Читать книгу State Of Attack - Gary Haynes - Страница 15

Chapter 6

When Basilios was some twenty yards away, the man who’d called himself Ibrahim handed the sword to a subordinate, who had stepped over to him for that purpose.

“Take it home for me, brother,” Ibrahim said, but hesitated.

He always hesitated at this point. To him, the weapon, steeped as it was in centuries of sacred warfare, possessed its own consciousness, and sometimes he thought it seemed to pulsate with the burden of it.

“Take good care of it.”

The man nodded.

Ibrahim’s potentially hazardous journey back to the Palestinian territories would not allow him the luxury of carrying his sword, but his select men would go via the tunnels in north-west Egypt, masquerading en route as opportunistic antique dealers before being smuggled into the Gaza Strip.

The other men took out their cellphones and started to take further videos and photos of the decimated town, which they would post on their burgeoning social media sites. The rationale was principally twofold: to recruit foreign jihadists and create fear in their enemies. It had been an effective digital strategy here, and particularly so in neighbouring Iraq.

Ibrahim had his eyes closed now and began reciting verses from the Qur’an, quietly, holding his hands crossed at his chest. Ibrahim’s Shia enemies prayed with their hands dangling by their sides, like apes, his imam had told him years ago. But the Christians didn’t even recognize the Prophet, peace be upon him. Killing them had been God’s will, he believed.

As for the release of the sole survivor of their attack on the town, that wretch would simply ensure that his own reputation as a ruthless commander would spread, adding to his already growing kudos. If these things hadn’t been a factor, he would have killed the Christian when he’d been forced to kneel before him.

He felt whole here, able to play out the purist doctrines of his religion, as he saw it. But the old one, the Amir, had called for him. People had told him it would be so, and then his real mission would begin in earnest. A great mission, Ibrahim thought, the Silent Jihad. And after the brief detour he’d decided to make to Ankara, Turkey, he would devote what little time he’d consented to have left on this earth to it.

The dry wind picked up, bringing with it the stinging sand grains, which clogged up engines and weapons, and swelled the eyes. He wrapped the ends of his black headdress over his mouth and nose. The aroma of lime grooves and climbing jasmine shrubs had left this place. They may never return, he thought. There was nothing but the dank odour of his unwashed sweat and the familiar scent of death.

“A plague is coming,” he whispered in Arabic, “a plague to wipe out a plague.”