“So who do you think I shall be meeting in my travels, Tamian?” asked Martin.
The scholar found a stone the size of a chair and sat down to rest her legs. “There are numerous groups, but two are at the core. Do you know the word salafi?”
“I have heard of it,” admitted Martin.
“These are the back-to-the-beginning brigade. They really want to restore the great golden age of Islam. Back to the first four caliphates, over a thousand years ago. Wild beards, sandals, robes, rigorous Sharia’ah legal code, rejection of modernity and the West that brought it. There is no such earthly paradise, of course, but fanatics were never deterred by unreality. In pursuit of their manic dream Nazis, communists, Maoists, followers of Pol Pot, have slaughtered hundreds of millions, half of them their own kith and kin, for not being extreme enough. Think of Stalin’s and Mao’s purges-all fellow communists, but butchered for being backsliders.”
“When you described the salafis, you were describing the Taliban,” said Martin. “Among others. These are the suicide bombers, the simple believers; trusting their masters, following their spiritual guides; not very bright but completely obedient, and believing that all their deranged hatred is going to please the mighty Allah.”
“There are worse?” asked Martin.
“Oh, yes,” said Tamian Godfrey, resuming her walk but directing the party firmly back toward the castle, whose tower could just be seen two short valleys away. “The ultras-the real ultras-I would designate with one word: takfir. Whatever it meant in Wahhab’s day, it has changed. The true salafi will not smoke, gamble, dance, accept music in his presence, drink alcohol or consort with Western women. With his dress, appearance and religious devotion, he is immediately identifiable for what he is. From an internal security point of view, identifiability is half the battle.
“But some will adopt every single custom of the West, however much they may loathe them, in order to pass as fully Westernized and therefore harmless. All nineteen of the 9/11 bombers slipped through because they looked and acted the part. The same with the four London bombers; apparently normal young men, going to the gym, playing cricket, polite, helpful, one of them a special needs teacher, smiling constantly and planning mass murder. These are the ones to watch.
“Many are clean-shaven, barbered, groomed, dressed in suits, educated, with a good degree. These are the ultimate; prepared to become chameleons against their faith to achieve mass murder for their faith. Thank heavens, here we are; my old legs are giving out. Time for the midday prayers. Mike, you will utter the call and then lead us in prayer. You may be asked to later. It is a great privilege.”
Just after the New Year, an e-mail was sent from the office of Siebart and Abercrombie to Jakarta. The Countess of Richmond, with a full cargo of crated Jaguar sedans for Singapore, would sail from Liverpool on the first of March. After unloading at Singapore, she would proceed in ballast to North Borneo to take aboard the hold cargo of timber before turning for Surabaya for the deck cargo of crated silks.
THE CONSTRUCTION crew working inside the Pasayten Wilderness was finally and deeply grateful when the job was done by the end of January. To keep up the work rate, the men had chosen to overnight right on the site, and until the central heating came on stream they had been extremely cold. But the bonus was large and tempting. They took the discomfort and completed on schedule. To the naked eye, the cabin looked much the same but larger. In fact, it had been transformed. To cope with a staff of two officers, the bedrooms would suffice; for the extra eight guards to accomplish twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance, an extra bunkhouse had been added, and a dining hall beside it. The spacious sitting room was retained, but a recreation room, with pool table, library, plasma TV and ample DVD selection, had created yet another extension. Both were built of insulated pine logs.
The third extension appeared to be built with the usual uninsulated, rustic logs. Its exterior walls were, in fact, clad only with split tree trunks; inside, the walls were reinforced concrete. The whole penitentiary wing was impregnable from without and escape-proof from within. It was reached from the guards’ quarters through a single steel door, with food service hatch and spy hole. Beyond this door was a single but spacious room. It contained a steel bed frame deeply embedded in the concrete floor; it could never be moved by bare hands. Nor could the wall shelving, also embedded in the concrete.
There were, however, carpets on the floor, and heat came from baseboard-level grilles that could never be opened. The room also had a door opposite the spy hole, and the detainee could open or close it at will. It led only to the exercise yard.
The yard was bare save for a concrete bench in the center away from the walls. The walls were ten feet tall and as smooth as a pool table. No man could get anywhere near the top; nor was there anything that could be propped against the wall or stood on.
For sanitation, there was a recessed area off the sitting room bedroom containing a single hole in the floor for bodily functions and a shower whose controls were in the hands of the guards outside. Because all the new materials had come in by helicopter, the only visible exterior addition was a landing pad under the snow. Otherwise, the Cabin stood in its five-hundred-acre plot, surrounded on all sides by the pine, larch and spruce, even though the trees had been cut back to a hundred yards in every direction.
When they came, the ten guardians of probably the country’s most expensive and exclusive prison were two middle-grade CIA men from Langley and eight junior staffers who had completed all the mental and physical tests at the Farm training school and were hoping for an exciting first assignment. Instead, they got a forest in the snow. But they were all fit and eager to impress.
The military trial at Guantanamo Bay began just before the end of January and was held in one of the larger rooms in the interrogation block, decked out now for its judicial purpose. Anyone hoping for a half-mad Colonel Jessup or any of the histrionics portrayed in A Few Good Men would have been sorely disappointed. The proceedings were low-tone and orderly.
There were eight detainees being considered for release as of “no further danger,” and seven were vociferous in stating their harmlessness. Only one maintained a scornful silence. His case was heard last. “Prisoner Khan, into what language would you like these proceedings to be translated?” asked the colonel, flanked by a male major and a female captain, presiding on the dais at the end of the room under the seal of the United States of America. All three were from the U.S. Marines legal branch. The prisoner was facing them, hauled to his feet by the Marine guards flanking him. Desks set facing each other had been allocated to prosecuting and defending attorneys-the former military, the latter civilian. The prisoner shrugged gently, and stared at the female Marine captain for several seconds; then he let his gaze come to rest on the wall above the judges. “This court is aware that the prisoner understands Arabic, so that is the language the court chooses. Any objection. Counselor?” The question was to the defending attorney, who shook his head. He had been warned about his client when he took the case. From all he had heard, he was convinced he had no chance. It was a civil rights-based appearance, and he knew what the surrounding Marines thought of white knights from the civil rights movement. A helpful client would have been nice. Still, he reasoned, the Afghan’s attitude at least got the attorney off the hook. He shook his head. No objection. Arabic would do.