Читать книгу A Cold Flame: A gripping crime thriller that will keep you hooked - Aidan Conway - Страница 19

The brothers were sitting cross-legged in the living room of the first-floor apartment in Torpignatarra. Newspapers and other printed materials lay strewn around the flat, on the floor on kilims and the cheap sofa draped with Arabic-style throws. A computer screen showed the fluttering black flags and the looping images of black-clad commandos tramping through dust against a brightly sunlit desert backdrop. Islamic chanting came from the soundtrack as Ali’s hijab-wearing wife left the room, backwards, curved over as if with age and with her eyes to the floor, having served the menfolk their refreshments. She closed the door behind her without making a noise. Ali, the Tunisian, unfolded a real black flag and placed it before them then began to speak.

“My brothers. You all know the seriousness of your vow of allegiance to this flag and this organization. As your emir, under the guidance of Allah, I shall take all the final decisions. I am responsible for you but you are all, as I am too, willing to die for Islam in the name of vanquishing the infidel and freeing the Islamic people from tyranny in the lands not yet returned to the bountiful and just order of the Grand Caliphate. I will ask you soon, one by one, to speak your minds. We are all from different lands but in Islam we are one. This is our strength. This, and our faith. Soon, it will be our turn to act. The moment ripens day by day. Look around you my brothers at the iniquity and the filth. And they say this is a religious city. It is a den of infidels. It is a rat hole, a sewer. And the vermin must be expunged. We must crush them until, on their knees, in the blood of their children, they acknowledge Allah as the one and only, just as we have knelt in our own children’s blood cursing the unbeliever and the collaborators for their crimes.

“Now, brothers, I ask you to speak. How shall we act? Where must we strike? Share with me the fruits of your wisdom. Who will put himself forward for the supreme and wondrous act of martyrdom and take then his reward in paradise, where he will be served by angels and his fifty virgin wives will attend to him as is his right, as is written by the Prophet, peace be to his name, in the Holy Qur’an.”

One of the company raised his hand.

“Yes,” said Ali. “Speak, Jibril.”