I knew that they would kill her. She screamed as a fat black jeep screeched around the corner sand came to a stop just behind her. It waited, the gunmen's getaway car.

I leaned against the parapet, raised my rifle and got one of the men in the sights. That would be enough. I squeezed the trigger, my heart racing. Nothing.

'Safety catch, you fucking eejit,' I said quietly to myself.

I flicked the catch on to full auto with my thumb and took aim again. They were only a few paces from Jean now, maybe she was dead already. I squeezed the trigger again. This time the gun jumped in my hands, shaking my bones and overpowering my grip. The harsh smell of the smoke made me retch. Through the smoke, I saw that I'd missed, my rounds hitting the ground ten metres beyond them. Watch out for Jean, you useless twat.

If they were surprised to face a machine gun unexpectedly, they never showed it. They turned to face me. They brought their guns to bear and I shot again. Four bullets left my AK and pulverised a chest. I riddled him. It only took one second. The other guy dropped to the ground and I fired again as his bullets whistled over my head or blew chunks of masonry from the bridge. I hit him, maybe in the shoulder, and he dropped his gun and ran to the jeep. I raced down the cold stone steps and to Jean.

She was crying, her mascara running, her face old-looking. She hugged me, delirious at her close escape. The shot guy got into the jeep and I saw a flash of blond hair. Fucking Leila. She reversed away with a squeal and a hiss and was gone.

'Hang on,' I said, gently pushing Jean away from me and over to the wall.

I went to the gunman. He was dead, his chest mush.

Then I turned to Jean's car. It was partially under the bridge, crashed, burning. A few people stood on the bridge overhead, staring down at the carnage. I took Jean's hand and we hurried to the car as a distant siren wailed.

Pat was there, sitting right back in his seat. He'd hit a pillar. The car was a write-off, its engine smashed and smoking. His face was covered in blood. Looked like O'Doherty had managed to hit him. Beyond the car, in the deep shadows under the bridge, I saw three bodies, laid out. Mick and the lads hadn't stood a chance. A goon massacre.

'It almost worked, Pat,' I said.

I held my gun to his face, sick of the fucker at that stage.

'Get me out Charlie,' he said, his voice feeble.

I could smell petrol. I walked around to the other side, watching that he didn't draw his gun. He didn't even move. He was fucked. The bag of money was on the passenger seat. I reached in through the shattered window and took the bag. I went back to Jean's side and he asked again to be left out.

Jean was crying, in shock at it all. He was finished, she could see that.

'Aw, come on lads,' he said, fading fast.

'I'm opening your door Pat,' I said. 'Just for old times' sake.'

He smiled at me as I opened the door. His legs looked trapped in the mangled car. No way he was getting out. Not my problem. As I put my arm around Jean and turned towards the steps, he called me back.

'By the way, Charlie. One thing,' he said to me.

'Yeah?' I said, hoping he'd say Sorry.

'You killed Dave, Charlie. Just never forget that.'

He smiled, then he passed out.

'Prick,' I said, pushing Jean to the steps.

The sirens were much louder as we reached the top of the steps and got on to the bridge. We walked over it, away from town. Half way across, I dropped the rifle into the river which swallowed it quietly.

Jean kept looking back.

'Save him,' she said finally.

'What?'

'Please.'

I put her in a taxi at the far side of the bridge, told the driver to hang on, made my way back to Pat. I saw two squad cars from Henry Street, screaming, rushing down to Poor Man's Kilkee, blue lights flashing across the black river. So I ran.

Suddenly a flash of orange under Sarsfield Bridge. Jean's car exploded with an angry roar. Too late.

We got back to my place. I remembered the revolver was in my car, so I set Jean up with a vodka and an ashtray and strolled down towards the office for it. The streets buzzing with police.

When I got back, she was crying. Jean sobbed for ages about how she thought Pat was going to kill her, no matter what. I agreed that her death must've been part of his plan.

'What a prick,' I said.

'Money. That's what it does to people,' Jean said. 'Money and power.'

'Fuck's sake,' I said.

So we counted our cash. Two million in fifties and hundreds.

'Not bad,' she said. 'It's still only a fraction, though.'

'I suppose you must be a very wealthy widow, so?'

'I suppose I must be,' she said, yawning. 'Christ, I'm wrecked.'

'It's been a manic few hours,' I said, putting my arms around her, my head spinning at the wealth that was sitting right there on my kitchen counter. 'Manic few days.'

So we went to bed, my revolver beside me. We didn't have sex. She was distant, in mourning for the loss of her husband, I guessed. I wondered if it really was all over. She took two sleeping tablets and conked out. I stared at the ceiling, thinking only of Dave.

CHAPTER 70. NICE AND TIDY

Half an hour later and the doorbell went. I held the revolver O'Doherty'd given me behind my back. I opened the door - wearing only underpants - to find Pat's cop partner standing there with his hands in his pockets. He looked glum as well.

'You here to arrest me?' I asked.

I wouldn't really have cared if he'd said Yes.

'No. No, I'm not,' he said, a bit surprised.

'Well would you like to come in so?'

Fuck, and me with a gun in my hand.

'No thanks.' Thank fuck! 'This is grand. I just wanted to tell you I know what Pat was up to.'

This was a bit of a shocker.

'He was dirty,' continued the cop, 'but that's not going to come out, okay?'

'Okay.'

'Keep everything to yourself, and I mean everything, and you won't have any trouble from me. Got it?'

'Got it.'

'And you can tell O'Doherty's wife that she should be okay as well.'

He smiled and glanced up the stairs.

'As long as she keeps her nose clean,' he went on. 'The Russians, what's left of them, are happy they nailed O'Doherty and his muscle. They'll leave it at that. It's a draw.'

'That's good to know,' I said, surprised at the cop's openness.

'The bodies won't be released for a while. Pat's funeral is in a couple of days. Full honours. Poor guy was burnt to a crisp.'

'How did he die, exactly?' I asked.

'O'Doherty shot him and he crashed. Bang. End of story.'

'Shit.'

'Yeah. Shit.'

He turned to walk away, stopped himself.

'Ever been to Sicily, Charlie?'

'Nah. Apparently it's full of gangsters.'

He smiled.

So the cop left, without mentioning the awkward facts that Pat was in Jean's car and had met Limerick's top gangster in the middle of the night without backup. These little details would be glossed over. Forensics would see to that, piece together a credible story based on scientific evidence. Who could argue with science?

Pat actually did me a favour, with his twisting of the law, his madness. The cops would now pin every possible unsolved murder on O'Doherty and everyone would be happy. Hero Pat saved the day. Fucking typical.

CHAPTER 71. RED MIST

It wasn't working and time was running away. If she didn't have an Irishman propose to her, she was on a chartered flight to Lagos. Home to her nightmares and - much worse - the gang she had betrayed. It was unthinkable that her final escape from Africa could be the cause of her death.

And now it was all too late. The way he'd looked at that stripper. She saw his eyes, saw that he had slipped away. She went to Precious's house at three in the morning, endured the namecalling, the threats, the sick graffiti.

'Oh child, I see your heart is broken.'

'They're sending me back, Precious.'

'No my child, they can't do that. My magic is too strong. Perhaps we have not been clever. Here. Sit. Let me make some tea.'

Etoile sat in the spell room, let its colours and smells overtake her feelings of despair.

Precious served a potion tea. That helped. Then she got the ultimate talisman.

'Take this and seduce him. Do everything. Promise everything. Then he will propose to you.'

'Will that be enough?'

'That will be enough. And if not, I will kill him for you.'

CHAPTER 72. CORN AND EGGS

The morning after the shitstorm, Jean took the two million home in a taxi, stashed it somewhere safe and packed a bag. Then we went straight out to Shannon and grabbed a Ryanair flight to Girona, hired a car, got to one of Jean's properties. She was now sole owner of half a dozen houses in Limerick and Dublin, two villas in Spain and one on a tiny island in Croatia.

Spain was hot. Kind of a dry dead heat that scorched your skin and sucked the will to live from your bones. Out on the plains of Catalonia, in the tiny village of Monells, we were surrounded by about a hundred million maize plants and sunflowers, flocks of swallows and just a few elusive Spaniards. We had a secluded villa with six beds, a cool pool, a maid and a well-stocked bar. An hour to Barcelona, twenty minutes to the turquoise Med, two hours to France. Sweet as a nut and nothing to do.

The first twenty-four hours consisted of Jean alone in her room, sobbing. I was surprised she was so cut up about her prick of a husband. She was full of surprises.

Then, days were passed by the pool, sleeping, getting slowly plastered on fancy rum and vodka cocktails. We were surrounded by an abundance of exotic fruits, vegetables and wines. The air was pure, the sun a constant. I was quickly intoxicated, approaching a state of near calm.

We took a drive north to Figueres, the Dali Museum. Huge eggs perched on the outer battlements of the palace of surrealism. Inside were so many pieces of art, pop culture classics I'd half-seen a million times, ephemeral trademarks of modern culture. But to see them in all their surreality brought on an acid flashback. The glasses of absinthe enjoyed in the shady sidewalk cafes didn't help. Then, in a black marble room, under a slab, Dali himself. I understood art, finally got it, cried. Outside, I looked at my watch and it melted before my eyes. I babbled about wanting to live in Spain as Jean drove us home.

She kept in touch with home, took ten private calls a day. Family, I guessed. Nobody called me.

After four days in sweaty heaven, Jean got a call from home. Greg's body was being released and we had to get back. I was about to tell her that I wanted to stay in Spain with her forever, but her mind was already in Limerick.

She held my hand the whole way home. At the airport arrivals area, she changed.

'We'd better get home separate,' she said coolly.

'I suppose,' I replied, comfortable now with loss and failure.

'I'll talk to you soon about the money, okay?'

'When?'

'Probably a couple of weeks, okay?'

'Jesus.'

'We need to be really careful or we'll blow it.'

'Okay so.'

'See you around.'

So she kissed me lightly on the cheek and walked alone to the taxi rank.

I'd been dumped!

CHAPTER 73. HEART OF DARKNESS

Into my still boarded-up house which, after Spain, was a smelly cave, a tomb, someplace I didn't want to be. No sunlight in ages, the place was regressing to a more primitive time, becoming an unwelcoming, dark feeling. The electricity had been cut, that depressed me even more.

A great pile of mail threw up two gems. A cheque for twelve grand from the Sunday paper for those pictures of Luke and Jean. Sweet enough to keep me going until we could have a go at the ransom cash. This reminded me of the DVD, so I called my pal at the paper. He got excited, said Okay, send it in so, could be worth another ton of cash. Sound as a bell.

And there was a little packet, postmarked Dublin, addressed to the office.

'Thanks, Fiona.'

It was a Wordsworth edition: Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov. A handwritten note on the first page.

DON'T FORGET YOUR QUEST!

I got a beer, found the story Champagne and sat down to read it, smiling at the memory of Karpov's party. After two paragraphs, an insistent knocking on the front window.

'Who the fuck?'

It was Etoile, the uninvited guest. She was wild-eyed, very jumpy. She pushed past me, went in and sat on the couch where we'd kissed.

I followed her intoxicating scent trail. She'd opened her raincoat, showing a red bra and knickers and glistening skin.

'Sit here, Charlie.'

I sat. I was firm, had to be when she put her hands on my head, put her tongue in my mouth, rubbed my shoulders. But no.

'Sorry, Etoile. I can't. It's not you.'

She stood up and let her coat drop to the dusty floorboards. She posed. Dear God. But no.

'I can't. I think I'm in love.'

'Why did you do this to me Charlie? They want to send me home,' she wailed.

I swallowed hard, but my throat was dry.

'What do you mean? I thought you had citizenship.'

'No. I don't. I hate you. I hate you, Charlie Doyle.'

'Calm down, will you? What are you getting all uppity with me for?'

'You were the one. She told me you would be mine!' she screamed, rage in her eyes. 'I helped you get rid of your bitch wife and this is how you reward me.'

'What?'

'They're going to send me back to Nigeria, Charlie Doyle. Have you any idea what that means? I'll never get into Europe again. Never!'

'What's this about my wife?'

'They'll kill me.'

'That's not my fault, is it?'

'You should have married me, Charlie. I would have loved you, done everything for you. Now it's all no good.'

She was screaming like a demon, even worse than the worst argument I'd ever had with Deirdre.

'Get the fuck out!' I shouted back. I'd had enough. This was my breaking point.

'You bastard! You're like every other man I've ever met! Now go to hell!'

She pulled a little bundle from her coat pocket and thrust it at me. I took it and unwrapped the black fabric as she turned and ran. Inside was a hard lump of dry flesh, covered with congealed blood, red ribbon and human hair - my hair - tied around it. Though I'd never seen one before, I knew it was a human heart. A child's heart. It fell from my hand as a piercing pain shot through my guts, my body collapsed and my brain shut down, having had enough of me and my twisted reality.

CHAPTER 74. PURE MAD

So I accept now that all life is chemical. Physics explains the cosmic background, the Universe. Biology is chemistry. DNA is chemistry, is life.

And sex drives the evolution of Homo sapien DNA to higher levels. For hundreds of thousands of years, we were but chimpanzee. The hair became less and the brain capacity increased. We were all born in Africa. Then we hit the bottle and evolved.

The Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the Greeks: they discovered alcohol, built cities and society was created. They thrived on the stuff. Sexual urges were unleashed by the considered fermentation of grapes or oats. Social connection and casual sex improved the genetic mix and Darwin's theories came true much faster.

I found an old book - a kid's book - in the day room. The Usborne Illustrated Handbook of Invention and Discovery. 1986. Tattered, stained, torn. But at the back, proof. Inventions and discoveries through the ages. For starters: hundreds of thousands of years of cave art, spears and oil lamps.

Then, in six thousand BC, beer was invented. Writing, cities, agriculture, pottery, ploughs and wheels follow. By the year dot, there wasn't too much left to invent. Things progressed nicely. Then Rome fell. After a millennium of darkness, whiskey was sussed by the Irish in the late-fifteenth century. Uisce beatha, water of life. This led to vodka, gin and all the rest of my little friends. As well as the Copernican theory of the Universe, pencils, Da Vinci, the Renaissance, and - the ultimate civilizing invention of humans - plumbed toilets.

The modern age, with its quarks and electrons, software and DNA is as chemical as ever. What's the driver of this frantic phase of human evolution? Class A narcotics, weed and a whole world of lovely booze, opium driving the Industrial Revolution and cocaine in Coca Cola helping to give us planes and cars.

So I have reached some sort of understanding of life. I have time to think. But still I search for meaning. For the very first time, in desperate circumstances, I realise that I don't want do die until I find the meaning. I tell this to those around me, but they ignore me, they're worried about things that I know don't matter a fuck.

Because, when I came to in my hallway, I dragged myself to the hospital for the pain in my side. Turned out to be a kidney stone but the doctor, some bastard of a kid, became concerned about my general physical and mental condition. He asked me a few subtle questions during the checkup, mentioned the toxicology results on my bloods - cocaine, LSD, alcohol, cannabis, opiates. You're lucky to be alive, Mr Doyle, and we hope you don't have permanent damage. I exploded, What about Etoile and the heart? Have you ever seen a child's heart? He called security and the social worker. I had a flashback, lost control again.

Section 5B in the Regional for psychological assessment. A good few in, wanting to be classified as slightly mad. Just for the lifetime pension and free bus pass. Plus one or two genuine nutters, shouting and being restrained by the screws. And Poor Charlie.

I cooperated, asking Are you taking the piss? and Who is truly sane anyway? But I failed all their tests, their stupid questions, their awkward probing of my traumatised psyche.

They couldn't get hold of anyone, not my dad, not Jean, not even Deirdre. I gave them Dave's number, Pat's number. So I was sent along to St Joseph's after two long days, diagnosed bipolar manic depressive with suicidal tendencies, multiple addictions and unidentified underlying disorders. Cognitive therapies and medical intervention urgently required. Charming. Then I was truly fucked. They gave me lithium and fried my brain. Do they still do that? Do they fuck.

Can you picture the Live 8 concert in a mental hospital? Half the wing in a room with a big TV, a sheet of scratched, heavy-duty Perspex bolted in front of the screen. Can you credit so many Pink Floyd fans in a mental hospital? Can you picture the hands in the air for U2? Can you hear the orderlies laughing? Can you smell the piss and sweat? Help these people. Can you see me in the middle of it all, mad as the rest? Help these poor, poor people.

So I stopped being aggressive, the old drugs all gone, the new ones working. They put me in a room of my own, someplace to think. I read. I write. I vomit. I scream. I think a lot about the heart in my hallway and the child in pieces.

I try to catch meaning, but it wriggles from my hands like a snake. So I look at the clouds outside my high, barred window, thinking again of the heart lying in my hallway, wondering what it means, what any of this damned life means.

CHAPTER 75. DECENCY

After a time, the doctor said I was okay. The neurological drugs had helped and the psychological cocaine dependency had weakened. I was straighter and cleaner than any time since childhood. They asked if I would keep taking the tablets. I said Yes, I promise. So they gave back my clothes, my money, my keys, my life.

Back home, I found the heart where I'd dropped it, by now covered in wriggling maggots, white things with tiny black eyes. Hundreds of them and flies buzzing around and the stink of death. I didn't even gag, just found a plastic bag, put my hand in, picked up the heart, closed the bag around it. Into another bag, tied that, into the bin. Put the bin out for collection. Washed and dried my hands eight times.

I looked in the fridge. A Pavlovian response to a bottle of lager made me open it, taste it. The taste didn't appeal, but I drank it anyway, flinching after each little sip.

I sat on the back door step, which felt comfortable, and began to write on a piece of paper. At the top, in capitals, I wrote

FIND ETOILE, FIND THE KILLER.

Then a wave of lethargy washed over me. I dropped the pen and paper and leaned back against the frame, looked at the sky for a long while.

Then I got in my car, parked in town and read books - Catch-22, Tropic of Cancer, some true crime stuff about paedophiles - while scanning every black face that passed by. I did this for three days, watching the shops by day and the bars and clubs by night. It was how she'd found me.

I spotted her on Thursday afternoon. Adrenalin surging, I tailed her on foot. She went to Henry Street Station, which I didn't get until I drove after her bus to the immigrants' camp. Then it made some sort of twisted sense.

She wanted a husband, an Irish husband. Plenty of Africans believe in black magic, so she got the heart from a witch doctor, who'd kidnapped and chopped up the girl. I knew, just knew in my gut, this was how it all happened. But could I nail the bastard?

CHAPTER 76. PRECIOUS

The bus emptied. Its occupants went through a security check and trudged up the drive to the billets, all bulging Aldi bags and tired kids. I parked on the grass verge and, after the crowd had passed through, walked up to the security man.

'How's it going?'

'How we doin?'

'Grand. I don't know if you can help me. I'm a private detective.'

'Go on.'

'I'm looking for an African, maybe South African or Nigerian, big into witchcraft.'

'Man or a woman?'

'I don't know.'

'What's it about?'

'That I can't say.'

'You should probably go through normal channels so. I'm only the security.'

'There's two hundred quid in it.'

'Yeah?'

'If it's who I'm looking for. I'll give you half now.'

The guard looked around and edged in front of his hut, so he couldn't be seen from the camp. I moved with him, happy at the break.

'There was one headcase here a while back. South African. She said she was a healer and had all the Africans into her billet every day. She made a fortune from it. Alright lookin.'

'Did she ever use the word muti?'

'No, but others did. She spooked the Romanians and the Ukrainians big time. They were always givin out yards about her. I'm glad she's gone.'

'Gone? Where?'

'She got a green card, the bitch. She must know someone or maybe she used her fuckin magic. Although, she claimed to be part-Irish. I don't know. She's up in Moyross, I think.'

Moyross! This is her!

'Can you get a name and address?'

The guard looked at me and folded his thick arms across his thick chest.

'Okay look. I think this is who I'm after, so I'll give you all the cash right now.'

'Serious?'

'Serious.'

The guard found a number in his mobile phone and called it.

'How we doin Paddy. Listen, I need a favour. Are you on the computer? Can you look up someone for me so? Okay, she was from South Africa and moved to Moyross. I'd say it was back in June, but I'm not a hundred percent. Yeah, the witch doctor.'

He turned to me.

'Does he know who you mean?'

'He does. This one is a piece of work, I'll tell you.'

'Was she ever in trouble?'

'Nothing like that. But if looks could kill, you know?'

'Yeah.'

'Hang on. Paddy? Go ahead so.'

The guard wrote in a pad, slowly, like the words were being spelt out for him.

'Thanks Paddy. So we're goin for a pint after the shift, yeah? My treat. Good luck so.'

He tore the page from the pad and handed it over.

PRECIOUS O'REILLY, 47 CAPPANTY ROAD, MOYROSS.

'O'Reilly?'

'I'm not jokin you.'

I gave the man two crisp hundred euro notes and thanked him. I had the killer's scent now, so I said Fuck it, and then drove to her house in Moyross.

CHAPTER 77. THE FRIDGE

I parked around the corner from 47 Cappanty Road. I checked my revolver and put it in the inside left pocket of my new denim jacket. A small gang of kids, average age five, watched me closely from across the road. An emaciated pony was tied to a pole. The blackened skeletons of two cars lay rusting on an open scorched-grass area, lush countryside just beyond.

I walked around to the house, in the gate and up to the door. There was a wreath hanging off the brass-effect knocker, weird leaves and twigs. It was hot. I was sweating. I knocked: three sharp clacks.

Movement through the small patterned yellow glass panels in the door. A bolt slid back, the door clicked, opened enough for most of her head to look out.

It was Etoile's aunt, Emily. In all my analysis of the operation and its variables, this one hadn't occurred to me.

'Hello. Emily, isn't it?'

'Yes.' She paused. 'Do I know you?'

Without make-up and in daylight, she looked different, but the eyes were there. Her skin was light and clear, her hair loose over her shoulders, dead straight, shiny.

'I'm Charlie, Charlie Doyle. I went to a club with you and Etoile, your niece.'

'Ah yes. I remember you. What do you want?'

'I'm looking for a lady and I thought she was living here.'

'Who?' she asked, her body still behind the door.

'She's a South African lady. I was hired by the embassy to track her down. Apparently she's been left a fortune back home and if she doesn't claim it soon, it's gone.'

'What's this?' she asked, opening the door a little more, her eyes fixed on me now.

'Yeah, it's a good one. Her name's Precious. Precious O'Reilly.'

Emily smiled for the first time and opened the door fully.

'Come in, Charlie. I'll make you some tea. I'll see if I can help you.'

'Lovely. Thanks.'

She led me through a dark hallway, filled with powerful, alien smells, pungent odours that lodged in my brain, instant memory. She led me into the living room, which was simply decorated with natural wood furniture and red walls. The most unusual feature was the single carved mask over the fireplace. Its features were contorted into a demon's leer, teeth that would bite you and eyes that would burn your soul. She lit an incense stick and excused herself.

I stood while Emily made the tea. I was fearful of the mask, concerned that it had spirit powers. On the plus side, it maybe offered evidence that Precious had been in the house recently.

Emily came back into the room, closing the door after her.

'The kettle is on,' she said, sitting then.

'So where's Precious?' I asked.

'Precious lived here for a short time. What do you really want her for?'

'Like I say, it's the embassy. They'll give her the details.'

'Who do you know in the embassy?'

'I'm only the help. I was contacted by a secretary. Do you know where she is?'

'Have you been seeing Etoile?'

'I haven't seen her for a few weeks, no.'

The memory of the dead heart flashed at me. I swayed, vertigo, then sat opposite Emily.

'A pity. That girl really loved you.'

'She wasn't just after a husband then?'

She said nothing, but her manner changed. She'd been lured by my story. But she hadn't taken the bait. Still the threat remained. Etoile must have betrayed her, she imagined, told me about the killing.

'How did you get this address,' she asked.

'Etoile. She said Precious helped her with some love potions or something.'

'The tea,' she said, getting up.

I sat with the mask, wondering how I'd salvage something, anything. She returned, handing me a mug of steaming red tea.

'It's African tea. Try it. It's really good for you, your mojo, yes?'

'Mojo tea. Smells potent. I'll just give it a sec to cool down.'

She sipped from her own mug, watching me intently.

'Listen Emily. I wasn't totally truthful with you.'

'Really?'

'I don't want Precious for what I said.'

'The fortune?'

'There is none.'

'The truth shall set you free, child.'

'It's all complicated. My wife's left me, my job stinks, I tried to kill myself. I need help. Muti.'

'Muti? What do you know of muti, Irishman?'

'I know that it works for a lot of people. I don't believe in god or prayers or any of that shit. I want something that's chemical, tangible.'

'Magic potions and talismans?'

'Exactly. And Etoile told me that Precious is the best in the country.'

'Yes. She is.'

I picked up my tea, willing to drink it to make the woman feel more at ease with me. She jumped up and grabbed my cup.

'No, please. Let me make you a cup of Irish tea. I wasn't being fair.'

'It's okay.'

'No. I insist.'

So I let her take the cup. She left the room, poured its poisonous contents down the kitchen sink and put the cup to one side. As she made a fresh brew, she was thankful to her gods for yet another luckless customer.

'Your tea, Charlie. Now tell me what it is that you need.'

'I really need to see Precious, don't I?'

'You're talking to her.'

I nodded dumbly and drank some tea, so hot it burnt the roof of my mouth. I was in her lair, caught off guard, but maybe she was fooled.

'Mind if I smoke?' I asked.

'Not at all. I'll get the ashtray.'

I lit a cigarette with a shaking match as she, the killer of children, went back to the kitchen. I thought I heard voices, but decided they were in my head. I stood up and went to the mask.

'You don't scare me,' I said to it.

The mask said nothing, just looked at me.

'Your ashtray.'

'Thanks, Precious.'

'You're welcome. Now sit. Tell me how I can help you.'

'I'm just a mess, Precious. I need you to tell me what I need so I can get some fire back. You know? Fire in my belly. I don't care what it takes or what it costs.'

She took my hand and examined it in detail, looking at the lines, following their tracks with her finger. Then she looked into my eyes, so close I was startled. She squeezed my bicep hard, then my thigh. Finally she got closer still and inhaled deeply, smelling my essence.

'I could give you some potions, but - '

'But what?'

'They wouldn't be powerful enough. You need the full treatment.'

'What's that?'

'It'll cost you.'

'How much?'

'Five thousand.'

'Jesus Christ!'

'Nothing to do with him. For that sum, I can guarantee you a life of success, wealth and virility.'

'Jesus. I like the sound of it, but I don't know if I can afford it.'

I looked at her, all sad eyes and shaking lips, like I was going to cry. No act.

'There is another way,' she said.

'Tell me.'

'You could assist me with the ceremony. I need something special, something common and cheap, but which attains great value when muti takes it.'

I smiled. Go on, I thought.

'What is it. Tell me and I'll get it.'

'I need a virgin.'

I stood up slowly, turned to her, smiled again.

'So you're saying you want me to get a virgin for you to cut up?'

'Yes. That doesn't disgust you, does it?'

'No. Life is cheap. Did you do that other kid before? Have you done many more?'

'Yes. She was impure, as it turned out. This time I need to be sure. Can you help me, Charlie?'

'Have you done many more?'

'Dozens.'

Her eyes narrowed, suspicion returning. I thought for a moment.

'Yes. I'll help you.'

I took out my gun, flicked the safety catch off, pointed it at her head. Suddenly, two sharp cracks from another room.

'What's that?' I asked, alarmed.

'Just my fly killer in the kitchen, sir' her face pale, unguarded shock in her eyes.

It was the sir that did it. 'Show me.'

So I followed her to the kitchen. It looked more catering than domestic, all stainless steel work surfaces, huge fridges, a heavy duty bug zapper with an evil, blue glow, long knives, cleavers. There were jars lined up on the counter, full of liquids and anonymous globs. Lots of red globs. The sunlight was kept out by sheets of red plastic over the windows. Place was like a slaughterhouse or something.

She kept glancing at a fridge, one of those big American-style jobs.

'Open it.'

'Open it yourself, honky bastard.'

'Fucking bitch.'

'White trash,' and she spat on me.

Keeping the gun trained on her, I walked the three steps to the fridge and pulled the curved, chrome handle. The door popped open. There was no light in there and it took a second to make out the heads among all the rancid food and cider pint bottles. Two of them. One was Luke O'Doherty, the other was the murdered child. Just sitting there, each on a Delft dinner plate. Every hair on my body stood on end. I shuddered as I took it all in. They looked at me, their stench sending my guts into spasm. I retched and puked dark liquid onto my shoes.

Precious grabbed a knife and lunged for me, screaming like a banshee. I shot her in the side and she roared and fell to the ground. She writhed there like an eel, cursing me in a dozen tongues. The fridge light at last blinked on. Too much, way too much.

She sat on the lino, screamed at me.

'Stop it! Stop! You shot me! I'm bleeding to death.'

'Shut the fuck up,' I grunted, vomit coming up my throat, burning my tongue. 'Just shut it.'

There was a nice bit of blood alright. She was writhing.

While I swayed, trying to work out what the fuck to do, a shock to my lower back, like a hot poker pierced me. An odd smell, the blur of movement. An arm around my neck and a gun stuck hard into my spine.

'Drop it you cunt,' came the slurred words, loudly into my ear, spit and stench as well.

I dropped my gun.

The arm was pulled away and the pain in my back pushed me onto my knees. I turned, Who is he?, almost died then.

Mickey Flynn!

He wore just a pair of boxer shorts, had a bandage rolled round his chest, blood all over it. Another big, filthy dressing on his left thigh. He looked gaunt, like he'd been doing coke for a few days straight, no need for food, but his eyes shone into mine.

There was a tiny connection between us, just an instant's empathy. Then he was gone, back to hell.

'You see?' she screamed, 'I told you my magic was real. It's keeping my man alive.'

Voodoo zombie magic. But Jesus, he should be dead.

Mickey's arm was outstretched, gun pointed at my head. Shaking now. I had the sense of being in a cruel trap.

Mickey fucking Flynn.

Precious made a move for my gun. She'd finish me. I knew that. Go. Now.

I leapt for the weapon, real low, slid over the lino for the last couple of feet. I'd gambled that Mickey was so fucked-up and drugged-up that I'd be hard for him to get a bearing on. I was right. He managed to squeeze off a shot but it hit the floor just in front of Precious, freaked her enough to give me a clean grab.

I had the gun. In one flowing movement, I rolled on, over towards the door. Bang, a bullet ripped a panel off the door. I was on my side, the gun moving up, up and finding Mickey's freakish face.

Pulling the trigger was easy.

His brain sprayed the inside of the fridge. No fucking way he was getting up and I don't care if Jesus fucking Christ himself was doing the party tricks.

Precious was pale, had the shakes. She started crying.

I got to my feet, grunting, pushed the door shut with my back, then sent four bullets into her bitter face. I put the gun to my own head and put a little pressure on the trigger. I paused, puked some more. No bullets left anyway.

I put the revolver back in my pocket, walked calmly out the front door, thinking Enough. To tell you the truth, the very last thing I expected was for Tony Flynn to be waiting for me outside, complete with pistol and one-testicled younger brother.

CHAPTER 78. REQUIEM FOR MICKEY

I was dragged to a burnt-out house two streets away. The kids that had snitched on me followed close behind as the Flynns pushed and pulled me, their gun bruising my ribs, their whispered threats sapping my will.

Sam walked ahead - still a bit of a limp - and pushed open the blackened door. The front of the house had only recently been torched. The Chinese immigrants - who had no clue about where the Council was housing them - only lasted a week. I knew because it was all over the news. Plus, there were burnt newspapers in Mandarin and melted ornaments on the floor. The back of the house was fine and they sat me in the hastily-deserted kitchen, the place frozen at a bad moment in time.

'Who did you just shoot?' asked Tony.

He pointed his automatic pistol in my face. I was expecting a kicking from young Sam at any moment. My gun was in reach. But I'd no bullets. Four would've done the bitch.

'I shot a black woman. She killed that kid from around here.'

'The witch doctor?' he asked, very interested.

'Yeah.'

'They're tryin to pin the murder of that young one on our brother, the bastards.'

'Well I can prove he didn't do it?'

'How?'

A siren screamed somewhere in the middle distance. Tony looked at Sam and the kid went off to investigate.

'You should be okay. Nobody'd have reported the shots. Now prove it about Mickey.'

'Why did you grab me?'

'We've been watchin that bitch since Mickey disappeared. He was up to some sort of shit with her, I just didn't know what. He'd keep goin on about all the young ones he was gettin, thanks to that black cunt. Now prove what you're sayin or I'll put a fuckin hole in you right this minute.'

'I shot her because the kid's head is in her fridge.'

He winced. He was different to Mickey, the finally-dead bastard.

'That's it?'

'That's it. She used to cut up kids to make magic potions and charms. Would you credit it?'

'I'd fuckin believe antin now.'

He lit a cigarette, offered me one, let the gun drop to his side. I could've - maybe - used my weapon to bluff him then, but gambled to wait. Soon Sam came back, said all was cool. As I'd suspected, he hadn't made me. Ballboy hadn't made me!

His brother explained the deal to Sam, explained how he was going to let me go. What could Sam do but swallow hard, say Grand.

Tony told him to get home pronto, get the camera. They'd take photos of the scene before they tipped off the cops. Then they'd leak to the media, clear Mickey's name.

Well, they'd have another little surprise or two first.

They pointed me to my car and I drove towards the river to ditch the gun. On the way, I stopped at a phone booth and called 999, told them Precious's address, that there had been a lot of shooting. Checking my mirrors every other second, I sang a song from the eighties that had lodged in my frontal lobe.

Oh Mickey, what a pity, you don't understand -

And I vowed to never set foot in Moyross again.

CHAPTER 79. CONFETTI

Awake and restless all night, Fiona played on my mind. I felt guilty about holding on to her dirty pictures, so I slipped out of the bed before six and rummaged under it, to find and destroy them all. Got a few, but there was one beyond my fingertips, I couldn't get a grip. So I got down on my knees and peered under the bed. A golden gleam caught my eye. I lifted the bed with one hand - she didn't stir - and stuck the other under. Out came the glossy photos of Fiona's fantastic body. And a bullet.

It was a thirty-eight. The missing bullet from my first gun. It had fallen out of the chamber the night of my drug-induced Apocalypse Now fantasies.

'I didn't kill you, Dave. I didn't kill you!' I muttered, looking to the ceiling.

This was the best news. I put the bullet in my pocket, along with the photos. Fiona stirred, slept on.

Dressed and left quietly and down to the bridge. I stood in the rain - it'd been pissing for three days solid - and threw the bullet into the river. Then I ripped up the photos. They fell on the flood-swollen water like perverted confetti. This made me happier. At last. Sustainably, justifiably happier.

But I just couldn't get the image of the heads in the fridge out of my mind. More than anything else, they stuck. Isn't that mad?

And Jean. Always inside my head, even when I was with Fiona. I'd finished it with Sara and Deirdre so I could have a fresh start with Fiona. But Jean, Jean.

I admitted to myself that I had to see her, snuck away towards town, called her. She said to come out to the house for nine.

CHAPTER 80. MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT

The castle loomed, mist hovering over the river, a hot sun finally driving away the rain and messing with my head as I drove to Jean's. A distant impulse to take a picture of the scene was suppressed by my calculating mind. The odds on my getting murdered were not healthy. Maybe five to one. Maybe three.

But I figured it was worth the risk. A million quid and the memories of Jean in my garden added up. I wanted it all. Right or wrong, I wanted it all.

If she took me to her bed, I would've betrayed Fiona. Still I was calm. I was more comfortable with my emotions, my insane thoughts, my crazy brain. The hospital and the whole fucked-up experience of recent life had taught me a lot about myself, about human nature. To be honest, I felt like Superman.

The street was quiet, just a couple of puffy-eyed stragglers on their way to school. Nobody outside the house, her cars in the driveway, so I parked on the street and knocked at Jean's door.

'Come in,' she said, dragging on her fag.

'I hoped you'd be still in your bathrobe.'

'Fuck off, sure I've been to the gym and everytin.'

She went to the kitchen, switched on the kettle, a nervous me behind her.

'Sorry Jean, but I'm thinking about you morning, noon and night.'

She turned towards me. I reached for her waist. When I made contact, she moved away.

'I can't. You've changed Charlie. Anyways, there's someone else.'

'Wasn't there always?'

'You don't know the half of it.'

'What do you mean?'

'Remember the photos? Me and Luke?'

'Obviously.'

'I knew you were taking them. I made sure we went into that park.'

'What? The only person who knew about it was your husband. And Pat.'

'Exactly.'

'Jesus.'

The kettle boiled but she made no move.

'When you wanted me to go back for Pat - '

'Well, I had been ridin him for nearly a year. And we were partners, weren't we?'

'You go through partners, don't you?'

'I won't say no more. You can see yourself out.'

'What about the money?'

'Still too hot. Anyway, I haven't decided what to do with it yet. It was meant to be our retirement fund. Australia.' She looked straight at me then. She was sad. 'Looks like I'm stuck here now. I'm needed.'

'What about my cottage by the sea? I've no chance of it, like, now?'

She gave me a look that almost cut me in two.

'What? Don't you be lissnin to me at all at all, you gowl? Fuck off out of my sight, will you?'

Jesus. I had to go before I cried, begged or did something stupider. I stumbled towards the front door.

'Come here I want you,' she called, a roughness in her voice.

I stopped, turned to her, a stupid grin on my face. Call it hope.

'Yeah?'

'Don't open your mouth about any of this, yeah? Jah know what I mean?'

I was being threatened by Limerick's new Godfather - Godmother? - and decided to not show my fear. I swallowed.

'Give us a shout when the cash is cool so. See you later.'

Confidence faked, I left the house, slammed the door behind me. There was a deep scratch down the whole length of my car. Three youngfellas on the corner opposite.

So I forced a smile as I drove off the Island and in towards town, hated myself again.

Everything went dark, night falling way too fast. I don't remember getting home.

EPILOGUE

So I write it all down. In a bright, high room without a view - just the tops of yellowing horse chestnut trees, heavy cloud - I tap away at the keys and pour my story out. Everyone says it's good for me and how good I am to be doing it and all. They even joke that I might have a bestseller on my hands.

'How is my writer?' chirps the doctor, a happy young woman from Karachi.

'Nearly finished. Just working on the Epilogue.'

'Very good, Charlie. I am very happy for you.'

'Thanks, doc. How's my mother?'

'She is good. She would like to speak with you. Is this okay?'

'Of course. Yeah. Now?' I just want to get this damned book finished.

'She is outside.'

'Cool.'

In walks mam, looking even skinnier, but a kind of peaceful look to her. The doctor left and mam sat on the edge of my bed.

'Charlie, son, there's something I want to talk to you about.'

'Oh, okay. You don't want to skirt around the issue, suppress it? Sorry. I'm sorry. Go on.'

'It's been burning me up inside for so long. Oh, since you were about one, I suppose.'

She went quiet then, staring at the clouds through my high window. Big, juicy black ones.

'Just tell me, mam. It's fine.'

'You were not an only child, Charlie. You had a twin brother.'

Jesus.

'We called him Michael,' she continued. 'Everything was alright at first but, once the fuss died down and with your father out galavanting morning, noon and night, I couldn't cope with ye. I started to go a bit, you know - '

Fucking.

'So we decided to put one of ye up for adoption. It was common in those days. Anyone who wasn't married or had what they call post-natal depression now. Common.'

Christ.

'Yourself and Michael were so alike, so cute together, it broke my heart to give one of ye away. In the end, I chose Michael. I picked him because he had a lazy eye. A local family took him. But you were my perfect little boy, Charlie.'

Almighty.

'I feel so bad, Charlie. Am I an awful mother?'

'No mam. You're - ,' I was so stunned, I couldn't finish a sentence. I had my longed-for brother. And I killed him.

'I feel much better now I've told you,' she said, standing. 'The doctor was right,' she glanced out the window again, 'I think it's going to lash.'

'Yeah.'

'Oh well, I'll see you later, son.'

She was out the door, her step a little lighter. Maybe the truth would set her free. Whereas it might crush me. But I couldn't lose the plot. Not just yet. One more breakdown and I could be in this fucking nuthouse for the rest of my life. Back to the story.

The doctor came in.

'So tell me, how you are feeling?'

I push my chair back from the laptop table, turn to face her.

'I feel at peace with myself. Like it's time to go.'

I know it's what she wants to hear. And I do so desperately want to leave. The room is too small to share with so many spirits. Now one more.

'Good, good. Will you print me out a copy when you are done, please? If it is okay, I think you can go back to your home sweet home. Maybe tonight. This time, will you take your medicine every day?'

'I promise. I'll get a watch with an alarm on it.'

Life on a promise.

'Very good.'

So I hit the print key. There's a long wait as the file processes. Then, as the little inkjet slowly spits out Pure Mad, the doctor smiles, takes a seat, starts reading. She judges me by my words. I gather books, pack my few things in a plastic bag and sit on the edge of the bed.

Alone again.

THE END

CHARLIE DOYLE WILL RETURN IN

PURE HATE

A rich couple hires Charlie to rescue their daughter from an arranged marriage, so he leaves Limerick for Dublin. The missing person trail crosses a terrorist cell, becomes a hunt for Stinger missiles stolen from an IRA bunker. The police, foreign intelligence agencies and criminal gangs are all after the missiles, but Charlie must find them first, or the girl will be killed. Is President Obama the target, or the Queen?

And he's got to stick to his medication, attend group counselling and cope with Ireland's downfall. His brush with pure madness still resonates. Has he progressed enough to keep it together and crack the case?

APPENDIX 1

GLOSSARY OF LIMERICK SLANG

Bollick/bollock: Testicle.

Crater: Creature.

Droot: Drought, thirst. "I've the droot on me."

Fanny: Vagina.

Flute: Idiot. Also: champagne glass.

Galavanting: To be out and about in search of pleasure. "He's off galavanting. Again."

Gap: Female crotch.

Gobshite: Fool.

Gombeen: Chancer.

Gowl (origin: ghoul): Term of abuse, similar to idiot, asshole etc. Also: vagina.

Half-cut: Partially drunk.

Half-langers: Partially drunk.

IRA: Irish Republican Army: now defunct terrorist organisation.

Jamrag: Sanitary towel.

Jeekist: Jesus, exclamation

Manky: Dirty

Noggin: Head.

Pure: Totally.

RA: Slang for IRA

Rapid: Great.

Real IRA: Splinter group which is against peace with Britain or weapons decommissioning.

Continuity IRA: Another splinter group.

Langer: Penis. Also: idiot.

Langers: Drunk.

Sham/shom: Buddy/pal.

Shift: Kiss. "I shifted your man last night. I swear."

Sláinte: Irish drinking toast, literally 'health'.

Steamer: Homosexual.

Tackies: Runners/sneakers.

Tinker: Traveller; itinerant. Caravan-dwelling nomads, recognized as an ethnic minority in the UK, but not so in Ireland.

Tiocfaidh ár lá: 'Our day will come' (Irish). Republican slogan.

Tool: Idiot. Also: penis.

Wanker: Masturbator/idiot/waster.

Withered: Deeply bored.

Well-cut: Very drunk.

For a constantly-updated Irish Slang Dictionary, please visit www.GaryJByrnes.com

APPENDIX 2

CHARLIE'S PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

Favourite virtue: Courage.

Favourite qualities in a man: Respect for women and children.

Favourite qualities in a woman: Interest in me.

Biggest flaw: Self-delusion, selfishness, laziness.

Favourite occupation: Private investigator, writer.

Chief characteristic: Egocentric.

Idea of happiness: Rich, stoned, screwed.

Idea of misery: Being alone.

Favourite colour and flower: Azure. Sunflower.

If not me, who would I be?: Bill Clinton.

Where would I like to live?: Someplace quiet, by a warm sea.

Favourite writers: Elmore Leonard, Brendan Behan.

Favourite poets: Patrick Kavanagh, WB Yeats.

Favourite painters and composers: Dali, U2, Bob Marley.

Favourite heroes in real life: 9/11 firemen, Bill Hicks.

Favourite heroines in real life: My mother.

Favourite heroes in fiction: Indiana Jones.

Favourite heroines in fiction: Bridget Jones.

Favourite food and drink: Vodka, tonic, lemon.

Favourite names: Steven, Sebastian, Kathy.

Pet aversion: Bad manners, racism, litter, ignorance, illiteracy, Nazis.

Characters in history I most dislike: Hitler, Margaret Thatcher.

Present state of mind: Fucked up, nauseous, suicidal, lonely.

Fault for which I have most toleration: Nymphomania.

Favourite motto: Live and let live.

How I would like to die: Loved.

APPENDIX 3

THE DOCTOR

By Gary J Byrnes

There came a knock at the window.

'Christ,' he said. 'Not again. Not now.'

He'd reached the critical point in his story, the turning point. The bottle of champagne had fallen to the floor.

He left his stiff typewriter and went to the door.

'Yes?' he said.

'Doctor Chekhov. I hate to disturb you, but my daughter is very sick. She has difficulty breathing,' came the reply. A woman's voice.

He didn't want to open the door but, of course, he had to. It was Mrs Putin, the coalman's wife. Her face was flustered, cheeks red, beads of sweat on her brow. She'd run to his house.

'Mrs Putin.'

'Doctor Chekhov, I hate to disturb your writing, I heard your typewriter.'

'Not relevant. How is your daughter?'

'She can't catch her breath. Coughing always.'

'Is she coughing blood at all?'

'Not yet.'

'Good. Let me get my case.'

He put on his heavy coat against the bitter night, found his medical case and followed Mrs Putin into the snowy streets.

'My husband is doing deliveries, so my neighbours have stayed with her. I'm so worried, Doctor. She is our only child.'

'I understand, Mrs Putin. Your husband must be quite busy this weather. I can smell the results.'

He suppressed a chesty cough, tasting the telltale saltiness of blood.

'Yes Doctor. It's the new year in just a few days. Everyone needs to have a hot fire at this time. What will 1878 hold for you?'

'More writing, I suppose.'

'My husband and I love your comedies.'

'Yes, they are popular. But I feel that my work is becoming more serious.'

'Oh yes?'

She looked at him for an instant, just long enough for him to see the disappointment on her face.

'Yes. When you knocked, I was working on a story called Champagne.'

'How joyous! I love champagne. I tasted it twice, you know,' proudly.

'Well my story isn't very joyous, I'm afraid.'

'Doctor, isn't there enough misery in the world?'

'Yes. That's why I must write about it. It will be easier to improve our miserable lives that way, knowing the truth.'

They walked on in silence, the snow starting to freeze his toes. She stopped at a gate, just wide enough for a horse and cart, fumbled in her apron pocket for the key.

'Once you're happy, Doctor. You're still so young. Here we are.'

They entered a long yard, piles of coal against the walls, everything blanketed with dirty snow. A candle burned in a window and Mrs Putin led the Doctor through her back door and into the kitchen of her home.

A fire roared in an iron grate. The child lay on a makeshift bed, pale, coughing. Two elderly women sat beside her. One rubbed the girl's cheek gently, the other prayed with rosary beads.

Chekhov took off his coat, sweating now, and opened his medical bag, rummaging for his stethoscope.

The girl's mother helped her to sit up so the Doctor could listen to her lungs as they laboured on each breath.

'What's your name, child?'

'Petra.'

'What a lovely name. How do you feel?'

'It hurts inside my chest when I breathe. Sometimes I am so hot, sometimes so cold.'

He listened to her for a long time as the women looked on, dreading the prognosis. Finally, he took the stethoscope from his ears and held the girl's hand.

'I fear she has consumption. Tuberculosis.'

The mother cried with anguish and all three women blessed themselves. Chekhov stood with his hands by his side, feeling impotent, sorry to have been - yet again - the harbinger of sorrow. Then the woman fetched a bottle of vodka from the parlour, along with four small glasses.

'I'm afraid we have no champagne tonight, Doctor. Will you have some vodka?'

'Thank you.'

'What caused her consumption? The coal dust?' asked the woman as she carefully poured the clear liquid.

'No. That's what was thought. Recently a German doctor discovered that it is caused by a bacterium.'

'Bacterium?'

'A tiny living thing that takes over the host body so that it may reproduce. It seems that most diseases may operate in a similar manner.'

'Oh, I don't like the sound of that. How did she catch the disease, Doctor?'

'Does she drink cow's milk much?'

'No. She doesn't like it.'

'In that case, she caught it from somebody. If an infected person coughed near her, that may have been enough. It's quite easy to catch in a cold and crowded city such as our Moscow.'

The woman gave the Doctor his glass of vodka and they toasted the new year and the little girl's health.

'What you must do,' said the Doctor, 'is make her comfortable. Try to keep her away from the dust, if possible. If she begins to cough blood, come for me again. Unfortunately, there is no medication that I can give her now. And only pain-relieving morphine if she gets worse. The only possible treatment is to take her to a drier, warmer climate. Perhaps the Crimea.'

'You know so much about this, Doctor. I am thankful.'

'I was diagnosed with it myself, Mrs Putin. Just a few months ago.'

The women blessed themselves again, imperceptibly stepping back from him. But he saw it. He put his stethoscope into his bag and found his coat. He accepted a rouble from Mrs Putin, for his family relied on his income and writing didn't yet pay enough.

As he left the warm kitchen and stepped back into the frigid night, Chekhov felt old before his time. On his way home, he worried about whether he would be remembered at all, if his writing would continue to develop as he wanted.

The moon hung low in the black sky, accompanied by two motionless white clouds. Chekhov smiled to himself.

THE END

APPENDIX 4

CHAMPAGNE by Anton Chekvov

A WAYFARER'S STORY

IN the year in which my story begins I had a job at a little station on one of our southwestern railways. Whether I had a gay or a dull life at the station you can judge from the fact that for fifteen miles round there was not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern; and in those days I was young, strong, hot-headed, giddy, and foolish. The only distraction I could possibly find was in the windows of the passenger trains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged with thorn-apple. Sometimes there would be a glimpse of a woman's head at a carriage window, and one would stand like a statue without breathing and stare at it until the train turned into an almost invisible speck; or one would drink all one could of the loathsome vodka till one was stupefied and did not feel the passing of the long hours and days. Upon me, a native of the north, the steppe produced the effect of a deserted Tatar cemetery. In the summer the steppe with its solemn calm, the monotonous chur of the grasshoppers, the transparent moonlight from which one could not hide, reduced me to listless melancholy; and in the winter the irreproachable whiteness of the steppe, its cold distance, long nights, and howling wolves oppressed me like a heavy nightmare. There were several people living at the station: my wife and I, a deaf and scrofulous telegraph clerk, and three watchmen. My assistant, a young man who was in consumption, used to go for treatment to the town, where he stayed for months at a time, leaving his duties to me together with the right of pocketing his salary. I had no children, no cake would have tempted visitors to come and see me, and I could only visit other officials on the line, and that no oftener than once a month.

I remember my wife and I saw the New Year in. We sat at table, chewed lazily, and heard the deaf telegraph clerk monotonously tapping on his apparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of drugged vodka, and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my overpowering boredom from which there was no escape, while my wife sat beside me and did not take her eyes off me. She looked at me as no one can look but a woman who has nothing in this world but a handsome husband. She loved me madly, slavishly, and not merely my good looks, or my soul, but my sins, my ill-humour and boredom, and even my cruelty when, in drunken fury, not knowing how to vent my ill-humour, I tormented her with reproaches.

In spite of the boredom which was consuming me, we were preparing to see the New Year in with exceptional festiveness, and were awaiting midnight with some impatience. The fact is, we had in reserve two bottles of champagne, the real thing, with the label of Veuve Clicquot; this treasure I had won the previous autumn in a bet with the station-master of D. when I was drinking with him at a christening. It sometimes happens during a lesson in mathematics, when the very air is still with boredom, a butterfly flutters into the class-room; the boys toss their heads and begin watching its flight with interest, as though they saw before them not a butterfly but something new and strange; in the same way ordinary champagne, chancing to come into our dreary station, roused us. We sat in silence looking alternately at the clock and at the bottles.

When the hands pointed to five minutes to twelve I slowly began uncorking a bottle. I don't know whether I was affected by the vodka, or whether the bottle was wet, but all I remember is that when the cork flew up to the ceiling with a bang, my bottle slipped out of my hands and fell on the floor. Not more than a glass of the wine was spilt, as I managed to catch the bottle and put my thumb over the foaming neck.

"Well, may the New Year bring you happiness!" I said, filling two glasses. "Drink!"

My wife took her glass and fixed her frightened eyes on me. Her face was pale and wore a look of horror.

"Did you drop the bottle?" she asked.

"Yes. But what of that?"

"It's unlucky," she said, putting down her glass and turning paler still. "It's a bad omen. It means that some misfortune will happen to us this year."

"What a silly thing you are," I sighed. "You are a clever woman, and yet you talk as much nonsense as an old nurse. Drink."

"God grant it is nonsense, but... something is sure to happen! You'll see."

She did not even sip her glass, she moved away and sank into thought. I uttered a few stale commonplaces about superstition, drank half a bottle, paced up and down, and then went out of the room.

Outside there was the still frosty night in all its cold, inhospitable beauty. The moon and two white fluffy clouds beside it hung just over the station, motionless as though glued to the spot, and looked as though waiting for something. A faint transparent light came from them and touched the white earth softly, as though afraid of wounding her modesty, and lighted up everything--the snowdrifts, the embankment.... It was still.

I walked along the railway embankment.

"Silly woman," I thought, looking at the sky spangled with brilliant stars. "Even if one admits that omens sometimes tell the truth, what evil can happen to us? The misfortunes we have endured already, and which are facing us now, are so great that it is difficult to imagine anything worse. What further harm can you do a fish which has been caught and fried and served up with sauce?"

A poplar covered with hoar frost looked in the bluish darkness like a giant wrapt in a shroud. It looked at me sullenly and dejectedly, as though like me it realized its loneliness. I stood a long while looking at it.

"My youth is thrown away for nothing, like a useless cigarette end," I went on musing. "My parents died when I was a little child; I was expelled from the high school, I was born of a noble family, but I have received neither education nor breeding, and I have no more knowledge than the humblest mechanic. I have no refuge, no relations, no friends, no work I like. I am not fitted for anything, and in the prime of my powers I am good for nothing but to be stuffed into this little station; I have known nothing but trouble and failure all my life. What can happen worse?"

Red lights came into sight in the distance. A train was moving towards me. The slumbering steppe listened to the sound of it. My thoughts were so bitter that it seemed to me that I was thinking aloud and that the moan of the telegraph wire and the rumble of the train were expressing my thoughts.

"What can happen worse? The loss of my wife?" I wondered. "Even that is not terrible. It's no good hiding it from my conscience: I don't love my wife. I married her when I was only a wretched boy; now I am young and vigorous, and she has gone off and grown older and sillier, stuffed from her head to her heels with conventional ideas. What charm is there in her maudlin love, in her hollow chest, in her lustreless eyes? I put up with her, but I don't love her. What can happen? My youth is being wasted, as the saying is, for a pinch of snuff. Women flit before my eyes only in the carriage windows, like falling stars. Love I never had and have not. My manhood, my courage, my power of feeling are going to ruin.... Everything is being thrown away like dirt, and all my wealth here in the steppe is not worth a farthing."

The train rushed past me with a roar and indifferently cast the glow of its red lights upon me. I saw it stop by the green lights of the station, stop for a minute and rumble off again. After walking a mile and a half I went back. Melancholy thoughts haunted me still. Painful as it was to me, yet I remember I tried as it were to make my thoughts still gloomier and more melancholy. You know people who are vain and not very clever have moments when the consciousness that they are miserable affords them positive satisfaction, and they even coquet with their misery for their own entertainment. There was a great deal of truth in what I thought, but there was also a great deal that was absurd and conceited, and there was something boyishly defiant in my question: "What could happen worse?"

"And what is there to happen?" I asked myself. "I think I have endured everything. I've been ill, I've lost money, I get reprimanded by my superiors every day, and I go hungry, and a mad wolf has run into the station yard. What more is there? I have been insulted, humiliated,... and I have insulted others in my time. I have not been a criminal, it is true, but I don't think I am capable of crime--I am not afraid of being hauled up for it."

The two little clouds had moved away from the moon and stood at a little distance, looking as though they were whispering about something which the moon must not know. A light breeze was racing across the steppe, bringing the faint rumble of the retreating train.

My wife met me at the doorway. Her eyes were laughing gaily and her whole face was beaming with good-humour.

"There is news for you!" she whispered. "Make haste, go to your room and put on your new coat; we have a visitor."

"What visitor?"

"Aunt Natalya Petrovna has just come by the train."

"What Natalya Petrovna?"

"The wife of my uncle Semyon Fyodoritch. You don't know her. She is a very nice, good woman."

Probably I frowned, for my wife looked grave and whispered rapidly:

"Of course it is queer her having come, but don't be cross, Nikolay, and don't be hard on her. She is unhappy, you know; Uncle Semyon Fyodoritch really is ill-natured and tyrannical, it is difficult to live with him. She says she will only stay three days with us, only till she gets a letter from her brother."

My wife whispered a great deal more nonsense to me about her despotic uncle; about the weakness of mankind in general and of young wives in particular; about its being our duty to give shelter to all, even great sinners, and so on. Unable to make head or tail of it, I put on my new coat and went to make acquaintance with my "aunt."

A little woman with large black eyes was sitting at the table. My table, the grey walls, my roughly-made sofa, everything to the tiniest grain of dust seemed to have grown younger and more cheerful in the presence of this new, young, beautiful, and dissolute creature, who had a most subtle perfume about her. And that our visitor was a lady of easy virtue I could see from her smile, from her scent, from the peculiar way in which she glanced and made play with her eyelashes, from the tone in which she talked with my wife--a respectable woman. There was no need to tell me she had run away from her husband, that her husband was old and despotic, that she was good-natured and lively; I took it all in at the first glance. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there is a man in all Europe who cannot spot at the first glance a woman of a certain temperament.

"I did not know I had such a big nephew!" said my aunt, holding out her hand to me and smiling.

"And I did not know I had such a pretty aunt," I answered.

Supper began over again. The cork flew with a bang out of the second bottle, and my aunt swallowed half a glassful at a gulp, and when my wife went out of the room for a moment my aunt did not scruple to drain a full glass. I was drunk both with the wine and with the presence of a woman. Do you remember the song?

"Eyes black as pitch, eyes full of passion,

Eyes burning bright and beautiful,

How I love you,

How I fear you!"

I don't remember what happened next. Anyone who wants to know how love begins may read novels and long stories; I will put it shortly and in the words of the same silly song:

"It was an evil hour

When first I met you."

Everything went head over heels to the devil. I remember a fearful, frantic whirlwind which sent me flying round like a feather. It lasted a long while, and swept from the face of the earth my wife and my aunt herself and my strength. From the little station in the steppe it has flung me, as you see, into this dark street.

Now tell me what further evil can happen to me?

THE END

THE GOD VIRUS

By Gary J Byrnes
Prologue

Juvenile Sacoglossan sea slugs capture DNA from the algae that they eat. They hold on to some of the plant's genetic material and use it to perform photosynthesis internally, providing their own, self-contained power supply. They don't need to eat any more algae.

This horizontal DNA transfer (as opposed to vertical, from parent to offspring) is hugely significant as it explains how bacteria manage to outsmart antibiotics and may help explain how all life on Earth evolved from one single source.
Chapter 1: BROTHER BRUNO

Campo de' Fiori, Rome, 1600AD

Night came. She brought her lover, death. In the alleys surrounding the open field, throats were slit for a few coins or in drunken revenge, the dying dispatched under starlight.

The space - an historical site of executions, duels and murder since Roman times - was crowded now. Torches threw jumping shadows across ugly and distorted faces. Thieves circulated easily. Couples slipped towards quiet lanes for the quick, illicit embrace.

The gathering was anxious. Cursing. Simmering. Always the unspoken fear that they would be denied their entertainment. The fat bishop sensed the mob's impatience, at last got awkwardly to his feet. Self-important in heavy robes, he carried a jewelled crosier. His purse bulged with coins for the night of whoring and gambling that lay ahead. He was a master of the uncouth, had a deep understanding of peasant ways and needs, as well as the perversions of their masters. The confessional, this was the secret of Mother Church.

The bishop's street wisdom had levered him to the very head of the flock of Rome \- God's holiest, God's chosen. He eyed the boiling crowd - perhaps a thousand souls in all - blessed himself in exaggerated motions. The crowd took the cue, mostly imitated his symbolic gesture. The coarse chattering fell to a steady hiss.

Bishop Peter cleared his throat, spat a gob of phlegm into the blackness. He raised his arms, staff aloft. That brought silence. Good. With the symbol of his God-given power, he indicated the sorry figure before him. The man was broken, the circulation gone from his limbs, his will taken.

'So, Brother Bruno. What is your answer? Do you recant your heretical ideas? Do you acknowledge that there is but one oasis of life in God's Universe? Do you accept that this planet, God's sole Eden, is at the centre of God's Universe?'

The bishop stood on a raised platform beside the pyre. He was at eye level with Bruno. A file of Inquisitors - white robes, pointed hoods, slits for eyes - surrounded the pile of dry sticks that had the mad monk at its peak. They kept the crowd in check, their masks generating fear, gleaming spears held tightly.

It was intimidation that maintained the power of the few, observed Bruno. He gazed at the unknowable, then raised his eyes to the unforgivable lie.

'Bishop Peter, my friend. In the name of all that is holy, look to the stars,' he gasped.

The Milky Way glowed fiercely across the night sky, a river of light. A billion suns shone weakly on the depressing scene. But the crowd focused on just one light: the torch in the Bishop's hand.

'You recanted quickly enough in the water chair,' hissed the bishop.

'See!' continued Bruno. 'The heavens are filled with the light of God.'

The crowd wasn't listening. Impatience and selfishness led to calls of Burn, Devil, Go to Hell.

Bruno continued, his final action, thinking only to plant a doubt in the Bishop's smug indifference.

'There are hundreds of planets like our own jewel. To say that they cannot also be filled with God's life? How can this be? The evidence will come. One day soon.'

The bishop looked to the ground, spat again, muttered a prayer. It was time to discredit Bruno completely.

'Copernicus before you had similar delusions and he was proven to be a heretic, a womaniser, a gambler and a drunkard. You, Bruno, are a fellow traveller of Copernicus and you will share his fate, ignored by history, turned away from the gates of Heaven. So, burn.'

He casually threw the torch on to the pile of wood below Bruno. The crowd squealed. Joyous with relief, they had their spectacle. The Inquisitors moved nearer the bishop. Within seconds, Bruno was engulfed, tormented. The stink of burning flesh forced the bishop down from his platform. Thick smoke masked the stellar view, cutting the scene from the Universe beyond, keeping it secret, lessening the cosmic shame of it all. If angels had been watching.

Bruno writhed for a long minute as his nerves sparked. Then his body was consumed, his soul spent. The fire's ferocity faded fast and the crowd's anger and fervour dissipated. An odd sense of calm descended. The faithful, full of the whispers of observed death, quietened. The mob dispersed, some even saying a little prayer for the crazy monk. A few watchers lingered, taking the dregs of the heat, hoping for a morsel of sweet meat.

The bishop blessed the black, smoking bones of his dead friend. He chatted for a few minutes with some councillors and the parish priests. Then he made his way to the brothel quarter - he would contract syphilis that night, die in agony four months later - as the surrounding galaxy shone defiantly.

Just ten years after the Catholic Church murdered Bruno, Galileo Galilei invented the telescope and proved that Earth and the other known planets orbited the Sun. He proved that other planets had moons. He proved that there were far more suns than could be seen with the human eye. He proved that the Roman Church's stated and immutable truths about the structure of the Universe were wrong. Utterly and incontrovertibly wrong.

Chapter 2: IN THE BEGINNING

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

\- Bible, King James Version: Genesis: 1-19

Chapter 2: THE HISTORY OF BUNK

Today is Tuesday. It is a sunny day. My name is William Bunk. I am forty-two years on this Earth. I am a mess.

I know certain things. I know that I add up to approximately seventy-five trillion cells and am composed mainly of water. Then there are my organic minerals: fats, proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids. Finally my inorganic minerals, mainly calcium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, iron. That's what I am. At this level, I can kind of understand myself. I'm a chemical reaction. Food comes in - typically lamb curry (hot), rare steak, salad, chocolate, rum, Coke, orange juice, vitamin supplements - is broken down to useful molecules in my gut, retained or shat out. The process driven by my inherited DNA, the chemical code that powers us all.

And that's it. No need for rocket science. No need for any Gods. But if I can understand my life on this level, why can't I make sense of it on any other - more meaningful - level?

Nobody knows what's going on, what life's about or what happens afterwards. Nobody.

Want to know what God is? God is thunder and lightning. Earthquakes. Storms. Rainbows. Eclipses. Stars. The Sun. Sex. Birth. Death. Chemical reactions. DNA. The seasons. Art. Emotions. And everything that couldn't be explained in the millennia before true science. That's all.

In the Christian Bible, Book of Genesis, God created grass, herbs and fruit trees on the third day. He created the sun on day four. The Bible was written before we had any understanding of photosynthesis. Look it up.

Want to know what the Devil is? The Devil is the animal inside every one of us, the evolved animal whose key aims in life are to fuck, procreate and survive. We can dress it up. We try. These days, the Devil is also called DNA.

I am a scientist. I like to discover answers. The truth, if possible. It is my obsession.

My life has been mixed. Moderate successes, abject failures, long tracts of mediocrity. Childhood passed without great fanfare. Medical school at Cambridge entailed boring lectures, dissected corpses, easy sex, experimentation with a pharmacopoeia of drugs. Ask any medical student.

Early career in London's grimiest hospitals, my reward for finishing in the bottom third. I clawed my way through, shunned the political games, found my love. Sally. Her family set me up in my own general practice. At last, I had it all. Then I blew it.

A year or more of repetitive arguments, childish blame games and the simmering disappointments of married life gone stale. I occupied my brain by studying the emerging field of DNA. Then, redemption of sorts with a position in a Government lab, forensic DNA analysis, the chance to continue my research.

Analysis, comparison, conclusion. My first love. A period of a kind of happiness followed, my emptiness filled by work, affairs, booze. Then I was cast into Hell. Punishment? Karma?

For every episode, there is a wrinkle or a grey hair or a drooping fold of skin. Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the most fucked-up of all?

A dirty cloud has gobbled up the sun. Typical. Thank you, god.

Chapter 3: THE MERCIFUL

Allah is He Who created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six periods, and He mounted the throne; you have not besides Him any guardian or any intercessor, will you not then mind?

He regulates the affair from the heaven to the earth; then shall it ascend to Him in a day the measure of which is a thousand years of what you count.

This is the Knower of the unseen and the seen, the Mighty the Merciful,

Who made good everything that He has created, and He began the creation of man from dust.

Then He made his progeny of an extract, of water held in light estimation.

Then He made him complete and breathed into him of His spirit, and made for you the ears and the eyes and the hearts; little is it that you give thanks.

\- Qur'an: Surah 32: 4-9

Chapter 4: THE SYSTEM

When you were born, you knew nothing. Like, what's your first memory? Mine is from when I was four years old. First day of school. So many faces, so many competitors. A bright room full of exciting and colourful things. Some kids cried. I was quiet, torn between the novelty and wanting to be with my mother.

Before that, oblivion. Dribbling, pissing myself oblivion. Common to us all and sure to revisit if given time.

And in that oblivion - that primary oblivion - what did you know about anything? Zero. Clean slate, begging to be filled by experience. You had to be taught about stuff. What'll kill you, what'll just hurt. What'll make you sick, what'll make you feel good. What letters are, what numbers are. And on it goes. By the time you're making your own way in the world, you know that the Germans are okay now, that the Taliban are bad, that the locally dominant religion is the best, that stealing is wrong, that crime is punished, that the law is the law is the law, that some are rich while most are poor, that convention dictates sexual behaviour, that globalisation is good. Spring forward, fall back. Homework. Your attitudes are formed for you. Think outside the box and become labelled. Hippy. Freak. Communist. Convict.

That almost everything you know and do is based on what happened before you were born is an appalling proposition. How much of life is about true self-discovery and how much is accepting the patterns that have already been imposed?

DNA is the blueprint for ninety-nine point nine percent of what we are, driving us towards sexual maturity, reproduction and survival. These are the only actions that truly matter in our lives; nothing else counts. The system fills in the remaining point one percent of what we are yet, oddly when you think about it, strives to make the mundane matter.

Genes, chromosomes, the double helix. These words and phrases are familiar to all of moderate intelligence. Yet what meaning do they hold? What is the average person's genuine understanding of the most important discovery in human history?

I decide that I must reproduce.

Chapter 5: THREAT

The call came through on a private number, delayed his departure for dinner with the senators. On the line was a NASA operative, one whose anticipatory thought space had been abruptly shifted from his brother-in-law's secret recipe ribs at the Sunday barbeque. He was a low-level agent but, science-wise, a useful one. Active agents were known in the Foundation as angels. This was one angel among thousands: men and women who worked at all levels in the military-industrial complex, the political system, the education machine. All united by their devotion, their faith. Doctor Ryan turned away from his computer monitor.

'Ryan.'

'Doctor, Bill Reynolds here. Johnson Space Centre. Something you should know about,' said the caller.

He sighed. 'I'm already late for an important meeting.'

'Sir, we've been going through the samples. Well, a sample of the samples.'

'Which samples?'

'From Stardust. The probe.'

'Cosmic dust?'

'Yeah. But something really odd has shown up. We're doing more tests, but the findings come within my alert remit.'

'Get to the point.'

'All four proteins. Adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.'

'Jesus Christ.'

'Sorry, sir. It's just that some people here are pretty excited about this.'

Ryan pondered for a moment, held the earpiece to his chin.

'Are all the samples in one place?'

'Yes, for now. One is being sent to England for secondary analysis.'

'So we work fast. Keep me posted of any developments. Goodbye.'

Ryan held on to the receiver for a long minute. He stared out at Washington, muddy twilight gathering over the Nation's River, saw nothing.

NASA's first dust-gathering probe - Genesis - had been sabotaged on the way home, destroyed. Stardust had proven harder to crack. Now all the Foundation's fears were being realised.

He thought through the possible scenarios. The worst outcome would lead to the collapse of the system, an atheist in the White House. The heathen hordes - already at the gate - would succeed. The Long War would be lost. Soft liberalism was no match for the gathering enemies. All that he had worked for would perish and the gains of generations would be lost. God would die. There was just one course of action open. He dialled.

'Link.'

'Doctor.'

'Yes, Doctor?'

'You're taking a flight. Houston. Tonight. Mission details to follow by email.'

These were the End Times, bold moves necessary.

Ryan turned back to the screen, enjoyed one long last look at the beautiful boys.

Chapter 6: HYPOCRISY DEFINED

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

\- Bible: Matthew: 7:1-5

Chapter 7: THIRTY

How I got thirty yesterday. Shower in the morning. Before lunch, before, dinner, before bed. That's four. Three times after taking a shit (bad dose, curry). Five times after urinating (though I know urine doesn't contain any gems, being good enough to drink and all. Old habits, conditioning). Three times before preparing food. Once, no twice, after rubbing the beagle. Before and after working with three samples at work makes six. Once after reading a cheaply-inked newspaper. Four times after sneaky cigarettes in the back yard. Once after examining my wife's vagina.

'I'm nearly ready to leave, Bill.'

'Yes.'

'Were you smoking again? Don't you know they'll kill you?'

'Ah, they'll have come up with the cure before then. Stem cells. No doubt about it.'

Secretly, I didn't care if I died.

'Sometimes I think you're mad, Bill.'

Change of subject: 'Do you really want to go to Blackpool, Sally? For an actual hen weekend?'

'No. I just feel obliged. You understand obligation, don't you?'

'Of course. It's what made Britain great.'

'Would you mind having a look at me. I'm really sore today.'

Once a GP, always a GP. So she got on the bed, lifted her skirt, spread her legs. No underwear. I got on my knees, gently pulled her inner thighs apart and had a close look. She was red, raw from scratching herself. The tell-tale white lumps around her labia betray the fungal infection. I don't need to see any more. Still, her inner thigh muscles are nicely defined, that adductor brevis standing out, trembling, causing a stirring from the past. Try it.

'I need to give you an internal, with my special probe,' I say.

'For fuck's sake,' she says. 'Give it a rest, will you?'

'Sorry. Old habits. Thrush,' I say. 'Again.'

'Christ, I'm sick of it.'

'Stop wearing knickers,' I joked. 'Eat less wheat, de-stress and get another of those over-the-counter antibiotics down the chemist. I'll write you a prescription for something stronger in case it gets worse while you're away. That okay?'

'De-stress,' she said. 'Yeah, thanks. I think I'll just dab some cider vinegar on.'

She fixed her skirt, got back to packing. Not the slightest chance of sex.

'Sal?'

'Yes?'

'It's not too late for us to have kids, you know. Even just one.'

'You know that's not for me.' She paused, hovered over the pile of clothes. 'I can't be a desperate housewife, soccer mom, whatever you want to call it.'

'It's just, I've been thinking. I've sort of concluded that the meaning of life is to have kids. That's what DNA is for.'

'The meaning of life?' she snorted. Was that a genuine smile? 'The meaning of life is to discover the self. I'm getting pretty close. Having a screaming baby to worry about would be... a distraction.'

'So propagating the species is a distraction? We're fucked. The human race is finished.'

'I'm surprised we've lasted this long.'

'Will you at least think about it?'

'You think about all the shit and vomit. Jesus. Do you really think that you could handle it? For God's sake, you go crazy when my sister's kids are here.'

'Well, they are wild.'

'All kids are wild. Now, do you mind if I get through this?' gesturing at the case.

'You go ahead.'

I sighed on my way downstairs, had to swallow hard to hold back a tear or two. I told myself that there was still hope. We were still together. Maybe after Sally found herself?

The thirtieth time was after touching my girlfriend in her sacred place.

I never used to wash my hands after sex. I enjoyed the fresh smell of woman being on me. Now I worry about germs and traces. Always germs and traces. Should I worry about all this? How normal am I? How obsessed am I?

So, how many times did you wash your hands today?

Chapter 8: SNOWBLIND

Though they could survive easily enough in the cold, they preferred the cover that the widespread pine forests provided. Out there, on the flood plains, they felt exposed. But they had to cut across the open space to reach the dense woods that led home.

The women were tired, but they kept moving, pulled the boy along. He wanted to stop, needed to rest, sleep even. His mother and her sister slowed, glanced at each other, thought that, yes, they could rest for a little while.

So they stopped. The youngster curled up in his mother's warm lap, took some of her milk as she rubbed his head. Then he dozed. His aunt picked her way down to the river, would drink her fill, use the pouch to bring water to the others.

The water was very good, clear and fresh. She smiled for the first time that day. Perhaps they would make it safely home to the others.

She froze, raised her head slowly. Yes, the cries. An evil whooping, the sound of hunters who have found the trail once more. In the open, there was no chance.

As she turned and ran to her dear sister and the boy, the heavy sky cracked open and thick snow fell. The hunters' cries - animal, bloodthirsty - seemed closer. The snow almost prevented the women from seeing each other. They were lucky, though, and clasped hands in greeting.

They moved on, knew that their only chance was to reach the hidden woods ahead. The uneven ground slowed their pace. The dense snow drove into their faces, but at least muffled the eerie sounds of the Neanderthal hunters. The fear in their eyes became muted.

But the snow. They were too hungry, too tired, too confused to fight it. It gathered so quickly, they could not lift their legs. A small depression, almost snowless in the lee of a boulder, appeared from the wall of white. They had to stop.

They huddled together beside the rock, happy at least that their trail would have disappeared. The followers' cries had stopped. Perhaps the snow would save them? The boy sobbed.

Chapter 9: THANK GOD

Work was a kind of refuge for my brain. Full of imponderables and unknowables, yes. But also certainties, confirmations and useful science.

My lab was organised, clean. I was lucky to have access to the best technology, the brightest graduates, generous funding. Being part of the establishment has its privileges, not least a fat pension. Plus, you don't have to work too hard, just keep your head down, never take chances.

It still bored me to the point of wanting to cut myself, though.

I busied myself in the semi-clean admin zone. The lab itself, through an airlock, visible through a wall of windows. My office, more a personal space than work place, was down the corridor. I preferred to be in this mid-space. Between things. Suited me. It was cleaner.

Peering at C samples through my microscope, I felt a strong hand on my shoulder.

'Morning William,' said my boss.

'Hello Lionel. Just re-checking the latest tests before I sign off.'

'Any results on our cause célèbre?'

'He did it, the bastard. He raped the child and, by inference, killed her.'

'That's for the judge and jury to decide.'

'True enough. But he did it. What a complete cunt.'

'God, William. I love this job. We've just taken a paedophile off the streets.'

'But for how long? No, you're right. Thank God for DNA.'

Fortescue flicked through the report sheets on my work bench. He wasn't interested, he was just reminding me who was boss. He nodded, made to leave, stopped.

'Oh yes. Department heads meeting at ten-thirty, okay?'

'What's up?'

'Something big. You'll love it.'

'Good. I need something big. Lionel, tell me this. Do you regret having kids?'

He laughed 'Regret? If anything, I regret not having a couple more. It's about the only thing the Catholics got right. Do you and Sally have news?'

'Lord no.'

'See you at the meeting, then.'
Chapter 10: A TASTE OF HEAVEN

The probe had travelled almost five billion kilometres, made its way home thanks to technology that still owed its magic to Galileo and Newton.

Shot into space in 1969, the machine met Earth again after two years, used its mother's gravitational power to hurtle out towards the icy comet, Wild 2. It snatched fragments from the comet's immense dust trail, trapped them in aerogel. That was the exciting part. Mainly it had been collecting in empty, interplanetary space. But space isn't empty, there's a huge spectrum of material floating around out there.

Stardust's aerogel had been very lucky. Besides the expected - organic particles, even amino acids from Wild 2; high velocity cosmic particles, supernova leftovers, Big Bang ashes from empty' space - Stardust had managed to collect a small number of extraordinary chemicals. On their own, the phosphates, simple sugars and nitrogenous bases would have been interesting enough discoveries for space. But in combination, they might shake a planet, that gorgeous blue and green and white jewel in the probe's path.

For they were in the form of deoxyribonucleic acid. More commonly known as DNA.

Chapter 11: DISTRACTION

So I signed off the results and they were couriered to the investigating detectives.

I passed the time before the meeting looking through pending casework. Nothing major, nothing really important. Millions of pounds worth of analysis equipment going through the motions: paternity tests for the nervous rich, cold cases, secondary comparisons. Still, we had to help the Government pay the bills and there was always the chance of a cold case review finally bringing some murderous prick to justice. Better late than never could have been our motto. A warm hand touched my neck.

'Doctor, I've got a temperature. Can you take a look?'

Tease.

I turned to face her. Jesus, she was beautiful - flushed with youth, fire in her eyes, voluptuous. My delight, all moist and perfumed and full mouth feel. And she wanted me.

'Good morning, Karen. You know I can no longer practice. Per se. Anyway, you look perfectly fine to me.'

Damn ethics.

She took my hand and placed it on her crotch, against the cool, light fabric of her black dress.

'Can't you feel it?'

'Yes. I think I'm getting it now.'

'Can we go to your office?'

I looked at my watch.

'Okay. But I've only got fifteen minutes.'

Plenty.

Chapter 12: DEEP FROZEN

The excavators loomed over the frozen landscape, oddly sculptural, evoking robot tombstones on another world. Someplace far from the sun. Some of the machines were iced rigid, would stay that way until the feeble spring. Others groaned and whistled as they churned the permafrost, smashing the delicate layers of ice that had built up over millennia.

The scientist stood on a small ice hill and watched the day dying. She saw the lights blink on in Salkhard, the regional capital twenty kilometres to the south. The Aurora Borealis flickered across the azure depth overhead, yellow and violet and cyan. She loved to watch it, almost her sole remaining pleasure. Turning back to the project, Anna savoured the icy sunset, smoked an imported cigarette. And another. Then she trudged back to work, depressed again at the pointlessness of her posting.

Strangely enough, this place suits my mood, she thought. A grim smile.

The hated wind roared then, slashing through her cold gear and scratching her bones.

'But what would I trade for a day in the Caribbean sun? Right now, one month's salary.'

The camp generators' constant whining increased in pitch as the primary task lights powered up. The work here continued twenty-four seven. Gazprom needed to find more natural gas. Get it pumped abroad. Bring in the petrodollars while the market value kept rocketing. She had a boring, shitty job, yes. But Anna was in the top ten percent of Russian earners. And there was always the chance of some interesting science.

She entered the canteen airlock wanting coffee, kicked the compacted ice from her boots. A scattering of workers at the trestle tables, every one smoking. Duty in one hour. She had finally removed her outdoors clothes when her name was called over the whistling speakers. The camp commander sounded unusually perplexed as he requested her presence at the leading edge of the western cut. She tutted, smoked a fast cigarette, scalded the roof of her mouth with the coffee. Then she dressed again, thinking What now, a fake fucking meteorite with alien life forms inside? The other workers debated what this announcement might mean, their theories ranging from Stalin-era mass graves to unexpected rock formations that might slow the project.

Anna hurried through the black night.

A cluster of men and women stood by the gash in the ground, an excavator's toothy bucket hanging open overhead. The commander spotted Anna. He was always alert to her.

'Anna,' he called, walking towards her. 'Thank you for coming so quickly.'

'What is it, sir?'

He seemed slightly excited, though not exactly happy.

'Something very interesting. Your speciality.'

As camp scientist, Anna analysed gas and soil samples and also monitored all the life they encountered: bacteria, lichen, not much else. That frozen baby mammoth was the most exciting thing that had happened in Yamalo-Nenetsk. Ever. A fading memory now. Still, she filled the days and nights by maintaining a perfect sample record, the raw material for a dozen frigid theses.

'Another mammoth, perhaps?' she ventured.

'Better, Anna. Better.'

Her heart jumped. The commander wasn't a joker. What on Earth could be better? A sabre-toothed tiger?

She followed him down a shaky aluminium ladder. Into the cut, into the permanently-frozen soil. Powerful task lights had been put in place, their glaring beams reflected and refracted by ice crystals. A frozen disco. The commander indicated. She saw a shape, a dim presence in the ice.

'There,' said the commander. 'Can you see it?'

'I see something. What is it?'

'Get closer. Lower.'

He pushed her forward until her nose touched the ice. She drew back instinctively \- shocked - but she saw. A face stared out at her. It was almost human.

A sleepless twenty hours later, Anna stood alone in the primary lab. She was exhausted, yes, but giddy and breathless also. Like she was in love, a fading emotional benchmark.

Before her, on sled pallets, were two rough chunks of permafrost. Two adult females in one, a young male on his own, distorted by time. Everybody in camp was buzzing from the discovery, assumed they were cavemen, early humans. Anna thought differently. Even through the ice, she noted the brow ridges, the protruding jaws, the heaviness of the skulls. Not Homo sapiens, not us.

'Are you really Homo erectus?' she asked, her voice echoing.

The temperature in the lab was now carefully maintained at minus four degrees C, so the ice coffin wouldn't melt before the scientific teams from the Russian Academy of Sciences arrived from Moscow and St Petersburg. Maybe a day, maybe less. For now, Anna had her ancestors all to herself.

Using a small ice drill, she accessed the frozen flesh of one of the females. She removed fragments of flesh and carefully stored them in sample canisters. As she secreted one canister inside her jacket, the commander appeared behind her.

'Do you have the DNA samples ready?'

'Almost. Why the hurry?'

'Moscow wants them sent back on the plane that brings the scientists. I don't know why. It's not my job to ask why. Why do you think? Do they want to clone them?'

'Unlikely, sir. The cells will have been damaged by the freezing process. DNA we can retrieve, not cells.'

'So what?'

'If, as I believe, these are Homo erectus bodies, a complete DNA analysis would be incredibly useful.'

'Who cares about Neanderthals?'

'These are not Neanderthals, commander. And that's the crucial fact. Homo erectus was the evolutionary stage immediately before Homo sapiens. I've studied them. Quite distinct from Neanderthals, which were a different species. Homo erectus can tell us exactly where we came from. When we look at their DNA, maybe - '

Anna was lost in thought for a moment, the importance of the discovery finally hitting her.

'Maybe?'

'Maybe, by comparing their DNA with ours, maybe we can discover how and why we evolved.'

The commander nodded, not quite understanding. He did understand that his schedule was now shot to shit and, down the line, he would be yelled at because of it.

'We've lost a day,' he mumbled. 'I just want them out of here.'

Chapter 13: THE PLAIN TRUTH

Those who reject the Book and that with which We have sent Our Apostle; but they shall soon come to know,

When the fetters and the chains shall be on their necks; they shall be dragged

Into boiling water, then in the fire shall they be burned;

Then shall it be said to them: Where is that which you used to set up

Besides Allah? They shall say: They are gone away from us, nay, we used not to call upon anything before. Thus does Allah confound the unbelievers.

That is because you exulted in the land unjustly and because you behaved insolently.

Enter the gates of hell to abide therein, evil then is the abode of the proud.

  * Qur'an: Surah 40: 70-76

Chapter 14: PROBLEM CHILD

The classroom was stifling, airless. It was early spring in Des Moines and the sun casually displayed her power. The students were tired, their day nearly done. But the teacher wasn't finished with them yet.

'So, is there anybody here who doesn't fully understand how God created life, the Universe and everything?'

Twenty faces looked up at him, smiled. These were good kids. The future was secure. Then, one kid at the back - the problem kid - raised his hand slowly. The child lacked confidence in his half-beliefs, so the teacher wasn't worried.

'Yes, Adam,' he said coolly. 'What is it now?'

'Sir,' began the boy, it's the dinosaurs. I still don't get it. We've been told up to now that dinosaurs were around millions of years ago. But you say that's not true. How come?'

'It's not just my opinion, Adam.'

He was angry, thinking Go to Hell. His psoriasis began to flare, unbearable itching spreading down his arms to his fingers. He gripped the edge of the desk tightly, breathed deeply, practised his self-control mantra. In command of his emotions again, the urge to scratch faded. He left the desk, walked to the middle of the classroom.

'We had been told these dinosaur stories for many years. People just accepted that the scientists were telling us the truth. But recently we've begun to question the scientists. That's a good thing. Isn't it, children?'

'Yes, sir,' they chimed in unison.

'So God gave us free will and we use that free will to question certain theories. And that's a good and positive thing. Isn't it, children?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Now, it turns out that no scientist can actually prove beyond a doubt that the dinosaurs were around millions of years ago. It's just as likely that dinosaurs walked the land,' he gestured to the golden woods outside the window, just a few thousand years ago.'

A flock of doves wheeled across the yard. He laughed, changing tack.

'See the birds, Adam? You believe they used to be T-Rex?'

All the kids laughed at this. Adam reddened. The teacher moved closer to him, made full eye contact, hands on hips, a calm yet subtly threatening stance. Yet still he smiled and no answer from Adam.

'Adam. The greatest scholars on Earth have studied the Bible in great detail. Now, nobody disputes that the Bible is the Word of God. You don't dispute that, do you Adam?'

'No sir,' he said.

The teacher's gaze swept the class and he sensed a subtle change just then. He saw the child as a danger, a potential source of contamination.

'Good. Very good. So, by taking the literal Word of God into their calculations, these learned men have deduced that the world is nowhere near old enough to have sustained life hundreds of millions of years ago. It's actually impossible. This planet of ours is no more than ten thousand years old. Ten thousand. Not five billion.'

Standing at the top of the class, the teacher put his right hand over his heart, adopted a benign expression.

'Children. All our questions lead to one place. God. And all our answers come from one place. God. And the Word of God is to be found in the Bible. We don't need anything else. No phoney science. No vested interests. No atheistic fantasies. For what else matters, but God?'

His flow was interrupted by a hesitant knock at the door. The school principal opened the door a crack, peaked in, nodded at the teacher.

'If you'll excuse me, children. Please revise chapter six of your textbook, The True Age of the Universe.'

The teacher glared at Adam, gathered his material from the desk, locked it away in his briefcase, pocketed his phone.

In the corridor, the principal apologised for the interruption. The two men faced each other like reflections, with their immaculate grey suits, closely-cropped haircuts, shining faces.

'You wanted to see me?' said the principal.

Two issues. One, I've been called away on urgent business. Immediately. I will complete this module at a later time.'

'Of course, of course. We greatly appreciate your instruction of the children. We are completely flexible.'

Yes, thought the teacher, and you greatly appreciate the two million dollars per annum that you receive from the Foundation.

'I'll call you when I can return. And two, the boy Adam. I can't get through to him, I'm afraid. What are his parents like?'

'A tad liberal. His mother's a writer and his father works in publishing. They're decent people. I feel they're exaggerating their Christian principles to further their careers. And Adam's school options.'

'Get rid of him. He doesn't buy into the school's ethos. This is clear. He may yet poison the entire class. You can deal with this?'

'I can deal with it.' No hesitation. 'I'll come up with something. Fabricate a theft, maybe. Plant something in his locker.'

'Ideal. He'll have no choice beyond State schools then. That'll halt his progress. I must go. You can deal with the class?'

'Of course. Thank you again. God be with you.'

'God be with you.'

They shook hands and the teacher marched down the gleaming corridor to the staff carpark. The boy was instantly forgotten. Operational now, he thought only of his mission in Texas.
Chapter 15: END OF DAY

It might be morning, sitting in the kitchen conservatory, just a white Ikea bathrobe against the cold. The Guardian sprawls the table. The flatscreen web terminal jumps between news and work: evolution. Organised madness, things squared off.

The digital radio music is loud: Handel's Seraphim, Schubert, The Doors, BBC Five Live. I jump between stations and sites, write notes, record the fragments of my life and career. The great plans, the petty delusions.

But the drink is Captain Morgan's Spice Rum, a taste acquired on a Cuban holiday. The cigarettes compulsive, the psyche entirely alert. And the room is dark as a tomb, just some diffuse city light fuzzing the view and the PC's glare. The house is mine. I make espresso, a double. A mini revolution, a good change not to hear Why are you having coffee at eleven PM?

No intentions of early bed. Besides, there's a good view of the picture window in the apartment block beyond the garden. Other than that, just the leafiness of Buckhurst Hill, the aged trees of Epping Forest. The ideal home, a true sanctuary from the madness of life. And the view? A naked woman dancing. Mostly ballet, self-aware, shameless.

The perfume of brewing Arabica - Fair-trade from Oxfam - fills my space with a delicious bitterness, triggers brain events, memories of life episodes.

The Cambrian Era keeps coming back, pushes to the front. I look at the dancer, her dark hair up in a ponytail, her face oddly expressionless. Risk of fleeting obsession tingles in my innards.

But I look through her, to Planet Earth, five hundred and thirty million years before I was switched on. Full of life already, having been formed about four billion years before and life having ignited not too long after. But nothing more evolved than bacteria and ferns for four billion years.

She catches me again, finishing a dance with a gracious bow, her breasts near enough to appreciate their fullness, too far away to make out her nipples. Or maybe that's just my eyes. Her triangle - the ultimate target - is well-defined. She takes a break, out of my sightline. I make another Cuba Libre, the fresh lime makes up my five-a-day and I'm officially drunk. The Coke adds colour, mainly.

Then, the Cambrian Explosion. Not a meteorite or volcano, but an explosion of life. Within a few tens of millions of years - no time at all - the planet teemed with multi-cellular organisms. There is no explanation for this. No explanation. One nineteenth-century theory I discover is called Panspermia, the idea that micro-organisms and spores travel through space, to take root and grow on planets with suitable conditions. The scientific world ridicules the notion. But it interests me.

I take notes, diving into the web for scientific papers on fossils. The dog, Charlie, barks in his sleep, somewhere in the dark. He reminds me of Darwin, so I go back to the master as I try to work out the evolutionary path of bacteria.

I'm distracted by the Murchison meteorite, Australia 1969. It contains millions of distinct organic compounds, including seventy amino acids. Extraterrestrial origin proven.

I'm giddy. The faxed and copied report from the Johnson Space Centre sits on top of my papers. I pick it up again. The initial sample analysis from the comet probe. DNA from space. The shocking finding, dryly typed up by an impersonal particle analysis device. This could shake the planet. And the B sample will be with us tomorrow for corroboration. First thing.

DNA from space. I still can't believe it.

Hungry again, I call for food. Curry for martyrdom.

'Vindaloo, please. Lamb. Pilau and naan.'

'Yes, Mr Bunk. You sure? Very hot.'

'I'm sure.' It confirms that I am alive.

'Twenty minutes, okay?'

'Okay,' thinking how to pass twenty minutes of the dead hour.

I hang up and the phone rings. Sally.

'Who were you calling at this hour?' she asks, no friendliness in her voice. Just a chilly edge, enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck start. Something bad is coming.

'Hello to you too, darling. The curry house, actually. How's Blackpool?'

'Absolutely horrific. I hate it here. But - '

'But what?'

'But I'm not coming home. For now. It's easier this way.'

Instant dizzy spell. Booze, empty stomach, Earth-changing research, impending marital separation all spelling trouble for my nervous system. I panic.

'Pardon?' Mouth dry, I squeeze it out.

'I know about your girlfriend at work.'

'What?'

'You may be the forensic scientist and all, but I'm a woman not an idiot.'

Christ, what gave me away?

Shit, did I say that or think it?

'Darling, I don't think it's fair to do it like this. We've been married fourteen years.'

'Fourteen years wasted. But not too late to start again. I'll be down for the rest of my stuff at some stage. And don't call me darling ever again, you prick. Goodbye.'

Click. Repeating tone.

'Just like that,' I say to the dancer as she stretches for her encore.

I pour a straight rum. I watch the dancer but don't see her, gulp my drink, wait for my curry. I think to call Sally back, tell her all about the sample, the DNA. I decide against this.

At last, the curry arrives. But my hunger has gone to bed with the dancer.
Chapter 16: HUMAN ERROR

The mail room was dead, so hot outside that almost everyone had left early. All on their way to the Gulf or the Wal-Mart aircon or to lay in the garden under the trees with ice cold beers. Stan stayed behind to get the mail out. Reliable, dependable Stan. A pile of FedEx envelopes sat on the table, regular jiffies beside them, then a stack of labels and prioritised bundles of sample containers. Everything labelled, cross-referenced.

'Jesus H,' he said, hating this part of the job. The tedium. Monkey work was how he described it to his friends at parties. Since working in the mail room entailed monitoring all but the very highest level paper and electronic communications, Stan knew there wouldn't be a random drug test in the Johnson Centre for at least two months. So he figured Why not? Anyway, he kept a little shot of synthetic urine in the freezer, stashed under the ice crystals, just in case.

He went to the men's room, rolled a joint, made his way to the roof. Sam from security was at the last checkpoint, near the cool, dark corridors that hosted the big bosses. Stan nodded. Sam winked, followed him after a minute or two.

The Gulf of Mexico glistened on the horizon as they shared the joint at the sweet spot the cameras can't see.

'God, I love this job,' said Sam. Top benefits, no real stress, moments like this.'

'Just watch out for al-Qaeda, yeah?'

'For sure, but there's still the Chinese and even the Russians.'

'The Russians? Again? You serious?'

'Yeah, Stan. Everything's still to play for, world domination-wise. It's all fucked up. Those Russians are clever bastards, really smart. They've got the bread now. And they look just like us.'

Stan held his hands in front of his face, examined the backs of them with an exaggerated confused look on his face.

'Well, you know what I mean,' Sam said, embarrassed. 'Anyways, it's all fucked up.'

'White Russians. I could do with one of those. That's for sure.'

'For damned sure.'

Then they talked about the weekend, about Sam's eldest son's birthday party - ten, already! - and that kind of stuff, casual friend stuff.

And so to work, Sam first. Stan got back to a still-empty mail room. He rubbed his eyes, played some Nirvana, resumed his work of sticking the correct labels on the correct envelopes with the correct samples inside.

The FedEx guy arrived early, breaking his balls, saying C'mon Stan, I've got a plane to catch.

Then Stan fucked up.

Chapter 17: MORNING

I sat in my tiny office with a coffee, squared up the documents, files and notes on the desk. Big day, fairly enormous twenty-four hours, really. Still only halfway through it, less. A dark grey shape in the door's pane of frosted glass. Two taps. The supreme being, Dr Lionel Fortescue.

'Morning, William. You look like shit.'

In a Savile Row suit and with his trademark flowing grey locks and yachtsman's permatan, Fortescue was a living statement: Old money still rules.

'Thanks. I needed that.'

'What's wrong? Something's clearly wrong.'

'Sally's left me.'

'You're shitting me.'

'I'm not.'

'Does she know about Karen?'

'Yes. How do you know about Karen?'

'It's my job to know everything, William. Look, don't let it get you down. She'll be back, I'm sure. Let me take you to dinner tonight. My treat.'

I thought it through, put the shock of the easy knowledge of the affair to one side - Did everybody know? Was it that obvious? - accepted the situation.

'Thanks. I could do with some company.'

'Excellent. See you in the conference room in fifteen. We'll have the sample this morning. Excited?'

'Like it's Christmas Eve and I'm eight years old.'

'Me too. I'll call FedEx, see when Santa's due.'

And he was gone.

Next, Karen arrived. She was a bit of a mess, unshowered. Was she wearing those clothes yesterday? She was typically immaculate when it came to her personal hygiene. One of the traits that had attracted me to her in the first place.

'Morning, Doctor. Sorry I'm late.'

'No problem. At all. Sleep it out?'

I felt a bit cheated. Surely I had more of a right to look like shit?

'No. I stayed at a friend's, unexpectedly. South of the river. Getting up here was a nightmare.'

South?

'Sit down. I'll get you a coffee. Brew's fresh.'

Should I tell her about Sally? Not yet.

'Thanks darling.'

Darling.

Chapter 18: THE EVIDENCE ROOM

Link got into Johnson easily enough. He had an excellent ID, a perfect profile. Investigator, Department of Homeland Security. Legit. He could go virtually anywhere, ask any questions, no questions asked in return.

He passed nicely-lit displays of moonrock, met the angel at the door to the samples lab. The zone's high security biohazard status was marked boldly on door, walls, floor. The man - Reynolds - was nervous, had to dry his palm on his lab coat before the scanner accepted him. In the airlock, they struggled into sealed overalls. Reynolds made smalltalk, Link was quiet. They put on face masks, clipped oxygen tanks to waist hooks, checked each other. It was like going into space.

Then they entered the next chamber, had an air shower. Powerful fans in the floor sucked away the contaminating molecules from outside this super-clean world.

The lab itself was a long room, brightly-lit, spotless, shiny, its air at high pressure. Two technicians peered at electron microscope screens. Nobody else apparent. Fine.

Link was led to the large refrigerator at the far end of the room. With a code keyed, the door popped. Bill Reynolds removed a stainless steel tray and, keeping his eyes on the space samples, brought it to an examination table.

'This is what all the fuss is about?' asked Link, his voice flat, modulated and electronically relayed through the helmet.

Little plastic boxes, smaller glass cases inside. Then a tiny slice of aerogel, impregnated with DNA from some other place.

'This is it. Now what's the plan?'

Link glanced over his shoulder at the technicians.

'Open the samples. All of them.'

Reynolds did as he was told.

'Is this enough to contaminate them?' asked Link.

'It's very clean here. Class ten, almost as clean as it gets. Contamination would require the introduction of foreign DNA.'

'I thought so.'

Reynolds nodded, an uncomfortable smile vaguely visible through his facemask. This wasn't supposed to be happening. But there would be no ribs on Sunday, this he knew.

Link looked toward the two technicians again, calculated, made his decision. He darted to a nearby fire point, pulled the alarm handle. A brain-piercing shriek filled the lab. The technicians panicked, left the room quickly. Returning to Reynolds, Link swept his left hand across the sample examination table, picked up a scalpel. The technician registered all this, stood immobile, too shocked to move. Link slashed, three times across his chest, then stabbed hard.

Then he pushed him onto the extraterrestrial samples, bubbly blood gushing from his ruptured heart. He held him there until the life was gone. There was only a weak, confused resistance.

Walking calmly through the airlock to the lab exit, Link eyed a security camera. He moved clear of its view, added it to his mental loose ends list, before removing his helmet and clean suit. Then he blended into the hurried file of escaping staff, quickly found himself back in the dusty Texan air.

Chapter 19: THE LORD'S WORK

The five paused together in the shadow of the heavy jeep, a moment of silent prayer. Hands clenched outside their chest-slung MP5 sub-machine guns, beads of sweat rolling into balaclava hoods, hearts beating rapidly under military-spec Kevlar waistcoats, enjoying the success that the Lord had granted. They were God's Marines and each had an angel at his shoulder today.

'Amen,' said their leader, finally. His eyes and ears hadn't stopped watching and listening since they drove into the thicket, stopped to finish the task.

There was a chorus of Amen, every man glad that nobody had been sacrificed, gladder still that the mission had been accomplished. A police helicopter buzzed past. Well to the south, no threat.

The leader held the bundle of heavy envelopes that contained Sterling bonds with a face value of well over five million pounds. These he threw into a steel drum. Then he poured in two litres of mineral water. He carefully opened a ceramic container of hydrochloric acid.

'Fire in the hole,' he called as he dropped the acid into the drum.

They stood back as the acid - the same stuff that causes gastric ulcers in humans - reacted violently with the water and consumed every molecule of the bonds, released clouds of toxic hydrogen chloride gas.

The job was almost concluded. The sample had to be delivered to Noah, the assault gear stashed. Then the day was done.

Praise the Lord.

Chapter 20: B SAMPLE

As the department heads and lead scientists gathered around the gleaming walnut table in the conference room, Fortescue stared through the tall window, spotted a small herd of deer at the forest's edge. This made him happy. The wonder of nature always had that effect. He turned to the room, counted heads, smiled as every gaze turned to him.

He raised his voice over the mannered din. 'Ladies and gentlemen. I'm afraid I have some bad news.'

Silence now.

'There was an armed robbery on the M25 earlier. It targeted the FedEx van that was carrying our sample. Bonds - millions of pounds - were stolen and the vehicle was, I'm sad to say, destroyed. It seems our sample was also destroyed.'

The announcement was met with the outrage, confusion and upset that he'd expected. But he hadn't expected laughter. Mine.

'You find this situation amusing, Bill?'

'Sorry Lionel,' I said. I stood, walked to Fortescue's side, addressed the room. 'I just find it beyond coincidental that some highway robbers steal some piddly bonds and, as an aside, destroy what may have been the most important sample we've ever expected.'

'So what are you saying, Bill?'

'Yes, what are you saying?' asked the room.

'I'm saying that I think the samples were the target, not the bonds.'

'Can we get another sample from NASA?' asked a level-headed molecular scientist.

Fortescue paused.

'Perhaps not. There was an incident in the Johnson Space Centre. I don't have the specifics, but the remaining samples may have been contaminated.'

Gasps. This was all too dramatic. I was emboldened.

'Back to our sample, Lionel. What are the specifics of the raid?'

'Such as?'

'You know, how many robbers, were they armed, did the police intercept them? Those specifics.'

'As far as I'm aware, there were four or five robbers. They were armed. No shots fired. No injuries. No arrests thus far.'

'And the value of the bonds?'

'Not known.'

'Have you spoken with the police?'

'Not yet.'

'But you intend to?'

'Immediately after this meeting. I will stress to them the importance of our sample. I'll keep you posted. Okay?'

'Okay. Thanks.'

I returned to my seat and the meeting continued. But without the main event it fizzled into abstractions, projections, nothingness.

I felt cheated. All my research and brain time was wasted. And so close to real achievement, something bigger than everything else put together. The other failures in my life had been put aside. Glory beckoned. Now only ashes. Ashes and despair and a whole new collection of shit from Sally on the way. I had to hide a quiet tear from the gathering as my heart pounded sadly in my head.

Chapter 21: THE ASCENSION

The restaurant \- La Jour Verte - was about as French as it was possible to get in Essex. I sat alone at the tiny table for almost an hour before Fortescue arrived. The table setting was clean but I still wiped my silverware with the linen napkin. Habit. Then I drank. Every time a waiter passed by, my elbow and - by default - glass of Beaujolais was nudged. So I drank with my left hand, eavesdropped on the chatter all about, the air blue with smoke, bluer with words.

'I don't give a fuck about him, darling. I've had it up to here. Ah, your veal.'

'Just let me pay the fucking bill will you? Your husband will see it on your card statement. Jesus Christ, are you stupid?'

Sally's words still bouncing around my head, I suddenly felt completely alone.

'I swear to you, if that waiter gives me the eye once more, I'll smash a glass in his face. Jesus.'

'Calm it, sweetie. You're drunk.'

Go on. No. Don't.

Still, I savoured the place: every slurred syllable, every delicious scent, every clatter from the kitchen, every Edith Piaf song. My stomach growled, squealing at this latest punishment, the teasing. Fortescue arrived, almost falling onto his chair with exhaustion.

'Thank God,' I said. 'I'm dying of hunger here.'

'You should've ordered something, old boy. I'm sorry I'm so late.'

'What kept you?'

'Trouble at home, I'm afraid. Nothing major, just a time-consuming diversion.'

I smiled at the unusual frankness - the second such event in the day - drained my glass. A waiter appeared to pour for Fortescue, top up my glass. He nodded at Fortescue, smiled and winked at me.

Fortescue laughed slyly at my discomfort, eased into the role of harried lab director finally at rest. He clicked his fingers for service, something I could never do. He was full of work gossip and current affairs analysis. But his eyes were anywhere but on me. I sensed an unease in him.

Dinner was rushed - I had a rare rack of lamb - and it was only when the restaurant emptied a little and the cigars were lit that the talk went beyond chitchat, to the late board meeting that had really delayed him. The motions, the dances, the votes.

'So, the bottom line is that we've got to prune.'

'Prune.'

I felt the blood drain from me. I slouched. I knew.

'Yes. It's all to do with the budgets.'

'And?'

'And I put your name forward. And it was accepted. Unanimously, I'm afraid.'

'Why me, Lionel? Why me, for fuck's sake?'

'Keep your voice down, William. Appearances.' He adjusted his tie, drank more wine. 'What in God's name happened to you today? I can't be seen to have a loose cannon about the place. Surely you understand that? Besides, you're not the only one.'

Dizzied, I lunged for my wine glass. Empty.

Non, je ne regrette rien.

'Where's that waiter?' I slurred.

Later, I wasn't aware of the hands that lifted me up the narrow staircase, put me in a cab, paid the driver.

I might have flown home.

Chapter 22: CITY GIRL

Anna was delighted to be in St Petersburg. Her bored eyes woke up, drank in the neon signs, the western shops, the endless traffic, the stern police, the drunken beggars, the gaudy glamour. Most of all, the different people, people everywhere. See the pretty, painted women, their Gucci and Prada, smell their Chanel perfume, admire their diamonds' icy glare. Six months in the permafrost had quietly eased her to the edge of sanity. She could appreciate that only now, now that she was back in the world.

So she smiled easily as she reconnected with friends and family. The contract had paid well, well enough for her to do as she desired for a month. She felt like doing nothing at all. So she splurged on nightclubs, restaurants, clothes. She spent hours in the Zoological Museum, met an old professor, talked about her role in the whole Lyuba discovery, impressed the hell out of him. This made her happy for a few days. Then the forced idleness made her weary.

One habit that she'd brought home from the east had stayed with her, helped fill the days. The Bible, which she'd read during many of the interminable breaks between shifts, had reawakened something. Her childhood? Certainly. The memories of going to Secret Mass with her mother - all warm aprons, baking smells and You must remember to stay silent Anna - were among the best she had. The God-hating days were over. Now it was okay to be a Christian again.

Sometimes she stayed up late, smoking, re-reading her favourite passages. She began to take notes. And she regularly checked the fridge to wonder more at what her sample might reveal. Finally, on a misguided impulse, she sent it to the man who had been her teacher and her lover. Along with a note, written inside a cheap card with Van Gogh's Sunflowers on the front.

Billy

I'm so sorry I haven't been in touch for so long: I've been stuck in the gulags! I'd love to see you again, soon. Sample enclosed. VERY IMPORTANT! HOMO ERECTUS TISSUE! NO JOKE! STORE SAFELY! See what you make of it.

Love

Anna

Xx

Anna634@yahoo.com

This was her lover's gift, hopefully enough to rekindle something, rescue those feelings. She mailed it to Bunk's lab, assumed he'd be there for life.

Just a couple of days later, she received a phone call from her handler. And she cursed her love for Billy Bunk.

Chapter 23: ONE DOOR CLOSES

It's no fun being deadmanwalking. I went through all the motions that my stiff upper lip demanded. I oversaw tests, signed off reports, attended meetings, kept my files clean, kept my office organised. But my swagger was gone and I was treated differently. So this is what it's like to be a ghost.

Days passed. Life became a blur of working on automatic and drinking alone in a darkened house. I spent some of the quiet time on my Comparative Analysis of World Religions, a spreadsheet I'd started on my PC ages before. Why, I don't know.

Nothing from Sally. I wanted to call her, tell her what had happened to me. But I was afraid she'd laugh and I couldn't have taken that.

I considered killing myself and, in the darkest moments, actually rummaged through my black bag, checked for the drugs that would do the job. I found morphine in my fridge.

But no. That would not be my epitaph.

My final day in the job. I went to work with a smile on my face, said Fuck you to the evil clouds that waited over the lab, then spat torrents at me. Specifically me.

Alone in my office with a steaming coffee, I began to pack my things away carefully, wondered if I was due a pension. I remembered that we'd all been advised to start private pension plans a year before.

'It doesn't get much worse than this,' I said.

'Poor baby,' said Karen as she came in the room, an invisible cloud of perfume preceding her golden self.

I watched her, smiled, decided finally No, she wasn't worth Sally. Fool.

'Morning, for the last time.'

'Your mail,' she said, handing me some letters, a couple of circulars, a scientific periodical and a couple of padded envelopes.

'Thanks. I'll miss you.'

'I'll miss you too,' she said, extending her lower lip. 'But we'll still see each other, won't we?'

'Maybe. I hope so.'

'Well, how about one last - you know - on your desk? For old time's sake?'

'I should have it cleared fairly soon.'

'Great. I'll be back in twenty, okay?'

'Okay. Can you close the door after you?'

I went through the mail, binned most of it, got to the padded envelopes. One was postmarked Texas. Texas? Johnson Space Centre. I flushed, my hands shaking. The customs label said that it contained a data CD. There was no CD. I ripped it open and found a sample container of a kind I hadn't seen before. The label on the case included the word Stardust. My heart lurched sideways.

Then in came Jim, the lab's technical director and computer wiz. Always around when I'd needed him, always lurking.

'Bill, how are you?' he asked, sounded like he cared.

'This is shit, Jim.'

'I know. Such is life. You want me to transfer your email addresses onto CD now?'

I eased the sample container into my sports jacket pocket.

'Thanks, yeah. I can't manage it. Sorry.'

He took my seat and set to work. He spotted the Texan envelope, took a long look.

'What's that Johnson sample about, Bill?'

'Envelope was empty, would you believe. I think they're all on drugs over there.'

'Oh.'

My squelching innards told me it was the B sample. I wanted to run, to get away quickly. Adrenaline pumped. But the other envelope.

The address was handwritten, had a familiarity to it. Russian stamps. Anna. Anna? I read her note, enjoyed its sunflowered friendliness. A little packet of desiccant fell out and a fifty millilitre screw-top vial. I guessed it contained ethanol to preserve the tissue by inhibiting enzyme activity. Good woman. I pocketed the note and the second unexpected sample of the day. Homo erectus? It doesn't get much better, this could be the biggest thing since, I don't know, that little book by Darwin? Jim finished up, handed me a CD. We promised to call each other for a drink and he hurried off. I sent Anna a quick email to let her know that I'd received the sample. Curiosity aroused, bloody erect.

When Karen got back to the office I was long gone. I left with my dignity and my mysteries. I took a cab home, no car - having expected to be taken on the piss with Fortescue et al that day - and it dropped me near home. Head down against the depressing rain, I stopped at the corner to my lane when I spotted a tall man coming out my front gate. He was dressed all in black, looked like a priest, maybe. An obscenely large jeep waited at the kerb. I ducked behind a cherry laurel hedge, my gut talking again, saying This isn't right. I wondered if the lab had sent someone to retrieve the samples. The jeep's door swung open, but the man paused, looked around, looked back at the house. Then he shook his head, got into the vehicle.

The jeep slid past. I pressed into the glossy leaves, yielding branches and black fruits, invisible to the unknown visitors. A simple plant from the Eocene era had saved my life.

Chapter 24: THE MADNESS

Sally's car was in the driveway, behind mine. She's come back to me. No, she's just packing her things, completing the break. I went into the house, emotions motley. I dripped with rain and sweat, no idea what to expect.

'Sally?'

Nothing. Could she have been driving that jeep?

'Sally darling.' She won't like that. 'I'm home.'

Not a whisper.

In the kitchen, her bags and coat lay on the counter.

'Sall-eeee!' I called.

I picked up a paper from my research on ancient amoeba fossils. It stole my attention for a few long seconds until I snapped myself back to the more urgent present.

I went to the stairs, maybe she was taking a nap. Hellishly long drive from Blackpool. My eye was caught by something out of place in the front living room. There was a bundle of clothes on the floor. Not like her.

No. It was her.

'Sally!'

Her face was purple, her neck bruised. I knew she was dead but checked her pulse anyway. Gone. My own pulse screamed at me. And you let the killer get clean away, you damned fool.

I opened her mouth, checked her airway was clear. I put my lips on hers, breathed into her. I went through the frantic motions of cardio pulmonary resuscitation. One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand. More stale air. Fruitless. Her windpipe must've been crushed. The brute.

'Sally, love. I'm sorry.'

I held her.

I didn't know how or why, I just accepted that her murder had been my fault. What to do? I made a rum and Coke, reflexively got some ice from the fridge dispenser, ignored the poor dog's body on the kitchen floor. I kneeled on the floor beside Sally with the phone in my hand. As I began to dial for an ambulance and the police, I heard a siren screaming on my street. A scream of tyres and the siren died. Looking through the window's net curtains, I understood at last. The police had come for me.

Bill Bunk: failure, adulterer, wife killer.

Everything fitted.

Chapter 25: LOST

I fled out the back door as the doorbell rang and rang and rang. Jumping the fence, I heard the front door frame splintering as the police crashed through. I crouched as I ran through the dense forest, every footstep slippery. I skirted around the side of my ballet dancer's apartment block and onto her street. I tried to walk calmly then, aware that the siren would have alerted the homebound watchers.

On the main road, a lucky bus approached and I shuffled aboard with the students, the pensioners, the unemployed. More howling police cars went by as I left - so excruciatingly slowly - the crime scene. Two grannies sat in front of me, gently cursed the society that had decayed before their very eyes. One blessed herself when the ambulance passed.

I held my phone, aware that my location would be tracked through it. I wedged it into the gap between my seat and the side of the bus, in with the old tickets and sweet wrappers. I hoped it would lead the police back and forth across Essex for the day. If somebody found and lifted it, all the better.

The bus terminus was at the tube station, so I followed the presented course, fumbled for change and aimed for the Central Line train into the city. Aware that I couldn't escape the gaze of the CCTV cameras on the platform, I tried to present a calm appearance, not at all like a murderer. Christ, I even whistled. After I got over my Tube germ mania - how many hands must have touched that red handrail today? \- the journey gave me some time to think. By Snaresbrook, I was calmer. At Stratford, my panic returned when two Muslim men carrying heavy rucksacks stood beside me and I knew I needed professional advice.

The train tumbled into a tunnel, banged and shook its way under the city.

Tourists, with their Underground t-shirts and shopping bags and souvenirs. I marvelled at the designers of the tube's logo and map, how they managed to make a journey through actual hell into an souvenir brand. Genius.

Disembarking at Holborn, I had city shock, that momentary fuzz of confusion that suburban Londoners experience when they re-emerge from the deep and up into the shocking heart of it all. The rain had faded but the streets were still slick and noisy and uncaring.

Look at them all, rushing around. I'm so important. Get out of my way! Running around in circles, most ending up back where they started, just older and angrier.

This is why I live and work in Essex. Worked.

I faded into the bumping crowds and found a quiet, stinking phone box. I lifted the receiver with the cuff of my jacket, tapped the number pad with a knuckle. Some luck at last: she would see me after lunch. So I bought the Guardian, found a pub with TV news, settled myself. I worried about my samples, my dead wife, spending the rest of my poisoned life in a filthy prison.

Chapter 26: FROM A DARK PLACE

Link sat in his office. He meditated in the Buddhist fashion, controlled his breathing, became at peace. He called his boss.

'Do you have the samples?'

'No sir,' Link said. 'He wasn't there. I feel he may know that we're onto him.'

'And the importance of the samples?'

'Possibly. Hard to tell. If he's as smart as we're told?'

Ryan sighed. 'What now?'

'I took a decision to involve the authorities. I believe they will smoke him out. My teams are watching all his key contacts. He'll flee to one of those. Then he's mine.'

'You know what you're doing?'

'I'm confident.'

'Okay. Listen. I've got his emails. I'm sending them to you right now. Have a look at one from a Russian contact. There may be a fresh scenario here. One that makes your job more urgent.'

'Which scenario, sir?'

'The missing piece. If the target is smart, he may be able to put everything together.'

'I see,' said Link after an extended pause.

'This is pretty bad for us, Link. I don't need to impress that on you any further, do I?'

'No sir. I have every confidence that Dr Bunk will feel deep remorse at murdering his wife, destroy the samples, then take his own life.'

'As you were.'

After the call, Link went out back to the warehouse. His team needed orders. The men, wearing civilian clothing, some openly armed, stood before their jeeps. The chatter stopped as Link approached.

'He's on the run now,' began Link. 'Today we will have him. Team A will watch his psychiatrist's office. It's my expectation he will go to her first. Team B to his friend's apartment in the Barbican. Questions?'

'Sir, do we kill him on sight?'

'Negative. We need to take possession of any samples he is carrying. And we also need him to commit suicide. That must be done in a controlled manner. For now, minimum force, understood?'

After a short prayer, the commandos were ready. Link combed through Bunk's emails.

He reviewed Ryan's file on Anna, smiled at the unexpected convergence.

Chapter 27: THIS JUST IN

The TV yammered on about Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq, then threw in the imminent collapse of the global economy thanks to stupid property speculators and stupider banks. Great. Why do humans seem to never learn from past mistakes? Is this an evolutionary flaw? A topic for a different thesis. But I didn't much care for it then. Funny how murder focuses the mind. I flinched when the London News intro chimed.

Breaking news. Murder in Essex. Husband sought by police. Not my picture. Please, no.

My picture. Taken from a little frame in the living room. Me smiling in Paris. A year ago. Sally was in the other half of the picture. They didn't show her.

'Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of Dr William Bunk is asked to contact the incident room at Loughton or any police station.'

And still my picture on screen, police contact numbers scrolling across my neck. An uncomfortable feeling? You have no idea. My skin itched, beads of sweat ran down my spine. I kept my focus on my paper, decided against feigning nonchalance. My picture disappeared - at last! - and cut back to the chirpy presenter with news of another damned whale in the Thames. Crowds were gathering along the Embankment, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the confused cetacean. Let them.

I glanced around at the other punters. Astonishingly, the whale - a mature pilot - pulled eyes to the screen where murder had not. I guess that's modern life. I was still in the clear and figured the whale would hog the media for the rest of the day. It was a gift.

I ate a salt beef sandwich and switched to coffee. At last, my appointment time drew near. I left the bar a changed man, now officially wanted for uxoricide.

Chapter 28: VOICEMAIL

'Hi. It's me. Look, I'm sorry about all this but I need you to know that I didn't kill Sally. The police think I did, but I'm being framed. I don't know why. She was leaving me, that much is true. Then I got sacked and when I arrived home, she was dead on the floor. And the dog. I did what I could for her but I was too late. I know this all looks suspicious, but I give you my word. I'm innocent. It's fucked up. Sorry. Jesus, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I'll be in touch when I can. Love you, mum. Bye.'

Chapter 29: OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE

The receptionist was typically icy, the psychiatrist predictably warm.

'Bill. Good to see you.'

She was my source of enlightenment via cognitive therapy and the preferred celebrity shrink of daytime TV producers.

'Thanks for taking me on such short notice, Mags. You're looking well.'

'Rogue.'

She really was looking well, cleavage peeking up from a red silk blouse with one button too many unfastened. Her pinned up hair and her Armani spectacles certainly did give her the look of a TV celebrity shrink. I'd thought about making a pass at her many times, fantasised about her regularly. We'd flirted, yes, but never crossed the line. Professional ethics times two.

She sat behind her vast desk, gestured to the couch, rested her hands on her lap. I lay on the black leather, closed my eyes, felt a dizziness.

'Bill?'

'Yes?'

'How many times have you washed your hands today?'

No hesitation, 'So far? Twelve. Twice at home, three times at the office - '

'That's okay. That's enough. And since you got here? All those door handles?'

'No.'

'Good. And you accept that the world is a dirty place, a deeply flawed place?'

'I've been studying bacteria quite a bit, Mags. They're amazing, actually. I'd forgotten.'

'Fantastic, Bill. That's really good.'

'And we each have as many bacteria living inside us as there are people on Earth.'

'Fascinating.'

'Get this, there are ten times as many bacterial cells in you as there are human cells. Ten times as many!'

'Charming, I'm sure,' she said, putting on a shudder. Or maybe it was genuine.

'So I've accepted that no human is divine or perfect or clean, as we've been taught to understand the word. If anything, we're just vessels for bacteria, vehicles to help them get about and - '

'And?'

'And to help them evolve.'

This struck me as a profound thought, but it probably sounded like madness to Mags. So I filed it away.

'Interesting,' she said as she wrote in her pad. 'And what about all the lethal bacterial infections - syphilis, tuberculosis, meningitis - how do they fit into this symbiotic relationship?'

'I'm not sure yet, either an imbalance in our own bacteria or an introduction from outside our system.'

'Any other profound insights?'

'I've come round to the fact that nobody's perfect. Yes, I'm pretty clear on that now.'

So I told her of my sense of abandonment, how the preceding days had made me want to die. While talking, I had a kind of an epiphany, became aware of my reality: an imperfect man in an imperfect world. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nothing to worry about, so!

She became quiet. I opened a sly eye. She was deep in thought, then 'Anything you want to tell me, Bill?'

'I suppose I feel a lot better lately. Since you diagnosed my obsessive compulsive disorder, my mild OCD, I haven't noticed many behavioural changes, but I feel my awareness of the condition - '

'Not that, Bill. Anything else?'

'Such as?'

'Such as Sally. How is she?'

I opened an eye again, saw her move the phone a little closer. I took a deep breath. It sounded like a sigh.

'You've seen the news?'

'Yes. And the police were in touch.'

'Have you called them?'

'Not yet.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know if you have it in you to kill someone, Bill. The Hippocratic oath is very powerful. Hard to shake off.'

'It didn't stop Dr Harold Shipman.'

'Whose side are you on, exactly?'

'Sorry.'

'Did you kill Sally?'

'I finished work today. Did I tell you that?'

'Go on.'

'That Fortescue. He's such a bastard.'

'Tell me about Sally.'

'She left me the other day. Went on a hen weekend. Called me to say she wasn't coming back. Just like that. Good bye. Bitch. So I get sacked, get home early today. My life, my career officially finished and there she is in the house.'

'What did she say?'

I rose from the couch.

'She was fucking dead when I got there. Strangled.'

'So you called an ambulance? The police?'

'No. I didn't get a chance. I did CPR on her. The cops arrived then and I scarpered. I'm being framed. Jesus!'

She picked up the phone, edged closer to the drawer that had the mail knife in it.

'Bill, I'm calling the police now. Would you please wait until they get here? It's for your own good. I'm sure you can clear this up. Trust me.'

I walked to her, grabbed the edge of her desk.

'Jesus Christ, Mags. You don't honestly think I killed her, do you?'

She remained cool, dialled the emergency number. I accept that my story may not have added up. As the call was answered, I left the office, passed wordlessly through reception, moved quickly to the stairwell.

I was fast running out of friends, just one person remained that I could trust. Maybe.

Chapter 30: A GATHERING

The mosque was crowded. It seemed that more people came to pray every week, every day. It was the times, and Islam resurgent. This made her feel strong, confident. She sat in the section for women, away from the gaze of the men. This was only right, for how could a man concentrate on the glory of God when the distraction of the weaker flesh was in view?

After prayers, she lingered until nearly all the worshippers had gone. Then she attended a special meeting in a tiny, windowless office. The room was swept for listening devices by the smiling imam, using a small handheld detector. Clear. The cell began its discussions.

'How close is he to releasing his information?' asked Imam Ali.

'Not close. He has been fired from the lab for insubordination. Now he will find it difficult to complete the required analysis. Maybe he will find it impossible without the required machines.'

'And the Christians?'

'I believe that they will stop him soon. They have more to lose.'

'And if they don't?'

'I will stay close.'

'Your sacrifices have not gone unnoticed, child. Allah is watching all that we do. In His name, we will prevent the Godless atheists from threatening his ascendancy and the creation of His Caliphate. From Britain to China, we will have our belief, our law, our promised land. God is great.'

'Allahu akbar,' they echoed.

The meeting briefly discussed planning for ongoing operations, but she knew her priority was to stay on Bunk. Then she donned her burka and melted back into the hated world outside.

Chapter 31: THE ESCAPE

Running down the emergency stairs, I was hysterical, crazy ideas flashing through my mind.

'The bitch!'

My shrink, who knows my psyche, my motivations, my flaws. I've paid her thousands. I thought we would be lovers, some day. She knows me more than anybody else, and she thinks I killed my wife. I'd have no chance with the police, the criminal justice system.

So, did you kill her?

No.

You sure you didn't just imagine the guy leaving your house? Could Sally have arrived home late last night? While you were drunk? Maybe you had a row, you lost it, you throttled her? And your brain fabricated the rest.

No. Emphatically no.

I refuse to consider this any further. I must escape.

I paused for breath at the bottom of the stairs. I pushed the door open a crack, scanned the lobby. Nothing unusual. Nobody who looked like a plainclothes cop. I accepted that modern police psychology requires for plainclothes cops to not look like plainclothes cops, but dismissed that negative thought cycle.

Into the lobby and past main reception. I nodded to the porter, smiled. Fleeing killer? Me? Got to be kidding.

The street was just yards away, a welcoming maelstrom of suits, traffic, neon. Through the revolving door, blinking into the low sun, I turned left, headed deeper into the city, deeper into the dizzying anonymous crowds. A scan of the street ahead threw up nothing of note. There were no flashing blue lights, no blue uniforms, no lurking armed response units.

I hurried on, hands deep in my coat pockets. A newspaper stand caught my eye, its markered Evening Standard poster proclaiming ESSEX WIFE KILLER HUNTED. I glanced at the paper's front page. The whale, thankfully. I got a paper and stood just inside the corner of an alley to assess the bad news.

Page two. William Bunk. Disgraced doctor. Struck off. That's not true. Fired from cushy Government job. Marriage broken. Wife found strangled in leafy Essex estate. Hunted now. Jesus, that word made me feel like some kind of wild animal. The whole story did. A new photo of me, this one from my work ID. Much sharper. Christ, when I read it in black and white, my life is just shit.

Evening rush was just a couple of hours away. Every second person would be carrying the paper then, their shield against eye contact with fellow travellers in tube, bus or train. So every second person would see my picture. I had to get off the streets. Tomorrow would be better. The whale would be the constant, like the wars. I would be yesterday's news. Off the streets.

A wino, bottle in hand, sitting against the bags of rubbish that wouldn't fit in the wheelie bins, took an interest in me. Funny, he didn't look like a wino. Clean face. He got to his feet like a gymnast. A pistol in my ribs. Sore, might've been a knife. It pushed me against the wall.

'Hey! Take it easy, mate. I'll get my wallet.'

'Not interested in that. Mate.'

The guy was close, so close I could smell his lunch, appreciate his strength. Well-bred accent. English.

Under his dirty coat, instead of a scruffy shellsuit, tattoos and earrings, I saw a neat black suit. Then a clean shaven, bland face, a man who could've been a tax inspector.

He said See that jeep across the street?'

I could hear its engine growling.

'Yeah.'

'You and I are going to walk over to it. Run and I'll shoot you.'

I touched the samples. This guy was no cop. Was this to do with the samples? Before I could ask, there was an intervention.

'Armed police! Drop your weapon! Now!'

Frying pan. Fire.

A uniformed policewoman stood just twenty paces away. She pointed her Glock self-loading pistol at my assailant. Her squad car was parked back outside my psychiatrist's office - Mags, how could you? - and one of her comrades was running towards us.

The pistol left my ribs as the gunman turned to the cop. Probably an automatic reaction on his part. But he didn't lower his gun. Big mistake. She fired. Twice.

He fell, his heart and lungs fatally ruptured. The jeep lurched across the street towards us, drawing the police's attention. I turned into the alley and ran for my life, my teeth grinding as I waited for the horrible sensation of a bullet entering my back.
Chapter 32: SANCTUARY

Head down, I barged through the crowded footpaths of High Holborn. I bumped people, yes, but my rudeness didn't make me stand out in any way. I was just another nutcase/selfish prick/drunk. My bladder cried and I chanced upon an automatic toilet. Twenty pence for relief and time to think. Sirens passed and I stood in my stinking, plastic sanctuary. I decided that I needed to pass an hour thinking, drinking.

I took the long way, cut through Lincoln's Inn and enjoyed the irony of the wanted murderer strolling through the ancient heart of the legal system. That system, no more an abstract necessity, now solidified, threatening.

I stuck my head into a quaintly ancient pub. A black cat sat on the counter, eyed me suspiciously. The smell was good but there were too many barristers and Standards for comfort. On, on over cobbled lanes and into maybe the most well-concealed pub in London town.

The Mitre, established by some ancient Catholic bishop, lurked down a Dickensian alleyway where little had changed since the sixteenth century. Just a few suits, no music, no TV. Perfect.

I sipped a pint of India Pale Ale by the dying fire and appreciated my precarious liberty, the tiny things such as that simple act. I questioned how I would maintain my freedom, even mused about how difficult the adjustment to prison life could be. A brief smile as my adrenaline dissipated, a distant aching in my limbs and spine.

I checked my pockets and was gripped by a depressing duo of horror and panic. My liberty was in doubt, true. Now more so.

Anna's sample was missing. I had to go back to my house.

Chapter 33: SCENE OF CRIME

Outside, the designated homicide car idled, the DCI in charge sat in the front passenger seat. He talked on his phone, followed up on the CCTV camera at the end of the street. The other officers had begun their door-to-door enquiries, the footpath outside Bunk's house cordoned off, secure.

In the golden hour, it was critical that evidence be efficiently gathered. The crime scene manager - a civilian - arrived, suited up, entered Bunk's house, noted that the front door and windows were undamaged. She went through, took notes, saw the back door swinging in the breeze. She paused at the dog. He was just like her own.

The body looked like any other. No blood, blood wasn't necessary. She knelt, looked into the eyes which were still frozen in terror.

'Hello Sally.'

The bruising - though slight - on her neck, the puffy face, the blue tinge to her lips. The typical signs of asphyxia. Yes, strangulation. She stood, made more notes, studied the room, explored the rest of the house and returned to the body.

A tiny patterned impression on Sally's skin, a flash of silver under her collar. A chain with a locket. She removed it, checked for a picture inside - the dog - and bagged it. The best exhibit so far. Maybe the killer's prints would be found there.

She took wet swabs from Sally's neck and dry swabs also. DNA, fibres, chemical residues from the killer's cruel hands, all would show up. She wrapped plastic bags around Sally's hands, taped them tightly.

The Detective Chief Inspector loomed over her.

'What do you think, Jane?'

'Hi Mark. No forced entry or struggle. Seems she knew her killer.' She lifted a cold, French-manicured hand. 'Nothing visible under her fingernails, but we'll have a closer look back at base. Good chance of a print from her locket. Could be the clincher.'

'Excellent. When will you know?'

'Today. Do we have the chief suspect's prints?'

'William Bunk. Any time now.' He glanced at his watch. 'He works, worked, in a secure establishment. I've a man there now.'

'Where?'

'Essex Forensics Lab, would you believe?'

'Shit.' Everything changed in Jane. 'He'll be forensically aware then.'

'Yes, but we'll get him. In crimes of passion, they always make mistakes.'

Jane hoped this optimism was warranted.

'William Bunk,' mused Jane.

'Do you know him?'

'Name rings a bell. He may have signed off on something or other. Can't recall meeting him. Why did you say "worked"?'

'He got the sack just this morning. His wife left him the other day. He comes home, his life falling apart, finds Sally here. She's packing her things, he blames her for everything. Red mist, loses the plot, all over.'

'It fits.'

'Seen it a dozen times. You going to take some prints off the back door? I think he scarpered out that way when we showed up.'

'I'll do that now. You can get Sally out of here. We'll do a full post-mortem. Tell them I'll be along shortly.'

'Of course.'

'Mark?'

'Yep?'

'One thing. The neck bruising is very slight. I'm concerned that it may have been a carotid sleeper.'

'Arm around the victim's neck from behind. Gently squeeze the carotid artery, starve the brain. Professional.'

'Yes.'

'Well, Bunk is a doctor,' said the DCI, his mind now made up.

He made a note, called the coroner as Jane examined the kitchen and back door. The evidence of heavy drinking and a life falling apart was pretty clear. She dusted the door handle, found some excellent impressions and lifted the prints. Then she photographed the door and kitchen and dog and Sally.

'Looks like he had a drink before he left,' she thought aloud. She smelled the glass. 'Rum, still some ice.' She photographed it, emptied the booze into the sink, bagged the tumbler. 'Two more tumblers by the sink, no ice. Lipstick traces on one. Interesting.'

She took some photos, bagged the glasses separately, labelled each.

Before leaving for the lab, she laid out a plastic sheet, emptied the kitchen bin onto it. Food containers, bottles, newspapers.

'What's this? An envelope from Russia?'

She bagged it, asked the DCI to look into Bunk's Russian connections.

'Why do you ask?'

'Just a hunch. It's addressed to his job, yet he took it home. This stands out as something not normal.'

He surveyed the scene. 'What is normal anymore?'

Chapter 34: LOSS

On my second pint, I thought it through. When the police arrived, I grabbed both samples. Definitely. I stuffed them into my jacket pocket. Absolutely. I would have heard the impact if one fell to the floor. So it must have fallen out when I was jumping the back fence. There was a chance the police would find it, but also a chance that they wouldn't. I had to get back and check. Tonight.

First I needed time. Time for everything and nothing. I had to take a chance that my one remaining - maybe only true - friend would let me hide out with him.

I found the payphone in a box in the yard and called him.

'Bill. How are you?'

He sounded tired.

'Seen the news, Frank?'

'Yes.'

His voice choked. Which emotion?

'It wasn't me.'

'Christ's sake, Bill. I know that,' he said. He sounded more forceful now. Good.

'Thank God. That means a lot.'

'Where are you?'

'I was going to call around, if - '

'I'll put the kettle on.'

'Thanks, Frank. Really.'

This was a great relief. He was home and he offered me refuge. Unless it was a trap. I feared the circus at my psychiatrist's would have shifted to Frank's. I had no choice. I had to trust him. I would, therefore, be most at risk between the pub and Frank's apartment. My hands trembled and my throat was dry.

So I ordered a double rum.

Chapter 35: HOT AND COLD

I first met Anna on a scientific expedition to Siberia. The discovery of a perfectly-preserved woolly mammoth carcass in the permafrost had caused coffee to be spilt on important documents across the scientific world. Here was DNA from the last glacial age, an extinct species, a postcard from thirty-seven thousand years ago.

Lyuba - just a baby - perished in a blizzard.

I travelled in a team of four, all DNA experts, each with their own specialisation.

During a quiet moment in a ghastly Heathrow business traveller lounge, my new boss had a word.

'This is your chance for a new career, William.'

I swallowed a mouthful of free dry roasted peanuts. 'I understand that. And I am grateful.'

'Just don't fuck it up. Clear?'

'Loud and.'

A comfortable Airbus flight to Moscow was followed by a much longer, infinitely less comfortable Antonov flight east, towards the Yamalo-Nenetsk region. It was a place that only those who had been there could ever truly be aware of.

I stared down at the unending wastes, amazed by the cleanliness of the environment, the absence of humans.

'Russia's the biggest country on the planet,' said the team leader, Fortescue.

'That's the fourth time you've said that.'

'I know. It's true though, isn't it?'

'It's so bloody vast, isn't it Frank? So much treasure hidden under the ice.'

Frank looked up from his book - short stories by Ivan Turgenev. He was proud of his vocabulary, was often called the walking thesaurus.

'Illimitable, immeasurable, boundless, voluminous,' said Frank. 'Or how about this one? Mammoth.'

'Apt,' I said, continuing to stare at the emptiness.

'Lot of horror hidden there, too.'

We left the plane, aching. Stretching on the tarmac, the drop in temperature registered immediately.

'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'Is it just me or is it bloody freezing? I think my balls have just retreated into my stomach.'

'Get used to it,' they laughed.

We had a terrible meal, meatballs of unknown origin - 'Not yours by any chance, William?' - with Pepsi Cola. After some strong, dank coffees, we were driven to the dig. Six bumpy hours later, I was ready to give up and turn for home. But the scientist who greeted us gave me a fresh perspective on the situation. Anna was incongruously beautiful. I couldn't assess her figure because of her cold wear, but analysis of the mammoth dropped to second place on my to-do list. A delicious red scar ran from the corner of her mouth and along her jawline to just below her earlobe. Bizarrely - to my eye - this added to her attractiveness.

'Welcome, gentlemen. I am your liaison, Anna Kozlov, senior scientist here. Would you like to see your rooms now?'

'Not yet, thanks,' said Fortescue, introducing us to Anna. 'Can we have a look at the mammoth first?'

'Lyuba? Certainly. She's not far. Please leave your cases in the jeeps and follow me.'

The dig was on an escarpment, on the periphery of a gas pumping station being carved out of the frozen soil. I made smalltalk with Anna on the walk, reintroduced myself. I held Anna's hand for longer than was necessary. She smiled at this. Off to the north, drilling towers lurked in the dim polar light. Engineers and oil workers drifted by, eyed the strangers.

'Does everybody smoke here?' I asked.

'Of course. It helps to pass the time. Plus, the illusion of warmth. Here we are. Meet Lyuba.'

A large clear plastic tent covered the mammoth. We entered the animal's tomb. A dark brown shape, partially exposed to the air, lay crumpled against a ridge of icy pebbles.

'Good Lord, the fur - '

'It's like it's asleep.'

A section of exposed fur had been peeled away for samples. Some hardy flies had begun to make the most of the feeding opportunity, enjoyed the ancient meat. Six technicians dug carefully around the body.

'She is the most perfectly-preserved specimen yet recovered,' said Anna.

'Remarkable,' said Fortescue.

'Pity she's female,' said Frank.

'Yes,' said Anna. 'If a male, we could have harvested sperm cells and cross-bred with an Asian elephant, the descendant.'

'We could have had mammoths walking the earth again,' said Frank. 'Pity.'

'A problem, yes, but we're working on other possibilities. Her DNA is so well-preserved, we should be able to make a pure extraction.'

'And I hope we can help you with that,' said Fortescue.

'See here,' indicated Anna. 'The trunk is appearing.'

'When do you think you'll have her out.'

'A day or two. Then we conduct final tests here before she's taken to Moscow.'

'What then?'

'Who knows? Cloning experiments? I don't care. Our analysis is almost done. That's all I care about. Your priority?'

'Your Ministry has given us permission to remove sufficient samples for our DNA analysers back home. We'll be sharing our results.'

'No need. Come.'

Anna brought us to a complex of prefabricated buildings, a Lego lab. She beamed as she opened the main entrance and brought us into a much more pleasant twenty degrees C.

'Voila. DNA analyser. Moscow sent it as soon as we discovered the animal. We are completing comparison tests now.'

'We are suitably impressed,' said Fortescue as he took in the vast machine, on which two technicians worked without acknowledging our visit.

'I believe that was the intention,' she said.

Anna sat at a terminal nearby, squinted at the screen, nodded her head.

'How goes it?' I asked.

'We should be ready to commence analysis later today and have the complete code within days.'

She stood, removed her winter coat. And my interest in mammoth DNA disappeared.

Chapter 36: THE LORD'S WORK

Doctor Ryan and the rest of the Foundation's Board of Trustees sat around the mahogany table in their secure meeting room. Night had fallen and the formal business was concluding.

The treasurer was nervous. Ryan leaned forward, spoke slowly.

'So you're telling us that our investments in the Chinese arms industry have flattened?'

'Sir, the leadership shifts the goalposts as and when it suits them. They've diluted our stocks and there's nothing we can do about that.'

'Is this part of the geopolitical currency game?' asked the publicity director, a widely known and much respected evangelical pastor. 'Or are they playing to the domestic audience?'

'Probably both.'

'What's the latest analysis of the timeframe for war between the US and China?' asked Ryan.

'It's more than a decade away, possibly two,' answered the operations director. 'We've got to focus on the Muslims for now. Our State Department contacts agree with that assessment. Unless - '

'Unless?'

'Events, of course. Taiwan, North Korea, Japan.'

There was a murmur of concern around the table. The Chinese investments were worth tens of billions of dollars.

Ryan stood.

'Gentlemen, I propose that we shift all our arms investments into US and Anglo corporations and look again at Russia. We have had constructive contact with Government and industry there. Once the changeover has been completed, we will release our dossier which proves that 9/11 was organised by the Saudi and Pakistani regimes. This will ensure a revenue spike. But a focus on biotech and health offers greater long-term revenue stability, with reduced public relations downside potential. Society is sick, getting sicker. Healthcare has infinite growth potential.'

'Until they find a cure for cancer.'

Everybody laughed.

'Of course we will not allow that to happen. All biotech corporates are focused on the concept that treating a disease is infinitely more profitable than curing it. So, are we all agreed?' said Ryan. 'Raise your hands. Unanimous then. Any other business?'

There were no takers. It had been a long session and all knew that there was one off-the-agenda item still to come.

'Good. Now a short break and then we will discuss the final topic.'

They rose, went to the coffee and liquor station, the bathrooms or the smoking area down the hall.

Dr Ryan went to his office for an update from London. He scrolled through images onscreen as he spoke, not stupid enough to download anything. His attention was on other matters, floating, as he listened to Link. He returned to the meeting room, not happy. He poured a black coffee.

The Chief Justice went to his side.

'You seem distracted.'

'The situation isn't yet resolved, I'm afraid. I had hoped it would be before our talk.'

'Shall we consider the Jericho solution?'

'Yes. Yes, we shall have to.' He looked into the judge's eyes, read approval.

'Let's put it to the board, shall we?'

Ryan saw that everyone was in the room, tapped a water glass with a spoon, touched the Book, called the meeting to order. He briefed them on the situation in England, invited the Reverend to speak.

'Gentlemen,' said the preacher from Kentucky. 'We represent the very pinnacle of Christian achievement. And we are engaged in a generational struggle for the very soul of the world.' He paused. 'Our actions in the coming days and weeks may have implications for the survival of our species. Victory will ensure the continued dominance of Christianity and the ascendancy of Evangelical Protestantism. The Word of our Lord.' There was a chorus of Amens. 'We must halt the ascendancy of atheism. And we hereby authorise Dr Ryan to employ every possible means at our disposal.'

Every one of them knew that God did not actually exist. Not as an all-knowing, all-powerful force. The empirical evidence to the contrary was too strong. They were intelligent enough to know the fundamental truths of humans and religion: tribe is everything. The Foundation was a transhuman organisation, a collective, a hive. As were the world's religions, as were the great corporations. The Foundation would live beyond the individual members, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. The Roman Empire and the Catholic Church were the original transhuman organisations, the first global corporations. In many ways, that troubled first century AD marriage still ruled the world.

Being part of a transhuman collective meant subjugating one's will and identity to a greater ideal - this came easily to most humans - but the rewards in power, influence and money were immense. And, on the off-chance that God did exist, no harm done.

'Praise the Lord,' they said.

Chapter 37: FRESH MEAT

Link sat at a counter café in the ornate cast iron shell of Smithfield Market. The business of the day was winding down around him, carcasses were loaded onto trucks or placed into cold storage. He imagined Bunk hanging from a meat hook, dangling among the pigs.

He ate a salt beef sandwich, drank strong sweet tea. Every ten seconds, he looked down the length of the cavernous arches, past the refrigerated trucks and white-coated, blood-stained labourers.

The Barbican apartment blocks waited nearby. Link knew that Bunk was headed there and that he would be unable to resist passing through this market.

Link's team of three armed men sat in their jeep behind the market. Link's phone sat before him on the counter, a text message waiting for the send command.

Bunk would come. Link was sure of that. He finished his sandwich and quietly recited a Bible passage over and over.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

(Ecclesiastes 7: 8)

Somehow the smell of meat, the sight of blood as the hoses swooshed it down the drains, the cold flesh at every turn, somehow it excited him.

Chapter 38: THE ROOM OF THE DEAD

The autopsy was under way. Sally lay naked on a stainless steel table and her orifices were probed. With respect, yes, but only the casual respect shown to the dead.

If Bunk could see her, he would cry. Then he would become angry. Then they would all have seen, believed, that he did not kill his wife.

Jane stood by while the examiner - young, confident - did his work. He took bloods, scraped under Sally's fingernails and examined every inch of her skin for surface wounds. Nothing.

'Vaginal scratches likely self-inflicted,' he said to the recording microphone. 'Evidence of thrush infection. Fingernail scrapings to confirm this. No evidence of sexual activity.'

'We'll test anyway.'

'Certainly.'

Then he cut her throat open.

The scalpel sliced easily through the dead flesh, just a few lazy drops of congealing blood oozed.

Jane had witnessed many such scenes, but every occasion still filled her with loathing. Every time, the renewed awareness that one human being could cause another to undergo the final humiliation of being cut open. Sliced. Dissected. Bagged. Commoditised. It came as a relief to her when the cause of death was assessed: Natural. Not today.

As Sally's neck was peeled open, clots began to appear. Small clots, but telling ones.

'Strangulation, definitely,' said the examiner. 'I'll check the lungs, just to be sure and the bloods will, I imagine, rule out poisoning. You may proceed with DNA analysis, Jane. A third party was definitely involved.'

'A professional?'

'Impossible to tell from here. The low incidence of bruising could have been simply lucky. I believe that's your job to discover.'

'Thank you. I'll take my sample set and inform DCI Blake.'

'After the lungs, do you want me to continue, remove every organ?'

'No. We'll save her from that indignity. I'm happy with your findings.'

'As you wish.'

Glad to be away from the autopsy, the sensory overload, Jane felt bile rising in her throat, found a bathroom. After vomiting a small squirt of yellow acid, she drove to her lab and started the process of analysis. She hoped it was just a matter of time before the killer identified himself.

Where are you, Mr Bunk?

Mrs Bunk, her neck and chest hastily stitched, was in a fridge, her cold paradise.

Chapter 39: BY A HAIR'S BREADTH

I passed through the clean new square behind St Paul's Cathedral, got closer to sanctuary. I paused at the back of St Bart's Hospital, joined a tour group - Chinese - at the spot where Braveheart was hung, drawn and quartered.

The tour guide chattered, the tourists took photos of the plaque. I shuddered at the idea of it, the wanton dissection of a human being. Whatever his alleged crime, did he deserve the humiliation?

I had a good view of the Barbican buildings, figured that Smithfield Market would be my best route over. No sign of anything suspicious, no police about. Fat jeeps, yes, but they were bloody everywhere.

I went through the market, the day's trade in meat coming to a close. Just a few punters at the café counters, mostly meat workers filling up before the pub. There was an odd sense of calm to the place, the ground glistened, the air was clear.

I left the market, glanced behind, saw just one guy in black talking on his phone. He wasn't looking at me. I made it across Aldersgate, called Frank from a payphone. I'd figured that the hallway porter would be reading the Standard, didn't want to risk direct contact. Frank came down, shook my hand, led me to the lifts.

Chapter 40: A NEW PHASE

Link was surprised. He listened to Dr Ryan, watched as Bunk disappeared from view into the apartment building.

'Can you please repeat my orders, sir?'

'Do not hurt him. The Foundation has need for him.'

'Need?'

'You will be advised promptly. It may happen tomorrow. Now I have work to do. Do you have all your pieces in play?'

'Yes.'

Link placed his blackened dagger back in its belt sheath.

'Are you ready for the Jericho solution?'

Link had the feeling this was coming. His spine tingled.

'Yes sir. Ready.'

'Stand by. I'll be back in touch. Maintain your observation.'

Link walked back to his team, advised them of the change in plan.

'I was this close,' he said, like he was describing the fish that got away. 'That guy missed a knife in the guts by about one second.'

'Lucky,' said the driver.

'I don't think so. What happens next? He'd prefer a knife.'

'Orders?'

'We watch. We wait. The Doctor is putting a plan into operation as we speak. Jericho. Bunk has an important role to play.'

'Poor guy.'

'Allay your sympathies. This man is the most dangerous atheist in the world today. I'm not sure he appreciates the position he's in or the level of threat he represents to the world order.'

The evening stretched ahead. The city put on its leisure face, thousands of Londoners making their hurried way to the bars and restaurants and coffee shops. The balmy air lulled them, the sense of impending doom palpable to less than a dozen people.

Those men and women said their prayers, asked their Gods for fortitude.

Chapter 41: REASSURANCE AT LAST

Frank's place was just the kind of apartment that I'd often fantasised about. Art \- good art - covered the white walls. His home office nestled in an alcove beside a picture window, all flatscreens, blinking LEDs and paperwork. The smell of fresh coffee filled the space. And the view. From the twenty-seventh floor, looking south to the busy Thames, St Paul's so near you could almost touch it, the London Eye glistening in its slow rotation.

We stood, facing each other, Frank's eyes fixed on mine.

'You didn't do it, Bill. Did you?'

'Of course not, Frank. How could I kill Sally?'

'The police said that she'd left you.'

'When did you hear from them?'

'A couple of hours ago. I hadn't heard from you, so I didn't have to lie or anything. I said that I didn't believe you could do that.'

'Thanks.'

'I'm supposed to call a DCI Blake now.'

I stood, immobile, not knowing what Frank would do. Jesus, anything was possible today.

'And - '

'And would you like some coffee? You smell like a brewery.'

Relief flooded through, I sighed gratefully, my spine relaxing at last. The mention of Sally made me think of her again.

Frank put a hand on my shoulder.

'Sit, Bill. I'll get the coffee and you can tell me your story.'

I sat, gazed at St Paul's and the quieter metropolis. Removed from the city below, I appreciated its living, concrete, electric beauty.

I dried my tears, swimming endorphins making me feel a little better.

'So, Bill. Let's hear it.'

'I got fired the other day.'

'Fortescue fired you?' Surprised.

'Unceremoniously. Cost-cutting.'

'Shit.'

'Tons of it. Sally told me she was leaving that same day. She'd been away on a girls' weekend.'

'Unexpected?'

'Not really. No. Not at all. We'd been through for a long time, if I'm to be honest with myself. But I was taken aback by her hatred of me. That hurt. But, you know, there was an element of relief all the same.'

'I can imagine.'

I drank my coffee, enjoyed its smell and taste and burn in my throat.

'So I got home early today - I just had to get away from the job - and Sally was dead on the living room floor.'

'Marks?'

'Nothing. I figure she'd been strangled. I tried CPR. No joy. Our dog was killed as well.'

'Bastards.'

'As I was coming up our street, I saw a man leaving our house.'

'The killer?'

'Presume so.'

'Why didn't you just report him to the cops?'

'I couldn't ID him, Frank. All I could say was "man dressed in black, black jeep". Not much fucking good, is it?'

'Is the killer targeting you? Could he know of our friendship?'

'Doubt it. I didn't spot any unusual activity below. I am being careful.'

Frank rose and went to the window. Pointless, being so high up, but he swept the street anyway to reassure himself.

'Nothing,' he said. 'I'm sure you are being careful, Bill, but you could be up against a professional. Which leads me to the big why. Why, Bill? Why is this happening to you?'

I fished the DNA sample from my pocket. The space dust. I handed the canister to Frank.

'Space dust?'

'The genuine article. You're familiar with the mission?'

'Yes, but I don't get it.'

'We'd been prepped to do a secondary analysis. Funnily enough, the delivery van bringing it was robbed. It must have come to me because of some slip-up. So this sample hasn't been analysed yet. But NASA found something very interesting in their original analysis.'

'Such as?'

'DNA.'

'Oh. My. God. In space?'

'Unbelievable, but yes.'

'DNA in space.' He stood and paced. 'Bill, the implications could be enormous. Has it been cross-referenced with any astronauts that died up there?'

'I believe so. Barring some crazy rocket scientist having flown himself into space and getting killed and nobody ever finding out about it, I'm working on the assumption that this is of extraterrestrial origin.'

'I wonder what the creationists will make of it.'

This was a good question.

'I wonder. Well, by bizarre coincidence, I came into another sample today, one which may be even more fascinating. From Anna.'

Frank smiled. 'Anna?'

'She was working away on her gas field when they dug up a Homo erectus. Perfectly preserved, I do believe.'

'What?' He stopped pacing. 'Homo erectus DNA?'

'A world first, I think you'll find.'

'And the link? There must be a link, Bill.'

'It is my thesis that human evolution was driven by DNA from space. Root source unknown, but not of this Earth. If I can illustrate how Homo erectus DNA differs from our own, then fill in the blanks with the space stuff, well, then I think I can conclusively disprove the biggest lie in human history.'

'Yes?'

'That God exists. That some omnipotent consciousness created humankind.'

Frank continued to walk the room, analysed the information I'd presented to him. He was a real scientist. Better than me.

'One flaw, Bill. Two. Firstly, do you really think that people will buy the space connection? I mean, doesn't it sound like a bad sci-fi movie or something?'

'It's science, Frank,' I blurted. 'NASA. That has to stand for something. Anyway, to accept the existence of God is far more ludicrous, don't you think? We've got to get away from the Dark Ages, get over the God delusion and grow up as a race. Take responsibility for our own fucking actions.'

As if.

'Okay, second flaw. If you can conclusively prove the science, and maybe you can, won't the creationists absorb it into their own mad theories?'

'That would mean accepting that Homo sapiens evolved from a more primitive species. I don't think they could make that leap.'

'Perhaps you're right. Look Bill, you're preaching to the converted, but won't the great unwashed masses just laugh at you?'

'Maybe. But I have to do this. The timing is perfect. We might just be able to stop a new age of religious hysteria, global conflict, all the shit that's coming down the line.'

'Things are bad all right. Getting worse.' He thought deeply, balanced his career with his scientific principles. 'I'm not sure if this is enough to reverse the tide. May be King Canute-ish. But we must do it. We must try.'

'Thanks, Frank. It means a lot to hear that I'm not mental.'

He held out his hand.

'Partners?'

We shook. Things had turned.

'Partners.'

'So where's this Homo erectus sample?'

'Little problem there. Your friendly DCI and his mates arrived just after I discovered Sally. I dropped the sample getting over the back garden fence.'

'Shit. Are you sure?'

I patted my pockets.

'Pretty certain. If it's not there, I have no idea.'

'Then we're going to have to take a drive, aren't we?'

Chapter 42: PURGE

Anna sat alone in a vast, high-ceilinged drawing room. Her guts fluttered, her nervousness palpable.

'This place makes me feel like a child,' she said.

Her posture was rigid, for fear she would damage the Louis XV chair. All was ornate, Baroque or Rococo, she wasn't sure. Mostly-stern faces, their expressions captured by the magic of oil, peered down from gilded frames. Her attention was fixed by a Botticelli painting, Mary mourning the death of her only son. Anna felt the anguish, at once understood the power of art in a religious context. This was an experience previously denied her by her scientific principles. She would leave the Vatican an improved person.

Her stupor was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the corridor beyond.

The cardinal threw open the doors, smiled at her.

'I'm sorry for the delay, child.'

'Not at all, Cardinal Biscia. The art - ' She indicated the Botticelli.

'I understand perfectly. Let me show you our Raphael on the way out. I insist on admiring it every day.'

He laughed and sat on the chair beside hers. His eyes were icy blue, thinning hair white, complexion patchy and red. Anna could picture the man as he looked in his prime. Though time had caught him, he remained a powerful figure, one of the Pope's closest advisors. Within the Vatican walls, he was called The Snake.

'So what should I do with the sample, Your Eminence?'

He rose, his knees creaking.

'Enjoy your youth, my flower. Will you at least promise me this?'

'Yes,' she smiled, rising also.

'Come, we have a walk.'

They left the waiting room and stepped down a long corridor. Priceless art on the right, tall windows on the left, diffuse northern light spilling in.

'It is our belief,' continued the cardinal, that this information in your possession must be destroyed.'

The scientist tried to speak, 'But - '

He silenced her with a wave of a jewelled hand.

'The debate about evolution has been, if you'll pardon the expression, evolving,' a pause, 'since Mr Darwin proposed his theory,' he stressed that word, 'in 1859. Now, Mr Darwin's theory was widely accepted initially, but it has never been proven. Science is all about proof, is it not? As our Pontiff himself has said, "Show me, in a laboratory, how your evolution happens". But in recent times, with the development of creationist theories and the strengthening of the Church in the face of her enemies, Darwin's theories are losing ground. Consider our brothers in America, for example. Excellent progress is being made in their education system. There is real hope.'

'That's true.'

'So, as we move into a new Age of Enlightenment under God,' he blessed himself, 'this sample of yours simply muddies the water. Science is seductive, seeking to explain the great mysteries. But it has little respect for human dignity. Protecting human dignity has been Mother Church's historical role. Indeed, it was the guiding principle of Jesus Christ himself, so we will stop at nothing to maintain it. Do you understand this?'

'I think so.'

'Excellent.'

He guided her off the main corridor and down a darker, less ostentatious route. They hadn't passed another soul since leaving the waiting room. Fear flashed through Anna, but only for a second.

'But the complete specimens are in Moscow,' she said.

He smiled, put his arm around her shoulder. He felt cold.

'I'm working on that. Do not worry. We have many friends in your homeland.'

He stopped before a digital panel, entered a code, opened a heavy door. He led her into an industrial area. The light fittings were functional, the floor clanging steel, the air smelled of oil and smoke. Down a stairway and into an ancient part of the complex. There was a stronger smell of burning oil now and a distant, rumbling roar. They entered an open area which contained huge machines, pallets of various materials, some in barrels, some in sacks. Nearby, some workers in overalls and hardhats.

'Ah, here we are. Marco!'

A man turned, saw the cardinal, hurried up to them.

'We don't see you down here so much, Your Eminence,' he said.

'My knees, Marco. They can't take your stairs.'

'I could install an elevator, Your Eminence.'

'Perhaps. Now, can you open Dante for us please?'

Marco nodded briskly and gestured them towards the huge mechanism at the far end of the space. He called another man and they took up positions at either side of a small double door set into the massive steel structure. The cardinal nodded. Marco and his colleague both pulled down on their levers and the doors slid back. A wave of heat shot from the furnace, the flames inside almost white hot in their intensity.

The cardinal looked at Anna, opened his hand and offered her the sample container. She hesitated for only a second, took the sample, threw it into the fire where it joined so many secrets.

The cardinal blessed himself slowly, joined his hands in silent prayer. Anna looked at him, wondering.

'A prayer for the remains of one of God's creatures. An early human,' he grinned at her and winked slyly.

She had glimpsed the truth. Understanding, that deep awareness of reality struck her at her core. She saw the game.

'I see.'

'Now,' said the cardinal, 'let me show you the Transfiguration. It is truly marvellous.'

She followed him out of the depths and into the Pinacoteca Vaticana, a space filled with magnificence, transcendence. Before Raphael, Anna was overcome by emotion and she told the cardinal about the sample she'd mailed to Bunk. She told him everything.

Again, The Snake smiled.

Chapter 43: HOME

Night had fallen quietly. I was glad the day was done. Frank looked at his watch.

'It's just after ten. Should we go?'

He displayed the bravery of innocence.

'Frank,' I said, 'it really could be that everything's connected.'

'I accept that.'

'And that they're out to kill me.'

'They've fitted you up pretty well, haven't they?'

'Jesus, even if I do manage to prove my theory with the DNA, they could still do me for killing Sally.'

'And your theory would be discredited.'

'The ravings of a homicidal maniac.'

'But you must do it. Anyway, if I'm in this with you, they'd have to discredit me as well.'

'Maybe. Or you could be risking your life.'

He laughed. 'I'm in this with you, Bill. To the end.'

'Then let's go.'

'Let's. I'm gagging for a drink.'

We took the lift to the underground car park and Frank's Jaguar was soon in motion.

We passed through the automated gates and drove north. There was no sign of anyone tailing us and we quickly melted into the thinning night traffic.

We chatted nervously on the way. I was worried about being caught, fearful of the killer-revisiting-scene-of-crime behaviour that the prosecution would exploit. Frank was calmly excited.

Up Old Street, along Hackney Road. Then the A12 through the site of the 2012 Olympics, all cranes, hoardings and suicide bomber aspirations. Through Leytonstone to Woodford, past Winston Churchill towards Epping. And we were there, good to drive at this hour.

The area around my house was deathly still. Frank parked in a street a block away. I left him there, the engine idling, and retraced my escape route. I was afraid the police would be called over a possible burglar more than a returned wifekiller. I caught a glimpse of the ballet dancer - clothed - and found myself outside my back garden fence.

I had no flashlight, never even thought of one, so I got on my knees and groped through the twigs and grass and accumulated litter. Suburban debris. I snapped a twig. Careful. My hand touched something hard, plastic. Got it. Yes, yes!

My eyes, now more accustomed to the orange gloom, told me that I had my sample. I stood up and scanned. I picked my way back through the bushes and trees, glanced at my house - which, itself, looked dead - found myself exposed in an open space.

Suddenly, a noise, a moving blur at the edge of my vision. My heart accelerated but my legs froze. This is it.

I turned my head and saw the fox. The hunter paused, looked right at me, her eyes blazing. For a second, we connected. Then she was gone, off to the left. My pulse eased and I moved slowly, deliberately through the undergrowth and back to Frank.

'Got it!'

'Fucking excellent, Bill. Well done. Homo bleeding erectus. Unbelievable!'

He slapped my thigh, put the car into gear and aimed for the comforting melee of the city.

'So, what next?' I said, honestly not knowing the answer. The day had been too long, too much. I needed to sleep.

'Firstly, we're going to open a nice bottle of bubbly. What we have in our possession is nothing short of amazing. We need to toast our luck tonight. Then, as I see it, you'd be best to stay at mine. You can work away on my system, put the thesis together. I'll be able to do the DNA at work.'

'Do you have good analysers?'

'The best. We do lots with the biggest drug companies. Their investment is limitless, believe me.'

'Sounds ideal.'

'One thing. Can we co-author this?'

'Of course, I appreciate all your help, your belief. But can you accept the risk in having your name on this?'

'You're the one taking the risks, Bill. I'll be fine.'

Chapter 44: INCIDENT ROOM

The golden hour had passed and Bunk was still at large. No other suspects. The detectives and forensic scientists held their end of day meeting, the pub foremost on their minds, Sally Bunk's body stiffening in the morgue.

Sensing the fatigue in the room, DCI Blake went to the whiteboard.

'Okay, people. Let's run through what we have, then we'll call it a day.'

He had their full attention as he described the scene at Bunk's house.

'Bunk then took a bus to the tube,' he continued. 'He left his phone on the bus as a decoy. We figured he'd go straight to his shrink. Which he did and where he met a mugger, who was shot and killed by the arrest team.'

'Talk about leaving a trail of death and destruction,' said an officer.

'What do we have on the mugger?' asked the crime scene manager.

'The mugger? Nothing. No ID. Why do you ask, Jane?'

'If we backtrack to the crimescene for a sec. The CCTV at the end of the street shows Bunk entering the house just before the discovery of the body, yes?'

'Go on.'

'But we also had a man in black at the scene, just minutes before.'

'The Jehovah's Witnesses were active on the street today. I thought we'd accepted that.'

'I just find it odd that we have a mystery man at the murder location, the murder was called in by an unknown person and an unknown person held Bunk up at gunpoint later.'

'Your point?'

'Sally Bunk may have been murdered by somebody who knew what they were doing.'

'Bunk was a qualified doctor. He'd know about carotid arteries.'

'That I know. But it would rather remove the passion element from his crime, no?'

'So you think Bunk is being framed?'

'I think it's a possibility, that's all.'

'But why, Jane? There's no earthly reason for anybody to frame Bunk. Anyway, you didn't pick up any forensics that would indicate another presence in the house today. Nothing.'

'I know. I just have this niggling feeling - '

'Concerning?'

'His dog. Why would he have killed his dog?'

'A red herring. To get you thinking along those lines. Don't forget three things. One, his boss at the lab. Fortescue. He said that Bunk had been acting irrationally at work, had become secretive about his activities, was shagging his secretary.'

Jane raised an eyebrow, while heads nodded. You could know a man through his work. That had been proven many times over to the murder squad.

'Two,' continued Blake, 'his psychiatrist says that Bunk has entertained fantasies of going postal at work.'

'And three?' asked Jane.

'Three. The whole thing about his license to practise medicine. That's the kind of episode that never really goes away.

'I guess.'

The DCI underlined these episodes on the board, drew another oval around the word FRIENDS, closed his briefcase.

'We've had no callback from his friends or family members. They're our best bet and we'll follow up each and every one of them tomorrow. For now, Bunk is our only suspect and we won't waste any time on mystery men in black until we have him.' He shot Jane a hard glance. 'Understood?'

'Understood,' she said.

'Let's go for a drink. I'm buying. Tomorrow we'll get our killer.'

Chapter 45: EQUATION

Back at Frank's, we put both sample containers on the glass coffee table. Frank stretched on a pair of examination gloves and looked at the receptacles closely. But he didn't open them.

'From now on, we play this by the book, best practise. Okay, Bill?'

'Fine.'

'They appear to be sound. I'll confirm that tomorrow.'

Frank got a sheet of A4 paper from his inkjet printer, clicked a pen. He placed the paper on the table, landscape format. At the right hand side of the page, he drew a stick person, wrote Homo sapiens beneath it. Left of this, an equals sign, then a space, then a plus sign. On the left of the page, he placed the Homo erectus sample, with its rough, Cyrillic label and Anna's handwritten description. After the plus sign, the Stardust sample, NASA logo, full colour label.

'That's it, Bill. This is the equation that proves that human evolution occurred naturally. No intervention by an all-seeing, all-knowing supernatural entity.'

'I like it, Frank, but still, won't they just say that whichever bloody God sent the DNA down from space?'

'I know you must be shattered Bill, every which way, but don't get despondent on me. No religion acknowledges that humans evolved from previous species such as Homo erectus. And don't you think that some of the holy books might have mentioned the space connection? I imagine the Scientologists might be the only ones to accept this.'

'And nobody laughs at them anymore.'

'Exactly. In a comparative analysis, Scientology's claims are no more ludicrous than any of the rest.'

'Where's that champagne?' I was suddenly weary, like I was dying of exhaustion and despair.

Frank found a perfectly-chilled bottle of Bollinger - 1996 - and two flutes.

'I've been saving this for something special.'

He opened the bottle with a happy pop, slowly filled the glasses.

Frank said 'A toast, Bill. To the cure for God's disease.'

The bubbles stung my nose. I don't know if it was my tiredness or what, but a cold shudder rattled my spine and my guts were filled with fear and loathing. I stood by the window, drank it all in.

Frank sat by his equation, dazed by its simplicity, eager to commence analysis.

We finished the champagne, had a whisky nightcap. Frank showed me to the spare bedroom. From the window, I could see the arc of the London Eye silhouetted against the glowing sky, its red warning lights stationary, resting.

I stripped to my shorts and lay on the bed, unable to sleep. I was afraid that Sally would visit my dreams, asking, Bill, who killed me? You will find them, Billy. Won't you?

Chapter 46: EYE IN THE SKY

Her head was spinning from the events of the day. She had difficulty grasping the reality of the plot in the centre of which she found herself.

Would anyone really believe that the Vatican had a team of espionage specialists? The history of deceit, murder and execution was there. Everybody knew about the Inquisition and the dirty deeds of the Holy See. How many had been killed by Mother Church? Thousands? Millions? But with purpose. Divine Purpose.

And the modern-day Inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, continued the dark but necessary work. But Bunk would not be hurt, the cardinal had promised that.

Anna regretted sending the sample to her English Billy in the first place. She explained it to herself as a desire to impress him, to make him want her again. After their first encounter at the mammoth dig, she thought of him constantly. He'd kept his distance since - he was married - and she'd genuinely believed that the Homo erectus sample would have made him want her again. Nothing more. Stupid. Now she was bringing all kinds of attention his way. She drank a vodka and Coke. Bad vodka.

Three rows behind her sat Antonio Pollo, a salesman who represented a furniture factory near Milan, specialising in very expensive modular systems for the high-end office. He wore a charcoal Armani suit, kept a calfskin briefcase on his lap. Through thick Gucci frames, his calm brown eyes stayed fixed on the back of Anna's head. Everything about him fitted his cover. He had no need to risk taking a weapon to London. His organisation's global reach meant that everything he needed could be rapidly sourced anywhere on Earth.

As they flew over Bavaria, he ordered black coffee from the steward. As they approached Heathrow, Anna turned and caught his eye. He nodded imperceptibly. Bella. We meet at the hotel. You know the plan.

They passed through controls without suspicion, took separate taxis to a posh central hotel. Their adjoining rooms were booked and ready for their arrivals, with baskets of fruit and complimentary newspapers, British, Italian, Russian.

As Anna unpacked her things - not many things - Antonio knocked on her door. She looked at him through the spy hole for a long second. He was attractive in his Italian way, strong, though short. A perfect mesomorph. But he had a coldness in his face. She let him in.

'Antonio.'

He paced the room, helped himself to some Evian.

'I'd like you to make contact immediately,' he said. His tone suggested not a request, more an order.

'I'll try his cellphone.'

'Use the hotel line.'

She called Bunk. She was ready to hang up as the call was answered. Background noises suggested a bar.

'Billy?'

'Who is this?'

'Anna. Is that you, Billy?'

'No. This is Detective Chief Inspector Blake of the Metropolitan Police. We're looking for Mister Bunk. I'd like to meet with you please.'

At this, Anna hung up. She told Antonio. He wasn't happy.

'Why do the police want him? Are they trying to protect him? This is not good.'

'I have not a clue.'

'Very well. They will trace the call easily.' He rubbed his chin, moved towards the door. 'We must check out immediately. I'll meet you at reception in five minutes.'

With a sigh, Anna put her things back in her case, took a banana, locked the door behind her.

Chapter 47: PILLOW TALK

Jane sat up in bed, smoked cigarettes. Her lover fiddled with phones.

'Can't you leave it?' she asked.

'Sorry, love. I need to find out who called Bunk. I've traced the hotel. There's someone on the way there now.'

'It could've been anyone. Maybe his mistress?'

'A second lover? He doesn't strike me as the stud type.'

'Unlike yourself.'

He didn't reply, kept at the phones. She stubbed out a cigarette, put a hand on his shoulder.

'So are you going to leave your wife or not?'

Again, no reply. He was thinking only of his new Alfa Romeo Spider - red - which would be ready for collection in just two days. Sighing, she accepted that they would have no long-term future together, removed her hand from his shoulder, mused further on her favourite topic: the perfect murder.

Chapter 48: FACE VALUE

I'd just slid into sleep when Frank knocked in at seven.

'Morning! I'm off to the office. Got to get cracking on saving humanity.'

'You're very chirpy.' I winced at the morning sunlight. 'I'm brain dead. Jesus, how much did we drink last night?'

'Have a lie-in, Bill. You need it. Painkillers in the kitchen.'

'Where are you heading?'

'Kensington by tube. We've got a private suite at Imperial College. Dead handy. Help yourself to anything, won't you? I'll be late.' He held up the samples. 'I'm going to have a chat with my best students, get cracking on this little timebomb.'

'Good, thanks.'

I managed to get up on an elbow.

'My PC's cranked up for you. Spare keys on the counter and I'll have a word with the porter downstairs, tell him you're my brother-in-law. In case you need to slip out. Okay?'

'Thanks a lot, Frank, really.'

And he was gone. I tried to get back to sleep but my mind was too active, ghosts penetrating the haze. Anyway, the sun was blazing outside and the pigeons on the balcony were too bloody noisy.

I went to take a shower, was dismayed by the stains on Frank's grout. I found rubber gloves, bathroom cleaner and sponges under the kitchen sink which had become a hotel for spiders. I made a mental note to work on that gloomy space later, fill the day.

I scrubbed, then showered.

I made coffee and toast, sat at Frank's computer.

News first. No mention of me or Sally anywhere. More bombings in Pakistan and Algeria. The whale. Fears of an al-Qaeda spectacular in London. Oh, fuck off.

My personal email inbox turned up an unexpected message. Anna was in London and wanted to know if I'd received her present. She was sorry to hear about Sally - how? - and wanted to meet up ASAP. Fine by me, I wanted to thank her for the Homo erectus sample. And I wanted to see her.

I replied to her, said I was keeping a low profile, but there shouldn't be any problem meeting up at some stage. I was cheered by this development, fantasised about her eyes, lips, body and smiled at the memories of our fornication.

To work. I trawled the web for most of the morning, printing everything about Homo erectus and the prevailing theories on human evolution, particularly the genetics. There were big holes, certainly, but these were holes that Frank and I were preparing to fill.

Lost in a fog of learning and analysis, I was alerted to lunchtime only by the growling of my innards. As I prepared a turkey and salad sandwich, Frank called.

'Everything okay, Bill?'

'Fine, just fine. I'm collating as much as I can about Homo erectus. That sound good?'

'Perfect, perfect. I'm tied up with work stuff most of the day, but I'm hoping to get some time on the main analyser later on. I'll at least make a start on our ancestor's genome.'

'Did you speak with the students?'

'I've had a chat with the two brightest PhD students and I brought in the Department Head.'

'Is that wise?'

'Don't worry, Bill. They're all avowed atheists. I haven't mentioned you. They're salivating at the prospect. We'll be able to get through it in weeks rather than months this way.'

'I trust your judgment, Frank. I just don't want them to be in any danger, you know?'

'I take your concerns on board, don't worry.'

I ate lunch and waded through Wikipedia, amazed by the thing. Sometimes it helps to read a less technical take on something complex. I decided to go back to the fundamentals, cellular DNA and its evolution. If DNA really did come down from space, how could it have become part of Homo erectus? I reviewed cells, clicked through hyperlinks, landed on a page entitled Endosymbiotic theory. Yes. Symbiosis is the coming together of different life forms, sharing, working together, becoming stronger. Mitochondria, the power plants of animal cells, and plastids, their plant counterparts, both carry independent genomes. It's believed that they arose from endosymbiosis of bacteria.

So bacterial DNA was absorbed into cells and, get this, nuclear DNA has been taken from plastids. This is the mechanism. Our theory, it really could have happened. Even the quote: Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking. This clears a lot up. Not science fiction, science fact.

Before calling Frank with this exciting development, and a request to look for possible bacterial envelopes around the space DNA, I checked my inbox. A reply from Anna. She asked to meet. Urgently. Couldn't wait to see me. My groin stirred. New mobile number.

I called her.

'Billy! Thank you for calling. Where can we meet?'

Not here. Not just yet.

'Where are you?'

'Near Trafalgar Square. Where are you?'

'Smithfield. Take a cab, I'll meet you at a pub, the Meat Hook.'

'I'll leave this second.'

'Fine. I'll see you in about fifteen minutes then.'

I needed a break from my work. That's what I told myself. The mitochondria and plastids could wait. I would risk exposure in public? For Anna, yes. For Anna.

Chapter 49: TOOLS OF THE TRADE

The Vatican assassin knelt in a tiny church on London's South Bank. He prayed for guidance, his thoughts aimed squarely at St Anthony. Every minute, he raised his eyes to the brilliant, dazzling stained glass window, then looked behind. Just a few elderly Catholics and one or two tourists. None met his eye.

Eventually, he turned his head and saw his contact. The man - a priest - nodded. The assassin blessed himself, stood, left the pew, genuflected, followed the man from the church. They passed through a narrow alley beside and entered the priests' residence.

In the quiet hallway, the priest offered his hand.

'Michael.'

Irish.

'Antonio. Many thanks for your assistance, Father.'

'My pleasure. Tea? Coffee?'

'Thank you, no.' His phone chirped. 'Excuse me.' He saw Anna's ID flash. 'Actually, coffee would be excellent.'

The priest hurried off and Antonio gave his attention to Anna.

'Progress?'

'Yes. I'm meeting him in fifteen minutes.'

'Where?'

'Smithfield. A bar.'

'A pity. Do what you must to find out where is the sample. Then call me.'

'Understood.'

He ended the call, blessed himself, mumbled thanks to St Anthony.

The priest returned with two cups of passable instant coffee.

They went upstairs to a bedroom, which was frozen in the fifties. The priest locked the door, then gestured to a simple chair beside a small table. The assassin sat. The priest went to a large closet and, from under some folded blankets, took a battered brown suitcase. He placed this on the table, thumbed the combination locks to six-six-six and opened the case.

Both men smiled.

The assassin surveyed the contents of the case, decided to prepare himself for every eventuality.

'The Beretta pistol with silencer, please.'

The items were placed on the table.

'Ammunition?'

'Four magazines. And I may have to destroy objects.'

'Fragmentation grenades or high explosive? Both of the kind used here by Irish terror groups.'

'High explosive, two if I may.'

'With pleasure. The gun is clean, so no problem there. Even the kids have guns here now.'

'So I've read.'

'Is there anything else I can do for you?'

'If I were to require a bomb? Say two kilos of C4 with detonator and timer?'

The priest whistled, suddenly felt sorry for whoever was on Antonio's target list.

'Two kilos? I'd have to go elsewhere for that. I would need a few hours' notice, if you could.'

'Then I give it to you now. I should have more information later today, but I would prefer to be prepared for any eventuality.'

'Very good.'

'And when I am finished my work?'

'Standard operating procedure. If you use the weapon, dispose of it. Mother Thames would be best. Other items to be returned to me if it is safe to do so. Make your report in the normal manner so that the Auditor can be satisfied.'

The assassin nodded and placed the gun, ammunition clips and grenades into his briefcase, in a discretely partitioned space behind his brochures, business cards and Mont Blanc pens.

'The Auditor will be very satisfied,' smiled Antonio.

Chapter 50: AFTERNOON DELIGHT

Funny how songs just come at you and stick in your head and won't go away.

As I brushed my teeth, gargled with cinnamon-flavoured mouthwash and plucked hairs from my nostrils, a song came into me and just wouldn't go away.

I sang it aloud as I grabbed the spare keys, put on a baseball cap with MIT on the front, locked up and took the lift.

The entrance lobby was quiet and I nodded cheerily at the porter.

A deep breath before going outside, into a mild, bright day. I scoured the street for anything suspicious, exhaled, concluded that I hadn't been followed to Frank's. The police were, no doubt, dealing with a fresh batch of murders. I had a growing feeling that, if I didn't do anything stupid, I'd be okay.

The pub was moderately busy, just a few office drones squeezing the last drops of pleasure from their lunchbreaks. No sign of Anna, so I got a pint of India Pale Ale and sat in an alcove facing the door.

A few minutes passed and Anna appeared. She stood in the doorway for a long second, framed in light, then she spotted me. She smiled and walked to me with her arms outstretched. I stood and embraced her, hugged her tightly. She had a wonderful smell, musky. She kissed me full on my lips.

'Billy! I missed you!'

'I missed you too. What'll you have?'

'White wine, please. Something dry.'

'I got a glass of sauvignon blanc and we toasted ourselves.

'I love your hair dark. You look fantastic.'

'Thank you. It's just for a change.'

'So what brings you to London, Anna?'

'I'm between contracts with a bonus to spend. I thought Why not visit Billy, see if the spark is still there?'

She rubbed my thigh with her strong hands.

'Yes, it's still there.'

'Is there someplace we can go, you know?' she whispered in my ear, licking it then.

'Let's finish these and get out of here.'

Skyrockets in flight.

The suits got back to their chores and we were almost alone.

'She said Did you get the sample I sent you?'

'Anna, that could be one of the greatest finds in human history. I'm trying to compare it with DNA found in space to show how humans may have evolved without the need for divine intervention.'

'You mean you're trying to prove that God doesn't exist?'

'Exactly.'

She blessed herself.

'Some people will not be very happy with you, Billy.'

'Fuck them. They've had control of our imaginations since civilisation began and look at the mess they've made.'

'Where is it now? Do you have it?'

'Not on me, no. A friend is taking a close look at it.'

'Who? Where is it?'

'Steady on. Did you come to see me or the sample.'

She smiled.

'You, of course. But I would like to see the sample too. I lost my own.'

'Tell me about the find.'

'It was a lot like the mammoth, really. Just in a deeper layer of permafrost. Three bodies. They were taken directly to Moscow. I was lucky to get the sample for you.'

'Three! When was this?'

'About a month ago.'

'That's curious. Why no media coverage?'

'Moscow wanted a lid kept on it. I am sworn to secrecy. And I think that I was wrong in my initial assessment.'

'In what way?'

'Moscow says that they are not pre-humans at all, simply early humans, no more than two hundred thousand years old.'

I felt as though I was sinking through the seat. I gulped my drink.

'Oh fuck. Not one and a half million years old? Are you serious.'

'Unfortunately, yes. I am sorry.'

'For fuck's sake. I thought I was on to something big. Fuck.'

'I'm sorry.'

I turned to her. She was upset.

'No, I'm sorry. You were only trying to do me a favour. I appreciate that. But fuck it anyway.'

We sat in silence for a long minute. I finished my beer, my thoughts garbled now.

'Come on,' I said. 'Let's go for a proper drink.'

'Okay, sorry,' she smiled.

Arms linked, we walked back to the Barbican, I told her about Sally.

'Is this your place?' she asked. 'It's beautiful. And so central. I love it.'

'No. I live, lived, out in the sticks. This is a friend's place.'

'So why are we here?'

The elevator doors slid open, closed behind us.

'Anna, you know how my wife died? Well she was murdered. The police think I did it.'

Inside an elevator is probably not the ideal place to tell someone you're wanted for murder. Anna didn't seem fazed.

'Idiots,' she said. 'Of course you didn't do it. Who did?'

'That's something I just don't know.'

'Did she take a lover?'

A surprising question. One I hadn't considered. The idea threw me.

'I have no clue.'

I fumbled with the keys and we went into the glossy apartment. We didn't make love right away. Anna turned on the widescreen Sony plasma to watch the news. The first Earth-like planet had been discovered. And only twenty light years away. Only.

'Isn't it exciting, Billy? I wonder what life forms could be there? With higher gravity, would cells be smaller or have stronger cell walls? Will bacteria be dominant there also?'

'I wonder what the churches will make of it,' I said as I made two vodkas with Coke.

'Why?'

'You'd think the Bible might have mentioned the other Earths.'

'I don't think the Bible is to be taken literally. Shush.'

Her directness didn't bother me - that was her way - so I sat quietly on the couch, put her drink on the little table, stretched out my left arm for her. She sat beside me and we flicked between news channels, some even with animations of gravity-compressed alien lifeforms. The talk was about how broadcast signals emitted by Earth's media twenty years ago could now be enjoyed on 581 c.

Benny Hill. The Joshua Tree. Cheers. Whose Line is it Anyway? The Cosby Show. Margaret Thatcher. Black Monday. Andy Warhol. I Want Your Sex.

1987.

'What would they make of us?

'I want your sex.'

'George Michael. My favourite singer.'

'No. I want your sex.'

She turned to me, put her drink back on the table, then her hands on her lap. Her eyes were restless.

'Tell me about my sample now.'

She wouldn't let it go.

'Your sample? I thought you gave it to me.'

'I need it back and I need to know everybody who's touched it.'

'Jesus, Anna. What's the big deal?'

'It may be contaminated.'

'What with?'

'Some kind of ancient toxin. It may be related to bubonic plague. The bodies themselves have been incinerated. We're afraid of unleashing something bad.'

She stood and went to the window. I examined my hands, felt a strong urge to wash them. I fought it. But I capitulated and scrubbed them for a good five minutes.

'Fuck's sake, Anna. Thanks a lot. I'd better call Frank.'

'Frank?'

'You remember Frank. This is his place. He's doing the analysis. Down at Imperial College.'

I found his business card on the counter.

'Yes. I remember Frank Jennings. Call him. He must secure the sample and get it back to me for verification and destruction.'

While I tried to get through to Frank, Anna examined his card, said she had to send a text to her mum. Frank was out of coverage, so I tried the switchboard. Voicemail. I left him a panicky message, prayed he'd get it.

Other options? I couldn't get the police involved, both for my sake and Frank's. But this was a potentially massive biohazard. An ancient plague pathogen could be expected to meet zero resistance in the human population. Bubonic plague had a ninety percent fatality rate upon exposure. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands again, this time with antiseptic. I knew it was too late. But I washed again anyway. I looked at myself in the mirror, looked away immediately.

I went back to Anna. She was still on her phone.

'My mama,' she said as she ended the call.

'I'll try Frank again.'

Nothing.

'Don't worry, Billy. I'm doing this out of caution. There have been no infections reported back home.'

'Thank Christ for that,' I said, slightly relieved.

She came to me and put her arms around me from behind. She was noticeably more relaxed. I felt a stirring, turned to face her.

'You still look sad,' she said.

'I'm just gutted, that's all. I thought I was going to be able to finally achieve something with this.'

'I'm sorry, Billy. So sorry.'

'It's not your fault.'

'Let me make it up to you.'

She kissed me hard, her hands pressing, moving to my buttocks. We went to my room.

Anna pushed me onto the bed and took my clothes off. I enjoyed taking the passive role. Then she stood before me and stripped slowly, carefully folding her clothes over a chair. My penis budged, but only slightly. Fuck. She saw my worry.

Not a problem, she said, walking naked to the living room, grabbing her handbag, standing before the window and saying Ta-dah! to the world outside. Take one of these,' her palm open, a little Ziploc bag containing some condoms and half-a-dozen blue, diamond-shaped pills.

'Viagra?'

'Very cheap in Russia. I brought some just in case. Let me get you some water.'

So I swallowed the pill, washed it down. Why not?

She got on the bed, began kissing my feet. This bothered me and I wanted to shout Stop! Her lips moved up my legs. Slowly. She took little bites of my thighs. She smiled at me, then took my penis deep inside her mouth.

I closed my eyes, willed my blood to fill it.

'How long do they take to work?' I asked.

'It's working already, Billy.'

Her hard tongue lingered there for an extended fragment of time and pleasure. It verged on agony. The sensations were powerful, my spine jangling and, as blood gushed into my penis, my heart fluttering.

She ripped open a condom and stretched it on.

Then her salty mouth was on mine and I was in her. She sat up, her hands on my chest, her pelvis crushing me with its ancient rhythm. Then I was out as she turned to face my feet. I put my hands on her hips, pulled her down. I marvelled at her arse, not an ounce of excess, just wonderfully firm curves. Her vertebrae rippled and I came in a burst of near-death joy.

The little death, some call it.

She kept to her own score, her orgasm at last causing her vagina to pulse and squeeze my cock. She shuddered and threw her head back, then raised her arms and called out something in Russian.

She lifted herself from me, then snuggled up close, an easy smile on her face. I put an arm around her, twisted her pubic hair into little ringlets with my other hand.

Life in all its fatal predictability continued outside. I gazed at Anna's skin, all of it, took in her smells, kissed her forehead. We drifted off to sleep, lovers in a world gone mad, grateful for a brief respite, an afternoon rapture, a break from the craziness, somehow united in our indifference to it all.

Bliss.

But while we dozed, proud as sated lions, any remaining shreds of my reputation were cruelly blown away.

Chapter 51: THE LAB

Fortescue led the police downstairs to a dusty corridor of dark storage rooms, disused offices and, right at the end, Bill Bunk's secret lab.

'What's that stink?' asked a cop.

'We breed our rats and mice just back there,' said Fortescue. 'The cleaners don't like to come down here. Same goes for most of our staff. It's well off the beaten track.'

He put the key in the unmarked door, twisted the handle, turned to the inspector, two uniformed constables and Bunk's ex-assistant, Karen.

'I must warn you. Some of this - ' he paused. 'Things in here are quite distressing.'

'Let's have a look, Doctor,' said DCI Blake.

Fortescue opened the door and flicked the lightswitch. Fluorescent tubes crackled to life, throwing crisp light over the gloom.

At first glance, this was a lab like any other. The police officers fanned out, scrutinised the objects on the tables, the files on the desk, the bits of Bunk such as photos from Siberia.

'Then one cop said I'm going to throw up.'

'Sink, there,' said Fortescue urgently, pointing to a work surface at the end of the room.

The officer ran, his vomit stream hitting the porcelain with force. He pointed back, towards some jars, with his left hand.

The others gathered round the large, heavy jars. The contents - floating in a greenish liquid - were hard to make out at first. Mainly mice and rats, most with deformities, incomplete growth, no hair. And worse.

'Good Lord,' said Inspector Blake.

Karen stepped backwards, her face pale. She looked to Fortescue. He nodded at her.

'I should have said it sooner,' she stammered. 'I'm sorry. I thought his work here was sanctioned.'

'It's okay, Karen. None of this is your fault. I'm afraid that Mr Bunk is a very sick man. My main concerns now are that the police catch him and that the lab doesn't get any bad press over this.'

'Is this - ?' asked the inspector, his face close to a jar, all colour gone from him.

'Yes. That one appears to be a rat with human features.'

There was little doubt. The white rat was suspended in blue ooze, its fur matted, its eyes wide open. The rat's mouth was distorted, twisted, like the creature was crying. Its limbs were contorted and, at their ends not claws, human hands. The detail was astounding. There were opposable thumbs, rounded nails, bulging knuckles.

The next jar contained a more repulsive sight. A rat which had been more completely combined with human genes. It had no legs, just four stumps. But its back was flatter than a rat's should be and the stumps were in the wrong places. And the head. The head was more round than pointed, the ears flattened, the whiskers gone. And the teeth. Captured in a grotesque grin, the teeth were wide and flat-topped, like a miniature set of dentures from hell.

'Okay,' said the inspector. 'Everybody out. This is a crime scene. Where can we get some fresh air please?'

'Do you wish to look inside the refrigerators?' asked Fortescue, pointing to two huge stainless steel fridges.

'Not now. Let's go.'

Fortescue led them through a fire exit and into a yard. All three policemen were pale and quiet. All three lit cigarettes. The inspector made a quick phone call.

'Karen, would you mind fetching some water, please?'

With Karen away, Fortescue was quizzed about her role.

'Doctor, how involved was she and how could Bunk have gotten away with all this, right under your nose?'

'Good questions, inspector. I believe that Karen is in no way implicated. She is a research assistant, not with us very long. Her role was to support Bunk in whatever he did and not to question his authority. As far as she is concerned, Bunk was doing sanctioned research.'

'So how did he get away with it?'

'He is highly intelligent and, it would seem, very devious. In truth, the only reason this kind of gene-splicing isn't going on in every scientist's garden shed is that the laws are so strict and the ethical questions so grave. To someone with Bunk's abilities, this work is quite straightforward. As far as I knew, he was using that room for overflow work when he couldn't get time in the main labs.'

'Seems Bunk lost all his ethics. This is getting very weird.'

Karen returned with bottles of water and the officers drank greedily. The man who had vomited excused himself, went around a corner, brought up his water.

'Fortescue said I think, yes, it's proof that Bunk's ethics are somewhat warped.'

'So he could have killed his wife?'

'I wouldn't have thought so. Until now. Inspector?'

'Yep?'

'There's one other possible crime scene I'd like to show you. It may be connected or it may not. When Bunk's secret lab was brought to my attention this morning, I initiated a search of every room in the complex.'

'Is it as grotesque?'

'No, but perhaps more alarming.'

'Okay,' said the inspector. 'You guys hang on here for Jane. Lead the way, doctor.'

Fortescue brought the inspector back down the corridor, to a heavy steel door. He unlocked it with two keys.

'Why the radiological warning?' asked the inspector, pointing to the bold yellow and black stickers.

'You'll see. It's quite safe. Now.'

They entered the room, which was dominated by two white cast iron machines, all tubes and dead lights and warning symbols.

'What am I looking at?'

'These are old x-ray machines and, if you'll look back here - '

Panels had been removed from the machines, screws tossed untidily on the floor. Wires and mysterious components spilled out like roboguts.

'I hope this isn't what it looks like.'

'Afraid so. It appears that somebody has removed the radiation sources from both systems. Almost a kilo of Caesium-137 is now at large.'

'Fucking hell. Dirty bomb.'

Chapter 52: MARTYRDOM

It was more than a typical ecumenical service. As well as the Christian Churches, the leaders of Britain's Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist communities were also present on the altar, their robes vying for impact, the Buddhists winning.

St Paul's was resplendent, the hallowed dome, the potent incense and the resonance of history lending a supernatural glow to proceedings. Three rows from the altar sat a middle-aged man of nondescript appearance. His padded jacket caused him to sweat.

The large congregation had gathered to call for peace in the world. In truth, the twenty-first century had quickly become the century of war. The promises of technology and communications had proven empty, made people and faiths more alienated from each other. This contradiction had brought confusion, terrorism and the killing of innocents. But faith, blind faith in the assorted deities represented on the altar, gave some hope. Of course, the awkward Buddhists didn't have a God, but it would have been politically incorrect to leave them out. Perhaps the mental concentration of prayer could change the world. Faith.

There were no atheists represented.

As the service entered its second hour, the Buddhists' chant - impenetrable and alien to most of the congregation anyway - drove one woman to despair. Now I really want to die, she decided.

Then the perspiring man stood and left his pew. Feeling faint, no doubt. Fresh air outside. But instead of leaving, he made his way uncertainly towards the altar, fumbled in his pocket.

'There is no God!' he screamed.

Then he erupted in a flash of pure hate and the despairing woman's wish was granted.

Chapter 53: PANIC STATIONS

I was awoken from my idyllic stupor by an odd sensation. Was that thunder? Something wasn't right. I spent a few minutes trying to get back to sleep. Impossible.

I got out of bed, marvelled at my still-enormous erection, went to the balcony. I realised immediately that I'd just heard my first bomb detonation.

A hole had been punched in St Paul's dome and a thick plume of grey smoke was rising.

'What the fuck?'

The wail of distant sirens floated up and a flock of pigeons wheeled round and round the tower block. I had no idea what was going on, but in my guts, I knew it was really bad.

'Anna, wake up darling. I think al-Qaeda have just blown up St Paul's.'

'Come back to bed, Billy,' she mumbled, her eyes still closed.

I shook her shoulder gently.

'I'm serious. Come see.'

'Oh my God.'

'Don't panic. We should be fine here.'

She tutted and followed me to the balcony. As she stood and gawped, I turned the TV volume back up. Breaking news, possible gas explosion at ecumenical ceremony at St Paul's.

I found my clothes and put my clothes on. Anna got dressed as I made drinks. I remembered Frank and tried his mobile again. A network message apologised for lack of coverage. Odd.

Then, the fall into chaos. The news coverage changed suddenly, from a tone of alarm to one of panic. Reports are coming through that the explosion may be have been caused by a dirty bomb. Repeat, there may have been a radiological release at St Paul's.

'Holy fuck,' I said. 'We've got to get out of here.'

'The smoke,' said Anna. 'It seems to be coming in our direction.'

I stood beside her. Yes, the breeze, though gentle, was straight in my face.

'Okay. Panic.'

I rushed around the apartment like a lunatic, thinking What to take? The samples were safe with Frank so I figured the best thing I could do was to ensure that all the windows and doors were closed. My research was left on the desk without a thought.

'As I stumbled around the apartment, Anna said I'm leaving, Billy. I'll talk to you soon.'

She kissed my cheek and was gone. Gripped by indecision - my fatal flaw - I stood before the TV, took in the evacuation alert, wondered what would be the best escape route. The tube would be too risky, cabs unlikely. I'd have to just outrun the smoke, head north. I found a clean towel and soaked it in water, figured that anything around my nose and mouth would be better than nothing. I glanced out the window again, saw that the smoke was appreciably closer now. I tried Frank again.

Finally, I left the apartment, locked the door, waited for the lift. Frantic by now. I was about to run for the stairs when the elevator pinged and the doors slid open. There was an elderly woman in there. I hesitated.

'Get in the fucking lift will you, sonny?' she said.

I laughed like a lunatic, jumped in.

On the way down, she told me about a still-functioning air raid shelter not far away, on Liverpool Street. That's where she would go. In the lobby, I said that I was going to try and outrun the smoke, get far away. We wished each other well.

On the street, the scene of panic was to be expected, but it still shocked. Police and fire units screamed towards St Paul's. I was sobered to see the emergency workers wearing NBC suits. This was truly the doomsday scenario.

There were few vehicles leaving the area, the roads and footpaths clogged with office workers. Many were crying or screaming or pushing the weak out of their way. Animal instincts had kicked in. Show me your gods now. I pitied the old lady from the lift but had the feeling she could look after herself.

A young woman in a business suit came towards me. A man knocked into her and she fell heavily to the ground. I stooped to help her up.

'You're going the wrong way, love. There's radiation coming from St Paul's.'

'But I have an interview,' she said. 'It's important.'

She was very pretty and I felt the urge to help her. I twisted her shoulders, aimed her towards escape.

'Trust me, love, no interview today. You need to go this way.'

'Okay, okay.'

'Come on, so.'

'I - ,' she paused, turned back towards the danger zone.

So I left her there.

I ran, my lungs burning, my legs jelly. Passing Liverpool Street rail station, I saw many people descending the stairs to the trains but I decided to keep to the streets. After a few more minutes, I thought that I might make it. Walking now, panting, I looked around me, saw the occasional smile on my fellow refugees' faces. I glanced behind and saw that the dirty cloud was some distance back. I worked through my escape routes and figured to head for the next mainline rail station - King's Cross? - and try for a cab along the way. But where would I go? Oh fuck.

As my overloaded brain tried to work this out, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my shoulder, then a thump. I looked around, started to fall, saw -

Chapter 54: THE DEATH

I am dead. That is my only conclusion.

I can see nothing, though my eyes are blinking. It is not like the darkness of a cave, more the absence of anything to see.

I can hear some distant sounds, odd droning, sometimes a squeal or a bang.

My mouth is dry and tastes of decay.

I feel detached from my self, like my body is just a husk that's stuck there, unable to move. I try to twitch my fingers, feel the sensation of movement, but only weakly.

I smell something oily, metallic. It is probably my own atrophy.

My mind screams for meaning, all the while pierced by regular darts of intense pain. Imagine the worst headache you've ever had, then stick hot needles in your brain. I am dead, I accept that.

Is my soul trapped in my coffin?

This couldn't be Heaven. Could it?

Or am I in Hell? Christ, the irony of that.

Is Purgatory still official? This feels like purgatory, some kind of no-man's land between life and outright death.

I sense motion. My shell lurches up then down again, my brain confused. I taste vomit in the back of my throat.

I desperately process the data available to me and the only possible reality that I can conjure is being on a rollercoaster in the dark tunnel that leads down, down to Hell.

What are my memories before this scenario?

I remember kissing breasts. I see a beautiful woman. The memory of running. Some kind of innate fear. Then the question.

Who am I?

When I cannot answer, there is a sensation of moisture on my face. Salty tears trickle into my mouth where they are welcomed. I will myself to keep crying and the tears flow.

Some time later, my body drops again and my ears begin to squeal. This is agony. I feel a scraping motion on my left arm. If I am trapped in a coffin, this could be a rat, ready to eat me alive. There is a sudden sharp pain. It's biting me. I try to scream but my throat merely coughs up bile. I struggle to keep it down. Then a wave of warmth spreads out from the biting point. Up my arm and into the rest of me. It reaches my brain and an odd feeling of calm, serenity even, floods through me. Perhaps this is the actual death, the consumption. Finally. I welcome you. Please take me on to oblivion.

The needles are slowly withdrawn from my brain and the nausea subsides. The fog clears a little and I hear sounds more distinctly. Clicks? Footsteps? Still the incessant droning. I understand that I have been injected with an opiate. I can taste it.

There is more contact with me, this time behind my head. There is a click, I am pulled, another click. A sensation of something moving over me and then my eyes are seared by light.

An indistinct shape before me clarifies as my ears scream again. I move my jaws up and down like a lunatic. This helps to equalise the pressure and the screams fade. The shape becomes a human face. A black man, wearing a plastic suit and respirator, holding a piece of heavy cloth. He leans on my headrest, comes close to me. He pulls a pair of earmuffs from my head. The sound comes like a wall, a crushing weight of noise.

'Feeling a little better?' he shouts, sounding like a spaceman.

I nod. He comes closer still and places goggles on me. They bite into my face and hurt the back of my head.

'We'll be landing in just a couple of minutes,' he says. Welcome to Guantánamo Bay.'

He presses the earmuffs back on, tearing my ears.

I will never complain about Ryanair again.

#### Chapter 55: RIGHTS

####

#### Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

#### Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

#### Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

#### Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

#### Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

#### Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

#### Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

#### Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

#### Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

  * Excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1949

Chapter 56: THE GITMO SHUFFLE

The plane descended rapidly as I tried to come to terms with the horror of my situation. I had been extraordinarily rendered. I had no idea why I had been taken - how? where? when? - but I knew that I was heading quickly towards Hell on Earth.

I stretched my neck and took in my surroundings. I was in a large aircraft, a jet. There was a bulkhead a few metres in front of me, with a secure door for the crew. There were other seats around me, each spaced well away from the others, maybe two yards clear space around each. I saw the tops of some heads, my fellow prisoners.

The crewman who'd spoken to me came back through the door and used a PA mic to make a short announcement in Arabic. I assumed this was Welcome to Guantánamo, as he made no speech for my benefit. There were distant howls of protest, utterly futile.

The crewman strapped himself into a fold-down seat, then the plane lurched violently to the right, dropped like a dead elephant and its tyres screeched on the tarmac. The reverse thrusters engaged, howling like banshees, and we slowed to a crawl. The plane taxied for a couple of minutes, then shuddered to a stop. I was back in Cuba.

The crewman undid his buckles and opened the bulkhead door. A dozen soldiers armed with submachine guns and pistols, and each with a Taser in his hand, filed into the prisoner area. The door was locked behind them. There was another announcement in Arabic and the speaker came to me again.

'We're taking you out first,' he said. 'I have to advise you that you are now on US soil and under the administration of the Joint Task Force. As an enemy combatant, your legal rights have been forfeited and you are now subject to US military law. Is that clear?'

I nodded. I was no enemy combatant but felt no desire to argue the point.

'I must warn you that if you attempt to escape this facility you will be killed. Is that clear?'

'Yeah.' I could speak. Progress.

'Further applicable regulations will be explained to you during processing.'

He nodded to the soldiers and two, wearing the same yellow jumpsuits and respirators as the crewman, came down to me, pointed their Tasers at my chest.

My hand and foot restraints were unlocked and the crewman helped me to my feet. Heavy shackles on my ankles forced me to shuffle like I was in a chain gang. My wrists were also shackled. I was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. How did it come to this? Just as things began to make sense, they jumped to the next level of insanity.

So I was dragged, shuffled forward, the soldiers covering me every half-step of the way. They patted me down, touched every crevice. The bulkhead door was unlocked and I passed through with my security detail. The bulkhead door was locked again and I was led through the crew area and to the plane's exit door. The crewman spoke on a walkie-talkie, received a reply, nodded to the soldiers. Then he pushed down the door release catch, twisted it around and pushed the door out and to the side.

I was unprepared for the blast of humid heat that physically slapped me back a step. The light from that merciless tropical sun punched my eyes. The brain needles were back. Rivers of sweat poured down my face, slaking my thirst some more. The intensity of it all hammered the tiny confidence that had grown in me since I realised that I wasn't dead. I wanted my mother. More than anything, I just wanted to regress and have her hold me close.

I was pushed forward and shuffled on to a hydraulic platform closely shadowed by my guards. As the platform whirred downward, I looked back at the plane. A grey Boeing 737, N313P on the tail, no other markings. I took in the airfield. There were soldiers everywhere, rifles not slung, but ready, Alsatians straining leashes. More soldiers waited in Humvees, trained heavy calibre machine guns in my general direction. There were two buses idling. A helicopter hovered nearby. Beyond the apron, low buildings lurked among the palms, and there was a watchtower and high fence. The concrete bounced the withering sun into my face. I inhaled deeply, the rich smell of the tropics - growth and decay combined - gave me some small comfort.

The platform clicked to ground level and I had the intuitive feeling that this was my best opportunity for escape. Once inside the camp proper, there would be no chance. A Humvee pulled up before me and a guard opened the door. The vehicle had radiation markings emblazoned on it. An officer - again in yellow plastic - left the jeep and signed the plane guard's clipboard, accepted papers, took control of prisoner 7263. He patted me down. Strong hands lifted me on board and a securing chain was looped through my leg restraints.

A door slammed, a lock clicked, a six point five-litre engine growled and my brief flirtation with the idea of escaping was over.

The officer sat across from me, scanned his papers, glanced at me.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he asked.

'Wish I knew,' I said. 'I woke up on the plane. Now I'm here. That's all I know. I don't even know my bloody name. That's the truth.'

He must've felt sorry for me. He leant closer to me, looked into my eyes.

'Says here your name's William Bunk. British national. Atheist. Jeez, you're going to love this damned place!' He read on. 'Linked to an al-Qaeda cell. Shit, you were involved in that dirty bomb attack on St Paul's?'

He took a Geiger counter from a rack, activated it and scanned me from head to toe. He shook his head then. I was clean. He made a note on his clipboard.

Then we waited. The officer watched the other prisoners leaving the plane on a flatscreen monitor. I could see them going through the same indignities as I had suffered, pieces of meat.

Eventually, all were disembarked and handed over to Camp Delta security. The soldiers and military police entered the buses and escort vehicles and we were off.

The jeep bumped along, its functional interior was air-conditioned, some small mercy. The windows were blacked-out, the only light from the officer's task lamp. My heart hurt, by brain screamed.

'William Bunk,' I said. 'That sounds familiar. Yes. I'm William Bunk. But I am not a member of al-Qaeda and I had nothing to do with any attack.'

'We'll get to the truth.'

There was no further conversation between us.

Chapter 57: DAD

"No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God."

\- US Vice President George H W Bush, 1987

Chapter 58: PROCESSED

When I feared that I was in purgatory while on the plane, I was surprisingly close to the truth.

The convoy drove for a short while, then we bumped up a short slope and stopped, the engine died. After a few minutes, we were in motion again. The sensation was like being on the aircraft. We were on a ferry. My stomach complained, perhaps fearful of another flight into desperation.

The ferry docked, the engine revved and we were on the road again. The drive was punctuated by regular checkpoints. At each one, the officer left the jeep and showed his clipboard to an MP. Each time, the tropical sun torched my eyes and hurt my brain.

Finally, we passed the sign that read CAMP DELTA, JTF GUANTÁNAMO, HONOR BOUND TO DEFEND FREEDOM. It may as well have read ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

The convoy pulled into the maximum security area of the base. My escorting officer spoke on his radio, turned to me.

'Let's go.'

He unlocked my restraining chain, opened the door. Two MPs in yellow suits were waiting. They helped me down from the jeep and led me - shuffling painfully - to a long building, the officer following behind. Armed soldiers and dog teams lurked everywhere. I glanced around and saw the convoy parked in a line, maybe a dozen vehicles. The chopper buzzed nearby. There were snipers on the roof of the building and machine gun towers with huge stars and stripes painted on them.

The processing building was thankfully cool. A team of soldiers in yellow suits with respirators waited for me. The lead soldier spoke quietly with my escort officer and checked his clipboard. I was ordered to stand with my legs spread and arms outspread. Two guards with Geiger counters scanned me again. No clicks, no radiation.

'Once more,' said the lead soldier.

Again I was scanned, again I was clear. This didn't add up. The Standard Operating Procedure was consulted at a table off to the left. It was agreed that I posed no risk of radiological contamination. Orders were given and hoods and respirators were removed.

A certain amount of tension seemed to dissipate and I was regarded with curiosity, even the occasional smile.

I was shuffled to a room that had STATION 1 stencilled on the door.

There is a full length mirror against the wall and I see myself. I gasp. Besides the bright jumpsuit and chains and stoop of defeat, my head is wrapped in heavy goggles, earmuffs and, bizarrely, a surgical facemask. What am I like? But it all works - I feel demeaned, less than human.

All my shackles are removed, causing the armed escorts to tense up. Tasers and shotguns are aimed at me. The goggles are pulled down to rest around my neck. The earmuffs are removed and tossed in a plastic bin. My facemask stays on. A small black box which I hadn't noticed before is unclipped from my chest. My jumpsuit is pulled down and thrown in another bin.

I am taken to Station Two, where a medic checks my head for lice.

'Clear,' he says and points me toward a shower cubicle. I stand in there and the water soaks me. It is tepid and welcome and like I am in heaven, oh the crazy confusion of that awful day. There is a bar of military issue soap, which I use. The water stops and I am handed a white towel.

Dry, the towel is taken from me and I walk naked to Station Three. I am examined by a medic, who looks into my eyes, mouth, ears and anus and takes a photograph of my appendix scar.

In Station Four, I am dressed in white shorts, a fresh orange jumpsuit, red plastic flipflops. I am reshackled.

In Station Five, a sample of my DNA is taken with a mouth swab. My height and weight are recorded and I am photographed.

Christ, how many stations?

In Station Six, the data collected on me is entered into a computer database. This takes a while.

In Station Seven, I am photographed again. My picture is inserted into an identity bracelet, which is sealed and secured to my right wrist.

In Station Eight are two men in civilian suits, whose ID laminates mark them as FBI. They fingerprint me, electronically and using ink. I am given tissues to wipe my fingers but most of the ink stays on me.

In Station Nine, I am pushed onto a cot and blood is drawn from my left arm.

Station Ten and the escorting soldiers wear lead aprons while I am given a full body x-ray. Camp X-Ray, isn't that what they call the place? A distant part of me emerges from the dark recess of my shocked brain, thinks to complain that this procedure probably delivers a lethal dose of radiation. I immediately decide not to bother. I fear the repercussions. I am shocked to realise that I would prefer to have cancer and freedom than stay an extra minute in this awful place.

Station Eleven and I am given a full medical exam. There are four medics now, including two senior doctors. After all the usual checks, they get out the Geiger counter and probe every orifice and talk quietly among themselves in the corner. They want to get to the bottom of my radiation conundrum. But I am not radioactive. This they finally accept and they sign off my folder.

In Station Twelve, there is a dental examination and a mouth x-ray and there are no more Stations.

I have been successfully dehumanised, reduced to a sample, quantified, logged, all dignity shredded.

I am offered a Styrofoam cup of water.

I have been processed.

Chapter 59: CHILL OUT

Naively, I had expected a hot meal, a cup of coffee, maybe a talk with a psychologist to make sure that I wasn't too suicidal.

But no.

I was bundled on to the back of a golf cart - a golf cart! - cuffed to a restraining bar and driven to a grey building which sat on its own, with a dozen guards in front. Two armed MPs walked behind the cart and a watchtower guard trained a heavy machinegun on me.

I could see that short of an Act of God, escape would be impossible. And I didn't believe in God.

But the whole experience had made me angry. My opiate haze was beginning to clear and a sense of injustice was forming.

'This is wrong,' I said.

'What?' called the driver over his shoulder as the cart whirred towards the interrogation centre.

'This is wrong,' I called hoarsely.

'Shut up,' he said.

'Chill out,' called a guard behind me.

Then they laughed.

We stopped and I was unshackled from the cart and passed to my interrogators, along with my folder. They signed for me and I was taken down a dimly-lit corridor and left on my own in a cell.

The cell was about ten feet square, white tiles, no furniture, fittings or window, just a recessed fluorescent light behind a plastic screen, a little camera dome there too, and a large vent high up in the wall.

The room was cool, refreshing after being outside for just a few minutes. I sat on the ground, grateful, my back against the wall. Almost immediately, the buzzing sound from the vent increased in pitch and the temperature plummeted. I hugged myself as best I could and shimmied into a corner. But there was no escaping the dreadful cold of the dead.

I could see my breath and stood to keep my sluggish blood circulating. Colder still and my teeth began to chatter. Walking around and around my tiny prison and I realised that I was being tortured. I looked up at the camera dome and said 'Evil cunts.'

After an unknown period of time, the room was certainly below freezing and I was in pain. Every breath burned my lungs. My fingers, nose and ears were numb. Tiny ice crystals formed on the tiles and the floor became slippery in places.

I tried to remember the sun and how, just a short time before, it had scorched my skin and toasted my retinas. And it was out there still, through the wall and just beyond reach.

I could almost feel its heat on my face. But I knew the sensation was simply early stage exposure. Then the cell door opened.

Chapter 60: PLUS TWENTY-FOUR

Picking their way through the splintered wreckage, the lead-suited figures held torches before them, almost defensively. Every step was a labour, every aspect a nightmare.

Torn bodies radiated outwards from the blast point. Up ahead, the altar was rubble, the robes of the priests and monks bloodied and dirty.

Soot and dust filled the air, the brightest light an eerie shaft of sunshine through the torn dome. The distant sound of chopper rotors caused the examiners to quicken their pace as the clicking of their suits' Geiger counters increased in urgency.

'We need to get out of here pretty soon,' crackled the leader, a young lieutenant as he scanned the scene with a digital video camera.

'I think we have our bomber,' said his sergeant, indicating a torn mess just a couple of metres ahead of the blast centre. He moved his handheld radiation detector all around the area, noted that the lump of flesh had an appreciably higher reading.

'This is him. Definitely.'

The camera's light flooded the area as the lieutenant made sure to collect as much data as possible from the blast centre.

'Then let's grab a piece of the fucker and get the hell out of here.'

DCI Blake sat with his elbows on the desk, his chin in his hands. I just want my bed, he thought. Jane sat near him, nursed a cup of cold instant coffee. The rest of the squad filtered in and out, passed notes to Blake, paused to pick up on the latest developments. The TV in the homicide room showed the scene at St Paul's as two Chinook heavy lift helicopters gently lowered a massive lead-lined blanket over the hole in the dome.

The commentary talked about containment, minimisation, but Blake knew this was just for public consumption. The damage had been done and the radiation had spread as far as the Barbican already. A whole swathe of the City was contaminated. It would take months, maybe years, to clean and it would cost billions.

'Fucking Bunk. What a total bastard,' he said, as much to himself as the room.

'You're still convinced it was Bunk?' said Jane.

'It fits, Jane. He stole the caesium from the lab. He was mad. He hated religion. We know he could kill. The description of the bomber from the survivors fits. Atheist. It was him. The Counter-Terrorist Division agrees with me. There's obviously been some kind of atheist underground terror group building, clearly a reaction to 9/11 and that. And Bunk's in it, right up to his bollocks.'

'So when are you going to get me some bomber DNA?'

'I'm pushing as hard as I can and you know it. The radiation messes everything up. We can only be thankful that we started the investigation on Bunk, otherwise we wouldn't get a look in.'

'So when?'

'I'll make another call. Okay?'

'Okay. Thanks.'

The blanket was lowered into its final position and waiting steeplejacks in radiation suits began to secure it over the horrible gash. Nervous cheers and a round of applause betrayed the unease with which the normally jaded and cynical police officers faced this dark new reality.

DCI Blake wondered whether he could neatly tie Bunk into the crime of the century in time to make it to the Alfa dealership tomorrow.

He dialled his CTD liaison, had a brief conversation.

'He turned to Jane then. Success. Bomber DNA has been isolated. It's on its way to the Army Research Lab at the Imperial College.'

'Can we go?'

'They're waiting for us. Have you got Bunk's DNA sample handy?'

She held up a vial.

'Then let's take a trip to South Kensington.'

Chapter 61: CHANGE OF SCENE - UP

The cooling fan clicked off. My cell door opened and in walked an officer of about my own age, with lively eyes and a smirk on his mouth.

'It's freezing in here,' he said. 'Come on out. Let's go somewhere warmer.'

He held the door open and warm air rushed in, reviving me quickly.

Two armed MPs stood in the corridor. I shuffled along beside my rescuer and he brought me to a kind of lounge at the end of the building. An unarmed soldier stood by the door, while the MPs followed us leisurely. On the wall were two framed photographs. President George W Bush smiled at me. The Twin Towers gleamed in morning sunshine beside him. Why we were all here. There were two old-fashioned armchairs, no windows, a coffee station in the corner.

The officer gestured to an armchair, a small electric heater beside it. I sat on the edge of the chair and warmed my stiff fingers, carefully inhaling the hot air through pursed lips and sore, chattering teeth.

A cup of coffee was placed on the little table beside me and the officer sat down.

'Hungry?' he asked.

'Bloody starving,' I said.

'You like McDonald's food?'

'Not normally,' I said. 'But I would give my left testicle for a Big Mac now.'

He nodded to his aide, who left the room.

'Regulations say that you eat nothing but combat rations for two weeks on arrival. But we have a McDonald's here for the staff and for prisoners who are helpful. You will be helpful, won't you, William? I'm taking a risk here, okay?'

'Okay. Thanks.'

'I won't be needing your testicle. Would you like a Starbucks coffee too?'

'No thanks. Don't like it.'

He nodded to the orderly, sat quietly then, watching me. What must I have looked like? As my blood forced its way back through tightened veins, my whole body burned. Scratching all over like a dog with fleas, sipping the machine coffee loudly, I was an illustration of how easy it is to dehumanise a person. I felt broken already, a prisoner less than a day. I was fearful of what could possibly happen next.

The aide came back, carrying a large paper bag, a soft drink container and some napkins. He placed them on the table beside me, then stood against the wall, watching me. I could smell the food, wanted it so badly, but was afraid to show my desire in case this was part of my torture.

'Go ahead,' said the officer. 'I'm Captain Miller and I'm your new best friend.'

'Thank you.'

I tore open the bag and found a Big Mac in its cardboard container, a cheeseburger wrapped in cellophane and a portion of fries. I ate like a hound and the food was consumed in maybe a minute. I drank the Coke then, licked my fingers, even licked the paper wrappings. Dog.

'Now. Do you need any kind of medical attention? How's your head?'

'No. Thank you. It was bad earlier, but I'm okay now.'

He took a packet of Marlboro from his breast pocket.

'Smoke?'

I took one and he lit it for me. I inhaled deeply, the fragrant fumes helping to warm the deep recesses of my innards. Fragments of my recent memory began to reform. He nodded to his aide, who brought over my file. Captain Miller flicked through the papers, nodding to himself.

'William, what are we going to do with you?'

I assumed this was a rhetorical question, made no reply. He continued to browse.

'Tell me about this blast at St Paul's,' he said. 'Who helped you?' He clicked his pen.

'Sorry, Captain. I had nothing to do with that.'

'Okay. Where were you when it happened.'

'I was in a friend's flat in the Barbican,' I said. Shit. Gave Frank away.

'I see,' he said, taking notes.' Who is this friend and can he vouch for you?'

'Just a friend. He was at work at the time.'

'So nobody can corroborate your position?'

'No,' I said, not wanting to land Anna in any of this.

'Who was the carrier?'

'Carrier?'

'Who took the bomb into the church?'

'I have no idea.'

He stubbed out his cigarette. I smoked mine right down to the filter until it burned my lips.

'William, you're going to have to give me something. I have to answer to my superiors.'

'I'm sorry, I just don't have anything to tell you. I was in the apartment. I heard a bang. I saw smoke. I ran. I woke up on the plane and thought I was dead.'

'Yeah,' he smiled. 'We get that a lot.'

He looked at my file again.

'Let me tell you what we have on you here,' he said, the smile gone now. 'You're wanted by Essex Police for killing your wife - '

'But - '

'Hang on,' he said, holding up a hand. 'You're wanted for killing your wife. You're wanted for doing illegal cloning experiments. You're wanted for stealing the radioactive material that was used in the St Paul's attack. And I believe that you facilitated that attack in other ways. You've been a busy boy, Bill. can I call you Bill? Frankly, I don't know what we're going to do with you.'

What the fuck was he going on about? I was dizzy. Play it cool, Bill. Play it cool.

'May I speak?'

He nodded, lit another cigarette, didn't offer one this time.

'Firstly, I did not kill my wife.'

'So why did you run?'

'I was being set-up. I panicked. I didn't want to be locked up.'

'You didn't do such a good job, did you? Go on.'

'I didn't kill my wife. I have no clue about any illegal experiments, I just test DNA samples, that's all. I didn't steal any radioactive material. I didn't have anything to do with any bomb. In short, I don't know what's going on or why I'm here.'

'Your past history isn't exactly helpful, Bill. Is it?'

'I have made mistakes in my life. But not on this scale. Hang on, wait a minute!'

'Yeah?'

'If I was involved with a dirty bomb, how come I didn't register on your Geiger counters?'

'Interesting. Why don't you tell me?'

I felt exasperated, fought hard to control my rising temper. Loss of it would be entirely futile.

'I have no reason to blow up St Paul's.'

He looked through my file.

'You're an atheist, right?'

'Correct. I don't believe in any God. I'm a scientist. I've met some good people in my life but, on the whole, I have seen plenty of proof that humans are not divine.'

'We're just clever animals, right?'

'Right.'

'Many people would take exception to that statement.'

'And that's their right. I take exception to thousands of Catholic priests having sex with tens of thousands of children and Mother Church covering for their evil. And I don't care if people want to believe in God or Santa Claus or aliens. I certainly wouldn't want to kill them for it.'

He nodded, made notes, offered me a cigarette.

'According to your police file, you lost your job, had a breakdown, killed your wife because she was having an affair.'

'Shit. I didn't know that.'

'Even your psychiatrist confirms that you had murderous tendencies. So you had access to caesium at your lab, somehow made contact with an al-Qaeda cell in London and gave them the material for the attack on organised religion. It was perfect, actually. You killed all the leading churchmen in Britain and made London's iconic place of worship uninhabitable.'

'For how long?'

'It could be decades. They're still working on containing the radiation.'

'Shit.'

'Yes it is. It's shit, Bill, and it's my job to work out how you did it and with whom. I think the why is pretty clear.'

'That's bullshit. I had nothing to do with it.'

He stood then, closed my file.

'I think that's enough for now. I hope you'll be in a more communicative frame of mind when next we meet. Good night.'

He nodded to the MPs and they took an arm each, led me back towards the cells.

Miller called to me.

'Yeah?' I responded weakly.

'Remember those pictures from Abu Ghraib?'

How could I forget that depraved episode? How could any human being?

'I remember.'

'Well they used techniques which were developed here. We don't allow cameras on base, that's the only difference. You understand?'

'I understand.'

'Good. Good night, fellah.'

Bastard.

Having warmed up, I was fearful of returning to the cold place. But they took me into a different cell, one with a fitted bunk and a stainless steel toilet.

The door was locked and I lay on the bunk in foetal position, covered myself with the light blanket. I tried to find sleep, but it evaded me. Morning came quickly, with a shaft of blazing sunshine through a long, narrow window high on the wall.

Then the music started.

Chapter 62: CONTACT

As Blake and Archer and Detective King sped through the dead streets in their unmarked car, blue light flashing, no need for the siren, the enormity of the attack struck home. Everybody in a huge chunk of the city had been advised to stay put indoors, whether at home or work, until the all-clear.

It was noon, yet there was barely a person or car to be seen.

'Christ,' said Blake, driving at seventy miles an hour, it's like one of those post-apocalypse films where everyone's dead.'

'It's bloody scary,' said King from the back. 'I'm waiting for the zombies.'

'I don't know,' grinned Blake. 'I'm actually enjoying this drive.'

'I hate zombies,' said Jane.

The men laughed as Jane scanned the buildings - many faces at windows - wondered if Bunk was looking down at them. Where are you? Did you really do all this?

As they approached the outer limit of the closed zone, police and army checkpoints let them pass, directed them away from the City.

Soon there were more people about and it was like a Sunday morning. Plenty of police still, all leave cancelled indefinitely. They met some traffic and Blake activated the siren, smiled again.

Most shops were closed but the occasional restaurant and coffee shop had opened their doors and were thronged. People had been at the brink of chaos, survived, wanted to be socially engaged now, swap stories, gossip about the almost-apocalypse and enjoy the giddy thrill of continued existence. The older ones talked about the Blitz and how much worse that had been. The younger ones were stunned at how the city buzz could be so easily derailed. They pointed at the covers of the day's newspapers, puzzled over what could have motivated Dr William Bunk to cause such calamity. Atheist had never been such a dirty word.

'We'll stop off for a bite to eat on the way home,' said Blake. 'My treat.'

'Fission chips?' laughed King, who'd been desperate to use the joke.

The dispatcher came through on the radio.

'DCI Blake, the Commissioner needs a word.'

'The Commissioner?'

'I'll patch him through.'

'Thanks,' said Blake making a surprised face at Jane.

'Sir?'

'Hello Blake. Where are you?'

'Nearly at Imperial College sir. We've got some of Bunk's DNA for comparative analysis with the bomber.'

'Good. Listen, a lead I need you to follow up. I'm in receipt of information which places our suspect in a Barbican apartment immediately before the attack.'

'Okay. What's the source?'

'Need-to-know. Now get on it, will you?'

'Very good sir.'

The Commissioner signed off and Blake immediately made contact with the office, ordered an immediate computer cross-referencing of all Barbican residents with Bunk, asked to be kept updated.

'We may have found Bunk's bomb factory,' he said.

'Maybe his cell?' said King.

This was a good break.

South Kensington's wide streets had some black cabs and a lot of military traffic. Nearing the sprawling Imperial College, they were stopped by a military checkpoint which was still being organised. Unusually, the officer commanding asked for Blake's ID and an explanation.

Safely through, the military presence at the main entrance was overwhelming, with soldiers in radiation suits, many jeeps and a bomb squad armoured truck.

'They used that for Bunk's pound of flesh,' said Blake.

He found a space across the street, reversed in quickly.

'Okay people. We're to find a Colonel Parks in the Army Research Lab, hand over our DNA, hang around for a result.'

'Will I be able to observe?' asked Jane.

'Doubt it. We don't have any clearances. I can ask if you like. There is a radiation risk.'

'Please.'

As they crossed the street, Jane looked at her watch, hesitated. Twelve thirty-eight.

There was a flash and the third floor left its moorings, came down to them in a hail of glass, brick and bone. A yellow fireball flooded the sky, roasted pigeons on the roof opposite. Jane and her lover and her colleague were thrown violently to the road as the blast and thunder and pain engulfed their world. Blake crept to her then, put his body over hers as the Imperial College rained down on them.

Jane could hear nothing, just a ringing, wondered if this was the end of her life. Time froze. Then her mind cleared a little and she wondered what could have caused this devastation. Would the Army be researching new weapons in the heart of London? Hardly. Was there research into nuclear fusion going on the College? Maybe. Was this blast radioactive too? Possibly, if only fractionally, from the St Paul's bomber's remains.

Blake hugged her.

'Are you okay?' he asked tenderly.

She could read his lips, couldn't hear his voice. She pointed to her ear, said, tried to say 'I think my eardrums are gone.'

He understood, nodded. He looked for Detective King.

'Clive. You okay?'

'I think so,' said King feebly. 'That was a bomb, wasn't it?'

'It certainly wasn't a gas explosion,' said Blake. 'Come on, if it wasn't a suicide job, the bomber may still be in the building.'

They picked themselves up. Blake checked Jane, rubbed away a stream of blood from her nostril. They looked at the building, saw that some of the soldiers at the entrance were burning and that the entire entrance area had collapsed. Other troops had leapt into action with fire extinguishers and distant sirens could be heard already.

Jane suddenly registered a dozen alarms going off, heard the sirens too.

'I can hear,' she said.

'Good, good,' said Blake as he unholstered his Glock pistol and hung his ID around his neck.

King did likewise.

'Jane, stay close, okay?'

'Where to?'

'Around that corner, there's a goods entrance. Might be our best chance.'

Thick black smoke poured into the grey sky and the screaming started.

Anna's phone chirped as she lay in the bath in an upmarket West End hotel.

'Yes?'

'This is Antonio,' said the caller. He sounded frantic.

'Is everything fine?'

'No. I have destroyed the evidence but the building is full of soldiers.'

She sat up, bubbly water sloshing onto the floor.

'What can I do?'

'If I can't get out, you must report for me. The lab is gone, I believe the evidence was there. The man who was working with our friend is dead. It is up to you now to make contact again with our friend and ensure that all is neatly clean. Do you understand?'

'Yes. I understand.'

'Arrivederci.'

'Good - ' she said, but he was gone. 'Luck.'

She dropped her phone on a dry towel, inhaled deeply, slid under the water.

Blake, King and Archer turned the corner and were met by a soldier and his SA 80 rifle.

'Halt!'

Blake raised his hands as the soldier eyed the pistols and flicked off his safety catch.

'Police,' shouted Blake, gesturing with his chin towards the ID flapping on his chest.

The soldier lowered his weapon and continued to the front of the College.

'Let's be very careful,' said Blake.

They reached the goods entrance, which was unoccupied, all staff and guards gone to the scene of the blast.

The loading bay was dark and quiet, a small delivery truck backed in against a loading platform full of pallets, boxes, drums. On the wall beyond, a large clock ticked away.

Blake and King cautiously moved into the loading area, pistols ready, covered each other. Jane hung behind, used her senses.

'There's somebody coming,' she said.

Footsteps clattered down a metal staircase somewhere behind the goods office. The clock ticked. More sirens screamed outside. Blake indicated the doorway to King, who moved to the wall beside it. Blake walked to the doorway, his Glock ready.

There was a metallic clatter and a small object tumbled towards them. A shocking noise rang around the loading bay. Then a loud crack and a figure, dressed in dark overalls, ran forward from the doorway, shot Blake again. He caught sight of King from the corner of his eye, but too late. King fired twice. Two bullets into the killer's head.

'Mark!' screamed Jane.

He was hit in the chest, blood gurgling from his lungs, his breastbone shattered. Blood streamed from his mouth and nose. She felt his neck for a pulse. Something faint, yes.

Hold on, Mark,' she shouted as King kicked the killer in the ribs, his gun trained on the shattered skull. Nothing. He pocketed the shooter's Beretta, called for an ambulance automatically, realised there were plenty around the corner, continued the call anyway.

Jane pulled off her jacket, pressed it against Blake's chest. Bloody splinters of bone and chunks of lung erupted as Blake shuddered violently. Then he died.

Jane put her mouth on his, blew hard. She pressed his ruined chest, again, again, again. More air.

'Clive, I'm losing him.'

'Fuck. I'll go get an ambulance. Keep trying Jane.'

He ran out of the loading bay and around to the utter carnage at the front of the college.

He was back in two minutes with a paramedic and found Jane sitting astride Blake, punching his chest. Her mouth was bloodied, hot tears dropping into the dead man's eyes.

Chapter 63: STOP

I wake up and I don't want to smile. Music seeps into my cell, gently at first, building to an almost unbearable volume. Fleetwood Mac, a band I used to enjoy. But no longer. The song ends. There is silence for maybe three seconds. My ears ring. Then the same song starts again.

Over and over again, the song, the song, the song. I had read that American interrogation techniques had included the repetitive playing of music to prisoners. I can only be thankful that I am not being subjected to Barney the dinosaur's I Love You, You Love Me. I am truly grateful for this small mercy.

I am worried about what tomorrow will bring. Deeply worried. Later, I yearn for Barney, for anything else. Surely this is cruel and inhuman punishment?

My sanity, precarious at the best of times, is in danger of slipping. I try to cover my ears with my hands. It deadens the noise temporarily, but I can't hold my hands up for too long. I am weak. I am getting weaker.

I know they are watching me and laughing. I hate them now. Even Miller. I vow to track Fleetwood Mac down if ever I escape from this hellhole. Do you know what you have done? I will ask them. Are you complicit in this torture? Are you receiving royalties from the US Army? Shame on you, I will say. Shame on you.

Night falls outside. My daily rations are beside the door, untouched. I feel nauseous and throw up - bile and spit - into my stainless steel Godphone. I beg for the music to stop and it does. A little while later, my brain registers that the music has indeed stopped and I have been hearing only the echo. The echo fades but it never leaves me completely. I worry that if they play the same song to me for another day, I will surely crack up.

Don't you look back.

Chapter 64: THE SHOCK

As the medic - who was suffering from shock himself - worked on Blake, King went through the killer's pockets.

'Ah, here we go, his wallet.'

He pulled out some business cards, some Euros, some sterling, a small wrap of cocaine which he discreetly pocketed.

'Says here this guy's a furniture salesman from Italy.'

'That doesn't sound right,' said Jane, who stood with her arms folded, smoked one of King's cigarettes. She coughed, stared at Blake's corpse.

'Sorry,' smiled the medic. 'He's well gone. I have to get back outside, okay?'

'Thanks,' said King to the medic's back.

'We should cover him, don't you think?'

'Take my jacket,' said King. 'No, wait.'

He went into the little office and found a towel, which he tossed to Jane. She put the towel over Blake's face.

'What an end,' she said. 'Covered in a dirty towel.'

'He doesn't care. Look, Jane. I need you now. We need to work out who this fucking guy is and why he blew up the college.'

'And killed our friend.'

'And killed our friend,' he said, walking to Jane and putting an arm around her. 'Come on.'

'Okay. Let's see this business card.'

Jane took a card and called the murder room. She passed on the bad news - the worst news - and the name. Antonio Pollo. The detective cursed, said that Pollo was Italian for chicken, got to work on tracing his movements.

'Could this be his van?' asked King.

'Yes,' agreed Jane. 'He's wearing delivery man's overalls. 'It would fit.'

She put on a pair of latex gloves, looked into the van before carefully opening the door, half-expecting a booby trap. She sat in the driver's seat and looked for any potential evidence.

Two soldiers ran in then.

'Jesus Christ,' said the sergeant, his face black, his Browning automatic pistol drawn. 'What the fuck is going on here?'

'DCI Blake was killed by this man,' said King, indicating Pollo. 'We believe he's the bomber.'

'Sorry about your friend. Good work with this prick. We'll enter the building here, check for any accomplices.'

'Good,' said King. He hadn't even considered this possibility. Sloppy. He just wanted to get away from the place, do a line. The soldiers walked over Pollo's body.

'Careful there,' said Jane. 'This is a crime scene.'

'The whole bloody city's a crime scene,' said the soldier.

Jane rooted in the glove compartment, found duplicate papers.

'Van's a rental,' she called. 'In the name of Antonio Pollo. Antonio also likes fragmentation grenades.'

King went to her.

'Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on? Well he's not carrying a passport or credit card. Let's see about the rental company.'

He called it in, keenly aware that this latest attack, on top of the St Paul's Outrage - that's what it was being called by the media - would slow down the initial investigation. He went back to the body.

'Who the fuck are you?'

King's mobile rang, news from base. He listened intently, finally said Fuck, thanks.

'You won't believe this, Jane.'

'Try me.'

'We've got contact on Bunk's associate in the Barbican.'

'Oh?'

'Frank Jennings. Top medical researcher. Long-time friend of Bunk. Guess where he works?'

'Try me.'

King indicated the building they were in with his thumb.

'Upstairs.'

'Fuck me.'

Love to, thought King as he went to Blake's body and rummaged through his jacket pockets.

'What the hell are you doing?'

'Getting his phone. I need to call the Commissioner with this.'

'Oh. Yeah. What does it mean?'

'Maybe our Mister Pollo is working with Bunk? I don't know. What do you think?'

'Why would Bunk want to kill his friend?'

'The guy's fucking nuts, I think that's obvious by now. Isn't it?'

'Mmm. We're still missing one vital clue here.'

'What?'

She held up the vial of Bunk's blood.

'We still don't know if Bunk's alive or dead.'

Chapter 65: PROOF OF LIFE

The convoy sped out of the city, police motorcyclists in front stopping what traffic there was, blue lights, sirens.

Jane and King followed in their battered car, the front windscreen a network of cracks. Behind them was the Army bomb disposal van and two military jeeps. The van carried the piece of flesh from the St Paul's bomber, which hadn't been brought into the Imperial College Army Laboratory before the blast. Some bit of luck.

Local officers had taken over the management of the crime scene where Blake and Pollo lay. Jane tried to block the scene from her mind, instead focus on the task ahead.

'You were in this place yesterday, yeah?' asked King as he steered a path through the bewildered streets, saluting the motorcycle cops at each junction.

'This is all too coincidental. Yeah. Bunk's former place of work, Essex Forensics. We were shown Bunk's secret lab and then the x-ray machines. Everything pinned on Bunk so easily.'

'Are they kitted out for dealing with radioactive samples?'

'Bunk's old boss, Fortescue, insists that they are. We don't have any other options.'

The car radio crackled, casualty numbers at Imperial College. Thirty dead, many more injured.

'That makes over a hundred dead from the two attacks,' said King. Is it just al-Qaeda or what?'

'I'm worried about the link to Bunk's friend. There may be something more sinister going on.'

'Such as what?'

'I don't know what. I really don't. We need to figure out whether Bunk's still alive first. Take it from there.'

'I'm with you.'

'One more thing. Keep an eye on this Fortescue guy and Bunk's ex-assistant. Karen I think is her name.'

'What's with them?'

'I'm not sure they're telling the whole story.'

They drove on in silence, listened to the radio reports. Finally they were in Essex. The security barrier was raised and they braked hard at the main entrance where Fortescue and Karen were waiting for them.

Chapter 66: MEAL, READY TO EAT

Breakfast was dropped through a hatch in the door. A bottle of water and a shrink-wrapped packet of food. Really hungry and with the Fleetwood Mac song just starting to fade, I ripped it open to find a green-tinged cheese omelette. It was rubbery, but tasted okay. As I licked my fingers and wondered how they could make a cheese omelette that would stay edible for months, my cell door opened.

'Good morning,' said Captain Miller.' Enjoy your omelette?'

He seemed in good form, carried my file.

'Wasn't bad.'

'You want to stretch your legs now?'

'Please.'

I followed him into the corridor. As we passed along the row of cells, I heard a scream. Miller smiled at me and I shivered. We didn't stop at the interrogation lounge. Instead, he nodded to an MP, who unlocked the main door. Outside!

The tropical day was an assault on my deprived senses. Though the sun was hidden by syrupy, low cloud, the rush of heat and light made my pulse quicken. The smell of sea was a powerful stimulant and I noticed that there was an odd sense of urgency about the camp, soldiers moving, golf carts trundling, helicopters drifting by.

We walked along the perimeter fence, a high effort with razor wire on top, with a higher electric fence beyond and a third - just like the nearest - beyond that. Two MPs walked behind us, just out of earshot. Miller walked slowly and I shuffled along in my legirons, to which I had adapted, sadly.

Miller offered me a cigarette.

'News from London,' he said as he cupped the lighter's flame against the strengthening wind.

'Did they catch the bomber yet?'

'No,' he laughed. 'But there was another attack.'

'Jesus. Where?'

'Imperial College.'

'Shit.'

'I know about your buddy.' He leafed through my file. 'Frank Jennings.'

'Is he okay?'

'He's dead. His entire lab was destroyed.'

I stopped. My head dropped. The samples were gone. My one friend was gone. My fault. I accepted that I was at the heart of a conspiracy and all who came into contact with me were in danger. I feared for Anna. It was time to talk.

'Christ. He was the only friend I had left.'

'Tell me about your contact with him.'

'Do you think he was the target?'

'That I don't know. A sample of the St Paul's suicide bomber was being tested at the Army lab there when the bomb went off. It could have been an attempt to hide the bomber's identity.'

'When I found my wife's body I went to Frank's apartment in the Barbican Centre. He believed I was innocent and let me stay there for the night. He went off to work next morning and I stayed in the apartment.'

'Was anybody with you.'

'Yes. Anna. A friend from Russia who I'd met on a scientific trip a few months ago.'

'Tell me about her.'

'She's a scientist. Works on the gas fields. Lovely woman, beautiful. We were in bed when the St Paul's bomb went off.'

'Can she verify this?'

'I'm sure she can. Look, it's like anyone who comes into contact with me gets killed. Can you maybe get on to the cops in London, have them watch out for her?'

'Absolutely. I'm sure they'd love to have a talk with her. And I know they'd keep her safe until all this blows over.'

More helicopters passed low over our heads, big Chinooks, sounding like they would come through the ceiling.

'What's happening?' I asked. 'Are the Cubans invading?'

'No,' he laughed. 'There's a storm brewing in the mid-Atlantic. We're just taking precautions. Standard operating procedure. Shouldn't be anything to worry about. Now tell me more about Jennings. What was he working on? Anything, I don't know, anything military-related?'

'I doubt it. Frank was a purely commercial proposition. He built up his CV in the public sector then took the best offer. He told me that he was doing DNA research for a drug company. I have no reason to suspect he was lying.'

'Well, unless the British find out something from his computer at home, it looks like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sorry.'

'Me too.'

'Come on. Let me buy you a burger and a coffee. Then I've got a surprise for you.'

Chapter 67: SPIDER

Fortescue led the way to the high contamination unit. King engaged him in smalltalk while Jane watched Karen. A soldier carried the lead box with the bomber's sample.

Fortescue used his swipe card to open a fortified door and brought them into a vestibule where two protective-suited technicians waited.

'This is as far as we go,' said Fortescue. 'Samples, please.'

Jane gave Bunk's blood sample to one technician while the other took possession of the heavy box. They entered an airlock, sealed the warning-plastered door behind them and waited for the air to filter out. A flashing yellow light rotated in the ceiling. Then the inner door opened and they went into the examination room, a small, bright space with a stainless steel table and an analyser. A Geiger counter was used to examine the box and both men checked their suit monitors.

'First they'll isolate a tiny fragment from the contaminated sample,' explained Fortescue. 'This will minimise contamination of our equipment. The radiation itself will make no difference to our results though it will, of course, break down DNA if the exposure has been high enough.'

'Shit,' said King.

'Don't worry, Detective. Caesium isn't active enough to do this. We should be okay. If it had been plutonium or uranium, well, different kettle of fish entirely.'

Likeable guy, thought Jane. A bit too nice. Karen seemed to hang on his every word. Do I detect a little bit of attraction? Is this how I looked when I was around Blake?

'How long will it take?' asked King.

'A couple of hours, I should think. The machine's fast. Finding a match is more difficult than discounting one. We'll know if it wasn't Bunk very quickly. I still can't get over this, I'm afraid.'

'Okay. Listen, Jane. Can you stay here and observe? Call me if there's any developments.' He looked at Fortescue and Karen. 'I'd like to talk to both of you in the meantime, flesh out the whole Bunk backstory.'

'Together?'

'That should be fine. Where can we go?'

'My office?'

'Perfect. See you later, Jane,' said King as they left the analysis area, winking as he passed her.

Jane sat on a folding plastic chair, wondered if the news had been broken to Blake's wife yet, how she'd have taken it. She felt she should call the Alfa Romeo dealership, let them know there would be no Spider collection. Then she dismissed the idea as crazy, decided to let Blake go, let her memory of him fade, find a man without a wife and kids for a change. She turned her attention to the technicians at work, knew in her gut that only one of the samples contained Bunk's DNA.

Chapter 68: COMPANY

In the interrogation lounge, I savoured a quarter-pounder with cheese, fries and a good Americano.

Miller explained how there was less pressure from above for a confession from me and that an al-Qaeda cell was being hunted in London. But I was still being sought by the police as the prime suspect.

'Don't they know I'm here?'

'No, not yet. The whole atheist-goes-nuts theory fitted, you know? But this latest attack doesn't follow on logically. Is there anything else you're not telling me?'

'Nothing.'

'Well, you've been reclassified as a low-risk prisoner. This means that we're just going to hold onto you for a while, until the dust settles in London and the investigators there reach some conclusions. So you'll be leaving solitary and joining other low-risk prisoners. Sound good?'

'No more Fleetwood Mac or MREs?'

'For now, no,' he smiled.

'Thank fuck for that.'

'I thought you'd be happy.'

'I'm delighted.'

'Well, wait until you meet your new friends before you get too excited, okay?'

'Okay. When can I go?'

'Let's do it now.'

Miller signed the block detention records and led me to the low security section at Gitmo, MPs in tow. We passed through four checkpoints. At each one I was patted down and my file scrutinised. Miller signed documents at every turn. Eventually, we reached a gated compound which had a line of billets along the perimeter and a double row of cages down the centre, six and six. All the cages were occupied, but for one.

The prisoners regarded me with suspicion. From what I could see, all were of Middle Eastern appearance. Most were on their knees praying to Allah in Arabic. One or two were just slumped in the corners of their cages. It was like some kind of crazy religion zoo. Here we have the Muslims. Notice how they like to face Mecca while they pray. That one there's an atheist, see the confusion on his face.

'I told you not to get too excited,' said Miller. 'I'm afraid this is the only low-security cell we have at present.'

'It'll do,' I said. 'At least it's got fresh air and sunshine.'

'That it does. Sit here, please,' he said, indicating a wooden bench.

I sat and the MPs unlocked my legirons and handcuffs. This was an unexpected bonus. I rubbed my wrists as they itched from the free blood flow.

'Thank you.'

The compound guards patted me down, unlocked the vacant cell, handed me a towel, a toothbrush, a bottle of water and a copy of the Qur'an.

'What's this?' I asked.

'That's the only book we're authorised to give you,' said Miller.

I rolled my eyes upwards at the surreal nature of the place and entered my cell. The gate was locked behind me and Miller signed my final transfer paper, handing over my file. He had a quiet word with the guard, then came over to me.

'You'll get hot meals now,' he said. 'Just don't fuck with the guards and you should be okay. If you have anything you want to talk to me about, say it to a guard and they'll get me. Understood?'

'Yeah. Thanks a lot.'

'You're welcome. Have a good day.'

And he was gone and I was in my new home for God knew how long.

The cage was made from reinforced chainlink, a cube measuring ten feet to a side. There were two buckets in my cage. One had water in it. There was a prisoner in each adjoining cell and, as prayers came to an end, they began to chat in Arabic, wondered who the hell I was and concluded, I felt, that I was a plant. I stood and stretched and walked around, a tiger in a zoo.

The prisoner in the cell to my left must've been nominated to make contact.

'The water is for drinking, the empty bucket for urine,' he said. 'If you need to use the toilet, tell a guard and he will take you. But they leave the door open and humiliate you.'

I said 'Thanks.'

'Why are you here?' he asked.

'I wish I knew.'

He tutted.

'There must have been a cause.'

His English was perfect, actually he had an English accent. He had a dark, wispy beard and a young face.

'There was a bomb attack in London,' I said. 'They think I did it?'

There was a murmur from the cells around.

'What kind of bomb? On the tube?'

'No. St Paul's Cathedral. A dirty bomb.'

'A dirty bomb,' he said, raising his eyebrows. The murmur increased in pitch as the news was passed along. A Hispanic guard with a shotgun paused at my cell, listened in.

The prisoner introduced himself as Danny from Bradford. We shared our tales and the guard - having heard it all before - grew bored and walked on. Danny'd been visiting family in Pakistan, celebrating a wedding, woke up on a plane.

'Are these cages bugged?' I asked.

'They don't need to bug them. We've all been through the water torture, told everything. What about you?'

'I just got the cold and the music.'

'What song?'

'Don't Stop.'

'I had that too,' he laughed.

'This is nice, out here. I like the heat, the birdsong.'

'Quite pleasant, but the mosquitoes come at night.'

'Damn. I hate mosquitoes. They love me.'

'Could be worse, William.'

'Could be.'

I warmed to him. He didn't strike me as a fundamentalist lunatic, whereas the guards and their Commander-in-Chief were right up there.

Then one of the prisoners called out something. They all used some of their bottled water to wash their faces, hands and feet, kneeled on towels, faced Mecca. This would happen five times a day and a couple of guys would remain in prayer position, poring over their Qur'ans from dawn 'til dusk.

Lunchtime came and so did a metal tray of rice, flat bread and a vegetable curry. A dead scorpion nestled in my rice. I threw it into my waste bucket, said nothing. I licked the tray clean. Danny didn't eat.

'Don't like this lovely grub?' I asked.

'I have begun a hunger strike,' he said. 'This is my third meal protest. After nine, they will take me away.'

'Why are you doing this? It's got to be pointless.'

'My body is the only weapon I have left. I must do something to protest this injustice. Can you understand?'

'Yes.'

Afterwards, the cages were unlocked one by one. We were patted down and allowed to walk around the perimeter for an hour.

Danny walked with me and we chatted about the increased activity in the camp, the coming storm. A convoy of Humvees passed on the road outside, headed towards the high detention compound.

'They move the high value guys to a secure underground facility at the slightest hint of trouble,' explained Danny. It happens regularly.'

'What about us?'

'If the storm turns out to be heading our way, we'll be taken to the MP compound. It's only happened to me once.'

'How long have you been here?'

'Since 2002. Is that a long time?'

'Yes,' I said, worried now that I could spend the rest of my life in Guantánamo.

Chapter 69: INTEL REPORT - JTF/G - MILLER - P7263

Subject has been cooperative and has complied with all requests.

Key findings:

1. Denial of involvement with incident 4223. This is supported by absence of radiation contamination on subject.

2. Admission of presence at home of FRANK JENNINGS at time of incident 4223. Claims to have been in company of Russian national, ANNA KAZLOV, at time of incident 4223.

3. Expressed shock at death of JENNINGS and incident 4337.

4. Subject's atheism does not appear to be fundamentalist in nature.

5. Subject appears to have no knowledge of Cell 339 or its activities.

6. Subject denies murdering his wife, SALLY BUNK.

Recommendations:

1. ANNA KAZLOV to be located and questioned regarding incidents 4223 and 4337. FSB?

2. Subject should be considered for immediate release and placed in care of UK police authorities.

END

Chapter 70: SOME BACKGROUND

Karen uncrossed her legs, recrossed them. What's she playing at? wondered King.

'So,' he repeated, 'you knew that Bunk was doing illegal genetic experiments and you didn't think to tell anyone?'

'As I said, Detective, I didn't know they were illegal and I didn't see much of them any way.'

'And what made you bring them to Doctor Fortescue's attention?'

'It was only after Bunk was fired and killed his wife. I thought he must be crazy.'

'But you never thought that before, am I right?'

'No.'

'Detective,' interrupted Fortescue, 'I don't think that Karen can be blamed for Bunk's actions. She was just doing her job.'

'See no evil, speak no evil, eh?'

'Loyalty is something I value.'

'Loyalty.'

Reviewing his notes, King decided that Fortescue was too cool to reveal anything he didn't want to, but was hiding something. Karen, however, was breakable.

'Karen, just a little bit about your background. What are your qualifications, please?'

'Would you like me to get you a copy of my CV?'

'That won't be necessary for now, just tell me where you studied.'

'I have a diploma in laboratory technology.'

'Where from?'

'Riyadh University.'

King's heart jumped.

'You're Saudi Arabian?'

'Correct, but I have lived in England for many years.'

'How many?'

'Seven.'

'Okay. I didn't think women were allowed to go to college in Saudi Arabia.'

'A common misconception. There are many courses which are approved for females.'

King's phone rang. Jane. Brief chat.

King stood and closed his notepad.

'What is it, Detective?' asked Fortescue.

'We've got to get back to the office. Thank you for your time. I may need to speak with you both again.' He smiled at them. 'It turns out that Bunk wasn't the bomber.'

Chapter 71: ISLAM 101

Danny became my teacher, eager to convince me that I, as a westerner, had no fundamental understanding of Islam. It was somehow comfortable to sit there in the tropical shade, the air stirring more with every hour, and listen to his well-intentioned beliefs, his passion.

Our talks were punctuated by the business of camp, the low-flying choppers, the guards, the dogs, the prayers.

During prayer, one of the men in our cage cluster would lead the others and they would recite verses from the Qur'an which they knew by heart, though they still turned the pages back. Their voices merged into a melodic stream of praise, echoed in the chanting from the other prayer groups scattered between the hissing fences. My eyes focussed on a grove of coconut palms, the music lulled me into a reverie and I was disappointed when the prayers ended.

Danny spoke at length about Muhammad and the origins of the religion. Cast your mind back to the seventh century. Imagine the Middle-Eastern mindset. Rome was a memory, the Jews and the Byzantine Christians were strong, the Persians nearby, all competing powers. Tribal conflict in the Arabian Peninsula gave Muhammad a leadership role. It appears that he used his high social position to bring about social change. He created a new religion to counterbalance the established ones, stake a claim for his people. He invented Islam, starting with a vision in a cave in six ten AD. Muhammad was forty years old.

He was told that his vision had come from God. The status of prophethood was conferred upon him, Islam was born. Muhammad's smart military tactics lead his tribe to victory, eventually conquering Mecca in six thirty, destroying the idols there. A jihad conquers all of Arabia's tribes, forcing them to bow to Islam and Muhammad. He dies in six thirty-two, aged sixty-two. His successors sow the seeds of the Sunni/Shia schism, while launching their campaign to take over the world, reaching France to the west and Indonesia to the east.

'Why this campaign?' I asked.

'For the same reason Christians travel the world with ideas of salvation,' he answered. 'Muslims believe that they have found the ultimate truth and that it is their duty to awaken others.'

'Infidels.'

'Ah. That is an English word. It means "one who is without faith or who denies the central tenets of a faith".'

'Then I'm an infidel.'

'If you insist,' he laughed. 'The word a Muslim would use is kafir. It refers to a person who denies God or Muhammad. That is all. It is not allowed for a Muslim to describe a Christian or a Jew as kafir.'

'I can see why. It's incredible how all three religions - Islam, Christianity, Judaism - are so similar. Look at their belief in a single God, their geographical origins, even Abraham.'

'Correct, Abraham is the father of us all.'

'So why the hatred? Why can't these religions just get along. You have more in common with an American evangelist than you have with me. God-wise of course.'

'Of course. This I shall have to consider.'

He meditated for a time and I read my Qur'an. What a picture. There was the commotion of a convoy passing, out of sight. Fresh meat for the torturers.

Danny's eyes opened and he smiled at me.

'The reason for our conflict is simple. Lack of respect.'

'On all sides?'

'On all sides,' he whispered.

'Makes sense. I'd also add in a culture clash, accelerated by digital media, big business ethics, diminishing oil and the odd old men who've always controlled everything. That's a rich brew for conflict.'

'And here we are.'

We laughed.

He told me about what makes a Muslim - submission to Allah - and the Five Pillars of Faith. One, the Confession and Testimony. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet. Two, Salat. Prayer five times a day, facing towards Mecca. Three, Zakat. Almsgiving to those less fortunate. Four, Fasting during the month of Ramadan, from sunrise to sundown. Five, Hajj. Pilgrimage to Mecca for the Eid celebrations, once in a lifetime.

'Yes, Hajj was a brilliant idea by the Saudi tourist industry.' I said I wanted to get to jihad and hijab.

'In good time, my student.'

A nice touch. But what could I teach Danny in return? Disbelief, emptiness, cynicism, denial, obsession. I would remain the student.

'And how does one become a Muslim?'

'Quite easily. Testify. Simply state that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.'

'Just state it?'

'Yes. It's better?'

'Seems straightforward.'

'Upon submission to Allah, you then have his handbook. There,' he said, indicating my Qur'an. 'That book contains every answer to every question.'

'I think I get it.'

'So.'

'So?'

'Are you ready to testify?'

I was surprised by the question, though I should not have been. A door had been opened for me, yes, but that was solely because of my circumstances. I would not fall through.

'No, Danny. I don't know if I will ever be ready.'

'That is an honest answer. I will keep trying to educate you.'

'Thank you. I enjoy our conversation.'

'A point worth noting,' he said. 'Do you know the flag of Saudi Arabia?'

'Green with white squiggles?'

'Correct. Those squiggles are Arabic. They read - '

'There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet?'

'You are an excellent student, William.'

Dinner was rice and vegetables and curry sauce. I was offered chicken and accepted it with the graciousness of a Mumbai holy man. I was changing.

Danny drank some water, turned to his Qur'an.

I learned about the beliefs of Islam, the five Articles of Faith, more contentious than the Pillars, with which nobody could really argue.

'The Articles are as follows. One. God, there is but one true God and his name is Allah. He is so far above us that we cannot ask him for favours or mercy. He is our judge and does not involve himself in the petty affairs of man.'

'Fair enough. Did you know that Catholics have a patron saint for upset stomachs?'

'Two. Angels, Allah's messengers. Each person has two angels. One to record his good deeds, one to record his bad deeds. Angels are spiritual beings, whereas the Jinn are between angels and men and can be good or bad.'

'Jinn. Interesting. How were they created?'

'They were made out of the fire.' Deadpan.

'Okay.'

'Three, Scripture. The Qur'an, The Gospel of Jesus, The Books of Moses, The Psalms of David. These books are holy to us.'

'The New Testament? Are you kidding me?'

'Not at all. Most Christians find this shocking.'

'I'll say.'

'Many Muslims believe that these other books have been corrupted, which is why Allah gave us the Qur'an.'

'Fair enough.'

'Four. The Prophets. God has spoken through many prophets. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus among them.'

'Jesus?'

'Yes, but Muhammad is the greatest of the prophets. He is the Seal.'

'I still can't get over Abraham. The father of all three monothesitic religions. You know there's no archaeological proof that he ever existed?'

'No?'

'No. Many scholars believe that Abraham was invented by some king or other in Canaan - the Holy Land - to justify a land grab. About 500 BC. And the big deal about Abraham was that he believed in just the one God, who told him to kill his son as a sacrifice and, as he was about to slit the kid's throat, that one God intervened and said "It's okay. I was just testing you, Abe."'

'This is our great annual celebration of Eid, we commemorate this event.'

'It's all a bit strange though, don't you think? If a modern-day Abraham tried that, he'd be locked up in a big house with soft rooms and high walls around it. I wonder what the benefit of switching from many Gods to just one would have been back then? Less livestock waste than multiple sacrifices? I wonder. Taking power from diffuse special interest groups? Centralisation of control?'

'May I continue, William?'

'It's all very strange, that's all.'

'Five. The Last Days. This will be a time of resurrection and judgment. Jesus will be resurrected first. He will kill all Jews and Christians and pigs. He will shatter all crosses, get married and die. He will be buried beside Muhammad in Medina. Forty years later, the Resurrection. All who have lived will return to life for judgment by Allah. Those who believe in Allah and Muhammad - and are pure - will go to heaven. All others will go to hell, even Muslims who have sinned. These will be allowed into heaven after a time. For non-believers, there is no escape from the fire.'

He sat back then, allowed his gaze to wander around the compound.

'Did I just say that Abraham was strange? I can see how Christians and Jews would have a problem with the whole Last Days thing.'

As would pigs.

'That is as it is written.'

'Jesus will kill all Christians. That's a game changer. What about the whole virgins in paradise for martyrs scenario? Is that true?'

'A man who dies in Jihad or Holy War goes directly to heaven where seventy-two virgins will be awaiting him. This is written.'

I let this sink in. I felt that insulting my teacher with my logical response to his assertions would be pointless, so I smiled, thanked him, lay down and wondered about it all.

After a time, he washed and came nearer.

'Do you wonder how I can follow my religion, Billy?'

'I guess it's down to exposure really, isn't it? Where you grow up. What your parents believe.'

'When one is exposed to the truth after a lifetime of emptiness, there is no resistance.'

'I can see that, yeah.'

'Any other questions for today?'

'Are you Sunni?'

'All of us in this compound, yes.'

'So what's the difference between Sunni and Shia?'

'Easy. Sunni believe in Allah and see Muhammad as his prophet. Shia believe this too, but also consider Ali, Muhammad's cousin to be his successor. This is the crux of our difference. We see Shia as idolaters. See how the Iranians - Shia - like to have gigantic images of Khomeini and other teachers all around?'

'Very Big Brother.'

'We consider this to be idolatry. We cannot even conceive of an image of Allah or Muhammad. Cannot even conceive of it.'

'Or a Danish cartoon of them.'

'Just so.'

Evening prayers then, the most special. As the soaring chants gave thanks to Allah for the day, fireflies appeared in the palms and the stars poked through the azure canopy. I was almost contented, malaise dispelled. I was nearing an understanding of Islam.

The simplicity and purity of the moment lingered, then was quickly shattered by the arrival of a dozen MPs in the compound. They reviewed clipboards with the commander of the compound, a lieutenant. They looked towards us. A move. Please not me.

Ten seconds after prayers concluded, the soldiers swarmed at the gate to Danny's cage.

'It's only been four meals,' he protested.

He was pulled out and searched by a big man. The cage was locked behind him. He was cuffed and shackled in legirons. He smiled at me as he was led away, said something in Arabic to his brothers.

'I hope he's not getting into trouble for talking to me,' I said to the MP with the gloves who'd searched Danny. He was taking everything from the cage - buckets, clothes, Qur'an, towel - and into a black refuse sack. He ignored me and entered the cage to check along every edge and in every corner for contraband. Happy that the cage was empty, he sealed the bag, completed a label, locked the cage and consulted with the compound commander.

I prayed - yes, prayed - that Danny wouldn't be tortured. Surely they could send him home?

Night fell then, a worrying impact. My imagination had deviated from its path to calm and was feverish with speculation and dread. I was startled by the relentless change in my routine. I called the guard, a friendly chap from Iowa. I asked if I could see my father figure, Captain Miller. He said he'd see what he could do.

The guard returned after a few minutes, his smile frozen.

'Sorry, bud. Captain Miller's been transferred. He's outta here. Wish I was with him.'

'Where is he?' I said, my voice cracking, my mouth dry and pulsing.

'Iraq. Your new Case Supervisor is the Base Commander,' he said, shaking his head.

'Is that bad?'

'He likes to use the water, if you know what I mean. Good night, buddy.'

I stood in my cage, my shoulders stooped. I stared after the guard, saw distant lights arching into the oily night. I almost drowned as a child, in a swimming pool in Crete. Waterboarding, the very idea of simulated drowning, disgusted me. I knew I would not be able to endure it, that I would blab my life story. Everything.

I was woken from a dream of a lonely desert island by the clanging of gates and the familiar military gang bustle. They love their routines and operating procedures and I can see how the military life is attractive to obsessive-compulsives. But not for me. Ah. Buckets. A new prisoner. A new companion.

Chapter 72: THE COMET'S TALE

Anna quickly grew bored of lounging in the hotel suite, eating strawberries and scanning the news for mention of Bunk.

A memory of her visit to Tunguska flashed and she ordered a fresh bottle of Moët, closed her bathrobe tightly and tapped at the terminal, chasing childhood dreams of comets.

Comets had impacted Earth many times, of course. Every child with nine years knows this and knows what happened to the dinosaurs. And comets are remnants from all times, from the forging of the Universe to the star cycles of billions of years of growth and death and growth again. But carriers of living organisms that can interact with human DNA?

The Black Death, bubonic plague, main outbreak over most of the fourteenth century, sixty percent of Europe's population dead. It returned many times over the next five hundred years. Bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Halley's Comet? If the comet could be so readily associated with world events, such as the birth of Jesus Christ and the battle of Hastings, why not the plague?

The plague's recurrence was so regular, Halley could be a carrier. Needs more research.

Tunguska Event now. Massive explosion in Siberia. 1908. Accepted as a comet air-bursting with the power of a thousand Hiroshimas. Middle of nowhere, thank God.

But what's this? The stunned indigenous, those that survived, were covered in boils after the event. Boils? Whole families died. Medical examiners recorded an epidemic of smallpox, the first in the region. A virus. Transmission by inhalation of airborne variola virus.

This was fascinating and something she'd not known. So she displayed some thigh to the young man from Gdansk who brought the champagne, made his day, took notes in her pad.

Smallpox was a fascinating disease. Literally was. The first successful eradication of a killer virus. Vaccination with the cowpox virus was safe and usually effective. Only two smallpox samples remain in existence, under armed guard in the United States and Russia, at Vector, the State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology. Smallpox had been used as a weapon many times through history and the Cold War saw its laboratory evolution into new, more virulent forms.

Anna shuddered at the idea of a smallpox weapon being loosed on a planet with no immunity, just a vague memory of the Black Death.

She accepted that a comet had led to the dominance of mammals by conveniently wiping out dinosaurs sixty-five million years before, she just didn't get the more subtle influence.

Wait. Scientists at the University of Wales and papers about flu epidemics from space. Sars. Interesting theory that the organic debris from comets can take decades to float down to the surface of Earth after capture by its gravitational field. Sunspots force them down. Curious, but perhaps a measurable mechanism. More notes and more ideas for Billy.

Where are you Billy?

Then news broke about the blast at Imperial College. Anna was stunned by the scale of the attack. Grainy images, breathless commentary and bodies, bodies everywhere. She put her glass beside the LCD screen, lit a cigarette and leaned towards the flow of misery.

Police report that the suspected bomber was shot dead and accomplices are being hunted.

'Jesus Christ!'

She pondered her connection to Antonio. Phone call. Shared hotel room the night before. The police already had her number. Shit. They would connect her.

She decided that a Eurostar train to Paris would be the quickest way to leave the country, looked it up. Is it running? Yes. One hour. Don't book online, just go.

She threw her clothes and toiletries into a red case, called reception to arrange her bill. She powered off her cellphone, tossed that into the case with her notes.

As she left the room, the house phone rang.

'Anna?' said a strange woman's voice.

'Yes.'

'Please don't hang up. I'm Jane Archer. I'm a civilian crime scene manager with Essex Police. I just want to talk to you about Bill Bunk.'

'Where is he?'

'I don't know.'

'Well neither do I. Goodbye.'

'Wait. I think he's been framed for murder. But I don't know why. Could I see you for a coffee, maybe fill in some blanks?'

She didn't appear to be concerned about Antonio.

'How did you know I was here?'

'Easy to find you once I had your name. Bunk's email account.'

'Very good. Let me tell you that I have done nothing wrong. I only came to London to see Billy, that's all.'

'I accept that, I really do. I just need to know more about his work and colleagues. I'm not a police officer.'

'Very well. I can see you in forty minutes at St Pancras station. I'll be sitting in Starbucks with The Times newspaper.'

'It'll be hard for me to make it in forty minutes.'

'So get some blue lights.'

Chapter 73: INTO THE CAGE

Dawn broke the darkness into swirling palms, the boiling sun and rainclouds. Wind blew dust into my eyes. And into the cage next door came an actual American. I told him about the buckets. Then the inevitable.

'Why are you here?'

'I wish I knew.'

The inevitable.

'Join the club. I'm Bill Bunk, from England.'

'Tom Ford. I'm American. Got in last night.'

'They think I killed my wife and blew up St Paul's.'

'Oh, that was you, was it?' he laughed, then held his water bucket to his lips, drank carefully. 'They think I've been planning to assassinate abortion doctors.'

A Christian militant? Here? Are they mad?

The other prisoners on cage row had woken and were washing quietly before morning prayer. When the praying started, I put my finger to my lips. Ford shrugged and slumped in a corner. The drugs were still in his system.

We spoke over breakfast.

'There are cockroaches in my rice,' said Ford.

'Quiet,' I said. 'They'll all want one.'

We laughed out loud and Danny was forgotten.

'Listen Bill,' he said in a low voice, 'I'm a Christian and I'll never deny that. But I don't believe in murdering someone for Jesus. They have no evidence of anything. It's why I'm here.'

'I didn't know they were sending US citizens over.'

'Neither did I.'

'Is it legal?'

'Nobody cares about that any more, Bill. This war against Islam has taken over. We're just two little pawns in a big game.'

'Were you drugged and abducted?'

'Nah. I've been in jail in North Carolina for a coupla weeks now. They couldn't make me talk so they figured to shake me up a little over here. That's all.'

'Scare tactics.'

'Exactly. That's all this place is.'

'I hope you're right, Tom. I didn't get any really bad stuff yet, but I've heard stories of truly nasty behaviour.'

'What do you do, Bill? Before here.'

'I'm a doctor. I was working in a forensics lab.'

'CSI stuff?'

'Yes.'

'Cool, that's cool. I'm a teacher myself. Can you believe that? A doctor and a teacher in Gitmo and we're with the good guys.'

It was a bizarre situation for sure. In a disturbing way, I was glad of Tom, glad that I wasn't the only middle-class, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road prisoner. I told him about my work and he showed interest. He got to talking about creationism and I spoke about my belief in evolution. We argued over this for the afternoon, including on our perimeter walk.

'Will they leave us in the cages if the storm comes?' he asked.

'I doubt it. That would be crazy.' I looked around, wide-eyed. 'Although - '

He laughed.

'I don't see how something as complex as humour can simply evolve. Do apes have a sense of humour? I don't think so.'

'It's not that simple, Tom. The human brain has evolved so rapidly, we still don't understand it.'

'You got that right. For all your science and knowledge, you can't even cure a cold.'

'Yes, but at least we know it's a virus. That's a start. Viruses are just terrible buggars to deal with. At least we're not running around in the dark blaming God. Or the devil.'

He stopped walking. I went back to him and apologised, but his smile was gone. The whistle told us to get in our cages. Tom asked to use the toilet and was taken away. I sat in my cage and leafed through my Qur'an, hoped that Tom would come back to me.

After using the toilet, the prisoner was escorted away from the compound to a guard hut near the main offices. Inside, he enjoyed the aircon, lit a cigarette and savoured a can of cold Coke. Afterwards, he kneeled before the crucifix hanging on the wall. Then he made a call.

'Yes?' asked the flat voice.

'Link, sir. I've made contact with Bunk and he's talking.'

'Anything?'

'No specifics yet.'

'We need to move on. It appears that all the samples are destroyed. The London actions have succeeded. Atheism is discredited, the press hysterical. We will get God into the Constitution yet.'

'Excellent. That's really good.'

'Yes. The world has moved on. Bunk is now an embarrassment. Get what you can, then kill him.'

Chapter 74: COFFEE

King drove Jane back into the city in a marked car, lights on. The debriefing at work was over but the taste of death wouldn't go away. They'd made their statements and the case was out of their hands. At least the Imperial College bomber was dead, initial tests showed unburnt explosive residue all over him. Guilty of the whole mess. No leads on accomplices, business card address was a church, dead end. Case closed, Interpol had it now. The Inspector went to see Blake's wife. The test results from the Bunk case - Bunk! - fired Jane up and King needed the break.

'So you're convinced it wasn't Bunk?' said King as they neared St Pancras, the streets still empty from the malaise of fear.

'Bunk's kitchen. He drank the fresh drink, yes. But the other two drinks were had by Bunk's wife and some unknown other. Are you working on a trace?'

'Yeah. DNA and prints. It's in the pipeline but the system's been so fucked I don't know if we'll get a match any time soon.'

'Odds are he won't be on the database anyway.'

'This is true. What are you hoping to learn from this woman?'

'She wouldn't know Sally's lover, she wouldn't know about the bombs. But she might know who'd like to frame Bunk.'

King knocked off the siren a block from St Pancras international rail station. He stopped the car, lights down, at the main entrance, just a few bemused people there. The idea of another bomb came and most hurried away.

'I'll hang on here,' said King. 'Call if you need me.'

'I'll be fine. Thanks for getting me here in time.'

'No worries.'

He turned on music radio, clapped upon hearing the Sex Pistols and lit a cigarette before she'd even closed the car door.

The station was strikingly beautiful without so many annoying people about. She could stand for a moment and look. Then she saw the coffee shop and hurried towards it. Anna would have been hard to miss, a blonde supermodel, immaculately dressed, casually reading the paper while sipping an extravagant beverage. You are beautiful and you know it. Curious scar, even concealer can't hide it. A red case on the floor. So you're getting a train.

'Anna?' said Jane, her hand outstretched, her eyes smiling.

'Hello Jane,' she said, shaking her hand delicately. 'Please sit. I got you a coffee. You know what service is like here.'

'Thanks.' Shit, should I drink this?

Jane sipped the coffee, a fancy kind of cappuccino. It tasted fine, still hot.

'Do you have any ID please?'

Fair enough, she thought as she offered her official laminate.

'So what did you want to know?'

'About William Bunk. Anything about him. I think he's being framed for killing his wife.'

'Thank goodness for that. I didn't believe it when he told me.'

'When did you see him?'

'Just for one afternoon. The day of the bomb.'

'You were with him when it went off?'

'Yes. He had nothing to do with it. He panicked when we saw the news. So I left. I've been in my hotel since and I'm getting the train now. This has all been a horrible experience. Except for the time we had, of course.'

'Where were you?'

'In his friend's place. The Barbican. Bill was hiding from you at Frank's. We drank and made love. I was happy to see him and felt sorry for him. Then bang. What happened to him then?'

'He disappeared. When did you last meet Bunk?'

'Two years ago in Russia. The project I was with dug up a frozen mammoth. Billy and his friends from the lab came over to see her.'

'A scientific expedition?'

'And a boys' weekend away. They were crazy for their vodka and women. I fell for Bunk and he had a good time.'

'Who was with him?'

'His friend Frank. They got on well together. His boss, I don't know his name.'

'Fortescue.'

'Yes. I didn't like him. He was jealous of Billy being with me. Billy told me.'

'Anyone else?'

'Just a technical guy. Jim, I think. He was quiet. Spoke in whispers with Fortescue.'

Jane jotted some notes. 'What month?'

'July.'

'And your contact with Bunk since then?'

'Just the occasional email.'

'There was an envelope from Russia at Bunk's house.'

Anna took a long drink, decided to tell the truth. Her train would depart in ten minutes. She stood and fixed her long coat, checked her lipstick in a tiny mirror.

'I sent that to him. It was a sample from a frozen early human we found in Russia. I thought he might enjoy analysing it. Was the sample in the envelope?'

'No, there was nothing in it. Was that all?'

'That's all. He was excited by it. He thought he could use it to disprove the existence of God.' Anna smiled. I found his crazy notions endearing. I must go.'

Jane stood.

'What if I need to ask you something?'

'You have my email,' smiled Anna.

She extended the suitcase handle, shook Jane's hand, turned to walk away. She stopped.

'By the way, Billy was having an affair with one of his work colleagues. Au revoir.'

'Au revoir,' said Jane, who sat back down, finished her coffee. She ordered two more to go, went out to King with a taste of clarity, the idea that the answers to the Bunk mystery could be found in the forensic science labs and the new wild card: disproving God? Maybe Bunk was just a crazyman after all.

But tomorrow for all that. Today, she would go home and drink and choose her clothes for the funeral.

Chapter 75: ACT OF GOD

When Tom got back from the toilet, the mood in the compound changed. The wind was gusting loudly and a needling rain had begun to swirl. An officer came and gave orders to the MPs. Now!' he shouted.

Each prisoner was released from his cage, patted down, cuffed and shackled. In a few minutes, we were lined up at the compound gate. The storm had grown wilder in that time, like a hurricane had switched direction nearby, was bearing down on the place.

A sergeant shouted 'You will be taken by bus to a secure location. You must obey all orders. You must not panic. Let's roll.'

The gate was opened and we were taken onto the bus, one at a time. There was plenty of debris in the air, mainly palm leaves and dirt. The MPs wore goggles and held their weapons tightly.

The base around us was quiet, seemingly locked down. I glanced at the helicopter pad and saw a fat transport helicopter on its side, technicians milling around. Tom saw it too.

'This could be our best chance to escape,' he whispered into my ear.

'No talking!' shouted an MP.

Jesus. But he had a point. The cool control of the base had slipped. The storm had exposed the limits of military power. Nature rules.

The bus had no seats. I sat on the floor, watched as the long floorchain snaked through my legirons. Tom was beside me, apparently calm. The bus was shaken by the wind. I looked up through the window and saw the sunrise glowing a rich red. The black clouds unloaded their water on us and raindrops the size of grapes lashed the bus, making the music of an asylum orchestra.

All prisoners on board, the door was locked from outside and two MPs travelled with us. The bus engine howled as the driver missed her gear. Then, with a judder, we were on our way. We drove slowly along the road beside the main perimeter fences. It was all I could see, the base passing by unseen on the right. The fences were being rattled and I saw broken links and flailing electrical wires.

At times, the bus was lifted a few inches by the storm. It gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The driver fought for control and the guards looked nervous, chatting between themselves, peering out at the damage.

We reached the far side of the helicopter field, where the road rose a little. A depression on the right must have given a gust an extra power, because the bus was picked up and thrown against the inside fence. The roof of the bus easily sundered the chainlink and the driver's compartment shattered the electric wall beyond. There was a flash of blue and the driver screamed. The bus came to rest on its roof, the front raised to forty-five degrees. There was mayhem and carnage in the back. The restraining floorchain had saved some of us, hanging upside down from the floor like the slabs of meat in Smithfield. I could taste blood and my head felt wet. But the chain had failed others, at least two men frozen in grotesque entanglements. The guards, unchained, lay in a heap, apparently dead. There was a sickening smell of burning.

With the windows broken, the hurricane roared though the vehicle and shook us some more. I had to fight the motion, my stomach muscles aching, fearful that my head would be battered. Tom had raised his torso up and was pulling at the floorchain. I felt a tiny give.

'Get ready!' he shouted and tugged again with all his strength.

There was nothing I could actually do. The chain gave and we tumbled down to the ceiling, a mess of death and pain. My left shoulder took most of the impact and it screamed at me.

Tom emerged from under a body and lifted me to a sitting position. He found the end of the chain and pulled it through our legirons. Then he made his way to the MPs and searched their waistbands for keys.

'Got them,' he said, fumbling with his legirons. They clicked open and he threw them out a window. Then he had his cuffs off and came to me. I was still in a daze. Then I was free and following Tom through a window. The other survivors were calling to us.

'What about the other guys?' I said.

'Fucking terrorists. I'm not helping them,' he said calmly, threw the keys into the storm.

We crouched beside the fence, saw that the bus had ruptured all three fences. We would just have to climb over. A large sheet of wood spun over our heads and I turned to see that the base was beginning to come apart. Debris was everywhere, lethal fragments of trees, doors, fences and machines. The damaged helicopter was shredded, the main fence showing damage along its length.

'Ready?' he asked.

'I'll follow you.'

At the back of the bus, we used the wheelarch for a foothold and made our way onto the chassis. The wind whipped us and I was hit by pieces of Cuba. I clung on desperately to the oily pipes and struts. Flipflops gone, I roasted my foot on the exhaust pipe. The bus became a mountain, every inch of upward progress a battle. The vehicle continued to shake but thankfully no more lightning bolts from the electric wall. It had shorted. A good break. We neared the top of our mountain and passed by the fences.

Reaching the front bumper, Tom hesitated, scanned the ground below. He turned to me and said 'Just jump, just jump.'

I nodded and he was away.

I pulled myself up the last few feet and looked over the edge. The bus lurched with my heart. A high, high drop and nothing to break the fall. Tom was sitting on the dirt, looking up. I swung my body over the abyss and, holding the bumper, lowered myself as far as I could. I looked into the bus and saw the driver flattened against the front window, her face singed in death, her hair still smouldering. In fright, I let go.

I managed to bend my knees when I hit the ground, remembering the paratroop training footage. The impact hurt but I broke nothing.

Tom wasn't so lucky.

'I think I twisted my ankle,' he shouted.

I saw the telltale black bulge. Broken metatarsal. I got up and offered my hand. He took it and grunted his way to his feet. He winced.

'Lean on my shoulder,' I said. 'You've broken a bone in your foot. I can bind it for you when we reach some shelter but we're going to need a hospital soon.'

'Okay,' he said. 'It hurts like hell.'

'We've got to get you some morphine. Where we headed?'

'North,' he said. 'Down towards the coast then to the right. Reaching Cuba is our best bet. They'll take us in.'

'Sounds like a good plan. We wouldn't make it anywhere by sea.'

'Maybe we'll find a boat along the way. This storm can't last forever.'

So we crossed the patrol track and an open grass area and felt better when we reached the undergrowth. Tom struggled, putting more of his weight onto my aching shoulder. But my adrenalin gave me strength. Soon I could hear the sea, vicious waves crashing like an artillery barrage.

'I need to rest,' said Tom and we leaned our backs against a boulder, the storm unable to shift it. He was panting heavily.

'I don't think you're able for this, Tom. You're fucked.'

'No. You're fucked,' he said.

Then he was against me, his right forearm pushing hard - too hard - against my throat. Couldn't breathe, my vision clouded.

'I screwed your wife, did you know that?' he said to me.

I couldn't say anything, just grunted, my throat burning, ears ringing. Sally's killer was killing me.

'And then I killed her, to set you up.'

The pressure on my throat eased. I snatched a breath.

'If you want to live, you better tell me about those DNA samples you got.'

So he's not going to kill me?

'My friend took them to Imperial College. To run tests. That's the last I saw of them.'

He applied the pressure again. Released it again.

'Is that the truth?'

'Yes. I swear on my mother's life.'

'You know, you shouldn't be meddling with God,' he said, his eyes glassily calm.

'I'm just a scientist. I didn't mean any harm.'

'Harm? We're in the middle of the greatest war ever fought here. You just can't see it. And you would question the Creation?'

The man was a lunatic of the worst order. A religious lunatic.

'I believe in evolution.'

He pressed hard again and I gagged.

'Can't you see it, fool? Question Genesis and you question the fall of man. Without the fall, there is no need for the saviour. No need for Jesus Christ. You get that?' I nodded. 'No need for Jesus Christ!' he screamed, his spittle showering my eyes.

He'd lost control. I knew that he would kill me. So I would have to kill him. The thought came unexpectedly, with a surprising power. Kill him! There was no internal argument, no But you're a doctor, Bill. Reason it out.

This zealot, like all zealots, was beyond reason. Kill him!

'Doctor Ryan was right,' he said. 'From little seeds of evil, great demons grow. The Foundation requires your death and I must do the Lord's work.'

As the pressure on my throat increased, I raised my foot a few inches, then stamped on his broken foot with all the strength I could channel. He screamed in pain and I pushed him back. He stumbled and fell, the wind catching him, flinging him a few paces away. I gathered my breath and stooped, found a rock with enough weight to crush a human skull. He turned to look at me - pale and frightened \- grunted to get up again. He was vulnerable then, the pain of the shattered bones putting pressure on his heart and nervous system. He tried to catch his breath and I knew I had to strike. So I pounded his forehead until it shattered, brain and blood and bone gushing into the storm.

I stood over his body for a long minute, my hand still trembling, my throat aching, tears flying to the sea.

'See you in hell, cunt.'

Then an urgent, high-pitched wailing from the camp, louder even than the hurricane. It could only mean one thing: Escape in progress.

Chapter 76: ANOTHER COUNTRY

I made my way to a narrow beach, held onto a swaying tree and watched the sea. Mountains of black water flung themselves onto land, the spray clouding visibility. An American flag flapped beside a concrete jetty, but no boats there, just a big freighter riding out the hurricane in the bay. The emergency siren ebbed and flowed with the wind, but its urgency drove me on. There was a dense mangrove forest to my left, so I went right, sticking to the clear path.

I looked around the sky and then, through a crack in the clouds I spotted the sun's weak disc. It was behind me, so I was heading north. Good. I trudged along the beach, the wet sand sucking every footstep. Heavy going. The waves battered me, tried their best to drag me into the Caribbean Sea. I was acutely aware that my orange outfit would draw any eyes in the vicinity, kept moving.

As I reached the end of the beach and clambered over a jumbled mound of rocks, the wind weakened slightly and the rain eased to a drizzle. A narrow lagoon lay ahead. I rested and watched the water. A weak swimmer, I knew I had no choice. Working inland would bring me into contact with the first patrols sent to capture me. In truth, they would have orders to kill me. Trees, logs and debris from the base rushed towards the sea. A large branch came near and I lunged into the water, grabbed it, began to kick my way across the lagoon's churning, brackish water.

The waves weren't as high as in the sea, but they still swamped my head. I swallowed water, vomited it up. The current was driving me to the open sea, so I kicked and kicked and kicked and made some progress towards the far bank.

A heavy log struck my legs, but the pain wouldn't be felt until later. As I approached the bank a chunk of tree, low in the water, bore down on me. It seemed to drift away, then turned towards me again. Unusual behaviour for a log. I kicked harder, kept an eye on it. It came closer, seemed oddly symmetrical in its bumpiness, opened its jaws, its tail thrashing.

'You're fucking joking,' I said to the crocodile.

It didn't reply, just eased closer, displayed its rows of shiny white teeth.

I kept kicking, struggling against the current, the shoreline very near now, just ten feet away. But still the crocodile came. Then its body tensed, it prepared to strike. I froze, allowing the current to suck me towards the sea, pulled my legs up to my body, foetal again.

Was this it? Would the first man to escape the hell of Guantánamo die in the jaws of a hungry beast? At least I got your killer, Sally. At least.

Then shots rang out, bullets whistling over my head, pounding the reptile. The water reddened and the crocodile was carried away to feed the sharks. The current threw me against a rock and I made landfall. I looked up and saw several men in combat fatigues with rifles. They eased over the rocks and strong hands lifted me to shore.

My heart beat a lament and fresh salty tears flowed down my disappointed face. Back to hell.

Chapter 77: INTO THE GROUND

Blake's funeral, with its mix of tears, uniforms and stiff upper lips, was mercifully brief. Jane and Clive paid their respects to Blake's wife, who planned to remarry as quickly as convention would allow. She played the widow, yes, but she could think only of Blake's ultimatum the month before. I'm having a midlife crisis, he'd said, so if I don't get a sports car, I'll have an affair. Jane caught this anger, couldn't look her in the eye.

The reception took place at Blake's favourite pub in the forest, where three East End gangsters lay decaying in shallow graves on the grounds. Blake had enjoyed bringing his family there for boozy Sunday lunches, taking a quick trip into Henry VIII's hunting lodge next door - Arise, Sir Loin \- and ambling across the killing fields.

Jane drank coffee, Clive had just the one vodka. Then one more.

There was little talk, just the clinking of glasses and the laughing of children.

They left then, drove in silence to the crime scenes at the forensic science lab. In the car park, King discussed strategy.

'I'm going to grill Fortescue, Karen too, while you take a look at Bunk's secret experiments, yeah?'

'I don't believe he had anything to do with them.'

'Really? Well prove it then. If Fortescue doesn't talk, I'm going to take him in to rattle him.'

'On what grounds?'

'I'll make something up.'

'Make sure you check out their level of interest in organised religion.'

'Oh, don't worry. That's top of my list. I put Karen's Saudi link into the terror system.'

'Oh?'

'Red flags galore. They'll be all over her now and we won't even see them, but we're free to continue with our investigation. See if you can tie her to the radiological theft, will you?'

'Of course. You seem to have warmed to Bunk?'

'I have something in common with him now.'

'You're an alcoholic?'

'Okay, two things. I'm also an atheist.'

'So what are you thinking?'

'Is it just coincidence that Bunk's pal was blown up the day after he got this mystery sample from Anna?'

'I don't know.'

'And that Blake's killer's address is a church in Italy? Come on. There's something here.'

His name.

'I really hope so.'

Then 'How are you,' he asked, gently. He'd always been jealous of Blake and his perfect life, career and mistress. Hid it well.

Blake was gone.

Jane let out a deep breath. 'I'm okay. Thanks for asking.'

'Drink later?'

'Okay'

'Good. Let's get something.'

Security was noticeably tighter on the way in and, while Clive went to the office suites, Jane found herself in the dank, deserted corridors in the bowels of the sprawling establishment.

The fetid stink around the rodent breeding room was offensive, more so when you knew its origin. She hurried to the room that housed the old x-ray machine, was greeted by a uniformed officer who noted her arrival on his clipboard. Jane opened her camera and sample bag, put on her examination gloves.

Inside, task lights ringed the machine and a team of investigators were at work on its guts. This wasn't expected.

'Hello,' said Jane hesitantly.

A technician nodded and walked to her, pulling down her respirator.

'You are?' she said.

'Jane Archer, Crime Scene Manager, Loughton.'

She showed her ID.

The woman grunted, said 'Scotland Yard. What's your involvement?'

'Working on the murder of Bunk's wife. I'd hoped to eliminate him from the radiological theft.'

'Fine. You're welcome to observe, but we won't have anything for a few hours. We've got some low-copy DNA from inside. We're trying to build on it and see if there are any fibres or whatnot.'

'Very good. I'll leave you to it and have a look at the other scene.'

'Other scene?'

'The lab where Bunk was allegedly working on illegal cloning.'

'Yes.'

'Are your people there too?'

'No. That's not relevant to the investigation. It'll all be legal in a couple of years, anyway. Work away but advise me of any developments. Understood?'

'Yes. Thanks,' said Jane weakly, her confidence having sagged in the face of this no-nonsense operator from a higher level. Is that what I need to become to advance my career? she wondered as she made her way to the secret lab.

Again, a uniformed officer wrote down her details and let her in to the frightening place.

Jane stood in the middle of the room for a long minute. The quiet horror of the experiments challenged her. Are you strong enough for this? On your own?

'Where to begin?' she said to the room.

Then she checked her digital SLR camera, assessed the light, began taking photographs. It was a useful way to examine the place, the camera acting as a filter, a protective screen. Perhaps by committing the reflected light to digital memory protected her from their immediacy? Anyway, she managed to ease in to the task, detach herself from the reality of the subject matter.

With the scene mapped, she paused again. A quick dusting of a couple of specimen jars revealed no prints, just the smears that latex gloves leave behind. As she'd expected. There was a flash outside, followed by a rumble in the distance. The forecast had been for heavy rain and every resident in the south east had prayed for it. The rain would rinse the air of radiation, leaving just a massive cleanup. Heavy droplets pounded the small, high windows and the daylight was lost.

'Thank God,' said Jane.

She paused. There were two competing propositions here, that Bunk was responsible for all this madness or that somebody was setting him up. The framework of circumstances pointed to Bunk, but too easily. She needed to prove that somebody else was in the lab, then apply Bayes' Theorem of statistical probability.

She went into the small office off the lab, photographed the papers on the desk, spotted the little kettle in the corner, the jar of instant coffee, the mug which hadn't been washed.

There were dregs in the bottom of the mug, a film of mould thriving on the milky carbohydrates. Bingo. She used a swab to sample the mould. This would allow her to approximate how long ago the mug had been used. Then she swabbed the rim, smiling at the knowledge that dried saliva and cells from the drinker's mouth could be easily isolated.

After dusting the mug handle and finding an excellent thumb print, she labelled her samples and brought them to the Met specialist to ask for a quick analysis.

Chapter 78: OF THE NATURE OF THINGS

Titus Lucretius Carus, 50 BC

Excerpt from Book 1

Whilst human kind

Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed

Before all eyes beneath Religion - who

Would show her head along the region skies,

Glowering on mortals with her hideous face -

A Greek it was who first opposing dared

Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,

Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke

Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky

Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest

His dauntless heart to be the first to rend

The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.

And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;

And forward thus he fared afar, beyond

The flaming ramparts of the world, until

He wandered the unmeasurable All.

Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports

What things can rise to being, what cannot,

And by what law to each its scope prescribed,

Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

Wherefore Religion now is under foot,

And us his victory now exalts to heaven.

Chapter 79: PRISONER

The sharp muzzle of an assault rifle pressed against the back of my skull.

'Easy,' I said, raising my hands, expecting a beating.

'Arriba! Levantaté!'

Spanish? Could it be? My heart sang. Up.

I pushed myself up and turned to face my captors.

Five soldiers, one a woman, crouched at the edge of the trees. Their Kalashnikovs were aimed at me and, though I was the focus of their attention, they kept glancing skywards. The storm had moved quickly west into the Gulf of Mexico and the winds had died dramatically, though the rain was still heavy.

Their officer beckoned me towards him and I obeyed. They gathered around me and brought me deeper into the cover. After a few minutes' walk up a slippery path, we came to a temporary camp, a camouflaged hut in the lee of a small cliff face which gave some little shelter. A rifle prodded me into the hut. The officer pointed to a tarpaulin on the ground and I gladly collapsed in a heap.

He looked at me in some confusion.

'Musulmán? Ah, Muslim?'

'No. I'm a Godless atheist. From England. William Bunk,' I answered. Then 'Thanks for saving me from that crocodile.'

He nodded, thought about what I'd said. 'Ateo? Atheist? This is no good. Stay.'

He went to the soldiers outside, gave some orders and they melted into the trees, just the woman staying at the doorway, her gun trained on me. I assumed they would just hand me over to the Americans but, you never know, Cuba was an atheistic society. And they hated the American abomination on their soil.

The officer took a field radio from a satchel which hung from the roof. He spoke quickly to an operator, so quickly that I could only make out a few words. Anyway, I assumed his language was coded, as the Americans would surely be listening in to every communication in the environs of their tropical hell. He ended the conversation and turned to me.

'I am Captain Guerrere of the Cuban Army. Coffee?'

'Please.'

He took a large flask from the bag and filled the top cup with strong black coffee. He gave this to me, then filled the smaller inner cup for himself. Really good coffee, beyond words how amazing it tasted.

'Cigarette?'

'Gracias.'

Sitting on the ground in that hut, the rain pounding off the corrugated iron roof, the sky brightening outside, I felt positive for the first time in, I don't know, how long was I in Guantánamo? Even the rifle pointing at my head didn't take from the feeling of warmth that was spreading through my guts.

I assumed that the officer had contacted HQ for orders. What would you do if you captured the first escapee from Guantánamo? I would shit myself, fearful of the American military onslaught that must be due.

A soldier ran to the hut.

'Capitán! Zumbido!'

'Shit,' said the captain to me.' They've sent up a drone to find you. It will be armed.'

He seemed more tense now, his ears concentrating on the sounds from above. There, cutting through the fading wind was the unmistakable whine of a turboprop engine, flying very low. It grew louder and I held my breath until it passed.

'It will follow an automatic search pattern,' he said. 'We need to move soon, get away from the coast.'

'Aren't they flying in Cuban airspace?'

He raised an eyebrow. 'The pigs care nothing for us. They would invade Cuba in a moment. But we can make it difficult for them,' he smiled. Like in Iraq, you know? Guerrillas.'

I finished my coffee, the best cup I'd had in my life. He poured the dregs from the flask into my cup and again I said 'Gracias'.

'Come on, idiots,' he said to the radio as the drone came near again.

Another soldier came to the hut, gave his report and was gone again.

'What is it?' I asked.

'Not very good. There are gunboats in the bay and helicopters in the sky. They want you back.'

'I suppose their pride is hurt.'

'Why were you in Guantánamo?'

'I was framed for that bomb attack in London. I had nothing to do with it.'

'St Paul's?' he said, his eyes widened.

'Yeah. Trust me, that's the last thing I'd do. I don't know why they have it in for me.'

'You are a curious man, William Bunk.'

His radio beeped and he grabbed the receiver. He listened intently, nodding. Having received his orders, he turned to me.

'Lose the suit. I'm taking you to Havana. Radio silence now.'

He barked a command at the wide-eyed sentry and she ran off to gather the squad. Then he helped me to get out of my prison uniform. He packed my jumpsuit into his satchel with the flask and radio. His squad assembled outside the hut, crouching low under the broad leaves. He ordered one of the men to give me his camouflage jacket. It was warm and dry and I didn't care about my bare legs, I was just happy to no longer be a prisoner of the Joint Task Force. I felt good about how events had turned. The captain unfolded a map, instructed the squad about the route we would take.

The drone approached again and everybody froze. We caught a glimpse of it through the trees - a grey, ugly shape - twin Hellfire air-to-ground missiles clinging to its wings. Vicious-looking fucker.

After it disappeared, the captain looked into my eyes, said 'No funny business, okay?'

'Don't worry. I'd love to see Havana again.'

'Bueno, let's go.'

He sent two scouts on ahead and we followed slowly, clinging to the wet shadows.

'Does that thing have infra-red,' I asked, nodding to the sky.

'The Predator? Yes, but it's not so good in the jungle. We need to reach safety by nightfall.'

The trail through the dense undergrowth had been worn away by Cuban patrols since Guantánamo Bay was taken by America in 1898. They'd kept an eye on events in the illegal US naval base ever since, doubly so after things had gone out of control with 9/11.

A cheque for rent is sent to Havana every year - worth about four thousand dollars - but Castro just curses and stuffs it in an office drawer. So the story goes.

'Havana's a long way north,' I said. 'What's your plan?'

He paused a moment before answering with a shrug of his shoulders.

'We pick up a truck and travel west, to our base at Santiago de Cuba. From there, we will be transported by helicopter to the capital. Okay?'

'Sounds good to me.'

We trudged through muddy pools and I picked up a couple of leeches on my legs. The old cigarette trick did the business and only hurt a little. Horrible little bastards, amazing that they're at the cutting edge of medical technology again. The going got tougher then, as we slowly ascended a ridge. Near the top, we met our scouts who were lying in a dense growth of sunflowers.

Lying on our stomachs beside them, the panorama below us was spectacular. The natural bay was chiselled out of the high surrounding hills. I was handed a pair of binoculars. There was the airfield, there the naval ships at anchor, there was the camp itself. I could see that damage had been done to many of the lighter buildings and there was a lot of activity at the fence. There was the bus, still hanging over the twisted wreckage. Helicopters flew low over the area - I counted four - and small naval vessels were concentrating their search in the sea immediately beyond, inspecting debris, looking for my body. The Predator whined up and down the coast but there was no evidence that ground troops had yet been deployed.

The hurricane was a dirty black smudge on the western horizon and the sun's disc could now be seen through the high cloud, just a few degrees above the storm.

The captain nudged my shoulder, pointed to an imposing mountain range to our north.

'The Sierra Maestra Mountains,' he said. 'That is where Fidel and his rebels issued their manifesto. Where the Revolution was born.'

Then he ordered us onwards, quickened the pace. The going was easier as we descended the far side of the ridge, though I slipped and bumped my arse a few times. Still, I didn't moan about the bruises, reminding myself that this was far preferable to a waterboarding session with the Gitmo commander.

After an hour or so, we came to a potholed road. There was nobody around, just a few battered shacks and a lean dog, who watched us curiously as we lay under some low palms.

The captain checked his watch.

'What are we waiting for?' I asked.

'The truck that dropped us off this morning should be here by now. Possibly the storm has blocked the road. Shit. We give it thirty minutes.'

The sun broke through then, happy to roast the island for at least an hour before it went to bed. The punishing heat caused the puddles to evaporate rapidly and clouds of steam engulfed us. I was almost asleep when a burning sensation on my bare calf startled me and forced me to change position so that the sun had no direct access to my skin.

Time passed and there was still no sign of our collection. Wait, a distant coughing groaning, the sound of an old engine, a big one. But a military truck didn't come round the bend, more of a hallucination.

The fifty-seven Chevrolet, long fins and shimmering chrome, bright pink with rust spots all over, chugged towards us. Captain Guerrere stepped out of hiding and held his hand out, palm up. The driver creaked to a halt beside us and the captain spoke with him.

The car idled while the captain ordered two of the squad to wait for the truck while the other four of us would take a lift to Santiago.

'He doesn't know if the car can make it,' smiled Guerrere, 'but we must try. I don't like sitting here.'

'Agreed,' I said.

Because the rear doors were too rusty to use, we stood exposed on the road for a long minute while the front passenger seat creaked forward and we clambered in. I sat in the middle, crushed between the female soldier and her corporal, their guns and gear filling the roomy car beyond capacity. The captain sat in front, the driver staring at me with surprise and amusement, a mouth full of shining white teeth, a wide smile and VIVA FIDEL embroidered on his ragged hat. He enquired as to my identity and the captain told him to shut up and drive.

We shuddered forward, the car picking up speed with difficulty. Once we got towards forty miles an hour, the engine seemed happier with the heavy load and sang. A faded Che Guevara pennant fluttered from the rear view mirror. I stared at the road through a rust hole in the floor and every mile away from Guantánamo made me feel better and stronger. I became hypnotised by the motion blur below and the driver turned on the AM radio, picking up a local station's guitar strums and clicking rhythms. Every spring in the car gave accompaniment. For a time, I felt that I had been delivered from hell into paradise and my brain began to relax, to analyse and - incredibly - make sense of my bizarre experiences.

Then a sensation on the back of my head, a tingle that made me turn with difficulty and look down the road behind us. Nothing but steam and plant matter. I turned back to the blurred road, but the tingle remained. I looked back again, looked to the sky. There, high up, a small aircraft bearing down on us.

'The drone!' I shouted as a silent flash underneath the Predator signified that twenty pounds of laser-guided, high explosive warhead was hurtling towards us at over nine hundred miles an hour.

Chapter 80: HEAT

Karen had tried to take on some of Bunk's workload since he was sacked. Fortescue was very understanding, made her working days easy. She had taken Bunk's office and understood that she would be promoted soon enough. She had two assistants now, and was technically capable of the job. But she found it difficult to focus, her concern at the increasing police interest always at the front of her mind.

Her phone beeped.

'Detective King here to see you,' said reception.

'Thank you, please send him down,' she said cheerily, then 'Shit, shit, shit,' when she'd hung up.

A quick prayer and some deep breaths and she was kind of ready for him. She called Fortescue but he wasn't at his desk. She opened her desk drawer and used a little mirror to fix her face, check her best weapon. Then the double rap on her door.

'Come in.'

'Hi again,' said King. 'I just have a couple of things to follow up, if that's okay.'

His police manner, feigning embarrassment like some sort of Columbo, grated on her.

'Of course, Detective. Please sit down. Would you like a coffee?'

'No thanks,' said King, wanting another vodka.

'So how can I help you?'

'We're just trying to tie up the Bunk case.'

'Have you found him yet?'

'No, not yet. He's gone to ground somewhere. In the city, I imagine. Have you heard from him? Email or anything?'

'Not a word. I don't think I'll be hearing from him again.'

'Why not?'

'We were having an affair. I finished it the day he got sacked.'

'How did he take that?'

'Not very well. He was angry. He said that he was leaving his wife to be with me and now everything was messed up.'

'How long were you two together?'

'I'd worked with him for six months and our affair started about two months ago.'

'Did his wife know about this?'

'He said that she had her suspicions, that was all.'

King made notes, changed tack to religion.

'Okay, about your religion. Wahhabism?'

She shifted in her seat, leaned forward, her elbows on the worn desk.

'I'm not a practising Muslim,' she interrupted. 'I don't like the misogyny, you know? I only became aware of it after I arrived in England. Back home, you can't see the wood for the trees.'

'Yes, I can see how that might be. So you don't go to the mosque or anything like that?'

'Into the female section? Please. Some of the habits, the Pillars of the Faith are hard to break. So I do sometimes look at my Qur'an and I might pray sometimes. But that's all.'

'How do you feel about Islamic fundamentalism?'

'Al-Qaeda? They are insane, of course.'

King stayed quiet, eased back in his chair as she spread her palms on her desk. Karen took a breath, composed herself expertly.

'I don't agree with terrorism,' she continued, 'even if there are justifiable reasons for it.'

'Such as?'

'Such as American foreign policy.' She paused again, remembered her experience growing up in Saudi Arabia, the hated regime kept in place only by its premier oil customer. 'The Saud family claims to be the defender of Islam in the land of the two Holy Places. In reality it is a dictatorship, bloated with dollars, fat from perversion.'

Christ, thought King, we've got a live one here.

'Most neutral observers would agree with that viewpoint,' he said. 'I mean we've sold them, I don't know, fifty billion's worth of weapons in the last two decades. And that's hypocrisy of the highest order. But would you agree with an armed insurrection if it overthrew the Saud regime?'

Karen thought about her answer for only a second.

'As a woman, yes. Yes I would.'

King's pulse quickened as he spotted the contradictions in her responses. You're al-Qaeda, he said to himself as he thanked her, shook her soft hand, quickly left the office.

Chapter 81: LOOSE ENDS

The evangelical commando unit had been waiting for news from their commander. The days passed slowly, each member melting back into boring, Christian, white society, meeting nightly for target practice and prayer in the isolated warehouse.

Paul Patterson, the acting commander, an impatient Jehovah's Witness from Utah on his required service - ostensibly spreading The Word overseas - grew concerned when Link hadn't made contact after three days. He was preparing to activate the contingency plan, which entailed hiding their weapons and dispersing the unit, when a call came through from Washington.

'Bad news,' said Dr Ryan. 'I'm afraid Mr Link was killed in an accident.'

'Sir?'

'You're in command now, Patterson. Clear?'

'Clear, sir.'

'You've got a few loose ends to tidy up, and quickly. Details have been sent to your encrypted email address. Work with Noah for the first part of the mission. When you're done, disperse. Don't contact me again. Understood?'

'Understood,' said Patterson as the phone clicked. He'd been expecting this. He retrieved the email, the contents of which made his eyes widen momentarily.

Then Patterson returned to his task, finished assembling the suicide bomb belt, fused up the six kilos of C4 explosive and the extra quarter kilo on an extension lead so as to destroy the bomber's head.

'Okay,' he said, addressing the rest of the team, 'who's ready to go to heaven?'

Chapter 82: PLANTATION BLUES

We had a handful of seconds before the missile struck.

'There!' screamed the captain, pointing to a dirt track just ahead and veering off to our right. The driver accelerated, struggled with the heavy steering, forced the complaining car onto the track in a cloud of stones. The rear end of the Chevrolet skidded around the turn and thick tree trunks slammed against the side as the driver dropped screaming gears to regain control.

Then, the blast. A wall of orange erupted in front of us, the concussion shattering the windows, my face sprayed with water. The noise was so powerful, it didn't register, my ears just ringing. The car juddered into the palms, stopped dead.

I was stunned. But I was alive. That manoeuvre had saved my life. I looked to my right. The woman was dead. To my left, the other soldier had his face in his hands and was crying. In front, the driver's head was missing, his torso slumped forward. The captain turned around to me. For the first time, his face showed fear.

'Are you okay?' he said. I couldn't hear him, but understood what he was saying anyway.

'Yes,' I said.

'Let's move. It will come around for a second strike.'

My ears couldn't hear the Predator, but I knew he was right. He tried his door, but it was jammed. So he climbed out through the shattered windscreen and onto the roasted bonnet, cried as his hands burnt.

He fumbled for his pistol and used the butt to shatter the rear window, which had somehow survived the Hellfire onslaught.

He shouted at me to get out. I rolled off the trunk of the car and fell into the welcoming cool of the muddy undergrowth. The other soldier was in shock, just sitting there, so the captain screamed at him, pointed to the sky and the malevolent shape that was coming towards us from the darkening eastern sky.

Eventually, the captain climbed up and grabbed the soldier's hands. They came away from his face, exposing his cheekbones and an empty eye socket, flesh and skin hanging in ribbons. The man's pain must have been incredible, his chest rising and falling with every laboured breath. His head rolled to the side, showing the blue-grey of brain where a chunk of skull had been taken by hot shrapnel. The captain visibly recoiled, whispering something as he withdrew his pistol and shot the soldier between the eyes.

Then he was beside me, in the muck and debris and the fallen banana trees, blue plastic bags fluttering in the last gasps of the storm.

The noise of the unmanned aircraft's engine was louder, but I didn't want to see it.

'Shouldn't we be moving?' I said.

'Mierda! The radio!' he cried as he pushed me and ran back to the smoking car. He glanced into the sky just as the missile was released. In three seconds, he'd grabbed his satchel and jumped back under cover.

He grabbed my shoulder and led me deeper into the plantation, stumbling forward, doubled over, the mud sucking at my bare feet.

Then the blast behind us, a direct hit on the car blew its atoms back to 1957. The concussion wave threw us face first into the mud and I felt small fragments slice into my back.

The Predator zoomed by, its cameras scanning for me, shattered banana leaves defeating billion dollar technology.

'Are we alive?' I asked.

The captain looked at my muddy, bloody face and laughed. 'Yes, we are alive and that thing has no more missiles, only cameras. And they cannot hurt us.'

He scanned the sky with his binoculars, watched the Predator as it began to bank and come back for another look.

'How the hell did they find us?'

'Satellites,' he replied, spitting for effect, then 'Let's go. Stay under cover.'

As we stumbled from tree to tree, the captain told me that Predator units had four vehicles each, so we could expect some more company.

'They're evil fuckers,' I said.

'Don't move,' he whispered as it roared low over the attack site and began a search pattern that had us at its centre.

'A CIA man can sit in his air-conditioned room in Virginia, sipping his Coke, and drop a missile on someone who looks like Bin Laden in the Afghan mountains. This is modern warfare.'

Remembering the soldiers and the driver in the car - all shattered beyond identification - I said 'But it still boils down to blowing human brains out.'

He nodded, beckoned me onward.

The density of the banana palms increased, the blue bags giving a surreal air to our desperate escape. The Predator's whining engine grew more distant, but we both understood that it would be only minutes before another appeared. Then another.

'I'm calling for help,' he said. 'Stay down.'

He found the radio, switched it to transmit, tried to make contact with somebody who could deliver us.

I tried a banana. Though it was unripe, it tasted fantastic, fresh off the tree. I stuck a few more into my combat jacket's outside pockets. Ramming them home, my fingers brushed against something. Cigarettes, a Cuban brand with a picture of a plantation on the pack. Of all things. The captain was talking away to a perspiring general, consulting the map on his lap, all the while watching the sky through the gaps in our cover. I tapped his arm and held up the smokes. Instead of giving me a yes or no, he dipped into his pocket and took out his Zippo lighter, which he tossed over.

I figured - correctly - that the smoke from a cigarette wouldn't stand out to the eye in the sky, what with the hulk of our ride still blazing nearby. And it wasn't dark yet, so the tropical sun rendered the heat from the cigarette irrelevant. It was a pleasant smoke, though on the bitter side and strong enough to bring on a coughing fit. Welcome nonetheless.

He finished the conversation, took a last look at the map before putting it back in his pocket.

'They may send us some help,' he said, making the universal cigarette gesture, two fingers in a V to his mouth. I gave him the pack and his lighter and he lit one too.

'What can help us against that fucking thing?' I asked, thumb in the air.

'The Cuban Air Force has some good aircraft, Russian. But we are low on parts and fuel. If one of our decent planes can fly, they will send it. They have promised this.'

'Do you believe them? Do you really think they're going to risk all-out war for us?'

'I don't think that is what the Americans want. But they have deliberately crossed the line and killed our soldiers. Therefore it is our right to respond.'

'Couldn't agree more.'

'We must continue through the plantation to the warehouses. They are just over a kilometre north. There is open space there. A helicopter will pick us up in one hour.'

'If they can get the gas?'

'If they can get the gas. Vamos, let's go.'

We made slow progress through the acres of bananas. The ground was a steady incline. This slope, combined with the stickiness of the ground, made my thighs burn. I was almost thankful when the Predator came round, as it gave a chance to fling myself into the muck and catch my breath.

I almost fell on top of a couple of men lying in the dirt. They were scared shitless.

'Jesus!'

The captain pointed his gun at them, quizzed them in rapid Spanish.

Then 'Vamos!' he cried.

The Predator whistled into the distance.

'Who were they?'

'Plantation workers, checking for damage. The good news is that the rest of the area is deserted, all gone home before the storm hit.'

'Just us, so.'

We continued on. Soon a huge, rusting structure appeared through the palms. At the edge of the leaning rows of banana palms, we rested, saw that there was an open space - maybe a hundred yards across - before the ramshackle warehouse buildings could offer any shelter from the angry eye in the sky.

'This is where the helicopter will pick us up,' said the captain.

'Should we hang on here?' I asked, just wanting to sleep, maybe wake up back in my own bed, Sally beside me, warm and comfortable.

He looked west, saw that the sun was about to set. With no twilight at that latitude, it would be dark in minutes.

'No. The heat detectors will pick us up. We must get into the building there. It will retain heat for much longer. Also, the tarantulas and scorpions in here prefer to feed at night.'

No argument.

We listened intently for the Predator, found that the sky was quiet. It would be harder to spot in the fading light, so we decided to move.

'Wait until I get across and signal you,' he said.

'Roger.'

Hunched low, he crossed the open space quickly and reached an open doorway. At his signal, I followed. The ground was still slippery from the rain, dense clay with scrubby grass on top. I slipped and fell, just as a distant buzz bounced into my consciousness. The captain was training his binoculars on the sky behind me, back over the banana palms. He saw the missiles hanging beneath the slow-moving machine.

'Hurry,' he called, 'this one's armed!'

'Oh fucking hell,' I groaned. 'I can't take much more of this.'

I pushed myself up, every muscle burning. But the fear of the drone kicked in and I lurched towards the building. The captain's face was blank as he watched the Predator. I would make it. Then his expression changed and the world exploded.

Chapter 83: VIRUS

Anna spent a couple of days in Paris, unsure about continuing east. Part of her wanted to return to London, to find Billy. There were many other Londoners in Paris, having fled the attacks, fearing a nuclear bomb. They would hang around the cafes and galleries and walk in the parks until their money ran out. Some would never return home.

She monitored the news media and concluded that Billy was in deep cover. She emailed him more than once, but there was no reply. So she travelled home to Russia, to her tiny flat, to blinding sunshine, frigid air and hot, sweet tea.

She worked through the events since the Homo erectus finds, attempted to process the craziness into some kind of logical progression. The business side of her brain she occupied with viruses, reminded herself about their great mystery.

Virus, Latin for poison.

Viruses cannot reproduce outside host cells.

When a virus infects a cell, it uses the cell's own biomechanical assets to reproduce, often leading to the death of the cell.

The origin of viruses is - scientifically - unclear. They may have evolved from spare genetic material. They may have evolved from bacteria. Origin unknown.

Some scientists believe that viruses are neither alive nor dead. They are ghosts.

Biological cells contain DNA and RNA, the messenger. Viruses contain DNA or RNA.

Human DNA has twenty-five thousand genes. Influenza has eight.

Hepatitis, influenza, Ebola, HIV are viruses. And smallpox.

A virus is simply a piece of genetic material wrapped in a protein envelope. That's all. Beautifully simple. Simply beautiful.

In the same way that humans could not survive without symbiotic bacteria, are there any beneficial viruses? Nobody knows.

For all that science understands today, viruses may as well be from another planet.

Is it possible that viruses can challenge bacteria as the dominant lifeform on Earth?

Chapter 84: FURNACE

A missile flared and leapt from the drone. In the same instant, a MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jet belonging to the Cuban Air Force swooped down behind the Predator. The pilot, a forty-seven year-old with a hatred of all things American, had been cleared to fire on drones, but not manned aircraft unless in self-defence.

With relish, he calmly waited for his helmet-mounted weapons sight to lock on. The whine confirmed that an R-73 Archer dogfight missile was ready and he released it with a flash of yellow smoke.

The MiG turned away in a gut-churning banking manoeuvre and the Predator exploded in a maelstrom of fire. As burning fragments rained down on the plantation, the MiG went hunting. The pilot prayed that the Americans would send up a jet to confront him, used his eyes and radar systems to seek out any airborne objects.

But the Hellfire missile was on its way to Bunk and Guerrere. Guidance was interrupted, in that the Predator was the platform for the distant controllers, but the original bearing was good enough. The missile slammed into a warehouse building, the rusting panels offering no resistance. Then the warhead struck a pallet of bananas which had been destined for St Petersburg.

As I reached the warehouse, the captain ran towards me. He screamed something, but the thunder of the missile drowned it out. He pushed me back on to the ground, covered me with his own body as the warhead exploded with the sights and sounds of Vulcan's furnace. The blast was, to an extent, muffled by the density of the bananas inside the warehouse. Their role was characterised by a wave of an intensely sweet smell that washed over us. The warehouse structure was flung into the air, corrugated iron clattering out of the sky like some giant robot's confetti.

The captain got off me, helped me to my feet. The heat. My bare legs were scorched, I could see blisters and blood.

'Are you okay?' I asked.

He turned around and showed me that his back was shredded.

'I'll be okay. I just hope the helicopter reaches us soon.'

But we were in the open, beside the smoking ruins of the warehouse, the blazing drone crackling and popping down in the plantation, close enough for us to smell its acrid cargo. The other warhead exploded then. I hoped that the plantation workers were long gone.

Off to the left of the warehouse was a low brickbuilt building which may have been an office or a canteen. We headed there, the captain waving to the unseen fighter pilot who continued to circle over us. I waved as well.

Then the sound of rotors, thumping the dark air, forcing the cicadas on the fringes of the plantation to sing louder, to the edge of my pain threshold. Fireflies hovered there too, lending a surreal air to the scene of jungle battle. The rich smell of night accentuated the scorched bananas, so much going on, my senses overloaded.

The helicopter appeared as we reached the building. Coming from the west, it flew at treetop height and dropped straight in to land. It was Cuban. The young pilot spotted us and beckoned us forward. He looked scared, aware that he was a sitting duck for any Predators that evaded the fighter cover.

We ran to the helicopter - an ancient Russian job - and two crewmen lifted us on board. One shout later, we lifted off and, skimming the trees, headed north.

As a crewman helped us to buckle our belts, he spoke to the captain, then joined his comrade at a window, scanned the sky.

The captain turned to me, shouted over the turbines.

'They have received a report of American troop helicopters taking off from Guantánamo. I think we'll be okay,' he added, patting my trembling arm.

The MiG flew low, straight across our path, flicked on afterburners and streaked high into the sky. The pilot made radar contact with two helicopters which had just entered Cuban airspace. He requested permission to engage them. While awaiting a response, they turned around. He cursed.

That I would discover later. So I cowered in the corner, my shoulders rattling off the throbbing, rusty bulkhead. Outside, a silky moon rose in a sky as black as my mood. My skin crawled as I waited for a missile to slam into us, bring the whole sorry saga to a flaming conclusion. I waited, but it never came.

We flew for about an hour, my fear subsiding, the moon calming. The captain squeezed my arm and pointed out some pale grey shapes in the blackness below. Rectangles, almost floating there.

'That's where the Soviet missiles were based,' he smiled. 'Back in '62.'

The helicopter suddenly lurched down, its engine complaining as it fell into a small clearing in the jungle. I thought we were crashing, but, as the trees filled the view from the window, our rate of descent slowed and we eased in to a gentle landing.

'Refuelling stop,' said the captain. 'Let's stretch our legs.'

I unbuckled my belt and tried to stand, but couldn't. My knees had locked from fatigue. A crewman took my hands and helped me up. I shuffled forward and climbed down the fold-out steps with extreme difficulty. I felt like a man of ninety-nine, like my grandfather in that stinking nursing home the day before he died.

The crewmen went to a small hut that nestled under the trees and brought out a hand-operated pump on wheels. We walked to the far side of the clearing and smoked cigarettes.

'How is your heart doing?' asked the captain.

'Better now, I think. Will they come after us?'

'No. We're safe. They won't invade Cuba just to get you back. Will they?'

He studied me. I asked myself the same question.

'I doubt it,' I said. 'I'm not guilty of anything. All I can do is tell what a shithole Guantánamo Bay is. But that's yesterday's news.'

He smoked quietly, then held out his hand.

'I forgot to say. Welcome to the Republic of Cuba.'

I shook his hand.

The pilot came and joined us for a smoke. After introducing himself to me, he entered an animated discussion with the captain, all hand gestures, swoops and explosions. The pilot kept glancing at me, mystified at my value.

I paced slowly about the clearing, staying well away from the refuelling operation, petrol from a drum spurting into the helicopter. The hurricane was long gone, just a gentle wind then, thin clouds occasionally masking the moon.

Then it struck me that I was in the hands of a communist dictatorship and the Cubans, for all their easy Caribbean charms, banned political activity, murdered democracy activists, maintained prison camps every bit as odious as Guantánamo. But I reassured myself that my position could not be any worse than it had been when I woke up that morning. There was little chance that I would be killed. I figured my immediate future would consist of either being returned to the Americans or being feted as an anti-imperialist hero. I felt that I couldn't deal with the unknown horror of anything in between.

The crewmen called and we were back on our way. I collapsed into an uneasy sleep, my burnt legs unbearably itchy.

I dreamt of fire and spiders and woke with a start when we touched down hard at a military base on the outskirts of Havana.

Chapter 85: TAIL

Karen left the forensics lab early on Friday. King, waiting near the entrance in an unmarked car, saw her take a lift from a female colleague. He followed at a safe distance. When Karen was dropped at a tube station, the detective barely managed to park, toss his Official Business card on the dashboard and reach the platform as the train arrived.

He took a position at the far end of the carriage, read his Evening Standard as the train got more and more crammed with each stop. Liverpool Street was different, with access from above still closed off as the radiological scrubbing continued. King swore he saw a wry smile on Karen's face as she left the train and walked to the Circle Line platform. A tube screeched in after only a few minutes. When they disembarked at King's Cross and Karen hurried towards the Piccadilly Line northbound platform, King's stomach dropped as he glanced at the overhead network map.

Four stops would take them to Finsbury Park, home of the most radical mosque in Europe. He would be easily visible in the Muslim-dominated streets, would attract cruel glances, would feel the hot anger.

As expected, she left the train at Finsbury Park Station, put on a long coat as she climbed the clattery steps, buttoned it up to her neck. Combined with the slacks she was wearing, she looked every inch the compliant female Muslim. A headscarf was quickly knotted around her hair as she reached the exit, completing the transformation.

King kept his distance, tried to look nonchalant as she went down the street towards the mosque. Already he was hearing indecipherable curses, already he was overwhelmed by the profusion of Arabic shop signage, already he was sickened by the stench from the halal meat shops.

'This isn't right,' he murmured.

Then a tug at his sleeve.

He turned, found a man with a long beard in a white linen suit. King froze, lifted his right hand towards his shoulder holster.

'I'm police,' he said.

'I know,' said the man, raising his hand, which concealed an identification card. It read Scotland Yard and had his picture on it. 'We'll take it from here.'

'Okay,' said King, turning back to the tube station and the rush hour madness.

From across the busy street, the event was watched by the occupants of a black jeep. Their plan was then activated.

Chapter 86: THE PLEASURE OF SIMPLE THINGS

The captain thanked the helicopter pilot, then led me to the officer's quarters.

There was a lot of activity around the base, plenty of armed soldiers lounging about, many curious glances at the gringo who had triggered a hot war with America. Thankfully, the war had been mercifully brief, but who knew what morning would bring?

The base commander was waiting for us in a lounge area and he shook both our hands firmly, offered us comfortable chairs, ordered coffee and sandwiches. He chatted with the captain for a few minutes, taking notes, asking questions.

Then he turned to me and smiled. He had the look of the bad guy in a spaghetti western, but his uniform was immaculately pressed, his fingernails manicured.

'Mr Bunk, is what you told Captain Guerrere truthful?'

'Yes.'

The coffee and sandwiches arrived. I sipped the hot drink and swallowed the salami and crusty bread without chewing. The commander picked up his phone and had a long conversation with his superior. You could tell by his manner in any language, all soft-spoken and deferential.

He hung up then and addressed me.

'You will both shower and rest now. We will speak in the morning. Okay?'

'Thanks.'

The captain was excused. Then he brought me down a corridor of scuffed red linoleum to a room that had an armed guard standing outside. The guard stood to attention and the captain opened the door and brought me in to a plain room with a simple, metal-framed bed, a shower unit with transparent curtain in the corner. There was a bowl of fruit and a jug of water on a table.

'You will be comfortable here,' he said, gesturing to a pile of ironed garments on the bed. 'Take a shower, put on some fresh clothes.' He looked at my legs. 'If you need some medical attention, let the guard know.'

'You might want to see someone yourself.'

'Maybe.'

'Thanks, Captain.'

'It's okay.'

He left and I ate a red apple, its complex, juicy sweetness sending a shiver down my spine. Then I took off my ruined clothes and sat down in the shower unit, let hot water roll over me for a good half hour. The simple pleasure of it was as intense as any experience in my existence. As the dirt and blood and sweat and smoke was rinsed away I felt purified, almost reborn, almost thanked God. The stress and tension of that terrible day dissipated. I washed my hair three times with a shampoo that smelled richly of coconut, then stayed under the water for another ten minutes.

My thigh muscles were a lot looser then, but I still found it difficult to stand. I dried myself with a thin towel and put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I savoured another apple. I lay on the bunk and, though I could feel the mattress springs and the pillow was no fatter than a paperback book, I would enjoy the most comfortable and refreshing sleep of my life.

But as I dozed off, gazing at the pregnant moon outside, the awkward fear of Guantánamo returned. There were bars on my window.

Chapter 87: THE MORNING AFTER

Day came with heat, light and an insistent rapping at the door. Every muscle ached as I got out of bed and found the camp commander standing outside with a fresh guard, stiff and tough.

'Good morning, Mr Bunk. You slept well?'

'It was really lovely. Thank you.'

'You are so welcome. Now. Can you get dressed and this man will take you for some attention before we speak?'

'Okay.'

'Good. See you at nine.'

He nodded to the guard, who saluted. I got dressed, baggy fatigue trousers, a loose white shirt and flipflops.

Then the soldier took me to a small medical room, where I was given a good examination by a pleasant, competent doctor. He put some burn ointment and dressing on my legs, said I'd be fine. Then he asked me to stand against a wall and took my picture. Then he asked for my fingers and printed me with some sticky blue ink.

'For our records, you understand?'

What could I say?

Then I was brought to the officers' mess and given a plate of scrambled eggs, with toast, juice and coffee. It was tremendous.

Along the corridor again and into a large room with three men sitting behind a long wooden table. Ceiling fans rotated lazily above and a female civilian sat at a computer terminal.

The commander introduced himself and the other officers, all high-ranking from the swathes of multi-coloured ribbon and obvious egos. Jesus, military men act like kids, with all their badges and shit. A soldier stood to attention behind me as I took a wooden chair before my inquisitors.

'Now tell us your story, Mr Bunk. From the beginning, please.'

I told it all, from the shudder of the blast in St Paul's to my arrival at their base just hours before. The woman typed everything. The officers took notes. They hung on my every word. When I was done, they asked some questions.

Who was the man who helped you to escape from the illegal American base?

Was Captain Guerrere ever hesitant in his actions?

Why would anybody want to frame you for a terrorist attack?

When the American drone first attacked, what was your situation?

What are your feelings towards the American military?

What are your feelings towards the Islamic faith?

I answered all these and more as truthfully as I could. They asked me to go and take a coffee while they discussed my case.

The soldier brought me back to the mess. When I asked for a cigarette, he got me a pack from the orderly and joined me for a smoke.

The guy's English wasn't great, but I learned that I was before a Military Tribunal of Inquiry. He was eager to learn more of my experiences escaping from Guantánamo and the contact between the MiG and the drone. I told him as much as I knew and he smiled at the idea that he wouldn't have to pay for any drinks that night, maybe all week.

After an hour in the lounge with water and coffee and Cuban cigarettes and more curious officers coming by to shake my hand, I was called for by the Tribunal.

Seated again, I was told that my case was unique, that the Americans were going crazy (loco!) to have me returned - loss of face - but that they had not made my escape public. This was to my advantage. So I would be kept under house arrest until the Cuban authorities made a decision on my future. I would be protected by Colonel Silvez of Military Intelligence and that was all.

The typist stood up, a small pistol tucked in a belt holster at her side, and put on her light suit jacket. She introduced herself to me as Colonel Silvez, said 'Let's Go, Senor Bunk.'

Chapter 88: HEAVEN

As could be expected, Colonel Silvez was beautiful. Though her face had a stern, businessy edge, this couldn't hide her almond eyes, her ripe lips, her sleek profile. I could just imagine what was under that formless linen suit. And I have a powerful imagination.

She led me across the square, which was alive with soldiers counting out rocket-propelled grenades, loading trucks, readying anti-aircraft batteries for travel.

'What's up?' I asked, squinting against the glare.

'I will get you some sunglasses. Reinforcements going south. If the Americans want to try anything more then we will make it difficult for them.'

'Shit.'

'Yes it is,' she smiled. 'But some day this situation must come to a head, no?'

'You're right, but wouldn't the regime crumble under an invasion?'

She didn't answer this, just pointed to a Spanish colonial-style house, on the end of a row at the far side of the square.

We passed through a checkpoint, the sergeant there watching me as he made a note in his logbook.

Up a slight hill to a small area of scrubby grass and wooden steps to a shaded veranda that ran along the fronts of the houses. Nice.

'This will be your home for now.'

The place was crumbling, but it had a tangible, faded elegance, that character of balconies, ornate grilles, exquisite detailing. She unlocked the front door, opened it for me onto a dusty hall that was filled with light.

'This is great. Compared to my last place, paradise.'

'Spanish officers lived here when they controlled Cuba during their imperialism. Then the American imperialists that controlled the Batista regime, they and their mafia partners stayed in these houses. Now they are for officers, visiting dignitaries and - '

'And odd visitors like me.'

She laughed at this, led me upstairs to the living area, a wide, airy room with ornate plasterwork around the ceiling and intricate tiled patterns on the floor, a dining table and a fat 1950s refrigerator. An open window, drapes fluttering in a fresh breeze. The view, a little of the base, some of the to and fro activity, but mainly the city of Havana with all its noises and smells stretching away down to a sparkling turquoise sea.

'Beautiful,' I said.

'Yes. There is rum and fruit and water in the fridge. The water from the taps is for washing only. You will eat with me in the officer's mess. I will get you some sunglasses now. Is there anything else that you need?'

She'd caused me to consider sex, so then I thought of Anna.

'Is there any way I could send an email, do you think?'

She looked surprised, then I realised why.

'Internet access is strictly controlled here, like all media. If I request permission it will be denied.'

'I forgot.'

'Realise that Cuba is very different to England.' She turned to leave, paused. Maybe not so different to the place you escaped from.'

Shit.

I sat on the balcony with a long rum, doped from the heat, seduced by the shade. A layer of smoggy dust covered the cracked marble table. Absentmindedly, I ran a finger through it, rubbed the gritty dirt between thumb and forefinger, calmly watched a cockroach exploring the shadows on the floor. I realised then that my OCD had been cured by Guantánamo. Something, at least, to be grateful for. So I dozed with dirty fingers, oblivious to the bugs.

Waking hungry, I ate some fruit and explored the bookshelves. Most of the work was in Spanish and by Castro, Guevara, Marx. Many books dated back to the fifties, proclaiming Cuba's bright new future, free from the shackles of tyranny. That's what I could glean, anyway. Some books in English, translations of Castro's books and the odd novel, mostly classics and, bizarrely, some vintage science fiction. Then there was a stack of Time magazines from the 1960s, so I grabbed a bundle, topped up my drink, resumed my position on the heavenly balcony and drifted back in time.

My minder came in the afternoon, woke me with a firm hand on my shoulder.

'I thought you'd be resting,' she said.

'Any news?'

'Nothing. You are being discussed at the highest levels. We haven't admitted to holding you, so the Americans are simply bluffing and bullying. We say they murdered a peasant family, supplied photographs of the bodies. They have not yet supplied satellite images of you on Cuban soil. So - '

'So I'm stuck in the middle.'

'Purgatory.'

'Not again. I'm not into that stuff.'

'Ah yes, you are the militant atheist?'

'Jesus, you don't believe - '

She laughed then. 'I'm having a joke, William. Are you hungry?'

'I dreamt of steak. I really did.'

'Let's see what's on the menu.'

After a meal of ham, eggs and fried sweet potatoes in a quiet mess, I was offered a cigar and a rum by an officer who was desperate to hear my story.

Colonel Silvez was agreeable, so the man joined us, calling his friends over. I told my story. In truth, it came across as an exciting escapade and I didn't have to exaggerate a thing. We drank a lot of rum.

It was dark when we got back to the house, the sentry waiting outside.

'Would you like to come in for a drink?' I slurred.

'Okay,' she said, no hesitation.

Sitting on the balcony, the city twinkling, the sea reflecting the moon, I felt her mood softening further.

'What's your first name, Colonel?'

'Helena.'

'Sounds European?'

'My ancestors came to Cuba from Denmark.'

'Ah, that explains it.'

'Explains what?'

'Your unique beauty.'

'Stop it.'

'No, I'm serious. You have this voluptuous Caribbean thing going on, that's a given. But also some extra definition in your face. Have you ever truly appreciated your cheekbones?'

She drank her rum, smiled, sat back in the chair, put her feet up on the balcony railings.

'Will you help me with something tomorrow?' she asked.

'Gladly. What is it?'

'I'd like to get some more detail on the American base. You know, layout, defences, procedures?'

'I'd been trying to erase all that from my memory. Yeah, I'll help you any way I can.'

'Good,' she said, rising. 'I'll see you here around eight for breakfast.'

'Do you have to go?'

She put her glass down on the table and I followed her through the living room.

'I have work to do. Important work. You'll find out soon what I'm talking about.'

Chapter 89: FINSBURY

Karen shuffled her way through the milling crowds of worshippers making their way to the mosque. Friday prayers always drew the largest crowds and the police and the demonstrations.

Today, the main theme was Danish media republishing cartoons of the Prophet. An angry man stood on a big amplifier and screamed into a microphone. He talked about the nature of insult, corrupt Western values, the decline of Western so-called civilisation, the ascension of Islam. Karen loitered for a few minutes, enjoyed the sense of anger building in the crowd. Though Karen slotted easily into her role as secular independent woman, she couldn't see the irony of militants being allowed free speech to criticise the very system that protected that right.

'It will all come crumbling down,' she muttered, glancing around the crowd, waiting for her cell contact.

An undercover police officer stood nearby, applauded the speaker, chanted in Arabic exactly when required.

Through the crowd came a Christian man with a powerful bomb around his waist - plastic explosive enveloped in neat packs of four-inch steel nails for maximum shrapnel - a trigger in his sweaty hand. He wore a fake beard and the loose ethnic clothing that helped him to blend right in.

Karen was unaware of her exposure. As the sole contact between the Christian and Islamic groups that had attacked St Paul's, she must have known that she could be seen as a loose end. But now, here, she was among her own.

Her contact came and stood beside her, greeted her with his eyes. The policeman spoke quietly into his cuff and armed officers waiting in nearby streets cocked their weapons, ready to move. Riot squads who were lounging near the mosque - fixtures by now - also heard the command, straightened up, ready to protect the snatch squad.

An ear-splitting call to prayer suddenly filled the air, a melodic screeching, carried for a mile by high-powered speakers. The demonstrators were instantly silenced by this and the distinct knots of angry men and women dissipated. Karen moved towards the mosque entrance with her contact. They would go to a meeting room while the prayers were conducted, as this was when the police would be least likely to search the building, with their false respect, procedures, unease.

The bomber pushed his way through the throng and got close to his target. Karen looked to the sky, admired the crescent gleaming over the minaret. Then her view of the crescent became suddenly skewed. For a fraction of a second her brain tried to recalculate her visual input, checking her inner ear balance system, reviewing past experience. That was when Karen's life flashed before her eyes. And she was dead.

When the bomb detonated, its position had been chosen to kill the designated target. That dozens of Muslims would also die was secondary, but welcome nonetheless. The Foundation was secure.

Detective King waited impatiently for a southbound Piccadilly tube, everything still messed up because of signalling works, bombs, suicides, all the usual.

Then the ground trembled, he heard a powerful thud from outside, he knew that another bad thing had happened. He dropped his paper and ran towards the steps and out into the black air. From the tube station entrance, he saw smoke rising from the mosque, noted that the minaret was missing. Many walking wounded, many more on the ground, wailing, chunks of flesh everywhere: a really big blast.

What to do? He wondered.

It was like Baghdad. Had the Sunni/Shia clash come to London?

A woman fell at his feet, her cheek badly gashed by a flying nail. King knelt down to help her, fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, used it to press down on her wound.

'It's okay,' he said. You'll be okay.'

She mumbled something to him, but his attention was elsewhere. The roar of an engine gunning, over-revving as it forced its way through the dazed crowd.

'What's this?' he said, expecting a police van.

No, the vehicle was leaving the scene of the blast, a black jeep. King managed to push through, caught a glimpse of it as it turned a corner. Gone.

But he caught the license plate.

Chapter 90: VISITOR

I was in a sleep of the dead, having finished the rum when Helena left. My bed was comfortable, much better than the little cot down in the barracks. In the middle of a fractured dream, peasants offering burning bananas and bats in the night sky, I was shaken roughly.

I blinked into a pounding headache and saw Helena standing over me. In my confused stupor, I thought she'd come back to sleep with me.

'Helena. Hi.'

'Get up. Quickly.'

'What's up?'

'We must go. Now.'

I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

'Can you tell me what's up?'

'They're handing you back to the Americans in the morning. It is as I feared.'

'What the fuck?'

I was fully awake now.

'The regime is so fragile, they can't risk any conflict. You're not important enough to give them leverage with America.'

'And they don't want to arouse the sleeping giant.'

'Exactly. Now get dressed. Size eleven?' she asked, handing me a pair of shoes.

As I struggled into my clothes and washed my face in a basin of tepid water, she explained that she'd gotten duplicates of my photos and had a passport made up, travel documents, everything.

'How?'

'I'm Military Intelligence. In a military dictatorship, I can do anything. A couple of innocent people have been released from custody. That's all it took.'

'Are the documents good?'

'They're the real thing. From the source,' she said, handing me an envelope.

I looked at my new passport. Jesus Crista, citizen of the Republic of Cuba. Travel papers, allowing international travel, signed by the Minister of the Interior.

'Jesus?'

'I thought you'd like that. Pronounce it hey-zoos.'

'Hey-zoos. Okay. So why are you helping me? What's in it for you?'

'She smiled, I'm going with you.'

Chapter 91: A HYPOCRITE'S MANIFESTO

We propose to all opposition political parties, all civic institutions, and all revolutionary sectors the following:

1. To create a civic-revolutionary front with a common strategy of struggle.

2. To designate as of now a person to preside over the provisional government, whose election will be left to the civic institutions to show the disinterest and impartiality of opposition leaders.

3. To declare to the country that due to the gravity of events there is no possible solution other than the resignation of the dictator and the transference of power to the person who has the confidence and the support of the majority of the nation, expressed through its representative organizations.

4. To declare that the civic-revolutionary front does not invoke or accept mediation or intervention of any kind from another nation in the internal affairs of Cuba. In contrast, it supports the denunciations of the violation of human rights made by Cuban emigrants before international organizations and asks the government of the United States that as long as the present regime of terror and dictatorship persists to suspend all arms shipments to Cuba.

5. To declare that the civic-revolutionary front, by republican and independent tradition, will not allow any type of provisional military junta to rule the Republic.

6. To declare that the civic-revolutionary front plans to separate the army from politics and to guarantee the apolitical nature of the armed forces. Military men have nothing to fear from the Cuban people, but it is the corrupt clique that sends them to their death in a fratricidal struggle.

7. To declare under formal promise that the provisional government will hold general elections for all offices of the state, the provinces, and the municipalities at the end of a year following the norms of the 1940 Constitution and the Electoral Code of 1943, and that power will be given immediately to the elected candidates.

8. To declare that the provisional government must adjust its mission to the following program:

a. Immediate freedom for all political, civil, and military prisoners.

b. Absolute guarantee of freedom of information, of the spoken and written press, and of all the individual and political rights guaranteed by the Constitution.'

\- Excerpt from the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, Fidel Castro, 1957.

Chapter 92: NIGHT FLIGHT

After Helena found some aspirin for me, we left the house. The sentry was away. We walked to the transport pool and she led me to an unmarked car, an old Russian model that I didn't recognise.

She drove us to the camp's main entrance, where there were four armed soldiers and a barrier. A corporal came to her side, saluted her. She chatted with him and then asked for my papers. I handed them across and he had a cursory look with his flashlight.

As we left the base and drove down the hill to Havana proper, Helena explained that I was an agent of Military Intelligence and my identification would strike fear into ninety-nine percent of the Cuban population.

The city was quiet, the occasional military vehicle trundling by, small clusters of feeble-looking locals standing around fires in oil drums. What I could see of the place wasn't impressive. Shanties would be a good description of the housing, everywhere with the jaded air of a banana republic with few friends in the world. On my holiday to Havana - a lifetime before - Sally and I had been free to explore the coastline, the beachfront bars, plenty of the old town. But when we left the beaten track, there would always - always - be somebody with police identification ready to politely ask us to turn back.

There was an air of gloom in the parts of town that we drove through, perhaps one in four streetlights functioning, rubbish piled at every corner. Two men stumbled from an alley, tried to flag us down. Helena pressed on the accelerator, almost struck them.

'Thieves,' she said. 'Many Cubans can only survive the blockade by extortion and corruption.'

'You would've been okay, surely?'

'I lived very well. My father was in Castro's brigade and he survived the purges that followed the revolution. So my life was relatively easy. But that was not enough, not anymore.'

'What changed?'

'The Cold War ended. Without Soviet cash and machinery, the regime turned inwards. Yes, Chavez is our friend now, but that's not enough. The regime has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, the revolution is over. Soon it must die.' She looked at me, bit her lower lip, shook her head. 'I thought you would be our saviour, force the Americans to take decisive action.'

'When did you hear they planned to hand me back?'

'I'm surprised it took so long. I ordered your papers after your tribunal yesterday - '

'Nice work.'

'And when I left you last night, I checked with my contacts in administration. The orders to seize you were being typed up. I acted. They're probably at the house by now.'

'What's our plan?'

'We need to get on a flight. Immediately. There's a plane to Moscow at three-thirty.' She glanced at her watch. 'We can make it.'

'What about tickets?'

'I have US dollars, the real Cuban currency.'

We skirted the city, heading southwest along a decent highway. We passed more cars then, including the occasional fifties classic like the one the drone had obliterated. There were open back trucks with peasants or fruit harvests, tourist coaches, military vehicles.

José Martí International Airport - named, she told me, after the national hero of Cuba, a writer and poet who led the late nineteenth century independence movement against Spanish rule - suddenly broke through the night gloom. Red lights flashed atop the control tower and, as we drove parallel to a runway, a large jet howled in to land, Air Canada.

We drove to a multi-storey car park near terminal three. As she pocketed the parking ticket and locked the car, I worried about our cover.

No need. She opened the truck and took out two midsized bags.

'This is yours. Underwear, clean shirts, a book of Castro ramblings.'

'I can't speak Spanish, you know?'

'Just keep your mouth shut. Let's go, we're running out of time.'

Security at the entrance was scared by our papers and, after getting our tickets - Aeroflot to Moscow, one refuelling stop at Shannon - without hassle, I felt we were clear.

We made our way through the quiet terminal building to final security and boarding zone. I love airports at night, that otherworldly feeling, the knowledge that the new day will come in a different place.

Helena did all the talking, the guards stiffened, my passport barely checked. In a military dictatorship, you don't question the dictators.

The flight was boarding, but we had a couple of minutes for a coffee and a cigarette.

'This is all going very smoothly,' I said.

'As long as none of the guards bothers to call in our presence, we'll be fine.'

'Would that be standard?'

'You still don't get Cuba, do you? Cubans are brainwashed into reporting anyone doing anything out of the ordinary. That's how the state functions. It's just like East Germany under the Stasi.'

'Is that why you're leaving?'

'Part of me has wanted to leave for many years. Inertia held me. You rocked the boat, gave me the push I needed.'

'Oh?'

'You escaped from Guantánamo. Don't you realise how amazing that is? You deserve to get off this shitty island.'

There was a final call announcement, in Russian, Spanish, English.

'That's us,' I said, draining the chipped cup, pressing the butt into the ashtray.

'So how will you use your notoriety?' she said, stubbing out her cigarette, our knuckles brushing. 'Write a book? Go on TV?'

'I think I'll keep a low profile for a while.'

A couple of armed guards loitered by the boarding gate, paid us no attention. Twenty minutes later we hurtled into the sky, Cuba a fading nightmare, the black Atlantic below.

Chapter 93: WHERE TO GO?

The brandisht Sword of God before them blaz'd

Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat,

And vapour as the Libyan Air adust,

Began to parch that temperate Clime; whereat

In either hand the hastning Angel caught

Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate

Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast

To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd.

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate

With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:

Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

\- Paradise Lost, John Milton, 1674 (Excerpt)

Chapter 94: COLD AIR

There was no warm Irish welcome at Shannon, just a sunless afternoon, cold drizzle filling the air. We left the plane as the refuelling tankers pulled up. The change in climate was a shock at first, but I gulped in the air, enjoyed the sensations as my spine shivered and my body hair stood on end. Nearly home.

'It's freezing,' said Helena, laughing, taking my arm as we walked across the runway apron and towards a cordoned restaurant area, no passport control. 'I've never felt actual cold.'

'Welcome to the free world,' I said, delighted at this contact with her, my mind trying to work out if I'd be better off slipping away here, then taking a ferry across to Wales, no passport controls between Ireland and Britain. Bizarrely. 'Is this your first time in Europe?'

'My first time outside Cuba,' she answered, inhaling loudly through her nostrils. 'It smells different, very different. Fresher.'

A bored security guard stood by the entrance to the terminal building, a couple of cameras panned the crowd. Illegal immigrants were the big concern and, as we queued for Irish coffees, I dismissed the idea of making a break for it. The system would see me as an illegal Cuban immigrant. I wouldn't make it home.

'Shit,' I said as Helena paid for our drinks and a couple of prepacked ham sandwiches.

'What is it?'

We took a seat by a long window, a little bit warmer there than outside.

'I'm wanted for murder. I'd bloody forgotten that. And St Paul's. I'd been half-thinking about making a run for it here.'

She inhaled the steam from her drink, said Aaah!

I drank from mine, scalding the roof of my mouth, that damned cream layer always deceiving.

'I don't know what kind of reception we'll get in Russia. You could be better off here.'

'Shit. I don't know what to do.'

'Do you have any friends in Russia? Anyone who could help?'

'Anna. She might be there.'

'Girlfriend?'

'Sometimes. She's a scientist, interested in DNA and stuff like that.'

'You have something in common.'

'Yeah,' I smiled, just thinking about Anna again. Was I in love?

There was an internet terminal nearby and I begged a Euro coin from Helena, promised to pay her back for everything, made her memorise my email address, made her swear to stay in touch so I could pay her back. At some point in the unknowable future.

I logged into my email account and, seeing the messages from Anna, my decision was made. I replied to her, told her I would be in Moscow in a few hours, would contact her by email, my heart giddy. I signed off with I want your sex, so she'd know it was really me. I figured the police back home would probably see this traffic, didn't care.

The one minute warning flashed on screen. I was out of time and out of cash.

Another message, almost lost in the spam. Frank. A voice from the grave, sent after the fog, so long ago, to a different me. I opened it, saw that it contained a couple of oddly-titled and lengthy attachments. He wrote This is important, Bill.

Chapter 95: FINDING NOAH

After the Finsbury blast, when the emergency services had things under control, King got away. He couldn't face the tube, took a cab back to base. On the way, he called in the license number from the jeep, actually crossed his fingers.

'Fucking Muslims,' sneered the cab driver. 'Bringing their shit over here.'

'A lot of dead women and kids back there,' said King, his adrenalin only now dissipating, the shock hitting. 'You mind if I smoke?'

'Not allowed, mate.'

'I'm a cop. You won't get into trouble.'

The driver took a good look at him in the mirror, said Go on then.

King smoked and the driver turned up the radio, live reports on the latest bombing. The sense of panic in the reporters' voices was palpable. London was on its knees, no end in sight.

'Who do you think did it?' asked the driver. 'Them bloody Iranians?'

'Could be. Finsbury's a Sunni mosque. The attack could be connected to Iraq or the whole nuclear processing thing.'

'Well, if you can prove it was them Iranians, I say bomb the bastards back to the Stone Age.'

King said 'It's out of my hands.'

They drove on. The naked racist anger - calls for revenge and declaration of war - from the radio caused the driver to nod his head relentlessly, curse under every breath. Society is being changed by all this, thought King. Is that the bombers' objective?

In the station, the team was gathered around the TV again.

'Fuck,' they said when they saw the state of King. 'You okay, Clive?'

'I'm not hurt, just a bit shook up.'

'You want to wash that dirty Muslim blood off you,' said a young detective.

The others agreed. The change had happened. Jane came in then, took his arm and brought him to the locker room.

'Get out of those clothes, Clive. You'll feel better. Any open cuts on your hands?'

King looked at his hands, saw the dried blood, remembered the cigarette, cursed himself for risking hepatitis or HIV for the sake of an injured woman. A Muslim woman. Now it's happening to me, he accepted with a distinct malaise. But no cuts, thank God.

He washed and changed into fresh clothes from his locker. Then he checked his gun, a Glock automatic, felt he'd be using it again soon.

Back in the office, the license plate search had turned up something.

'Looks like it's registered to a business in Linkway Business Park. They import aquarium equipment, mainly from the States,' said the detective hunched over the PC.

'Where's Linkway?'

'Off the M25. And here's the good news. It's in our jurisdiction.'

'Let's get organised,' said King. 'I want an anti-terrorist weapons unit to back us up.'

'They're on the way already, Clive. I had to flag the search as terror-related to get into the system. The Yard are all over it, but they'll let us tag along.'

'Fine,' said King, suddenly weary. He gave orders to his team, asked Jane to come along, expecting to find something important, some missing link at Linkway.

As the room buzzed with weapons and bravado, King brewed a fresh pot of coffee, touched Jane's nervous hand.

'You'll be fine,' he said.

'I don't know, Clive. I don't know any more.'

The armed unit was on-site, just inside the entrance to Linkway, sat in two unmarked vans when King's team arrived in three cars.

King met the commander, who wore blue fatigues, body armour and helmet, carried a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. They sat in the leading van's cab and looked at a satellite shot of the target building, a standard warehouse unit at the far end of the estate. Yes, a black jeep parked round the back.

'There's a good fence all around, so the only escape is right here,' said the Yard man. 'Your guys will set up a block while we neutralise the location. Okay?'

'Fine,' said King. No point arguing.

'One of my teams will enter by the rear, through this loading bay. The other will go straight in the front door.'

'What are you expecting?'

'Best case, some scared secretaries and a lot of fish tanks. Worst would be an al-Qaeda cell preparing their next attack. My men will operate according to the new procedures, shooting first, questions later. Everything clear?'

'Crystal. Good luck.'

'See you inside.'

The vans drove slowly into the office park while King ordered two of his cars into blocking positions across the entrance. With Jane, he waited in his idling car outside the industrial estate, chainsmoking. In case anyone connected turned up, spotted the activity, drove off.

The anti-terrorist units took up position at the drab building, a standard steel cladding job. The commander noted a sign at the front door, NO PUBLIC ACCESS. He looked inside the frame of the aluminium and glass doorway, tried the handle. Locked. The ram wasn't suited to such a door, so he nodded to the lock expert, who slung his weapon and opened a little leather tool holder. Within seconds, the door was open and radio contact made with the team around the back.

Go.

Paul Patterson, idling before the PC monitor, had no time to react when the armed police officers entered the rear space. Alone in the warehouse, considering the move on Noah, he realised that he had been foolish, lazy.

All he could do was to reach for the detonation switch which would vaporise the unit, destroy all evidence. It was tentatively close, just there on the edge of his desk. Freeze? No, I'll do this.

Four bullets smashed into the right side of his skull, tore his amazed brain to pieces, pulled some pulsing, bloody fragments out the exit holes. His fingers twitched, just short of the trigger. Another officer fired two bullets into the man's forehead. Just to be sure.

Patterson's body was kicked off his swivel chair and onto the floor while the rest of the building was carefully searched and found to be secure.

King had heard the gunshots, just like firecrackers, and was relieved when the radio buzzed, delivered an all-clear status.

He waved at the roadblock cars to move aside and drove with Jane to the scene.

Some members of the armed unit were outside with their helmets off, smoking. A few scared office workers were clustered at the entrances of the nearby office units. There would be no more electrical generators reconditioned, no more life insurance calls made, no more letterheads printed, no more busywork that day.

King drew his pistol, reholstered it at a shake of a sergeant's head. The sergeant held up one finger. One casualty, most certainly dead.

The entrance was typical, with its industrial carpet, yellowing calendar, pile of junkmail, dead plants. Inside was a hallway with a couple of small offices leading off. Vertical blinds, cardboard boxes, desk fans, coffee cups.

An officer stood at the end of the hall, held open the door to the warehouse space proper. The unit commander stood over a body on the floor. A man whose head had been shattered, his blood pooling on the painted concrete ground, little islands of brain matter glistening under the fluorescent tubes. A small TV set nearby scrolled casualty figures.

'He went for a trigger,' said the commander, pointing to the electrical wire taped to the desk. 'There. Connected to a big fucking lump of C4. Bomb squad's on the way. Looks like you found our bombers, King. Well done.' He slapped King hard on the bicep, smiled. 'Now let's get the fuck out of here.'

King was interested in the man's features. He was short-haired, well-dressed, Caucasian. Either a very smart Muslim. Or - ?

Jane avoided seeing the man, instead was interested in the message on the bloody computer screen. The last line. Kill Noah, it said.

Who's Noah?

'Fucking now!' shouted the commander.

Chapter 96: DUTY-FREE

I had a minor shitfit when about a hundred US soldiers came through the door of the airport lounge. For a confused second, I didn't know where I was and understood only that I was going back to my hated cage, with one bucket for drinking from and another for pissing in.

They didn't see me, though, just went straight for the duty-free counter and bought as much Irish whiskey as they could safely carry. Poor saps, bound for Iraq or Afghanistan, Shannon their midway break. A bit like my own position, all of us heading for an uncertain future to the east. I felt an odd connection with them, the sensation of being a pawn in a larger struggle, one with rules and motivations I could only guess at.

'We can't talk on the plane,' I said to Helena. 'So what's our plan when we reach Moscow?'

'We must assume that Cuba has put out an alert. I'm travelling under my own name. They may not have yours yet, Jesus,' she smiled.

'Should we just wing it?'

'Impossible. We don't have visas. I'm wondering about political asylum. The relationship between Moscow and Havana is not so strong today.'

'How would we be treated?'

'Unknowable. Fifty-fifty. You might have an advantage, your escape from Guantánamo. The Russians might love that, the chance to humiliate America.'

'Christ, I don't know if I could handle being a Russian PR pawn.'

'I say we try to cut a deal. Tell the truth. Say that you are in fear for your life from the Americans. That we both fear the Cubans. Tell them everything in return for new passports. See where that takes us?'

'Agreed.'

Our flight was called. Back in the air, we filled out our immigration forms. Then Helena slept, her head against my shoulder. I was too scared to rest, worried about living out my life in a frozen gulag.

Chapter 97: CLEAR

As night fell, they evacuated the whole office park while the bomb squad screamed along the hard shoulder of the commuter-clogged M25.

The nearby workers were happy to get out of their hellish jobs a few minutes early, delighted with the story they would tell. Bloody terrorists, right there in Linkway, I swear I nearly had a heart attack when the cops shot them all. Yes, I'll take a brandy, thank you. Bloody hell.

Jane sat in the car at the gate, checked her crime scene kit, eager to get in and find some DNA, read that email.

King returned to her, satisfied that the estate was clear.

'What are you thinking?' he asked.

'I'm thinking about Noah, yeah?'

'Go on,' said King, lighting a cigarette, maybe his thirtieth of the day.

'There's a chance that this,' pointing to the warehouse, 'is the base of our bombers, maybe the ones responsible for everything, all the shit.'

'A good chance, I reckon.'

'Yeah. Now, could Karen have been a contact, their source for the radioactive material?'

'They'd need somebody from the lab, true.'

'So she was killed to tidy up the situation, blown up at the mosque to cover the connection.'

'I'd go along with that, Jane.'

'"Kill Noah." That's what the message said. Could Noah be the local commander of the cell. Wouldn't killing him sort everything? Could Noah be Fortescue and wouldn't he be the perfect man to frame Bunk?'

'Fuck me. My gut says yes.'

As the possible scenarios worked through their brains and the past confusions faded to clarity, a call came through on the radio. Activity on Bunk's email account. He accessed it. Sent a message to Anna. He's heading to Moscow.

'Moscow?' said King. 'What the fuck is he doing going to Moscow? Where was he?'

'Get this,' said the technician back at base. 'The email was sent from Ireland. Shannon Airport.'

'Follow up, will you. See what flights have been active there,' said King, signing off then.

As King and Jane tried to make sense of this development, Bunk passed over their heads at nine thousand metres, his aircraft still climbing for the long haul to Sheremetyevo Airport.

The bomb squad was still some way off and it would take time to make the place safe, so King made a decision.

'I'm heading to Fortescue,' he told Jane. 'Just in case his killer's on the way already.'

'Call him,' said Jane. 'Tell him to stay put, lock his door.'

King made the call, asked for Fortescue, was relieved to finally hear his cultured, confident voice.

'Yes, detective?'

'Thank God. Listen. I think somebody may be on his way to kill you.'

Silence for a couple of moments, a throat cleared, a forced laugh.

'That's preposterous, detective. Who would want to kill me? Bunk?'

'Not Bunk. And I'm serious. We've located the base of some kind of assassination squad. Your name's come up. Well, maybe.'

'What do you mean,' said Fortescue, more serious now.

'Are you Noah?'

A long five seconds of just breathing.

Chapter 98: THE BIG ASK

King avoided the motorway, used the back roads, blue lights sundering the amber suburban gloom.

He clipped an old style VW Beetle, tore the rear bumper off, drove on, oblivious.

'Get off the fucking road,' he shouted.

The police radio was filled with reports of Muslim stores being burned in East Ham, some kind of riot in Southall.

Fortescue trembled after he put his phone down, then composed himself. Why would Dr Ryan want to kill me? I've served the Foundation well. Karen, yes, she had to go. But me? This doesn't make any kind of sense.

A large cognac \- Napoleon - slowed his pulse, allowed him to accept the logic. The operation was being closed down, all evidence being effectively erased. Completely sensible. The Bunk escapade had been a genius idea, tied everything together. And it had worked perfectly. Until. Until that blast at Imperial College. Who? Why? Ryan had been jumpy since.

Fortescue made an internal call, left a frantic voicemail.

Are you Noah?

Footsteps in the corridor outside, a shadow at the door.

A knock.

'Yes?' his voice cracking.

The door opened. Security. Overweight, unarmed, so only vaguely comforting.

'Just checking around, sir. Nearly everybody else is gone.'

'Friday. Yes,' said Fortescue. 'I won't be long.'

'Take your time sir. Let me know if you need anything.'

Can you stop a military-trained assassin with God in his heart?

'Thank you. Oh, I'm looking for Jim, the techie. Have you seen him?'

'No sir, but I'll keep an eye out for him.'

Another cognac and a look around the office, the accumulation of many years, the symbols of a life's cunning. He knew that it was over. To stay would accept death, Ryan's orders wouldn't be rescinded. To escape now would require disappearance. It might take a week or a year, but an assassin would come in that door.

This isn't fair, he thought.

So?

Heaven? Appealing to walk with Jesus, certainly. But not yet.

Tuscany. There's the place to have a few stolen years. They'd get me eventually. But look at the quality of life. Get the broker to shift some money quietly to Switzerland, take a lease on a vineyard, be the lord of the manor with a private cellar a furlong across. There's the life, there's the chance.

His mind made up, Fortescue made a note on lab letterhead, in his elegant, flowing handwriting. I'm depressed by man's inhumanity to man, he wrote. I am upset at the break-up of my marriage. I am going to end it all, drown myself in the Channel. I apologise for this, all of it. May God have mercy on me.

Smiling at the fluidity of his thoughts now, now that the shock of the call had dissipated, Fortescue quickly scanned the office, taking his most treasured possessions, but nothing that would be obviously missed. His sleek pen. Leave the mobile phone. Take the Tolkien first edition.

Ready to leave, the escape route - car, Dover, ferry, drive through France, smell those rolling lavender hills - solidified in his mind. Then the knock.

Dear God, not the knock.

Chapter 99: THE BEAR'S EMBRACE

Moscow was dark, bitterly cold, even in the connecting tunnel. At passport control, we caused raised eyebrows and were directed to a security office, accompanied by an armed policewoman.

We sat together in a bright white room, on a bench that went all the way around the wall. A plain, slatted table stood in the centre. The cop stood nearby, a camera winked, a mirror the length of one wall allowed unknown agents to watch our body language, listen to our conversation.

'So, tell me again. How are Russo-Cuban relations these days?'

'We send bananas, mostly. They send engineering components and machinery. Some weapons systems. Bananas and rum don't buy too much these days.'

'We're all in the real world now, I guess.'

'Yes. I'm still amazed we got that Fulcrum up to save you.'

'Fulcrum?'

'The fighter jet. We have a few, but they're normally grounded.'

'Well thanks to Russian technology I'm here now. It made mincemeat out of that bastard drone.'

'Some adventure you've had.'

'I may write a book someday.'

'But not quite yet.'

'Not quite yet.'

Then a low-grade official came into the room, put our bags on the table. He went through Helena's first, placed her t-shirts, spare trousers, bra and knickers in neat piles. I tried to make light, made a happy groan at the sight of her underwear. He frowned, she smiled.

Then he emptied my bag, looked quizzically at my book of Castro rant, then at me. I shrugged.

He expertly checked the lining of both bags, then asked me to spread my arms and legs while he patted me down. Then he told the policewoman to search Helena.

Then he put our stuff back in the bags and asked us to follow him, in good, unaccented English. Jesus, the whole rest of the world is multilingual.

Down a shiny corridor, the cop behind, and into a less austere interview area. There was a row of booths at one end, all empty, but four chairs around a low round table were pointed out to us, coffee offered.

This was good, coffee and soft chairs, not holding cells in the basement with open toilets and various lunatics wondering, wandering.

We gratefully accepted the coffee. It was hot and somewhat comforting. After a time, in came a tall guy, full head of short grey hair, maybe forty, decent grey suit, odd kind of grin on his face.

'Hello Helena and - Jesus?' he offered.

We nodded, said our hellos. He took a seat opposite us, flipped a notebook open, clicked a pen.

'I'm Major Constantin of the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. You know of us?'

'FSB,' said Helena. 'Of course. Like the KGB, only more powerful.'

'Have we had contact?' asked the major. 'I'm sure I would have remembered you, colonel.'

'Maybe by phone,' she said. 'I don't know. I've never been to Russia before.'

'Okay,' he said, still grinning. 'There is no problem. Now,' he said, turning to me, 'you're the curious one, Jesus. Or may I call you William?'

'You may call me William.'

'Good. Very good. This is going well, don't you think?'

'So far.'

'Now, why are you in Moscow under a false passport, William?'

'That's a genuine passport,' said Helena.

He silenced her with a raised hand. 'Perhaps, but the name is false. This is a serious crime in Russia. Tell me why, William. Tell me now or we can travel to the Lubyanka. Would you prefer that?'

Patronising prick. Why would I prefer KGB HQ, a grand torture chamber where the walls could weep, what they've witnessed.

'This is fine,' I smiled.

'Ashtray,' he said to the policewoman.

She got one - pressed tin - and he offered his Marlboro reds around.

So I told him the whole story, from St Paul's to my nightflight from Havana. He didn't seem fazed, took notes, nodded occasionally.

This all took about an hour. By the end, he had put his pack of cigarettes in front of me, made the open-palm help yourself gesture, was glancing regularly at the camera, like saying Are you getting all this?

At the end, I said 'And here we are.'

'That's the whole story?'

'It's all I know. It doesn't make much sense but - '

'It makes perfect sense,' he said, standing then, stretching his shoulders. 'I knew most of your story before. It just didn't add up. Now I hear it from you, it kind of does. Do you know?'

'What are you saying?'

'As you know, we have many agents in London, many in America, even some in Cuba,' he winked at Helena. 'Their reports, plus requests from various governments and, well, we know you Mr Bunk.' He paced the room, stopped in front of me. 'What do you know of the Foundation?'

Chapter 100: BOOK

Jane was nervous, waiting to hear from Detective King, eager to get into the warehouse, take a good look. As the all-clear was announced and the bomb squad's armoured van roared out of the business park, the Yard crime scene team arrived. Jane recognised the woman from Bunk's lab, was spotted in turn. Jane moved towards her as she neared the front door and an armed officer moved to block her.

'She's with me,' said the woman from the Yard.

Jane followed her through to the open area at the rear. The dead man was there on the floor, no ID on him, so he was not immediately relevant. The Yard woman got a couple of shots of his ruined face, connected her camera to a laptop from her bag, sent them back to HQ. Jane went straight to the computer terminal. Afraid that the data would disappear, Jane took some photos, no flash. Noah.

She scrolled back up the page, cut through the jargon, understood that this was Foundation business, that Karen was to be killed, that Noah was to be killed, that the base was to be dismantled and the unit dispersed. Oh, and if Bunk shows up, kill him too. Plain speaking. She captured the whole message, spotted what could be the sender's address, a bit messy but also what looked like an IP, and what looked like an encryption algorithm. Government. But not Her Majesty's. She called base, passed on the codes, the identifiers, put an urgent request on the sender identification.

A good look around the place. A case of H&K submachine guns. Another of Glock pistols. Grenades. Daggers. Plenty of ammunition. The plastic explosive was removed for analysis.

'You could start a little war with this lot,' observed a cop as the Yard woman set her team to dusting the phones, weapons and soft drink cans for prints.

On a rack on a wall, dark blue fatigues, like what the police were wearing. On a desk, a heavy book. But not the Qur'an, the Bible.

Chapter 101: CLOSURE

Fortescue gripped the edge of his desk, said 'Come in.'

The door opened, revealed Jim the technician.

'Thank God,' said Fortescue.

'What's wrong Lionel? You look ghastly.'

'The unit is shutting down, tidying up,' said Fortescue, pouring another cognac. 'You want a drink.'

'Tidying up? Jesus Christ. Yes. Yes, please.'

As Jim sipped the drink and the gravity of the scenario sank in, Fortescue explained that a gunman was likely on his way to kill him. Possibly Jim too.

'Fuck. What can we do?'

'I'm getting away from here. It's every man for himself now. But first I need you to erase my computer.'

'Everything?'

'Total. Can you do that?'

Jim set to work, drink in his left hand. He emptied the desktop wastebasket, then shut down the PC, disconnected all leads, plucked a slim screwdriver from his breast pocket tool and pen organiser.

He removed the rear panel easily, then began to unscrew the hard drive itself. He put that on the table, then disassembled it until he was down to the disc itself, just a piece of plastic, microscopically pitted by a billion laser impacts.

'You sure, Lionel?'

Fortescue nodded, so the technician took the disc out of the housing, held it by the spindle, used a little pair of snips to cut it into little fragments. These he placed in an ashtray. Then he set fire to them. They caught easily, sending up a little cloud of horrible smoke.

As Jim was putting the panel back on the computer, the door opened, a young man in a leather jacket, wearing gloves, an expressionless face.

'Yes?' said Fortescue, his voice feeble, surrendering.

'A message from Dr Ryan,' said the man, reaching into his jacket pocket.

Chapter 102: LUBYANKA

I told Constantin about the plant at Guantánamo, how he'd tried to kill me during the escape, how he'd mentioned the Foundation. But that was the sum of my knowledge.

Constantin explained that the Foundation was a component of the US military-industrial complex, an evangelical movement which operated both inside and outside the law to further the aims of evangelical Protestantism and maintain its grip on the world. And how I was their fallguy for the attacks in London.

'Is this all about the DNA evolution thing?'

'I don't know about DNA or evolution,' said the FSB man. 'But this mission has little to do with that. If anything.'

'Jesus,' I said, stunned. 'I thought I had it worked out.'

'Clearly not. I will explain it to you further later. Now we're leaving. There is somebody waiting to meet you.'

'What is our situation, sir?' asked Helena, rising.

'You, colonel, will be offered asylum in return for telling us all about the present situation in Cuba and Cuban intelligence activity in Russia and America. Mr Bunk here is our enemy's enemy, so he will also be offered asylum.'

'Seriously? Thanks a lot,' I said.

'You are welcome. Now come, we're going to Lubyanka.'

I paused, worried that I was being duped yet again.

'Don't worry,' said Constantin. 'You'll be above ground.'

He led us down endless corridors, a separate thoroughfare running parallel with the public areas at Sheremetyevo. He made smalltalk, was animated when quizzing me for more details about the drone attack, claimed the MiG-29 was the best fighter plane in the world.

I told him all I could remember, warmed to him when he congratulated me on my survival.

We reached an exit door, manned by two armed officers who saluted Constantin and opened the doors for us. He took us into a small yard where two Mercedes SUVs waited.

I sat in the back of one with Helena, Constantin in the front passenger seat. The other jeep led the way, out a sliding gate and into the general airport traffic. Red and blue lights flashed on both vehicles and the taxis and BMWs and occasional Trabants quickly made way for us. We sped along the Leningradskoe Highway, passed endless ranks of brutalist apartment blocks and screaming neon advertisements.

Twenty minutes later, we were in the centre of Moscow, both Helena and I staring out at the mad, grand excitement of it all. Even from inside the vehicle, the buzz outside was palpable. Compared to the grim melancholy of the nineties, I could appreciate now why Putin was a hero to Russians. City was a lot like London, only with faster traffic and more open spaces, giving the eye a better chance to be impressed by the brightly-lit signature buildings.

I recognised Petrovski Boulevard, then Neglinniya, where I enjoyed the clubs with Frank and Fortescue after our expedition to the mammoth. Jim preferred his hotel room. Christ, Fortescue was mad for his vodka and whores. I wondered where he was, how he was doing.

Then into Lubyanskaya Square and our destination. The Lubyanka's façade, yellow brick, classical detailing, belied its truth.

'In the old days, it was said that Lubyanka had the best view in Russia,' joked Constantin. 'You could see Siberia from the basement.'

I forced a laugh, being genuinely scared. This place had a bad reputation, worse even than Guantánamo. The Russians didn't give a shit what anybody thought of their methods. Six thousand nukes rested in Russian silos, Tsar Bomba among them. At one hundred megatons, the ironically-named warhead is the most powerful explosive created by humanity. And though they've never used the ultimate weapon, you only argue so far with Russia.

We drove through an entrance gate to the left of the building and entered a high-walled courtyard which allowed access to a whole series of security buildings, not just Lubyanka. Armed guards in various uniforms hung around idly, smoking or blowing into their hands. They snapped to attention when they saw Constantin.

After we parked, Constantin led us through a grand entrance hall and into Lubyanka proper. We were processed in a pleasant room with parquet flooring and pale green walls.

Photographed, blood taken, fingerprinted efficiently, laminated guest IDs on lanyards were handed to us in just a few minutes.

'Wear these at all times while in the building,' said Constantin.

'How long will we be here?' asked Helena.

'Not so long. We just need all your information. How fast can you talk?'

'Pretty fast,' I said.

'Start now?'

I glanced at Helena. She nodded.

'Okay.'

'Excellent,' he said. 'I will take you to your rooms and we can begin there.'

Into an area like a hotel reception and Constantin spoke with a guy who produced two keys and wrote some notes in a ledger. A porter appeared and said This way, please.

We took an ornate lift to the fifth floor, walked down a deeply-carpeted corridor and were brought into a vestibule, richly decorated, well-furnished, a door at either side.

'Miss, this is your room,' said the porter, unlocking the door on the left.

Helena followed him into the room, came back out with a smile on her face. he handed her the key.

'Sir,' said the porter to me, leading me into a grand and opulent space, dazzling crystal chandelier above, massive four-poster bed below.

A barely perceptible nod of his head and I went after him, back to the vestibule.

'Everything okay?' asked Constantin, a rhetorical question. Now, you will be interviewed in this area, individually. My men will set up some equipment and knock when they need you. When you have had enough, just say this. Feel free to use the facilities as provided. We will try and get through this quickly and, I hope, without any unpleasantness.'

I didn't detect any irony in his last phrase. I didn't allow this to worry me, just accepted it as Russian bluntness.

'Drink?' suggested Helena, opening the door to her room.

'Lovely,' I said.

Her room was just like mine, just as perfect.

'This is the nicest room I have ever seen,' she said. 'Yet it's in a building with one of the worst reputations in the world. How so?'

'I guess it's another example of how appearances can be deceptive, how legend can mislead. Also how those at the highest level in societies genuinely do inhabit a different dimension. I have no doubt that there are poor souls being tortured in this complex, right now, right as we speak. But - '

Helena looked around with exaggerated eye movements, saying We're being watched and listened to. She held up a vodka bottle. Stoli. I nodded.

'But?' she asked, eyebrows raised.

'I've changed, I can appreciate that now. Since it's not me on the receiving end, I'm quite happy to be here, with you, sipping my vodka. This now is all that matters. This and getting out of here.'

I wondered if I'd changed from being a mere selfish, obsessive bastard into a genuinely evil swine.

Chapter 103: FALL OF THE THRONE

King arrived at the lab, saw just a couple of cars still parked outside, most of the lights dead, figured most of the staff were down in the Dragon's Arse getting drinking off the week. He wished that he was there too. Yes, it was exciting, all this running around after assassins and all that. But he would still rather be out getting pissed.

'Does this mean I'm a bad cop?' he said aloud as he snorted a line of cocaine off the back of a CD case. The White Stripes, you've got to laugh.

He checked his pistol, cocked it, held onto it in his jacket pocket.

'Evening sir,' said the fat security guy. 'How can I help?'

'Evening,' flashing the badge, but the guy knew him anyway. 'I'm looking for Fortescue.'

'In his office. You know the way?'

'Yeah,' said King, moving past him and into the reception area.

'He's in demand tonight, I'll tell you.'

King froze. 'Oh?'

'Yeah, another officer came to see him just a few minutes ago.'

'Thanks,' said King, taking his gun from his pocket. The guard blanched, took a step back. 'Listen. Lock that door and don't let anybody leave the building until I get back, yeah?'

As the guard fumbled at his waist for the bunch of keys, King moved silently past reception and up the stairs to the management offices. Nobody around, light dim.

His heart pumping, King reached Fortescue's office, saw that the door was ajar. Back to the wall, he edged close to the door. He held his breath until he felt his face bulge and his heart groan. Using his ears, not sensing any movement, he turned the corner, like a surfer catching a wave. The bloody cocktail of adrenalin and cocaine was pumped faster, banging through his veins, hammering at his eardrums.

Two bodies.

A guy on the floor, unknown. The shooter?

Face down on his desk, Fortescue.

A smell of burning in the air, something nasty.

Into the room, gun raised. Scanning, scanning. Clear. Door to annex closed. To the guy on the floor.

Face up, mouth open, bullet wound, no two, on his chest. Heart shattered, lungs blitzed, no pulse. Good night. No sign of a weapon, patted him down, confirmed this. And an unlikely target area for a suicide.

Now Fortescue. No sign of a gun. Pool of dark stickiness under his face, seeping across the blotting paper, the Financial Times, the open briefcase with bits and pieces in there, like he'd maybe been packing or something.

Habit put King's fingers on the dead man's neck, searching for the throb of a jugular.

'Jesus Christ!' shouted King, scared at his reaction.

He gently lifted Fortescue's head, saw that a bullet had ripped away much of his lower jaw. There was light in his eyes, the hint of a broken smile.

'Detective,' he said with difficulty, blood spraying towards a flinching King. 'You've come for the truth.'

Chapter 104: DO YOU WANT TO HEAR A STORY?

After a couple of drinks, the interrogators came. One wore a military uniform, full of unknowable symbols and decorations. He asked all the questions in Oxford English. The other was younger, hid in a plain grey suit, took notes, monitored the recording equipment. I felt he was the boss.

I was given a comfortable chair, two packs of Marlboro, a military issue lighter which smelt of petrol.

They started by taking a blood sample. For DNA. The vodka took the edge off the procedure. How much of my DNA is floating about the world now?

'So now you talk.'

I started from the beginning, the space DNA sample from Johnson. The Homo erectus sample. The murder, the bomb, Cuba.

They spent some time probing deeper into the torture methods used at Guantánamo, then spent a great deal of time on my past. College, early married life, that kind of odd stuff.

Two hours of this and it was the middle of the night. I asked to be excused and the soldier smiled. Fine.

So I went to Helena, expecting to find her asleep. But no, she was sitting in a chair by the window, watching the Moscow night. The vodka bottle contained more vapour than booze, the ashtray was full. She wore a dark green bathrobe. Hearing the door, she turned, rose, smiled.

'Drink,' she exclaimed. 'When in Moscow!'

'Sure,' I said, suddenly shattered, the long flight from Cuba - thirteen blasted hours - finally catching me by the throat.

'I'm too drunk to talk to them now,' she said, giggling like an aunt who's had too much sherry at a funeral, spilling a little vodka as she poured my glass. 'Ooops!'

'It's okay. They're gone for now. Off to type up my tale, work out their next step.'

'I'm sure it was typed in real time.'

We were quiet for a minute, while the straight vodka scorched my throat, poisoned my stomach. Then she finished her drink, went and sat on the edge of her bed.

'Will you stay with me tonight, Bill? Please?'

'Just look at you, you hard-shelled Caribbean beauty, and me just out of the toughest prison on Earth. Forgive all the cliches, but what a stupid question.'

I downed my drink and went to sit beside her. In a moment, she had pushed me onto my back - some power in those arms - and was on me like a hungry lioness. Clawing at my clothes, she straddled me and, pulling her knickers to the side, she engulfed me.

Then she rode me, her hands pushing against my chest, her wet centre washing away any hint of reticence. Then I knew her. I felt my orgasm boiling to the surface and gasped Now. She cried Wait, grinding harder against me, her nails tearing at my nipples. I couldn't hold back - what man can? - and came in an ecstatic, religious way. Thank God! I grabbed for her breasts and squeezed them hard until she gasped, and again, and fell forward onto me, her lips on my cheeks and chin and mouth.

She slid off me, lay on the bed with her hands behind her head, a grin on her face. As she muttered something in Spanish, I saw neat rows of dark scars on the inside of her forearms.

I passed out then, woke to a brilliant blue sky, a painful hangover and Anna standing at the foot of the bed.

Chapter 105: PRISONER

King called nine-nine-nine, demanded an urgent ambulance, requested an armed police unit, cursed when the operator said That may take some time. Then he tried to make Fortescue at ease, lifted him back into his armchair. Probably the wrong thing to do. The bleeding wasn't so bad, but he was pale as death.

'It's okay, Lionel. There's an ambulance on the way. You'll be fine. Any other wounds?'

'No,' said Fortescue, his breath laboured, 'just this bullet in my head.'

'That's it, Lionel. Keep your humour. Now tell me about Bunk. What's his involvement in all this?'

'Bunk?,' he laughed. 'He's just the stooge. He's an idiot, a gullible idiot. Nothing more.'

Poor fucking guy, thought King. He's not going to make it.

'What about that crazy lab downstairs? Was that Bunk's?'

'That was mine,' said Fortescue. 'I was trying to prove that cloning was wrong, against God's will.'

'You picked a fucked-up way to go about it. And it was just convenient to pin it on Bunk?'

Fortescue smiled, nodded.

King checked his watch, worried that the ambulance wouldn't make it in time.

'Listen, do you have a clean towel or something we can use to put a bit of pressure on?'

'The bathroom, there,' said Fortescue, indicating the door set into the oak-panelled walls. The lab used to be a boarding school, this part of it anyway. This room was the headmaster's office. If those walls could tell their tales.

As King moved to the door, he noticed that it was open, just slightly. Then it opened fully and a man appeared. He'd been listening, raised his arm, the Glock pistol with silencer pointing at Fortescue. Two puffs of smoke, two subdued cracks. Joop-joop. The top of Fortescue's head smashed against his bookcase, The History of Blood brought vividly to life.

As Fortescue was quietly killed, King reached for his holstered gun, pulled it free, fired at the assassin as his arm swung round. The report, without silencing, made an ear-splitting crash in the well-insulated room. The assassin took the round in his right shoulder, fell back against the washbasin inside the bathroom.

King should have gone for the head, didn't want to risk losing maybe the last, maybe the best, witness.

He moved forward with care, glancing at Fortescue, looking behind to the main office entrance, making sure not to be caught out again. Seeing the gunman slumped over the toilet bowl, pistol on white-tiled floor, alive, King just wanted the day to be over, to get so drunk as to risk death.

There was an urge, a strong force, to just kill the fucker. He restrained his twitching forefinger, kicked the gun away from the man, kicked him in the ribs. The shoulder wound was good, major bones shattered and the man was crying, wanting his mother, like they always do. American accent? wondered King.

The sound of a siren in the dark distance.

'We're going to save you, you prick. And you're going to tell me everything. Understand?'

The man nodded, pointed towards Fortescue.

King followed his direction, took his eyes off for a second, just long enough for the assassin to use his good hand to pull the pin from the grenade, the black one that hung from his belt.

He threw the pin at King, who saw the wisp of smoke, heard the fizz, thought Holy fuck, what next?

Chapter 106: NASO-GASTRIC HELL

Danny was held in secure detention until the hurricane passed. Then everything erupted. The sirens, some deliberately placed inside the cell block, wailed for hours. As the air-conditioner rattled and the temperature plummeted, Danny felt hungry and nauseous and disorientated. Hours later, he was dragged from the cell and taken to the water chair.

Here, he was brought to the verge of drowning six times. Fearing for his life, he told every detail of his time beside Bunk.

Why this concern about Bunk? he wondered.

Still, he told all.

In the middle of the night, his interrogators were satisfied. They beat him on his stomach and thighs with lengths of weighted rubber hose. Then he was taken to the medical block.

Outside, there was much activity, many helicopters in the air, squads of armed marines marching, standing, checking weapons. The whine of a Predator in the near distance. The air still turbulent.

In the medical block, Danny was secured to a feeding chair, a tubular metal monstrosity, like an oversized wheelchair. Two marines, dressed in riot gear, held his head. Then a feeding tube was inserted through his left nostril, forced down his throat to his stomach.

A pureed concoction of rice and milk was pumped slowly into him. He wanted to vomit, but the feeding tube had neutralised his gag reflex.

When the medic decided that enough food had been forced into him, a stupefied Danny was wheeled into the observation room.

Just over an hour later, Danny began to vomit blood and food, the feeding tube having been forced just a little too forcibly into his shrunken stomach. Then he died.

Chapter 107: CLARITY, OF SORTS

I rubbed my crusty eyes.

'Anna?'

'Yes. Nice to see you, Billy.'

'Where's Helena?'

'You don't waste any time, do you?'

'I - '

'No excuses, Billy. I'm not criticising, you know that. She's being interviewed. She has some history. I think she will be offered a position with the FSB. The Cuban G-2 is not so different.'

'What history?'

'Let's just say that she is familiar with torture. In Villa Marista prison, she is known as the Queen of Pain.'

'Fuck,' I said, feeling sick.

Anna came to me, sat down on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a sober blue suit, a white blouse with enough buttons open to allow that hint of cleavage. There, clipped on the breast pocket, an FSB ID laminate. Only it didn't say Guest.

'You look like you've been through so much,' she said, her lower lip extended, like she was talking to a child.

'I'm sure you know all about it,' I guessed.

'I have read your interview transcripts. Fascinating, certainly. Your time in Cuba must have been awful. Poor Billy.'

'Anna, be honest with me. Were you involved?'

She stood, walked to the window, her hands on her hips.

'With Guantánamo? Certainly not. When you disappeared, I was very concerned for you. I even assisted the English police.'

'Oh?'

'I told them of our time together. They said that you were being framed for the killing of your wife.'

'They think that?' I asked, my heart swelling. 'Thank God.'

'Yes, that is what they believe.'

She looked over at me, smiled.

'Anna?'

'Yes, Billy?'

'Are you with the FSB?'

She sighed an inevitable sigh, lit a cigarette, offered her pack. I accepted.

'Yes, in the way that all senior Gazprom employees are. You know that the Federal Security Service controls the Russian energy industry?'

'No, I didn't know that.'

Where the hell was this going?

'I am truly a biologist, Billy. But in order to secure my job, I must become an FSB agent. For example, when you and your associates came to see the mammoth, was it not obvious that I was watching your every move?'

'No. No it wasn't. I thought you were just, you know, into me?'

'Well, I am good at my job.'

'So what's your involvement with my misery memoir?'

'I caused much of it, but unwittingly. When I sent the sample to you, the Homo erectus, that was a big mistake.'

'You said that wasn't really Homo erectus.'

'That was a lie. I was desperate to get it back before things got out of control.'

My head felt heavy as I lit another cigarette.

'Were you involved in the bombings in London?'

'No. We used our influence with other agencies to make them destroy the sample. We had no control over their tactics.'

I was angry only for a second. Then I understood that it wasn't her fault that Sally was dead, that Frank was dead, that London had suffered a new blitz. Shit, I had no choice but to believe her.

'Why the big deal, Anna? Why was the sample so important?'

'All will become light, Billy. I can get you some coffee while you take a shower. Okay?'

'Okay.'

'Then we will go and see our Homo erectus friends, the cause of all your troubles.'

Chapter 108: ALMOST

'I almost fucking had him,' Detective King said to Jane.

'What happened? After you shot him?'

'I don't know. It's like I froze, temporary insanity. I thought That's it.'

The medics had pronounced the three dead. Now the office was a grim scene of destruction, Fortescue and the technician frozen in death, the assassin's body sprayed around the bathroom and into the office. His torso, head and lower legs were mostly intact, the rest of him shredded in the zone of detonation.

Jane took a lot of photographs, knew that she had an excellent blood splatter case study on her hands. Brilliant pictures, plus testimony to back up appearances with facts.

King moved around behind her, a couple of junior officers from the station taking notes, wowed by it all.

'Anything from the warehouse?'

'They're rushing the DNA, see if there are any more of these guys on the loose. Oh, that reminds me. Thanks.'

She fished a syringe from her pocket and rammed the needle into the gunman's remaining intact thigh. She drew some blood, bagged the syringe, labelled it.

'I need to get this to the Yard forensics lab right away. Can you ask one of the boys?'

'Sure,' said King, nodding to one of the junior detectives. 'Take this to the Yard. Pronto, yeah?'

'One less trace to worry about,' said Jane.

Later, outside, Jane asked him for a cigarette. They stood beside an ambulance. The lab security guard was receiving treatment for shock, his face red, tie undone.

'Poor guy looks like he's having a heart attack,' Jane said.

'Rough day all round,' said King.

'Really bad. I'm at my limit now, I think.'

Two unmarked vans from the morgue drew up.

'Everybody's there now, I reckon. Any news on the riots?'

'Just garbled bits and pieces on the way over.' She paused, inhaled deeply. 'You want to come back to my place? Watch the news, have a drink?'

Inevitable.

'Things are looking up.'

Finally.

'Then tomorrow we've got a nice little DNA jigsaw to piece together.'

Chapter 109: GOOD FRIDAY

Anna led me to Constantin's office. He gave me a laminated document, with my photo and his signature at the bottom.

'I am discharging you into Agent Kazlov's care. You may not leave Russia and you must sign this document, which obliges you to not divulge any scientific, security or mineralogical information you learn while in Russia, before and after today. The penalty is up to thirty years in a labour camp. We will find you. Is this clear, Mr Bunk?'

'Yes.' I signed the document. 'Will I ever be able to leave Russia?'

'Perhaps. But you won't get very far on a fake Cuban passport.'

'I was worried about that.'

'Well, we shall hold on to it, just in case of a moment of madness. You will not face any charges for entering Russia without a visa or valid passport. You understand our terms?'

'I understand.'

He stood, held out his hand.

'Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Bunk. I will be in touch with Anna if I need to see you.'

And we left Lubyanka, into a brilliantly sunny morning, my papers passing the first test at the exit guard post.

Anna drove a silver Mercedes saloon, drove it fast. We stopped for lunch - big bowls of steaming borsch - with dollops of sour cream on top and black bread on the side. Who knew turnip soup could be so fantastic? I had vodka with mine, Anna Coca-Cola.

We encountered heavy traffic, got stuck behind a religious procession. A large cross was carried at the head of it, the crowd wailing tears for a crucified Christ.

'Jesus Christ,' I said.

'Exactly,' Anna said.

'Isn't there another way?'

'Yes, but why bother? We will reach our destination soon enough. You must learn to calm yourself, Billy.'

Soon enough, we reached the Palaeontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at Profsoyuznaya Ulitsa.

Our IDs got us access to the staff car park and we parked near a modern, curvy red bricked building.

'I must say, I'm grateful to Constantin. You know, for making me stay with you.' She smiled. I stopped, took in a good, cold lungful. 'This is my first day of freedom, since - ' Hang on.

'Since we were last together?'

'Yes, now that you mention it.'

I found this physically unsettling. Or maybe it was just the borsch.

'Interesting.'

'Lot of people about,' I said.

'This is the largest palaeontological centre in the world. Also, the Orlov Museum, there, has the greatest collections of therapsids from Perm and a stunning display of Precambrian fossils from Siberia.'

Therapsids, the precursors of mammals, were fascinating enough, but the Precambrian fossils got me thinking back to where this whole story began.

'I'd love to see those,' I said.

'You haven't been here before?' she said, faking surprise.

'You know I haven't.'

'Yes, your boss prefers the ladies to the fossils.'

'Exactly.'

And what are you up to, Lionel?

Anna fixed her laminate to her breast pocket again.

We passed the museum and entered the research area, traversed a charming internal courtyard with life-sized models of dinosaurs lurking in the lush planted areas. More security and we were in the advanced research section. The corridors were dark and shiny with very little human activity.

Some office doors were open and I caught glimpses of flatscreens, graphs, piles of printouts, the occasional researcher. My respect for Russian scientific research had exploded in magnitude. These are very clever people, I accepted.

Finally we reached yet another security point, where both our papers received maximum scrutiny. The armed guard made a call, gave me a funny look, before he let us through.

'This will blow your mind,' said Anna, leading the way to a narrow room with a wall of glass on one side.

I joined her at the glass, looked into a bright examination lab with two stainless steel tables, electron microscope screens and four people in full cold wear with oxygen tanks.

On the tables were the bodies of a woman and a child. But the hair and the musculature and the facial features were wrong. Not Homo sapiens, Homo erectus.

Chapter 110: FLUSH

Two flushed lovers stood by the desk, fractionally closer together than usual, shuffled through all the DNA analysis reports. The rest of the office wasn't in yet.

'Has the Yard given you everything?' asked Clive.

'I think so. They're pretty grateful to you for getting the lead to the warehouse.'

'Pretty damned good police work, that was.'

'Yes it was. Okay. Here's what we have. One pile of DNA profiles from Bunk's house. One pile from the lab, including the x-ray machine. One pile from the warehouse. Then we have the mosque bomber and Fortescue's killer.'

'So let's match them up.'

With a gritty lump of Blu-Tack, Jane stuck the profiles to a whiteboard, used a red marker to join the dots.

'The mystery DNA from Bunk's house, remember the two glasses in the kitchen?' she said. 'Well, Sally drank from one glass. Whoever drank from the other was also in the warehouse.' She drew a line.

'So it's fairly safe to assume that one of the assassins killed Bunk's wife.'

'I agree. Any decent defence lawyer would get Bunk off on that connection alone. But my gut tells me that Bunk is innocent.'

'Fair enough. What else have we got?'

'Fortescue's DNA was on the mug in the illegal cloning lab. So we can put him there.'

'And he admitted to it.'

'Which is fine. But was he telling the truth?'

Jane said 'I don't know. I wasn't there,' without irony.

'Okay. A trace of Karen was found on the x-ray machine. And she studied radiology. So she's behind St Paul's.'

'Any joy with the rest of her cell?' asked Jane.

'There's a good chance they were near her when the bomb went off. Everyone's being analysed.'

King finished his paper cup coffee.

'The warehouse,' said Jane, sticking the strong traces in a row. 'Sally's killer we can place there. Also the mosque bomber, Fortescue's killer, the guy who was killed there, obviously, and one more.'

'I don't like that,' said King scratching his stubble. 'Sally's killer and this other guy still at large. None of these characters have shown up on any criminal database. Yet.'

'Are the Americans being cooperative?'

'Theoretically, yes. But we wouldn't know if they were holding anything back. The profiles are with Interpol, but they're as stretched as we are. I wouldn't hold my breath. What about the St Paul's bomber, yeah? Possible match. Arms dump in Acton. Christmas. Two guys picked up were Yemeni.'

Jane drew some lines, saw that Fortescue - with his erstwhile nutbag hitsquad - did seem to cover a lot of missing links. Two still out there.

She said 'So Fortescue, the bleeding heart of the English establishment, did a deal with al-Qaeda why? Bunk? Or this cloning thing. Or was there really something groundshaking in this NASA sample?'

'Fuck knows,' said King.

Then the Commissioner came by, with a Scotland Yard DCI and two suits from the Crown Prosecution Service, asked for a briefing.

King did a competent enough talk and it was concluded that Bunk was innocent and everything else was clear. The Yard would find the two assassins still out there. King and Jane and the whole unit was off the case.

'Finito,' said the Commissioner, beaming. 'So well done, both of you.'

'Okay,' said King.

The visitors left and Jane said 'Why did you take that? It's not over.'

'The fuck it's not,' said King.

'Not until we find out who killed Sally. She deserves that at least.'

'Well you heard the man, didn't you?'

Chapter 111: THE PROTON VIEW

I was entranced, had to sit on one of the dozen or so folding plastic chairs in the gallery. As the technicians peered and poked at the still-frozen bodies, clouds of foggy breath filled the lab. Both the Homo erectus and the Homo sapiens might have been aliens.

Anna explained that the microscopes did not use the tiny wavelength of electrons to magnify atoms, rather the even tinier wavelengths of protons. This allowed a view of God. The twisted helix of ancestral DNA was there on the screens.

'Good God. I haven't seen that before.'

'Impressive? Of course, we've been viewing human DNA - there, the screen on the left - for the past year, so this is a wonderful research opportunity. It looks like the Homo erectus have an enhanced ability to incorporate and process viruses.'

I was in awe of the science. On about every level, Anna was a long mile ahead of me.

To see DNA on a screen, live, the character of it, the elegant beauty of its structure. The simple importance of it.

The human being, like all living creatures, carries DNA in most of its cells. Right in the core.

We don't have DNA in our white blood cells, which is odd.

So the DNA tells every cell, thus our body and mind, what to do. The two DNA sources, the tiny clumps that come together from an egg and a sperm, form a new pattern. A self-replicating pattern that makes a person. Or a whale. Or a duck-billed platypus.

Coiled backbones of simple sugars, joined by bases, a chemical machine designed for the long-term storage and transmission of information.

There, on the screen. God.

'So are you going to find a cure for viruses? By implication, most cancers?'

'Eventually, yes,' Anna said. 'For now, embryology research and cloning. They are so similar to us, maybe zero point two percent of a difference only. We can use his sperm cells and her eggs to make clones of them. Adjust the DNA as we want to, even add a little bit of human, and we can have an infinite supply of stem cells. No messy ethics.'

'Or you could make slaves.'

'Well, that's also a direction in which the research is being directed.'

'If they were so advanced, why were they wiped out?' I said. 'Could it be that they really did just evolve into us?'

'Probably that is correct. We will find out.'

I couldn't take my eyes off them, their frigid beauty. It was like they'd died last night. What a find. And I had them in my hand. Frank's email.

'Anna, would it be possible to check my email, do you think?'

'Of course, here,' she said, taking a small laptop from her briefcase.

She flipped it on and launched the browser.

I found the inbox, but no message from Frank. Had he found the cure as well? Was that his death call? Who deleted the mail?

'Nothing new,' I said. 'I was delighted when I saw your message.'

'That's nice.'

'Who killed Frank? Do you know?'

'I'm sorry about your friend, Billy. I really am. I don't know who killed him. If only you had kept the sample.'

'If only.'

Shit, she was making me feel guilty again.

'Now listen to me, Billy Bunk. I have done some research into your viruses. Coffee? Or therapsids?'

'Both.'

So we had a quick look at the museum, a surreal trip through countless bizarre lifeforms and neo-classical art exhibits depicting the evolution of life. No Gods here! The history of evolution was shocking. Still being written, back there in the frozen lab.

In the museum café, a few customers, mostly Russian, some Europeans. A couple of American scientists, a good sign. I savoured a double espresso, an almond pastry and Anna's DNA findings.

'Tunguska looks promising.'

'I know. I love the whole smallpox virus outbreak thing. Problem is, Siberia's in the middle of fucking nowhere. And in Russia, that's a lot of nowhere.'

'The Trans-Siberian Express would get us within range,' I ventured. The journey appealed.

'It would, but why bother when all the samples collected over the years are right here?'

She cocked her head, a smile.

'Fantastic. Wow. And the Homo erectus?'

'Full access. But what do you want to do, Billy?'

'I've been thinking about that. Going east does interest me. I am stuck in Russia for a while, aren't I?'

She nodded.

'I'd like to find out about Zen Buddhism, that kind of stuff. Then again, I've been on the receiving end of religion my whole bloody life. Catholic boarding school. Sally's superior Protestant family. More recently, Christ, join the queue. Religion is God's disease and it's crippling humanity. I feel like I've been in the Dark Ages lately.'

'You've had a lot of close contact.'

'I'm sick and tired of the whole damned lot of them. I want to strike back, play them at their own bloody game, piss them right off. I've been thinking about this a lot. Imagine a web-based religion, promoting meditation and unity. Backed up by a pantheon of Gods, relevant Gods for the now. A sympathetic religion, self-aware of its limitations. Honest.'

'The God of sex. The God of money. The God of war. So many possibilities.'

'The Gaia planetary consciousness. The Sun and Moon. The Internet as a connected mind.'

'So many Gods waiting to be born or reborn. Monotheism is so limiting.'

'You've got it exactly. We could sell amulets to fund it. Get a celebrity or two on board. What I want to do, Anna, I want to start a religion, a God factory. Are you with me?'

'Interesting idea, Billy. It seems to me that humans seek something spiritual, some kind of meaning, though it's debatable whether there is any such thing.'

'Beyond DNA and reproduction, I'm not sure that there is. But back in that hellhole, there was a Muslim guy who told me of his beliefs. I have to say that, though it's anathema to me, I could sense the attraction. There are millions of people with no hope and no practical idea of who they should pray to.'

'So you want to offer something to meet that need? Perhaps with a scientific basis?'

'Yes. God, yes. You've got it. I'm thinking aloud here, but we need a means of pointing people back to themselves for solutions, not towards some fantastical superbeing, some Santa Claus for grown-ups. And I want to model the Goddess of Sex on you.'

'I'm flattered. Really?'

'It's so obvious. May I?'

She stood, put on her jacket, pushed her chair under the table. The café was closing, though the research would continue into the night.

'Come on,' she said. 'I have a litre of Jewel of Russia in my freezer. Let's get started.'

'I really don't know whether or not that's a euphemism, Anna. But yes, let's get started. Humanity has two-and-a-half thousand years of catching up to do.'

Chapter 112: THE GOD FACTORY

The next few weeks were thrilling. The idea of inventing gods was so subversive, it made me feel like a schoolkid again, planning the ultimate prank, the one that would make all the silly, boring grown-ups tut-tut in unison. Of course punishment always followed prank, but I chose not to dwell on that.

We decided to go back to basics, use the Greek model. Jesus, they had hundreds of gods. From Dionysus, the god of drunken orgies, to Ananke, the goddess of compulsion. To start with, the top twelve, a Zeus-like figure at the head.

The Greeks' Twelve Olympians were:

Zeus. King of the gods and god of the sky and law. Associated with the lightning bolt and the eagle.

Aphrodite. Goddess of love and beauty. Associated with the rose and the dove.

Apollo. God of music and healing. Associated with a bow and red cattle.

Ares. God of war and civil order. Associated with a spear and a vulture.

Artemis. Goddess of the hunt. Associated with the moon and deer.

Athena. Goddess of wisdom and warfare. Associated with the olive tree and the snowy owl.

Demeter. Goddess of fertility and agriculture. Associated with wheat and pigs.

Dionysus. God of wine and parties. Associated with grapes and dolphins.

Hephaestus. Crippled god of fire and sculpture. Associated with the hammer and the donkey.

Hera. Queen of women and empires, wife of Zeus. Associated with the crown and the cow.

Hermes. God of travel and writing. Associated with winged sandals and the tortoise.

Poseidon. God of the sea and earthquakes. Associated with the trident and the horse.

Not to forget...

Hades. King of the Underworld and god of the dead. Associated with the key of Hades and the three-headed dog Cerberus, Hades was not considered part of the Pantheon, as he spent so much time underground.

Hestia. Goddess of the home and cooking. Associated with the veil and the kettle, she replaced Dionysus in later schema so that there would be six gods and six goddesses.

A consideration of just these key Greek gods led me to the inescapable conclusion that the world today, the fast and easy and horrible twenty-first century is still in their thrall, so utterly and completely derived from them. The symbolism, the power of their associations, the visual strength of their descriptions. They still rule us.

This is both comforting and terrifying. Are we humans so predictable and boring that the pigeonholes of 600BC still fit so vividly? Yes. Yes we are. We're just herd animals, going through the birth, growth, work, sex, children, age and death circle, generation after generation. We think that we're living through the end of the world? It's always been the end of the world. Our obsession with religion and god is a desperate attempt to stick a meaning on the meaninglessness of it all. God. Who are you?

So we spent days talking about the gods of Greece and all who came after, wondering if we should just push the Olympians afresh. Eventually, one night of tequila and guacamole and salty crackers, we decided to just mix up the Greek and Roman names and add some newbies.

We decided to focus our branding on twelve initially. First job was a website as the internet was our key weapon. Where the established religions had the indoctrination of children in their schools and the inertia in thinking brought about by centuries of control, we had the world wide web and the connectedness of the global population though social networking. So we planned our Facebook groups and our Twitter feeds and our ideal new versions of these networks in case the establishment tried to shut us down.

Next day, while I nursed a hangover from Hades, Anna made contact with a programmer that worked for the FSB, hacking US Government sites - Piece of piss, Bill \- and that kind of thing. He called around for lunch. Anna had been shopping, brought chicken soup, crusty bread and cold beer. I drank a beer, not feeling at all like a prophet. But the beer was good. So I drank another.

Piotr was a tall, thin guy in his early thirties. Lots of facial piercings, tattoos on every piece of visible skin under his chin. Just a month before, the old William Bunk might have been horrified by his appearance. All I saw was his easy smile and his eagerness to help.

'Anna has talked to me about your project,' he said. 'It's very interesting. Fascinating.'

'Are you religious?' I asked.

'The internet is my religion,' he said. 'It's all I need.'

'Then you're going to love Hyper.' I passed our god list across the little round table. 'God of gods and god of the internet.'

'Cool. What visualisations do you have?'

'Nothing yet. Can you help?'

Anna seemed confident, she was very relaxed as she mopped up the last of her soup with the still-warm bread.

'I can Photoshop, yes, a little Illustrator. And I have some friends who might be into this. If I can involve them?'

'Of course. Jesus, yes. I don't see any point in secrecy. Anna?'

She shook her head. 'Why bother? We want this to go global.'

'Tell everyone, Piotr.'

'Good. So tell me about these gods, what do you think would be their look? What will you do with them?'

'Well, whatever designs we decide to go with have to work on the internet. That's the top priority.'

'Vector artwork, limited colour palettes.'

'Whatever that means, yeah. Then we're looking at 2D representation on objects. Printed literature, books, t-shirts, posters, graffiti.'

'Simplicity.'

'Then we're going to want 3D objects. Keyrings, amulets and whatnot.'

'Okay. I think I see what would work.'

'And don't forget what the other religions have done. Except the Muslims, of course. Look at what the Greeks and Romans did with their icons. And the Christians ruled the world for fifteen hundred years with their use of the cross symbol and iconography.'

'The masters. Yes, I know some of what you talk about. This is good.'

We clinked beer bottles and drank long and deep.

'Now finish your soup,' said Anna, practically as ever, 'before it gets too cold.'

We ate and she talked. About the launch of our new religion and what kind of media attention we should expect.

'I think we should play hard to get at first,' I said. 'Wait and see how it develops?'

'Okay. We should try and get people on board who are willing to talk.'

'Don't forget your social network feeds,' said Piotr. 'They will require constant input.'

'I can deal with that for starters,' I said. 'If you can show me how.'

Then Anna's phone rang.

'Work,' she said, taking the call in her bedroom.

When she returned, her carefree attitude was gone. She looked puzzled.

'Piotr, are you armed?'

'Yes.'

'I need you to stay here for now. I must get to the office immediately.'

'What is it?' I asked.

'An Italian gunman has been arrested near the Palaeontological Institute. He was carrying a photo of you, Billy.'

Chapter 113: RELENTLESS

I don't know what you all believe, and I don't really care... but you have to admit that beliefs are odd. Lots of Christians wear crosses around their necks... you really think when Jesus comes back, he ever wants to see a fucking cross?

\- Bill Hicks

Chapter 114: THE CHASE

It was 4am when Anna got back. Piotr had switched to coffee as soon as she'd left, standing by the window, watching below, moving to the hall whenever anything bumped or scraped outside. Me? I drank vodka and talked about the gods.

Piotr's phone beeped once

'She's back.'

He watched her park. A few minutes later she rapped four times on the door before letting herself in.

A smile. Good.

'Drink?' I slurred. Damn. Can't you keep it together? They're trying to kill you. Again.

'Just one. It's good news. The guy was just a nut. He believes that you did the St Paul's thing, wanted revenge. Acting alone.'

Piotr visibly relaxed.

I poured Anna's vodka, another for myself. Piotr declined my offer.

'Does everyone still think I did that? Fuck.'

'Yes. And they think you killed your wife. You'd be better staying in Russia for a few years.'

The awful truth.

'Did the police say that it wasn't me?'

'Yes, but quietly.'

I downed the vodka, gasped. 'I can never go home.'

'This is a bad thing?' asked Piotr.

'You know what? Maybe it isn't. Maybe it actually isn't a bad thing.'

Another drink.

'Budem zdorovy.'

Anna told us how the guy, apparently just a militant Catholic from Rome, drove all the way to Moscow. How he knew I was in Moscow, he hadn't divulged yet. He was being interrogated and would talk eventually. She stopped speaking and thought hard for a minute.

'Okay,' said Anna. 'I think you need to get out of town, Bill. There's a trade show out east in a few days. I've been researching. A lot of Chinese manufacturers will be there, people we need.'

'Amulets.'

'Yes.'

Piotr nodded.

I was drunk. 'Do we have to?'

'I'm just worried about you, Bill.'

'Okay. I trust you.'

'Good. Piotr, I want to leave tomorrow. Can you come?'

'Of course. I 'll get my laptop and I can work from anywhere. The project specs are already circulating.'

Anna took her pistol from its shoulder holster, set it down in the middle of the table, between the shot glasses and the cigarettes.

'I'll watch,' she said. 'Piotr, you get back here for,' she glanced at me, '10am. Okay? We'll take my car. Billy, I need you to get some sleep.'

'But I don't want to go to sleep.'

'You really can be a big baby, do you know?'

'One more drink.'

Much later, Anna checked that Billy was asleep, closed the bedroom door gently. Then she made a call from her personal mobile, spoke quietly.

'Yes, child?'

'What are you doing?'

'All good stories must come to an end. You understand this?'

'But he is no threat to you. He is trapped here.'

'It is God's will, child.'

'God's will?'

'So, when will come and visit me again?'

And soon after that, she called headquarters.

Morning broke as Anna sat in a Van Gogh chair, watching for car headlights coming into the estate. At seven, she made another pot of coffee. At eight, she took a Government-issue speed pill. At nine, she was poring over maps, working out the best route to get away from Moscow, get to Biysk, the industrial city near the convergence of Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. A couple of days' driving, start on the M-5. Good fortune for Billy. Tunguska, site of the 1908 event, a day or two further east. At ten, Piotr arrived with a rucksack and a laptop bag. Anna was pacing the kitchen.

'All quiet,' he said. 'You okay?'

'I'm fine. Let me take a shower and we will go.'

'And Billy?'

'Let him sleep for now.'

I was woken by a kiss on my cheek and the smell of damp skin. My brain was crying bitter tears of regret. Damned vodka. I took a pink pill from Anna, drank it with a glass of dark-tasting water and collapsed back on the pillows and prepared to watch her dress.

A big jet flew low overhead, rattled the building.

Through crusty eyelids, my vision cleared as she let her white Ikea bathrobe fall to the floor. I felt like a dead man, reawakened to life. Her beautiful breasts lolled. Her velvet triangle still glistened vaguely. Her arse was as striking as the most beautiful Greek goddess, but not in cold marble, in vital flesh at thirty-seven degrees. My DNA distributor spoke to me, gave me orders. Try it, fool.

'Anna,' I croaked. '

'Hmnh?'

'Why don't you come back to bed for a while?'

She looked at me like I was an idiot. 'Billy, you know we must leave?'

'Yes.'

'So come on.' She pulled the quilt off the bed, exposed me. 'Cold shower, like the monks do. And when are you going to shave? You're starting to look like Rasputin.'

'I don't know,' tugging at my growth, 'I kind of like it.'

'Up.'

I did as I was told.

After, numb from the cold water, I warmed slowly with a mug of Lavazza coffee, stared at the grey day while Anna and Piotr spoke in Russian whispers. I wanted to say Speak up. I can't understand a word anyway. Odd language, Russian. Evolved from Slavic, an entire family of languages that developed separately from the Eastern and Western tongues as the first tribes moved out of Africa. Impenetrable to my English ear, whereas I can certainly relate to French, Spanish, Italian, even if I can't understand them. Is language the barrier between us? They whispered on.

My headache had seemed to fade quickly after I took the pill. But a throbbing, thudding re-emerged. Like a buzzing pressure in rapid pulses. My vision began to swim then, dark shapes clouding the view. No.

It's.

A.

'Helicopter!'

Fear on them now. Piotr dropped. Anna leapt for me as the small black chopper steadied just a rotor's length from the window. The pilots wore black visors. I felt - for that slice of an adrenalin-filled second - as though I was being stalked by a monstrous dragonfly, rotating, rotating. Anna caught me around my waist and pushed me heavily to the floor, an instant before the side door gunner got his bearings and opened fire with some kind of insanely rapid fire machine gun.

Anna's little flatpack kitchen was torn to pieces. I saw the coffee maker explode, caught Piotr's eye as he cocked his pistol. His fear was gone, Anna's too.

I felt ready to shit myself.

More screaming bullets, more whining ricochets, more pulsing explosions as the bits and bobs of a suburban Muscovite's Swedish-designed domestic retreat became barely recognisable fragments of What Had Been. Thank God for Russian Brutalist architects and their love of concrete.

The bullet storm was too thick for either Anna or Piotr to expose themselves.

The firing stopped, but my ears kept ringing, echoing, bubbling.

Anna risked a glance over the top of the window sill. She began a movement that would end with her pistol in firing position, but broke off in mid-swing, just as the gas canister came banging and rattling into the room, belching noxious smoke.

'Out!' she shouted.

She grabbed me by my collar and dragged me over the gas grenade and out the apartment door, behind Piotr. Burning tears streamed down my face and I wanted to vomit. Anna slammed the door shut behind me. The sound of the helicopter faded quickly. It was gone.

Over?

No.

The clang of the door to the stairwell, then boots, running boots.

Piotr slipped his arms though the loops on his rucksack and passed his computer bag to me.

'Carry this.'

Anna glanced up and down the corridor, remembered the emergency stairs that perched outside the rear of the block.

'This way.'

And we ran, away from the assassins' boots, passing scared residents at their doors, some crying, some in shock, all worried that the Chechens were targeting apartment blocks again, and to a padlocked door. A sign on it said DANGER - DO NOT USE, but in impenetrable Russian. Anna calculated how long it would take us to get down the stairs and how long it would take the gunmen to find the source of the shot. She took the risk and shot the lock.

I couldn't hold it in any longer and threw up on the floor.

'For God's sake, who wants to kill me now?'

Anna patted me hard on my back.

'Hurry. It will be very close.'

The door was kicked outward to reveal a rusty staircase, no outer cage, just a flimsy banister rail. At six floors up, the alternative of taking on a gang of crazed gunmen seemed at least feasible. After all, we had two guns.

'Go,' shouted Anna.

As Piotr and I stepped on to the landing, the structure swayed, rust flakes showered from the levels above. I would have stepped back inside, but a bullet shattered the door frame. Screams from inside the building. Anna crouched and edged to the doorway. She fired once, twice.

I chose the stairs and ran and jumped and fell in a blur. There was more shooting above and I feared for Anna. I was relieved when I heard her call Piotr as we neared the ground. He stuck his head out, then made to catch something but the car keys fell past his fingers and clattered below. He cursed.

I reached the cracked concrete first, jumping over the side a good ten steps up, as the bottom of the stairwell was caged to keep kids out. More shots, Piotr beside me now, the keys? The keys! I picked them up and ran to Anna's Mercedes. It was pushing ten years old, but a lovely car, a car that would save our lives.

'I can't drive,' shouted Piotr. 'You'll have to.'

'Out of the bloody frying pan, mate,' opening the door, jumping into the driver's seat, speaking to myself as Piotr took aim at Anna's pursuers above. 'I've never driven on the wrong side before.'

He fired as the engine growled to life.

That was the easy bit.

'Fuck, it's automatic!'

No clutch. D for drive? Or is it in Russian. Think! No, no time to think, just go. Anna had reversed into her space, thank Christ.

'Go!,' shouted Piotr. 'Here's Anna.'

Anna leapt from the fire escape stairs at the first floor. As she hit the ground and rolled, one of the gunmen fired a volley, tearing up the ground around her. She finished her roll with her gun raised, two quick shots stopping her would-be killer. He flipped over the railing fell to earth with a crunch. The car roared towards her, my knuckles bulging on the steering wheel. A couple of guys up higher spotted us, raised their weapons. Anna got to her feet but, instead of running towards the car, she went to the guy she'd hit. She knelt by his head and I jumped on the brakes, praying to the god of cars that I wouldn't hit her.

Piotr twisted and opened the door for her. She jumped in just as the bullets rained down, punching holes in the windscreen, fragments of glass filling the car, the bonnet hit also. Engine seemed unhurt.

'Drive, Billy!'

So I drove, getting us out of the apartment complex, Anna shouting left, right, right, left. Piotr scanned the sky for the helicopter, Anna directed me onto Volgogradskiy prospect, past Kuzminki metro station and straight onto the M-5.

Down at Mirnyy, as the mega-city began to fade, a military roadblock, all heavy weapons and flashing blue, appeared out of the grey. I slowed, convinced that we would be shot and that would be that, amazed when it became clear that only traffic heading towards Moscow was being checked. Our lanes were completely unobstructed.

'Deterrence for suicide bombers from the Caucasus,' said Piotr.

'I just hope nobody spots our bullet holes.'

'Stay cool, Billy. Watch your speed.'

And we were past. The back of my neck tingled, that primeval fear of a high explosive tank shell whistling after us. I watched the rear view mirror, waited for the distant flash. Nothing.

We drove on in silence, the tension easing only when fields and trees and rusty fences replaced concrete and pylons and neon.

'I think we're clear,' I said at last. 'Anyone have a cigarette?'

Piotr lit one for me, put it in my mouth, glancing at my hands. My knuckles were white, locked into place. I told my fingers to relax, but they didn't obey my brain. Traitors.

'Good driving, Billy,' said Anna from the back seat, relaxing at last, her eyes closed.

'Thanks. It was the god of cars that saved us.'

'Do we have one of those?'

'We do now. Listen, mind if I ask you a question?'

'Shoot.'

'What the fuck is going on?'

Anna sighed. 'Piotr, give me one of those.'

He passed a lit cigarette back to her and she inhaled deeply.

'I was worried when the gunman was arrested so, late last night I called HQ, looked for Constantin.'

'And? What did he tell you?'

'He's gone.'

'Gone?' My protector.

'Dead or in a labour camp or lost in the basement of Lubyanka. Who knows? I was ordered to bring you in at noon.'

'And would you have? Jesus.'

'I was making my mind up when the helicopter came.'

Well,' said Piotr. 'It's noon now. Looks like you're not going to make that appointment.'

Anna shrugged. 'Seems that was academic anyway. The guy I shot? I checked his uniform back there.'

'Let me guess,' I said.

'Go on.'

'FSB?'

Anna nodded joylessly, the terrifying reality of our position clear to us both, just as the drugs wore off.
Chapter 115: END GAME

Link's funeral was a quiet affair, just a few military and religious dignitaries. The cemetery, a few miles outside Washington, was reserved for the nation's heroes who couldn't rest in Arlington, their roles were of the kind that could not be associated with the grand ideals of the Constitution. The remaining members of Link's squad stood to one the side in their black suits and Roman collars, sheltering under an acacia tree from the scalding morning sun. Ryan stood with the Papal Nuncio - the Vatican's ambassador - and mused at how Link's calling as Jesuit was a true fusion of priest and soldier.

The Jesuits were on the ascendancy again, Mother Church at last fighting back, taking on the forces that would see her relegated to curiosity status.

The General of the Company, a significantly powerful man, read the funeral prayers.

The coffin gleamed. The hole gaped.

He's dead.

But Link wasn't supposed to die. The most powerful and resourceful of God's Marines should not have been defeated by a weak atheist, a man without faith. There was something unknown in this.

Link had been discovered with his head smashed in, when the hurricane passed, and after the incident with Cuba. An air strike on the main Cuban Air Force base had followed the downing of the drone, F-15s called in from Miami. A rusty Cuban Mig-29 had somehow managed to kill an Eagle in a dogfight, a lot of surprises that day. None of the action made the media, even Bunk's escape. The Cubans were good with that sort of thing.

But Link, still a mystery. Ryan preferred the idea that his best man had been struck by a flying branch. He didn't like loose ends, but it seemed that the loose end called Doctor William Bunk would shortly be tied up. In a most delicious manner.

As Link's disciplined corpse was lowered into the earth, the Pope's representative, a frail, stooped man, with round spectacles, gestured to Ryan.

'Walk me to my car, Doctor.'

'Of course, Excellency.'

'Bad business,' he gestured with his hands.

'The Lord has lost a fine disciple.'

'But they are together now, of course.'

'Of course.'

'And we also had losses in London.'

'Indeed, Excellency. Still, some revenge on Henry VIII, his seat of worship tarnished for a thousand years.'

'The trouble that man caused.' He blessed himself. 'I simply hope that this will all have been worth it.'

They stopped at the limousine with diplomatic plates, its engine idling smoothly.

Papal flags, crossed keys, fluttered lazily in the hot breeze.

'This is the Final War, Excellency. The God War.'

'Revelation,' he nodded.

'We have shown that we can work together and achieve remarkable goals. I am convinced that our cooperation will only increase as the forces of the Antichrist grow in stature. And Bunk - '

'Yes?'

'He must die. Our brother's memory demands it.'

The nuncio smiled. 'All in good time, my son.'

Chapter 116: SATURDAY MORNING

Jane hadn't been able to sleep. Detective King snored loudly beside her as she wondered whether she was somehow cursed, trapped within a repeating loop, a tiny bubble in the space-time continuum.

Then she decided to cut back on her drinking, that alcohol just made her too easy.

'I just want the human contact,' she murmured. 'The touch.'

Probably something lacking from childhood.

A dog barked somewhere outside. The postman passed her door.

An idea had been bouncing around in her head.

Sally.

A paper she'd read, about carotid strangulations. The bruising clusters could be assessed to show whether the killer was right- or left-handed. Bunk was left-handed. If the killer could be shown to have used his right arm, that could confirm that Sally's husband was innocent, one of the ten percent of the population that the Church had once considered evil because their left hands had been closest to their mouths in the womb.

She prayed that she wasn't too late.

She let King sleep while she showered quickly and made tea.

She put a note on the bedside locker, then drove to the morgue. Quiet. Saturday.

'Doing a little overtime?' asked the guy on the desk as she signed herself in.

'Just working on a hunch. I need to see Sally Bunk. Is she still here?'

'No worries,' he replied, flicking through his body file. 'You're in luck. She's been moved down to deep storage, not quite frozen, about one degree C. Seems like nobody wants to claim her.'

'That's odd. I understood she had family. Has her body been released for disposal?'

'Yep. Two days ago. You signed off yourself the day before that.'

'I know. I just need to check one thing.'

'She's all yours, pod seventeen.'

Jane wondered about what all this meant, if anything, as she walked down the corridor to the deep storage room, the place where they put bodies that would be going nowhere for a very long time. The temperature, humidity and nitrogen gas in the storage pods would keep the flesh fresh almost indefinitely.

'Poor Sally. What a fucked-up death you've had.'

If Jane scared easily, the deep storage room would have bothered her. Still, the temperature made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

A low hum filled the air.

The smell was not quite rotting flesh, but close.

Along one wall, a row of pods, like space-age coffins, three high, recessed deep into the wall, just the ends showing, green LEDs and controls there.

She located Sally's pod, twisted the key and pressed the release button.

The pod slid out of the wall with a groan, jerked to a stop.

A loud hiss as the nitrogen was vented.

A click as the lid lock was released.

Jane raised the lid.

Her heart boomed when she saw that the pod was empty.

She went to the end and checked the name and number again.

She must've been claimed after all. Mix-up with the paperwork.

'Where are you, Sally?'

A light sound behind her, bare feet on linoleum.

'I'm here, Jane. What kept you?'

Chapter 117: EAST

We drove hard that first day, stopping only for fuel and food at four in the afternoon. I had experienced Moscow and I had survived the northern wastes, but this Russian countryside was something unexpected. Unexpected in that it looked so English.

While Piotr pumped the cheap petrol, Anna and I - under strict instructions to keep my mouth shut - went to a Teremok stall in the shop. My spine was locked rigid, I felt I must look like a robot. Anna ordered six blinis, crepes, with combinations of cheese, sour cream and caviar and extra-large coffees. There was a TV buzzing on the wall and, like the papers on the counter, it was in love with Putin. The smell of the cooking food made my eyes water and, when I had a bite, I realised that I was crying tears of simple joy.

We sat at a rusty table outside and savoured the food and the coffee and the cigarettes.

Light traffic passed by.

'Where are we?'

'We'll be at Shatsk in an hour,' said Piotr. 'I think we should stay there overnight.'

'Agreed,' said Anna. 'If we all sleep well tonight, Billy and I can take turns driving tomorrow.'

'I will navigate and work on the project,' Piotr added.

Jesus, the new religion. 'Are we still going ahead with that?'

'Of course, Billy,' Anna said. 'people are always trying to kill you, no?'

'I guess.'

And we drove on, Anna, taking the wheel, Piotr offering the back seat to me. I was delighted to doze off as dusk rushed to meet us.

I dreamt of a forest with trees that had been stripped bare and were aligned at forty-five degrees, pointing at me like spears and there, in the centre of the crazy place, something even more bizarre, a -

Piotr shook my leg roughly.

'Wake up,' he hissed. 'We're being followed.'

I made to get up, not thinking.

'No, stay down!'

So I hugged the seat as Anna took a tight turn at speed. Outside, I saw orange street lights. We must have made Shatsk. More sharp turns, me on the floor.

Eventually 'I think we've lost them. It's too dangerous to stop, Billy. We must drive on, okay?'

'Okay. It's just that I feel like shit. And I think I've got a few bruises now as well.'

'I've got something that'll help you sleep. Piotr?'

Piotr's hand came around the front passenger seat, a red pill there, oblong and oddly translucent.

I swallowed it and struggled back onto the seat.

'And when you wake up,' said Anna, 'I will have a surprise for you.'

'Yeah?' yawning.

'We're going straight to Tunguska.'

I fell back into my dream of shattered trees and that mysterious thing that waited for me.

I don't know how long I am out. I wake in a place that smells of cigarette smoke and stale coffee. It takes a few long minutes of dizziness and a bump on the head before I realise where I actually am.

I open my eyes and the blurry sunshine fills my imagination with ideas of the seaside and ice cream and Punch and Judy. So I get up on to an elbow, hopeful, like a child waiting for that first glimpse of the sea. Outside, trees. Just shattered trees.

'Oh, hello,' called Anna. 'You woke up!'

'Can I sit up straight?'

'Yes. We haven't passed another car in an hour. Nobody is behind us.'

'Thank God for that,' I groan, pins and needles burning every limb and my brain jarring from the movement to the vertical. 'Jesus, what was in that pill? How long have I been out?'

'Just a strong sedative. We've driven for thirty hours.'

'You mean you've driven for thirty hours.'

A really bright day. The road is straight with twisted, petrified trees towering all around.

'Government speed. Western soldiers and pilots use it too.'

'This looks like another planet.'

Piotr grunts.

'Hell, even.'

The Tunguska Incident, 1908. A meteorite, a hunk of space rock about a hundred feet across speeds into the Earth's atmosphere and explodes five miles up, with the explosive power of a thousand Hiroshima bombs. The place is so remote, it is not until 1927 that the first scientific expedition reaches the scene, led by Leonid Kulik, meteorite curator from the St Petersburg museum. Now there's a good story. Kulik is amazed to find eighty million trees thrown on their sides in a radial pattern from the centre of the blast. Eight hundred square miles of forest torn up. Eight hundred square miles. London is only six hundred. They keep a close eye out for meteorites these days.

The road becomes steadily rougher and we get a puncture. Anna curses.

The locals were afraid to talk to Kulik about the event. They believed that the damage was caused by the god Ogdy, who had cursed the area.

Anna and Piotr argue loudly. I think she wants to keep driving. He says to stop.

Ogdy is the thunder god around here.

So we stop. I am glad.

Piotr gets straight to work, digging out the boot to get at the spare and the tools. Anna stays behind the wheel. I get out of the car, need to lean back on it. A sudden wave of nausea catches my breath and I retch violently. A taste like poison, then a stream of red liquid burns my throat. I cough and gag and throw up on the grass verge and want to die.

Anna gets out.

'You okay?'

'I, I - .' I can't talk, my throat is screaming in pain. Have I actually been poisoned?

I breath in cool air, probably the freshest my lungs have ever tasted. The burning subsides.

'I'm okay. Thanks.'

'Take some water,' she says, a bottle of Iverskaya swims into view.

It is wonderful.

There's a rumble of thunder in the wasted distance. Ogdy is still here.

Ogdy squeezes my guts again and I throw up the mineral water.

Anna goes to watch Piotr as he loosens the wheel nuts and jacks up the car, leaving me alone with my little death.

The pain subsides and I begin to take in my surroundings. There is a lot of new growth, trees establishing themselves from out of the seared earth, but the debris from the event, over a hundred years old, is still clearly evident. It is obvious that something about the place just isn't right.

'How far to ground zero?' I croak.

'About fifty kilometres. Just don't expect a visitor centre or anything, ok?'

What do I expect?

There isn't a bird in the sky, not an insect buzzing.

The sky is a cauldron of black cloud, the sun lighting up the ground and forest.

A figure in the middle distance, walking slowly along the road towards us, away from our destination. Just as Piotr finishes with the wheel, the figure becomes an old man, a really old man.

Dressed in a suit, the ends of his trouser legs caked in road mud, the man's immaculately white shirt seems oddly out of place here. There is a small rucksack on his back. He stops and says something in Russian. Anna replies, gesturing at me.

The man speaks at length.

'He says welcome to Tunguska,' Anna tells me. 'But he says we should turn around and go away. Ogdy has returned and he is a bad god.'

That thunder we just heard.

The man looks straight into my eyes and talks. I have some kind of connection with him. They invented the word wizened for this guy. He looks like he has been through a lot of shit. But still a sparkle in his eyes.

'This man was a child when the meteorite came,' explains Anna.

'Jesus, he must be a hundred and ten years old.'

'One hundred and nine. It was his sixth birthday on June thirtieth, the day of impact.'

'Anna, I'd really love to have a talk with him. Can you translate for me? Okay. Sir, it is a pleasure to meet you,' holding out my hand. He takes it, shakes it firmly. 'I am a scientist from England and I am very interested in the explosion here in 1908. Is it possible for us to talk to you about it?'

There is more thunder. The old man looks to the sky, then up the road.

'Can we give you a lift?' I continue. 'Take you to where you are going? We can talk on the way?'

'I am going to my sister's house,' he says, 'if you can take me.' Finally, 'You should leave this place.'

So we loaded up and got moving, back the way we'd come. The man sat beside me in the back, his bag on his lap, his head bobbing gently. I asked questions, Piotr translating.

'Did you see the explosion?'

'I remember crying because it hurt my eyes. The sky was white, as if the sun had filled everything. Then night was day, so you could read a newspaper outside. We lost three nights. Nobody could sleep. The noise was as Ogdy's temper,' he gestured outside, a flash of lightning now, the roar just a couple of seconds later. 'But it shook and roared for half a day. I still dream of that time.'

'Did people get diseased afterwards? Spots? Fevers?'

'Yes, there were stories later. A village, thirty kilometres from here, mostly reindeer shepherds and their families, every man, woman and child had a terrible disease. Their skin was covered in blisters, oozing poison, everywhere, even on their eyes and they died in agony.'

'Sounds like smallpox.'

'The English used smallpox as a weapon during the American War of Independence. Did you know this, Billy?'

'No, I did not.'

'It's very fascinating, no? I discovered a lot of interesting information.'

'Such as?'

'It is at least credible for DNA in the form of viruses to come to Earth from space.'

'Turn right. There,' said the old man.

Our patchy, rough road became a stony track, mangled trees looming overhead, as though the route had been tunnelled out. A few miles up the track, honking to get some reindeer out of our way, and a house, more a corrugated shack, appeared.

'Ah, here,' said the man, smiling broadly, not a tooth in his head.

The house is set back a little from the track, a little veranda out in front, a bundle of rags on a rocking chair. No, it's a woman, even more wizened. Her brother goes to her and they embrace.

I notice an odd shadow, cast by the trees. My eyes follow it to beside the house. I'd missed it at first, hidden in plain sight. A huge wooden cross, maybe twenty feet high, worked from clean, new pine.

I suddenly understand that human salvation is entirely possible and how it can be achieved.

At last, a sound from the trees.

The black and golden forest moves all around me and a dozen men in black uniform appear. As expected. Guns point.

The man and woman stand at the door of the hut, their arms around each other.

Anna walks to me and kisses me on my left cheek, then steps back.

The soldiers - I don't know, the ones from Anna's apartment? - come to me and one shoots me in the chest with a short rifle. Just like that. Brief heat sensation. And I die.

So I watch as they get green rope and tie lengths around my wrists and ankles and hoist me, one, two, hup, one, two, hup, until I'm on the cross, crucified. One of them is making video.

There is a lot of thunder and they all go away quickly. Except the man and the woman. They come over and look up at me. And I smile.

'You'd better come down' says the man. 'My son.'

And I go down to them and they embrace me.

'What's happening to me?'

'You have become a god.'

'Which one?'

'The Seventh.'

The woman said 'Seven.'

'Who are the others? Let me guess. Abraham. Buddha. Jesus. Muhammad. Gandhi? Fortescue? He always thought he was God.'

'You will meet them all and they will teach you,' said the man. 'Some you have met already.'

As I pondered this information, my senses buzzed, a direct connection to everything on every level, every spectrum, every dimension, every possibility.

'Are you my mother and father?'

They just smile.

'Are you counted among the Seven?'

Two shrugs.

I pushed out from sensing that place, swept out across the forest and felt the entire blast radius, the beauty of it from twenty miles up. I saw the hidden remains of the meteorite under the permafrost, hundreds of miles north, and the smallpox DNA asleep in it. DNA was a dancing symphony of light and growth, wherever I looked, the dance was universal. I shrank back to my parents and a sudden realisation.

'So when did I die?'

'Not at this place. You have been on a long journey. But you found us. Now let's go and make a cup of tea.'

'A nice cup of tea,' said my mother, her hand rubbing the small of my back, 'and you won't have to worry about death again.'

'But I'd still like to know when I died, mum. I'm sure a lot of people would.'

THE END

###

The Seventh Coming continues.

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@garyjbyrnes

Appendix 1

King James Bible, Revelations, Chapters 16 and 17

ARMAGEDDON

16

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the Earth.

2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the Earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.

6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

17

1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bible, King James Version, 1611

The Glorious Qur'an, 653

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1949

Of the Nature of Things, Titus Lucretius Carus, 50 BC

Sierra Maestra Manifesto, Fidel Castro, 1957

Paradise Lost, John Milton, 1674

THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

\- AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

\- AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY
AUTHOR'S NOTES

Written in 2003, this fictional memoir is by an Al-Qaeda fighter and details his personal involvement in a Jihad, holy war, against the western powers. The story is told in 2007, as the narrator remembers his 20 years of conflict. Osama bin Laden is involved throughout the story and, while the period from mid-2003 to 2007 is entirely speculative, chapters detailing the formation and development of Al-Qaeda are accurate and based on extensive research. Quotations from The Qur'an are sourced from 'The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an', an explanatory translation by Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall, published by the Islamic Cultural Centre, London NW8 7RG. Proclamations and declarations by Al-Qaeda leaders in quotation marks are real. For clarity, dates are given in the western calendar.

HIGHLY CLASSIFIED

NOT FOR RELEASE

INTELLIGENCE F72:

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE;

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY.

OBL/0998/7750.2

TRANSLATED TEXT OF SPEECH FOUND ON TAPES

ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: ARABIC

LOCATION: NUBIAN DESERT, EGYPT

DATE: 20/08/2007
PROLOGUE

The Opening

"In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the Merciful.

1. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,

2. The Beneficent, the Merciful.

3. Owner of the Day of Judgment,

4. Thee alone we worship;

Thee alone we ask for help.

5. Show us the straight path,

6. The path of those whom Thou hast favoured;

7. Not the path of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray."

Al-Qur'an. Surah 1. Al-Fatihaha, The Opening. Vv 1-7.

Egypt, 2007

My name is Muhammad. I smell my martyrdom. An American bullet is lodged in my back and I have no hope of treatment. Though my wound is severe and I am in pain, I am happy. I leave a world in chaos. My work here is done. As I remember my life, I am proud of my deeds. I have helped to kill millions, but I know that the One True God will welcome me into heaven, as I have spilt blood only in His Name. I am a soldier of Allah and a compatriot of the Martyr Osama bin Laden, may God bless him. I have fought a war of justice over evil and victory is at hand. I will go to heaven soon, in glory, to meet my friend Osama, where we will spend an infinity in peace and happiness with Allah. Judgment is at hand for the Christians and the Jews. Allah is most vengeful and He will make the ground shake beneath the Crusaders' feet. With my friend and brother, and thousands more brothers, I have helped to propagate a Jihad around the globe. Only now do the true believers see that victory in Allah's name is not just possible, but it is our destiny. I had little choice in my life of Jihad. The Holy Qur'an teaches all Muslims that their religion must be defended against the infidels and disbelievers. It was this core belief that led me to Afghanistan 20 years ago, where I first met Osama. Then my destiny was set for me.

Osama and I will be remembered in history as the holy warriors who tore down the Twin Towers of capitalism and Christianity. We will always be spoken of by believers as the warriors of Allah who exploded an atomic bomb in Washington, the den of the imperialist snakes. I am proud, but I am also sad. I have only yesterday buried Osama under rocks, here in a cave in the Nubian Desert. His burial mound lies beside me now. I cried many tears for that glorious son of Islam.

The infidels are drawing closer to my position, but it is too late for them now. I have fought against the enemies of Islam for most of my life. There were many battlefields in the Holy War against the Christians and the Jews, but I did not think it would end here for me. There are many thousands more who will take my place. We will never lose, because Allah is with us and Allah is the Most Great.

My life has been shaped by war and conflict this past 20 years. For two decades I have fought bravely with my brother martyr, Osama. First the Russians felt the might of our Muslim anger in Afghanistan. Then we might have quietly faded away, but the Saud ruling family made its infamous mistake. In seeking protection from Saddam Hussein, they invited the American military into the birthplace of the Prophet and lit the fuse that has destroyed the old ways. As the American military flooded into Saudi Arabia, the Land of the Two Holy Places, we returned to Afghanistan and began training the thousands of Muslim warriors who fought the campaigns to liberate Islam in Bosnia, Chechnya, Algeria, Palestine, Iraq and many other bloody places. Those same battle-hardened warriors liberated the Land of the Two Holy Places.

The glorious martyrdom attacks of the Day of Vengeance on September 11, 2001 were followed by many more hammer blows against our enemies. Washington has since been destroyed and the Crusaders feel panic and confusion. Our inspired leader is dead; but he died in glory as a martyr. I will pass the hours until dawn by recounting my experiences, in the hope that they will inspire the next generation of martyrs. Allahu-Akbar. Allah is the most great. The Glorious Qur'an gives me comfort as I remember my life.

In the morning, my phone will have access to a satellite, through which I can tell my Al-Qaeda brothers of our glorious leader's martyrdom. But I am unsure of their reaction to this terrible news. I don't know if this secret should die with me. Allah will surely give me guidance as I ponder this most grave decision. Is this really the end for me? Life is for Allah alone. First, let me tell you how I came to lie dying in this Egyptian cave, with the body of my dear friend beside me.
CHAPTER 1. OUR FIRST JIHAD

"A similitude of the Garden which is promised unto those who keep their duty to Allah: Underneath it rivers flow; its food is everlasting, and its shade; this is the reward of those who keep their duty, while the reward of disbelievers is the Fire."

Surah 13. Ar-Rad, The Thunder. V 35.

Afghanistan, 1988

I was face down in a smoking shell crater, my hands pressed to my ears, while fire and thunder rained down all around me. Pressure shock waves shook my bones. A deafening roar came closer and I peered up from my hole to look for the source of the noise. No more than 25 meters away, a Soviet Hind helicopter gunship screamed past, sweeping the ground with its nose-mounted cannon which lashed fire all around the plain. Was this hell?

I peered in the direction from which it had come. Another helicopter approached, this time firing its unguided rockets in a pattern that mercifully stopped short of my hole. On a road 100 meters from me, there were two Soviet tanks and two armoured personnel carriers and some trucks. Flames leapt from the tanks and bodies were scattered on the ground all about, some on fire. Some of the Russian soldiers were still alive and fired at a position off to my left, where the Hind was also concentrating its attention. Dusk was falling in the valley that stretched beyond.

Both helicopters circled round to bring their armaments to bear on what I knew must be the position taken by my comrades. I had lost my AK during the ambush, after the helicopters surprised us; my mind was disorientated from the explosive concussions and my eyes and ears were bleeding. A picture came to my mind of an anti-aircraft missile. I remembered that I had been carrying a Stinger on my back before we ambushed the Russian armoured patrol. Then I knew that I was in Afghanistan and we were winning a war against one of the world's superpowers.

I carefully crept forward out of my hole and began feeling the ground in the gathering gloom. Smoke from the burning vehicles was adding to the approaching nightfall and I knew that time was short for the helicopters, which did not have night-flying capabilities. A dull glint caught my eye. I crawled a short distance on my stomach. It was my Stinger round. The round consisted of a launch tube with a missile inside. To make it operable, I had to find the separate grip stock and a battery coolant unit. I saw a body a few meters from me. It was my Stinger team colleague. His head had been blown off by the helicopter. He was just 17 years old. I would mourn him later.

He had carried the grip stock and three batteries in a backpack and, fortunately, they were undamaged. I had been well-trained in using the Stinger and within seconds I had fitted the grip to the launch tube and inserted a heavy cylindrical battery. The battery coolant unit is vital as it supplies power to the missile until it launches and also supplies argon gas to cool the heat detector in the missile's nose. My weapon was ready for firing. The first Hind had completed its circuit and was now coming straight for me. Its cannon blazed and rockets leapt from its wing pylons, turning the area around me to smoking ruin. Shrapnel and rocks flew at me and I felt pain lash my body. Though my body pulsed with adrenalin and fear, I was ready to die as a martyr, fighting in the name of Allah. This readiness caused me great elation. If this helicopter killed me, I would go directly to heaven, where Allah would meet me and give me eternal life and happiness. Only later would I come to appreciate how much of an advantage this gave us over our foes. Heaven for us was guaranteed, the Christians and Jews were unsure whether they would go to hell or to their heaven. Truly a man must fear death if eternal damnation might await him? But I would not let this helicopter kill me. I was determined to destroy it and save my comrades.

I looked through the sight and put the Hind into the central range ring. I was ready to fire when a Russian soldier opened up on me with his Kalashnikov. A round pierced my side and I fell to the ground in agony. I looked towards my enemy in time to see a rocket-propelled grenade slam into his position, blasting him to pieces. I glanced towards my brothers and saw my commander, Osama bin Laden. He was reloading his RPG launcher and gave me a thumbs-up and a big smile. Ignoring my pain, I retrieved my Stinger launcher and reacquired my target. With the Hind back in my sights, I pushed the safety actuator forward and down. This activated the missile's seeker, which gave a low tone. I then depressed the uncaging switch and heard the high-pitched whine which signalled that my missile had locked on. I kept my bearing on the helicopter as it passed directly over my head. With its exhaust ports in my sights, I squeezed the trigger. My missile shot forward from its launch tube. Lancing fire and thunder, it roared after the gunship. Within a second, it hit its target and a mighty explosion tore the gunship asunder. It fell to the ground and secondary explosions from its own munitions finished the job that my CIA-supplied missile had started. There would be no survivors from its two man crew.

I quickly removed the used launch tube, grabbed another BCU and looked around for a new missile round. As I glanced towards our ambush target, I could see the other gunship turn away and flee. The surviving Russians from the burning convoy fought on, knowing that they stood no chance, but knowing too that we did not take prisoners. I had to find a gun, so I laid down the Stinger and left my hole. As my eyes combed the ground near where I had found my headless colleague, shadowy figures emerged from the smoke and dust beyond. One of the shadows came towards me and a man, with God in his eyes, the beard of a Believer and an assault rifle held easily in his hands, called to me.

'May Allah forever aim through your eyes, brother. Come, let's finish these infidels off,' he shouted joyously.

It was Osama, my commander in MAK, the Muslim organisation which had brought me from Saudi Arabia to fight the disbelievers who had invaded the land of our Muslim brothers. I had met Osama just a few months before, at a Stinger training camp run by our American allies. Then I joined Osama's unit. With the Stinger, I brought down many enemy helicopters; truly this marvellous device would bring us victory over the hated Russians.

'I have no gun,' I answered.

He took an American-made automatic handgun from his waistband and threw it to me as Russian bullets hit the ground all around us. I cocked the gun and ran forward with my five brothers. There were only four Russians still alive. They crouched behind rocks and fired wildly in our direction, still in total shock from the severity of our assault. We detonated two 1,000 pound landmines when the tank reached target position. Then we fired RPGs at the APCs and used a heavy machine gun to kill anyone who tried to escape. We had killed 16 already. The survivors' faces were blackened and tear-streaked. They shouted at each other in panic. RPG rounds and mortar bombs slammed into their positions as our AKs spat lead in controlled bursts. After a few minutes, the Russian fire stopped and we carefully approached the smoking convoy. All were dead, save one, a badly wounded sergeant. His right arm was blown off at the elbow and his eyes were wide with fear. Osama ordered that he be treated and returned to our base for questioning. He would be killed after he told us what he knew but, for now, a tourniquet was applied to his upper arm, stopping his arterial bleeding. He was given a morphine injection to lessen his pain, but the terror remained in his eyes. Osama turned to me.

'You have been shot,' he said, gesturing to my side.

I looked down and saw the gaping bullet wound on my left side, just above my belt. The pain was now starting to fight its way through my body's adrenaline surges.

'Yes, but I lived to see this great victory,' I replied, looking into the eyes of my leader.

'God is great, now rest,' he said as he took a morphine injection from my first-aid pack and stuck it into my thigh, then dressed my wound.

'God is great.'

I sat on a rock while my comrades checked the area for further survivors and useful munitions. No more Russians were alive and a number of AKs were retrieved, along with a quantity of ammunition. We returned to our ambush site to search for the missing Stinger round. We found it and covered our dead comrade with rocks. Osama recited a few words from the Qur'an and we moved on. We walked a kilometer to our jeeps, which were concealed behind large rocks. Osama wrote in his notebook. The smoke from the destroyed convoy could still be seen against the sunset as darkness fell over the valley. We loaded the jeeps and began the drive to Jalalabad. Our prisoner begged for mercy but, as we spoke no Russian, his pleadings fell on deaf ears. After a while, he became quiet. A comrade checked his pulse and found that he had died. His body was kicked from the moving jeep as we drove through the night. I passed out from the morphine, every bump on the rocky road sending darts of pain across my abdomen.

I woke early the next day in a Mujahideen field hospital near Jalalabad. Our Mujahideen forces encircled the city and its only means of resupply was by Russian airlifts. My torso was bandaged tight and a saline drip was fixed to my arm. I tried to sit up, but pain shot though my body and I collapsed back onto my bed in agony. A Pakistani medic came to me and asked how I was feeling. He gave me some more morphine. Morphine is such a magical reliever of pain, it was truly fortuitous that Afghanistan was the best place in the world to grow the opium poppy.

Osama came to see me in the afternoon. He was accompanied by an American commando, who waited at the entrance to the tent.

'I must take a journey with my American friend,' he said in English, though he cast a curse on the man in Arabic.

'Where are you going? Can you trust him?' I asked, continuing the conversation in Arabic.

'The Americans and their British friends are a necessary evil. We need their help now, but they will eventually come to regret it. Allah needs us to make sacrifices. I will return in a few days. Take these notebooks and study them when you can. The Russians are almost finished, but our work here is not. Guard them with your life. Here are some books you might also enjoy, he said, handing me three paperbacks.'

I later learned that he was going to an intelligence briefing with other Mujahideen leaders, Pakistani intelligence officers and American special forces to plan the final destruction of the Russian invaders. He was also given a large amount of cash by the Americans, to assist with the running of his unit. As the pain ebbed from my body and waves of pulsating pleasure enveloped me, I fell into a deep slumber, gripping the notebooks tightly.

The next day, I awoke feeling much better. I was able to sit up in my bed and began to read. The paperbacks included Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which I thoroughly enjoyed. But I put it aside to concentrate on Osama's notebooks. Osama was a major player in a coalition to control the global supply of opium, the base ingredient for heroin. The plot brought all the key players in the region together. Income from the opium trade, which amounted to many hundreds of millions of dollars per year, was used to fund the war against the Russians. Much of the income found its way into the pockets of Afghan warlords and migrant workers. Osama's notes led me to his conclusion; that the Americans would try to suppress the opium trade once the war was won and their aims had been achieved. The Mujahideen role in the opium business mainly involved organising workers to tend the crops and giving security to plantations and opium convoys. Many of the opium cultivation areas were known only to us. We would ensure it stayed that way. The Americans were happy to facilitate our supply of heroin to the bleak cities of Europe so they could keep their spending on the war to a minimum. Defeat of the 'Evil Empire' on the battlefield was the Christians' sole objective in Afghanistan and there were no rules.

Few expected that Islam would become their target after the Soviets and no Muslim expected that we would see American armies occupying the homeland of the Prophet and that Saudi Arabia and Iraq would become regional military bases for the Crusaders. As the Afghanistan war drew to a close, we fully expected to stay on in Afghanistan and concentrate on the opium trade, while studying the Qur'an with some of the great Islamic scholars and Imams in the region. Osama had spoken of going to war against Israel after Afghanistan, but defeating the Russians was still our main focus.

I studied Osama's notes. I learned about the opium cultivation methods used in Afghanistan, the crop cycle and the network of warlords, civil servants and diplomats that was used to export the raw opium. He was examining the best approach to develop heroin processing labs. These would allow us to refine the opium into a drug that is worth 10 times as much. An excellent long-term strategy, I agreed. When Osama returned, two weeks later, my injury was healed. A 7.62mm round had gone through my side, without damaging any vital organs. He was very happy and gave me joyous news. The Soviets had signed a peace deal and would begin withdrawing their forces from Afghanistan within weeks. Word spread around the camp and everyone's mood was lifted greatly. He told me to rest for another two days and then we would go to Pakistan for some comfort as a reward after our months of bloody combat.

I lay on my bunk, a wide smile fixed to my face. We had defeated the largest army in the world. Allah was truly with the Mujahideen, the Soldiers of God. Afghanistan had long been in the Soviets' sphere of influence. After the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Americans lost valuable listening posts and a military partner very close to the Soviet Union. When Deputy President Hafizullah Amin murdered Afghan President Taraki in 1979, he did so with American assistance. The Soviets, fearing that America would move into Afghanistan to make up for the loss of Iran, reacted. In December, 1979, barely three months after he assumed control of Afghanistan, Amin was murdered by Soviet Spetsnaz commandos and four armoured divisions rolled in from the north. Karmal, leader of the Afghanistan Marxist party, was installed as president and the war of Islamic resistance began. The embryonic Mujahideen met in Peshawar and Pakistan's President Zia agreed arrangements to supply the Soldiers of God with the funding and military supplies that flowed in from the Islamic world and the west. For almost 10 years, we fought the Soviets at close quarters, where their artillery and air power were useless. Now they knew defeat, no Godless Marxist-Leninist ideology could withstand the might of Islam.

Osama came for me and we travelled by jeep to the mountains on the border with Pakistan, off the road to Peshawar. These high lands would yet become my home. We inspected poppy fields and met our Mujahideen brothers in many temporary bases. We stayed for a few days in a comfortable hut at the end of a long, lush poppy valley. We were hidden from the barren plains as paradise must be from disbelievers. Osama marked his chosen locations for the laboratories on a map he carried and drew a sketch of the valley.

I had a clear grasp of how opium was cultivated and its economic importance to the poor Afghanis that made up 99 percent of the population. We decided to travel on with an opium shipment which was headed for Peshawar in Pakistan.

We set off at sunset, using well-travelled mountain paths and avoiding all roads and villages. There were 12 mules in our caravan, each laden with two large baskets of raw opium. The caravan was protected by six Mujahideen fighters, each armed with an AK, knives and Rocket Propelled Grenades. The Mujahideen were fearsome men, having fought in some of the bloodiest battles against the Russians. They came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Egypt. They were my brothers and I felt safe with them, though we were in the most lawless place on earth. We had little to fear from the Russians here, they were concentrated towards Kabul, but there were risks from bandits and Pakistani police. Occasionally, desperate bandits and border police would work together to try and steal Mujahideen opium. They rarely succeeded, but they were indeed devious.

We travelled on mountain ponies, which were sure-footed and had great endurance. The mountains were impressive, with towering peaks as far as the eye could see. It was cold at altitude and the scarcer oxygen meant that it was no easy trip. We crossed into Pakistan at the highest point on our journey, the trail covered in snow and the mules slipping often but proving their worth many times over. The border was marked with an Arabic inscription painted onto a boulder beside the trail. It read: "One day, there shall be no borders between Muslim lands; we shall be one nation under Allah".

One of the scouts returned from the trail ahead as we paused for water and dates. He seemed agitated and addressed Osama.

'I sense trouble ahead, commander. I fear there may be an ambush on the next ridge. We have been ambushed there before.'

Osama ordered three of the Mujahideen to take the mules back the trail to the nearest defendable position. The other three fighters, Osama and I decided on our plan. The only way past the threatening position would have meant backtracking for a day to an alternative, lower trail. We decided instead to confront our problem, which was Osama's general tendency, I am proud to say.

We slowly made our way forward to the point where we would be exposed to anyone on the ridge and halted. It was decided that myself and Osama would travel on the trail, as fighters walking to Pakistan for rest. Pakistan was our key ally in the war against the Russians, so if it was a police patrol we should have little to fear. The Mujahideen would work their way around the side of the ridge to get behind our possible ambushers. If fighting broke out, our enemy would be caught in a crossfire, with AKs letting loose at their backs. I waited for 15 minutes with Osama until our comrades got into position.

'Keep your AK on your shoulder and follow my lead,' said Osama.

We continued on foot along the trail, which led to the summit of the ridge. There, we found a tent with a smoldering fire outside and a pot of water boiling. As we approached the tent to investigate, a voice called out.

'Raise your arms and do not move, unless you wish to die in this pitiful place.'

We raised our arms and two men came from behind a rock off to our left. They were typical uniformed Pakistani police, scruffy and untrustworthy. Each carried an AK. They approached us and took our rifles and daggers.

'On your knees,' one commanded. Then he began to interrogate us. 'Who are you and why do you choose to enter Pakistan by this route?'

'We are Mujahideen, come from Jalalabad. We travel to Peshawar for some rest. We have grown tired from fighting Russians, as the Pakistani government would have us do,' answered Osama. 'And we have no money.'

One of the policemen stuck his AK into Osama's back. He ordered us to lie flat with our hands behind our heads. I became fearful that we would be robbed and killed. As the two Pakistanis discussed what to do with us, they were cut down by volleys of bullets from our comrades who had flanked their position. Ordering us to lie on the ground was the policemen's final mistake, for they gave our comrades a clear line of fire. When the shooting had stopped, we got up and went to the men. One was clearly dead, his head blown apart by bullets, but the other was still alive. He had been shot in the stomach, groin and shoulder. He would die soon, but first we would question him. Our comrades came to us. Osama sent one to scout ahead and one back to our caravan, with orders for it to continue forward to us with care.

'Water, please, in the name of Allah, give me a drink,' pleaded the dying Pakistani.

'You have a stomach wound,' answered Osama. 'You should not drink.'

'You do not mean to kill me?'

'That is not what I said. Do you want to die quickly, or not?'

'I pray that you send me to heaven.'

'Then tell me why you were here.'

'We have no orders, we are simply to monitor travellers entering Pakistan over the mountains.'

'So why did you treat us with such disrespect?'

'My comrade thought you might have US dollars. We planned to rob you.'

'And let us go?'

'We would have killed you.'

'Have you killed any Mujahideen?'

'Two days ago, two Mujahideen came through here. We robbed and killed them. I pray to Allah for forgiveness. I have a wife and four small children. My pay is not enough to feed and clothe them all.'

'Where are the bodies?'

'Buried under stones about 200 meters back the way you came. Beside a large, red rock. We made sure to put them in Afghanistan.'

'I hope that Allah will forgive you, because I cannot.'

Osama stepped back from the man, raised his AK and shot him once in the forehead. His head burst open like a melon. The sound of the gunshot echoed around the mountains for many seconds.

'Throw their bodies into the ravine,' Osama commanded. 'If these men are missed, it will be presumed that they are deserters.'

We dragged the bodies back into Afghanistan and found where the policemen had buried their victims, our comrades. We carefully removed the stones that covered their heads. The smell was terrible. The men's beards and faces were covered with matted blood and their mouths and eyes were open, frozen in the panic of imminent death. One of our Mujahideen comrades recognised one of the dead men.

'It is my friend,' he said bitterly. 'He fought bravely and left Jalalabad for Peshawar a few days ago. His wife had given birth to his first son and our brother was to return to Jordan to see him. This is a sad sight.'

'We will contact his wife and let her know of our brother's bravery,' said Osama. 'We will also find out who his comrade was and make contact with his family. We will find a way to make sure that no Mujahideen's brave acts or heroic deaths go unnoticed. It is only just that we do this.'

In that moment, the seed of Al-Qaeda was planted. The rest of our journey was, thankfully, uneventful and four days later we were on a low hill overlooking Peshawar. Our comrades continued north, into the Khyber pass, with their opium-laden mules. The frontier town of Landi Kotal, famous for its trade in drugs and guns, would be the destination for our opium. Once a fair price had been agreed with traders, the money would be spent on guns or brought to one of the Mujahideen's private bankers in Peshawar. Osama and I continued directly to Peshawar, as the caravan would have little need of our arms now that we were in Pakistan proper and stealth was its best weapon. I looked forward to relaxing and rebuilding my strength in Peshawar. Osama was fired with enthusiasm for establishing Al-Qaeda, the base of operations, for our brave fighters. A phantom base for a phantom guerrilla army.

We approached the outskirts of Peshawar from the west, with the imposing Balahisar Fort appearing to gaze at us and the other travellers on the road from the Khyber Pass. We would raise very little interest, just two dusty men on ponies, but we took the precaution of concealing our weapons in our saddlebags, keeping our automatic pistols tucked inside our robes. As we passed into the fort's shadow, Osama reminded me that it had been built by the Mughals in the sixteenth century. It now housed Peshawar's government offices and would, one day, be a target for us. We stayed in Old Peshawar and travelled to Chowk Yaadgar, the place of remembrance, a large public square which had been the focus of rallies against the British occupiers, and later, the Indian enemy.

'We will find a discrete inn, where we can rest without raising suspicion,' said Osama.

We found a good, family-run establishment with stables. We put our ponies in for food and a wash and cleansed ourselves of the dust and dirt from our trek over the mountains. We then went to the nearest mosque, as we had not prayed in clean surroundings since leaving Jalalabad.

'Having fed our souls, now we must change some money and feed our bodies,' smiled Osama.

We returned to Chowk Yaadgar and strolled across to the money changers on the west side of the square. The setting sun cast long shadows across the square and the bankers squatted in the coolness of evening's fall. Rows of men, mostly fat and wealthy looking, sat on hand-knotted carpets, their safes behind them, calculators and armed guards at close hand. Osama selected a money changer with whom he had an acquaintance.

'Blessings of Allah be with you,' proclaimed the money changer loudly. How may I be of assistance, brothers?

'We would like to change some US dollars,' replied Osama quietly.

The man's eyes lit up at the mention of US dollars.

'You know that I must report large exchanges of this type to the police?'

'We require a true Muslim banker. We will accept an exchange rate that favours you.'

'As a businessman, I will gladly accept your kind offer, brave Mujahideen. How much did you wish to exchange?'

'4,000 dollars.'

'That is indeed a fine sum. I will trade you at the normal rate, but increase my commission to 10 percent from 8. Does this meet with your approval?'

'That would be acceptable to us, but I must caution you before you take our money. If the authorities hear of our business, you will be killed. Do you understand?'

The money changer's face paled. He swallowed and looked Osama straight in the eye.

'By the Grace of Allah and all that is holy, I will tell nobody of this transaction, my brothers.'

'Good. There will be much more money to follow. We can make you rich, but that depends on your discretion. Now, let us do business.'

In a matter of seconds, the money changer had calculated how many Pakistani rupees we would receive. After commission, it was almost 30,000 rupees. This would be enough to get Al-Qaeda up and running, paid for by the Americans. He counted out the rupees from his safe and put the money in a finely woven waist pouch. Osama tied the pouch around his waist, while the banker counted the dollars. The deal was done. We shook hands and, as night fell, went in search of some food.

As we crossed the square, I suddenly felt great relief. It came upon me like a wave. We had left the war behind us and were surrounded by our own people, true Muslims, every one of whom supported our war against the Soviets. The inscription we had seen in the mountains was true, Allah united us and would help us to raise Islam to its destined position as the world's leading faith. As my mind relaxed, I became aware of the scents of flowers wafting on the warm air. Peshawar is famous for centuries as a place of gardens and blossoms. The scents blended with the irresistible smell of food and we made our way to a restaurant whose sign proudly proclaimed the finest chappli kebabs in Pakistan. We found a quiet table and were soon waited upon by the owner. He brought us chapplis, which are plates of naan bread with a spicy burger of beef mixed with corn flour, tomato and chilies, with eggs on top. We ate the chapplis ravenously and washed them down with steaming hot green tea.

When our hunger was satisfied, the owner offered us a smoke of his hooka pipes. We were so happy to be in Peshawar, we accepted his offer. As the cool tobacco smoke entered my lungs, the nagging pain from my bullet wound faded away. Soon after, I was in a reverie. The sights, the sounds and the smells all around me carried me to a place I had not known, a plateau of peace and contentment. In the 20 years since, I have not known such peace.

Soon, Osama began chattering with great enthusiasm about our organisation and how we would operate. MAK had brought us to Afghanistan, but it was controlled by the Pakistanis and Saudis, with too much influence from the Americans. We would create a new body, one with Islamic purity at its core and respect for its members more important than any geopolitical power games. We decided to use our money to purchase a guest house here in Peshawar. This would become our transit point for fighters going to, and coming from, Afghanistan. We would also use it as an administrative centre. Every fighter who joined our cause would have his personal details, including next-of-kin, kept here. Any fighter who gave his life in the service of Jihad would be mourned properly and his family would know of his braveness. Later, when Osama was given more of his family's fortune, all Al-Qaeda martyrs would go to heaven knowing their families would be looked after financially.

We had used Peshawari inns as transit posts for much of the war in Afghanistan. But the Americans and Pakistanis knew where they were. This would be the first inn known only to Al-Qaeda.

The next morning, after prayers, we sought out an inn suitable for our needs. After a few hours, we discovered the perfect place. It was beside Chowk Yadgar, Peshawar's bird market and looked a fine building. The sign outside read 'Singing Bird Guest House'. It had a heavy, carved wooden door and ornamental balconies outside each window. We had brought our baggage and horses with us so that we could book into a potential acquisition as travellers and assess it in secrecy. The entrance hallway was wide and airy and the man seated at the desk welcomed us with truth.

'May Allah be thanked for bringing you to us, he said. Where have you come from?'

'We have travelled far and are in need of some rest,' answered Osama.

'You don't have the dusty appearance of two who have travelled far,' ventured the innkeeper, though he did not have an interrogative tone to his voice.

'We arrived late last night and stayed in the first inn we found,' answered Osama.

'Well I thank you for coming to me today. I have not had good business these past years. With the war, nobody wants to travel to Kabul. At least peace is now in the air.'

'Would it be possible for us to get a large room to share? One with a good view of the square?'

'But of course. May I take your names for the register of guests?'

We gave false names and the man showed us to our room. It was perfect. Soft, clean beds, good washing facilities and an excellent view of the square. We could observe many comings and goings without being seen ourselves. And always birdsong in the background, beautiful, uplifting birdsong.

The inn had 16 bedrooms, a dining area, an ample kitchen and a good-sized office. It was secure, with buildings to either side and a fence to the rear. It could only be entered by the front door. That evening, we had dinner with the innkeeper, who was a widower and whose children had long since grown up and left him. Osama enquired as to his trustworthiness. Osama had a gift of asking someone unknown to him a direct question. He could judge a man by his answer and could tell whether or not he could be trusted. He believed the innkeeper was trustworthy and asked him directly if he would sell the inn to us, for use as a Mujahideen safe house.

'But I have no need of money,' answered the innkeeper, 'what would I do with myself without my beloved inn?'

'You would run it for us and be paid for your work. We would visit here only occasionally. We need someone reliable to look after our fighters. Someone we can trust. We will hire an administrator from the locality to maintain our records.'

'What about the police? They don't miss a thing around here. There are informers everywhere.'

'The Pakistani Government works with us in the war. We have contacts, even here in Peshawar. If there is trouble, we can deal with it, but discretion will be our main priority. We will ensure that you have Mujahideen protection at all times. Because we will officially own the property, you will be safe if there is ever trouble that we cannot control.'

The innkeeper thought our proposal over for a long while, asking many questions. We answered each question honestly and patiently. In the end, he agreed on a price of 25,000 rupees, with a salary of 100 rupees per month. As Al-Qaeda fighters would not be expected to pay for their lodgings here, a figure of 500 rupees per month was agreed as sufficient to pay for all the running costs of a full guest house. Two days later, when the deeds were drawn up, Osama gave our partner 29,000 rupees. That would be enough to run the guest house for six months. Al-Qaeda was born.

CHAPTER 2. ALLAH'S CALL

"And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah."

Surah 8. Al-Anfal, Spoils of War. V 39.

Pakistan, 1989

The Holy War in which we will soon be victorious, by the grace of Allah, has its roots in the roots of Islam. Was Muhammad, the One True Prophet, not poisoned by a Jewess? Have the Jews and the Christians not stolen their beliefs from the teachings of Abraham, whose teachings are the fundaments of Islam? Have they not corrupted the One Truth? Have the Christians and the Jews not tried, from the time of the Crusades, and ever since, to control the lands that are the birthplace of Islam?

Islam has a long memory and Islam seeks justice. There can be no balance or harmony in the world of men until Allah is recognised, on every continent, as the One True God. After many centuries of struggle, it is with the guidance of Osama Bin Laden, may Allah bless him, that we shall finally and completely liberate the Holy Lands and make the teachings of the Prophet resound throughout the world. This is a good time to be a Muslim. This is a good time to believe in the One True God. The disbelievers and the hypocrites shall find no mercy. Though we are faced with many powerful enemies, the justice of centuries is at hand. Allah is the most great.

We rested in Peshawar for many months, drawing up exhaustive lists of our fighters and manuals of the combat experience we had obtained in Afghanistan. Many of our comrades came to stay with us. Each had the same look in his eyes; tired from fighting, hardened by the bloody battles he had helped to win and burning with love for Islam and its new-found power. We spent many days and nights recounting our experience on the battlefields and sharing knowledge about our weapons and tactics and those of our enemies. We scouted an ideal training camp in the nearby mountains and began to plan.

On February 14, 1989, the so-called 'Seven Party alliance of Afghan Mujahideen' met in Peshawar and announced the formation of the Afghan Interim Government. The faction leaders would share power, but Osama and other field commanders were excluded. The Afghan tribal warlords thought to take the land for themselves. But all had changed with the arrival of Muslims from around the world to help in their struggle against the Soviets. We stayed on the sidelines and watched the drama unfolding. Osama was sure that the new system would not work and that such false alliances would not serve the good people of Afghanistan. Battle resumed and a call to arms was issued to all Mujahideen to liberate Jalalabad, which was still under siege. We decided not to participate. The battle raged for six months, claiming thousands of lives on both sides. Jalalabad would not fall for another three years, when Kabul itself also fell to the fracturing Mujahideen forces.

As the Soviets withdrew in defeat, we returned together to Osama's home city of Jeddah. We had war in our blood, having fought many fierce battles against the Russians and learned how, when a man is fighting for the One True God, a holy warrior cannot be defeated. Many fighters passed through our guest house and all saw Osama as their leader. The men we left behind in Peshawar were of the finest and ran the base and the guesthouses with zeal. On the day of victory in Afghanistan, Osama had over 200 battle-hardened soldiers at his command. A loose network was built up, between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Our brothers could travel at will and know that a friendly welcome would await them.

Osama turned to the Glorious Qur'an and became deeply involved in prayer and analysis of the True Words of Allah. I, too, studied the Qur'an and emulated the man who had emerged as a natural leader in Afghanistan. As his battle fatigue eased, Osama became more withdrawn, spending many long days and nights in meditation. Once, he travelled to a cave in the barren desert and stayed there, without food, for 30 days, in adoration of the Prophet Muhammad. On his return, his eyes were filled with a great light and a clarity of belief that I had not seen in him before.

'We must return to Salafysm,' he said.

We enrolled in Jeddah's leading Salafy school the next day, after morning prayers. For some months, we studied Salafysm daily and its teachings seemed to give Osama great vigour. Salafy is the belief that all those who do not adhere literally to the teachings of the Qur'an are enemies of Islam, and that all good Muslims must wage war on the enemies of Islam; we had followed these teachings in helping our brothers in Afghanistan and Allah had protected us and given us success.

We studied, prayed and meditated and soon we were five in Jeddah, each of us had the liberation of Islam as our guiding ideal and each of us saw Osama as our natural leader. We were supported financially at this time by two of Osama's uncles. Osama's family was very wealthy from its key role in the construction of the modern infrastructure of Saudi Arabia and their close ties to the Saud ruling family. The bin Ladens had actually rebuilt shrines in the Two Holy Places, Mecca and Medina, as well as much of Jeddah and Riyadh. Osama would inherit hundreds of millions of dollars when his father died, but for now we relied on the generosity of his family. A key belief of all Muslims is to financially support the less well-off in society. Osama's uncles were greatly impressed by our Islamic ways and our sacrifices in Afghanistan and gave us enough money to live in a comfortable house and eat well.

Islam teaches that one can only find peace in one's life by submitting to Almighty God Allah in heart, soul and deed. The name Islam comes from an Arabic root word meaning peace and submission.

Islam consists of five articles of faith, of belief. Belief in one God; belief in angels; belief in the revealed books; belief in the prophets; and belief in the Day of Judgment. To these was added, during the early development of the dogma, the belief in God's predetermination of good and evil. The underlying profession of the faith, Shahada, is: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God."

All Muslims are enjoined to practice the Five Pillars of Islam: to recite the profession of faith at least once in one's lifetime; to observe the five daily public and collective prayers; to pay the zakat purification tax for the support of the poor; to fast from daybreak to sunset during the entirety of the month of Ramadan; and to perform, if physically and financially possible, the Hajj, pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

When you believe that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is his messenger, then the Qur'an assumes a mystical significance. These are the true words of Muhammad, so they are the True Words of Allah. Many men have tried to change or dilute the words of Muhammad. They are traitors of Islam. We are Sunni Muslims, the followers of Muhammad. Others choose different ways. Shia Muslims prefer to follow the teachings of Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali. They are mistaken. Other sects within Islam choose to idolise different prophets or holy men. They are all mistaken. The only true Islam is Sunni, the acceptance that Muhammad, and none other, speaks for Allah. Salafy is a distillation of Sunni, which aspires to an even purer adherence to Islam, the Qur'an and the Shari'ah laws. We submit ourselves completely to Allah and scrupulously observe the prohibitions of Salafy: No other object for worship than God; Holy men or women must not be used to win favours from God; No other name than the names of Allah may enter a Prayer; No smoking of tobacco; No shaving of beard; No abusive language; Rosaries are forbidden; Mosques must be built without minarets and all forms of ornaments. We found peace by applying these principles to our lives on top of the basic precepts of Islam. Allah rewarded us with the gift of clarity.

We will unify all the branches of Islam by returning to its purest form, before the divisions took hold. By the Grace of God, Salafy has its roots in our Arabian homeland. Infidels and disbelievers call our faith Wahhabi, which, in itself, shows how little they understand us. Salafy was established in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. To call our faith after a man is clearly entirely contrary to our belief, is it not? Salafy was adopted by the Saud family in 1744 and its rise has been tied to them ever since. We call ourselves al-Muwahhidun, the Unitarians, and only by breaking our faith's links with the corrupt Sauds will we give ourselves the ability to unify all Islam.

Osama became mesmerised by the potential power of a unified Islam and the purity of Salafy belief changed him. His strength of belief brought Osama into direct conflict with the ruling House of Saud. He saw that theirs was an evil family, who squandered our country's vast wealth on luxuries and western trappings of success. As each day went by, his hatred of the royals grew. Osama began to speak out against the ruling families and he found a ready audience. The corruption and waste in Saudi Arabia was, at that time, truly disgusting. Little has changed.

As Osama became more outspoken in his views, the Sauds began to keep an eye on him. Agents were posted all over Jeddah, observing the bin Laden family homes and often following Osama. They could not openly attack us however, as the Sauds owed a great deal to the generosity of Osama's father during the times of turbulent oil prices in the 1970s. Without bin Laden support, the Sauds would have been bankrupted.

They watched as we grew stronger. Al-Qaeda was still unknown to the Saudi forces, but we strengthened it every day. Our faith gave us the will to build our organisation and Osama's family wealth gave us the resources to begin stockpiling weapons and equipment. Our path forward was still unclear, but we had faith that Allah would point the way for us.
CHAPTER 3. THE FINAL INSULT

"They think to beguile Allah and those who believe, and they beguile none save themselves but they perceive not.

"In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie.

"And when it is said unto them: make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only.

"Verily, they are indeed the mischief-makers. But they perceive not."

Surah 2. Al-Baqarah, The Cow. Vv 9-12.

Saudi Arabia, 1990

In the middle of the fateful year of 1990, the Kuwaiti Emirate was invaded by a fellow Muslim country, Iraq. This caused great turmoil in our minds and we spent many evenings discussing what the proper Muslim response should be. On one hand, the rulers of Iraq were Sunni Muslims, our root branch of Islam. Also, the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had previously waged war against the lesser Shia Muslim nation, Iran. We understood that Iraq had a long-standing claim on Kuwait; the Kuwaiti territory was part of Iraq on many ancient maps and was a British protectorate from 1914 to 1961. The Al-Sabah ruling family took control of Kuwait in 1961 and paid many bribes to Iraq in order to maintain its position. The Kuwaiti royals had also been very supportive of the Saudi royals and had produced so much oil that the value of Iraq's exports was reduced. On the other hand, Hussein and his Ba'athists had tarnished Islam by trying to combine it with Marxist ideology, Hussein was but an evil military dictator, such a perfect bedfellow for the Americans before he stepped out of line.

During this period of confusion and reflection, the future course of world events was decided and our path was made clear for us. One bright Friday afternoon, a few days after the invasion, I was walking home from the mosque with Osama, when we were attracted by a large crowd of men who had gathered in front of an electrical retailer's shop window. They were shouting and arguing excitedly.

'What is happening, brothers?' I asked.

'The Godless Americans are coming here, here to the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and his Holy Shrines!'

The television screens showed images of George Bush the Elder, the president of America. With Arabic subtitles he was telling the world that the United States' army would come to protect Saudi Arabia and then liberate Kuwait. Other screens showed other channels, with images of American military planes already landing on our sacred soil. Osama threw his hands up to heaven in disbelief, but could find no words to express his outrage. There was pain in his eyes and he cried, as did every man among us. This was the greatest insult to Allah in the history of Islam. We returned home and watched our small tv and listened to the state-run radio news. It was a nightmare and our only solace was found in prayer.

Americans had always been in Saudi Arabia, of course; the oil industry needed their technical expertise and, as the biggest export market for Saudi oil, the Saud family courted the Americans. Their presence was discrete, however; mostly they stayed inside special compounds and generally did not mix with true Muslims. The American military in Saudi Arabia was an entirely different prospect. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was helped by our success in Afghanistan, the American military was the single biggest power in the world. Their mighty army, navy and air force was backed up by enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over. They could not be faced up to by any conventional armed force. Their arrival in Saudi Arabia, the home of the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the birthplace of Islam was intolerable to us. They had invaded by stealth, with the connivance of the Saud ruling family. We were incensed. Outraged as never before.

We each had our own reason for hating the Americans. My earliest memory is of a terrible day in 1957, when I was 7 years old. Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia had died in 1953, bewildered at the changes in his kingdom since the discovery of oil just a few years before. After his death, the oil industry expanded dramatically, with no thought for the consequences of westernising our culture. With childish curiosity, I went with my sisters to look at the new oil pipeline being built, while our father searched for work in Riyadh and our mother washed floors in the oil workers' apartments. We were Saudi all right, but we were of the majority of families that didn't control the country with an iron fist. The rich families were eager to embrace the American oil companies as long as they could start hoarding their millions in double-quick time. The Americans and other foreigners were quite happy to deal with the ruling family and their key supporters, as long as the country remained stable. Being a child, I understood nothing of this revolution that was occurring near my tiny home. I just knew that there would be lots of big machines, mysterious foreigners and new noises and smells.

Anti-American feelings were growing in Jeddah. Being so close to Mecca, people there seemed to have even more fervour in their beliefs and we witnessed American flags being burned on the streets almost every day. The Saud family had decreed that no Americans would be allowed near Mecca, so we were able to concentrate on our praying and meditation without the fear of seeing or smelling any disbelievers. Whispers of the New Crusaders began to grow louder. Many feared that protecting the Sauds was just a smokescreen to take over the Saudi oil industry and conquer the Land of the Two Holy Places.

As the American military build-up continued, we began to formulate our response. One night, we stayed up well past the rising moon to discuss our options.

'The disbelievers now control the land of the Prophet,' said Osama.

'Then we must rid the world of all disbelievers.'

'How shall we do this?' asked Osama.

'You can show us the way.'

'Will you come with me on a journey? A journey of hardship and trials? A journey that will unite all Muslims under One True God? A journey that will see the Jews pushed into the sea? A journey that will see America burn? A journey that will return the land of the Prophet Muhammad to his believers? A journey that will see Islam take its rightful place as the One True Religion in all the world?'

'We will.'

'Will you each take an oath that if you share our secrets with any disbeliever, you will be punished by death and punished by Allah?'

'We will.'

'So it begins.'

Osama then outlined the plans he had been contemplating ever since we had left Afghanistan. It now became clear to me that he had known that waging a Holy War, a Jihad, against the disbelievers of the world was his True Calling, but the arrival of American soldiers and weapons of war in the land of the Holiest Shrines of Islam wiped any doubt from his mind. He was ready to lead a Jihad, a Jihad on such a scale as had never before been seen.

Osama's plan had three key elements. The first was the organisation of a loose structure which would allow units to attack the enemy wherever and whenever opportunities presented themselves. We would unite with Islamic revolutionary forces all over the world. This would allow for the transfer of arms, intelligence, funds and people to where they could be most beneficial. This structure would not be physical and so could not be attacked by tanks or missiles. Our success in Afghanistan was derived from intelligence, communications and teamwork, all united under Islam. These attributes would continue to serve us well. Al-Qaeda would be a spirit, a phantom enemy which no disbeliever could penetrate or resist.

The second element was the reunification of true believers everywhere. Muslims constitute one fifth of the world's population, stretching from Africa, through the Middle East and Asia and into the Far East. We control over half the world's oil supplies yet we have many of the poorest people on earth in our number. The great injustices which have been foisted upon us by the Jews and Christians, in league with our own corrupt rulers, can only be overcome if every Muslim embraces the Qur'an as a blueprint for change. If all Muslims unite to fight our oppressors, we cannot be stopped. One billion Muslims with their blood boiling for justice and revenge would truly be an unstoppable force.

The third element would be the planning of long-term, strategic hammer blows against our hated enemies. These would be operations that would require years of planning and huge investments in personnel, money and resources. There would be up to six of these major operations in development at any time and we would work on the assumption that the majority would not be implemented successfully. But, with the help and grace of Allah, the blows that would be successful would shake our enemies to their foundations and bring them to their knees.

In the weeks that followed, we approached our task with great hope and energy. The creation of a basic network system for the propagation of our battle against the infidels was the first step. Osama, who had been trained well by the CIA while he fought the Russians in Afghanistan, told us about the idea of cells. Cells are made of small groups of soldiers, who are active within a defined area. The cell is given its orders by one or two outside the cell and it knows of no other cell's activities, unless it is involved in the delivery of a combined hammer blow. If a cell is infiltrated by the enemy, it can offer no intelligence on the wider organisation, even under torture. The efficiency of this system would soon be proven when some of our members were tortured to death by the Saudi security forces. The CIA used cells in its activities against the Soviet Union for decades and they were convinced that this structure was most resistant to outside interference and disruption. The CIA was indeed a powerful enemy, but we had a great advantage over it, our language was spoken or understood by very few among its many thousands of communications experts and cryptographers. The CIA was formed to combat a conventional enemy, they would find an unconventional foe difficult to penetrate. Osama's inside experience of our enemy's intelligence systems gave us yet another decisive advantage.

Commands and intelligence would be delivered to cells by satellite phone and email whenever possible. Physical contact with commanders outside the cell would only be used as a last resort. Changing code words were created for every member of Al-Qaeda to memorise and these would be used whenever personal contact between cells was required. Osama understood the power of modern communications systems and made sure to harness this power for our own ends from the very beginning of our struggle. Our language and our Holy Qur'an would be the basis of codes which no infidel could break.

Osama developed a broad target list which would be the standing orders for every cell. In compiling this list, he worked out a range of basic skills which would be necessary for every Soldier of God. These were: 1, use of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, marksmanship and maintenance; 2, explosives, manufacturing and detonating; 3, communications, local and international; 4, field craft, navigation, first aid and survival in any terrain or city; 5, assassination, ambush, hand-to-hand combat; 6, Salafy and the Holy Qur'an.

Osama repeatedly stressed that knowing your enemy was the most important thing if you want to destroy him. We spent many nights learning about the history of America, its anti-colonial war, independence, the Civil War, the first two World Wars, Vietnam. We also learned, in detail, about the functioning of the USA and its security apparatus. We joke among ourselves that Al-Qaeda members know more about the CIA than the average American citizen.

We used books, the internet and our own individual experiences with the Americans to build a broad picture of what makes them tick and what can destroy them. We also had many spies observing the American military build-up in Saudi Arabia at that time. We understood and knew how to operate all America's basic military weapons and we numbered among us many fighters who had experience of combat aircraft, missile systems and marine warfare. America's allies also entered our syllabus. We studied Israel closely and learned how its military might is dependent on American hardware and funds and how the two countries co-operated many times to crush their Muslim opponents. Britain and Australia and America's Muslim allies were each known to us in great detail. We had time. Above all else, we had time.

It was decided that we would make a training manual covering all these basic skills and histories. The manual would be distributed on laptop computers, with limited numbers of hard copies made when required. It would later be maintained on an encrypted internet server, to be accessed by Al-Qaeda soldiers worldwide. The codes would change daily (based on the Muslim calendar and the Qur'an) and the manual would be hidden within a seemingly innocuous website for a Yemeni honey farm. I do not know who was responsible for creating and maintaining our internet communications system, but they truly used their God-given talents. May Allah bless them.

We would analyse the basic skills by day, typing up the information, scanning pictures and saving them on our laptop computer. By night, we would go far into the desert and practice shooting and bomb-making in a cave at the end of a deep ravine, which could only be reached by camel. One night, we were met by a police patrol as we returned to Jeddah after marksmanship training. The police drew their weapons, thinking we were smugglers. Osama and I dismounted from our camels and, as the police searched our saddlebags, we cut both their throats with our desert knives. We left the bodies where they fell and took their guns, as well as ammunition, petrol and water supplies from their jeep. We continued on our way, burying the guns a hundred meters off the trail. It would appear as though the police had been killed by Bedouin smugglers. We never went back to that training cave again.

When we reached our house, we had a meeting. Osama decided that we would leave Saudi Arabia and travel to our brothers in Afghanistan. A puppet government left behind by the Russians was still in place and our Islamic brothers were fighting to remove it. We would assist them in the creation of a true Islamic state and use its nurturing powers to create training camps for our Jihad.

'We will train 10,000 of our brothers in the art of Jihad,' said Osama. 'We will make an Army of Allah which will sweep forth upon the earth and crush the infidels. Come, let us prepare for our journey.'

As we made ready through the night, Osama finalised the standing orders for the first active cell we would leave behind us in Saudi Arabia. One of our group of five would lead it and work to create new cells in the surrounding countries of Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Oman, Lebanon and Syria. Mar Bin Saul, who would have the glory of striking the first blows against the disbelievers, had three good Muslims ready to take the oath and begin the glorious struggle. Osama decided that we would leave him all our weapons and explosives, as we could not risk travelling while armed.

'Use them well, brother. For every drop of Jew and Christian blood you spill, you will find a lake of milk and honey in heaven,' he said.

'Thank you for your faith in me, brother, replied Mar. 'With the help of Allah, I will lead the struggle here and send you many willing recruits.'

'Get your men now, but hurry, the sun will rise within the hour.'

Mar slipped off into the night and returned quickly with three men I had not seen before. Two were in their early twenties and one looked a seasoned desert fighter of about forty years. Osama greeted each one in turn and then, one at a time, had them recite the Oath of Al-Qaeda.

'Now sit and you will learn your standing orders.'

We all sat on the floor. There was a sense of expectation among us all, as none of us knew what our standing orders would be. Osama began to recite a verse, a verse which would become a prayer for all in Al-Qaeda, a prayer which would give each and every one of us a focus in the hard years that lay ahead and give us joy in our struggle.

'In the name of Allah and His Prophet Muhammad, I take on His Holy Struggle,

I will fight the Christian and the Jew with all my strength and resourcefulness,

I will attack his armies, his governments, his commerce and his citizens,

I will give my own life when Allah deems it necessary to complete my mission,

I will never shirk from action against the enemies of Islam, my work is God's Work and God will give me guidance, courage and reward in heaven. This is my Jihad and I testify that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.

ALLAHU-AKBAR!

ALLAHU-AKBAR!

ALLAHU-AKBAR!'

Osama recited the verse again and we all joined in. We kept repeating the verse until each one of us had it memorised perfectly. The sun was now rising on a new world, a world with its first active Al-Qaeda cell which, from that day on, would act on its standing orders at every opportunity. The new Jihad had truly begun. It was the day that Christians know as Christmas and the Morning Star shone like a jewel in the azure sky. We turned to face Mecca and dropped to our knees in prayer. I do not lie when I say that every man among us wept tears of joy as he prayed.

CHAPTER 4. BUILDING AL-QAEDA

"When the heaven is cleft asunder,

"When the planets are dispersed,

"When the seas are poured forth,

"And the sepulchres are overturned,

"A soul will know what it hath sent before and what left behind."

Surah 82. Al-Infitar, The Cleaving. Vv 1-5.

Afghanistan, 1991

In early January, 1991, the US deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait was closing in fast. We decided to travel to Afghanistan by going through Iran, as we heard from our brothers in Peshawar that the entire North West Frontier was under surveillance by Pakistani secret service. Osama believed that the Saud family had put a bounty on his head. Osama had been under virtual house arrest in Jeddah and had to beg, through his family, for permission to go to Pakistan. When the permission was finally granted, Pakistani security levels increased.

'They wish to deliver me to my death,' joked Osama.

'Will they not see us board a plane for Iran?' I asked.

'Not if someone who looks like me travels to Pakistan,' he answered.

Later that same day, the four of us boarded a flight from Jeddah to Mashhad, in north-eastern Iran. Osama was dressed as a cleric, with heavy glasses, his hair and beard dyed grey and forged papers. A cousin, who looked almost exactly like him when dressed in the robes that Osama typically wore, took a flight direct to Pakistan. We hoped that he would distract our police observers and also that he could alter his appearance sufficiently before getting assassinated in Pakistan. He succeeded on both counts.

Our route was a busy one, as there was a constant stream of devout Muslims travelling from Iran to Mecca. The traffic was especially busy during the time of the Hajj, when Muslims gather in their hundreds of thousands at Mecca, but there was always ample opportunity to conceal our travel. We would use this route many times, to move people from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Peshawar, our Pakistani heartland, was at the far side of Afghanistan and Kandahar, our Afghan home base, was a long drive from Iran, but we didn't mind the extra travel for security. As I have said, we had time.

We had excellent forged identities, including fake passports. We were Salafy teachers, visiting Salafy schools in Iran. This cover would also be beneficial in Afghanistan. As the Salafy schools spread throughout the Islamic world, funded by the Saudi government, it was the ideal cover. Indeed, Salafy schools would soon be found in almost every country on earth, including the countries of our most hated enemies. We would be welcomed by any Salafy disciple and even hypocrite Muslims would respect us.

The flight was crowded with Iranian Shia Muslims, joyous at having been to Mecca and also workers returning to their homes on leave. We spent most of the flight praying or studying the Glorious Qur'an. On arrival in Mashhad, Osama informed us that we would spend a couple of days there, with the aim of creating a safe house and forming a cell. He understood the importance of the city in our future work.

We stayed at a Sunni inn that first night and, next morning, the innkeeper told his son to guide us to the nearest Salafy school. We knew we would find assistance there. As the young man led us through Mashhad's dusty streets, he asked many questions. These mainly concerned Mecca and the homeland of the Prophet. Then he changed the subject to the presence of Americans in Saudi Arabia. There was real anger in his voice when he asked how this could be happening.

'Forgive my disrespect, but does the Saud family not know of how the Qur'an says "And when it is said unto them: make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only. Verily, they are indeed the mischief-makers. But they perceive not."'

'You are a good student of the Glorious Qur'an, young man,' said Osama.

'Yes, master. It truly is the word of God.'

'And what do you think should be done about the Americans?'

'I would give my life if I could kill one American soldier and help to free the birthplace of the Prophet.'

'Do you really mean this?'

'As Allah is my witness, I mean it, master.'

Osama bade us all to stop. He looked straight into our guide's eyes.

'Then you shall help to liberate the Prophet's homeland. Take us somewhere where we can talk in total privacy.'

He brought us to a tea house which had private rooms. The entrance was decorated with a hanging bead curtain. Inside was a cluster of small, low tables with cushions on the tiled floor. A pair of large water boilers stood gleaming behind the counter and the sweet smell of fine teas filled the air. Prints of Persian princes and their ladies enjoying tea covered the white plaster walls. The private rooms lay at the end of a short hallway. Inside was a round table with four cushions on the floor around it. With one of us standing guard at the door, the others could talk without fear of being overheard. Osama first explained that what he was about to say would mean the young man's death if he ever repeated it to anyone, even his own father, but it was about the glory of Allah and how it would be made greater throughout the world.

He gladly accepted this, seeming to sense where the conversation was going. Osama had him take the Oath of Al-Qaeda and learn the Standing Orders. When he was satisfied that the first member of our first Iranian cell fully understood the path he was now on, Osama explained his mission, which would be to find and maintain a safe house and develop a cell of four members.

'My own father hates the Americans more than any man in Mashhad. He fought against the Iraqis in the great war and was poisoned by gas which Saddam made with the help of the Americans. He has a bad cough now, but his mind and spirit are as sharp as ever they were. He will want to join Al-Qaeda and his inn would be the perfect safe house, as it can contain any number of strangers without ever attracting attention.'

'Are you sure of his dedication to Allah and the Prophet?'

'It is from my father that I learned the Qur'an. As it should be.'

'As indeed it should.'

The innkeeper, Hud, was every bit the believer that we needed. By the end of the day, we had our safe house and a cell of two good men in Mashhad.

We bought a jeep from one of Hud's friends for a good price. When we had gathered enough provisions and water for our journey, we set off. The road to Afghanistan was quiet and we passed over the border without any trouble. Inside Afghanistan, the way was open for us. We drove to Herat, a cross-roads city in the north west of the country. The puppet government of Afghanistan was confined to a small area around the capital, Kabul. The remainder of the land was in the hands of tribal leaders, most of whom were uniting to battle the hated communists, so we felt safe.

When we reached the outskirts of Herat, Osama told us that we would find an inn and then seek out an arms dealer, as it was important for us to be armed in a land where our brothers were at war.

'We will travel on to Kandahar, where the Islamic army is based, and there we will find our roles in this war for Allah, but we must have the means of self-protection before then. I have a friend in Herat who will help us,' he said.

We drove to an inn outside the city centre and put our supplies and belongings in our rooms for safekeeping.

'By the Grace of Allah, I trust you to protect our belongings,' said Osama to the innkeeper. His expression made it clear that we were not to be trifled with, or robbed, as happens to most travellers in those parts.

'As God is great, I will protect your belongings,' said the innkeeper, with fear in his eyes. He understood that we were no innocent tourists or merchants.

'We must beware too of spies,' said Osama. 'If any tell the government police of our presence, we will cut their heads off. Will you tell them that?' asked Osama.

'This too I will take to my heart,' said the innkeeper.

Osama kept the computer with our training manual in a satchel on his person at all times. With that, we set off through the dirty alleys of Herat. When we were out of sight of the inn, Osama told me to double back after a few minutes to check on our room. The others waited for me as I returned to the inn, where I found the innkeeper talking to a man in black garb outside the door. I did not allow myself to be seen and hurried back to my friends.

'The innkeeper was talking to a man in black,' I said.

'As I suspected,' said Osama.

At length, we came to a house with bars on its door and windows. Osama knocked and, after a time, a small hatch opened in the door.

'Who knocks at the door of Muhammad?' came a voice.

'It is I, Osama Bin Laden and I seek your help.'

Locks and bolts were unsecured and the door immediately opened.

'Come swiftly, brothers. There are spies about.'

We entered the house, which was cool and welcoming after the dusty heat of the streets.

Osama's friend made us mint tea and offered us bread and fruit, which we accepted graciously. Osama explained our mission and our host took the Al-Qaeda oath and recited the Standing Orders after hearing them just once. This truly was a man to be reckoned with. Osama told him that we needed weapons for self-protection until we made contact with the Islamic forces in Kandahar. Muhammad then brought us to a small electrical repair shop not far from his home. We entered to find an old man behind a counter, repairing an iron with a screwdriver and soldering set. He looked up from his work to greet us and, on seeing our friend, greeted us again in the name of Allah. Muhammad whispered in his ear, even though there was nobody else in the shop but our group. The old man raised the counter and beckoned us through to a back room. The room contained electrical repair equipment, wires and spare parts. At the far end of the room was a small door, secured with a padlock. He unlocked the door and gestured us to enter. We had to crouch low to get through the door and into the dark room. When we had all entered, the man switched on a fluorescent light. As it flickered on, we glimpsed an array of weapons hanging from brackets on the wall and laid out on benches. When the light was fully on, I could scarcely believe my eyes. Not since I had fought in Afghanistan two years previously had I seen so many weapons.

We each got a Kalashnikov rifle with six magazines. We also took four hand grenades and a 9mm automatic pistol with three full magazines per man. Osama drew a bundle of money from inside his robe and asked the dealer for his fair price. When he was paid in US dollars, he offered us free flak jackets as a thank you for the business.

'As God is good,' he said, 'I pray that these jackets may protect you from harm.'

'We thank you for your kindness and trust that you will tell nobody that we were here,' said Osama.

'As God is my witness, none shall know of this transaction.'

Osama ordered us to load and cock our weapons and, concealing them under our robes, we left the shop. Muhammad carried the flak jackets in a large canvas bag. As we moved down the street towards the inn, Osama told me to look out for the spy I had seen earlier at the inn. I spotted him at a street corner two blocks from the inn and alerted Osama and my comrades to him. We continued on towards the inn, making sure not to look at the spy. As we turned the last corner before the inn, Osama told me to wait and bring the spy to our room. I lay in wait as the others entered the inn. The spy turned the corner and was shocked to see me, with my Kalashnikov pointing at his head from under my robe.

'Stay quiet and move to the inn,' I barked, rapping the gun barrel off the side of his skull.

When we entered the inn, there was nobody at the reception desk and the lobby area was empty. I ordered the spy to go up the stairs and directed him to our room. Osama was waiting at the door. When we entered, the innkeeper was sitting on a chair, blood gushing from a gash on his forehead where, I guessed, he had been struck with a rifle butt. The spy was told to sit in another chair beside him.

'On whose behalf do you spy on us?' asked Osama.

The two men glanced at each other and decided that truthfulness would be the best way to keep living.

'The government forces pay us to monitor movements of strangers in Herat,' blurted the innkeeper. 'They fear an Islamic army gathering to oust them from power.'

'And are you not Muslims?'

'In the name of Allah we are. But there is no business to be had. The bribes from the government agents help us to feed our families.'

'Have you alerted the government to our presence?'

'As Allah is my witness, I have not,' said the innkeeper.

'I have told nobody,' said the spy.

'Where are the government forces active now?' asked Osama.

'To my knowledge, there are some government patrols and checkpoints on the road from here to Kandahar and most forces are concentrated in the area south of Kabul,' said the spy.

'Is Kandahar in the hands of our Islamic brothers?'

'To the best of my knowledge, the government forces have no control over Kandahar,' said the spy.

'I hear that an Islamic leader named Mullah Omar is building a strong army in Kandahar. He plans to recapture Kabul, offered the innkeeper.'

'Very well. You will come with us.'

Knowing they were going to be brought into the desert outside Herat, to be shot and buried in shallow graves, the two men began pleading for their lives. One earnestly quoted the Glorious Qur'an in his pleadings.

'Allah is ever Clement, Forgiving... Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.'

'Even the Glorious Qur'an cannot save you,' answered Osama. He was ruthless with spies and police and would kill all before him lest he be captured by the enemy.

There were no other guests staying at the inn. The only visitor we'd had was the young boy who sweeps up for the innkeeper and carries bags when there are bags to be carried. Osama told him that the innkeeper was at the market and to come back tomorrow. Osama made the innkeeper write a letter for the boy, telling him that he was gone to Mecca and to keep running the inn as normal. His hands shook as he scribbled the note.

We put bags on the spies' heads, tied their hands together and waited for nightfall. As darkness fell, we loaded the jeep and put the two spies in the back with the ammunition. A few miles outside Herat, we got off the road, made the spies dig shallow graves for themselves, shot them and buried them. Then we continued our journey to Kandahar.

Huge mountains loomed over us throughout our four day journey. We avoided meeting any government patrols and the monotony of our journey was broken only by recitals of the Qur'an. We also discussed the political situation in Afghanistan and agreed that the country was ripe for conversion to an Islamic state with the Qur'an as its guiding principles. This would be an important step on our quest for the creation of an Islam-dominated planet. We agreed that giving our services to Mullah Omar and the hard line clerics in Kandahar would be our best approach. We would ask his leave to start constructing training camps for our soldiers in the desert, in return for killing his enemies and training his troops.

Dawn was breaking as we drove east into the city, hungry, tired and dusty from our journey.

'Behold! The Morning Star again blesses us,' said a comrade, as we passed a burning jeep, two dead Government soldiers on the ground beside it. Vultures were braving the heat and flames to pick casually at the bodies. Our war in Afghanistan had resumed. It would never end.

Almost the day we got to Kandahar and met with Mullah Omar, did Osama leave us. He called a meeting of the Al-Qaeda command committee, which became an ever-changing cluster of men around Osama. At that time, I was a member, with my two comrades and our Supreme Leader was Osama Bin Laden, may God have mercy on him. Until his death, he was like a God to us. I know he would strike me down for saying such a blasphemous utterance, may Allah forgive me, and I can only say this now that he is dead. I will say that he was a Prophet, a true disciple of Muhammad.

We were joined by Mullah Omar and two of his most trusted lieutenants. They became members of Al-Qaeda, reciting the standing orders after Osama. We sat and Osama outlined his plan. Osama would travel immediately to Sudan and organise Al-Qaeda there. I would stay in Afghanistan and build training camps which would soon see plenty of new recruits. I was to develop a basic training system, which would teach all Al-Qaeda members the skills in our manual. I was also to create a set of manuals and training courses for advanced subjects, to include atomic, chemical, biological, assassination and sniper. When I told Osama that I did not know too much about setting off atomic bombs, he told me not to worry, that he would send experts to me.

The two comrades that we had travelled with from Saudi Arabia would assist Mullah Omar with tactics, training and ambushes. Osama turned to Mullah Omar, a short, yet powerful-looking man, dressed entirely in the black of a cleric and with but one eye behind his thick glasses.

'Creating a true Islamic state here in Afghanistan is our first priority,' said Osama. 'When we control this country we can train thousands of fighters with impunity. We can foment an Islamic uprising across the planet. I enclose a donation from my family and I present it to you now, Mullah Omar, and hope that you can use it to buy many guns and to give us your protection.'

Osama passed a briefcase to Mullah Omar. It contained US$15 million, in cash, drafts and bearer bonds. The money was from his family inheritance, which was worth many millions and would help pay for the evolution of Al-Qaeda into a truly global jihad.

'The Jews and the Christians fight over our Holy Lands once more,' he said. 'For this, Allah will surely punish them. We are but tools in the Hands of Allah. We do his bidding and there is but one way we can smite them from the earth. We must destroy their homelands and kill their children, only then will they question their disrespect. We can and will destroy their war machines, their planes, their allies, but these are no more than flies biting an elephant. We will be like the virus injected by the fly which kills from within. We must now create the seeds of plans that will grow to fruition and poison our enemies in their very hearts.'

The reaction in the room was joyous. Never before had Muslims fought the crusaders or the Jews on such terms. We knew that Al-Qaeda was the greatest anti-Jew and anti-American mobilisation of Arabs that the world had seen in decades, but to be struck with the revelation that our objective would be the complete destruction of our enemies, that was a moment of pure joy.

At a signal from Osama, Mullah Omar's fighters, now my comrades, drew their handguns and checked outside the door. They looked all around the room and used a sensor to check for bugging equipment.

'It is secure,' said one, who stood by the door, his gun still drawn.

'Good. Now we will talk about the hammer blows that will allow us to conquer our enemy, in the name of Allah. Besides killing every last one of them, what will hurt the Jews the most?' asked Osama.

'There is one thing they cannot survive without,' said Mullah Omar, 'and that is American guns and money.'

'Excellent,' said Osama,' that is how we must start to think. Can we bring about an economic collapse in America? Can we destroy their economy so they can no longer give Israel billions in cash and weapons, more than they give to all the starving children of the world?'

'Can we attack or discredit their biggest industries?' I asked.

'The arms exporters, the oil companies, the computer companies, the airlines. Yes. All these can be made suffer and that will make it more difficult for American money to reach Tel Aviv. A balancing of oil-driven wealth in favour of the Arabs will weaken Israel.'

'Isn't tourism the world's biggest industry?'

'Tourism is also an important industry for the Jews.'

'Attacks on tourists would strike a blow on any economy.'

'All it takes is one man with a rifle and grenades.'

'Or a bomb.'

'Or a bomb on a plane.'

'Perfect,' concluded Osama. 'Tourism will be our key economic target for now. Cells will be encouraged to draw up plans to execute such attacks and we will approve and support where we can. Our enemies and the allies of our enemies will suffer when we attack their biggest source of foreign earnings.'

'I would like a poison gas attack,' proposed Mullah Omar, 'on, what is it the American's call it? Disneyland? That would hurt them.'

'I agree. They have one in Florida and one in California. The two on the same day, perhaps?'

'I propose we activate cells to spy on these facilities. With more intelligence, we can embark on a plan with guaranteed success.'

Osama then outlined his desire to attack the symbols of America. Knowing his enemy as he did, he knew how important were the symbols of wealth and power to them. The White House, the Pentagon, New York City, Hollywood. These are the things, then there are people: film stars, singers, politicians. He proposed a plan to knock the Twin Towers in New York, using a truck bomb in the underground car park. This sounded like a wondrous plan to us all, so we agreed that a cell should be set up there, with men well-trained in the manufacture of explosives.

We also agreed that operatives in America should consider ways to kill the American President. The security on him would increase much in the coming years, but we would not commit to an attack unless it had a good chance of success. Similar tactics would be taken with the political leaders of America's allies and apostate Muslims: Israel, Britain, Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Germany and many more. We agreed that the corrupt rulers of the Arab Nation must be removed so we can create a World Nation of Islam. Their day will come, but we must become stronger first.

As a final contribution to the discussion on hammer blows, Osama began a discussion of fear.

'What is it that would strike fear into the heart of a Christian or a Jew?'

'Fear that his children will be killed?'

'Fear that he has no money and no future?'

'Fear of death?'

'Fear of failure?'

'Fear of flying?'

'Fear of Allah is one fear they not have. So we will give it to them. It will come to dominate their every waking thought, it will take over their lives. And they will see their lives crumble around them. In the Name of Allah, this will come to pass. We will use atomic bombs to burn their cities to ashes and then we will attack them with knives. It shall be our hammer blow to defeat our enemy. It will take many years and many lives to make this come to pass. We have friends in Pakistan and Russia, we also have some information from Iran and can make contact with the Koreans and the Iraqis. Spies will be used in America and Israel. We will get nuclear bombs and we will learn how to use them. All options will be examined. Money is not an issue.'

We greeted this pronouncement with utter joy. I had my own forebodings, which I kept to myself. Would it be justifiable to Allah that we would slay millions of women and children in His Name? I accepted that if was Osama's will then I would do everything in my power to help make it happen. This war would see much bloodshed but, for a change, it would be the blood of the children of the Christians and the Jews. The hammer blows would be the key to our success in making all the world bow before Allah.

Osama left for Sudan the next morning. I got to work with my Afghan comrades building our training camps.

Osama's money ensured that Mullah Omar's anti-Government forces would be armed with better rockets, better artillery and better tanks, and the money to pay for wages, fuel and ammunition. The modern Afghan war is one fought over medium distances with artillery and rockets. The contribution would give Mullah Omar the best personal army in Afghanistan. Combined with the Islamic motivation of his troops, he would be unstoppable. In the end, we persevered and were granted victory, assisted greatly by the Taliban 'Pakistani students of Islam who had flocked to Afghanistan at the call of Mullah Omar. The Taliban were fiercely loyal to Allah and fought with God on their side. None could stand before them, save Massoud the Warlord, hiding in his cave in the northern mountains. His day, too, would come.

Two weeks after Osama left for Sudan, the Americans and British attacked Iraq. Saddam Hussein's attempt's to unite the Arabs by attacking Israel with puny Scud missiles failed. It failed because the Muslims will not unite behind a tyrant who does not pay Allah his just respects. We who are led by the Qur'an, we will unite the Muslims against their common enemy.

My assistant brought me to an abandoned Russian army base a few miles outside Kandahar. It contained three large bunkers, eight cabins, a command post, warehouses, observation towers and a strong perimeter fence. There were useful gun emplacements and a good mast without antennae. It was perfect.

I had a squad of 20 men to help with the clean-up. The base had been unoccupied for three years, but was in good condition. Most looters had stayed away because of the strong minefield around the perimeter, but we had maps of the minefield, which were accurate, so we added some more. Within a few days, the base was clean and we could start bringing equipment in. Mullah Omar's officers supplied everything I needed, while the Mullah toured the provinces, building up support for the Holy War. I had dozens of Kalashnikovs, thousands of rounds of ammunition, knives, grenades, TNT, detonators, mines and pistols. One cabin was set aside for communications training, so we filled it with PCs, printers, modems and satellite phone. It would have its own generator and satellite dish in time.

I analysed our operations manual and planned out a basic training course which would cover all the required elements. I learned the strengths of my team and found good teachers who could manage recruits. We worked out accommodation rotations, cooking, praying and recreation. The firing range at one side of the perimeter was extended. Security details were devised and a 24 hour armed guard was in place. Security would be bolstered by new recruits.

The recruits started arriving two months after Osama had left us. Operation Desert Storm was finished and had succeeded in making many Muslims angry. The continuing presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, even with Kuwait liberated, caused many of our early recruits to be from Saudi Arabia. They were my brothers and I was proud to welcome them. All our recruits were united in their love for the Qur'an and their hatred of the Christians and Jews. I marvelled at the dedication and belief in our young fighters. Part of me feared what we would unleash upon the world. The months passed quickly. By early 1992, we had trained almost 2,000. As they finished training, they drifted off in twos and threes, with money and contact details, to form cells across the world and obtain combat experience. Dozens from the first groups were sent to America. Many returned to Pakistan, while others went to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Hundreds more went to fight in Chechnya and Bosnia. All had email and website addresses from which they would receive their orders.

Osama came to Kandahar in the spring of 1992. The new offensive was going well and a sight was had of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan; the Taliban were growing ever stronger. Within a year, we could hope to see an Afghanistan free of oppression.

Osama inspected the training camp and was very impressed. It was almost a kilometer square, with a cluster of administration and sleeping quarters at one end and three fortified bunkers at the other. The open central area was used for drilling and exercising and a rifle range was off to one side, with mountains behind. He called a meeting of Al-Qaeda leadership that evening. He was accompanied by a new Al-Qaeda general, an Egyptian known as the Doctor, who had been building the cell network across North Africa. We met in one of the camp bunkers, as requested by Osama.

The bunker was large, about 20 meters by 15, and had been used by the Russians for storing heavy munitions. It was well-lit, with overhead fluorescent tubes on skeletal frames, and very secure. A low ramp led down into the entrance, which was protected by a heavy steel sliding door. There were no windows and the air smelled musty. Russian propaganda slogans on the walls had been whitewashed and replaced with lines from the Glorious Qur'an. A dozen metal-framed chairs were ready for us and we sat, with Osama standing to our front.

'The good news,' began Osama, 'is that we are ready to launch our hammer blows against the hated enemy.'

We each expressed our delight at this news.

'Our soldiers in America are planning such attacks as we speak here now,' he continued. 'Soon we will have attacks in Africa and the Far East also. The Muslim Brotherhood truly covers the globe. The Americans have no idea who we are or what our plans are. We have the element of surprise. That is a blessing from Allah. Meanwhile, we must build more training camps. As quickly as you can build them, he gestured to me, then I will fill them with fit young men who would gladly die for the cause of Allah and Al-Qaeda. We will now get involved in every conflict in the world which sees our Muslim brothers under the oppression of Christians and Jews. Palestine, the Philippines, Sudan, Egypt. These are all places that need our help. In helping our brothers in their Jihads, we will enlist their help in our Jihad, the greatest Jihad there ever was. We must train a thousand men a month.'

'Agreed,' I said, bowing my head.

'Then we will be ready to take on the world.'

Osama continued the meeting by elaborating on what some of our cells were doing. We were briefed on a planned truck bomb attack in New York and an attack on Egypt's tourist industry. We also learned about the development of cells inside Saudi Arabia and its neighbours, as taking over these countries in the name of Allah would be a key part of our long-term strategy. He then asked us to pray quietly in thanks to Allah for a moment, before revealing why he had asked to meet us in a bunker.

'Allah has helped us in our time of need,' he announced. 'This room will soon be the home of the hammer blow that will crush our enemies. We have gained an important member, someone with the skills and the contacts to give us an atomic bomb. He will travel shortly to inspect our facilities and he will have many requirements of us all. He is from Pakistan and he works in the Pakistani military. He can build us our bomb.'

'Will he bring a bomb here?' I asked.

'His plans are his alone. I now give him complete freedom to do as he pleases and he is to receive full support from us all. It is my belief that he will assemble the ignition system, then look for fissionable plutonium. The plutonium may have to be gathered slowly, a tiny piece at a time, or we may be lucky and find a seller of quantity. We will always try to buy or steal an operational warhead, but we must work under the assumption that we will make our own atomic weapons. This project will take us many years, but starting it now is a thing to celebrate.'

That evening, we went to Mullah Omar's home for a celebratory dinner. It was a well-defended, well-hidden house. Armed guards patrolled outside. Mullah Omar greeted us at the door and invited us into his dining room. Ornate Afghanistani carpets covered the floor and a single, bright light hung from the middle of the ceiling. After the Mullah led us in a prayer of thanks, 12 of us sat on the cushioned floor around a low table. The table was piled high with all sorts of delicacies; roasted lamb and goat, spiced chicken, fragrant rices, dates and bananas. We feasted with pleasure, ate our fill and were entertained by a puppet show of projected shadows. I slept well that night, dreaming of mushroom clouds soaring over Washington and Tel Aviv.
CHAPTER 5. OPENING THE AFRICAN FRONT

"By the heaven and the Morning Star.

"Ah, what will tell thee what the Morning Star is!

"The piercing Star!

"Lo! They plot a plot against thee, O Muhammad,

"And I plot a plot against them.

"So give a respite to the disbelievers. Deal thou gently with them for a while."

Surah 86. Al-Tariq, The Morning Star. Vv 1-3, 15-17.

Sudan, 1992

Sudan became our most important base outside Afghanistan. Because of its geographical position, linking Africa with the Middle East, Sudan gave us many opportunities for trade. Osama invested many millions of dollars in a complex network of businesses in Sudan, some with the Government, some private, some secret.

Our arrival in Sudan was auspicious. After an overnight crossing of the Red Sea, we arrived in Port Sudan with the morning star rising at our backs, helping to push us to our destination. It was a pleasure to be on solid ground again. Sudan's ground is as dry as Afghanistan's, but there is a fragrance in the air, a richness that is the essence of Africa.

We were met at the port by a Sudanese Government agent, who drove us to a house in Khartoum, which was made available to us at nominal rent. The Muslim Brotherhood had taken over a country which was ruined by attempts to turn it into the breadbasket of the Arabian peninsula, supplying cheap wheat and sugar in return for oil. The debt and oil crises in the 1970s and 1980s, combined with administrative incompetence and corruption served to bring a rich land to its knees. Islam thrived on such bitter soil and the nation was striving to improve. Though conflict continued with the Christians in the south of the country, Shari'a was law in Sudan and this was a perfect opportunity to show the world what a Muslim nation can achieve.

Osama brought many millions of dollars to Sudan and immediately began investing in numerous projects. Engineers were hired to start planning road, canal and rail infrastructure. Irrigation and agriculture projects were a priority, as were trade and distribution businesses.

Sudan's economic decline had been brought about by international banks, which are mostly controlled by the Americans and the Jews, making their profits. We would use Islamic money, mostly Osama's own inheritance, but much of it from Saudi investors. Some of the money was given to the Sudanese leadership to assist with weapons procurement and training. We would also be supplied with weapons from this investment.

Osama's vast wealth stemmed from his father. Muhammad Awad bin Laden emigrated from South Yemen to Saudi Arabia in 1930, with little to his name but the ragged clothes on his back. He found work as a porter in Jeddah port. Muhammad bin Laden had 50 children and Osama was his seventh son, born in 1957, by which time Muhammad had built a thriving construction business. His major breakthrough came by building Saudi royal palaces for much cheaper than the cheapest bid. By doing a good job for a better price, he found all the doors for large contracts open to him. In the early 1960s, when Crown Prince Faisal was agitating to take over from the ageing King Saud, Muhammad played an important role in convincing King Saud to step down. When Faisal took over as king, the treasury was virtually empty and bin Laden financed the civil servants' wages for six months. This made him the number one business contact of the ruling royals. King Faisal even made a decree that all construction projects in the kingdom would go to the bin Laden construction company. After the fire at the Al-Aqsa mosque in 1969, bin Laden rebuilt it well and went on the rebuild and expand the mosques of the Two Holy Places, Mecca and Medina.

Osama and his brothers were involved in the family business from a very young age. Their father insisted that they take on responsibilities. he kept the porter's bag he used during his poverty-stricken days in his office and he would show it to his boys and tell them that they had an obligation to remember their past and use these memories to improve the lot of their fellow Muslims. As the company's value expanded, a complex structure was created. There were many hundreds of trading and holding companies. Many were joint ventures with the ruling royals. The complete value of the bin laden business empire is impossible to evaluate, but it is sure that Osama had access to many hundreds of millions of dollars and a similar value in plant and equipment.

Muhammad bin Laden died when Osama was just 13 years old. Married, to a Syrian girl, at 17, Osama was educated well in Jeddah and graduated from King Abdul-Aziz University with a degree in public administration. His involvement with the bin Laden companies grew after graduation and he gained valuable experience in the management of major construction projects. This same experience was brought to Sudan.

Osama had a grand vision for the poor land. His family's construction skills had helped to bring Saudi Arabia from a land of camel traders to modern state with good infrastructure for transport, health and education. Oil revenues drove the projects, which Sudan lacked. But bin Laden money would take its place. The civil war against the Christians in southern Sudan was a constant distraction to its Muslim leaders. Osama offered to send some of our fighters to the front line, as their presence would have assisted any military force. This offer was declined and he was asked instead to focus on building a modern Islamic nation, free of ties to America. Osama invested over 150 million dollars of his family money in projects with the Sudanese government. he only ever got a fraction of this money back. A similar amount was invested in property and trading companies in Sudan by his family members and friends.

While Osama concentrated on the business, I organised a network of training camps, mainly clustered around oases in the Libyan Desert, about 100 miles west of Khartoum. A tributary of the Nile's flowed north from here, giving us a good water supply but the land was otherwise deserted. Sudan threw its borders open to Muslims, who could enter the country without passports or visas. Many hundreds would come to escape persecution in Saudi Arabia and other traitor states, where the presence of battle-hardened Mujahideen was viewed with suspicion.

Within weeks of our arrival in Port Sudan, I had my first batch of recruits arrive at our main training camp. There were 20 of them, ranging in age from 17 to 45. They were mainly Sudanese, but also 3 Egyptians and 2 Saudis. They had heart and my task was easy with them. Indeed, I learnt a great deal about desert survival from our Sudanese recruits and our daily weapons training sharpened my handling of the AK. We also trained a number of Somalis in the art of urban guerilla warfare.

After six months in the desert, I was fit and ready for action. Osama called me to Khartoum and I traveled to the city with great expectation. Was our military campaign to finally get started? Would I have a chance to kill Crusaders?

I met Osama at his fortified compound in the centre of Khartoum. He was relaxed and in good humour. Armed guards patrolled in the yard outside as we sat in his bright study and brought each other up to date on events. An young Sudanese servant brought some tea and, as Osama poured me a cup, the window shattered and a bullet hit the wall behind him. We dived to the floor as more bullets followed the first. We heard shouting outside and more gunfire, as the guards replied to the attack. We crawled towards the door and managed to get to the house's inner courtyard. A guard came to us and gave thanks that Osama was unhurt.

'It's a sniper,' he said. 'We spotted him on a rooftop across the street. My men are hunting him down now.'

'The Saudis?' I wondered aloud.

'Most likely,' said Osama.

The other guards returned after a few minutes, dragging a man who had been shot in the chest, with blood pouring from his mouth. He was close to death.

'He used an AK with sniper sights. We found these papers on him,' said a guard.

The papers identified him as member of Saudi secret police. He had details of Osama's house and travel habits in a notebook.

'He has been watching me for some time,' said Osama. He addressed the assassin. 'How many are with you?'

'Please, by the grace of Allah, take me to a hospital,' replied the agent.

As Osama pondered whether to save his life or finish him off, the man died. Osama ordered that his head be sent to the Sauds and instructed that the guard be increased. He gave the young orderly the sorry task of cleaning up the agent's blood. We retired to another room to continue our discussions. My heart still raced at the audacious attempt on Osama's life.

'Can you believe that the Americans are using Yemen, my ancestral homeland, as a staging post for their military?' he asked.

'I did not think our Yemeni brothers would become the stooges of America,' I replied.

'The infidels must learn that not all Yemenis support their puppet leaders. A hotel has been identified to us, one which is used by high-ranking American agents on their way to Somalia. We will target it. You will lead the mission, as I know you are eager to kill the enemy.'

'I am grateful indeed for this opportunity,' I replied, 'and I pray to Allah that I will be successful.'

I was overjoyed that our first blow against the Crusaders was to be instigated by me. I took a ferry from Port Sudan and met with two members of a cell in Aden. They were Afghan veterans whom I had helped to train. They were good men. After a few days surveillance of the hotel, we decided that the bomb would be planted in the dining room and timed to go off at 7.15am, when the Americans normally ate breakfast. The bomb was C4 explosive with a timing unit of the type we each knew how to construct. This would not be a martyrdom mission.

My comrades, being Yemeni, were able to get into the hotel dining room as electrical technicians, using a stolen state electrical company van and uniforms. The bomb was placed behind potted plants and set to explode the next morning.

I left Aden immediately and returned to Sudan. The next morning, I heard the news reports and was disappointed to learn that the American soldiers had left the hotel as I was leaving Yemen. Only two Austrian tourists died. Our first attack had only served as a warning to the Yemenis that supporting the Crusaders came with a price. My two comrades were later captured and tortured to death. For this, I felt bad.

A few months after our attack in Yemen, I traveled through Iran to Kandahar to meet Osama and Mullah Omar. Al-Qaeda teams were working on tactics with Mullah Omar's fighters. The war had settled into a predictable pattern; the tribes fighting against the puppet government had fractured along ethnic lines, with little or no co-ordination between groups of fighters. This gave the government a breathing space, as its dominant tank and helicopter strengths could easily fight off badly planned attacks on Kabul. Mullah Omar's Islamic forces were building in strength however, and had dug in 20 miles south of Kabul.

Osama's tactical discussions centred on finding out as much as possible about the enemy's defences and trying to unite the tribal factions against their common enemy.

'Probably there will be fighting between the tribes once Kabul has fallen,' he told me one evening.

'Is there any way we can unite the tribes?' I asked.

'Only under Islam can we achieve this. Mullah Omar has proven that the banner of Islam is the best fighting standard. If we can assist him in his battles, the power of Islam will be clear to all the Afghan peoples. This is a difficult time. We must support Mullah Omar, but we will soon attack New York, which will alert our American enemy to our strength and dedication. Therefore we must get as many cells in place before then as we possibly can.'

'When will the attack take place?' I asked.

'Early next year, before the third month,' answered Osama.

'And you want our fighters to play a more active role in the Afghan liberation struggle also?'

'Indeed. We will form a brigade of Al-Qaeda soldiers, fighting under Mullah Omar. It will be your responsibility to ensure this comes to pass.'

'I can have 500 good men ready to travel to America by the end of this year. With new training camps ready by the end of the year, I can give you 1,000 more fighters by next spring.'

By the end of 1992, the Russian puppets were defeated and Afghanistan was finally free. Complex and bloody Afghan power plays saw the Northern warlord, Massoud, installed in government. His rival, Hekmatyar, fought him in a civil war that destroyed what was left of the country and killed tens of thousands of civilians. Osama decreed that our forces should play no part in this bitter struggle, beyond providing logistical and financial support to Mullah Omar. Muslim fighting Muslim was what the Crusaders and Jews had relied on for centuries. It would be four years before our Taliban friends took the country for Allah. But all that mattered to us was that we had complete freedom in southern Afghanistan around Kandahar to resource and train for the escalation of the war on the Christians and the Jews. Allah had seen Afghanistan liberated. We tasted victory.

During the rest of the decade, we traveled regularly between Afghanistan and Sudan. We focused on training new recruits and, as the ferocity and number of our conflicts with the Crusaders grew, the stream of highly-trained fighters from our camps flowed forth with impunity.
CHAPTER 6. A SLEEPING GIANT AWAKES

"Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. This lamp is kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth of itself though no fire touched it. Light upon light, Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things."

Surah 24. An-Nur, Light. V 35.

Afghanistan, 1993

On February 26 1993, we struck our first blow against the Americans on their home soil. A cell of some of our bravest fighters, based in New Jersey, struck at the heart of the American military-economic structure. A rented van, filled with 1,500 pounds of urea nitrate/hydrogen explosive, was detonated in the car park of the World Trade Center in New York. I watched the story unfold on CNN with Osama.

'Will the towers fall?' I asked.

'If God is with us, yes,' he replied. 'The building structure was analysed for its weakest points. Our men knew where would be the best location for the bomb. With God's will, there would have been spaces available there.'

As we continued to watch the scenes of panic in Manhattan, with clouds of black smoke pouring from the ground, office workers gasping for breath on the sidewalk and emergency workers in confusion, it became clear that the towers would not fall.

'They shall not fall today,' said Osama, 'but they shall fall. That is my promise to Allah.'

'But it is still a successful day?'

'We shall lose a fine cell in America and security will be improved so that this kind of attack will be more difficult in the future but, yes, showing the Americans that they are vulnerable and proving to our men that we can strike at will in the Crusaders' home, that makes this a day of victory. God is great.'

The daily routine continued. For long months we continued training with no fear of attack. The tribal fighting continued around Kabul, but the south and east of the country were ours. The region where Afghanistan and Pakistan merge is a place that does not welcome foreigners. Pakistan was a province of Afghanistan until the British created an arbitrary border, through the heart of the Pashtun Afghan territory. The long-running conflict between Pakistan and India over Muslim Kashmir is testament to the British lack of respect for religion, history and culture. Pakistan's Islamic beliefs prevented war with Afghanistan and the Pakistanis were instrumental in winning the war against the Russians. Saudi money was used to pay for American weapons and Mujahideen training bases in Pakistan. That was an unholy alliance, but we didn't care; it suited our ambitions. The Pakistanis, through their military intelligence service, ISI, continued to fund and train us. We could have continued to operate in the border area with impunity, but doing so with the approval of the ISI definitely made it easier.

In reality, the border didn't exist for us, this was our land. It is a place of mountains and snow, desert and bullets. We developed a network of training camps throughout the region, with safe houses, arms dumps and escape routes around every camp. We knew the region as though we had been born there and our Afghan brothers were as tough as the landscape. Our long-term planning expected the Americans to take Afghanistan eventually, following the success of one of our Hammer Blows, so we used what time we had to develop many fall-back positions. South of Kandahar, a road led through Spin Buldak to Quetta in Pakistan. This would be our primary escape route. From Jalalabad, it was a relatively short journey across dangerous mountains to Peshawar. It was here, in a place called Tora-Bora, that we placed a strategic retreat base. This region, known to westerners as the North West Frontier, had seen many invaders perish. Its unforgiving passes and ravines would serve us well.

I traveled with Osama to Tora-Bora as the base was being set up. We traveled in a convoy of jeeps, accompanied by 12 of Osama's personal bodyguard, who came to be known as the Black Martyrs. They wore black headgear and were always heavily armed. They were among the most highly-trained of our troops and each had sworn an oath to Allah to give his life in order to protect our leader. We drove north from Kandahar on the Kabul road. At Jalalabad, we turned east and headed towards the Pakistani border. The road was difficult and, with the mountains looming before us, we stopped in a small village. The village was an Al-Qaeda base, with underground arms storage and hidden radio transmission equipment. The base commander welcomed us and advised that, with night falling, we should rest for the night before leaving for Tora-Bora on mules the next morning.

'I request permission to accompany you,' he asked Osama.

'Very well, I wish to question you further about your preparations.'

'Please use my cabin to clean the dust from you, so that we can pray to Allah and have some food. Then we will plan our journey. Your men can use my men's quarters.'

'The Black Martyrs will stay with me.'

We entered the commander's cabin and washed. We then gathered in the central square of the base, where dozens of prayer mats had been arranged, facing south-west towards Mecca. When evening prayers had ended, we ate in the mess hall. The food was plain but nutritious; the commander had slaughtered a fine goat in honour of Osama's presence. Having eaten, we drank tea and discussed Tora-Bora.

'How is the digging coming along?' asked Osama.

'Very well,' replied the commander. 'I have 12 men digging every day. They use drilling equipment, shovels and their bare hands when Allah demands it. The tunnel system is more than 50 percent complete. Your plans are ingenious and they are being followed to the millimeter.'

The tunnels were designed with many right angles, so that fighter would not have to travel very far into a tunnel to be sheltered from even the most powerful enemy bomb or missile. Chambers were located every 50 meters and these would be filled with weapons, water, food and medical supplies. There would be many different tunnel entrances, each passing through the mountains to emerge in Pakistan. Every tunnel would have more than one exit on the Pakistani side, in case the Pakistanis were waiting there. Each tunnel would also be wired with explosive charges, so our fighters could destroy any pursuing enemies.

'When will the tunnels be complete?' asked Osama.

'In approximately six months,' my leader.

'God is great.'

'God is great.'

Next morning, after dawn prayers, we readied the mules with supplies and water and set off. It would take most of the day to reach Tora-Bora. We would camp there that night and return to the base the following day. The journey was hard. We followed smugglers' trails, often no more than the width of a man, hugging the sides of the mountains, with steep drops to the boulder strewn canyon floors below. The wind whipped through the gorges, driving dust into our eyes. It was a treacherous journey and, as part of our training in later years, every Al-Qaeda fighter would travel to Tora-Bora alone. Strategically, it was perfect. No armoured vehicle could follow this route and the canyons were too dangerous for helicopters. We could only be followed on foot. Osama knew in his heart that we would, someday, travel this trail with Americans and traitorous Afghanis at our heels. I tried to commit every step to memory.

In the middle of the afternoon, the trail opened up to a wide plateau. The plateau was surrounded on all sides by towering mountains. At the foot of mountain ahead of us, we could see some tents and men. I wondered if they could see us.

'Welcome, brothers,' called a voice from near us.

One of our fighters, cradling an AK, stepped out from an alcove in the rock ahead of us.

'Thank you for your kind welcome, brother,' replied the base commander. 'I trust we did not catch you unawares.'

'Indeed not,' he replied. 'I have been watching your progress this past hour.'

I turned around to see that our trail was visible from this spot for many hundreds of meters, yet the steep gradient meant that the plateau ahead was only now in our sightline. Tora-Bora was indeed an excellent defensive position.

Air attacks would be the greatest source of worry for defenders here, but even that threat was reduced. The mountains towered on all sides, making low level strafing or bomb runs impossible. Bombs would have to be guided in from high altitude and helicopter performance would be affected by the thin air. A series of trenches was being built as shelter for defenders. Fanning out from the cave entrance, the trenches were deep enough to shelter a man from everything but a direct hit.

Tora-Bora would prove to be an excellent strategic retreat point when the Americans attacked us after September 11, the Day of Vengeance. It was but one of many bases we built in God's country between Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we had time we used it well, did we not?

I returned to Sudan to continue recruiting and training and Osama joined me soon after.

The Americans' stomach for war would be tested in October of 1993, in Somalia. They were found wanting. 18 American soldiers died in Mogadishu when they tried to capture some of Aidid's top aides. The Somalis we had trained in the use of RPGs and ambush tactics more than repaid Osama's investment. The Americans soon withdrew from Somalia.

In light of this good development, Osama decided that we would do the Hajj pilgrimage together, to ask Allah for continued guidance and assistance. The Hajj had always played a key role in Osama's life, with his being from Jeddah, so close to the Holy Place, Mecca. Throughout his childhood, Osama's father had invited Muslim clerics and dignitaries from all over the world to his home for sustenance and talks before and after the Hajj. These enlightened visitors contributed greatly to Osama's strong faith.

He made contact with his family and a small plane flew from Jeddah to an airfield outside Khartoum to pick us up. We flew at low altitude across the Red Sea and landed at a family construction site outside Jeddah. We were driven to one of Osama's cousins houses, where we stayed and prepared for the Hajj. As pilgrims flooded into the area from all over the world, we felt that we could travel with impunity, as long as we stayed vigilant. Most of Osama's family were kept under surveillance by the Saud secret police and all were told to behave normally.

On the day we began our Hajj, we bathed and entered Ihraam, a state of sanctity. We wore seamless, white robes and traveled to the sacred Mosque in Mecca by pilgrim bus. Though we had each done the hajj previously, we could not help but be awed at the presence of so many purified worshippers. We walked seven times around the Ka'bah, glorifying and praising God with each and every step. 'Labbayka Laa Shareeka Laka Labbayk', we said, over and over: God, I have responded to You, and I proclaim that there is no other god besides You. I have responded to You. Then we walked the kilometer between the knolls of Safa and Marwah seven times, with occasional trotting. This completed the Umrah portion of the pilgrimage.

We then went to Mount Ararat to spend a day of worship, meditation, and glorification of God, from dawn to sunset. After sunset, we went to Muzdalifah where the Night Prayer is observed, and we each picked up 21 pebbles for the symbolic stoning of Satan at Mina. From Muzdalifah, we went to Mina to spend three days. On the first morning at Mina, we offered an animal sacrifice to feed the poor and to commemorate God's intervention to save Ismail and Abraham from Satan's trick. Many vendors stood by with stocks of sacrificial chickens and goats. We each used a chicken. The stoning ceremonies symbolize rejection of Satan's polytheism and were done by throwing seven pebbles at each of three stations, while glorifying God. We then returned to Mecca and did another seven revolutions of the Ka'bah to complete our Hajj.

Many pilgrims nullify their Hajj by making a trip to the Prophet's tomb at Medina. This is nothing else but idolatry to a true Muslim, so we returned straight to Jeddah, feeling stronger in our faith. Osama spent a couple of days seeing to business affairs with his brothers, while I was able to slip away to meet my wife. Since I had first left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan, I had seen her only for a few days. I missed her and she missed me, but we both accepted that my doing Allah's will was more important than any other need. We met at a small inn outside Mecca, where she stayed as a Hajj pilgrim. I traveled to her by bus. We met at a small mosque near the inn and returned together, holding hands like young lovers. There was a light in her eyes and, when we reached her room, after I identified myself to the innkeeper as her husband, she told me the glorious news. In a few months, my eldest daughter would be wed to one of Osama's fine sons. We rejoiced together that night. With the scents of desert blooms filling the air and my wife beside me in my bed, I could not sleep. I was indeed overjoyed that our family would become as one with Osama's, but I also felt sorrow that I would never be able to enjoy my grandchildren and a normal life. This was the greatest loss to me from my life in Al-Qaeda.

The next morning, I bade my wife farewell and returned to Osama. She cried many tears, as did I. But there could be no other way.
CHAPTER 7. A WORLD AT WAR

"There was a token for you in two hosts which met: one army fighting in the way of Allah, and another disbelieving, whom they saw as twice their number, clearly, with their very eyes. Thus Allah strengtheneth with his succor whom he will. Lo! herein verily is lesson for those who have eyes."

Surah 3. Ali-Imran, The Family of Imran. V 13.

Sudan, 1994

We returned to Sudan soon after our Hajj and continued training our many volunteers. Meanwhile, our war against the Christians erupted with a vengeance in 1994. Many of our fighters were engaged in full-scale combat in Bosnia. They also fought in Chechnya, continuing our war against the Russians. Battles continued to rage around Kabul and we launched attacks in the Philippines.

We all had a sense that our war was indeed gaining momentum and we expected our enemies to counter attack. The Russians launched a massive invasion of Grozny and our brave brothers cut them to pieces. Rocket-propelled-grenades in city streets will make mincemeat of an armoured force and the Russians fled with their tails between their legs.

The conflict in Bosnia was a bloody affair. The Serbs, who represented Christianity, were like Nazis in their quest for religious superiority in the crumbling Yugoslavia. Death camps, mass rapes and indiscriminate slaughter hardened many Al-Qaeda soldiers and many of our number died there also, while the western powers stood by and watched.

The Saudis also attacked. Osama's citizenship was officially revoked and he would be instantly arrested if seen entering the pathetic fiefdom. He would return, on his own terms. For now, the Sauds simply proved to us all how much of a threat Osama was to their rotten empire. Like America, Saudi Arabia was not as powerful as it appeared. But it, like America also, had immense financial power. Osama's assets were frozen, which angered him.

'This will cost us millions,' he complained.

'Do they know where your wealth is?'

'Much of it, yes. I will lose a few million dollars. But most of my wealth is tied up in family enterprises. That cannot be touched. My brothers will see to that. When my father died, then it became complicated. The real wealth is in trusts, shared with my brothers and sisters. Of course, the Sauds themselves are co-owners of much of our business and that also complicates matters. Have no doubt, my family will always protect my interests and, even if the Sauds take all the money that is rightfully mine, my family will share their wealth with me.'

Though he put on a brave face, I could see that Osama was hurt by these developments. The sadness of that time was soon overshadowed by the joyous event of the wedding between my daughter and Osama's son.

The ceremony was a lavish affair, held in a garden outside Khartoum. My wife came with all my children. Many of Osama's brothers and sisters also made the journey across the Red Sea in private planes. We gathered in a rented function room, which had beautiful gardens outside. The wedding ceremony had two parts, the nikah and the waleema. The nikah, which is the official binding of the couple, took place at a nearby mosque. I and two of my sons represented my daughter and we traveled to the mosque with the groom and his companions. We met with the Imam. He recited a passage from the Qur'an, the groom paid me the dowry and the Imam asked me three times if I accepted the marriage. Then we signed the papers and the two were wed in the eyes of Allah. We returned to the waleema, which to some Muslims is not a necessary part of the ceremony, but we decided that all deserved a little light celebration and enjoyment.

My daughter wore an elaborately decorated skirt with a red blouse. She looked resplendent. Her new husband wore a white suit and a large smile. The Imam spoke at length about the importance of family bonds in this time of trial and persecution of Islam. He also spoke of the immense pride that Muslims had in the Al-Qaeda network and made it clear that we were doing Allah's will. He did not speak of fatwahs or bloodshed, it being a joyous affair, but he repeatedly stated that the Christians and Jews were the enemies of Islam and that their dominant position in the world must be continually challenged until it is destroyed.

After the Imam spoke, both families exchanged gifts in the garden. Palm trees sheltered us from the burning sun and the warm wind carried with is the scent of desert blooms. Osama approached me with a great smile, hugged me and then gave me a new paratrooper's AK47 rifle, which was shorter and lighter than my normal weapon. He gave my wife a beautiful gold necklace and a box of jewels. To my daughter, his new daughter-in-law, he gave a small wooden box. In it was key. He told her that the key would open the door to a house in Jeddah, which was his gift to the couple. I presented Osama with a set of white robes, woven from the finest cotton in Sudan. To his wife I gave shawl of fine lace and to his sons and daughters I gave gifts of carpets, fine pottery and religious paintings. To my daughter and her proud husband, I gave the dowry which I had received earlier. I had no need of money; Allah saw to all my needs and those of my family. Osama would look after us also. Our families were now tied together by blood as well as faith.

The wedding feast was laid out on tables in the hall when we left the garden to escape the midday sun. There were steaming mountains of pilau rice, curries and fruits. To drink, we had many different fruit teas, sodas, cold milk and water. During the meal, my new son-in-law haggled with my daughters for a glass of milk, as is custom. He also begged for the return of his shoes, which they had taken in play earlier in the day. At the end of the feast, copies of the Qur'an were held over the heads of the happy couple while rice was thrown at their feet. They rested overnight at a hotel in Khartoum before setting off to Jeddah the next day. The wedding was a welcome relief from our war, but it was to be but a brief respite.

After the wedding guests departed, Osama prepared a strategy to counter the Sauds' attack. Firstly, he issued a communique which condemned the Saudi decision to revoke his citizenship. he stated that it was not up to them to decide who was a true citizen of the land of the Two Holy Places and that he did not need to call himself 'Saudi'. Rather, he was a Muslim from Arabia. Then, he made contact with scholars and anti-royal activists in the kingdom, forming a group called the Advice and Reform Committee, ARC. ARC published a series of communiques, containing harsh criticism of the Saudi regime and calling for reform in the increasingly westernised, nepotistic kingdom.

The scene was being set for a major confrontation between Al-Qaeda and the Sauds. Little did they know that those early attacks on Osama would lead to the destruction of the House of Saud.

CHAPTER 8. WE WHO ANSWER ALLAH'S CALL

"On the day when the earth will be changed to other than the earth, and the heavens also will be changed and they will come forth unto Allah, the One, the almighty,

"Thou wilt see the guilty on that day linked together in chains,

"Their raiment of pitch, and the Fire covering their faces,

"That Allah may repay each soul what it hath earned. Lo! Allah is swift at reckoning.

"This is a clear message for mankind in order that they may be warned thereby, and that they may know that He is only One God, and that men of understanding may take heed."

Surah 14. Ibrahim, Abraham. V 48-52.

Sudan, 1995

Sudan remained our key base, but we continued to operate extensively in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Our cell structure made the organisation almost impenetrable to security forces. Where our men were captured, it was generally due to coincidence or their making mistakes. Saudi Arabia would remain one of Al-Qaeda's main recruiting grounds and was proud to give birth to so many of the Glorious Martyrs of September 11, 2001.

Saudi Arabia was also the site of our first successful attack on American military forces. I had an important part to play in the attack. A cell in Riyadh had assembled a large car bomb from home-made explosives. They lacked a detonator. My job was to bring detonators from Port Sudan to Riyadh and return before the attack was launched.

I traveled with two of my best men in a chartered fishing boat. It was not a dhow or some other fanciful vessel, but a diesel trawler which I knew to have a reliable engine. It was staffed by Sudanese, who were more used to traveling across the Red Sea with hashish, heroine or khat for the migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. They also trafficked in people and were not averse to piracy. They were being paid handsomely to transport us to Saudi Arabia without being detected. They eyed their three human packages with hidden interest. But they knew us to be Mujahideen, so were wary of confrontation. Each of the three of us carried a canvas backpack. Inside each backpack were two coiled, 5 meter lengths of detonating cord. One cord, when positioned correctly, would detonate a 1,500 kilo bomb. We also carried US dollars, knives and fake identification papers.

Darkness had fallen before we slipped out of port and onto the sea. It was a cool, calm November night and the stars were bright. I stayed on the bridge, listening to the radio which was scanning all official frequencies. I heard some chatter from Saudi coastguards and the normal talk from the dozens of vessels that pass through the Suez Canal each day.

The skipper advised me that we would put in to a small port south of Jeddah with a faulty battery, which had knocked out our radio. The crew would get a replacement battery while we slipped away.

They fished for the entirety of the voyage. If we aroused any suspicion a hold full of fish would help our cover story. These men were professionals.

As we approached our destination, the captain took a screwdriver and delicately pierced the battery casing so that acid began leaking and power to our radio was lost. We landed safely as dawn broke before us. A good omen. There was plenty of activity in the port and we were little noticed. On the quay it was easy for us to slip away, the sound of the skipper haggling loudly with an electrical merchant ringing in my ears with the mighty beat of my excited heart.

We split up; each of us would make his own way to our rendezvous safe house in Riyadh. This was how we delivered vital commodities; even if two of us were intercepted, one would still make it through and allow the mission to be completed on schedule.

I took a taxi to Riyadh, having agreed a fair price with the driver. I told him I was tired and pretended to sleep for the journey. My mind was racing as I scanned the road ahead for checkpoints through slitted eyes. I made it safely and arrived at a nondescript, detached house in one of Riyadh's middle class suburbs. I met the cell and handed over my shipment. One of the men took it away immediately to a disused factory where the bomb was being prepared. I washed, ate breakfast and went to pray in the courtyard. Then I left and aimed straight for Sudan. I had 48 hours until the attack and expected to be back in Khartoum within 24.

I traveled to Jeddah by bus, which was fast and efficient. The city gleamed in the evening sunshine as I made my way to the ferry port. The Saud family had begun investing in Jeddah, perhaps to defuse some of Osama's local support. But for every marina and sculpture in the city, there were still a dozen filthy slums, hidden from easy view.

The ferry left a few minutes after I boarded. I was laden down with bags of gifts. There were toy camels, dates and western goods: chocolate, perfume and whisky. In my cover for the return voyage I was a Sudan-based Saudi merchant, returning to my family in Khartoum after negotiating a deal in Riyadh. For every mission taken by an Al-Qaeda member there is a fully-thought out cover story. This is our first line of defence. It is normally sufficient. After all, who knows what a terrorist looks like? He does not always look like something from a Hollywood movie.

Soon after I arrived back at camp, the news broke of an explosion in Riyadh. Our attack was successful with five Americans killed. The target was a Saudi National Guard training centre. This was a cover for CIA assistance to help keep the regime in place. It was an excellent target and hugely symbolic for all Al-Qaeda men; this was our first attack on the Crusaders in the land of the Two Holy Places. There would be many more such attacks and blood would spill on Saudi soil until it became one land under Allah.

The terrible events in Bosnia-Herzegovina helped to show the Muslim world that military action was the only way to protect and nurture Islam. In Srebrenica, 7,000 Muslim civilians were massacred by the Serbs, while they were in a United Nations 'safe area'. The horror and dismay felt among the Muslims cannot be understated; here were thousands of civilians under the protection of the UN, butchered as UN soldiers stood by. You will believe me when I tell you that all Muslims lost hope with the UN that year. Being but a tool of the Americans, with no desire to protect Muslims, the UN was now our enemy and would yet pay many times over.

But, with our successful attack in Riyadh, the year ended on a good note and, with training camps being built in the Yemeni desert, within striking range of the hated Sauds, we were making real progress towards our long-term goal: the liberation of Saudi Arabia. Underground bases were also under construction in Saudi Arabia's barren, southern Empty Quarter. These bases would be vital staging posts in our seizure of the Land of the Two Holy Places. Our biggest loss was the capture of one of our important men: the planner of the first World Trade Center attack and the religious inspiration for our American cells, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Our Brother, Yousef, was arrested in Pakistan. His location and identity were passed on by Shias, who were in the pay of Pakistani intelligence. They would yet pay for their treachery. Our attempt on the life of Egypt's hypocritical dictator, Mubarak, was unsuccessful. But Mubarak will yet go the way of Sadat. We were in the early stages of planning a major attack in Egypt as the Christians celebrated Christmas.

Most Christians don't know that we Muslims greatly respect their Jesus Christ and, in our own ways, we rejoice at his birth also. But to us, Jesus was simply a Prophet, like Muhammad. A very important man in his own right, but still a mere shadow of Allah. And that is the essence of Salafy Islam 'all for Allah, all else is but a distraction. Organised religion clouds the issues and promotes the distortion of the Word of God. Consider the Catholic Church, who see Jesus Christ and his Virgin Mother with equal importance to God; that Church is weak now. It held Europe in an iron grip for centuries and we have fought it many times. History has an ebb and flow to it. We are returning to a period of dominance. Our enemy church is demoralised by falling church attendances and barbaric, institutionalised child abuse. We are growing stronger. The Purity of Salafy Islam can appeal naturally to all Sunnis and, eventually, unite us with the Shias and all those who still come to Allah's banner. One Pure Church of Islam will unite the world and all for Allah.

I spent many evenings with Osama. We discussed the global nature of our struggle and increased our knowledge of, and contacts with, the Islamic resistance groups that were becoming more active throughout the world. Money began to flow to faraway places such as Indonesia and the Philippines. We sent trainers to help our Muslim brothers and offer advice on targeting options and destabilisation of traitor regimes. Osama's grand vision was beginning to bear fruit.

During those times, I grew to know Osama as a brother. He told me many stories of his early childhood, when his father would bring him into the desert and teach him about Allah and the history of the Muslim nation and how the desert can be a friend to he who understands it and appreciates it. he was brought up with excellent manners and an easy disposition. Rarely have I seen him turn to anger, never more than when the Crusaders returned to the Land of the Two Holy Places, because he was taught that anger makes a man weak and prone to making mistakes. Osama was highly-educated and, when he wasn't studying the Qur'an, always had another book at hand. He is a man who doesn't speak too much, he understands that the skill of commanding a conversation is to remain silent and listen. he has always shown himself to be a simple man with simple tastes. Though our fighters revere him as they would a Prophet, Osama maintains an easy disposition, often cooking for his men and always making himself available to them when they have ideas or worries to share. His charisma radiates out to all who are in his presence and his bravery is legend among our troops.

To say that Islam would not now be as strong as it is without Osama's influence would be an understatement. To him, we owe everything we have gained and, in his memory, the World Muslim Nation will come to know its true strength.
CHAPTER 9. A NEW JIHAD

"And he who believed said: O my people! Follow me. I will show you the way of right conduct."

Surah 40. Al-Mumin, The Believer. V 38.

Afghanistan, 1996

The Sudanese came under tremendous pressure from the Saudis and the Americans for harbouring Osama in early 1996. A delegation of high-ranking Sudanese military went to Osama and begged him to leave the country. He agreed, both to help preserve the Muslim brotherhood's rule in the country and because he feared further Saudi assassination attempts. I traveled with Osama to Afghanistan in the spring of 1996. The Sudanese training camps were functioning smoothly and I had my choice of trusted, experienced men to run them. The Sudanese agreed that the camps could continue to operate, as long as Osama let it be known that he was no longer in the country.

When we made it to our main Kandahar base and I took my old room, which was kept aside for me, Osama asked for me to come to a briefing. I quickly washed and prayed before going to his office.

Osama liked to hold briefings in his office, which was a large, low-ceilinged room. Below ground and with no windows, the light came from angular desk lamps and the glowing computer screens. Ornate rugs depicting Muslim victories in battle adorned the walls and a pleasant smell of burning oils cleared the mind. A few high-ranking brothers were also present. Osama called the briefing to order and opened an image of Bill Clinton, the President of the United States, on one of his computers.

'Who is this man?' he asked.

'Clinton, our enemy,' we replied.

'Correct. And he takes our threat very seriously. We have intercepted high level American communications, which we believe to be genuine. This man, who claims to be a Democrat has instructed the CIA to use any and all means at its disposal to destroy us.'

We expressed surprise that the Americans would aim to kill us by any means after only one attack in New York and one in Riyadh.

'If they did not try to kill us all, they would be fools. They know what our ambition is. They are fools to be realising the grave danger they are in so late. Somebody must have talked. Do we have any missing soldiers?'

'We lost many men in Bosnia. Some could have been captured by NATO,' I suggested.

'I feel they know now what Al-Qaeda means to their ways. Complete destruction. We are now truly at war. They will use torture on us. They will use the most cunning, lethal plans to lure us into the open and then destroy us. We must be on our guard every second of every day. This message is to be passed to every cell in the network: Expect to be attacked. Do it now.'

We left the office and got in contact with the next links in our chains. I contacted my number 2 in Sudan. He followed procedure by increasing security at all camps, putting more spies on the streets of Khartoum and passing the message to all recruits and soldiers in the country.

I returned to Osama and found him sitting at his desk. He looked pale and unwell.

'Is something the matter?' I asked.

'My rotten kidney gives me trouble. I must travel soon to Karachi for treatment,' he answered.

'Do you feel sadness at the death sentence which now hangs over your head?'

'I knew that this struggle would lead to martyrdom almost from the start. There can be no other way for all of us. It is victory or death, nothing else is a choice for us.'

'We each accept this position gratefully,' I replied.

'This is indeed our greatest strength. I pray to Allah that my martyrdom will be glorious and that it will help to bring victory.'

'As I hope it will be.'

I called for Peshawari green tea and, when it was brought by a trusted boy, clanking in with an ornate tray of cups, spoons and pots, it seemed to cheer us both.

'If they will declare war on Al-Qaeda, then Al-Qaeda will declare war on them,' he exclaimed. 'You will stay with me for a few weeks. We will declare war and then we will wage it, on a scale the world has never seen.'

I stayed in Kandahar for 3 months. It was a time of great victory and great joy. The Taliban took control of Kabul and now the whole country was in the control of Sunni Islam. Some of the traitorous warlords, including the devil Mashood, remained in pockets to the far north. But they didn't trouble us. The Taliban, led by the ever-inspiring Mullah Omar, began dismantling all the hurts caused to Afghani society by decades of conflict and foreign influences.

What need have women to work when men can work instead? What need have we of American pop music on the radio? What need have we for alcohol and disgusting clothes fit only for prostitutes? The people of Afghanistan embraced the return to good, Islamic values. Afghanistan would finally know peace.

The declaration of war was a difficult document to draft. There was so much that needed to be said, both as a rallying call to Muslims everywhere and a warning to those that would conspire with the enemy against us.

One evening in June, I was sitting in under a date palm in the garden near Osama's office. I was reading a book by Mullah Omar which listed all the atrocities committed against Muslims by Christians and Jews throughout history. It was indeed shocking and made me very angry.

Osama bounded towards me, a great smile on his face and a look of happiness in his eye.

'We've done it!' he exclaimed.' The attack has been a great success!'

'In Dhahran?'

'In Dhahran. The Royals are bleeding.'

'Allahu-Akbar.'

The truck bomb assault on the US military residence was executed perfectly. 19 Americans soldiers poured their life's blood onto Saudi soil. This was a serious blow to our enemy.

'Remember the experience the Americans had in Beirut? One truck bomb killed hundreds of their best soldiers and they fled Lebanon. This attack won't achieve our goal on its own, but it is an excellent battle in the campaign.'

We watched television news reports. The commentators appeared genuinely shocked by the scale of American casualties. Not since Somalia had they lost so many.

The atmosphere around camp was jubilant for many days after the Dhahran attack. Everything took on a more disciplined air, however. The news that the Americans would use any means at their disposal to destroy us helped to focus all our minds on the fact that we were at war and could be attacked at any minute. This sense of urgency and awareness became second nature from that time on. Events began to accelerate.

In August, the Declaration of War was ready. Osama had a team of assistants working on public relations as we approached the publication date. Osama made video recordings, reading the Declaration and extolling all Muslims to liberate the Two Holy Places by killing Americans. The tape would be distributed to all big tv networks, Muslim and western. The text of the Declaration would be distributed by Email to all our cells. This Declaration would be memorised by every Al-Qaeda member. Its words would give us comfort in the hard days to come. The Declaration would also be distributed on printed flyers and interviews with foreign journalists were already being scheduled.

CHAPTER 10. DEFENSIVE ACTION

"Oh ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is one of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk."

Surah 5. Al-Ma'idah, The Table Spread. V 51.

Afghanistan, 1997

We spent a lot more time on the move after the events of 1996. Osama became paranoid of mobile phones, pagers and electronic equipment that was not our own. He feared that any electronic device could emit a homing signal for an American bomb or missile. All our premises and equipment were scanned daily for bugs or unusual signals. Some of our technicians were as talented as anyone working in missile development in America; we were not a ragtag army of camel traders as some in the west would like to portray us.

Early in the year, we stayed in Khost. One of our important east Afghanistan bases, Khost is high in the mountains, about 170km from Peshawar. Khost had become a major staging point for our opium business. Without state interference since the Taliban controlled the country, opium could be grown and shipped openly. Production increased fourfold in the years after the liberation of Afghanistan and Khost was our main hub.

Word reached us through our members in the Pakistani military that a band of mercenaries was being readied in Pakistan. They were financed by the Saudis, organized by the Americans and their mission was to capture or kill Osama. We were advised that our location in Khost was known to the attackers and they were preparing to launch their assault within days.

'We must leave immediately,' I insisted to Osama.

'Agreed, but first we discover their spies and kill them.'

We called a meeting of our Khost fighters. It was held in a large meeting room at our main opium depot. Bags of opium were stacked to the ceiling in the room and its pungent smell filled the air.

'One of us is a traitor. Perhaps more than one,' announced Osama.

There was a murmur of fear in the room. Perhaps 20 men were gathered there, most of whom were known to me personally. I found it hard to believe that any would betray Osama.

'I give you a last opportunity to make peace with Allah. Who has betrayed me?'

Nobody admitted their treachery so Osama went to the door and called for his electronics expert. The man entered the room, carrying an electronic box, attached by wire to an aerial. He went from man to man, sweeping the aerial the length of their bodies, front, sides and back. After a time, the device emitted a whining signal while a fighter who was not known to me was being scanned. Osama went to him and reached into his satchel, which was where the scanner had led our attention. He took the satchel and emptied its contents onto the ground. One item stood out; it was a cellular phone.

'You know that these devices are not permitted among us, only encrypted satellite phones. Is it you who has betrayed me? Is it you who will let the American mercenaries home in on your positioning signal?'

'I am sorry, please forgive me,' stammered the man, who was a Pakistani.

'You know that we cannot forgive spies or traitors,' answered Osama. 'Now tell me who is working with you.'

The man didn't answer, but his gaze strayed from the floor to another Pakistani fighter on the other side of the room. I saw this and went to the man. I beckoned the scanning expert to him. The scanner alerted us to the man's watch.

The second man collapsed to the ground in fear. He was truly guilty. Osama addressed him, with a pistol held to the traitor's head.

'Are there any more traitors in Khost?'

'No, Lord. It is only us two who have betrayed you.'

'Very well. I must leave now.'

He gestured to me and to our local commander to come outside. The other men grabbed the traitors and began beating them and cursing their treachery.

'Do not kill them yet,' commanded Osama. 'We must discover who their masters are, so that this cannot happen again.'

Outside, Osama told me that we must leave Khost immediately. He told the commander that the two men should be tortured until they gave up the names and locations of their American and Pakistani connections. Then they should be killed and left out for the vultures in the desert. Then the commander was to conceal the opium in a cave outside the city and place the traitors' tracking devices on a mule to be released in the mountains. He was also to plan the assassination of the enemy officials given up by the traitors. Having witnessed the anger of our comrades, he would have no trouble finding volunteers to carry out the killings.

Three days after we reached Kandahar, a force of almost 1,000 mercenaries was seen in the mountains near Khost. They traveled in heavily-armed jeeps and were supported by helicopters. We don't know if they found our mule.

In Kandahar, Osama made contact with our Egyptian commander, Dr al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri was a surgeon and Osama's personal physician. He was also a ruthless man who had a great faith. He inspired us to continue fighting in Allah's name, even when things looked bleak for us. He was active in Egypt and Sudan and was ready to launch an attack on Egypt's tourist industry, the country's largest source of foreign capital, earning even more than the Americans gave in handouts.

Osama told me the attack would occur within days. When it happened, it took the world by surprise and it was a long time before it was connected to Al-Qaeda. 30 fighters launched coordinated strikes on the tourist site of Luxor, home to many of Egypt's greatest antiquities. The fighters attacked, first killing the soldiers who protected the site, then the tourists. In a day of great bloodshed and success, 67 foreigners died. Egypt's tourist economy has not recovered to this day.
CHAPTER 11. THE SECOND FATWA

"Those who believe and do right: Joy is for them, and bliss their journey's end."

Surah 13. Ar-Rad, The Thunder. V 29.

Bangladesh, 1998

When India was partitioned in 1947, the British left behind a great mess. India's Hindus and Muslims could not co-exist, so they were cut up into new states. India in the centre, mainly Hindu, Pakistan to the west, mainly Muslim and Bangladesh to the east, again mainly Muslim. In fact, Bangladesh was originally named East Pakistan. But the British couldn't do it right, so thousands were butchered in race riots when the borders on paper did not reflect reality on the ground. What chance could a Muslim family have when surrounded by enemies in a foreign state? The Kashmir question was also left by the British as a festering sore; an Islamic province that should have belonged to Pakistan was left disputed. Many of us fought with the Kashmiri guerrillas, but the Kashmir question would only be resolved as part of a greater resolution in Pakistan.

Bangladesh was originally a province of Pakistan, but gained independence in 1971 in a complicated war which involved India and Pakistan. The popularly elected ruler, Sheikh Mujib, was assassinated by pro-Pakistan military in 1975. The Americans wanted Bangladesh to stay part of Pakistan and were involved in the assassination and support for military dictators that followed. It is in America's interest to keep its rivals fighting amongst themselves. We saw Bangladesh as a fertile recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda and Osama planned to release an important statement with our allies there.

Osama was to travel to Bangladesh in February and I asked to accompany him. He agreed and we flew, with two of Osama's protection unit, on one of the weekly flights from Islamabad in Pakistan to Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh. The flight was very popular as it helped the Muslims on either side of India to remain in touch. Many Bangladeshis worked in Pakistan because, even with Pakistan rarely more than a few paces from chaos, Bangladesh was in a worse condition. Thousands of Bangladeshi families depended on this source of revenue and the country itself depended on foreign aid for 90 percent of its budget. It truly was a mess. Many years of military rule had given way to equally inefficient political parties. Rich resources such as natural gas were unexploited and natural disasters such as cyclones that nowhere else on earth has witnessed struck the people with grim regularity. Bangladesh was ripe for Islamic resurgence and, given its location, provided a stepping stone for Al-Qaeda to the Far East. Indonesia, let us not forget, has more Muslims than any nation on the planet. Stirring Indonesia, the Philippines and, eventually, China was of critical importance to our plans.

Disembarking from the plane on the runway apron, I was overpowered by a strong smell of rot. It was Bangladesh's fertility that I could smell. The country is a water state; a delta at the confluence of two great rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. When they unite, they become the mighty River Padma, which brings its sweet stink to Dhaka; all the dead things, the human filth, the waste of half a subcontinent. Yet this curse was also the people's blessing. Such powerfully fertile silt as was landed on their shores in vast quantities every day allowed for three rice crops a year and the growth of many bountiful crops. But the land is subject to flooding at any time. Two thirds of the country is flooded during the monsoon and the ever-changing channels that race inexorably to the Bay of Bengal are a daily hazard. A family could struggle for weeks to plant their crops only to see it washed away in minutes by a new channel or a brief flood. And it was fertile ground for us.

We took a taxi to central Dhaka where we would meet with leaders from Al-Jihad and Jamaat ul Ulema e Pakistan, the Islamic groups that we had funded since 1990. We would unite, with our Egyptian groups, in a joint declaration against our enemy. We had instructions to go to a café near the port. There was a man waiting for us and he gave Osama a piece of paper. Osama read it and asked the driver to take us to an address in the centre of the town.

It was a guesthouse which we had paid for after the model of our first in Peshawar. The World Islamic Front was born. The Fatwa was issued on February 20, 1998 and appeared in all the world's media in the following weeks. It read:

Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.

The Arabian Peninsula has never, since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas, been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbours, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighbouring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbours. Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighbouring Arab state, and their endeavour to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al'Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al-Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: "As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life." On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?; women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from the one who will help!'"

We, with God's help, call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty God said: "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

Almighty God also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

Almighty God also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

The Fatwa achieved its purpose. The Muslim world was uniting against its common enemy. Those Muslims who didn't believe unity was possible were impressed that Muslims from across Africa and Asia were united in Jihad.

A further message was delivered on August 7, when we attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Americans knew to expect a major attack, we had given plenty of warning with our Fatwa, but they did not expect the targets to be their colonial outposts in Africa.

A car bomb exploded at the rear entrance to the American embassy in Nairobi. It caused a five-story building to collapse and killed over 200, including a dozen Americans. Another car bomb exploded at the front of the embassy in Dar-es-Salaam, killing eleven, unfortunately none were American.

Two weeks later, the Americans retaliated. Cruise missiles came in the night to Afghanistan. Three of our training camps near Khost were destroyed. Fortunately, the camps were lightly staffed and we lost just a dozen men and small amounts of equipment. The American missiles also struck a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The enemy feared that we were manufacturing chemical weapons there. In reality, it was a state-owned plant making infant food. This, combined with the poor choice of targets in Afghanistan gave us great confidence; the Americans, with all their satellites and missiles, could not identify our key bases.

CHAPTER 12. PLOTS WITHIN PLOTS

"And the guilty behold the Fire and know they are about to fall therein, and they find no way of escape thence."

Surah 18. Al-Kahf, The Cave. V 53.

Afghanistan, 1999

It was a cold spring morning. Crystal clear, blue skies met us as we stood at ease in the main square of our main base in Kandahar. The low sun shone in our eyes and Osama came from the sun, suddenly, like a mystical being, which I believe he had become. To our eyes, anyway. The increased pace of our military activity and the attacks from our enemies had not made him any less cool and relaxed. Indeed, as our Jihad gained momentum, Osama seemed to become more at peace with himself. He knew that he was following the path ordained for him by Allah and this lent him an air of invincibility. His stature among our fighters was growing larger by the day. Truly, one must have a fearless leader if one is to engage in combat with the mightiest power on earth.

'It is a good morning,' he said in greeting.

'A gift from Allah,' we replied.

We prayed for a short while and Osama then asked us to walk to one of the special projects bunkers. The bunker was guarded by four heavily-armed soldiers of Allah in two sand-bagged emplacements. I knew it to be the bunker for nuclear bomb experiments and felt that progress must have been made. I could not believe how much work had indeed been done. Three minutes later, I was shown a functioning nuclear bomb. The enormity of what I and my comrades witnessed did not sink in for many days, but the immediate impact was as if it had actually detonated when I looked at it. Here was the power to destroy Washington or New York completely. In a second. And this power was in our hands.

The leading scientist on the project made a short presentation about the technical functioning of the device and its expected performance. It would have a yield of approximately one megaton, the equivalent destructive power of one million tonnes of explosives. This was enough power to wipe out any city, if the bomb was positioned well. Then a soldier went through the detonation process 'every one of us would have to know how to detonate this bomb 'it was that important to us. Only our finest soldiers and deepest agents would be entrusted with this weapon, but every member of Al-Qaeda must be in a position to help the mission if required. Its detection by the enemy before detonation could bring nuclear fire down on Muslim heads without any gain. I had been developing training plans for months.

We stood in awe, filling the stuffy, windowless room that was already crammed with technical equipment, computers and boxes.

'What is required now is a plan of attack, one that will bring success,' said Osama.

'What is the target?' asked one of the awestruck men.

'Washington DC is my preferred choice, but I am open to persuasion if another target can bring with it greater chances of success. I would like you all to take some time to let this development sink in. We now have the weaponry to take this war to its conclusion. We will meet at the training lab in two hours when we will discuss targeting options for approval by a council of Al-Qaeda leaders.'

This would be my opportunity to propose the targeting options that my logistics team had developed over the previous year. At the appointed time, we gathered in one of my classrooms. Osama stood at the big blackboard at the front of the class. He picked up a stick of chalk and wrote the word "Victory" on the board.

'One device is ready,' he began. 'We will have one per year if our programme isn't discovered. Within five years, I want the first bomb detonated. The question is where. The second question is how. As to where, I believe that the complete destruction of Washington DC while the politicians and president are at work would precipitate the unravelling of American society more than any other event. The Americans say they cherish their freedoms, but would be like blindfolded mice in a maze without the bureaucrats and uniformed thugs to keep them in line. They think they have democracy, when a few grey men and shadowy banks decide who shall govern, who shall be courted by the state and who shall be consigned to the margins. If the American federal control system was destroyed, America would quickly degenerate into chaos. There would be no money for Israel. There would be no military adventures in Afghanistan or Iraq. There would be no taste for further attack. We would defeat them. Retaliation, in the form of nuclear attack would be expected if we strike America. We postulate that Sudan or Afghanistan would be targeted if this were to pass. Most likely this base would be attacked and destroyed.'

'It would be a great pity to lose this base,' I said.

'True, but we may need to evacuate long before our nuclear attack if any of our other hammer blow plans are successful in the meantime. It will be as it will be. The cycle of time will pass and we will return.'

'Would an attack on another American city not bring the same chaos?' asked one of our Pakistani brothers.

'Chaos, certainly, but I don't know if it would be enough to destabilise the regime except at local level.'

'The destruction of Manhattan would wipe out the American stock exchanges and a lot of Jews,' proposed a Saudi.

'Yes, but the exchange is virtual, existing on computer networks, Wall Street is simply where most traders come together. It is very symbolic, however. The collapse of the American and global economies are our goals and erasing New York City from the face of the earth would certainly help.'

'Then Los Angeles might be a better target,' ventured a fighter from Sudan. 'California is the wealthiest state in America and Los Angeles has more of the rich than anywhere in America. There is also Hollywood and television, the Americans' greatest escape from their mundane lives. The city is also on a fault, the San Andreas fault. Could we plant our bomb there, start an earthquake and watch the west coast slide into the sea?'

'An interesting idea,' answered Osama, and one we have considered before.

'The American computer industry is also based in that region, Silicon Valley. Damaging that would affect their defence industry,' ventured an Afghan commander.

The discussion moved towards military targets. The Pentagon was in Washington but probably outside the blast radius of a bomb planted near the White House. Other defence targets we discussed included the Boeing aircraft factory in Seattle, CIA headquarters, FBI headquarters and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We then went to the model rooms, where I had been overseeing a new project designed to familiarise all our soldiers with the layout of our enemy's key cities.

In the first room was a model of Washington DC. The model measured about 10 meters square. It was made from sand, bound with a light glue and each key building in the city was represented to scale. It gave the viewer the impression of being a giant, standing on the edge of the city as you choose your quarry. The effect was completed by enormous colour photographs of the city that filled the walls. Strong lights hung from the ceiling.

'One meter equals one mile,' I explained. 'As you can see, the key targets are marked with name tags, but you will recognise the white House, the Pentagon and so on. Government buildings such as the State Department and the Department of Finance are not as obvious as some others. It is my belief, created by overseeing the research and construction of this model, that the area called the Federal Triangle, between the Capitol Building and the White House would be our ideal target.'

'Why do you believe this?' Asked Osama.

'The White House and the Capitol are the symbols of America's state. Destroying them would be as effective as killing their inhabitants. Which we would hope to achieve also. But the heart of the state is in the buildings between them. These are the bureaucrats who pump out the orders that control the society. Their loss in one stroke would be an incalculable blow to the Americans. Even the Supreme Court is within range. We could paralyse the legal system; law and order would break down, with nobody capable of leading the country to recovery. The National Archive is also here. At a stroke, we would erase their history. Two large museums are in our ideal target zone; the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Art. There was a Hollywood film which used Persian artifacts to transport a nuclear device into America. I wonder if this could be done in reality? A nuclear bomb in this area would also destroy four of Washington's five subway lines.'

The discussion carried on, examining public transport, security and surrounding road systems. It was generally agreed that the Federal Triangle would be the best target in Washington. We moved on to New York.

The room was in use by a group of students and their field craft teacher. The teacher excused his group and we were able to begin our discussion. I was particularly proud of the New York model; its skyscrapers rose as straight as arrows from its accurate city canyons. The bridges and tunnels connecting Manhattan with its neighbours were also well represented.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center stood proudly on lower Manhattan, symbolising for us all the twin pillars of capitalism: greed and exploitation. Looking towards midtown, we saw the United Nations building which was truly a prime target. The model also showed us how vulnerable the city was to attacks on its transport infrastructure. Without all its tunnels and bridges functioning, the city would be paralysed. Small bombs could do that job.

It was proposed that the World Trade Center would be our prime target, as a nuclear bomb there would also destroy Wall Street. The United Nations building would be the next best target, particularly if American leaders are present for an important debate.

We then looked at a model of Los Angeles. The sprawl of the city made it difficult to work to the same scale as Washington and New York. Ventura Boulevard was the key feature, cutting across the city from east to west. Burbank, where the movie studios are currently based, Downtown, which is primarily a financial centre, and the vast slum areas were pointed out. Silicon Valley was miles away and the San Andreas fault was too far away from everything for a bomb there to be anything other than a shot in the dark. The distances between targets of note made Los Angeles a poor choice for our first nuclear bomb.

Models were under construction in other rooms in this part of the base. London, Riyadh, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, Berlin and Rome. All would have their sand model in Afghanistan. If only the people of these cities knew what lengths we would go to to learn about them. Perhaps they should have had difficulty sleeping?

We had a nuclear bomb. I was overjoyed. It had taken us ten years to get to this stage in the Jihad. It would, no doubt, be a few more years before we could detonate the bomb successfully at its target. But we had it. The bomb would remain stable and functional for ten years. After that time, its plutonium would need to be renewed. Ten years would be plenty of time. The thoughts of nuclear explosions destroying our enemies, as would a blast of fire from Allah, made me dizzy with excitement. Osama invited us back to his office for a final decision.

We gathered around his map table, which was covered with a large map of Washington DC. A paper disc had been cut out, of approximately the blast radius of our bomb. Osama placed the disc on the Federal Triangle.

'This disc represents complete and utter destruction. Massive destruction and loss of life will occur out to three or four times this radius. Transport and electrical networks for the entire city will be wiped out and the projected death toll is 500,000 crusaders.'

'Praise be to Allah,' I exclaimed, still unable to contain my joy.

'Are we agreed that this is our designated target?'

Everyone agreed that success in this mission would deal our enemy a crippling blow, one from which he may be unable to recover. It was agreed that a special project team would be created, with the power to call on any or all Al-Qaeda resources. I was involved in the training and intelligence gathering and dispatched scouts to Washington to bring back as much information as possible on retail and commercial premises in the target area; these would be easier to penetrate than the government buildings and also offered us the best chance of cover.

Within days, I had two men working in different restaurants in the target area. They would blend in, become known to their regular customers and explore. More men were ready to apply for jobs in the museums.

Other members of the team worked on travel options, bomb transportation ideas and time preferences. We would meet again in one month. As the meeting closed, Osama warned us to extreme secrecy.

'The enemy knows that we want nuclear weapons. They know that we will use them in their homeland. However, their knowing what we want to do and knowing what we can do are very different. If they know that we have a weapon, they can make it very difficult for us to achieve target positioning. We must ensure that knowledge of our weapon does not leave this group. The soldiers who will be chosen to deliver it will not know about the weapon until the mission begins. I must stress that if the Americans knew about our ability to manufacture nuclear weapons here, they would invade in a matter of days. We need more time, please remember this.'
CHAPTER 13. THE MARTYR'S CALLING

"For those who answered Allah's call is bliss; and for those who answered not His call, if they had all that is in the earth, and therewith the like thereof, they would proffer it as ransom. Such will have a woeful reckoning, and their habitation will be Hell, a dire abode."

Surah 13. Ar-Rad, The Thunder. V 18.

Afghanistan, 2000

During 2000, our planning, training and recruiting increased apace. I had over 1,500 men through my training camps across Afghanistan that year. Our camps in Sudan and Yemen added to this army, giving us another thousand trained fighters, ready to become martyrs for Allah and our great struggle against the Crusades and the Jews.

We endured incredible hardships with great ease. The Qur'an kept our faith alive, nay burning. It told us many times over that all the riches of the earth are as nothing when compared to Allah's bounty. This life is but an illusion. We are here to make a simple choice; to serve Allah or not to serve Allah. We had each chosen to serve Allah and pain or even death were but points on our journey to Allah and the joyous bounty he lavishes on all his servants. Martyrdom, dying for Allah and Jihad, held great attraction to many of our poor recruits as it guaranteed admission to heaven for their families also. None of us feared death.

The Americans were actively trying to locate our key bases. Satellites were focused on the Afghan plains and mountains and we used our ingenuity to conceal our activities. Weapons and explosives training would be conducted on ranges away from the main bases in case that explosions could be detected from above. The Americans also used unguided spy planes, flown from Pakistan. One was shot down in the summer and was taken to Khost. At around the same time, two spies were intercepted coming over the mountains from Pakistan. A Pakistani tribal chief notified us that they were passing through his area. Little did they know it, but the spies were dead men before they even set foot in Afghanistan. They were brought to our base near Khost and I traveled from Kandahar to interrogate them and to examine the enemy spy plane.

The journey to Khost was long and difficult, but at least I traveled by jeep. There were two jeeps in our convoy. I was accompanied by two of my assistants, who would assist in interrogating the spies. I also had an electronics warfare technician, who would assess the enemy aircraft and assess our strategy for electronic countermeasures against it. We had three fighters, for protection, though each of us was fully-armed. All had orders to watch the skies at all times.

After a day on the road, we stopped at a village for rest. We were in Taliban-controlled territory and felt safe as we cleaned, prayed and ate. After dinner, my assistants came to me and asked for an opportunity to talk. We took a walk around the village, always watching the skies.

They told me that they felt uneasy about interrogating the spies who awaited us in Khost. I explained that our war was as much about information as it was about guns and bombs.

'If the enemy has no information on us, he can do nothing. He, on the other hand, can never hide from us. The biggest threat to Osama, to you and to all our brothers is the spy who betrays us to our enemy for American dollars. The spy will likely be a fellow Muslim. This must not prevent you from using all means to get the truth. A traitor Muslim deserves no kindness from us. Allah will see he is rewarded on Judgment Day. We must regard the traitor as a ticking bomb. We must discover what he knows about us, who his handlers are, what our enemy's tactics are and his last communication with his handlers. All these things are vital for us to know. They may save the lives of good men.'

'But is it still acceptable to use torture?' asked one of the young men.

'It is not alone acceptable, it is essential,' I replied angrily. I wondered if this man had the strength to do his job properly.

'Pardon my foolishness,' he replied in embarrassment.

'Torture is well-practiced by our enemies,' I continued. 'They think nothing of bleeding a man to death if they think they will find our leader. To the American military, torture has always been a tool that is used whenever necessary. Their stooges in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia use torture as you and I would use the Qur'an. The difference between us and the Americans is that they claim to be better than us. They are such evil hypocrites.'

Our intelligence reports had contained many instances of our men being tortured most painfully in recent years. The Saudis were the worst, but the CIA had interrogated our men as well. They were brutes and every report I read hardened my heart against spies and traitors.

Next day, I travelled with our electronics technician, the man who could barely contain himself with the anticipation of examining a Predator. The more he told me about it, the more I feared it. A team of 55 technicians operated the system, which included four aircraft per unit, a ground control station and a satellite base station. The aircraft was controlled directly from the base station when within its line of sight. When beyond it, the satellite link took over. A Predator has a range of 650 kilometers, a ceiling of over seven kilometers and a cruise speed of over 200 kilometers per hour. It has a nose camera for use by the remote pilot, a variable aperture TV camera, a variable aperture infra red camera for night surveillance and a synthetic aperture radar for looking through smoke and dust. Besides its potential ability to find our bases, we most feared the development of a multispectral targeting system, which was undergoing tests. The Predator would eventually carry two Hellfire AGM 114 air to ground missiles, which could be launched and guided to their target by the pilot 650 kilometers away from the theatre of operations. It was vital that we found a defence against it.

We reached Khost two days later. We stayed at our base outside the town, in the foothills of the mountains leading to the Pakistani border. The base was spread over two acres and consisted of eight large huts, guard towers, a munitions depot, a control office with scrambled communications facilities and a fence and minefield around the perimeter. Recruits were busy training on assault courses at the far end of the camp as we entered. Training activities at this base were light, as it had more strategic importance for us, being so near the Pakistani border.

We washed, prayed and ate. Then I asked the camp commander to take my men to begin interrogating the spies. I was eager to examine the enemy aircraft and went straight to the hangar where it was kept. My technician was excited at the prospect of examining the aircraft and we were to be accompanied by a camp technician. The guards let us through the entrance and we found the craft, certainly it was much bigger than I had expected.

The Predator was mostly intact, as its chute had deployed when the engine was shot. Some wing parts had broken on impact with the ground and these were on the table beside the main fuselage. It was more than eight meters long, with a wingspan of 15 meters and looked like a large model aircraft. Its propeller was at the rear and its large nose contained the cameras and radar. Painted in military camouflage, it looked a formidable craft.

My technician got to work immediately. He opened his toolkit and swept the Predator for signals.

'It is quiet,' he said.

'Good, but check it regularly as it may have a delayed reaction transponder for the enemy to follow,' I ordered.

'Can I begin to disassemble it?' asked the technician.

'Yes, and remove the wings for transportation,' I replied, 'but keep notes of each step you take. We will take it back to Kandahar as soon as our business here is done. Are you sure it contains no bomb?'

'I cannot be sure yet, but my sniffer has picked up no traces of explosives.'

He removed the side panels of the craft, assisted by the camp technician. They spent much time examining the guidance and control systems of the craft, as jamming these systems would be our best defence against the Predator, particularly at night. It used two different types of data link to communicate with the base station and satellite. Interrupting the data flow was our best hope. I was greatly concerned about this beast and feared a time when the skies over Afghanistan would be crowded with them. I left the technicians to their work and went to see the spies.

The base commander waited outside the hut where I had been and brought me to a heavily-defended hut across the square.

'The men were captured coming over the mountains, using a trail which is frequented by our fighters,' he said.

'That is not good. Who else uses the trail?' I asked.

'Some smugglers and bandits, but we were not aware of enemy activity until now.'

'You must order your men to avoid that trail for now and send out an Email with this development,' I ordered. 'So what of the men?'

'They are both Pakistani and in separate cells. They claim to come from Quetta. One has admitted being a spy, paid by the Pakistanis to find out about our bases and leaders. The older one maintains his cover story, that they are bandits looking to rob an opium train. They were both armed with AKs and carried satellite phones.'

'So they meant to call in an attack if they found us?' I wondered.

'That is my belief,' answered the commander.

'Could they be Pakistani intelligence?'

'Possibly the older one. The other broke too easily.'

'Let's start with the younger one.'

We entered the hut and walked along a dark corridor until we came to a door with an armed guard outside. We entered the room to find the spy tied to a chair, blood streaming from his nose and ears. He was crying for mercy. My assistant was using scissors to cut the webs at the base of the spy's ears. He had a box of salt on his table, as well as pliers, tweezers, needles and a box of matches.

'Continue your interrogation,' I commanded.

'Who paid you to come to Afghanistan, you traitor?'

'I don't know,' he replied. 'My companion dealt with that. I came just for the money.'

'Does he work for Pakistani intelligence?'

'I don't know, he told me nothing. I just did as I was told.'

Salt was rubbed in his wounds, but he stuck to his story. He was either telling the truth or very well-trained. We went to see the other spy.

His head was covered with a cloth bag, while my assistant walked around him, beating his head and face every few seconds with a sock full of sand. The spy flinched when hit, never knowing where the next blow would come from.

'Remove the bag,' I ordered.

The spy's face was badly bruised and bleeding, but he stuck to his story. He pleaded with me for his life and I ordered the torture to become more decisive. I left the room with the commander. Screams of pain echoed after us.

'I would like to contact someone in Pakistani intelligence,' I said as we walked towards the communications office.

Pakistani intelligence was occasionally of use to Al-Qaeda. We were all Sunni brothers, after all. Pakistan had no great love of America and, when all is said and done, the Pakistani economy relies greatly on the trade in opium and hashish. Pakistan had sought to exert its influence over Afghanistan for many years and its support of the Taliban gave it greater leverage in the area than ever before. There were high-ranking officers in the Pakistani military and intelligence services who were members of Al-Qaeda, but there were others in the pay of the Americans who would prefer to see us destroyed.

I used a scrambled telephone line to call a comrade who worked in the middle ranks of the Peshawar office of Pakistani intelligence. I asked him if his organization was involved in the dispatch of two spies to Khost in recent days. He said he would check and I should call him back in an hour.

When I called back, he told me that both men were intelligence agents from a roaming unit and they had been sent to find the downed Predator spy plane and destroy it. Neither of the men had ties to, or sympathies toward, Al-Qaeda, so he suggested the best course of action would be to kill them.

I told the base commander what I had learned and he found the story credible, as did I.

'Can you deal with them?' I asked.

'They will be feeding the vultures by sundown,' he replied.

'Good. We will take the Predator back to Kandahar, in case a force is sent to find the spies. You will increase security and patrols?'

'Of course. When will you leave us?'

'Immediately.'

We arranged for a flatbed truck and driver to accompany us back to Kandahar with the spy plane. My young torturers were not happy at having to leave their work unfinished, but the technician was amazed at the amount of technology packed into the Predator and looked forward to spending many weeks discovering its secrets.

Back in Kandahar, the old routine continued. I developed new training modules to cover our three most important routine modes of attack. The vehicle bomb, the assassination and the ambush were attacks that could be carried out by any Al-Qaeda fighter and their importance could not be understated. The new training modules were designed to pack all the required knowledge into self-contained bundles for wider dissemination to non-members, refresher courses and pre-attack preparation.

The vehicle bomb was our most important means of attack. It had been used effectively in America, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Kenya, Chechnya, Algeria, Bosnia and every other theatre of war. Its usefulness would become more important in the following years. The training consisted of identifying the target, identifying the most suitable vehicle for attack, building the bomb and executing the attack. When the module was ready, I took classes myself from among the recruits in camp at the time. While they had covered my material previously, in basic training, the fact that it was now condensed into a blueprint for fast action appealed to them. One of my classes included three Yemenis, who would be the nucleus of a new cell once they returned home. Based in the south of Yemen, near Aden, they would become martyrs almost as soon as they left Afghanistan.

On October 12, 2000, they readied their vehicle for attack. It was a small, fast speedboat, laden with the explosives that I taught them how to make. They entered Aden harbour, where their target awaited them. The USS Cole, one of America's most modern and sophisticated battleships lay at anchor, unaware that vehicle bombs don't always have wheels. Two of those brave Yemenis were in the attack vehicle and they successfully struck the enemy ship and detonated their bomb. 13 Americans died, many more were injured and the ship suffered major damage. I wept with pride when I heard news of the attack. It was a mighty blow, which showed that the most powerful military force on earth has little defence against intelligent, well-motivated fighters. There was much celebration in camp that night and there was great enthusiasm shown for my classes in the following weeks.

2001 would further show the power and flexibility of the vehicle bomb to all the world. Instead of cars or boats, we would use commercial aircraft and instead of explosives, we would use jet fuel.

2000 ended on a sour note, with Bush the Younger stealing the American Presidential election. It amazed us how, with family connivance, he could rob the most powerful position in the world, but it did not surprise us. Because of his background and connections, we expected a greater military onslaught against us, but it didn't matter to us who was in the White House. Enemy was enemy. Different shades and hues of enemy didn't count. Bush the Elder had forced Al-Qaeda to confront western imperialism. He decided that Saddam Hussein's survival after Gulf War One would create a greater demand for US munitions in the Gulf states. That shortsighted business decision was one of history's greatest miscalculations. Bush the Younger would pay for the father's mistakes. He would soon have his baptism of fire.
CHAPTER 14. THE DAY OF VENGEANCE

"And when We exacted a covenant from the prophets, and from thee, O Muhammad, and from Noah and Abraham and Moses and Jesus son of Mary. We took from them a solemn covenant;

"That He may ask the loyal of their loyalty. And He hath prepared a painful doom for the unfaithful.

"O ye who believe! Remember Allah's favour unto you when there came against you hosts, and We sent against them a great wind and hosts ye could not see. And Allah is ever Seer of what ye do."

Surah 33. Al-Ahzab, The Clans. V 7-9.

Afghanistan, 2001

The year began quietly, with training continuing daily. An average of 100 fighters graduated from our Afghan bases each month. They were dispersed to our battlefields around the world or put into sleeping cells in traitor Muslim countries or in the lands of our crusader enemies. A major development was the report on the Predator spy plane. The technician who had traveled with me to Khost spent months examining the aircraft with a team of electronics and communications experts. Their submission, pending further research, was that it would be possible to jam the plane's communications system, but only when in contact with its base station. The satellite data link was very highly coded. With some investment in modern Russian or Chinese jamming equipment and complex modifications, we could have a reliable jammer at each of our key bases within the year. The deployment strategy would be to force the Predator to crash before the satellite data link took over. This would at least give us some defence and the technicians were ordered to keep working on the satellite data link.

The report also advised that the Predator needs a substantial runway from which to operate, of at least 1,500 meters. This knowledge, combined with the known range of the craft, gave us a target area to find the launch site. Our spies in western Pakistan were given the task of finding the base as a high priority. The Predator's Achilles heel was that it could not be satellite-controlled during take-off and landing. That could be our opportunity for attack with our jammer.

We also made substantial progress with chemical and biological weapons. Our base near Jalalabad had been our main research facility since 1997 and the work there had blossomed into deployable weapons. Our scientists had focused their efforts on anthrax, a bacterial organism with deadly infectiousness and ricin, the poison from the fruits of the castor-oil plant. Anthrax spores had been sourced secretly from Iraq after the First Gulf War and we were now capable of growing the organisms ourselves. Several doses of anthrax were successfully dispatched to two American cells and one in Britain at this time, while production continued. A large plantation of castor-oil plants gave our scientists sufficient raw material to make large quantities of ricin. They had also developed a training module and manual detailing the production of ricin with readily available raw materials and equipment. This news delighted me and the use of these biological weapons became an inherent part of our basic training. Biological weapons would yet allow us to deliver a hammer blow against our enemies.

In the early summer of 2001, Osama called a meeting of the Al-Qaeda commanders in Afghanistan. 20 men gathered in a cave south of Kandahar. All were ordered to switch off all phones, computers and electronic equipment before leaving for the meeting place.

I drove to the cave in a jeep with two comrades. Osama had left for the cave the previous day, wanting time to himself. The cave was guarded by 12 fighters, who asked us to wait in a shaded area outside until all had arrived safely. An open tent had been erected and inside were bottles of water and fruit. The heat of the day made this a welcome oasis and I sat with my comrades in great expectation of what was about to occur.

After an hour, Osama emerged from the cave. His eyes and smile showed that he had been in rapturous prayer to Allah. He came to us and ate and drank ravenously; clearly he hadn't had any food or drink in 24 hours. After a time, we were all present and Osama had replenished his body. He invited us to pray, which we did, then we entered the cave.

The cave was one of our many secret bases in the mountains of Afghanistan. After entering through a tight crack in the rocks, the cave opened out into a natural, spacious chamber. Boxes of weapons, ammunition, food and water could be seen in the dim light at the rear of the cave. As my eyes grew accustomed to the low light, I noticed a tunnel had been dug into the rock directly opposite the entrance. That would be the escape tunnel.

'I have invited you here today because of the utmost secrecy which must surround what I am about to disclose. As you know, the World Trade Center in New York has long been one of my favored targets. A plan is in place which may succeed in bringing the towers to the ground. This plan is so brave and intelligent, it will also allow us to attack the White House and the Pentagon in Washington. All may be destroyed.

Exclamations of joy filled the room. I knew what Osama was talking about, but most of the commanders did not. Only those who need to know of our operations should have knowledge; this is how we will outlive our enemies. Osama held up his hands in a gesture which brought immediate silence.

'I appreciate you will have many questions, so I will outline our planned attack. Then, more importantly, I want to finalise our evacuation plan before the American retaliation which will surely come with great swiftness and ferocity.'

He motioned to us to sit on the cushions which had been placed along both walls, the length of the cavern. We sat, cross-legged and listened intently.

'The Great Day of Vengeance is almost upon us,' he began. 'A secret attack will occur this year and it may destroy our enemy's will to fight. 12 cells have been working toward the same goal. 29 of the fighters are in America and they will launch the attack. On a specified date, four teams of soldiers will take separate internal flights. Shortly after take-off, each team will take control of the aircraft, using knives and sharp weapons on the air crews. The teams will include fighters who have had training, in America and elsewhere, and know how to fly passenger jets. The aircraft will change course to our four targets. Each will impact on its target over the course of a morning. Hell will unfold before our enemies' eyes, live on their televisions.'

We praised the plan like a gaggle of excited schoolboys. I had worked on it for three years, recruiting many of the key fighters and developing pilot training courses in Sudan. Osama continued his briefing.

'The targets for the attack are as follows, in order: One, North Tower of the World Trade Center, New York City; Two, South Tower of the World Trade Center, New York City; Three, the Pentagon, Washington DC; Four, the White House, Washington DC. It is unlikely that we will be successful in destroying all the targets. The Pentagon, for example, is expected to have air defence missiles, we cannot know for sure. The White House also is likely to have such defence. I have no doubt that if the President is in his executive office, the defenders would shoot down a jet full of their own; by then, the other attacks will have occurred and they will suspect us immediately. However the plan has a good chance of success. The Americans have not suspected anything yet; the cells we have activated for this mission are some of our very best.'

Everybody present in the cavern agreed that this was indeed a plan worthy of Allah. We would bring the Jihad to our enemy on Allah's terms. The Almighty Destruction would soon smite our enemy. And this was just the beginning.

On September 9, we made a pre-emptive strike against the warlord Massoud, who we expected to become a key ally in the American counter-attack against us. Two fighters, in the guise of television journalists met with Massoud in his main base to conduct an interview to which he agreed some weeks previously. The camera was a bomb and our men bravely gave their lives to mortally injure Massoud.

Two days later, Massoud died, just as the first hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center. I was in Osama's study all day on September 11, along with Osama himself and five of our commanders. Osama had invited Mullah Omar to the study also. Mullah Omar was full of praise for our killing of Massoud and we could only tell him that there would soon be much better news. There was no news from our American cells, as we sat on ornate cushions and watched the international news channels on three televisions. Evening was falling outside as the news broadcasts began to be interrupted by footage of the Twin Towers, one of which was burning furiously. The commentators were announcing excitedly that an aircraft had accidentally crashed into the tower. It was thought to have been a small plane, but the destruction betrayed that falsehood. Osama announced to Mullah Omar that this was an attack in progress. The TV cameras stayed trained on the Twin Towers. All the networks now carried the live feed of the shocking images. We watched, in great anticipation of what would happen next. Minutes later, before our very eyes and the eyes of half the world, we saw the second jet hit its target. We exclaimed thanks to Allah and there was much jubilation in the room. Osama nodded to me to let the word be spread. I ran to the camp commander's office and told him that we had struck the World Trade Center in New York. I ordered him to pass the word around the base and to our fighters in the rest of Afghanistan that they should watch their televisions or listen to the radio reports with great pride in the glory of our martyred comrades.

It was beginning to sink in to the American newsmen that they were under attack. As the minutes passed slowly, news came through that the attack on the Pentagon was also a success. The TV screens were split between the burning towers of capitalism and the burning military headquarters of the world's mightiest army. Osama was quiet and thoughtful. I knew that he was hoping for full success and the destruction of the White House. The televisions told us that Bush the Younger was in Florida and so would not die, but the symbol of the White House was almost as important to us as the destruction of the man himself.

News came through that our fourth plane had hit the ground in Pennsylvania and we were disappointed. Our disappointment was much assuaged by the falling of the Twin Towers and the panic that was clearly gripping the entire land of our enemy. The President had gone to ground in the middle of nowhere, fearing that we would attack his plane and, for a few hours, America was a land under siege. We had accomplished our greatest victory yet in our Jihad. We stayed up all night, watching the reports and reliving the great attack over and over. There was sense of great jubilation in the camp the next morning, as we packed up our weapons and equipment and dispersed into the mountains.

Following the great attack, Osama recorded a speech for transmission, in October 2001:

Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish.

And with regard to you, Muslims, this is the day of question. This is a new attack against you, all against the Muslims and Medina. So be like the followers of the prophet, peace be upon him, and all countrymen, lovers of God and the prophet within, and a new battle, great battle, similar to the great battles of Islam, like the conqueror of Jerusalem. So, hurry up to the dignity of life and the eternity of death.

Thanks to God, he who God guides will never lose. And I believe that there's only one God. And I declare I believe there's no prophet but Mohammed.

This is America, God has sent one of the attacks by God and has attacked one of its best buildings. And this is America filled with fear from the north, south, east and west, thank God.

And what America is facing today is something very little of what we have tasted for decades. Our nation, since nearly 80 years is tasting this humility. Sons are killed, and nobody answers the call.

And when God has guided a bunch of Muslims to be at the forefront and destroyed America, a big destruction, I wish God would lift their position.

And when those people have defended and retaliated to what their brothers and sisters have suffered in Palestine and Lebanon, the whole world has been shouting.

And there are civilians, innocent children being killed every day in Iraq without any guilt, and we never hear anybody. We never hear any condemnation from the clergymen of the government.

And every day we see the Israeli tanks going to Janin, Ramallah, Beit Jalla and other lands of Islam. And, no, we never hear anybody objecting to that.

So when the swords came after eight years to America, then the whole world has been crying for those criminals who attacked. This is the least which could be said about them. They are people. They supported the murder against the victim, so God has given them back what they deserve.

I say the matter is very clear, so every Muslim after this, and after the officials in America, starting with the head of the infidels, Bush. And they came out with their men and equipment and they even encouraged even countries claiming to be Muslims against us. So, we run with our religion. They came out to fight Islam with the name of fighting terrorism.

In Japan, hundreds of thousands of people got killed. This is not a war crime. Or in Iraq, what of our brothers who are being killed in Iraq. This is not a crime. And those, when they were attacked in my Nairobi, and Dar Es Salaam, Afghanistan, and Sudan were attacked.

I say these events have split the whole world into two camps: the camp of belief and the disbelief. So every Muslim shall take arms, shall support his religion.

And now with the winds of change has blown up now, change has come to the Arabian Peninsula.

And to America, I say to it and to its people this: I swear by God the Great, America will never dream nor those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine.

The Americans came to Afghanistan in a fierce onslaught of satellite-guided bombs, cruise missiles and helicopter gunships. I sheltered in a mountain base towards Tora-Bora. I had been there since the twelfth of September, immediately after the Day of Vengeance. By early December, the enemy was coming close. One bright morning, I saw that some of our rearguard fighters had reached the foothills a few miles below my position. Though they were sheltered by rocks, the American ground attack jets and Apaches had pinned them down. Predator spy planes buzzed like a swarm of insects all around us. Within minutes, a B52 bomber approached the scene. I could see its contrails from my base, with the crackle of gunfire down below echoing through the valleys. I never saw it drop its bombs.

Suddenly the sky lit up with intense flashes and, a few seconds later, the ground beneath my feet shook as a terrible thunder reached my ears. I guess that 24 2,000 pound bombs landed right on my comrades. Without a chance to dig holes, they were pulverized. Over 100 men died at a stroke. Our enemy was deeply angry with us. He had been mortally wounded. He would stop at nothing to wipe Al-Qaeda from the face of the earth. I packed immediately and travelled on to Tora-Bora.

After two days, I reached the narrow ledge on the approach to the cave. I remembered my journey here many years before. Now the time had come for Tora-Bora to live up to our expectations. On the approach, I was stopped by three soldiers, who warned me, with AKs raised, to halt. They approached and recognized me. They welcomed me and advised that I should hurry; B52s had been spotted approaching over Pakistan.

The Americans would have been unable to attack us so fiercely if not for the support from that Pakistani snake, Musharraf. He would pay dearly for supporting our enemy. We understood that the Americans had threatened a nuclear strike on his nuclear missile sites if he did not support their 'War on Terrorism' completely. He would also make millions of dollars himself out of the deal. The Pakistanis had set up checkpoints at almost every entry point from Afghanistan. Of course, we had many more escape routes than they knew about, but we were, effectively, surrounded by Americans and traitor Muslims.

As I approached the main cave entrance, the attack began. A string of heavy bombs exploded on the mountain above my head. I dove into a trench, one of the many arrayed before the entrance. Fragments of rock and bomb metal flew down and killed some men who had been taken by surprise.

We had no weapon against B52s, they were too high for our anti-aircraft missiles, but we could engage enemy aircraft with lower ceilings. I made it into the cave and watched as the enemy attack unfolded. For three days, they bombed us. Missiles flew in and pounded the area around the cave entrance. Fighters with Stinger missiles managed to down three enemy aircraft, including one jet bomber. The trenches served us well and any enemy troops who entered the valley were cut down.

Osama, who was inside the cave commanding the operation, decided that it was time for us to leave. We had lost only a few dozen men, but the enemy onslaught was becoming unbearable. Our scouts had spotted Pakistani troop movements behind us and we had to go now before we were trapped. He gave his orders to his senior commanders; they were to hold the enemy for as long as possible, then melt away after us.

We gathered our supplies of food, water and ammunition and set off through the cave at sunset. There was a new moon awaiting us in Pakistan. As we made our way down from the mountains, the sounds of gunfire and bombs reverberating through the canyons behind us, a massive explosion was heard. The ground shook beneath our feet as I had never before experienced and we were lucky not to have been killed by falling rocks which rained down on our trail.

'Have they used a nuclear bomb?' I asked.

'I doubt it,' answered Osama. 'We had heard of a new bomb they developed, the Daisycutter. It is the largest non-nuclear bomb in their arsenal. I fear they have used it on our comrades.'

It later emerged that it had been dropped on Tora-Bora, but the steep mountainsides had absorbed much of the blast, funneling it back up into the sky.

We saw no Pakistani soldiers as we made our way down into the western plains. Then we separated, to travel on alone. It would be almost a year before I saw Osama again. He headed south towards Quetta, while I went north to Peshawar.

CHAPTER 15. REWARD FROM GOD

"And for the poor fugitives who have been driven out from their homes and their belongings, who seek bounty from Allah and help Allah and His Messenger. They are the loyal."

Surah 59. Al-Hashr, Exile. V 8.

Pakistan, 2002

September 11 continued to shake the world as I made my way to Peshawar. Our guest house was under surveillance by the Pakistanis, so I stayed with a Mujahideen family on the outskirts of town. The Americans had swept all before them when they came to Afghanistan for revenge. While many Taliban units stood and faced their enemy, Taliban leaders had prepared for the invasion the same way as Al-Qaeda; they were in hiding even before September 11.

Our dispersal policy had worked well. My orders were similar to many of my Afghan-based comrades. Lay low in the wild North West Frontier area, check my email regularly and pass on any intelligence regarding enemy activity.

My cover story was that I was the uncle of the man with whose family I stayed. I had identification papers that would prove this. I had lived in Afghanistan as a poor opium farmer and moved to Pakistan to escape the war. My guns were buried outside the house and I had a small, comfortable room in which I listened to radio broadcasts from around the globe, studied the Qur'an and recovered my health.

Our enemy had been struck a potentially mortal blow on September 11. He now realized the precarious position he was in. The cornered animal is the most dangerous. He lashed out at us with all the weapons at his disposal, everything short of nuclear bombs. We could take it. 90 percent of his bombs hit nothing but rock. We had lost many good men and the Taliban were swept from power, but our preparations and dispersal plans had served us well. Informers were our greatest threat; the American guns and bombs can destroy any enemy on an open battlefield, that we will not dispute, but how do you kill your enemy when he hides in a crowded city? Even one of your own cities? The CIA and other James Bonds were shown to be incapable of preventing September 11. Without intelligence, they have nothing. My fear is for a curious child to be bribed by a policeman for news on any new visitors. Then I would be questioned. But children here know not to talk. As do their parents. This society has thrived for hundreds of years on secrecy. Nobody talks to any stranger about the business of drugs, arms or Jihad, so we are virtually impossible to penetrate. My cover should protect me, as it is credible, but I do not know if the enemy has a profile of me. Osama is the most wanted man on earth. He chose this path, to become a guiding light for our soldiers, but I had not courted publicity, preferring to work quietly.

American intelligence agencies had just a handful of traitor Muslims on September 11. Some say that they had information on our attack before it occurred, which I do not believe, but hadn't translated it yet. Now they scrambled for more traitors to join their ranks. After all, how can an American infiltrate Al-Qaeda? In simple terms, he cannot. Picture the typical member of the US military. He is white, Christian and used to comfort. How can he learn Arabic, memorise the Qur'an, change his skin and grow happy to live in the wild deserts that we call home? He cannot. Their only hope is in recruiting spies from among our own ranks or traitor Muslims who live beside us. We must also prepare for traitor Muslims from other places being sent here to seek us out.

These thoughts preoccupied me as I passed several months at Peshawar. During this period, Peshawar truly became my adopted home. There was a dynamism missing in Saudi Arabia and this region of self-governing tribes, most of whom engaged in illegal trade, showed me the truth about the hated self-serving traitor regimes in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and, indeed, in greater Pakistan. We Muslims could rule ourselves, needing only the Holy Qur'an for guidance.

The Pakistani government sent many troops to the area. They were attempting to seal off the border with Afghanistan, but it was too little, too late. Army patrols passed my house only rarely, but their presence increased greatly in Peshawar city and my visits there became less frequent.

I had to travel to the city every month to check my Email, as we had orders to only use electronic communications in urban areas. Late one bright May morning, I walked the three miles into Peshawar to check for new orders and news on enemy activity. I was stopped by an army checkpoint at the entrance gate. They checked my papers and searched me, but I carried little except for an excellent forged I.D. The soldiers seemed tense and a newspaper boy was shouting something about an attack, so I bought a paper. It carried news of an attack by our men, who became martyrs when they destroyed a bus full of foreigners aiding the Pakistani military. In essence, they collaborated with our enemy. I smiled to myself as I read the garbled reports.

I was hungry from my walk, so I stopped at a café and had some bananas and tea while I continued reading. The attack had taken place in Karachi, when 11 French naval engineers were blown up on their coach outside a tourist hotel. This followed a raid the month before, when 16 Germans were blown up at a synagogue in Tunisia. That was an excellent strike on the tourist economy of another traitor regime. The rate of attacks was picking up and I eagerly went to check my Email and see if new orders awaited me.

My preferred internet café was in a small room at the back of a coffee bar. Two computer terminals were tucked in the corner behind dark hanging curtains. The room was filled with smoke and the smell of fresh coffee. A computer science graduate, trained in America, worked at keeping the computers and the internet connection functioning. His father owned the café and I knew to trust him as his father had been a Mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan.

'Good morning,' I smiled. 'Do you have a computer for me?'

'Indeed,' he replied, breezily. '100 percent secure connection to the outside world. I've just finished running diagnostic checks and there is nobody keeping tabs on these computers, that is my belief.'

'Excellent. May I?'

He gestured to the computers and I took the one with the screen which could only be viewed by the user. While the boy busied himself repairing a computer whose guts were strewn over a small table, I went straight to my Email server and logged into one of my primary Al-Qaeda accounts. Three new messages awaited.

I glanced around the room and peered through the curtains into the main bar. I was the only customer inside the building, with a few men sitting outside at tables. If anyone entered the bar, I would see them as the entrance door was in my line of view.

The first message was dated that day, May 8, 2002. It was a highly coded call to arms for general release. It ordered cells to begin making contact with other cells to create bigger offensive groups. It said that cell meetings would be facilitated by higher ranks. It reiterated the high threat level from enemy activities and warned that major attacks on soft targets and crusader outposts would follow. Using quotes from the Qur'an, fighting rhetoric and references to great Muslim victories from the past, all tied up in codes, it was virtually impenetrable to an outsider but as clear as day to me. I was back in action. My heart began to beat rapidly.

The second message was personal, from Osama, writing under a codename. A couple of days old, it told me of his holiday in southern Pakistan, how he was well-rested and eager to get back to work. He mentioned Karachi as a possible destination on his travels and spoke of the forthcoming Islamic festival to be held there. This was my instruction to meet with Osama in Karachi within weeks. My heart beat even louder.

The third message was from one of our internal security officers, again for general release. It spoke of new structures in the US military-intelligence system. The enemy had formed attack groups, consisting of CIA, Rangers and helicopters, backed up by cruise missiles and air strikes. The groups worked independently and were tasked with hunting and destroying our leaders and cells. They were active in Afghanistan and Yemen and could be expected in Pakistan at any time. The communication also included information on the enemy use of pilotless aircraft like the one we had recovered in Afghanistan. Our spies obtained details of the Americans' tests of the drones to fire missiles at ground targets. Such a system, when linked with satellite observation and guidance, as were their latest JDAM bombs, would be very dangerous to us. Theoretically, no training camp would be immune from sudden attack.

I deleted all Emails, logged out of my Email server and looked at some harmless websites, including Afghanistani news and Al-Jazeera Arabic news. Few of the stories interested me, but coverage of the earlier bomb in Karachi was building. The attack was being labelled an audacious attack on a heavily-defended military target. 15 were dead.

So as not to arouse any suspicions, I stayed for a coffee in the outside bar, after paying the owner's son a few rupees for the computer access. My heart still raced from the messages. I had to get to Karachi by June 1, a little over three weeks away. I would make my way to one of our safe houses and Osama would find me.

It would be a long journey, Peshawar is to the far north of Pakistan, while Karachi is on its coast, on the Arabian Sea. There would be patrols and checkpoints. I would have to invent a cover story for my poor, Afghani opium farmer self to want to travel south to Karachi. I set out for home and began to formulate my plans.

My adopted family was sad to hear my news. While I held out the possibility of returning to stay with them after my trip to Karachi, they knew that I would never be back. I knew this too.

We had a quiet dinner and I began to pack my things. I had little or nothing of my own, except my guns, which I decided to bring. I dug them up in the early morning, loaded a mule with provisions and blankets and set off in the direction of the rising sun. I left behind a gift of 200 US dollars for my board and the mule. I left it on the broken kitchen table, weighed down with a stone bowl.

I travelled towards Islamabad before turning south when I met the River Indus. The highway followed the river's course to the sea and it was, as always, busy with traffic. I joined the quiet lane, a dirt track between the highway and the river bank which was used mainly by old men on mules, children on bikes and homeless beggars who pitched their begging chants at busy junctions or near food vendors.

Within a few days, I had made good progress. The journey was peaceful, with little military activity. Police stood at checkpoints along the highway, but they were mindful of bandits and thieves, not looking for me and my kind. As I traveled the length of Pakistan, the mighty mountains of the Sulaiman were a constant to my right, while to my left, the plains stretched into the Thar Desert and India. I left the Indus at Hyderabad and rested there for a day to clean the dust from me before the final stretch to the sea.

I reached Karachi a few days before the religious festival would begin. I passed safely through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city. My cover story was simply that I was a pilgrim, on my way to a Sunni Islamic celebration. With hundreds more pilgrims before and behind me and thousands more already in the city, I blended well.

I hadn't been in the city before, but had a good idea of my bearings. Karachi is the biggest city in Pakistan and I hadn't been among so many people in a year. It was too fast a pace for me, I must admit. I felt as though all seven million of Karachi's souls looked at me as I led my mule. I followed one of the main arterial roads towards Mereweather Tower and made my way towards the old port area, which was a rickety warren of shacks, sweaty textile factories and warehouses. Near the sea, beside two large cranes, was a safe house. It operated as a sailors' rest house and, when I got there, one of my fellow officers was enjoying tea in the dining room. I ignored him and he ignored me. I asked the innkeeper about selling my mule. He said he would get a potential buyer to see it within the hour and he would have it fed and washed by then.

I settled into my room, washed and prayed. As I made ready to go in search of food, a light knock came to my door. A boy was outside. He handed me a note and I gave him a few rupees. Then I asked if he had tended my mule. When he told me, shyly, that he had, I gave him more rupees. I locked the door and sat on the bed to read my note.

It was from one of our commanders and welcomed me to Karachi. It said that I should walk along the sea wall and I would be contacted. It also told me to be armed at all times as Pakistani intelligence were actively hunting our cells in Karachi. I burnt the note and locked my room behind me. My AK was wrapped in blankets under my bed, so I told the innkeeper that I didn't want my room cleaned, or entered by anyone, during my stay. He consented easily. I carried my automatic pistol in my waistband, well hidden by my robes. I carried it cocked, with a round in the barrel ready for immediate use. This meant that I had to move carefully and be aware of my position at all times. A good posture for Karachi.

I met the mule man outside and agreed a price of 200 rupees for the beast. Then I walked along the old port seafront in search of a meal that wouldn't kill me. The fresh perfume of the Arabian Sea mixed with the stinks of open sewers and burning oil. Some large gulls stood lazily on the sea wall, flying to sea as I came near, then being pushed back by the breeze to where they had been when I was past. The breeze was hot and I mopped my brow. A drinks vendor approached me calling out his list of wares. I asked for a cold drink and he offered a Coca-Cola. When I refused an American brand, he laughed loudly. Then he looked me in the eye and gave me an Al-Qaeda password, a means for soldiers to identify themselves to each other when required. I replied to his password and he clapped his hands.

'Mujahideen! I knew I knew you! We fought together in Afghanistan. Remember when we ambushed the Russian patrol together and you shot down the helicopter with the Stinger?'

'Those were great days,' I said, and meant it.' I haven't seen you since then. Are you based here?'

'This is my home town,' he replied. 'This is where I can do Al-Qaeda's work to my greatest potential. I was sent to find you. I have only now learned that your hotel is being watched by the Pakistanis. Do you have any weapons or material there?'

I told him about the AK and the pistol in my waistband. We decided it would be better if I went to a safe house unknown to the Pakistanis. The boy would be sent along with my belongings and AK next morning.

We continued along the sea wall. A pair of Pakistani agents lounged against the wall, licking ice creams, wiping their mouths with tissues, wearing pilot sunglasses. A group of young girls wearing western clothes passed the agents when we did, so they barely paid us a glance. We left the sea and entered the warrens of shanties. After a few minutes, I was confused as to my location.

'This movement is to confuse any spies who may be following us,' offered my guide and comrade, sensing my unease. 'To find your bearings, most alleys run perpendicular to the sea wall. Find the sea wall and you'll find a way out.'

I glanced over my shoulder and, right enough, at the end of the alley I could see the wall's mighty blocks. Soon after, we arrived at a warehouse and stood by a rear door. Two teenagers lounged on the steps of a shanty across the street. They waved at my companion.

'It is safe,' he said.

We entered the building and went to a small office, passing two armed Mujahideen soldiers on the way. They checked each of us for our identification and swept us for electronic devices. Inside the office we found Osama with five of our leading Pakistani operatives. He greeted me and gestured at us both to sit.

We chatted quietly for a few more minutes until our last commander, a comrade from Afghanistan and one of Al-Qaeda's most important field commanders, arrived with a case of soft drink cans. Osama called the meeting to order and outlined our position and immediate plans.

The dispersal of our soldiers before the American invasion of Afghanistan had been largely successful. Our total losses since September 11 were less than 1,000 killed or captured. It was feared that some of those captured had broken under torture and were supplying our enemy with useful information. All our codes and passwords had been changed a number of times since then, so it was unlikely that the enemy had access to our communications. Terrible attacks were expected from our enemy and all of us were ordered to make cell security our top priority.

'This might seem contradictory,' Osama began, 'given the new orders for cells to merge and launch major attacks. But if we, as commanders, keep track of the cells we are merging and assess the cell members individually, then we will protect our structure. Knowledge of levels above cells by cell members must be minimized. We must plan for further captures and treachery.'

He gave orders to each of us to merge cells in different parts of Pakistan. I was to merge two cells here in Karachi. Another was to merge cells in Islamabad and another commander was to travel to Indonesia, to prepare for actions there. Two commanders were to go to Africa and merge cells in Kenya, Sudan and Egypt.

'We have weathered the worst that our enemy could throw at us,' continued Osama. 'We must now reconstitute ourselves and strike back hard. Our plans to deliver hammer blows against our enemies continue and you must grant me patience. September 11 was but the first of many hammer blows to strike our hated enemies. Allah has delivered us from our enemies. Truly we have been rewarded by God.'

There was general delight at this statement.

'By the end of this year, our key leadership will be at one location, back in Afghanistan. You will each receive your specific orders from me after this meeting.'

Osama then opened the meeting for each of us to have his say. After lengthy discussions of our tactics and enemy activities, interspersed with thanks to Osama for September 11 by those who hadn't seen him since the Day of Vengeance, the meeting broke up and Osama spoke with each of us individually.

My orders were to unite two cells in Karachi. I was given the names of the cell leaders and the means for getting in touch with them. My knowledge of code words would then be enough for them to accept their orders from me, who they had not met before. My next mission was a journey to Tajikistan, far to the north, where an agent had sourced some uranium. I was to locate the agent, get the uranium and arrange for its transport to a secret mountain base near Kandahar, where Osama would be by December.

With new identity papers, I met the cells and gave them their orders. Their mission was a success; on May 8, their car bomb was exploded by a martyr outside the US consulate in Karachi. I left the city before the attack, as it was too crowded for me. I travelled north on public transport. I rested in Peshawar for a few weeks, staying at a small inn. I spent my time quietly recruiting new members for Al-Qaeda. The attacks of September 11 had made the recruitment of new fighters so much easier. Whereas before, we were seen as a dangerous enemy of the Americans, Al-Qaeda was now seen by many Muslims as the army of Allah which could actually defeat our hated infidel enemies and bring true freedom under God to all Muslims. I dispatched those that I had recruited to make contact with cells in Peshawar, Karachi and Islamabad. Their training would be difficult in the current conditions, but trained well they would be.

In early August, as I reached the northern border, I heard news of an attack on a Christian school in the Pakistani Himalayas. A part of me was thankful that no children died in the raid, just their traitorous security guards. But it was important for all to know that even the Christians' children will never know safety in a Muslim nation.

A strip of Afghanistan juts across the top of Pakistan, dividing it from Tajikistan. I knew that crossing through Afghanistan would be the most dangerous part of my mission and worried constantly about the return journey, on which I hoped to carry the material for a nuclear bomb. The mountains and climate were inhospitable to most and after I had passed Peshawar and traveled through Kalam and Gakuch, the number of travelers met greatly diminished.

Arriving in the frontier town of Chillinji, I was questioned by Pakistani police, along with my fellow bus travelers. My story was simply that I was an Afghan peasant who had been to visit relatives near Peshawar and was returning home. My new identity papers gave my address as being in the part of Afghanistan that is sandwiched between Pakistan and Tajikistan, so I should be covered throughout my journey.

The town was dirty, rough and had far too many police and military around for my liking. Chillinji was on the border of Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistani province that had brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war many times. I stayed overnight in Chillinji before continuing my journey on foot. I still had a long way to go and was as yet undecided as to whether I would cross directly into Tajikistan and make my way towards the southern city of Khorog from there, or to sweep around inside Afghanistan to where it met Khorog at the border some 300 kilometers from Chillinji. Going through Tajikistan would reduce my journey by nearly 100 kilometers. I had decided that I would make my decision based on the safety of the mission but could travel for a day or two before making that decision.

The next morning, I passed through the border post, which was surprisingly easy with two bored and tired young soldiers waving everybody through with the most casual of inspections. My pistol was hidden within my backpack. I was back in Afghanistan and it felt wonderful. There were no soldiers or police to be seen, the security infrastructure was controlled by the Americans and they had not seen fit to monitor this part of the border. Fools. I set off on the mountainous road, marveling at the view that surrounded me. To my left were the Hindu Kush mountains, separating Pakistan from Afghanistan. To my right were the snowy peaks of Kashmir, leading to Tibet and, eventually, the mighty Mount Everest. Ahead of me was Tajikistan, the former Soviet republic, now a Muslim nation still run badly by ex-Communists. Nine tenths of Tajikistan was mountainous and its peaks rose to dizzying heights before me. I made my way to a café where buses, taxis and private cars gathered. Drivers haggled with those who needed transport and I was approached by a man who needed someone to share his fuel expenses.

'I go to Khorog, kind sir. Is this on your travels?' He asked.

'It may be, what do you require of your passengers?'

'I have no passengers yet,' he replied. 'All here travel to Toktomush or stay in Afghanistan.'

'How much would my fare cost?' I asked.

'Do you have rupees or dollars?'

'Dollars.'

'For 25 dollars, I will take you to anywhere in Khorog.'

I looked him straight in the eye.

'Can I trust you?'

'As Allah guides and controls us all, so I will never betray a fellow Muslim. The Americans are a different story.'

He spat a sizable lump of phlegm onto the pot-holed road.

'I accept your offer, but I warn you that I am armed.'

I paid half my fare so that my driver could get some fuel. Then we bought some provisions and set off. As we drove into the mountains, my driver pointed out the sights excitedly. I had seen so many mountains in recent years, but the peaks of Tajikistan still held wonder for me. A state of conflict existed in the country, with Islamic fighters engaged in low-level conflict with the government. With over 80 percent of the population Sunni Muslim, there was little or no recognition of the importance of Islam. This would change. We had supplied the Tajik Muslims with weapons since 1997, once Afghanistan was secure. Our cell in Khorog had launched attacks on the government forces and assassinated some officials, but it now truly proved its worth with the seizure of uranium for our nuclear weapons programme. Tajikistan was rich in uranium, having supplied the Soviet arsenal for decades. Our experts would know if it was suitable to make an atomic device or whether further enrichment was required. Even if its quality was too poor, it would give us the material to make a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb is a conventional device which is wrapped in uranium or some other radioactive substance. When the bomb is detonated, it sends radioactive particles across a wide area. A well-placed dirty bomb could render the centre of a major city uninhabitable for thousands of years. It could be almost as effective as the detonation of an actual nuclear device. These thoughts filled my mind as we crossed Tajikistan.

My driver knew the route well. He told me that he drove regularly from Tajikistan to Pakistan, transporting opium. When I asked why he was giving me such information, he replied that all good Muslims must work together to destroy the Americans. He could recite some of Osama's key speeches, including the Declaration of Jihad, almost word perfect. As I began to see his devotion to prayer and his dislike of the Americans, I decided I could trust him.

One evening, we were entering a dangerous gorge as night began to fall. We decided to stop and sleep in the car, which was an old, Soviet-era Trabant, noisy but reliable enough. We prepared some tea and ate crackers and dried meat. I decided then to tell my driver about my connection with Al-Qaeda and that I was on an important mission. I had decided to kill him and take his car if he reacted badly. On the contrary, he was delighted to be ferrying one such as I on a dangerous mission. He asked to join our group and I inducted him. My mission suddenly became a lot easier; I was no longer paying a stranger to bring me to my destination, I was now traveling with a fellow soldier. I told him about my mission, saying only that I had to collect a package in Khorog and bring it to our mountain base on the border near Kandahar. He insisted on completing the mission with me, as his first task in helping to bring about the destruction of our enemies. God was certainly smiling on me.

We neared Khorog at sunset a day later. The city is in the heart of the Pamirs, the mountain range from which the surrounding ranges spring. We passed through the Pamirs Botanical Gardens. The oxygen from the collections of plants was welcome, given the high altitude. Dominated by a hydroelectric station and the factories that were fed by it, Khorog had little to recommend it. We went to an inn that my colleague knew to be safe from the police's prying eyes and both had hot baths. We met for dinner and planned our next move. I had memorised a phone number for the agent with the uranium. I called him from a payphone in the inn and he asked that I should go to a mosque near the centre of town. I told him about my colleague, whose name he knew, and I advised that he would accompany me with his car. Khorog was in a semi-autonomous area, Gorno-Badakhshan, and the main city of Tajikistan's Muslim separatists. Armed police and soldiers loitered at most street corners, but they paid us little attention as we looked like locals and our car had local registration plates.

We met our contact in the entrance hall of the mosque, which was open for evening prayers. He brought us to a small office and lifted a tarpaulin in the corner. Under the cover was a metal drum, about one meter tall and half a meter in diameter. It was blue in colour and had radiation warning symbols all around and Russian Cyrillic text stenciled on top.

'God is great,' said our Tajik friend. 'This drum contains 25 kilos of uranium 235, which I am told is sufficient to make an atomic bomb.'

'God is great,' I exclaimed.

I couldn't believe our luck. I had expected to be given a couple of kilos of the more abundant uranium 238, an isotope that needs to be purified to make weapons grade material.

'How did you get it?' I asked.

'The Russians left behind a lot more than a crumbling economy and a corrupt administration. They mined the uranium here and purified it before sending it back to Mother Russia. After all, why pollute their homeland if they can leave their dirt here? The corruption and incompetence of the administrators here gave us an opportunity. My cell has been working to this end for many months. I am proud of our success and I pray that you will deliver this uranium to Washington DC in a form that will shake the planet.'

We gave thanks and loaded the drum into the car at the rear entrance to the mosque after the congregation had left. Our Tajik colleague also provided us with useful intelligence on security checks at the nearby Afghan border and advised on the best cover story to use. He checked our identification papers and approved our profiles.

We rested that night, but I could not sleep. The journey to Kandahar was long, but uneventful. Though we had to pass through Kabul, we were never stopped by American troops. We bribed our way through Afghan-manned checkpoints. At one stage, we drove within a heavily armed American convoy of Humvees and APCs. I sweated, but my driver stayed cool. We reached our base and immediately delivered our cargo to the atomic weapons team. To say that they praised our Tajik brothers would be an understatement. My driver returned to Khorog to join the cell. I left the atomics team to their work and I returned to mine.

Time passed slowly, interspersed with news of more brave attacks, including the Bali bombing in October, which struck westerners holidaying and behaving disgracefully in a Muslim nation. There followed the attack on the Jewish tourists in Mombasa in November. Our strategy of destroying the tourist industry was paying dividends. The attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet that same day in Kenya failed only because the fighters who attempted the attack had more courage than training in the use of missiles.

There was also news of an American attack on four of our top commanders in Yemen. We had established a number of training camps in the wild desert in the Yemeni/Saudi border. The enemy had received intelligence of our movements and used one of his pilotless aircraft to launch a missile at our men's jeep. All were killed. The traitor who betrayed them turned out to have been a Yemeni policeman who pretended to support us. He is now dead.

The year ended with a bitterly cold winter in Afghanistan. But our December sand storms brought us not Father Christmas, but Osama bin Laden.
CHAPTER 16. DAYS OF TERROR

"But Allah hath been gracious unto us and hath preserved us from the torment of the breath of Fire.

"Lo! We used to pray unto Him of old. Lo! He is the Benign, the Merciful.

"Therefore warn men, O Muhammad. By the grace of Allah thou art neither soothsayer nor madman."

Surah 52. At-Tur, The Mount. V 27-29.

Afghanistan Pakistan Border Area, 2003

As the Americans reduced their presence in Afghanistan so as to fight war in Iraq, so we began to sense victory. The remaining Americans were confined to Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and a few other towns. Their special forces made regular visits, in force, to other places, such as Kandahar and Khost, but most of the forces of the Coalition of Crusaders were of little threat. Our spies, agents, informers and fighters were everywhere. The Taliban had regrouped in strength, with a little help from the Pakistanis. Hekmatyar the warlord had had enough of the puppet government.

Our fighters trickled back into the border mountains from their dispersed locations. We fought the American war machine in Afghanistan, but on our own terms. The vast majority of our fighters had survived the onslaught and most were now regrouping to continue training, intelligence-gathering and planning attacks against the occupiers.

We had seven mountain bases which hadn't been discovered by our enemies. The Taliban, who had taken the brunt of the American action, had their own bases and had been quietly increasing opium production to finance new weapons purchases. Our links with the drugs trade continued apace. It is true that Al-Qaeda has always had sufficient finances for its operations. Osama's fortune, his investments, his family's wealth are but a fraction of the funding we receive through private donations from the millions of Muslims who support our cause, including some of the very wealthiest. Drugs were also an important contributor; our opium operations in Afghanistan netted the organization over $50 million that year, while we were technically occupied by the Americans. The Taliban and other warlords such as Hekmatyar could have made more than us. Afghanistan's puppet government was failing in its allotted task of creating a stable, docile, puppet statelet with a pipeline across it to transport oil from the former Soviet republics.

Hekmatyar called for a meeting with Mullah Omar and Osama to conspire collectively to destabilise the puppets and coordinate attacks on the occupiers. Osama was wary of being called to a meeting and wasn't sure about whether to trust Hekmatyar. He responded to the request by asking where the meeting was planned to occur. The reply came that Osama should choose the place and the time. He also gave us some useful information, as a carrot. His men had identified a Predator spy plane base in the desert, south of Kabul. This was good intelligence, if true. We had been unable to locate a Predator base and our jammer was ready for testing. We also knew that Hekmatyar had narrowly escaped a missile attack from a Predator, just a few months earlier. He clearly wanted revenge and was happy for us to exact it on his behalf. No matter, if the intelligence was correct.

Osama sent a reply to Hekmatyar, after speaking with Mullah Omar, who wanted to proceed with the meeting. It was arranged that the meeting would happen in the fort city of Quetta, Pakistan, on market day. Still called by its ancient name of Shal by locals, it was the city where we felt safest from spies and infiltrators, simply because virtually 100 percent of residents supported Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Hekmatyar would be foolish to betray us here.

A team was dispatched to test the Predator jammer and security squads checked the University of Balochistan, where the meeting was to take place in a private office. We traveled with Mullah Omar, across the mountains by mule and by jeep to Quetta, avoiding the heavy military presence on both sides of the Bolan and Khojak Passes. When we arrived, Engineer Hekmatyar was waiting. He was a complex man, having fought bravely against the Russians, but then destroying Kabul in his bitter struggle for power. He had allied with Massoud when the Taliban rose and for this we will never fully trust him again. He fled to Iran and returned to Afghanistan once the American tide had subsided. Now he sought control again and now, no doubt, saw us as useful tools in his bloody chess game.

He greeted Osama warmly, unexpectedly warmly. The Day of Vengeance had filled him with awe and respect for Al-Qaeda. After greeting Mullah Omar just as warmly, he asked us to put the past to one side so that we can work together to do Allah's will. We agreed and set about planning the destruction of the puppet traitor Karzai and returning Islamic rule to Afghanistan.

We returned to our secret mountain base, while Hekmatyar returned to his heartland. Night letters, messages posted in public places calling for Jihad, spread word that the battle to liberate Afghanistan was beginning yet again. Attacks on occupying soldiers, UN staff, all foreigners, were stepped up. The Afghan army was a special target for us. Primarily fighters from the Northern Alliance, they were traitor Muslims, accepting the Crusaders' money to fight their brother Muslims. We took great relish in killing them.

Osama recorded a message, which he released to the al-Jazeera satellite network on February 12, 2003:

In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate, a message to our brothers in Iraq.

Greetings, all you who believe in Allah and worship him as he deserves and do not die unless you are Muslims.

We are following with great interest and utmost concern the preparations by the crusaders to occupy the capital of Islam formally (ph) and to rob the wealth of Muslims and to appoint over you an agent government that follows Washington and Tel Aviv, like all other treacherous and spy Arab governments, in preparation for the founding of the greater Israel. So may Allah help us.

We wish to stress on the threshold of this war, the war of the infidels and disbelievers, which the U.S. is launching with a number of its allies and agents.

First, the sincerity of intentions for the fighting should be for the sake of Allah only, no other, and not for the victory of national minorities or for the aid of the infidel regimes in all Arab countries, including Iraq. Allah Almighty said those who believe fight for the sake of Allah and those who did not believe fight for the sake of the Devil. So fight the allies of the Devil for the Devil is weak.

Second, we remind that victory comes from Allah Almighty alone, and we only have to do our best through preparations and incitement and jihad. Allah Almighty said, all you who believe, if you fight for the sake of Allah he will give you victory and strengthen your feet. And we should hurry to repent to Allah from our sins, especially the biggest sins.

As the prophet, peace be upon, him said, "Avoid the seven big sins; not believing in Allah, magic, killing of souls that God forbid unless it's justified, taking interest, taking the money of the orphan, and accusing unwittingly pious Muslim women of sins." That is agreed to. And also, the rest of the big sins, such as adultery and alcohol and disobeying the parents and giving false testimony. We should rush to obey Allah in general, especially to mention Allah at the time when the armies meet.

Abu-Adarda, may Allah bless him, said, "A good deed at the time of the invasion for you fight with your actions."

Third, it became apparent to us through our defence and fighting of the American enemy that it relies mainly in war on the psychological war, given its huge media machine and reliance on air strike to hide its main weak points, which are fear and cowardice and absence of the fighting spirit among American soldiers. Those soldiers are completely convinced about the injustice of their government and its lies, and they lack a fair cause to fight for. And they are rather fighting for the capitalist and interest hoarders (ph), and weapons and oil merchants, including the criminal gang at the White House, which harbours crusader hatreds and personal hatreds from Bush the father.

It's also become apparent to us that the most effective way to empty the air power of its contents is by establishing trenches that are covered and camouflaged in large numbers.

I have previously pointed that out last year in the Tora Bora mountain (ph), that great fight in which the power of belief overcame the material power of evil by holding fast to the principles of Allah Almighty. And I will mention to you a part of that great battle to show the extent of their cowardice on one hand, and the degree of effectiveness of trenches in the war of attrition against them on the other.

Our number were at least 300 Mujahideen. We dug 100 trenches spread over one square mile at the rate of one trench per (inaudible) to avoid incurring injuries from the strikes.

And our centres were targeted from the first hour of the American strike on (inaudible) 20th, the year 1422 Hegira, or corresponding to October 7th, 2001. We were subjected to intense strikes and then it continued intermittently until the middle of Ramadan, and after that, on the morning of the 12 in Ramadan, intensive air strikes began after the American leader was certain that Al Qaeda elements were in Tora Bora, including this humble servant, and that rebel fighter Dr. Aminizara. And the flights were around the clock, so not a second passed without military planes flying over our heads day and night.

Wherein in the Pentagon, command centre, devoted with all its allied forces, was determined with all its allied forces to blow up this tiny spot and annihilate it. So the airplanes poured fire over us, especially after they ended their mission in Afghanistan. The American airplanes hit us with smart bombs and heavy bombs, and string (ph) bombs, and also used bombs that penetrated caves and also bombers like B-52. The circuits were two hours over our heads, and each time fired 20 to 30 bombs. And the C-130 airplanes bombed us with carpet bombs and other murderous bombs.

Despite this tremendous bombing, which was coupled with the outrageous media campaign, that was unprecedented at this time, not to mention the hypocritical forces used to fight us for two continuous months, we managed to confront all their daily attacks, thanks be to Allah, and we forced them back each time defeated, carrying their dead and injured.

Despite all that, the American forces did not dare to invade our location. So what clearer proof is there to their cowardice and fear and lies and their alleged (inaudible) surrounding their forces?

The conclusion of the battle was the great and miserable failure of the forces of evil over a small group of Mujahideen, a group of 300 in the trenches inside one square mile, at a temperature that was 10 degrees below 0. The result of the battle was the death of a few of us, 6 percent approximately. We prayed that Allah will accept them as martyrs. And as for our injuries in the trenches, it was at the rate of 2 percent, thanks be to Allah.

So if all the international forces of evil could not achieve its goals over one square mile and a small number of Mujahideen with very humble capabilities, how can these evil forces achieve victory over the Islamic world? This is impossible, Allah willing, if the people held fast to their religion and insisted on fighting for his sake.

So our brother fighters in Iraq, do not be scared by what Americans promote about the greatness of its forces and their smart bombs and laser-guided bombs, for smart bombs have no mentionable effect in the middle of mountains and trenches and plains and forests. They must have an obvious target.

As for the trenches, they are well camouflaged, and neither smart bombs nor dumb bombs will be able to get them unless by haphazard bombing which squanders the ammunition of the enemy and its money. So use trenches. As Amar, may peace be upon him, said, "Take cover with the land."

That is take the land as a shield, for that is sufficient to exhaust the ammunition of the enemy within a few months. As for the daily fight, then it's something that can be easily dealt with.

We also advise you to lead the enemy to prolonged and heavy and exhaustive fighting using the camouflage defence fight in plains, mountains, farms and cities.

What the enemy fears most is the war of cities and streets, that war that the enemy expects tremendous, grave losses in. So we also stress the importance of suicide operations against the enemy, those operations that cause so much harm to the enemy in the U.S. and Israel and they have never seen anything like them in their history, thanks be to Allah.

We also stress that anyone who assists the U.S. from among the Iraqi hypocrites or Arab rulers, or those who accept their actions and follow them in their crusader war, whether by fighting with them or through providing administrative support or any other form of support or help, even verbal, to kill Muslims in Iraq, they should know that they are infidels deviating from their religion and their blood is sanctioned.

Allah Almighty said, "All you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as supporters. Some of them support each other, and those who take them as supporters then they are a part of them." Allah doesn't guide unjust people.

We also stress that Muslims have to move and incite and organize the nation into armies to face these great events and harsh conditions, and to liberate themselves from the slavery of these unjust and infidel regimes enslaved by the U.S. From among the most ready for liberation are Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

It's also not hidden that this crusader war targets first and foremost Islam, irrespective of whether the Ba'ath Party and Saddam were deposed or not.

The Muslims in general and the Iraqis in particular have to prepare for jihad against this unjust campaign, and have to make sure to load up on ammunition and weapons, for that is their duty.

Allah Almighty said, "Let them take care and pay attention to their weapons."

The infidels wished you would forget about your weapons and your belongings so that they can launch an all-out attack on them.

It's known that fighting to achieve victory for the infidels is not permissible. And you know the Muslim's belief should be clear when fighting that it should be for the sake of Allah. As the prophet, peace be upon him, said, "Whoever fought to raise the word of Allah, then he's fighting for the sake of Allah."

And it doesn't harm in these conditions the interest of Muslims to agree with those of the socialists in fighting against the crusaders, even though we believe the socialists are infidels. For the socialists and the rulers have lost their legitimacy a long time ago, and the socialists are infidels regardless of where they are, whether in Baghdad or in Aden.

And this fighting about to take place resembles the fight with the Romans earlier and the collusion of interest doesn't harm, for the Muslims' fight against the Romans was due to the collusion of the interests with the Persians.

Before concluding, we stress the importance of optimism and keeping good spirits, and warn against pessimism and dejection and fear. The prophet said, "Be a harbinger of good news and do not spread pessimism." And he also said, "The voice of Abultaha addressing the army is better than a thousand men."

It was mentioned in the narrative that a man told Herod on the day of the Armuk battle how numerous are the Romans and how few are the Muslims. So Herod told him, "Wrong is that what you said, for the armies do not achieve victory by mere numbers, but are defeated through laydown and such words."

So let the words of Allah be before your eyes: "If you know the enemy, then hit their necks and let your encounter with the crusaders follow what the poet said. Do not let your aim be anything but striking beneath our necks."

In conclusion, I advise you and myself to be pious to Allah and (inaudible) in open, and to be patient and persevere in the jihad so the victory is patient for one hour. And I also advise myself and you to mention Allah and pray to him. Allah Almighty said, "All you who believe, if you meet the enemy hold fast and mention the name of Allah often so that you may win."

Oh Allah, the sender of the book, and mover of the clouds and defeater of the enemy, defeat them. Let us be victorious and let us be victorious over them. Let us be victorious and let us be victorious over them. Let us be victorious and let us be victorious over them. Let us be victorious and let us be victorious over them.

And as Allah said, "Make us do good things on Earth and good things in eternity, and protect us against torture of Hell." And may Allah have peace upon his prophet, Mohammed.

Like most Muslims, we were not surprised by America's attack on Iraq. Even from our positions in the mountains, we could easily detect a growing apprehension in the Muslim world. America was flexing its muscle in the war between Christianity and Islam and the many despotic Arab regimes were fearful of their own security. The true reason for America's invasion of Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, it was to ease Saudi Arabia's security concerns.

Saddam Hussein had threatened to invade Saudi Arabia in 1990 when he took Kuwait. This led to a major American military presence in the land of the Two Holy Places, which led in turn to Al-Qaeda and our success in recruiting. The only way that America could defuse the anger in the Muslim world was to remove Saddam Hussein and, thus, remove the American military presence from Saudi Arabia.

We had no liking of the Iraqi regime, but we felt for the Iraqi people. Most Iraqis were decent Sunni Muslims, with many Shia Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north. While Hussein used the Sunni population as his power base and sought to destroy the other factions, he polluted any decent Islamic principles with his Ba'ath Party, which was nothing more than a personality cult with dangerous socialist ideology. Hussein had worked for Arab unity and made some progress until he became a tool of the Americans. As America's strategic requirements in the Middle East, so it became time to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Most Arabs and Muslims understood this. While there was much anti-American sentiment expressed by those states around Iraq when war began, it was but double-speak by regimes which greatly assisted the American war effort.

The conduct of the war was not unexpected. The Americans' overwhelming air power made light work of Iraq's conventional defences. The satellite-guided bombs, which had been used for the first time in Afghanistan, rained down on Iraq's conventional forces. Cruise missiles destroyed key installations in the cities, Iraq's air defence system was shattered. Guerilla operations against the Americans were successful, but theirs was an unstoppable force, by conventional means. Al-Qaeda commander Ayman al-Zawahiri recorded a tape, which was broadcast by the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera in May, after America declared victory in Iraq.

After dividing Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan will come next.

They would leave around Israel only dismembered semi states that are subservient to the United States and Israel.

O Muslims, these are the facts that have been made clear to you.

All the worn out and shabby masks have fallen. Here are the rulers of the Muslims with their airports, bases, and facilities.

They allow their ships to pass in their water, provide them with fuel, food, and supplies and allow their planes to cross their airspace and to even take off from their airports.

They welcome their armies to attack Iraq from their territories. The armies also advance from Kuwait.

We have Qatar where the command of the campaign has taken up its headquarters.

We also have Bahrain, which hosts the command of the Fifth Fleet.

We have Egypt where war vessels pass through its canal.

And we have Yemen that supplies the crusader vessels from its ports.

And we have Jordan where the crusader forces are stationed and where Patriot missile batteries have been deployed to protect Israel.

After all this, they shout with all hypocrisy and deception that they oppose the war on Iraq.

Protests will not do you any good, neither will demonstrations or conferences.

Nothing will do you good, but toting arms and taking revenge against your enemies, the Americans and the Jews.

Demonstrations will not protect your jeopardised holy places or expel an occupying enemy, nor will they deter an arrogant aggressor.

The crusaders and the Jews do not understand but the language of killing and blood.

They do not become convinced unless they see coffins returning to them, their interests being destroyed, their towers being torched, and their economy collapsing.

O Muslims, take matters firmly against the embassies of America, England, Australia, and Norway and their interests, companies, and employees.

Burn the ground under their feet, as they should not enjoy your protection, safety, or security. Expel those criminals out of your countries.

Do not allow the Americans, the British, the Australians, the Norwegians, and the other crusaders who killed your brothers in Iraq to live in your countries, enjoy their resources, and wreak havoc in them.

Learn from your 19 brothers who attacked America in its planes in New York and Washington and caused it a tribulation that it never witnessed before and is still suffering from its injuries until today.

O Iraqi people, we defeated those crusaders several times before and expelled them out of our countries and holy shrines.

You should know that you are not alone in this battle. Your Mujahid brothers are tracking your enemies and lying in wait for them.

The Mujahideen in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Chechnya and even in the heart of America and the West are causing death to those crusaders.

The coming days will bring to you the news that will heal your breasts, God willing.

The Iraq war achieved three strategic goals for Al-Qaeda. Firstly, it showed the Muslim world how the American war machine cared not about Muslim women and children. It made my blood boil to see the relentless images of slaughtered civilians. They call us terrorists? Secondly, it allowed us to build active cells inside Iraq, for the first time. Our fighters were not engaged in the war, but their attacks on the occupation forces helped to wear down American resolve. Thirdly, it led to American withdrawal from Saudi Arabia. Some forces remained behind to help protect the regime, but the potential opposition to our planned coup was dramatically reduced. America's withdrawal also gave us a huge boost within the Muslim public. Al-Qaeda had forced an American withdrawal from the land of the two Holy Places, let there be no disputing that. Now we had to prove that we could deliver even greater rewards to our followers.

The guerrilla campaign was begun by Saddam loyalists. Saddam had survived the war by hiding in Baghdad, even though there were many attempts to kill him, by both Americans and Iraqis. When the Americans took Baghdad, Saddam fled to Syria. He distributed secret videos of himself to his supporters, in which he extolled them to heroic deeds in defence of Islamic Iraq; it suited him to use Islam, even though he had little respect for it.

The Americans showed the vulnerability of an armored force in an urban environment. The Russians had learned the lesson in Grozny and the Americans had a taste of it in Mogadishu; an RPG will destroy all but a main battle tank and even such a mighty enemy can be destroyed by a large mine. City streets are perfect for two man teams to launch attacks, yet almost impossible for heavy armour to operate effectively.

Our cells began to launch attacks on the Americans and distribute propaganda for Al-Qaeda. There were a number of Sunni clerics who returned to political activity after Saddam's downfall. Some of these men fitted our Islamic ideology to perfection and we provided security for them, as well as supporting them financially.

With America becoming bogged down in Iraq, losing men every day, the Taliban became active once more in Afghanistan. Our fighters also found it easier to operate. America's mighty military machine was becoming stretched. They were militarily committed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Columbia. They also had battle-ready garrisons in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Korea and a major force in the hated prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

In May, attacks were launched on the American compounds in Riyadh and the tourist infrastructure of another puppet traitor regime, Morocco. The Riyadh attack was executed by four cells, each attacking a different target simultaneously. They machine-gunned the guards at the foreigners' compounds and drove vehicle bombs into the heart of the snakes' den. The destruction was absolute and the carnage filled the world's TV screens. Many foreigners began leaving Saudi Arabia as even the Sauds' blood money was no longer enough. All foreign workers in Saudi Arabia were now legitimate targets. The Saud regime could not exist without foreign labour, from western medical workers to Pakistani slaves. With a few more such successes, we would drive every infidel from our shores. Morocco had long been an American stooge and it was with great relish that Osama approved a series of attacks in Casablanca. 12 brave martyrs attacked a number of tourist sites, killing many and inflicting a grievous injury on Morocco's tourism industry.

The complexity of events at this time can be illustrated by the events of just one day. July 4, 2003 was America's second independence day since September 11. Security was intense, as the simple fear of a major attack on their homeland was enough to send them in paroxysms of paranoia. We did not have to launch an attack on that symbolic day in order to cost the American economy millions of dollars.

The first event was the release of an audio tape by Saddam Hussein. He spoke of 'jihad cells' in another attempt to bring Islam into his conflict with America. He asked the people of Iraq to support his guerilla fighters and to avoid giving information to the Americans. Coming the day after America had put a bounty of 25 million dollars on Hussein's head, the same price as on Osama's head 'such foolish Americans, the tape had the desired effect and the battle for Iraq became more bloody.

Secondly, our brothers in Quetta launched an attack on a Shia mosque during Friday prayers. Dozens were killed. Many in the Muslim world questioned our methods in attacking a mosque. Our answer, well-publicized in the days following the attack, was that the Shia tribes in Quetta were bought by the American and Pakistani intelligence services. Al-Qaeda and Taliban soldiers had been captured because of them. In light of their treachery, not even their places of worship are sacred.

Thirdly, the Americans decided to intervene in Liberia. The west African state had been founded by freed American slaves after their Civil War. In the years preceding 2003, chaos had reigned supreme, with tribes of rebels vying to remove the dictator, Charles Taylor, and replace him with their own particular brand of savagery.

One in six Liberians was a Muslim and we had been supplying and organizing them for years. Cells were active in the country, as they were in virtually every other African country, and they were ready to draw America into another conflict. The Americans had no good experience of Africa. It was time they remembered why.
CHAPTER 17. ALLAH'S THUNDER

"Verily Allah knoweth those who believe, and verily He knoweth the hypocrites."

Surah 29. Al-Ankabut, The Spider. V 11.

Afghanistan, 2004

I returned to Afghanistan in early 2004, the year that our Jihad fighters began to smell victory from the spilt blood of our foes. It felt good to be back in the land that had nurtured Al-Qaeda. The Americans had been pulling their forces from Afghanistan and they were replaced by inexperienced soldiers from Germany, Japan and other enemy countries. The Taliban had been regrouping and our own fighters too were more active.

Attacks on the occupiers increased in frequency and ferocity. The occupiers had retreated to positions around Kabul, the countryside was too dangerous for them. Kandahar was back in our hands. The situation on the ground was beginning to resemble that in 1988. Where the Russians had learned to fear our ambushes, so the new occupiers had learned the same lesson.

The Americans were full of talk when they invaded in 2001. They pledged billions to give Afghanistan a stable government under their puppet president, Karzai, and said they would stay for as long as it took. Needless to say, only a fraction of the money was delivered and, where Afghanistan had known stability under the Taliban, chaos reigned under Karzai. The warlords were growing ever stronger and we allied ourselves with the Taliban and the warlord Hekmatyar. The Muslim world knew well never to believe the Americans after the mess they made of Afghanistan.

Our first major blow against their puppet government was the assassination of Karzai. He was one of the most heavily-protected heads of state in the world, but we managed to kill him. This was a great sign to all other American puppets, that there was no hiding place from Al-Qaeda.

In an echo of the assassination of Egypt's Sadat, we had two fighters in Karzai's personal security detail. His closest bodyguards were American CIA men, but his home and offices were protected by Afghans from his own tribe. One evening in March, as he prayed in his courtyard with his family, our assassins managed to get into clear firing positions inside his house. They fired their AKs and threw grenades. In seconds, Karzai and his family were dead. The CIA lost two of their men before our brave fighters succumbed to the counter attack. Theirs was absolute dedication.

The following day, our nuclear bomb exploded in Washington DC. The bomb was transported by cargo ship from Karachi, through Rotterdam, to Baltimore. It was in a container of ornamental garden statues of the Buddha. A secret compartment was lined with lead to block x-rays and prevent radiation leakage. If the container was screened on entering America, our plan would have been detected. Luckily, we got through safely, due in no small part to our agents in Baltimore Port. Many cells were involved in the delivery of the device and those in the port waited weeks for one container to arrive. They delayed its unloading until the customs spot check teams were on a shift change and moved it swiftly through the system. It was driven by truck to Washington DC and delivered to a warehouse in an industrial park.

The nuclear device was then transported, late at night, by branded van to a coffee house in the Federal Triangle, which was operated as a franchise by one of our cells. The device was unloaded in a rear alley and placed in the open area frequented by smoking customers. It was in position at 3.30am, just 23 hours after it had entered the country.

The specially trained nuclear attack cell took command of the mission and waited until morning when they would activate the device. Time passed slowly for them. 8.46am was the planned detonation time, both as an echo of September 11 and because the population of Washington would be at its peak at that hour of a Monday morning. The chaos and destruction would be absolute. The brave martyrs waited patiently, expecting the CIA to attack at any moment. They drank coffee, of which there was a more than adequate supply, and checked regularly for Email messages. Osama sent a message just after midnight on the day of the attack, confirming the action. As the minutes ticked by, there was no change to the command.

At the appointed time, the glorious martyrs used two keys to activate the device. When both keys were turned simultaneously, modified cannon inside fired lumps of uranium 235 at each other, causing critical mass and a runaway nuclear reaction. This resulted in massive amounts of energy being created, released as neutrons, heat, light and assorted particles. The explosion was estimated at 10 kilotons, or 10,000 tonnes of TNT, which was lower than our models had predicted. But the blast did exceed our expectations, as it held a deadly second blow in reserve.

Washingtonians hurried to work, many nursing hangovers from the weekend and sudden memories of the work that lay ahead that just didn't seem relevant on Friday afternoon. Deliveries were made and breakfasts eaten. The coffee house remained closed, even as tens of thousands of state employees filed into their meaningless jobs. Police and soldiers manned checkpoints all over the central political zone. Helicopters buzzed and traffic roared. Politicians took their places in their lavish offices and intelligence briefings told many in positions of power that Al-Qaeda aimed to deliver an atomic bomb to Washington.

5 city blocks on the edge of the Federal Triangle were instantly vapourised. The blast shook the White House and the Capitol Building and destroyed all the city's subway systems. It will be many months before an accurate death toll is written, but it is estimated that 22,000 of the enemy died in the blast.

While the shock waves rolled down the Potomac River, the fires engulfed buildings beside ground zero. Many had been left standing, but their empty, burning windows stared like the eyes of a dead beast. In the minutes and hours after detonation, a further 4,000 were killed by the flames or the falling buildings. The emergency systems were unable to cope with the carnage, some key assets were within the blast radius. When the dust settled and the cries of pain were being drowned by the wailing of sirens and the thudding of helicopter blades, all eyes were on the President, who was in his office beside the White House at the time of attack.

Within an hour, the tv news networks had live camera feeds of the scene. I watched the reports with Osama. We had moved to a new base with our highest level officers. All other fighters had been ordered to disperse and prepare for follow up attacks and enemy reprisals. The reporters were panic-stricken. We watched coverage with a journalist standing on a rooftop with the desolation behind him. A huge pall of smoke hung over central Washington. Flames leapt into the sky and the White House was a partial ruin. Other reporters cut in and out and reports of bomb scares in other cities were flashed on the screen. All flights were grounded, but it was too late.

A scheduled passenger flight from Miami to Washington Dulles had been hijacked fifteen minutes before the detonation and was hit its target, the headquarters of the National Security Agency outside Washington, thirty minutes after zero hour. The complex was almost completely destroyed and hundreds of America's top spies and code breakers died.

A second plane, on a scheduled flight from San Diego to San Francisco, struck San Diego's naval shipyards shortly after take-off. It destroyed a nuclear submarine in dry dock and sank a new guided missile frigate that was ready to begin sea trials. Many other vessels were damaged and hundreds of sailors and military industrial complex workers were killed.

My noon, our enemy was perplexed. Our attacks were finished for that day, but they feared so much, the tv transmitted the pure panic of the population. It emerged that Bush the Younger was only slightly hurt; he appeared briefly for the cameras, his head bandaged, left arm in a sling, being ferried away in a mass convoy. No sooner had Bush run away than our follow up punch was revealed.

The atomic explosion was less than we anticipated because not all the uranium had coalesced on detonation. The nuclear explosion used only half of the uranium, the rest was scattered with the blast. Our bomb was both atomic and dirty. Most people within a 3 kilometer radius and those downwind up to 10 kilometers away had received a potentially fatal dose of radiation.

It will be many years before the true cost of that bomb is known to the Americans, but now, three years on, Washington DC is a ghost town, Bush the Younger has lung cancer and the American economy is in freefall. A million may yet die from the Second Day of Vengeance.

Even as the day's events unfolded, Vice President Cheney, who had assumed command after Washington was attacked and Bush injured, declared war on Al-Qaeda from a bunker in Seattle. The Americans had often assured their people that they were 'at war' with terrorism, this declaration now made it official. We knew that the most terrible storm was coming our way, but our strategic plan relied on this. The Americans would lash out and we would recruit our legions of martyrs for the final battle.

Our cave base would protect us for an expected six months of constant enemy surveillance and probing attacks. It was well-located for this end. A long, narrow canyon on the north face of a peak contained the cave entrance. Always in shadow, the entrance was concealed behind a twisting pathway. It was constructed by our engineers before the Day of Vengeance and had not been discovered in the invasion after that attack. It was stocked with ample supplies of food, water, weapons and reading matter. A silent generator powered our lights and communications, which were all passive or encrypted and we had sufficient diesel to run it for a year. A closed circuit tv surveillance system with night vision covered all access routes to the canyon out to a distance of 4 kilometers and mines were planted near the entrance. These could be detonated remotely while we used a rear escape tunnel. We planned to sit out the American attack then slip out into a changed world, when we would travel to Yemen in preparation for the coup that would deliver Saudi Arabia from the Saud family of traitors.

Within three days of our Second Day of Vengeance, when the true scale of our success was becoming apparent, the assaults began. Simultaneous land and air attacks were launched on Afghanistan and Sudan. They flew 300,000 troops into Bagram airbase near Kabul in 48 hours. Cruise missiles and JDAM bombs wrecked many of our training camps. Ground assault teams combed the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and hundreds of Predator spy planes sought our position. But the Taliban and Hekmatyar's men were waiting for them. Every convoy of enemy troops was ambushed. Americans died in twos and threes, much as they had in Iraq, and suicide attacks on their bases inflicted major damage. This was truly war and, while some of our men participated, we were sidelined. Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar believed that Islam had greater chance of defeating the Crusaders with Al-Qaeda's top leadership alive and planning for the bigger picture, rather than bleeding to death for the sake of a dead American GI.

The assault on Sudan was expected by us, but we had not anticipated its ferocity. We had not alerted our Sudanese friends of our impending attacks, in case the enemy intercepted our communications. However, all Al-Qaeda bases there, as well as in Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, the Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh had been notified and abandoned with stealth.

Less than two weeks after the new invasion of Afghanistan, 20,000 US Marines landed at Port Sudan. The Sudanese army put up some resistance, but their positions were obliterated by bombers and helicopters and the Marines were able to dock and disembark easily. With the port bridgehead secure, they began a thrust for Khartoum, led by unstoppable tank columns. Meanwhile, fresh columns come from Egypt to the north. The Americans were supported by Egyptian troops, which we did not expect. However, this development worked to our advantage as the Egyptian populace was incensed that their government should assist the Crusaders in their invasion of a fellow Muslim nation. As pincers closed on Khartoum from the north and the east, airborne soldiers landed at the airport. After a fierce firefight, the Sudanese army defenders detonated charges that destroyed most of the airport's key facilities and hundreds of the invaders. Their martyrdom boosted the spirit of the Sudanese people and many joined in the defence of their Muslim nation. But it was too little. The Christian southerners were supplied with artillery and air support and they too began to push towards the capital. The brave Muslim Brotherhood leaders who had supported us so well fled to the west, across the Teiga Plateau and into Chad. The Americans took Khartoum after just four days. Our men hid in cave bases in the Nubian Desert, southern Egypt. Few were killed or captured in the invasion and conquest of Sudan.

Our enemy's next step came as a surprise to us. As my comrades and I lay low in our Afghanistan cave, the shockwaves from the Washington attack continued to echo. Indonesian Muslims had begun to rally in their thousands in support of Al-Qaeda. Muslim insurgents and Al-Qaeda cells worked together to destabilise the government position on many of its thirteen thousand islands and rid the nation of infidels and disbelievers. With more Muslims than any other country on earth, Indonesia would be a vital part of the New World Nation of Islam. The non-Muslim minorities were pushed out or killed. Nobody much cared when the Chinese Totoks in Indonesia were burned from their homes. But the Crusaders came to the aid of the Christians when Muslim gangs began to attack their properties on Java and Sumatra.

The Indonesian military was over-stretched, fighting our forces on too many fronts, so appeared incapable of saving the Christians. America offered to assist and the Indonesian president, fearing for his own position amid spiraling public disorder, allowed them in. 50,000 American troops were redeployed from South Korea and the Philippines, where ongoing conflict with our brothers was at a stalemate. To see Americans on the streets of Jakarta was a surprise and a shock. It appeared that they knew how important Indonesia would be to us and were staking their claim on it with a military force that would be difficult to remove.

By the end of the year, America had invaded three Muslim countries, increased its forces in many more traitor Muslim countries and carried out the covert assassination of two of Iran's leading clerics. The shock of the Second Day of Vengeance had forced them to overextend their military resources. Our spies learned of secret plans to call up more reserves, exhausting their entire supply. Presidential discussions about reactivating conscription were leaked to the media by us, causing increased public unease. Their war in Afghanistan needed more men if they would have a realistic chance of finding our secret bases, but Sudan needed a strong occupying force to counter the daily attacks by Muslim Brotherhood fighters. Iraq was still a thorn in America's side, drawing blood as each day went by and they were now fully committed in Indonesia. Fortifying troops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, Egypt and Turkey drew down the reserves from all bases at home and in non-Muslim countries. If we could stretch them in another front, we could draw forces away from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, making our planned coup that much easier.

These were the issues we pondered and discussed for endless hours in our cave. There were six of us in hiding together; myself and Osama and four of his personal bodyguards, who took it in turns to monitor the cameras and patrol outside. We felt that victory was within our grasp. The only chances the enemy had to discover us would be during a complete search of the mountains, which would take 100 years to complete, or detecting our heat signature from above. Heat dispersal systems were built deep into the mountain from the generator, so our signature was invisible. For all America's military posturing around the world, she was hurting badly in the homeland. Our Second Day of Vengeance had a dramatic effect on the population. People talked of little else and their media obsessed with us. False alarms caused fresh panic daily and Al-Qaeda was blamed for everything from forest fires to plane crashes. Their economy was ruined, with deflation beginning to cause a second great Depression. The only products on which consumers spent their money were guns and home security measures. Plastic sheeting and duct tape sales peaked again, amid fears of a biological attack. Law and order began to collapse, with lynching of Muslims and whites only areas declared. Bush the Younger was re-elected for another term as President. The nation's sympathy for his minor injuries on the Second Day of Vengeance gave him an easy campaign. Pity the poor Americans who once again chose to be led by the family that had caused them so much pain. Christian leaders spoke repeatedly about the Biblical battle of Armageddon in which they believed they found themselves. Perhaps they were correct. This was a war between good and evil and good would prevail before God. Of this we could assure them.
CHAPTER 18. THE PROPHECY

"O ye who believe! When ye meet an army, hold firm and think of Allah much, that ye may be successful.

"And obey Allah and His messenger, and dispute not with one another lest ye falter and your strength depart from you; but be steadfast! Lo! Allah is with the steadfast."

Surah 8. Al-Anfal, Spoils of War. V 45-46.

Afghanistan, 2005

It was time to reposition our forces for the attack on Saudi Arabia. A complex plan was arranged. In it, we detailed the movements of cells and individual fighters to the positions they would take up in the desert region between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Most soldiers were simply supplied with destination coordinates and would make their own way to the objective. Others were tasked with bringing supplies and equipment that we would need, so had to be supported in their journeys.

Bases had been constructed in the assembly area, some dated back to our period of consolidation in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. We had adequate bedding and tents for 20,000 men. Training ranges and transport were also ready for us. Enough small arms, missiles and martyr bombs were ready and we also had our most precious weapons ready for this most important of battles. One nuclear device and 4 helicopters with nerve agent bombs were ready for use. The nuclear device would be used in Riyadh on the main American base and the nerve agent would be used to attack the Saud family. With luck, we would wipe out the hated Sauds and their American mercenaries in one morning, allowing our fighters to take Riyadh with ease. The Saudi army, well equipped with American tanks and British bombers, would be difficult to confront on the battlefield, but against an army of willing martyrs, fighting in the city's alleys with RPGs and landmines, they would be destroyed. Now, as we finalized our logistics, the Americans needed to be distracted from the Saudi peninsula.

Osama spoke regularly during this time about the Prophecy which had been revealed to him. It had happened while he went to the desert in Jeddah all those years before. In the rapture of prayer and fasting, Allah had given him his divine Prophecy. It was that Osama would free the Muslim peoples of Saudi Arabia from the traitorous despots who had ruled them for centuries. This was truly the homeland of Allah, Muhammad and Islam. The Prophecy's clarity that his mission would be a success helped to drive Osama during our difficult times. One day, Osama and I went on a patrol to the end of our canyon. Osama had insisted that we go, so as to get some fresh air. It was a cold February day and my ears and nose were numb within minutes of leaving the warmth of our cave. A clear light struck the steep mountainsides far above our heads, but we remained in cold, dark shadow. At the end of our canyon, we climbed for a while to a position that gave us a view for some miles. We saw some dust clouds being thrown up in the distance and three high altitude enemy aircraft, but no sign that our position was in danger. We returned to the cave and sat by the fire for hours.

'In a real way, this is the battle towards which we have struggled this past 20 years, he told me.

'Saudi Arabia is indeed the most valuable prize, I replied.

'What will become of us?' he asked wearily.

'We will be the ones who helped to liberate the Land of the Two Holy Places for all Muslims. This is your destiny, Osama. You are living to bring your Prophecy to reality. You are mighty and brave and an honest man before God. Why do you seem downcast?

'My health is failing me,' he began. 'My kidneys cause me pain most days and I fear other parts of my body which have been injured in this war are painful also. I fear that I will not live to see our victory.'

'Without you, there can be no victory,' I replied. 'When will the Doctor return to check on you?'

'The Doctor is already in Yemen. That is why we must make our move soon. Our best plan is to get to Quetta and fly from there to Jeddah on a Hajj pilgrimage flight. The Hajj will allow us to blend in with a million worshippers and get us close to our destination.'

The Hajj was due to begin in only a few weeks. It had taken on a special significance, with the upsurge in Muslim pride and desire for self-determination under Allah. The traitor Muslim regimes across the world shook with fear as the Muslim voices united into one that preached God's way as the only way. This would be an unstoppable force which would come to destroy the traitors and their evil ways. Security around the holy sites was more intense than ever. The Saudi authorities feared that the pilgrims would begin a riot and attack the regime. American forces were ready to support the Saudi army and police if events got out of control, but they stayed well hidden.

Destabilising the Hajj would have been a good action, but it was more valuable to us as a cloak for the movement of many of our fighters back into Saudi Arabia. Traveling with perfect identification papers, families and sick relatives, they appeared as honest pilgrims, doing their duties as good Muslims. Also, it would have been disrespectful to interfere with our innocent Brothers' right to pay homage to Allah.

We began to pack and prepare for our journey. We would carry only automatic pistols, travel by mule to Pishin and get a pilgrim bus to Quetta airport. Osama shaved his beard very tight and wore glasses. This helped to greatly change his appearance. Though the shaving of the beard is prohibited under Salafy Islam, he did it for the success of our mission. We traveled with two of Osama's bodyguards, the others would protect the cave until they heard from us.

We left on foot, through the rear escape tunnel which led toward the Pakistani border. After a day's travel, we crossed the border without seeing a single American or Pakistani soldier. Spy planes could be seen in the distance, over the Pakistani plains, but we were out of their range. We came to a small village, which also served as a transit point for our fighters. Half a dozen Al-Qaeda men worked in the village, selling mules and guns as border traders. We purchased four mules, rested for a night so as to check the route ahead by making some phone calls and prepared for the most dangerous part of our journey.

The Pakistanis knew they could not compete with us in the mountains, so they concentrated their forces in the valleys leading into Pakistan. Nearly all roads ran through their checkpoints and enemy satellites supplied information to local commanders on any potentially hostile forces moving in from Afghanistan. As we neared Pishin, an army checkpoint appeared out of the morning mist. Manned by at least 100 troops, everyone was being scrutinized and having their papers checked. There were many pilgrims on the road around us. Osama nodded that we would continue through.

Our papers were checked and we were questioned about our journey. A young soldier gazed thoughtfully at Osama for a few seconds and I feared the worst. But we were not discovered and passed on into Pishin, where many pilgrim buses waited in the village square. As each bus became full, it would leave for Quetta and we took the bus which was nearest departing. Within the hour, we were on the road. The bus was bursting at the seams with pilgrims, all joyous and excited at beginning their great Hajj. Every Muslim is expected to complete the Hajj during their lifetime and, for many of our fellow travelers, this was the culmination of their life's work.

Time passed quickly and we reached Quetta airport at dawn. The terminal building was thronged with pilgrims as hajj was but two days away. We blended easily and checked in individually onto the same flight. The plane took off on schedule and a few hours later, we had returned to Saudi Arabia, the place of our birth and the place of our greatest battle.

Jeddah's sprawling airport was packed with pilgrims and armed police. We were stopped and searched many times as we made our way through customs and out into the concourse. A friend met us and took us into Jeddah in is car.

'The city is crawling with police and army,' he told us. 'Like I have never seen before. Did they suspect your journey, I wonder?'

'Unlikely,' answered Osama. 'They fear the hajj may spill onto the streets. The regime is but a paper tiger and there are many pilgrims here who could light the match that would destroy it forever.'

As we drove into the suburbs, checkpoints at each junction made it impossible for any to move without credible identification. We stayed in our agent's house and, over dinner, planned our next move. A sumptuous feast was arranged for us, with all manner of meats, cheeses, fruits, breads and teas. This was the finest food we'd eaten in nearly a year. Life in the cave didn't seem so bad while we lived it, but now, surrounded by simple luxuries such as fresh food and sunshine, I didn't relish our impending trip into the inhospitable desert. Our destination would be the Rub' al-Khali, or empty quarter; over 400,000 square kilometers of desert without streams, inhabitants or shelter. This would be the perfect location from which to gather our forces and launch our attack. Bases were deep underground, to provide protection from the fierce sun and the daily sandstorms. Water was pumped from deep wells and all bases were amply stocked with food and weapons. The desert had bred us and the desert would give us succor in the battle to end the war.

We stayed in Jeddah for a few weeks, returning to full strength and learning more about the global struggle. We didn't leave the house even once, as it was feared that spies were all over the city for the Hajj. Having made it safely back to our homeland, we needed to keep a low profile. Some visitors came to the house one morning. It was the Doctor and some of his closest commanders. They had been tasked with preparing our bases in the Empty Quarter and came to Jeddah upon hearing of Osama's return.

The Doctor spent a day and a half examining Osama and testing his bodily functions. He reported that Osama's health was, indeed, failing and a kidney transplant would be required within six months or his life would be in peril. Osama was not pleased with this news, but came to accept it. He chose to have the operation before our final attack on the Saud regime. The Doctor advised that the operation could be carried out immediately a donor was located and recuperation would take from 4 - 8 weeks. I immediately volunteered to donate a kidney, as did the others in the house. The Doctor said that tests of blood groups and immunologic profiles would be required, to reduce the risk of rejection or complication. Osama was put on immediate dialysis until the operation. When the blood and immune system test results were completed, the Doctor was not happy. None of our profiles was suitable. He advised that the only possible solutions were to find a close relative of Osama's who would donate a kidney or to locate one from a suitable cadaver. A relative was the best solution as kidneys from cadavers take longer to function properly after transplantation and the odds of rejection or secondary infection are greatly increased. Even with a relative's kidney, Osama would require immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of his life. It was decided that I would visit one of Osama's brothers to ask for his help.

Being from a family of 52 children, Osama had a large pool to draw on. Having thought long and hard about his predicament, he chose his favourite brother, the one who had promised Osama in recent times that he would cut off his right arm were it to help our cause. I traveled alone to the brother's house, a large villa overlooking the Red Sea near Jeddah's port. I was met at the gate by a security man, having traveled as a tv repairman, complete with van and uniform. We feared that Saudi spies would be observing all Osama's relatives in case he would try and make contact.

I entered the luxurious house and was greeted warmly by the brother. He enquired after Osama's well-being and whereabouts and my heart sank as I told him of his brother's poor health. Without my having to ask, he immediately volunteered to help by donating a kidney. This was indeed a joyous development. I took a blood sample with the kit I had brought. Then I got him to sign a form to confirm that had fixed his tv reception and left. I returned the van to the shop, which was run by the brother of one of our agents, and returned to Osama and the Doctor.

We waited anxiously for the test results and were overjoyed when we heard that a match had been made. The operation would take place immediately. Osama asked me to go to the Empty Quarter during his recuperation, so that our training could be increased. The Doctor would remain by his side. As the surgery was prepared in another location, Osama called a meeting with all our commanders in Saudi Arabia at the time. It would be our most important council of war. Nine gathered at the house and, after a prayer and some food, the meeting got under way.

'We are gathered here today to plan the final stages of our seizure of Saudi Arabia, began Osama. It is time for us to put all our cells on alert. Those in this region will work directly on the attack, while those outside the theatre will work to capitalise on our progress and draw enemy forces away.

'What of our diversion while our forces assemble here?' I asked.

'This will happen within days. It is important that all cells are aware of the reason for the diversion. I ask each of you to ensure that all lines of communication with cells are kept open for a few days. The Hajj ends soon, but it still gives us the best cover for our communications and movements. The diversion itself will consist of the assassination of the Kuwaiti Emir and a coordinated uprising in Iraq. Our goal is to make the Americans and their traitor allies believe that the Kuwait attack was sponsored by remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and that the uprising is their work also. This should draw most of the forces in Saudi Arabia towards Iraq and away from the Empty Quarter.'

The plan was discussed at length for many hours and it was time for dawn prayers when the discussions had finished. We each knew what part we had to play. My role would be to ensure that all our fighters in the southern bases were fully-trained and ready for their greatest battle.

I stayed with Osama until after the operation, which was a success. But he was very weak and the Doctor feared that his complete recovery may take longer than expected. The day I left Jeddah, the attack on the Kuwaiti Emir was launched. The Kuwaiti royal family was attending a regatta on the Kuwait City seafront. An assassination squad drove a boat bomb into the promenade, killing the Emir and those closest to him. In total, over 80 were killed by the blast. Our brave martyrs carried Iraqi personal effects and identification and we hoped that enough fragments of bogus evidence remained.

Simultaneously, a series of coordinated raids was launched against the British and American occupiers in Iraq. Every base was attacked and every convoy was ambushed. Attempts were made to assassinate the American military commander and the Iraqi traitors who joined the puppet council. For 48 hours, the scene was one of carnage and confusion. The Americans feared that the Ba'athists were trying to take control of Iraq once more. Sure enough, many of the American forces based on our peninsula were moved into Iraq and Saudi security forces moved closer to Riyadh. America had no troops in reserve. This left the routes open to us to move our men into the west of the country and Yemen. Oman was another staging post, as it too was close to the Empty Quarter. And our fighters flooded in from all over the Middle East. Veterans of many campaigns and bloody conflicts converged on the Land of the Two Holy Places for the final struggle of liberation. The operation was a great success, with only a handful of our men captured.

As the year drew to a close, we had assembled 12,000 men in the Empty Quarter and the enemy had no clue as to our plans. Osama was with us too, having recovered fully from his kidney transplant operation. His health was now as strong as it had been back in Afghanistan in the 1980s. We felt powerful. Allah was on our side and the endgame was about to unfold.
CHAPTER 19. OPERATION ALLAH'S RAGE

"So they plotted a plot: and We plotted a plot, while they perceived not.

"Then see the nature of the consequence of their plotting, for lo! We destroyed them and their people, every one.

"See, yonder are their dwellings empty and in ruins because they did wrong. Lo! herein is indeed a portent for a people who have knowledge."

Surah 27. An-Naml, The Ant. V 50-52.

Saudi Arabia, 2006

All winter long, the Empty Quarter was whipped by sand storms. To be caught in the open during a storm would be risk almost certain death. The enemy stayed well away from us and the constant blanket of airborne sand gave us protection from spy planes and patrolling helicopters. Even the Predators were not immune to our sand. Our bases were concentrated in the highlands, which gave some respite from the harsh conditions further north. The ridges and canyons also afforded us natural protection from aerial spies and made the construction and concealment of our bases easier to manage.

Training and preparations continued apace. Our underground bases consisted of living quarters, briefing rooms and firing ranges. Every man ate, drank and slept with his AK and each was a highly skilled marksman, better trained than our American foes. Scouting parties regularly probed the desert for enemy activity, but there was little to report. The Americans believed that we were still in Afghanistan and they continued to search the mountains with their Pakistani allies. They would find few of our men, even if they searched every cave in Afghanistan. The bulk of our forces was in Saudi Arabia or Yemen and the remainder were in Pakistan, preparing to launch a coup there simultaneously with our seizure of power in Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistani operation would be carried out by our men, allied with the Pakistani Islamic guerilla groups with whom we had operated for over 12 years. A sizable portion of the Pakistani army and air force was ready to join us when we seized the upper hand. A total armed force of 40,000 men was ready to take up arms against the traitor dictator Musharraf. Truly our enemies would not know which way to turn when we attacked. Our Taliban allies were also briefed about the plans. They would attack occupying forces at the time of the Pakistani revolution, making it difficult for America to reinforce Musharraf from Afghanistan. Our fighters in Iraq would increase their attacks on the infidels when we attacked Riyadh, again pinning down the reinforcements that the traitor Muslims would need to save their dirty skins.

With Saudi Arabia and Pakistan under our control, and with the Americans unable to intervene strongly, our plan was to foment Islamic uprisings in all other states that were run by puppet, traitor Muslims. We had agitators ready in all traitor states. Their task would be political and military. They would distribute leaflets calling for the destruction of the traitor regimes and also carry out bombings and assassinations. Our vision was for chaos to consume the Islamic world and, when the chaos subsided, to unify Islamic nations into a Global Islamic Alliance. Then we would be strong enough in unity to utterly destroy our enemies and bring Islam to its deserved position of dominance.

The plan was to be activated in the middle of July, when the sun was at its hottest. That would give our men a natural advantage over the Crusaders and their heavy weapons. As the day of attack neared, preparations reached a high pitch. Weapons and ammunition were delivered to strategic locations well inside Saudi Arabia. These and other supplies were landed on the remote eastern coast of Yemen and shipped across the desert by camel. Guns, missiles, mortars, explosives and electronic equipment, including night vision goggles and encrypted communications systems, all were placed in position. Confidence ran high and our plan was evolving perfectly.

A fortnight before the launch of Allah's Rage, as we had named the operation, Osama called myself and the rest of his commanders in that theatre to a meeting. Though we had operational meetings on a daily basis, this would be the final planning discussion before the attack. I was nervous, as were all the others in the room. We were deep underground and the space was lit only by wall-mounted oil lamps so as to minimise our electricity consumption. What power we had was used for communications and ventilation. A large map of Saudi Arabia was on the wall farthest from the door and we sat on the floor, which was covered in fine rugs.

Osama stood by the map, greeted us and led us in prayer. Then he addressed the gathering.

'Starting tomorrow, we move our forces to within striking distance of Riyadh and Mecca. It will take many days and nights to travel the 500 kilometers and the environment, as we have come to know, is extremely hostile. All units have their travel plans and rendezvous points. Our most important asset now is the element of surprise. Our agents inside Saudi intelligence report that there is no inkling of our plan known to our enemies. They believe us to be still in Afghanistan. It is of the utmost importance that none of our units are detected in transit. That is why the diversionary uprising in Iraq will begin tomorrow. The uprising will include missile attacks on Kuwait and incursions into northern Saudi Arabia. This will focus American spy satellites and Saudi concerns to the north of Riyadh. The south will belong to us. On the day of the attack, the Saudi royals will be the first to feel our anger. Our units will then push into Riyadh, seizing the palaces and administrative centres. Oil facilities will be the secondary targets and all will be mined in case of reprisals. At this point in the attack, many units of the Saudi armed forces will join us and a popular uprising of the oppressed people of Saudi Arabia will force the complete capitulation of the regime. When we declare the foundation of Islamic Arabia, we will prepare for the hardest part of our campaign, absorbing the counter attack of our foes.'

'What of Mecca?' asked a commander.

'The taking of the Most Holy Place will be decisive. Our units in and around Jeddah number 2,000 men. They have finely detailed plans for the taking and holding of Mecca, without causing any damage to its most important sites. The assault on Mecca will occur simultaneously with our assault on Riyadh. Both rely on the success of the first stage of the attack, which is the killing of the traitor dynasty.'

'What if that attack is not successful?' asked another officer.

'It cannot fail,' answered Osama. 'If the king or the crown prince survive, there will be a rallying point for the armed forces that are not with us and also some of the populace. That would greatly complicate our mission and give time for other traitor regimes in the region to come to the king's aid. I have faith that our assassination plan will succeed. If it does not, we proceed with our plans, but we cannot expect the military forces loyal to our objectives to join us in the open fight. In that scenario, 12 units in Riyadh will have as their key objective the location and destruction of the royals. Let us not forget that this corrupt state was founded when Ibn Saud scaled the walls of Riyadh with just 15 men in 1902, defeated the governor and was acclaimed by the populace as their new ruler. Truly, we have more strength and belief.'

'And what of Pakistan?'

'The Pakistani coup will unfold to a different timescale. I expect that we will declare the existence of Islamic Arabia to all the world within seven days of beginning our operation. Our men in Pakistan have orders to choose their time of best opportunity according to our success. Everything depends on us.'

Osama looked around the room, smiling at each of us.

'You are all my brothers and I am very proud of our time together. The time for talking is over. When next we meet, it will be in Riyadh. Please pass this message to all your men: "You have fought long and hard in the defence of Allah. Now the time has come to liberate the Land of the Two Holy Places. As your commander, I have the strongest feelings of pride in you and your achievements. But think of the coming campaign as your greatest chance of glory. Those that survive the battles will live long in luxury as heroes of Islam. Those that perish will enjoy an eternity in heaven as martyrs for Allah. May Allah bless you and guide your bullets." That is all.'

I left the meeting with a huge knot in my stomach. This was it, the final battle was about to unfold and I would be in the thick of it. My unit would not leave the base for two days, so this gave me ample time to prepare and to pray. I shared a room with another officer and, when I returned there for some rest, he was packing his equipment.

'I leave tonight,' he said, a broad smile on his face.

'May Allah guide and protect you,' I said.

His unit would be one of the first into action, attacking the main American/Saudi airbase outside Riyadh. Their success would save many of our fighters' lives. Their means of attack included surface-to surface missiles and a convoy of truck bombs, all of which were ready in the desert near the base. Many, if not all, of his men would certainly become martyrs. They would be assisted by units of the Saudi National Guard, whose leaders were with us. The Deputy Crown Prince, as commander of the National Guard, was an Al-Qaeda loyalist and he fully expected to become king once we had killed Fahd and the Crown Prince. My comrade left and I was alone.

I prayed through the night for protection of our forces. By morning, though tired, I felt an increasing confidence. I spent most of the day in a firing range or going over our objectives with my unit commanders. We were tasked with taking and holding the Saudi secret police headquarters. It was a well-fortified building which held many dark secrets of the Saud regime. I had command of 200 men and a variety of powerful missiles. We pored over the ground plans of the building and the surrounding streets. Our plan was simple; we would lay in ambush outside both the main and rear entrances. Shortly after hearing of the attack on King Fahd and his corrupt family, the bulk of the secret police force, which numbered in the hundreds, was expected to race from their headquarters to come to the aid of the royals. We would destroy them with truck mines and missile crossfire. While the ambush engagement continued, a small force would detonate a large bomb at the main entrance and would then enter the building. The ambush teams would follow and we would sweep the entire structure to wipe out all resistance. The dungeons and torture chambers below ground level would be a key target, as almost 100 of our fighters, spies and agents were held captive there. We would also urgently seek intelligence data which would be of use in the unfolding revolution, including information on the whereabouts of all the royals. I was satisfied that my commanders knew their places in the plan and that all were confident of our success. Late that night, we packed our gear and prepared to leave the base for Riyadh.

Osama came to me and wished me well. He would remain at the base until closer to the day of attack, as he needed to be in constant communications with our units in Jeddah, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were hundreds of decisions yet to be taken and orders to be given. I was sad at having to leave him in this time of great stress, but he needed my support less than I needed to be involved in an important battle. Not since Afghanistan had I been engaged in an open battle and I was excited by the prospect.

'Your mission is of the utmost importance,' he told me. 'The secret police are the most brutally efficient of Fahd's forces. If they slip out of our trap, they will cost us many lives and make the taking of Riyadh very difficult.'

I told him that I well understood the importance of my mission and that he need not worry. Then he asked me to look hard for his brother who, we feared, was a prisoner in the base. I promised that I would return his brother safely to him in Riyadh. We prayed briefly together, embraced and, for the first time, he kissed me on the cheek.

My equipment consisted of the lightweight AK rifle which Osama had given to me on the day our families united in Sudan. I had a waist pouch with six magazines of 30 rounds each, a dagger and an automatic pistol. I carried a backpack containing 10 liters of water, some dry food rations and maps of the Empty Quarter and Riyadh. None of us would carry communications equipment on our journeys, that and our heavy weapons awaited us nearer our objectives.

I traveled with fourteen men from my unit. All were battle-hardened and all had been trained personally by me in Afghanistan or Sudan. We had worked together for months planning and exercising our assault and would link up with the rest of our team at our logistics base on the outskirts of Riyadh. We left in the dead of night, on camels. Most of our army traveled north in the guise of Bedouin. As long as the numbers in each group were kept low, a caravan of camels and riders would never raise suspicion in the Empty Quarter. There was no moon and the night was black. Wolves howled in the near distance, but our camels were not nervous. We followed trails that had been traveled by our forefathers for 2,000 years and our camels were sure-footed and confident. The sky was clear, with the sand storms having subsided earlier in the day. We used the north star for navigation, confirming our position hourly with GPS devices against our detailed maps. There were no or oases in the Empty Quarter, which is the largest expanse of sand in the world. After a few hours, the dawn broke and we reached our first staging post.

A large tent was erected in the shade of a large sand dune. A light coating of sand covered much of the tent, rendering it invisible to the eye from more than 50 meters. We tethered our camels and gave them water and food from the supplies inside the tent. Notes were pinned to the inside of the tent. These were from our comrades who had traveled before us and mostly consisted of quotes from the Qur'an and messages of solidarity that would mean nothing to an outsider. We rested for a few hours and set off again in the late afternoon.

That night, we came to an oil installation. The Empty Quarter held large quantities of oil and was dotted with pumping stations, which fed the pipelines that crossed the arid landscape. Our secondary mission was to place explosive charges at this and two more oil installations that were on our designated path. We concealed the camels and lay on the crest of a dune while we observed our target through night vision binoculars. All was quiet. A wire fence surrounded installation, which was poorly lit and seemed to be staffed by only a few men. None appeared armed. I ordered two men to place satchel charges on the pipeline a few hundred meters from the installation and two more to place charges under the largest pump inside. They slipped away into the night and we watched as they successfully completed the tasks. Both bombs were wired to mobile phones. If Osama decided at any time that the installation should be destroyed, the phones would be called and the charges would detonate. I and six other commanders also carried all the numbers.

After a week, we approached Riyadh, having set charges at the other installations on our target list. The camels were left in a canyon with sufficient grazing to keep them in good condition. We had no doubt that our attack would be successful, but it is always important to have an escape plan also.

We lay on a low hill and observed the capital of Saudi Arabia, as it lay in peace before the approaching storm. In the centre of the great limestone plateau, the Nejd, that dominates Saudi Arabia, the city sprawled before us. Riyadh literally means 'gardens' and the concrete was well endowed with greenery. The main mosques and palaces were easily located. Through binoculars, we scanned the city and located the objective. I pointed out the disused oil pumping station where our heavy weapons were stored. It was two kilometers from the secret police headquarters. We waited for nightfall before making the next move.

In ones and twos, we walked the few kilometers to the secret base. I was first to arrive and had keys to open the gate. I closed the gate, but left it unlocked. I was still outside the city limits and saw nobody. Dirty oil had greatly contaminated the site and ground was black and stinking. Perfect. We would not be discovered in such a filthy, forgotten place. Pipes and pumps lay in different states of repair and sizable weeds grew all around. Behind a clutter of small buildings, a large, low warehouse building sat quietly. I unlocked the door to our logistics base an slipped inside.

The space measured about 20 meters by 40 and 10 high. It was dark, we could not risk using the lights, but boxes could be seen stacked against the side walls. In the centre were four trucks and two jeeps. I used my night vision goggles to inspect the crates. There was plenty of C4 and Semtex explosives, as well as large quantities of home-made explosives. There were half a dozen of my old friend, the Stinger and 30 wire-guided anti-tank missiles. Along with an assortment of RPGs, grenades and 7.62mm ammunition, it was a powerful arms cache. There was also plenty of diesel for the trucks and food and water. My comrades drifted in quietly and I placed a guard rota in operation.

Over the next few days, the rest of my team arrived. Time passed quickly as we prepared the truck bombs, prepared the missiles and reconnoitered the target. The safe houses near the HQ entrances would be used to launch the ambushes and we moved the missiles into position. The streets around the target were monitored by TV cameras and there were regular mobile patrols, but our spies had been observing the base for years and we knew how to avoid all its security systems.

At last, the eve of the attack came. The royals would be killed at some time after 2am. When news of the attack reached us, we would have a few minutes to position all the ambush assets. Then our assault would be unleashed, along with 30 other such operations in Riyadh and dozens more in Jeddah, Mecca and other key cities. By dawn, the uprisings in Iraq and Afghanistan would have begun and the Pakistani coup could follow at any time. All depended on the killing of the royals.

It was the Crown Prince's birthday on the day of Allah's Rage and it was indeed fitting that he should die while engaged in lewd acts. On the eve of his birthday, his fellow royals brought the Crown Prince to a house of ill repute, a brothel, in the centre of Riyadh. It was the most exclusive and expensive brothel in the kingdom, with the most beautiful of women and girls from all over the world. It was the favourite of the royals and of every wealthy Saudi businessman, bureaucrat and technocrat and only those who used it knew of its existence. The brothel was a very successful business, with annual profits in the millions, it was involved in the international slave trade and the sexual exploitation of minors. It was a front for the illegal alcohol trade and was also used as a cocaine distribution centre. And it was ours. The Crown Prince's birthday party had taken months to organise. There were many cases of the finest Dom Perignon champagne on ice, caviar, prawns, exotic fruits, Cuban cigars and, of course, the women. The birthday boy would be treated to a display of fine young slaves, brought from Africa, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, just for his delectation. He would have sex with one or maybe two of the girls that took his fancy and he would sleep off the champagne in one of the sumptuous, exotically decorated bedrooms. The King himself would partake of the same evil pleasures. We are confident that he himself will be in the building tonight because we have located girls suitable for his unusual tastes. As the cream of the Saudi royal family enjoyed the rich fruits of the illicit brothel, 10,000 kilos of explosives lay in the basement, more than enough to destroy the entire four storey building and kill everyone inside. One of our agents worked in the brothel and carried the remote control bomb trigger. He would judge when to explode the device and more agents waited outside to alert all units when the event took place.

I waited in an alleyway with my missile team. I carried an RPG and my AK. I had Stinger missiles ready for use and my encrypted walkie-talkie to my ear. Tense hours passed. It reached 2.34am and it happened. Before I received any message on my radio, I heard the blast. It would have been no more than 4 kilometers away from our position, but it still sounded very powerful. It was powerful enough to shake the ground where we stood. The call came through. The attack had been successful; the brothel was leveled and the royals were inside at the time. We rejoiced quietly and primed our missiles.

The main entrance to the police headquarters was at the end of the street, 200 meters from our position. Missile and RPG teams took up positions on both sides of the street. A truck laden with explosives was parked just past our position. This would cut off the head of the convoy and then we would cut its body to pieces. Other teams were at the rear of the building.

15 minutes after we destroyed King Fahd and his closest minions, the secret police went, as they thought, to his rescue. The convoy was led by two APCs. They were followed by eight jeeps and two trucks. The truck bomb exploded and destroyed the APCs. In the seconds of silence that followed, 14 RPGs were primed and sighted on the remaining vehicles. A truck had stopped outside my position, just 20 meters from the alley. As I placed the truck in the centre of my sights, I heard a mighty explosion from the middle distance and assumed that a convoy leaving by the rear entrance had been engaged. I squeezed the firing trigger. The grenade shot from the launch tube and its rocket ignited. The rocket was enough to propel its 10 kilo charge 500 meters. It slammed into the truck and blew it pieces. It was packed with men and many died. The survivors were cut down with machine gun fire from both sides of the street. The other RPG launchers also spat fire and, within seconds, the entire convoy was destroyed. I looked back towards the police base and spotted another APC which had stopped at the base exit and was desperately trying to reverse back. I called to the guided missile team, who fired from their tripod-mounted launcher and destroyed the APC. Still watching the entrance, I noticed a truck approach it at speed. Crashing through the security barriers and pushing the burning APC aside, the truck mounted the steps to the main doorway and exploded in a blinding white flash. I gathered my team and ran towards the building.

Enemy snipers had made it to the roof of the building and began firing at us, cutting down two brave members of my unit. RPG teams and heavy machine gun squads took up positions and fired back, allowing the attack teams to continue forward. Distant rumbling could be heard, which I knew to be the explosions from our attacks all over the city and suburbs.

We reached the building's main entrance. It was devastated from our truck bomb. Shattered bodies and broken glass lay everywhere. The fortified guard house was burning fiercely and fire had spread into the main building. But our way was clear. About 40 of us entered the building in the first wave. We used the building assault techniques that we had practiced so well, with small teams leapfrogging each other, cover always given to the lead unit. There was sporadic resistance, but we used RPGs to clear all enemy resistance that slowed our assault. With the entrance lobby area and most of the ground floor secure, the rest of our assault teams entered. A heavy presence was maintained outside, in case of police reinforcements and the missile units positioned their weapons around the entrance. As it happened, nobody came to the aid of the secret police, all loyalist forces were being kept busy or were being destroyed elsewhere.

We split into our prearranged search teams and fanned out into the building. Squads cleared every floor of resistance. I ordered an assault team to the roof immediately to kill the snipers and set up Stinger positions. Designated search teams sought out intelligence and computer specialists were brought to the computer centres once they were cleared. I took my team of 20 men to the basement, unaware of the horror that awaited us.

We used a stairwell to descend to what the internal signage referred to as the 'Interrogation Suites'. At the bottom of the stairs was a security door. We pressed the buzzer but got no response. I shouted that Al-Qaeda was in control of the building and that the door should be opened in the Name of Allah. There was no response. Our demolitions experts placed shaped charges on the door's hinges and we retreated up two flights of stairs. The charges were detonated and we returned below to find the door in pieces on the floor. As the smoke cleared, all lights went out. Emergency lighting kicked on after a few seconds, but its low power only added to the gloom. Beyond the door was a long hallway, with corridors leading from it, one each side. At the end was an administrative area, with desks and computers. We cautiously entered the hallway, the sounds of the fighting upstairs echoing though the building.

A hand grenade came from the far office, bouncing off the walls and coming to rest at our feet. We jumped back, expecting death, but one of my men jumped forward onto the grenade. His body absorbed most of the blast. He died, I and those nearest me suffered minor shrapnel wounds. His martyrdom saved my life. We immediately charged forward, firing as we ran. When we reached the office, two men were escaping through a fire exit door. We shot them both. We found one more police agent cowering behind a desk. He begged for mercy, knowing none would be shown. But we didn't kill him. I ordered him to take us to the Al-Qaeda cells. As my men fanned out into all the dark corridors, the prisoner told me that all prisoners here were Al-Qaeda suspects or sympathizers.

I stuck my AK into his back and told him to start opening doors. The first door he opened revealed a filthy, dark cell. It was no more than two meters by three and the stench was overpowering. One man was inside. He was filthy, wearing little more than rags and had nothing but a bucket for a toilet and a wooden chair.

'You are free, brother,' I said.

'May Allah give thanks,' he replied. 'I knew this day would come.'

'We are Al-Qaeda, come to liberate this viper pit. Who are you?'

'I am your comrade. I have been languishing here since the attacks on the infidel compounds in 2003. I was arrested immediately after the attack, even though my cell was not involved. I do not know who betrayed us. Can we go now, please? I want to leave this place.'

I asked him for a password, which he gave me. Then I told him that we were not there simply to rescue prisoners, but that this was but one element in the liberation of the entire country. When I told him that the royals had been killed, he wept for joy. I sent our enemy prisoner on with my comrades and every cell was opened. All our imprisoned comrades were released and shepherded upstairs to a meeting room, where they were briefed on the uprising and armed. Power was restored and our technicians began to sift through the computers in the cell block.

'Find Osama's brother,' I commanded. 'And find him fast.'

I gave my liberated comrade a pistol and asked him to show me to the torture rooms. As he led me down one of the long corridors, he told me of the many times he had been tortured. It was mainly CIA-taught emotional torture that the Saudi police had used on him, but he also showed me scars on his back and arms, where he had been lashed repeatedly. Even with the overhead lights back on, this corridor seemed shadowy and full of foreboding. A door at the end was slightly ajar. Holding my rifle in firing position, I moved slowly to the doorway. The smell from the room was of blood, stale and fresh. I could also smell the ozone associated with electrical discharge in the stale air. The room was fully dark, so I got my night vision goggles from my backpack and put them on. I peered cautiously into the room. To my right was a large, heavy chair with fitted manacles. It looked like an electric chair. Beyond it was a bank of electrical controls, some desks and filing cabinets. I looked to my left and my heart froze when I saw another torture chair, but with a person in it. His head was bent forward, as though he were unconscious. I edged forward into the room and saw movement beyond the torture victim. A man was hiding under a desk.

'Freeze or die,' I shouted. 'Al-Qaeda controls this base now.'

'Don't shoot, sir,' came the reply. 'I am but a prisoner here myself. I heard shooting and hid here. I thought the guards had started shooting the prisoners.'

I moved to him, keeping my gun trained on his chest. My comrade found the light switch and the harsh fluorescents flickered to life.

'That's the torturer!' he shouted.

'Are you sure?'

'He tortured me twice. I'll never forget his face. He is evil, truly evil.'

The man looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face. I hit him in the face with my rifle barrel. He began to bleed. I took a plastic cable tie from my chest pocket and bound his hands behind his back. I told him to kneel, facing the wall and ordered my comrade to keep his gun aimed at the torturer's head, but not to kill him, yet. I went to the man in the torture chair and was shocked to discover that I knew him. It was Osama's brother, Ibn.

'Ibn, can you hear me?' I shouted, as I lifted his chin.

He began to blink, in discomfort. I noticed wires leading from his chair to another bank of electrical controls and assumed that he had been electrocuted. I pulled my water container from my backpack and poured some into his mouth.

'I recognise you now,' he said. 'Am I dreaming or have you come to free me?'

'This is no dream. We have taken this base and are now taking the kingdom. Come, let's contact Osama. He will be very pleased.'

I unshackled Ibn and he got unsteadily to his feet. I brought Osama's brother to the torturer, handed him my AK and he shot him twice in the face. It was fitting that his blood should be spilt over the blood of so many of our comrades. We moved upstairs and I contacted Osama on my walkie-talkie.

'We have him. Ibn is safe,' I cried.

'Praise be to Allah. Thank you,' he shouted joyously. 'I feared they would kill him once we began our attack. How goes it there?'

'The building is ours. The prisoners are free. I don't know if it's fully secure yet. There is still some shooting upstairs. I will contact you as soon as I can confirm our complete success. What news have you?'

'Everything goes well. The royals are dead. Even their children at boarding school in England have been killed by one of our British cells. The National Guard is with us. Much of the American forces at the air base have been destroyed. Riyadh and King Khalid airports are in our control. There is fighting at the main palace and at the Al Faisaliah hotel. A fierce battle is raging at the TV centre. The western compounds are being eliminated one by one. I have reports of helicopters heading in your direction. Be prepared. I will contact you with news in one hour.'

I sent my liberated comrades to the room with the other ex-captives, where they were given food, water and guns. I checked our defensive positions at ground level and reinforced them where necessary. I passed word to all units that a counterattack could be imminent and hurried to the roof.

From my high vantage point, he scene of battle encompassed the entire city. Immediately below me, the remnants of the police convoy was still smoking. Towards the city centre, plumes of dirty smoke rose into the sky. Power had been cut in parts of the city and leaping flames provided dancing light in the darkness. Dawn was still a couple of hours off. It was our intention to control the city by then. Far off in the distance, powerful explosions lit up the sky. The capital's main air force base was rocked again and again by blasts. It was from that direction that the sound of helicopters came to my ears.

'Stinger teams ready!' I shouted. 'Helicopters approaching!'

I alerted the ground level defence teams to the helicopters' approach, as a simultaneous ground assault would be likely, if the crown had sufficient forces. I scanned the sky with my night vision goggles and spotted them. There were two Blackhawk troop carriers and two Apache gunships. The Blackhawks dropped from sight. Doubtless they would drop their troops at a safe distance while the Apaches attacked. I prepared my Stinger, fixing the battery coolant unit and scanning the sky for an Apache heat signature. They began to circle our position at a range of a kilometer, scanning our positions. After a minute, one helicopter peeled away from its orbit and came towards us. Though its exhaust ports were shielded with heat dissipaters, I got the target acquisition tone. I fired my missile. As it streaked towards its target, the Apache fired a Hellfire missile at us. It struck the parapet 25 meters from my position, killing three of my men and destroying a heavy machine gun. Worse for us, the Apache had dropped flares and my missile was attracted away from its target, exploding uselessly in the sky. I quickly changed missile tubes The Apache flew right over our position, strafing the roof with its cannon. It was in the same relative position as the Hind in Afghanistan all those years before. I acquired it and launched. Its exhaust ports were directly in my missile's path and the flares were not enough to deflect it this time. The missile struck home and the Apache fell to earth with a thunderous blast. The other Apache was engaged with our other heavy machine gun and it kept its distance. Its missiles were still a serious threat to us, so it had to be destroyed. I ordered RPGs to be readied and prepared another Stinger. If it came to within half a kilometer, it would be in range of the RPGs, which were proven to be excellent anti-helicopter weapons in Somalia.

My walkie-talkie clicked to life. The enemy troops were approaching the main entrance below. I sought them out with my goggles and saw about 20 heavily-armed men cautiously sneaking up behind the burning convoy. I saw that they wore American uniforms. I passed this information to the teams below. A missile was launched from our defensive positions below. It slammed into a destroyed APC beside the enemy and killed four of them. Then our fighters on each of the floors below me opened up with AKs, RPGs and machine guns. The Americans were cut down in a hail of deadly fire. What had they hoped to achieve with such a maneuver? I could only deduce that our attacks had caught them with compete surprise and their forces were in disarray. A Blackhawk came too close to us as it attempted to give covering fire to the troops with its door-mounted machine guns. An RPG struck it and it collapsed to the ground. The remaining Apache came closer, attempting to strafe our ground level missile positions. I fired a Stinger, which was again deflected by its flares, but an RPG struck its tail, causing it to spin out of control. It crashed into an office block and exploded. I checked to our rear, wondering if the ground attack was just a diversion, but there was no sign of enemy activity. With dread, I heard the low rumble of attack jets and feared that they were coming to obliterate us. Two F-16s screamed into view, but flew past us, in the direction of the American air base. Probably they were from a different base and had come to lend support to their comrades. They were gone before I could reload my Stinger launcher, but I saw a missile rise in the distance and follow the jets before falling back to earth.

The remaining Blackhawk fled. I left the roof defence teams in place and returned downstairs. At the main entrance, our missile teams and snipers were in position, seeking out targets. We had suffered no casualties in the enemy assault, except for those on the roof. I sent more RPG units upstairs, as well as replacement Stinger rounds and BCUs. As we stood in the lobby area, a rocket struck one of our missile teams outside. Clearly, some of the Americans had survived. I ordered a dozen men to come with me to destroy the last remnants of the enemy force. We carefully climbed out a shattered window at the side of the building and moved towards our enemy's flank. We sheltered behind some parked vehicles and planted two Claymore mines. These mines are the prefect ambush weapons. They are detonated by wire from a safe position and they incorporate a curved steel plate to deflect the blast in any chosen direction. The Americans moved forward, not having seen us. When they were in line with the mines, I pushed the detonation switch and they were cut to pieces. Our snipers in the base opened fire also. After a few seconds I gave the command to hold fire and we cautiously approached the enemy. All were dead, save one who suffered a severe leg injury. I ordered two men to take him to the base and give him first aid, as per Osama's orders. He would give us useful intelligence on the state of the opposition. We checked the rest of the street and found little but bodies.

I returned to the base, where all was secure. Dawn was beginning to break over Riyadh as Osama contacted me again.

'Has the enemy counter-attacked?' he asked.

'Yes, a light force of American troops with some helicopters. We have held our position. What was their game plan, do you know?'

'I believe there is information or some other asset in the secret police headquarters that means a lot to them. Probably they wish to cover their involvement with the brutal royals? Have your men continue searching. I also want a list of informers as quickly as possible. They will be cleansed from this Islamic nation starting today.'

'Do you want me to remain here?' I asked.

'No, put your second-in-command in charge of the search and defence. Come to me now. Bring my brother. Did you suffer many casualties?'

'Praise be to Allah, but our losses were very light.'

'Good. Bring 20 men with you. We have a fight here that requires more resources. Are the prisoners capable of fighting?'

'Yes, they are weak from their captivity, but well able to shoot. They are now bolstering our defences. Do you expect further counter attacks?'

'I don't think so. The battle for Riyadh is nearly won. Come quickly.'

I checked all defensive positions, confirmed that lists of informers and traitors were being compiled accurately, and selected the 20 men who would travel with me into central Riyadh. We traveled in three jeeps, as the journey was a few kilometers. The city was quiet, save for the sounds of gunfire from the middle distance. The air was smoky and the unique, acidic smell of cordite was on the morning breeze. The streets should have been bustling, millions rushing to prayers, to business, to help support the despicable regime. But they stayed at home today, glued to their televisions, computers and radios. They waited to be told what to do, feeling both horror and excitement at the fierce struggle to control the city. It felt strange. But I smelled victory.

My walkie-talkie crackled to life constantly, picking up communications between units. The chatter was generally positive. The enemy's advantages in air superiority and artillery could not be easily used in a city; we had destroyed much of his air power and our hundreds of American and Soviet surface-to-air missiles made his remaining helicopters easy prey. Our meticulous planning had paid off. Each key objective was falling to us, one after the other. The domino effect began to work in our favour, with the weight of our success causing further success. As enemy barracks were cut off, so the supply chain was cut. His tanks began to run low on fuel. Ammunition became scarcer. But our supply dumps were unknown to the enemy forces.

After driving for a few uneventful minutes, three enemy jets screamed low over us, but they made no effort to attack. We rounded a corner to find the remains of an American/Saudi checkpoint. A dozen bodies lay on the road and two APCs were burning tombs to ten more. A few of our men also lay dead. I said a quick prayer to them. We expected to lose a thousand men that day. Then we saw a middle-aged woman clutching her dead teenage son's body as she sat against a lamp post. He must have been killed in the crossfire. Her face was blackened from the smoke of battle, but her eyes were bright with anger. She looked closely at us, but made no comment.

Many more civilians lay dead in our path. As we neared Osama's command centre, which was in a central office block, I called ahead on my walkie-talkie to confirm our ETA. A checkpoint manned by our own men barred our path. I identified myself to the commander. Three large trucks were parked end to end across the street. The middle vehicle drove out of our way and we passed through a hundred men with missiles, mortars and four captured APCs. The sound of gunfire was suddenly much closer. We were close to the TV broadcasting centre and I took that to be the location of battle. Another American jet roared overhead, this time dropping bombs on a target we couldn't see.

We reached the office, which was surrounded by fighters, trucks, jeeps and missiles. I put my men in a sheltered position and took Ibn to see his bother. His personal protection fighters stood at every doorway. I walked up the stairs to the first floor and was admitted to a large, open plan office. City maps and computer screens. A dozen men spoke to field commanders on walkie-talkies or satellite phones. When they had news of an operation, they wrote a note and pinned it to objective markers that stood on a huge map of the city which lay on the floor in the centre of the room. Osama paced across the map, reading notes and uttering commands to two communications officers that walked at his side. He spotted us and rushed over to embrace his brother. Then he thanked me for my good work and immediately pointed to the map.

'Look, we have most of our objectives in our control or surrounded. He enemy is in disarray. It is time to announce to the people that they are witnessing the birth of a new nation, so that they will be patient and assist us.'

'What of the American forces? Are they sending any reinforcements? What about heavy bombers?'

'All in due course, my friend. We know that there are B52s and Stealth bombers in the air. They may strike at any moment. We must focus on remaining objectives and consolidate our defenses around the city.'

'And how can I help,' I asked.

'The broadcasting centre is stoutly-defended. We must have it intact. I am eager to transmit a message of hope to the people, but it appears to be defended by American special forces. They are proving difficult to remove. There are over 100 men waiting for you outside and two helicopters at your disposal. Use your leadership to bring them victory and to clear my path. May Allah be with you.'

'I will contact you as soon as we have control of the building.'

My assault team was in motion in minutes. The main force continued to the TV centre, with orders to launch an immediate frontal assault on all sides. I went to rendezvous with the helicopters at a sports ground. With six of my best men, I would be dropped onto the roof and we would fight our way into the building, taking its defences from behind. We met no resistance on the way to the sports field, the streets were still deserted. Two National Guard Huey helicopters awaited us, their rotors spinning idly. The pilots would radio the TV centre's defenders, saying they had orders to pick them up from the roof, as the building is to be destroyed by B52s. The pilots had the day's codewords and the Americans would assume that the fog of war led to their direct commands being lost. We would cut them down as they looked to us for rescue.

The plan worked well. We approached the main building in the complex and saw a dozen men crouching behind cover. Some were at the edge of the roof, firing at my main force as it approached the entrance the building. The enemy soldiers waved to us. As the helicopters landed on the roof, we opened the side doors and killed them with our rifles and with the helicopter's door guns. We jumped to the roof, checked the bodies and entered the building. There was no resistance inside. We joined the main force, posted defences and searched the building. I contacted Osama with the good news.

'Your ploy worked,' he said happily.

'Another 12 dead Americans who should have stayed in their own land,' I replied.

'Is the broadcast equipment ok? Most stations are still broadcasting, mostly patriotic music with still images of the royals.'

'Yes, our technicians are getting a studio ready for you. We can broadcast at any time. Is it safe for you to travel here now?'

'I will wait until nightfall, which is just a couple of hours away. I will travel by jeep. This part of the city is entirely in our hands. Civilians have started to venture out and are exclaiming that the corrupt royals have been overthrown. Don't concentrate all your men in the buildings, as you may be bombed. Allah be with you.'

We ended the discussion and sent most of the men to the streets outside, while I went to a control room to look at the TV broadcasts. Al-Jazeera, CNN, Sky News and a dozen other channels lit up screens in the cramped, dim room, which a glass wall separated from a small studio with green couches and a neutral background. Others watched with me and men came and went constantly, delivering more immediate news of battle. The impact of all the footage and reports was dizzying. Some of the battles that I had been involved in that long day were there on the screen. At least maps and footage of the aftermath were there. Reporters stood on different rooftops, massive palls of smoke rising behind them. But this was not Baghdad, this was Riyadh. The journalists and he studio commentators all shared the same expression of shock and confusion. Stock markets were collapsing as they opened. I saw that the American Dow Jones and NASDAQ indices had lost about 30 percent of their values and trading was suspended. The money lenders in New York saw their riches erased because they realised that we could win this war and they saw that we controlled the world's largest oil reserves. The coverage on the Arab news channels was more upbeat. There were scenes of jubilation in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza. There was rejoicing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Oman, Sudan, Egypt, Syria and many, many other countries. We would soon have control of Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca, and Osama's TV broadcast would unite all the Muslim anger into the force that would create the Islamic World Nation. The Pakistan coup was to be launched at any moment and the battles for Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to be going our way. The hammer blows lay in wait for the enemy in his homeland and his crooked Saudi business partners were dead. All looked well for us as dusk fell, while I stared in awe at the televisions. Then things began to go wrong.

As I watched a report of the battle at the Americans' air base, which showed dozens of enemy aircraft burning on the tarmac, my mind drifted. I was tired and realized I hadn't eaten a morsel all day. I began to rise from my seat, having decided to look for the staff canteen, when the first bombs hit.

In an instant, I was on my knees, the ceiling in pieces on my shoulders and my mouth full of dust. Mighty explosions shook the ground and all was black. We had been hit four 2,000lb JDAM bombs. The B52s had made it to Saudi Arabia and their satellite-guided bombs were America's attempt to snuff out the revolution on its first day. The upper floors had collapsed, but I was in the basement studio. Most in the control room with me had survived and we made our way to an exit, unsure of our bearings. We made it to an exit which led up and outside and it was unobstructed. The broadcasting centre was burning and more bombs struck the surrounding support buildings. The shards of glass were shaken from their shattered frames and we dived for cover. When the smoke had cleared somewhat, we made our escape. Running towards the street where our main force was waiting, I turned to look behind me. The transmission towers had collapsed and lay over the heaps of flaming rubble and twisted girders; the building was completely decimated. We had been very lucky to escape. I contacted Osama and told him to stay as he was. He reported that bombs had fallen on his command post also. Many were dead. The Americans had also struck 10 other targets around the city and had managed to hit most of our strongholds, including the secret police headquarters. We would hold our positions until morning, regroup and plan the next phase of the attack. The broadcast by Osama would still go ahead and a TV crew from Al-Jazeera was ordered to await collection from a quiet part of the city. I went to him with my remaining men. We had lost 25 in the bombing and all looked a little disheartened. Night fell, casting a gloomy silence over our convoy.

Osama had been slightly injured in the attack. A bomb had fallen on the street outside his command post. The target had probably been the vehicles that had gathered earlier for my mission. The enemy hadn't known of the true importance of the position, or more than one bomb would surely have fallen. Still, they had killed over 50 men and caused cuts to Osama's face. He sat on ammunition boxes while dressings were applied to his cuts.

'You know we're not allowed to shave,' I joked. My heart felt heavy but to show that would do no good.

'I wasn't shaving,' he replied. 'The Crusaders tried to help me on my way to Allah. Praise be to Allah that he saw fit to let me finish my mission.'

'Can you still go on air? Is the TV crew here yet?'

'They're on their way. If I go on air like this, will people think that we are suffering losses? Would it give our enemy more hope?'

'I think it best that you read the message. If the bleeding can be stopped, possibly we could apply makeup to hide the wounds? Or just give them an audio recording. Or I will talk, or one of the other commanders.'

'I must think.'

I left him and sought some food, the American bombs having prevented my previous search from bearing fruit. My arms ached and were badly bruised from the attack. I had insignificant cuts to my hands and face and, when I caught my reflection, saw that my face was blackened. I found a box of cold kebabs and some bottles of water, which were being taken as needed by hungry troops. The simple pitta bread, lamb and salad snack was like manna from heaven to my starving stomach and my mood lightened considerably. The night was quiet, though jets could be heard at all times. The bombing had stopped, though. Reports kept coming in of heavy casualties and strategic assets being destroyed. They had gone after bridges and highways as well as military targets. The electricity network and the water system hadn't yet been hit. In the 45 degree summer heat, there would be chaos and massive civilian casualties if that came to pass. But everything else stood still. The enemy meant to show the citizens of Riyadh that what Al-Qaeda proposed as a better society would be bombed into the stone age. They announced to the excited news cameras that the battle to retake Riyadh had begun and that oil from Saudi Arabia would be blockaded. With the infrastructure in ruins and no means of financing a recovery, the Pentagon strategists had figured that there would be no popular approval of an Al-Qaeda-led government.

After a time, Osama came to me and asked me to read the declaration. I was humbled at being the one who would declare the birth of Islamic Arabia and the Caliphate that would rule its citizens with justice under Shari'a. I washed my face and said a quick prayer to Allah.

The TV crew arrived and its two members were searched. Their camera was scanned and sniffed and they confirmed that they would record the speech, instead of generating a live broadcast that could be pinpointed by satellite. An enemy drone buzzed overhead as we entered the partially destroyed office building. We found a room which was unscathed. A banner proclaiming Islamic victory was pinned to the wall behind a desk. I sat at the desk, my AK before me, the declaration in my hands, on two sheets of paper. The camera began recording and I spoke.

'Greetings to fellow Muslims everywhere. Allah has given us a great gift this day. The corrupt kingdom of Saudi Arabia is no more. Instead, the Land of the Two Holy Places is henceforth to be known as Islamic Arabia. Our law will be the Qur'an and we will be led by the Caliph bin Laden. The Caliph has decreed that the wealth of Islamic Arabia will be shared equally among its people and that the Crusaders will not benefit from our vast oil reserves. While this may cause some difficulties in the days and weeks ahead, he asks that all citizens help to conserve energy and water. Our enemy is weakened but still poses a threat. Have no doubt, if the Crusaders choose to attack us, they will pay many times over. We call on all Muslims around the world to support us in our God-given right of self-determination. We also call on all Muslims around the world to overthrow the traitor regimes that support the Crusaders and unite with us in a World Islamic Nation. Our first duty is to protect Islamic Arabia from the enemy and traitor forces that continue to engage in combat against us. There are major battles yet to be fought but, Allah willing, we will persevere. Allahu-Akbar.'

The camera crew left quickly and we decided to move our command post immediately. One of the dead royals' minor palaces was unscathed from the first day's battles and, as it was in a densely populated area, it would be a difficult target to bomb. As Osama began ordering our men to disassemble our communications gear, a Cruise missile slammed into the building followed, a second later, by another. I was knocked to the ground, amid scenes of bloodshed and chaos. I lost consciousness.

In my frantic dreams, the enemies of Islam surrounded me. There were American children with bombs strapped to their bodies, Jews with Muslim heads on spears and the ghosts of the Saud royals, oil spurting from their wounds. As they closed on me, they chanted 'Die disbeliever' and I had nowhere to turn. I woke with a start, my body covered in sweat. I was in a dark room, a small incandescent bulb suspended from the ceiling a few meters away. Its dim light wasn't enough to make out any detail of my surroundings. I tried to talk, but my voice was gone; my throat felt as dry as the sands of the Empty Quarter. My head was full of pain. I put my hand to my forehead and felt damp bandages. I was wearing the same clothes that I had worn on the day of our victory in Riyadh, still dusty and ragged and I lay on a blanket on the ground. As my eyes grew accustomed to the low light, I noticed a jug of water and a glass beside me. With difficulty, I poured some water and drank it greedily. My throat felt better. I noticed a saline drip, hanging from a hook in the rough rock wall and fixed to my left forearm. I tried to rise, but could not. I called out for help and then heard voices from nearby. A man came to my side, a man I did not know.

'Where am I? What happened? Where is Osama?' I asked.

'All in good time, my friend. You are safe and Osama is safe. That is all that matters. Your morphine has worn off. I will give you some more now.'

'I don't want morphine. I want to know what happened,' I insisted.

'I am sorry,' he said as he filled a syringe from a small glass bottle. 'I have orders to keep you sedated until your injuries heal.'

He injected the drug into my right forearm, where I saw a dozen needle marks. Then I faded away, back into my fitful sleep, haunted once more by my legions of enemies.

When I next awoke, I felt considerably better. My throat was moist and my head was less pained. I called out and my medic returned.

'Do you feel strong enough to eat?' he asked.

'I would like some fruit,' I replied.

'Very good.'

He left and returned after a few moments with a plate of dates, bananas and grapes. I ate all the fruit and asked to be taken from my sickbed. He agreed and helped me to my feet, which were very unsteady. He supported me and we walked from the small room into a larger room. There were more lights hanging from the ceiling and about a dozen men, some known to me, sitting on the floor at the far end.

'Praise be to Allah,' called a voice. 'You are still with us.'

'Yes Osama,' I answered. 'Now can you tell me where I am and what happened?'

'Come join us,' he motioned.

The medic helped me forward and I sat beside Osama, my back resting against the rock wall.

'We are in a cave, west of Riyadh,' he began. 'The battle has gone against us and Islamic Arabia is plunged into crisis. The Crusaders and their traitor allies have taken the upper hand. But all is not yet lost.'

'How did this happen?' I asked.

'We were struck by Cruise missiles. Our position was betrayed by the Deputy Crown Prince. I fear he felt that we would kill him after our need of his National Guard was met. He made a deal with the Americans. They installed him as the new king and his forces fought against us. As we were being rescued from our command post, the Americans used mini-nukes on our key positions in Riyadh. They also bombed the water desalination plants and electricity substations. Then they struck the Empty Quarter and destroyed two of our bases in the Afghan mountains. They feared that we were close to total victory, so they used their nuclear weapons. Many thousands of innocent Muslims have died. The coup in Pakistan was postponed as news of the nuclear strikes reached the outside world.'

'When did this happen?' I asked.

'That was one week ago. You have been unconscious since. We escaped the city in jeeps and made it here to our fallback position. I ordered our men to disengage as the battle was one we could no longer win. The oil facilities were destroyed as we made our way here. There are 30 of us here now, some wounded, all demoralized.'

Osama looked grey and shaken by these events. I could tell by his voice and the disposition of the other fighters in the cave that we had been defeated.

'Some of our men are fighting on,' he continued. 'Jeddah and Mecca still shake with the sounds of battle. The Americans brought their forces across the Red Sea from Sudan and they have encircled Jeddah. Even worse, the Israelis have invaded from the north. Their armored force is making its way towards us now.'

'The Jews are here?' I exclaimed in shock. 'How could the Jews also enter the Land of the Two Holy Places? Surely every Muslim will rise up against them?'

'They are here because the Americans still don't have the strength to reclaim the land. The population is incensed, yes, but any demonstrations against this disgraceful development have been put down with brutality. I fear the new king we have helped to create likes the Americans and Jews more than any who have gone before. His spies are everywhere. The desert sky above us is busy with spy planes and bombers. Any movement is attacked mercilessly. A curfew is in force throughout the land.'

I was stunned at this news. The discussion continued on around me as I tried to come to terms with what had happened. My head still ached and, though I was groggy from the morphine, the anger burnt brightly inside me. It was decided that we would leave the country. The Americans and their Jew and Saud allies would not stop until they had flushed us out. Any suspicion they had as to our position would be followed by a mini-nuke. They had dropped an average of one nuclear bomb a day and insisted to the enraged world that they would continue to use their nuclear weapons until Osama and the leadership of Al-Qaeda was no longer a threat to their status quo. All agreed that dispersal was the safest option. It was decided that I and two strong fighters would travel to southern Egypt with Osama, where we would hide out and plan our next moves.

'What of our men at Mecca?' I asked.

'They have been ordered to fight to the death in defence of our Most Holy Place. Their example will live long after this defeat and they will be the ones who will give us final victory, by showing Muslims everywhere that it is our duty to give our blood in defence of Islam and the memory of the Prophet Muhammad.'

The discussion ended and Osama brought me outside the cave. The sun blinded me, but its life-giving warmth gave me more energy. We lay on a rocky outcrop. He handed me his binoculars.

'Look there, towards Riyadh,' he commanded.

I took the binoculars and scanned the horizon. Plumes of black smoke hung low on the horizon. Vast fires engulfed the oil facilities that we destroyed during our retreat and smaller fires raged in many buildings.

'Look there, further to the right,' he said.

I panned across and saw, to my amazement, a voided area, a kilometer in diameter, which should have been within Riyadh's city limits, but now looked like nothing more than blackened desert.

'That was the secret police headquarters which your brave men took, he said. It was the first location to be destroyed by their nuclear weapons. All your men died and all the secrets of the Saud regime died also.'

I continued to scan the city. Many helicopters were in the air. As I looked at one, it turned and began to head in our direction.

'A Predator, coming our way!' I shouted.

We ran back into the cave, ordered the generator to be turned off and called for complete silence. The spy plane's buzzing came nearer and it appeared to circle our position for a few minutes. I felt like a man in a submarine with enemy ships above, waiting for death to rain down at any second. The buzzing faded.

'We must prepare to move now,' said Osama. 'I fear they may be aware of our position.'

We packed our weapons, food and water and waited for nightfall. We would travel on foot through the desert. There were enemy checkpoints on every road and we could not risk traveling by jeep. We wore thermal insulating material inside our robes so that the enemy's heat sensors would not pick up our body heat. We would travel only by night. We knew that we had sufficient supplies until we reached a supply point 50 kilometers away. We set off after sunset, heading west towards Mecca.

The journey was difficult for me. I felt well, but weak. I had been ordered by my medic to change my head wound dressings every night and I had a course of antibiotics to complete. I did not want to slow my group down, so pushed myself forward, every step of the way. The desert sand kept our progress slow. We saw many patrols in the desert and enemy spy planes were as thick as flies. There were some oases along the way and their waters greatly boosted our morale. We came across bands of Bedouin, but could not risk making contact. We did not know who to trust in this twisted land of traitors, Jews and Crusaders.

We were in the desert for many months. When we reached the Red Sea coast, we had little knowledge of what had happened behind us in Riyadh or how the battle had gone in Mecca. It was late December when we saw the blue waters of the sea that stood between us and Egypt. It was decided that we would stay at a safe house outside a small fishing village near Yanbu al Bahr before we planned our escape from what was, briefly, Islamic Arabia. With Allah's help, it would become Islamic Arabia again someday soon.
CHAPTER 20. MARTYRDOM IN THE DESERT

"By the declining day,

"Lo! Man is in a state of loss,

"Save those who believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance."

Surah 103. Al-Asr, The Declining Day. Vv. 1-3

Egypt, 2007

The safe house had been secure and met our needs perfectly. The man who owned the house was a fisherman and his boat would be our means of escape. We crossed the Red Sea on a night with no moon and safely disembarked in Egypt late the next day. A small, rocky beach south of the town of Berenice in Foul Bay gave us good cover as we unloaded our weapons and supplies. Having had a complete communications blackout as we crossed the Arabian Desert, Osama had been supplied with a satellite phone by our comrade. We would use this to make contact with the Doctor and our Egyptian allies as we made our way north towards Cairo.

Our comrade had also informed us of developments in the months that we were in the desert. Mecca had fallen to the Saudi National Guard after a bloody conflict that lasted weeks. Even the Americans were not stupid enough to send the Israelis into Mecca, which is a pity as that would have triggered a mass uprising across the Muslim world. The Americans had brought tens of thousands of reservists into Arabia and had extinguished most of the oil fires. Oil was once again flowing to feed their insatiable demand for energy. The uprising in Iraq continued and the battles in Afghanistan had not abated. All was not lost. The worst news was of a traitor in our Pakistani cells who had led the Americans to our coup planners within the Pakistani military. They had been executed without mercy. It was feared that the same traitor had supplied the locations of our Afghanistan bases that were annihilated by American nuclear bombs.

Osama's plan was to move north cautiously. This was new terrain to us. We had no supply dumps here and the enemy would likely have forces stationed in our path, aiming to cut off fighters fleeing Arabia to a safe haven in Egypt. We made good progress through the night. When dawn began to break, we took shelter on a rocky outcrop and surveyed the desert ahead. To our dismay, three American Blackhawk helicopters were bearing down on our position.

'Can they know that we are here?' I asked in shock.

'Not unless our boatman has betrayed us,' answered Osama. 'Take cover, quickly.'

We scrambled down into a canyon that was littered with large boulders. As we took shelter behind the rocks, the helicopters swooped low over us and circled our position. Out of sight, they landed.

'We have been betrayed,' said Osama. 'It is time to fight or die. Don't shoot until I do.'

We moved down the canyon and found a good ambush position. There were caves on either side and few boulders to offer shelter outside them. Myself and Osama entered one cave and our two comrades the other. We took position and assessed our weapons stocks. We each had an AK, four full magazines and three grenades. That was all. I reckoned our enemy force to be composed of at least 24 heavily-armed commandos. As soon as the firing started, they would call in support, if not more soldiers then perhaps a nuclear bomb. My throat was dry and fear gripped my stomach. Our comrades across the canyon signaled to our right. We looked down and saw the first group of Americans cautiously make their way towards us. I had the lead soldier in my sights. He was a young black man, possibly 30 years old. His desert fatigues and Heckler & Koch sub machine gun showed him to be a member of one of the special units that had been created to hunt us down. He was closer to his quarry than he imagined. The six Americans drew closer, still unaware of our position. When they were in line with us, not more than 25 meters away, Osama fired.

The soldier in my sights died when I squeezed off my first shot. His head exploded from the power of my round at such close range. Our comrades also opened fire and all the enemy died. We looked back down the canyon for the rest of the enemy force, when a hail of gunfire hit our comrades' position. This was followed by two M70 rifle grenades and we feared that we were now on our own. An enemy unit was at the opposite end of the canyon and we had not detected them. A further force came from the direction of the first and a helicopter rose behind them, spraying the canyon with its machine guns.

'Grenades,' said Osama. 'I'll throw right, you throw left. Then we run.'

We pulled the pins and threw the grenades. Both landed on their targets and exploded, killing or injuring many of our enemies in clouds of dust. We sprang from our hiding place and clambered up the hill behind. The loose surface was hard to negotiate and, as we neared the crest, a helicopter rose ahead of us, its door-mounted machine gun spitting fire in our direction. We were in the open, with no cover.

'Roll!' shouted Osama.

We clutched our rifles tight to our chests and rolled down the far side of the hill. The helicopter kept firing at us and, as we reached the floor of the canyon, enemy soldiers on the crest of the hill behind us began to fire also. We sheltered behind some rocks and I shot at the helicopter, which peeled away, while Osama fired at the commandoes. Suddenly, the soldiers fell to the ground in a hail of bullets. At least one of our comrades had survived. A huge firefight erupted on the other side of the hill, as the Americans pounded our comrades' cave with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers.

We took advantage of this distraction and made our way down the canyon. We could hear the enemy helicopters, but could not see them. We scrambled up a high slope and found a good position, protected from behind by large boulders, but with a clear view into the canyon below and also the canyon where we had laid our ambush. We took the opportunity to regain our breath. We were both breathing heavily and were covered in perspiration and desert sand. Osama passed me his water bottle and I drank gratefully.

'What do we do now?' I asked.

'We wait. I think we made it here without being detected. They possibly believe that we are still in the ambush canyon.'

We lay quietly for a few minutes until our full strength returned. The sounds of gunfire rattled through the canyons, echoing away to silence, save for the ever-present buzzing of the choppers.

'They are firing at shadows now,' I smiled.

'If I know our enemy, they will call in an air strike and retreat to a safe distance, attempting to cut off our escape routes while we burn beneath their bombs. Let's move.'

We retreated further north and found a mountain goat trail that led down the far side of the steep hill, giving us a good footing and some cover. A helicopter swooped low ahead of us, but we managed to conceal ourselves in time. We continued along the trail and, when we were almost a kilometer from the initial contact location, heard the thudding rotors of more helicopters approaching from the distance.

We watched in awe as a dozen helicopters, some were gunships but most were heavy troop carriers, emerged from the hazy sky to the north. A sense of fear was building inside me and I felt that the enemy knew for sure that Osama was their quarry and that we would be killed.

'They smell us,' he said. 'But they will not take us alive. They plan to throw a cordon around us.'

To our great relief, the fresh forces flew over our heads and circled the point of first contact at a radius of half a kilometer. They thought we were still holed up there and this gave us great hope. We heard the helicopters landing and listened as the Apaches fired missiles into the canyon. We continued on, sensing that we would actually escape this deadly trap. After a few minutes, a distant rumbling grew louder.

'Watch the skies,' said Osama. 'The bombers are coming.'

From the east, four fast-moving grey shapes shot into view. They were AV-8 VTOL, vertical takeoff or landing attack bombers, laden with 2,000 pound bombs. They had probably been sent from a marine task force carrier in the Red Sea. There was a truly mighty force hunting us. The jets screamed low over our heads and swept around us in a wide arc. The ground forces would have retreated to a safe distance and set up laser target designators to guide the bombers in.

After a few moments, they began their bombing runs. A massive blast shook us as the first bomb hit. We were at a safe distance, but we still felt the concussion and rocks above us were dislodged, creating an rockslide that narrowly missed us. Seven more detonations followed in quick succession, pounding the canyon behind us into rubble. The jets swooped over us again as they made their way back to their carrier, doubtless to rearm and return.

The helicopters, which had left the target zone after dropping their troops, returned to continue sweeping the area from above. There was an open plain ahead of us, perhaps a kilometer wide. Beyond the plain was a large mountain range. That range would offer us a safe haven. The Americans could bomb the rocks there with all their weapons and it would take a very lucky impact to hurt us.

'We will be exposed as we cross the plain,' said Osama, 'but it is our only hope of escape. Can you manage it?'

'Truly Allah is pointing the way,' I replied. 'The mountains will protect us as did the mountains of Afghanistan.'

'Good. There is some bit of cover there and there,' he said, pointing to small, rocky outcrops that dotted the otherwise empty sands. 'We will aim for those and pray that the helicopters are busy looking for our bodies.'

We waited until the helicopters' noise was at its lowest level, then set off across the plain. Dusk was beginning to fall and, as we made fast progress, it seemed that we would escape. We reached the first rocky outcrop and rested for a few minutes. Looking back, we could see a swarm of helicopters, making circuits of the bomb site. Their circles were becoming wider, which alarmed us. We moved on. We reached the final shelter, just 200 meters from the mountain range's first hills and canyons. The mighty peak of Jabal Hamatah towered in the distance. From there, it was 200 kilometers west to Aswan and safety.

We ran across the final stretch of open desert. The sound of a helicopter grew louder. I turned to look and saw a troop carrier traveling low, directly towards us at top speed.

'We've been spotted,' I shouted.

'Keep running! Allahu-Akbar!' he replied.

We ran as fast as we could over the soft sand. I tripped over a boulder and fell heavily, pain shooting through my right shoulder. Osama stopped but I shouted at him to keep running. The noise from the helicopter was now deafening. A door gunner opened fire and a storm of bullets hit the sand around Osama, who still hesitated. He fell to the ground. I raised my AK and fired at the helicopter. Thick smoke began to billow from its engines and it landed heavily ahead of Osama's motionless form. I was filled with fury and ran forward, throwing my remaining grenades and emptying a magazine into the enemy aircraft. I reached the helicopter and found that its two pilots were dead and the door gunner who had shot Osama lay mortally wounded. I unlocked his restraining harness and dragged him out onto the desert ground.

'Infidel!' I shouted at his blank face. He was bleeding heavily from a bullet wound in his chest. 'How dare you shoot my friend!' I was enraged. He feebly moved his right hand towards his holstered pistol and I slapped it aside. I took my dagger from its scabbard and cut his throat. His last breath gurgled in bloody bubbles from the cut and he went to hell. A million curses on him. I ran back to Osama. A bullet had torn half his neck away. I could see into his throat and blood spurted from a shattered artery. I put my hand on the wound to apply pressure.

'Come,' I said. 'We are near safety. Then I can stop the bleeding.'

With difficulty, I raised him to a standing position, his right arm over my shoulder, my left arm supporting him around the waist. My AK was slung over my right shoulder, Osama's was lost in the confusion. We stumbled forward and reached a canyon. We continued up the canyon until we reached a small recess off it. There was an open space, shielded on three sides by rock and a small cave in the mountainside. We fell heavily inside the cave. I lay Osama on his back and shook him, but he lay in silence. His face had the look of death. I gave him the kiss of life and beat on his chest for many long minutes. It was useless, he was dead. The downed helicopter exploded and the sound of the other enemy aircraft grew louder. I sat with my back against the cave wall and became aware of an intense pain in my lower back. I felt around and brought my hand back before my face to find it covered in dark blood. I too had been shot by the infidel. I reached into my backpack and found my morphine injector. I took a dose into my thigh and began the painful task of burying my friend.

I cried bitter tears as I dragged his body to the rear of the cave and covered him with rocks. I took the Holy Qur'an from Osama's backpack and recited many verses over his grave. I felt so low that I simply sat and read aloud to him. I didn't care if I was caught by the Americans. What hope now for Al-Qaeda? What hope for me? What hope for all Muslims?

EPILOGUE

"1. Say: he is Allah, the One!

"2. Allah, the eternally Besought of all!

"3. He begetteth not nor was begotten.

"4. And there is none comparable unto Him."

Al-Qur'an. Surah 112. Al-Ikhlas, The Sincerity. Vv 1-4.

The sun is rising over the horizon, towards Mecca. I have prayed to Allah for guidance and my pain and fever have eased. The Americans are drawing closer now. I can hear their helicopters sweeping the canyons and plains. I have achieved greatness, without knowing it. I am now leader of Al-Qaeda. This truth struck me during the night. Maybe this is not my time to die.

I pray to Allah to show me the path. He will let me live or He will let me die. But I am now leader. Will the next President of the United States be more moderate? Do we make peace with the Crusaders? Can we build a worldwide, just peace which recognizes the power of Islam? Or do we continue the Jihad with more hammer blows? There are so many decisions to be made, I don't believe that I can shirk these responsibilities. If I sit here to die or be captured, do I not betray the many thousands of martyrs who died for our cause? Can Osama's great achievements be forgotten so quickly by me? Will our grandchildren too be condemned to a life of war and destruction? I look at the pile of rocks that covers my friend's dead body and I cry tears. But not tears of sorrow, tears of revenge. I will avenge his martyrdom. I alone can tell our comrades of Osama's bravery and dedication and avenge his death. But then what? Can there be a peaceful co-existence between Islam and Christianity and Judaism? Is war the answer any more? Was it ever?

I end this message to you in hope, under Allah. May Allah guide me to the righteous path and you also, my American brothers. Allahu-Akbar.

THE END
APPENDIX 1

Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places

Praise be to Allah, we seek His help and ask for his pardon. We take refuge in Allah from our wrongs and bad deeds. Whoever has been guided by Allah will not be misled, and whoever has been misled, he will never be guided. I bear witness that there is no God except Allah, no associates with Him, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger.

{O you who believe! be careful of -your duty to Allah with the proper care which is due to Him, and do not die unless you are Muslim} (Imraan; 3:102), {O people be careful of -your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same kind and spread from these two, many men and women; and be careful of -your duty to Allah , by whom you demand one of another -your rights- and (be careful) to the ties of kinship; surely Allah ever watches over you} (An-Nisa; 4:1), {O you who believe! be careful of your duty'to Allah and speak the right word; He will put your deeds into a right state for you, and forgive you your faults; and whoever obeys Allah and his Apostle, he indeed achieve a mighty success} (Al-Ahzab; 33:70-71).

Praise be to Allah, reporting the saying of the prophet Shu'aib: {I desire nothing but reform so far as I am able, and with non but Allah is the direction of my affair to the right and successful path; on him do I rely and to him do I turn} (Hud; 11:88).

Praise be to Allah, saying: {You are the best of the nations raised up for -the benefit of men; you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah} (Aal-Imraan; 3:110). Allah's blessing and salutations on His slave and messenger who said: (The people are close to an all-encompassing punishment from Allah if they see the oppressor and fail to restrain him.)

It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnya and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watches and hears, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.

The people of Islam awakened and realised that they are the main target for the aggression of the Zionist-Crusaders alliance. All false claims and propaganda about "Human Rights" were hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took place against the Muslims in every part of the world.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places - the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah").

Under the present circumstances, and under the banner of the blessed awakening which is sweeping the world in general and the Islamic world in particular, I meet with you today. And after a long absence, imposed on the scholars (Ulama) and callers (Da'ees) of Islam by the iniquitous crusaders movement under the leadership of the USA; who fears that they, the scholars and callers of Islam, will instigate the Ummah of Islam against its enemies as their ancestor scholars -may Allah be pleased with them like Ibn Taymiyyah and Al'iz Ibn Abdes-Salaam did. And therefore the Zionist-Crusader alliance resorted to killing and arresting the truthful Ulama and the working Da'ees (We are not praising or sanctifying them; Allah sanctify whom He pleased). They killed the Mujahid Sheikh Abdullah Azzaam, and they arrested the Mujahid Sheikh Ahmad Yaseen and the Mujahid Sheikh Omar Abdur Rahman (in America).

By orders from the USA they also arrested a large number of scholars, Da'ees and young people -in the land of the two Holy Places among them the prominent Sheikh Salman Al-Oud'a and Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali and their brothers; (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah"). We, myself and my group, have suffered some of this injustice ourselves; we have been prevented from addressing the Muslims. We have been pursued in Pakistan, Sudan and Afghanistan, hence this long absence on my part. But by the Grace of Allah, a safe base is now available in the high Hindukush mountains in Khurasan; where by the Grace of Allah the largest infidel military force of the world was destroyed. And the myth of the super power was withered in front of the Mujahideen cries of Allahu Akbar (God is greatest). Today we work from the same mountains to lift the iniquity that had been imposed on the Ummah by the Zionist-Crusader alliance, particularly after they have occupied the blessed land around Jerusalem, route of the journey of the Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) and the land of the two Holy Places. We ask Allah to bestow us with victory, He is our Patron and He is the Most Capable.

From here, today we begin the work, talking and discussing the ways of correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general, and the Land of the two Holy Places in particular. We wish to study the means that we could follow to return the situation to its normal path. And to return to the people their own rights, particularly after the large damages and the great aggression on the life and the religion of the people. An injustice that had affected every section and group of the people; the civilians, military and security men, government officials and merchants, the young and the old people as well as schools and university students. Hundreds of thousands of the unemployed graduates, who became the widest section of the society, were also affected.

Injustice had affected the people of the industry and agriculture. It affected the people of the rural and urban areas. And almost everybody complained about something. The situation at the land of the two Holy places became like a huge volcano at the verge of eruption that would destroy the Kufr and the corruption and its sources. The explosion at Riyadh and Al-Khobar is a warning of this volcanic eruption emerging as a result of the severe oppression, suffering, excessive iniquity, humiliation and poverty.

People are fully concerned about their everyday lives; everybody talks about the deterioration of the economy, inflation, ever increasing debts and jails full of prisoners. Government employees with limited income talk about debts of ten thousands and hundred thousands of Saudi Riyals. They complain that the value of the Riyal is greatly and continuously deteriorating among most of the main currencies. Great merchants and contractors speak about hundreds and thousands of million Riyals owed to them by the government. More than three hundred forty billions of Riyal owed by the government to the people in addition to the daily accumulated interest, let alone the foreign debt. People wonder whether we are the largest oil exporting country?! They even believe that this situation is a curse put on them by Allah for not objecting to the oppressive and illegitimate behaviour and measures of the ruling regime: Ignoring the divine Shari'ah law; depriving people of their legitimate rights; allowing the American to occupy the land of the two Holy Places; imprisonment, unjustly, of the sincere scholars. The honourable Ulamah and scholars as well as merchants, economists and eminent people of the country were all alerted by this disastrous situation.

Quick efforts were made by each group to contain and to correct the situation. All agreed that the country is heading toward a great catastrophe, the depth of which is not known except by Allah. One big merchant commented : "the king is leading the state into 'sixty-six' folded disaster", (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah"). Numerous princes share with the people their feelings, privately expressing their concerns and objecting to the corruption, repression and the intimidation taking place in the country. But the competition between influential princes for personal gains and interest had destroyed the country. Through its course of actions the regime has torn off its legitimacy:

(1) Suspension of the Islamic Shari'ah law and exchanging it with man-made civil law. The regime entered into a bloody confrontation with the truthful Ulamah and the righteous youths (we sanctify nobody; Allah sanctify Whom He pleaseth).

(2) The inability of the regime to protect the country, and allowing the enemy of the Ummah -the American crusader forces - to occupy the land for the longest of years. The crusader forces became the main cause of our disastrous condition, particularly in the economical aspect of it due to the unjustified heavy spending on these forces. As a result of the policy imposed on the country, especially in the field of oil industry where production is restricted or expanded and prices are fixed to suit the American economy ignoring the economy of the country. Expensive deals were imposed on the country to purchase arms. People asking what is the justification for the very existence of the regime then?

Quick efforts were made by individuals and by different groups of the society to contain the situation and to prevent the danger. They advised the government both privately and openly; they sent letters and poems, reports after reports, reminders after reminders, they explored every avenue and enlisted every influential man in their movement of reform and correction. They wrote with style of passion, diplomacy and wisdom asking for corrective measures and repentance from the "great wrong doings and corruption" that had engulfed even the basic principles of the religion and the legitimate rights of the people.

But - to our deepest regret - the regime refused to listen to the people accusing them of being ridiculous and imbecile. The matter got worse as previous wrong doings were followed by mischiefs of greater magnitudes. All of this taking place in the land of the two Holy Places! It is no longer possible to be quiet. It is not acceptable to give a blind eye to this matter.

As the extent of these infringements reached the highest of levels and turned into demolishing forces threatening the very existence of the Islamic principles, a group of scholars -who can take no more - supported by hundreds of retired officials, merchants, prominent and educated people wrote to the King asking for implementation of the corrective measures. In 1411 A.H. (May 1991), at the time of the gulf war, a letter, the famous letter of Shawwaal, with over four hundred signatures was sent to the king demanding the lift of oppression and the implementation of corrective actions. The king humiliated those people and choose to ignore the content of their letter; and the very bad situation of the country became even worse.

People, however, tried again and sent more letters and petitions. One particular report, the glorious Memorandum of Advice, was handed over to the king on Muharram, 1413 A.H (July 1992), which tackled the problem pointed out the illness and prescribed the medicine in an original, righteous and scientific style. It described the gaps and the shortcoming in the philosophy of the regime and suggested the required course of action and remedy. The report gave a description of:

(1) The intimidation and harassment suffered by the leaders of the society, the scholars, heads of tribes, merchants, academic teachers and other eminent individuals;

(2) The situation of the law within the country and the arbitrary declaration of what is Halal and Haram (lawful and unlawful) regardless of the Shari'ah as instituted by Allah;

(3) The state of the press and the media which became a tool of truth-hiding and misinformation; the media carried out the plan of the enemy of idolising cult of certain personalities and spreading scandals among the believers to repel the people away from their religion, as Allah, the Exalted said: {surely as for those who love that scandal should circulate between the believers, they shall have a grievous chastisement in this world and in the hereafter} (An-Noor, 24:19);

(4) Abuse and confiscation of human rights;

(5) The financial and the economical situation of the country and the frightening future in the view of the enormous amount of debts and interest owed by the government; this is at the time when the wealth of the Ummah being wasted to satisfy personal desires of certain individuals! while imposing more custom duties and taxes on the nation. (The prophet said about the woman who committed adultery: "She repented in such a way sufficient to bring forgiveness to a custom collector!");

(6) The miserable situation of the social services and infra-structure especially the water service and supply, the basic requirement of life;

(7) The state of the ill-trained and ill-prepared army and the impotence of its commander in chief despite the incredible amount of money that has been spent on the army. The gulf war clearly exposed the situation;

(8) Shari'a law was suspended and man-made law was used instead;

(9) And as far as the foreign policy is concerned the report exposed not only how this policy has disregarded the Islamic issues and ignored the Muslims, but also how help and support were provided to the enemy against the Muslims; the cases of Gaza-Ariha and the communist in the south of Yemen are still fresh in the memory, and more can be said.

As stated by the people of knowledge, it is not a secret that to use man made law instead of the Shari'a and to support the infidels against the Muslims is one of the ten "voiders" that would strip a person from his Islamic status (turn a Muslim into a Mushrik, non-believer status). The All Mighty said: {and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are the unbelievers} (Al-Ma'ida; 5:44), and {but no! by your Lord! they do not believe (in reality) until they make you a judge of that which has become a matter of disagreement among them, and then do not find the slightest misgiving in their hearts as to what you have decided and submit with entire submission} (An-Nissa; 4:65).

In spite of the fact that the report was written with soft words and very diplomatic style, reminding of Allah, giving truthful sincere advice, and despite of the importance of advice in Islam - being absolutely essential for those in charge of the people - and the large number who signed this document as well as their supporters, all of that was not an intercession for the Memorandum. Its content was rejected and those who signed it and their sympathisers were ridiculed, prevented from travel, punished and even jailed.

Therefore it is very clear that the advocates of correction and reform movement were very keen on using peaceful means in order to protect the unity of the country and to prevent blood shed. Why is it then the regime closed all peaceful routes and pushed the people toward armed actions?! Which is the only choice left for them to implement righteousness and justice. To whose benefit does Prince Sultan and prince Nayeff push the country into a civil war that will destroy everything? And why consulting those who ignite internal feuds, playing the people against each other and instigate the policemen, the sons of the nation, to abort the reform movement. While leaving in peace and security such traitors who implement the policy of the enemy in order to bleed the financial and the human resources of the Ummah, and leaving the main enemy in the area - the American Zionist alliance enjoy peace and security?!

The advisor (Zaki Badr, the Egyptian ex-minister of the interior) to prince Nayeff - minister of interior - was not acceptable even to his own country; he was sacked from his position there due to the filthy attitude and the aggression he exercised on his own people, yet he was warmly welcomed by prince Nayeff to assist in sins and aggressions. He unjustly filled the prisons with the best sons of this Ummah and caused miseries to their mothers. Does the regime want to play the civilians against their military personnel and vice versa, like what had happened in some of the neighbouring countries?! No doubts this is the policy of the American-Israeli alliance as they are the first to benefit from this situation.

But with the grace of Allah, the majority of the nation, both civilians and military individuals, are aware of the wicked plan. They refused to be played against each other and to be used by the regime as a tool to carry out the policy of the American-Israeli alliance through their agent in our country: the Saudi regime.

Therefore everyone agreed that the situation cannot be rectified (the shadow cannot be straighten when its source, the rod, is not straight either) unless the root of the problem is tackled. Hence it is essential to hit the main enemy who divided the Ummah into small and little countries and pushed it, for the last few decades, into a state of confusion. The Zionist-Crusader alliance moves quickly to contain and abort any "corrective movement" appearing in the Islamic countries. Different means and methods are used to achieve their target; on occasion the "movement" is dragged into an armed struggle at a predetermined unfavourable time and place. Sometimes officials from the Ministry of Interior, who are also graduates of the colleges of the Shari'ah, are leashed out to mislead and confuse the nation and the Ummah (by wrong Fatwas) and to circulate false information about the movement. At other occasions some righteous people were tricked into a war of words against the Ulama and the leaders of the movement, wasting the energy of the nation in discussing minor issues and ignoring the main one that is the unification of the people under the divine law of Allah.

In the shadow of these discussions and arguments truthfulness is covered by the falsehood, and personal feuds and partisanship created among the people increasing the division and the weakness of the Ummah; priorities of the Islamic work are lost while the blasphemy and polytheism continue its grip and control over the Ummah. We should be alert to these atrocious plans carried out by the Ministry of Interior. The right answer is to follow what has been decided by the people of knowledge, as was said by Ibn Taymiyyah (Allah's mercy upon him): "people of Islam should join forces and support each other to get rid of the main "Kufr" who is controlling the countries of the Islamic world, even to bear the lesser damage to get rid of the major one, that is the great Kufr".

If there is more than one duty to be carried out, then the most important one should receive priority. Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land. No other priority, except Belief, could be considered before it; the people of knowledge, Ibn Taymiyyah, stated: "to fight in defence of religion and Belief is a collective duty; there is no other duty after Belief than fighting the enemy who is corrupting the life and the religion. There is no precondition for this duty and the enemy should be fought with one's best abilities. (ref: supplement of Fatwa). If it is not possible to push back the enemy except by the collective movement of the Muslim people, then there is a duty on the Muslims to ignore the minor differences among themselves; the ill effect of ignoring these differences, at a given period of time, is much less than the ill effect of the occupation of the Muslims' land by the main Kufr. Ibn Taymiyyah had explained this issue and emphasised the importance of dealing with the major threat on the expense of the minor one. He described the situation of the Muslims and the Mujahideen and stated that even the military personnel who are not practising Islam are not exempted from the duty of Jihad against the enemy.

Ibn Taymiyyah, after mentioning the Moguls (Tatar) and their behaviour in changing the law of Allah, stated that: the ultimate aim of pleasing Allah, raising His word, instituting His religion and obeying His messenger (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is to fight the enemy, in every aspect and in a complete manner; if the danger to the religion from not fighting is greater than that of fighting, then it is a duty to fight them even if the intention of some of the fighters is not pure i.e. fighting for the sake of leadership (personal gain) or if they do not observe some of the rules and commandments of Islam. To repel the greatest of the two dangers on the expense of the lesser one is an Islamic principle which should be observed. It was the tradition of the people of the Sunnah (Ahlul-Sunnah) to join and invade - fight - with the righteous and non-righteous men. Allah may support this religion by righteous and non-righteous people as told by the prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM). If it is not possible to fight except with the help of non-righteous military personnel and commanders, then there are two possibilities: either fighting will be ignored and the others, who are the great danger to this life and religion, will take control; or to fight with the help of non-righteous rulers and therefore repelling the greatest of the two dangers and implementing most, though not all, of the Islamic laws. The latter option is the right duty to be carried out in these circumstances and in many other similar situations. In fact many of the fights and conquests that took place after the time of Rashidoon, the guided Imams, were of this type. (majmoo' al Fatawa, 26/506).

No one, not even a blind or a deaf person, can deny the presence of the widely spread mischiefs or the prevalence of the great sins that had reached the grievous iniquity of polytheism and to share with Allah in His sole right of sovereignty and making of the law. The All Mighty stated: {And when Luqman said to his son while he admonish him: O my son! do not associate ought with Allah; most surely polytheism is a grievous iniquity} (Luqman; 31:13). Man fabricated laws were put forward permitting what has been forbidden by Allah such as usury (Riba) and other matters. Banks dealing in usury are competing, for lands, with the two Holy Places and declaring war against Allah by disobeying His order {Allah has allowed trading and forbidden usury} (Baqarah; 2:275). All this taking place at the vicinity of the Holy Mosque in the Holy Land! Allah (SWT) stated in His Holy Book a unique promise (that had not been promised to any other sinner) to the Muslims who deals in usury: {O you who believe! Be careful of your duty to Allah and relinquish what remains (due) from usury, if you are believers * But if you do (it) not, then be appraised of WAR from Allah and His Apostle} (Baqarah; 2:278-279). This is for the "Muslim" who deals in usury (believing that it is a sin), what is it then to the person who make himself a partner and equal to Allah, legalising (usury and other sins) what has been forbidden by Allah. Despite of all of the above we see the government misled and dragged some of the righteous Ulamah and Da'ees away from the issue of objecting to the greatest of sins and Kufr. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah").

Under such circumstances, to push the enemy-the greatest Kufr'out of the country is a prime duty. Utmost effort should be made to prepare and instigate the Ummah against the enemy, the American-Israeli alliance'occupying the country of the two Holy Places and the route of the Apostle (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) to the Furthest Mosque (Al-Aqsa Mosque). Also to remind the Muslims not to be engaged in an internal war among themselves, as that will have grieve consequences namely:

1-consumption of the Muslims' human resources as most casualties and fatalities will be among the Muslims people.

2-Exhaustion of the economic and financial resources.

3-Destruction of the country infrastructures.

4-Dissociation of the society.

5-Destruction of the oil industries. The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world. The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings and prides and push them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land; therefore spread of the fighting in the region will expose the oil wealth to the danger of being burned up. The economic interests of the States of the Gulf and the land of the two Holy Places will be damaged and even a greater damage will be caused to the economy of the world. I would like here to alert my brothers, the Mujahideen, the sons of the nation, to protect this (oil) wealth and not to include it in the battle as it is a great Islamic wealth and a large economical power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state, by Allah's Permission and Grace. We also warn the aggressors, the USA, against burning this Islamic wealth (a crime which they may commit in order to prevent it, at the end of the war, from falling in the hands of its legitimate owners and to cause economic damages to the competitors of the USA in Europe or the Far East, particularly Japan which is the major consumer of the oil of the region).

6-Division of the land of the two Holy Places, and annexing of the northerly part of it by Israel. Dividing the land of the two Holy Places is an essential demand of the Zionist-Crusader alliance. The existence of such a large country with its huge resources under the leadership of the forthcoming Islamic State, by Allah's Grace, represent a serious danger to the very existence of the Zionist state in Palestine. The Nobel Ka'ba, -the Qiblah of all Muslims'makes the land of the two Holy Places a symbol for the unity of the Islamic world. Moreover, the presence of the world's largest oil reserve makes the land of the two Holy Places an important economical power in the Islamic world. The sons of the two Holy Places are directly related to the life style (Seerah) of their forefathers, the companions, may Allah be pleased with them. They consider the Seerah of their forefathers as a source and an example for re-establishing the greatness of this Ummah and to raise the word of Allah again. Furthermore the presence of a population of fighters in the south of Yemen, fighting in the cause of Allah, is a strategic threat to the Zionist-Crusader alliance in the area. The Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) said: (around twelve thousands will emerge from Aden/Abian helping -the cause of'Allah and His messenger, they are the best, in the time, between me and them) narrated by Ahmad with a correct trustworthy reference.

7-An internal war is a great mistake, no matter what reasons are there for it. The presence of the occupier - the USA - forces will control the outcome of the battle for the benefit of the international Kufr.

I address now my brothers of the security and military forces and the national guards may Allah preserve your hoard for Islam and the Muslim people:

O you protectors of unity and guardians of Faith; O you descendent of the ancestors who carried the light (torch) of guidance and spread it all over the world. O you grandsons of Sa'd Ibn Abi Waqqaas , Almothanna Ibn Haritha Ash-Shaybani , Alga'ga' Ibn Amroo Al-Tameemi and those pious companions who fought Jihad alongside them; you competed to join the army and the guard forces with the intention to carry out Jihad in the cause of Allah - raising His word - and to defend the faith of Islam and the land of the two Holy Places against the invaders and the occupying forces. That is the ultimate level of believing in this religion "Deen". But the regime had reversed these principles and their understanding, humiliating the Ummah and disobeying Allah. Half a century ago the rulers promised the Ummah to regain the first Qiblah, but fifty years later new generation arrived and the promises have been changed; Al-Aqsa Mosque handed over to the Zionists and the wounds of the Ummah still bleeding there. At the time when the Ummah has not regained the first Qiblah and the rout of the journey of the Prophet (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him), and despite of all of the above, the Saudi regime had stunted the Ummah in the remaining sanctities, the Holy city of Makka and the mosque of the Prophet (Al-Masjid An-Nabawy), by calling the Christian army to defend the regime. The crusaders were permitted to be in the land of the two Holy Places. Not surprisingly though, the King himself wore the cross on his chest. The country was widely opened from the north-to-the south and from east-to-the west for the crusaders. The land was filled with the military bases of the USA and the allies. The regime became unable to keep control without the help of these bases. You know more than anybody else about the size, intention and the danger of the presence of the USA military bases in the area. The regime betrayed the Ummah and joined the Kufr, assisting and helping them against the Muslims. It is well known that this is one of the ten "voiders" of Islam, deeds of de-Islamisation. By opening the Arab peninsula to the crusaders the regime disobeyed and acted against what has been enjoined by the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him), while he was at the bed of his death: (Expel the polytheists out of the Arab Peninsula); (narrated by Al-Bukhari) and: (If I survive, Allah willing, I'll expel the Jews and the Christians out of the Arab Peninsula); saheeh Aljame' As-Sagheer.

It is out of date and no longer acceptable to claim that the presence of the crusaders is necessity and only a temporary measure to protect the land of the two Holy Places. Especially when the civil and the military infrastructures of Iraq were savagely destroyed showing the depth of the Zionist-Crusaders hatred to the Muslims and their children, and the rejection of the idea of replacing the crusaders forces by an Islamic force composed of the sons of the country and other Muslim people. Moreover the foundations of the claim and the claim it self were demolished and wiped out by the sequence of speeches given by the leaders of the Kuffar in America. The latest of these speeches was the one given by William Perry, the Defense Secretary, after the explosion in Al-Khobar saying that: the presence of the American solders there is to protect the interest of the USA. The imprisoned Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali, may Allah hasten his release, wrote a book of seventy pages; in it he presented evidence and proof that the presence of the Americans in the Arab Peninsula is a pre-planned military occupation. The regime want to deceive the Muslim people in the same manner when the Palestinian fighters, Mujahideen, were deceived causing the loss of Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 1304 A.H (1936 AD) the awakened Muslims nation of Palestine started their great struggle, Jihad, against the British occupying forces. Britain was impotent to stop the Mujahideen and their Jihad, but their devil inspired that there is no way to stop the armed struggle in Palestine unless through their agent King Abdul Azeez, who managed to deceives the Mujahideen. King Abdul Azeez carried out his duty to his British masters. He sent his two sons to meet the Mujahideen leaders and to inform them that King Abdul Azeez would guarantee the promises made by the British government in leaving the area and responding positively to the demands of the Mujahideen if the latter stop their Jihad. And so King Abdul Azeez caused the loss of the first Qiblah of the Muslims people. The King joined the crusaders against the Muslims and instead of supporting the Mujahideen in the cause of Allah, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he disappointed and humiliated them.

Today, his son, King Fahd, trying to deceive the Muslims for the second time so as to loose what is left of the sanctities. When the Islamic world resented the arrival of the crusader forces to the land of the two Holy Places, the king told lies to the Ulamah (who issued Fatwas about the arrival of the Americans) and to the gathering of the Islamic leaders at the conference of Rabitah which was held in the Holy City of Makka. The King said that: "the issue is simple, the American and the alliance forces will leave the area in few months". Today it is seven years since their arrival and the regime is not able to move them out of the country. The regime made no confession about its inability and carried on lying to the people claiming that the American will leave. But never-never again; a believer will not be bitten twice from the same hole or snake! Happy is the one who takes note of the sad experience of the others!!

Instead of motivating the army, the guards, and the security men to oppose the occupiers, the regime used these men to protect the invaders, and further deepening the humiliation and the betrayal. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah"). To those little group of men within the army, police and security forces, who have been tricked and pressured by the regime to attack the Muslims and spill their blood, we would like to remind them of the narration: (I promise war against those who take my friends as their enemy) narrated by Al--Bukhari. And his saying (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) saying of: ( In the day of judgement a man comes holding another and complaining being slain by him. Allah, blessed be His Names, asks: Why did you slay him?! The accused replies: I did so that all exaltation may be Yours. Allah, blessed be His Names, says: All exaltation is indeed mine! Another man comes holding a fourth with a similar complaint. Allah, blessed be His Names, asks: Why did you kill him?! The accused replies: I did so that exaltation may be for Mr. X! Allah, blessed be His Names, says: exaltation is mine, not for Mr. X, carry all the slain man's sins (and proceed to the Hell fire)!). In another wording of An-Nasa'i: "The accused says: for strengthening the rule or kingdom of Mr. X"

Today your brothers and sons, the sons of the two Holy Places, have started their Jihad in the cause of Allah, to expel the occupying enemy from of the country of the two Holy places. And there is no doubt you would like to carry out this mission too, in order to re-establish the greatness of this Ummah and to liberate its' occupied sanctities. Nevertheless, it must be obvious to you that, due to the imbalance of power between our armed forces and the enemy forces, a suitable means of fighting must be adopted i.e. using fast moving light forces that work under complete secrecy. In other words, to initiate a guerrilla warfare, were the sons of the nation, and not the military forces, take part in it. And as you know, it is wise, in the present circumstances, for the armed military forces not to be engaged in a conventional fighting with the forces of the crusader enemy (the exceptions are the bold and the forceful operations carried out by the members of the armed forces individually, that is without the movement of the formal forces in its conventional shape and hence the responses will not be directed, strongly, against the army) unless a big advantage is likely to be achieved; and great losses induced on the enemy side (that would shake and destroy its foundations and infrastructures) that will help to expel the defeated enemy from the country.

The Mujahideen, your brothers and sons, requesting that you support them in every possible way by supplying them with the necessary information, materials and arms. Security men are especially asked to cover up for the Mujahideen and to assist them as much as possible against the occupying enemy; and to spread rumours, fear and discouragement among the members of the enemy forces.

We bring to your attention that the regime, in order to create a friction and feud between the Mujahideen and yourselves, might resort to take a deliberate action against personnel of the security, guards and military forces and blame the Mujahideen for these actions. The regime should not be allowed to have such opportunity.

The regime is fully responsible for what had been incurred by the country and the nation; however the occupying American enemy is the principle and the main cause of the situation. Therefore efforts should be concentrated on destroying, fighting and killing the enemy until, by the Grace of Allah, it is completely defeated. The time will come -by the Permission of Allah'when you'll perform your decisive role so that the word of Allah will be supreme and the word of the infidels (Kaferoon) will be the inferior. You will hit with iron fist against the aggressors. You'll re-establish the normal course and give the people their rights and carry out your truly Islamic duty. Allah willing, I'll have a separate talk about these issues.

My Muslim Brothers (particularly those of the Arab Peninsula): The money you pay to buy American goods will be transformed into bullets and used against our brothers in Palestine and tomorrow (future) against our sons in the land of the two Holy places. By buying these goods we are strengthening their economy while our dispossession and poverty increases.

Muslim Brothers of land of the two Holy Places:

It is incredible that our country is the world's largest buyer of arms from the USA and the area biggest commercial partners of the Americans who are assisting their Zionist brothers in occupying Palestine and in evicting and killing the Muslims there, by providing arms, men and financial supports.

To deny these occupiers from the enormous revenues of their trading with our country is a very important help for our Jihad against them. To express our anger and hate to them is a very important moral gesture. By doing so we would have taken part in (the process of ) cleansing our sanctities from the crusaders and the Zionists and forcing them, by the Permission of Allah, to leave disappointed and defeated.

We expect the woman of the land of the two Holy Places and other countries to carry out their role in boycotting the American goods.

If economical boycotting is intertwined with the military operations of the Mujahideen, then defea ting the enemy will be even nearer, by the Permission of Allah. However if Muslims don't co-operate and support their Mujahideen brothers then , in effect, they are supplying the army of the enemy with financial help and extending the war and increasing the suffering of the Muslims.

The security and the intelligence services of the entire world cannot force a single citizen to buy the goods of his/her enemy. Economical boycotting of the American goods is a very effective weapon of hitting and weakening the enemy, and it is not under the control of the security forces of the regime.

Before closing my talk, I have a very important message to the youths of Islam, men of the brilliant future of the Ummah of Muhammad (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM). Our talk with the youths about their duty in this difficult period in the history of our Ummah. A period in which the youths and no one else came forward to carry out the variable and different duties. While some of the well-known individuals had hesitated in their duty of defending Islam and saving themselves and their wealth from the injustice, aggression and terror - exercised by the government - the youths (may Allah protect them) were forthcoming and raised the banner of Jihad against the American-Zionist alliance occupying the sanctities of Islam. Others who have been tricked into loving this materialistic world, and those who have been terrorised by the government choose to give legitimacy to the greatest betrayal, the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah"). We are not surprised from the action of our youths. The youths were the companions of Muhammad (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him), and was it not the youths themselves who killed Aba-Jahl, the Pharaoh of this Ummah?. Our youths are the best descendent of the best ancestors.

Abdul-Rahman Ibn Awf -may Allah be pleased with him - said: (I was at Badr where I noticed two youths one to my right and the other to my left. One of them asked me quietly (so not to be heard by the other): O uncle point out Aba-Jahl to me. What do you want him for? , said Abdul Rahman. The boy answered: I have been informed that he 'Aba-Jahl' abused the Messenger of Allah, I swear by Allah, who have my soul in His hand, that if I see Aba-Jahl I'll not let my shadow departs his shadow till one of us is dead. I was astonished, said Abdul Rahman; then the other youth said the same thing as the first one. Subsequently I saw Aba-Jahl among the people; I said to the boys do you see? This is the man you are asking me about. The two youths hit Aba-Jahl with their swords till he was dead. Allah is the greatest, Praise be to Him: Two youths of young age but with great perseverance, enthusiasm, courage and pride for the religion of Allah's, each one of them asking about the most important act of killing that should be induced on the enemy. That is the killing of the pharaoh of this Ummah 'Aba Jahl-, the leader of the unbelievers (Mushrikeen) at the battle of Badr. The role of Abdul Rahman Ibn Awf, may Allah be pleased with him, was to direct the two youths toward Aba-Jahl. That was the perseverance and the enthusiasm of the youths of that time and that was the perseverance and the enthusiasm of their fathers. It is this role that is now required from the people who have the expertise and knowledge in fighting the enemy. They should guide their brothers and sons in this matter; once that has been done, then our youths will repeat what their forefathers had said before: "I swear by Allah if I see him I'll not let my shadow to departs from his shadow till one of us is dead".

And the story of Abdur-Rahman Ibn Awf about Ummayyah Ibn Khalaf shows the extent of Bilal's (may Allah be pleased with him) persistence in killing the head of the Kufr: "the head of Kufr is Ummayyah Ibn Khalaf.... I shall live not if he survives" said Bilal.

Few days ago the news agencies had reported that the Defence Secretary of the Crusading Americans had said that "the explosion at Riyadh and Al-Khobar had taught him one lesson: that is not to withdraw when attacked by coward terrorists".

We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! and shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983 AD (1403 A.H). You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines soldiers were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in less than twenty four hours!

But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where - after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post-cold war leadership of the new world order - you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American soldiers into Somalia. However, when tens of your soldiers were killed in minor battles and one American pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.

I say to Secretary of Defence: The sons of the land of the two Holy Places had come out to fight against the Russian in Afghanistan, the Serb in Bosnia-Herzegovina and today they are fighting in Chechenia and \- by the Permission of Allah - they have been made victorious over your partner, the Russians. By the command of Allah, they are also fighting in Tajakistan.

I say: Since the sons of the land of the two Holy Places feel and strongly believe that fighting (Jihad) against the Kuffar in every part of the world, is absolutely essential; then they would be even more enthusiastic, more powerful and larger in number upon fighting on their own land - the place of their births - defending the greatest of their sanctities, the noble Ka'ba (the Qiblah of all Muslims). They know that the Muslims of the world will assist and help them to victory. To liberate their sanctities is the greatest of issues concerning all Muslims; It is the duty of every Muslims in this world.

I say to you William (Defence Secretary) that: These youths love death as you loves life. They inherit dignity, pride, courage, generosity, truthfulness and sacrifice from father to father. They are most delivering and steadfast at war. They inherit these values from their ancestors (even from the time of the Jaheliyyah, before Islam). These values were approved and completed by the arriving Islam as stated by the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him): "I have been send to perfecting the good values". (Saheeh Al-Jame' As-Sagheer).

When the pagan King Amroo Ibn Hind tried to humiliate the pagan Amroo Ibn Kulthoom, the latter cut the head of the King with his sword rejecting aggression, humiliation and indignation.

If the king oppresses the people excessively, we reject submitting to humiliation.

By which legitimacy (or command) O Amroo bin Hind you want us to be degraded?!

By which legitimacy (or command) O Amroo bin Hind you listen to our foes and disrespect us?!

Our toughness has, O Amroo, tired the enemies before you, never giving in!

Our youths believe in paradise after death. They believe that taking part in fighting will not bring their day nearer; and staying behind will not postpone their day either. Exalted be to Allah who said: {And a soul will not die but with the permission of Allah, the term is fixed} (Aal Imraan; 3:145). Our youths believe in the saying of the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him): "O boy, I teach a few words; guard (guard the cause of, keep the commandments of) Allah, then He guards you, guard (the cause of ) Allah, then He will be with you; if you ask (for your need) ask Allah, if you seek assistance, seek Allah's; and know definitely that if the Whole World gathered to (bestow) profit on you they will not profit you except with what was determined for you by Allah, and if they gathered to harm you they will not harm you except with what has been determined for you by Allah; Pen lifted, papers dried, it is fixed nothing in these truths can be changed" Saheeh Al-Jame' As-Sagheer.

Our youths took note of the meaning of the poetic verse: "If death is a predetermined must, then it is a shame to die cowardly." And the other poet saying: "Who do not die by the sword will die by other reason; many causes are there but one death".

These youths believe in what has been told by Allah and His messenger (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) about the greatness of the reward for the Mujahideen and Martyrs; Allah, the most exalted said: {and -so far'those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish. He will guide them and improve their condition. and cause them to enter the garden -paradise'which He has made known to them}. (Muhammad; 47:4-6). Allah the Exalted also said: {and do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay -they are'alive, but you do not perceive} (Bagarah; 2:154). His messenger (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) said: "for those who strive in His cause Allah prepared hundred degrees (levels) in paradise; in-between two degrees as the in-between heaven and earth". Saheeh Al-Jame' As-Sagheer. He (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) also said: "the best of the martyrs are those who do NOT turn their faces away from the battle till they are killed. They are in the high level of Jannah (paradise). Their Lord laughs to them ( in pleasure) and when your Lord laughs to a slave of His, He will not hold him to an account". narrated by Ahmad with correct and trustworthy reference. And : "a martyr will not feel the pain of death except like how you feel when you are pinched". Saheeh Al-Jame' As-Sagheer. He also said: "a martyr privileges are guaranteed by Allah; forgiveness with the first gush of his blood, he will be shown his seat in paradise, he will be decorated with the jewels of belief (Imaan), married off to the beautiful ones, protected from the test in the grave, assured security in the day of judgement, crowned with the crown of dignity, a ruby of which is better than this whole world (Duniah) and its entire content, wedded to seventy two of the pure Houries (beautiful ones of Paradise) and his intercession on the behalf of seventy of his relatives will be accepted". Narrated by Ahmad and At-Tirmithi (with the correct and trustworthy reference).

Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting someone else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner.

Our youths chanting and reciting the word of Allah, the most exalted: {fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace, and assist you against them and heal the heart of a believing people} (At-Taubah; 9:14) and the words of the prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM): "I swear by Him, who has my soul in His hand, that no man get killed fighting them today, patiently attacking and not retreating , surely Allah will let him into paradise". And his (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) saying to them: "get up to a paradise as wide as heaven and earth".

The youths also reciting the All Mighty words of: "so when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks..." (Muhammad; 47:19). Those youths will not ask you (William Perry) for explanations, they will tell you singing there is nothing between us need to be explained, there is only killing and neck smiting.

And they will say to you what their grandfather, Haroon Ar-Rasheed, Ameer-ul-Mu'meneen, replied to your grandfather, Nagfoor, the Byzantine emperor, when he threatened the Muslims: "from Haroon Ar-Rasheed, Ameer-ul-Mu'meneen, to Nagfoor, the dog of the Romans; the answer is what you will see not what you hear". Haroon El-Rasheed led the armies of Islam to the battle and handed Nagfoor a devastating defeat.

The youths you called cowards are competing among themselves for fighting and killing you. Reciting what one of them said: The crusader army became dust when we detonated al-Khobar. With courageous youth of Islam fearing no danger. If (they are) threatened: The tyrants will kill you, they reply my death is a victory. I did not betray that king, he did betray our Qiblah.

And he permitted in the holy country the most filthy sort of humans.

I have made an oath by Allah, the Great, to fight who ever rejected the faith. For more than a decade, they carried arms on their shoulders in Afghanistan and they have made vows to Allah that as long as they are alive, they will continue to carry arms against you until you are - Allah willing - expelled, defeated and humiliated, they will carry on as long as they live saying: O William, tomorrow you will know which young man is confronting your misguided brethren!

A youth fighting in smile, returning with the spear coloured red.

May Allah keep me close to knights, humans in peace, demons in war.

Lions in Jungle but their teeth are spears and Indian swords.

The horses witness that I push them hard forward in the fire of battle.

The dust of the battle bears witnesses for me, so also the fighting itself, the pens and the books!

So to abuse the grandsons of the companions, may Allah be pleased with them, by calling them cowards and challenging them by refusing to leave the land of the two Holy Places shows the insanity and the imbalance you are suffering from. Its appropriate "remedy," however, is in the hands of the youths of Islam, as the poet said:

I am willing to sacrifice self and wealth for knights who never disappointed me. Knights who are never fed up or deterred by death, even if the mill of war turns. In the heat of battle they do not care, and cure the insanity of the enemy by their 'insane' courage.

Terrorising you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanded duty. It is a legitimate right well known to all humans and other creatures. Your example and our example is like a snake which entered into a house of a man and got killed by him. The coward is the one who lets you walk, while carrying arms, freely on his land and provides you with peace and security.

Those youths are different from your soldiers. Your problem will be how to convince your troops to fight, while our problem will be how to restrain our youths to wait for their turn in fighting and in operations. These youths are commendation and praiseworthy.

They stood up tall to defend the religion; at the time when the government misled the prominent scholars and tricked them into issuing Fatwas (that have no basis neither in the book of Allah, nor in the Sunnah of His prophet (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him)) of opening the land of the two Holy Places for the Christians' armies and handing the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the Zionists. Twisting the meanings of the holy text will not change this fact at all. They deserve the praise of the poet: I rejected all the critics, who chose the wrong way; I rejected those who enjoy fireplaces in clubs discussing eternally; I rejected those, who in spite being lost, think they are at the goal; I respect those who carried on not asking or bothering about the difficulties; Never letting up from their goals, in spite all hardships of the road; Whose blood is the oil for the flame guiding in the darkness of confusion; I feel still the pain of (the loss) Al-Quds in my internal organs; That loss is like a burning fire in my intestines; I did not betray my covenant with God, when even states did betray it! As their grandfather Assim Bin Thabit said rejecting a surrender offer of the pagans: What for an excuse I had to surrender, while I am still able, having arrows and my bow having a tough string?! Death is truth and ultimate destiny, and life will end any way. If I do not fight you, then my mother must be insane!

The youths hold you responsible for all of the killings and evictions of the Muslims and the violation of the sanctities, carried out by your Zionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with arms and finance. More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction) imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. Due to all of that, whatever treaty you have with our country is now null and void.

The treaty of Hudaybiyyah was cancelled by the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) once Quraysh had assisted Bani Bakr against Khusa'ah, the allies of the prophet (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him). The prophet (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) fought Quraysh and concurred Makka. He (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) considered the treaty with Bani Qainuqa' void because one of their Jews publicly hurt one Muslim woman, one single woman, at the market. Let alone then, the killing you caused to hundreds of thousands Muslims and occupying their sanctities. It is now clear that those who claim that the blood of the American solders (the enemy occupying the land of the Muslims) should be protected are merely repeating what is imposed on them by the regime; fearing the aggression and interested in saving themselves. It is a duty now on every tribe in the Arab Peninsula to fight, Jihad, in the cause of Allah and to cleanse the land from those occupiers. Allah knows that there blood is permitted (to be spilled) and their wealth is a booty; their wealth is a booty to those who kill them. The most Exalted said in the verse of As-Sayef, The Sword: "so when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters where ever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush" (At-Tauba; 9:5). Our youths knew that the humiliation suffered by the Muslims as a result of the occupation of their sanctities cannot be kicked and removed except by explosions and Jihad.

As the poet said: The walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets. The freeman does not surrender leadership to infidels and sinners. Without shedding blood no degradation and branding can be removed from the forehead.

I remind the youths of the Islamic world, who fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina with their wealth, pens, tongues and themselves that the battle had not finished yet. I remind them about the talk between Jibreel (Gabriel) and the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on both of them) after the battle of Ahzab when the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) returned to Medina and before putting his sword aside; when Jibreel (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) descend saying: "are you putting your sword aside? by Allah the angels haven't dropped their arms yet; march with your companions to Bani Quraydah, I am (going) ahead of you to throw fears in their hearts and to shake their fortresses on them". Jibreel marched with the angels (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on them all), followed by the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) marching with the immigrants, Muhajeroon, and supporters, Ansar. (narrated by Al-Bukhary).

These youths know that: if one is not to be killed one will die (any way) and the most honourable death is to be killed in the way of Allah. They are even more determined after the martyrdom of the four heroes who bombed the Americans in Riyadh. Those youths who raised high the head of the Ummah and humiliated the Americans - the occupier - by their operation in Riyadh. They remember the poetry of Ja'far, the second commander in the battle of Mu'tah, in which three thousand Muslims faced over a hundred thousand Romans: How good is the Paradise and its nearness, good with cool drink But the Romans are promised punishment (in Hell), if I meet them. I will fight them.

And the poetry of Abdullah Bin Rawaha, the third commander in the battle of Mu'tah, after the martyrdom of Ja'far, when he felt some hesitation: O my soul if you do not get killed, you are going to die, anyway. This is death pool in front of you!

You are getting what you have wished for (martyrdom) before, and you follow the example of the two previous commanders you are rightly guided! As for our daughters, wives, sisters and mothers they should take prime example from the prophet (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) pious female companions, may Allah be pleased with them; they should adopt the life style (Seerah) of the female companions of courage, sacrifice and generosity in the cause of the supremacy of Allah's religion.

They should remember the courage and the personality of Fatima, daughter of Khatab, when she accepted Islam and stood up in front of her brother, Omar Ibn Al-Khatab and challenged him (before he became a Muslim) saying: "O Omar , what will you do if the truth is not in your religion?!" And to remember the stand of Asma', daughter of Abu Bakr, on the day of Hijra, when she attended the Messenger and his companion in the cave and split her belt in two pieces for them. And to remember the stand of Naseeba Bent Ka'b striving to defend the messenger of Allah (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) on the day of Uhud, in which she suffered twelve injuries, one of which was so deep leaving a deep lifelong scar! They should remember the generosity of the early woman of Islam who raised finance for the Muslims army by selling their jewellry.

Our women had set a tremendous example of generosity in the cause of Allah; they motivated and encouraged their sons, brothers and husbands to fight'in the cause of Allah'in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chechenia and in other countries. We ask Allah to accept from them these deeds, and may He help their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. May Allah strengthen the belief 'Imaan' of our women in the way of generosity and sacrifice for the supremacy of the word of Allah. Our women weep not, except over men who fight in the cause of Allah; our women instigate their brothers to fight in the cause of Allah.

Our women bemoan only fighters in the cause of Allah, as said:

Do not moan on anyone except a lion in the woods, courageous in the burning wars. Let me die dignified in wars, honourable death is better than my current life.

Our women encourage Jihad saying: Prepare yourself like a struggler, the matter is bigger than words! Are you going to leave us else for the wolves of Kufr eating our wings?! The wolves of Kufr are mobilising all evil persons from everywhere! Where are the freemen defending free women by the arms?! Death is better than life in humiliation! Some scandals and shames will never be otherwise eradicated.

My Muslim Brothers of The World: Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy - your enemy and their enemy - the Americans and the Israelis. They are asking you to do whatever you can, with one's own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated, out of the sanctities of Islam. Exalted be to Allah said in His book: {and if they ask your support, because they are oppressed in their faith, then support them!} (Anfaal; 8:72)

O you horses (soldiers) of Allah ride and march on. This is the time of hardship so be tough. And know that your gathering and co-operation in order to liberate the sanctities of Islam is the right step toward unifying the word of the Ummah under the banner of "No God but Allah" ).

From our place we raise our palms humbly to Allah asking Him to bestow on us His guide in every aspects of this issue.

Our Lord, we ask you to secure the release of the truthful scholars, Ulama, of Islam and pious youths of the Ummah from their imprisonment. O Allah, strengthen them and help their families.

Our Lord, the people of the cross had come with their horses (soldiers) and occupied the land of the two Holy places. And the Zionist Jews fiddling as they wish with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the route of the ascendance of the messenger of Allah (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM). Our Lord, shatter their gathering, divide them among themselves, shaken the earth under their feet and give us control over them; Our Lord, we take refuge in you from their deeds and take you as a shield between us and them.

Our Lord, show us a black day in them!

Our Lord, show us the wonderment of your ability in them!

Our Lord, You are the Revealer of the book, Director of the clouds, You defeated the allies (Ahzab); defeat them and make us victorious over them.

Our Lord, You are the one who help us and You are the one who assist us, with Your Power we move and by Your Power we fight. On You we rely and You are our cause.

Our Lord, those youths got together to make Your religion victorious and raise Your banner. Our Lord, send them Your help and strengthen their hearts.

Our Lord, make the youths of Islam steadfast and descend patience on them and guide their shots!

Our Lord, unify the Muslims and bestow love among their hearts!

O Lord pour down upon us patience, and make our steps firm and assist us against the unbelieving people!

Our Lord, do not lay on us a burden as Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord, do not impose upon us that which we have no strength to bear; and pardon us and grant us protection and have mercy on us, Thou art our patron, so help us against the unbelieving people.

Our Lord, guide this Ummah, and make the right conditions (by which) the people of your obedience will be in dignity and the people of disobedience in humiliation, and by which the good deeds are enjoined and the bad deeds are forebode.

Our Lord, bless Muhammad, Your slave and messenger, his family and descendants, and companions and salute him with a (becoming) salutation.

And our last supplication is: All praise is due to Allah.

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About the author

Gary J Byrnes lives in Dublin, Ireland and writes popular thrillers. His 9/11 TRILOGY is a worldwide bestseller and he was nominated for a Crime Writers' Association Dagger Award for twisty, existentialist PURE MAD. His most recent work is art, food and Nazi thriller TO EAT THE WORLD and he is currently working on a post-apocalyptic epic, while listening to Pink Floyd and The Doors. He's also written transrealist mindbender THE GOD VIRUS and shorts collection THE WRITER AND OTHER STORIES. Gary studied art and design at college, served in Ireland's Army Reserve and also works as an ebook, SEO and web content consultant. Gary likes to read George Orwell, Hunter S Thompson, Norman Mailer and Philip K Dick. When not at his laptop, Gary enjoys cooking, encountering great art, exploring cities and trying to make the world a better place, one story at a time.

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Discover my other titles

To Eat the World

Ireland Trilogy

History Trilogy

The Writer and Other Stories

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Thank you!

The End

