Читать книгу Legacy - Jeff Edwards - Страница 16

Prayers had finished. The men stood and filed out of the mosque. Outside, they collected their shoes and gathered in small relaxed groups to talk before moving off and returning to their jobs.

Yashmar El Kalil watched from a distance as Ali Akuba returned to his taxi and drove away.

Ali Akuba worried Yashmar El Kalil. Unexplained money always worried El Kalil and unexplained money this close to El Kalil’s operational base worried him very, very much.

El Kalil’s people saw him as a freedom fighter but the Americans called him a terrorist. To El Kalil, however, it was only the opinions of his own people that mattered. He was a charismatic leader who drew in men, and the occasional woman, and turned them into dedicated fighters, totally willing to die for the greater good. He was successful because he knew what was going on around him. Ever vigilant, there was nothing too small for him to overlook.

Selected from among the young men of the refugee camp in Palestine, he trained long and hard at his profession. Organising several successful assassinations had cemented his fame and young men flocked to him, willing to carry his bombs into the heart of the enemy’s cities, detonating them with devastating effect among its citizens.

El Kalil’s suspicions of those around him had alerted him to the possibility of his cell being infiltrated, allowing him to escape moments before the Mossad attack. Forced to flee, he had entered Britain using one of his many false identities.

It took him little time to establish himself in the local community, where he now commanded a small, but effective, cell of agents. All was in place for them to start operations. El Kalil was just waiting for instructions from the old men.

Still, El Kalil was troubled by Ali Akuba’s new found wealth. The Nigerian had worked as a taxi driver for years, always the back-up driver for some other taxi owner. Never making more than enough to support his family. They were not destitute, but neither were they well-to-do.

Suddenly, the men at the mosque had congratulated Akuba on his purchase of a taxi licence and taxi. Now he worked for himself and hired others to drive for him.

No one knew where the money had come from. Akuba didn’t say. The man didn’t gamble and he had shown no sign of having any relatives or friends substantial enough to have loaned him the money, or rich enough to have left it to him in a will.

El Kalil’s cell had checked with friends in Akuba’s bank. He had not borrowed the money from any source that they could determine.

That left Akuba performing some sort of illegal activity or, as El Kalil feared, Akuba had received the money from selling information and the sort of information that would bring in sufficient money to buy a licence, would have to be important. Like the location of a terrorist cell, possibly his cell.

If Akuba was selling information, he had to be eliminated. Quickly. If, on the other hand, he were up to something illegal to earn the money, it would be good for El Kalil to know what that activity was. With such information he could blackmail Akuba into supplying much needed funds to his cell.

El Kalil decided Akuba should be put to the test.

Two young men he knew were selected. They were expendable because they had expressed a wish to join the cell, but had yet to be accepted. They knew nothing, and could reveal nothing, if arrested.

They were instructed to take a ride in Akuba’s cab. During their trip, they were told to discuss a ‘mission’ they were to take part in, giving the time and place it was supposedly due to take place.

El Kalil and his men waited out of sight, observing the ‘mission’ site. Nothing happened at the time given. Akuba had not passed the information on to the authorities.

‘It looks like our friend is doing something else to make money,’ he thought to himself.

Members of his cell followed Akuba as best they could and talked to his neighbours and friends. None of them had any idea where Akuba’s new found wealth had come from and it did not appear he was doing anything out of the ordinary.

El Kalil was frustrated. Something was happening yet Akuba continued to act with utter normality.

They would continue to keep a close watch on the man.