That simply didn’t ring true, and Litvinoff guessed that Borisov had been much more deeply involved than he was admitting. If he had literally stumbled upon the plot to steal the weapon, the Americans would probably have just killed him out of hand — a far more effective way of ensuring his silence than buying him off. And, anyway, the Swiss account would have taken time to set up. Borisov had to have been an integral part of the conspiracy from the beginning. Once the immediate situation had been resolved, Litvinoff would dig deeper, until he found the truth.
‘How were these Americans going to get out of Russia?’
‘They told me they would be driving the truck straight down to the Turkish border at Leninakan, in Azerbaijan, but I don’t know if that’s what they really intended to do.’
‘If that’s what they told you,’ Litvinoff snorted, ‘you can be quite certain that’s the only route we needn’t bother checking. They’re definitely going to take another way out. Did they say anything else to you?’
When Borisov shook his head, Litvinoff pressed a buzzer on the wall. The door opened and a police officer escorted the prisoner back to his cell. Once he again had the room to himself. The investigator opened up a map of south-western Russia, and began studying it closely.
‘Just before noon last Friday,’ David Stevenson began, ‘an eighteen-year-old Arab boy named Saadallah Assad walked into the Al-Hamidieh souk in the centre of Damascus and blew himself up.’ Stevenson was a short, slightly overweight — he normally described himself as ‘under-tall’ — fair-haired desk jockey, and was one of the case officers on the Operations staff, with particular responsibility for the Middle East.
Five men looked back at him with varying degrees of interest, though only four of them were being tasked. The fifth man, sitting at the far end of the table, was John Westwood, the Company Head of Espionage, who was present purely as an observer.
‘Initial reports from the local news media, and from our own people in Syria, suggest that he used around three kilos of plastic, probably C4, triggered by a handheld detonator. This estimate has been confirmed by the Syrian intelligence service, the Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya, following its own analysis.
‘Nineteen people died immediately, eight of whom were American tourists. The rest were Syrian nationals, three of whom have yet to be formally identified simply because there’s virtually nothing left of them to identify. Seven others suffered such severe wounds that they died later, and there are nearly ninety victims still hospitalized in Damascus, receiving treatment for everything from burns to head injuries caused by flying debris. It’s likely that some of these will also die, so the death toll could rise to around thirty. That makes it one of the most destructive solo suicide bomber attacks ever.’
He paused to observe their reactions, then continued. ‘The damage to the souk was considerable. The blast blew out part of a wall on one side, causing a major collapse. Half the souk’s been closed while repairs are carried out, and it will take at least a month before it reopens.’
He glanced at his notes. ‘A videotape was received at the Al-Jazeera television station in Qatar. On it was a fairly typical pre-attack speech delivered by the suicide bomber. He was sitting in front of a defaced Syrian flag, holding a copy of the Qur’án and claimed that he was carrying out the attack in support of the Jamiat Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun — the Society of Muslim Brothers or Muslim Brotherhood.
‘To remind you, that’s an old organization and an ideological forerunner of Al-Qaeda. It reached the height of its power at the end of the seventies, but it was virtually destroyed on the instructions of President Hafez Assad. In 1982 he ordered the Syrian army to shell the Brotherhood’s stronghold at Hama, roughly halfway between Aleppo and Damascus. The organization was outnumbered and outgunned and by the end of the action, at least ten thousand — some estimates suggest twenty thousand — members of the Brotherhood, as well as a lot of camp-followers and innocent civilians, lay dead, and virtually all those that survived finished up rotting in jail. That purged the Brotherhood within Syria, but the appalling brutality of the government’s response virtually ensured that the organization would endure, albeit in a shadowy form.’
By now he had their full attention.
‘Once the tape was broadcast, the Syrian authorities investigated Assad immediately. Like a lot of the shuhada — the Muslims refer to suicide bombers as “martyrs”, the singular being shahid — he came from a good family, and was apparently well liked and respected, with no strong political leanings. His family insisted that they had no prior knowledge of his intentions. It’s worth explaining a little about suicide bombers. First of all, they’re volunteers. As far as I’m aware, nobody has ever been coerced into acting as a shahid. For some it’s a quick route to instant immortality. As you know, according to a verse in the Qur’án, a martyr never dies—’
‘If I’m not mistaken, the Qur’án also says that you should not take life,’ John Baxter interjected. He was a short, slim, dark-haired junior agent, sitting immediately on Westwood’s right.
‘That’s quite true, but irrelevant. The Qur’án, like all religious tracts, can be “interpreted” to suit whatever purpose some fanatic requires. For a shahid, the usual interpretation is that he will immediately enter paradise, meet the Prophet Muhammad, be in the presence of Allah, and spend the rest of eternity with the chouriyat, the seventy-two heavenly virgins. As a bonus, the shahid’s immediate family can look forward to enjoying the same fringe benefits in the future.’
‘Not so much life insurance as a kind of a death insurance policy?’ Baxter suggested.
‘That’s one way of looking at it, I guess. The shahid’s families are usually proud of them, and of what they’ve done, and their standing in their local community is greatly enhanced. It’s considered a religious obligation to admire and honour the family of a shahid. They even get paid for it.’
‘Jesus,’ Baxter muttered. ‘You mean they do it for money?’
‘Absolutely not.’ Stevenson shook his head. ‘One of the most important elements in becoming a shahid is niyya — purity of motive — the concept of imposing the will of Allah. No true shahid would ever act out of any kind of self-interest or personal glory. The payments their families receive are just intended to provide support for the loss of a breadwinner, not as a reward for what he has done.’
‘Who pays them?’ asked Grant Hutchings. He was tall, blond, with a face just the wrong side of being handsome and was the senior agent being briefed. He had a reputation within the Company for clear thinking, direct action and a very low bullshit-tolerance threshold. This latter characteristic was the reason why, at the age of forty-three, his career was generally considered to be over. Everyone knew that to reach the higher echelons at Langley, you didn’t merely have to tolerate bullshit: you had to be adept at shovelling large quantities of it around.
‘For the Palestinian bombers who attack Israeli targets — and they’re the most common — the funds come mainly from the Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein created a fund as well, but obviously he’s no longer making payments.’
‘But why do they — the shuhada I mean — do it?’ Baxter asked.