Khalid breathed in deeply, absorbing the power of the mountains. Just as the Prophet Muhammad had felt when he retreated to Mount Hira in what was now Saudi Arabia, it was here in the mountains of the Hindu Kush that Khalid felt closest to Allah, all praise be upon Him. It was here that he had received the messages to deliver the world three warnings, and it was here that Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful, had directed him to prepare the final solution in case the West stubbornly refused to alter its present course. Khalid remained hopeful that China, the United States and her British and Australian partners would negotiate, but hope was slowly fading for the Muslim world. Kahlid recalled Sura 71 of the noble Qu’ran when Allah had given a similar mission to Noah and sent him to warn the people to change course. The message for Muslims from the Qu’ran had been the same message as the Christians had received in the Bible. ‘Warn your people before some painful torment comes to them!’ but Noah too had been in despair. ‘My Lord,’ he had said, ‘the people have defied me… they have hatched a great plot… do not leave any disbelievers with homes on earth… do not increase wrongdoers in anything except destruction.’ Kadeer could understand Allah’s disappointment with the conduct of his children, and if Allah willed it, as he had with Noah, the final solution would be implemented.
Dr Kadeer turned back towards Peshawar. As the moon faded and the dawn broke, the indigo of the night cloaking the surrounding hills was slowly tinged with hues of soft purple and pink. The ancient city was stirring. Kadeer’s thoughts turned fleetingly to the meeting he’d scheduled for later in the week with his chief lieutenant, Amon al-Falid. It was rare for Kadeer to meet with his top operational planner from the United States, but Peshawar was no ordinary city and the mission Allah had directed him to prepare was no ordinary mission. Kadeer leaned back against the rocks and closed his eyes to take a short nap. It was a habit of a lifetime that enabled him to stay alert through the long days and nights. As he dozed, he drifted back to his childhood spent in the little village near Kashgar in the far west of the vast autonomous region of Xinjiang, not far from China’s border with Kyrgyzstan. A time when Khalid was eight and he’d been playing with his cousin after school.
It was October 1955. Mao Tse-tung had been in power for just six years but it had been long enough for the ruthless dictator to establish control over the far-flung western Xinjiang region with the establishment of the Xinjiang shengchan jianshe bingtuan, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. The small, peaceful villages to the west of the city of Kashgar were under the control of a young, ruthless and ambitious Peoples’ Liberation Army officer, Captain Ho Feng. Ho Feng had been ordered to keep the Muslims under control and he was determined to make his mark.
Like Kadeer’s simple mudbrick house, his cousin Abdul Rasal’s house was built in a square, with a dirt courtyard in the middle. An old pump stood in one corner of the courtyard, from which the family gathered water. The roof of the house was decorated with colourful Uighur motifs, and on the other side of the courtyard weathered wooden pillars supported a high veranda. In the room beyond it, Abdul’s family slept on a carpeted platform, but for now, the family’s cotton-filled mattresses made from Uighur silk were rolled up against the mud wall.
‘Abdul! Khalid! Where is the wood, you two?’
‘Coming, Mama!’ Abdul grinned as he took another shot at Khalid’s marble in the dirt pitch they’d made, but his marble missed.
‘I win!’ Khalid yelled, pocketing his cousin’s marble and getting up to cut the wood for his aunt. Hayrinisahan was stoking the fire in the kitchen in readiness for the evening meal. Khalid always looked forward to staying with Hayrinisahan. She was like a second mother, although more fun. As he put the pile of kindling he’d cut next to the wood-fired stove his aunt smiled at him, but her smile faded as first one truck, and then another, followed by several more roared past the house. Khalid and Abdul rushed to the door and peered through the beads at the convoy of Han Chinese soldiers tearing down towards the village square. A staff car was travelling in the middle of the convoy and Khalid caught sight of the most hated man in Xinjiang, the ruthless Chinese Captain Ho Feng. His skin was oily and his fine, black hair was parted in the middle and fell either side of an oval face. Ho Feng’s dark eyes were inscrutable. He was responsible for the murders of hundreds of Uighurs and even the mention of his name struck fear into the peaceful Muslims.
‘Khalid! Abdul! Come back inside, both of you!’ Hayrinisahan scolded, covering her mouth and nose as a thick cloud of dust swept into the house, settling on the elegant Uighur carpets covering the walls.
A short while later, Hayrinisahan’s face paled as the sounds of systematic gunfire rent the air. Friday prayers at the little village mosque would have finished and although she’d expected her husband, Ali, to be home by now, he often dropped in to see Khalid’s parents and was sometimes a little late. She hadn’t worried unduly.
The day before, one of Ho’s soldiers patrolling in the village square had been knocked down and killed by a runaway horse.
‘Make an example of them!’ Captain Ho ordered. ‘That house over there!’
Twenty Chinese soldiers stormed into Khalid’s house, rounding up Khalid’s mother, father, uncle, brother and his little sister. With his mother crying and his sister screaming in fright, they were roughly paraded in front of the captain.
‘String them up!’ he commanded, ‘and leave them there for three days, so these people learn how to keep their animals under control.’ Captain Ho caught sight of the village Imam in the door of the little mosque. ‘And set fire to their mosque,’ he added with a sinister smile. ‘Perhaps Allah will help them put it out.’
Khalid woke with a start. The images of his mother and father, uncle, brother and baby sister, their heads twisting grotesquely as they swung from wooden poles beside the burned down mosque were seared indelibly on his soul.
Khalid’s forward scout scanned the foothills below. He’d seen a movement behind a large rock that stood sentinel-like on a bend ahead. The scout moved forward cautiously, keeping off the narrow, rocky track, alert in case the infidel had chosen to put in an ambush. He caught the movement again, a shadowy figure with a weapon, and he stopped, holding his position on the dominating high ground.
CHAPTER 5
A s Agent O’Connor had predicted, his explanation of the mushrikeen and the Muslims’ belief in only one God infuriated President Harrison, especially when he compared it with the Christian worship of the Trinity: God, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
‘This is a Christian country with Christian values, and we need to smoke these little Muslim terrorists out of their hideouts and round ’em up,’ the President responded angrily, in no mood for a theological discussion on the Qu’ran.
As a plan, it was a little short on detail. O’Connor said nothing.
‘I couldn’t agree more, Mr President.’ The video link to the Vice President in Atlanta, despite going through a complex series of unbreakable encryptions, was clear and the image of the Vice President seemed to dominate the entire room. ‘I’ve just finished addressing the National Rifle Association, and you have their full support. This is just bluff.’