Live Fire (12 page)

There were three bedroom doors and only one was open. He walked slowly into the room. A man was sitting on a chair behind a circular glass table on chrome legs. A glass of water, an ashtray and a well-thumbed copy of the Koran lay on the surface. He was in his late fifties with a long grey and white beard and a brown skullcap perched on thinning hair. He was wearing a padded sleeveless jacket over a heavy wool sweater and baggy cotton trousers that ended several inches above his ankles. He was holding a packet of tobacco and sprinkling some into a cigarette paper. ‘Do you smoke?’ he asked, as he rolled it into a cigarette.

‘No,’ said Bradshaw.

‘Because you are scared of dying?’ said the man. He chuckled, the sound of dead leaves rustling. He licked the edge of the paper with the tip of his tongue.

‘If I was scared of dying, I wouldn’t be here,’ said Bradshaw.

The man waved his homemade cigarette at a chair by the window. ‘Please, sit while we talk,’ he said. ‘I assume you are not scared of sitting.’ He put a match to his cigarette while Bradshaw pulled the chair to the table and sat down.

‘What is your name?’ asked Bradshaw.

‘My name is not important,’ said the man. ‘And I am not here to answer your questions.’ He blew smoke at the ceiling.

‘Why are you here, then?’

The man smiled, without warmth. ‘That is a question, and I already told you that you are not my inquisitor. You have asked for funds. I am here to determine if you are worthy of such. Does it not say in the Koran that you cannot enter Heaven without being tested?’

‘What it says is “Did ye think that ye would enter Heaven without Allah testing those of you who fought hard in His Cause and remained steadfast?” Being tested by God is one thing, being quizzed by a man is another.’

‘You are a scholar of the Koran?’

‘How can one call oneself a Muslim if one has not studied the Book of God?’

‘So you would know the ninety-nine names of Allah and their meanings?’

Bradshaw sneered at the man. ‘So, this is a quiz?’

‘You do not wish to answer?’ The man took a long drag on his cigarette, held the smoke deep in his lungs, then blew a cloud towards Bradshaw.

He folded his arms and fought the urge to cough. ‘What do you think? That if I was a traitor I wouldn’t know my Koran? Or that a white man can’t be familiar with the teachings of Allah?’

The man said nothing but continued to stare at Bradshaw through the smoke with coal-black eyes.

Bradshaw sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said. One by one he went through the ninety-names of God, from Ar-Rahman, the All Beneficent, the Most Merciful in Essence, to Ar-Sabur, the Patient, the Timeless.

When he had finished, the man stabbed out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray.

‘Did I pass?’ asked Bradshaw, scornfully.

The man dismissed the question with a languid wave. ‘When did you begin studying the Koran?’

‘I read it for the first time in Iraq. A friend gave it to me.’

‘Reading and studying are not the same thing.’

‘I read it, and my friend answered my questions. He set me on the path. When I came back to England I was tutored by an imam in Bradford, but I study the Koran every day as every good Muslim should.’

‘Which mosque do you attend in London?’

‘I pray at home and with close friends,’ said Bradshaw. ‘The mosques in London are no longer safe for the followers of
jihad
. They’re filled with spies.’ He leaned forward and stared intently at the man. ‘These questions are a waste of my time and yours. I have proved myself already. You know what I’ve done and you know what I’m capable of doing.’

‘You killed two people,’ said the man, flatly.

‘I set off car bombs in central London.’

‘And where did you learn the technique of multiple explosions?’ asked the man.

‘That was common sense.’

‘It is a tried and trusted technique.’

‘Multiple bombs cause more casualties. You initiate an explosion to cause panic, to drive people towards a second, bigger, explosion. Or you delay the second to hit the emergency services once they have responded to the first.’

‘But multiple bombs require substantial manpower. How many men do you have with you?’

They heard the squeak of footsteps on the stairs and both men stiffened. The man’s hand disappeared inside his jacket and Bradshaw glimpsed the butt of a gun. Then they heard the woman saying she had tea for them. The man relaxed and his hand reappeared from inside his jacket.

The woman waddled into the room holding a brass tray on which was a glass jug of tea, two tall glasses and a bowl containing sugar lumps. They thanked her and waited until she had wheezed back down the stairs before continuing their conversation.

‘For the car bombs I had four,’ said Bradshaw.

‘What were their roles?’

Bradshaw didn’t understand the question. ‘We worked together,’ he said.

‘But you were the leader?’

‘Of course. I assigned two to drive and each had a companion to assist. I triggered the bombs.’

‘Who designed them?’

‘I did.’

‘And you put together the components?’

Bradshaw nodded.

The man poured tea into the glasses, then pushed one towards Bradshaw. ‘You learned these skills in the army?’

‘I was a soldier and I’ve had some demolitions training,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been careful to disguise it. The car bombs were based on designs available on the Internet.’

The man dropped three cubes of sugar into his glass. ‘When did you leave the army?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘Was anyone in your cell trained abroad?’ asked the man.

‘Two,’ said Bradshaw. ‘But they went prior to the July-seventh attacks and have not left the country since. Trips to Pakistan by British nationals are a red flag to the security services now.’

‘Their names?’

‘Jamal Kundi and Samil Chaudhry.’

‘Before the car bombs, they did nothing else?’ The man stirred his tea methodically.

‘Their handler was killed by the police two years ago. I had met them and persuaded them to wait. To become sleepers.’

‘They trusted you?’ He dropped a fourth sugar cube into his tea as he watched Bradshaw’s face closely.

‘Obviously.’

‘Even though they are older and more experienced than you?’

Bradshaw smiled. ‘Before they met me their dream was to blow themselves to oblivion. I explained that a true fighter for Islam wants to fight, not die.’

‘You are smarter than them? So they listen to you?’

‘I am able to guide them, as Allah guides me.’

The man’s eyes sparkled. ‘So Allah guides you, does He?’

‘We are all following the will of Allah, nothing else,’ said Bradshaw, choosing his words carefully. ‘Everything I do is at His behest. I’m thankful that He allows me to guide Jamal and Samil to serve Him better.’

‘The fact that you are Caucasian, has that been a problem?’

‘I am a Muslim, and that is all that matters. My brothers do not care about the colour of my skin, only that I am a good Muslim and a true follower of
jihad
.’

‘And when did you first decide that you wanted to follow
jihad
and lead men like Jamal and Samil?’

‘It was a slow process. A gradual realisation.’

‘You were in Iraq, with the British Army?’

Bradshaw nodded.

‘But you were not then a Muslim?’

‘I was nothing. My parents were not religious and I had no idea of what Islam was. I just thought we were in Iraq to fight for democracy.’

‘You knew about Islam, though?’

‘I’m from Bradford, which is full of Asians, so I had grown up with Muslims and went to school with them, but I had no interest in their religion.’

‘So what changed this?’

‘I had an interpreter in Baghdad. He used to be an English teacher in an international school but after the Americans moved in there was no money to pay his wages so he began working as a translator.’

‘His name?’

‘Yusuf. He was a good man. He just wanted to be a teacher. But his country was turned upside down and he had to work for us to feed his family.’

‘And what happened to him?’

Bradshaw narrowed his eyes. ‘How do you know something happened to him?’

‘I can tell from your voice. And because you said he
was
a good man. You didn’t say he
is
a good man.’

Bradshaw smiled ruefully. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Yusuf is dead.’

‘And how did that happen?’

‘You want to know why I am a Muslim?’

‘I want to understand you,’ said the man, ‘because from understanding grows trust.’

‘And you think Yusuf is the key?’

The man said nothing. He sat quietly and waited for Bradshaw to continue.

‘Yusuf was killed by the Americans,’ said Bradshaw, eventually. ‘His wife was pregnant and the baby came early. There were no ambulances so he borrowed his uncle’s car and they drove her. There was a roadblock about a mile from the hospital. American soldiers told him to stop and he slowed the car and shouted that his wife was giving birth but they kept yelling at him to stop the car and get out. Then they started shooting. They killed him. His wife took a bullet in the belly and the baby died.’

‘You were there?’

Bradshaw shook his head. ‘I heard about it afterwards. There was an inquiry but the Americans lied. They said that Yusuf was shouting at them in Arabic and refusing to obey instructions. But Yusuf spoke almost perfect English. There’s no way he would have used Arabic with American soldiers. They killed him, they killed his kid and his wife’s in a wheelchair but no one was even reprimanded.’

‘And that made you angry?’

‘You have no idea,’ said Bradshaw. ‘It opened my eyes to what was going on out there. Do you know what the rules of engagement were for the contractors – not the army, but the contractors? If an Iraqi car got too close to their convoy, they would fire a warning burst in front of it. If the car didn’t back off, it was okay to shoot at it. Can you believe that? They could shoot to kill with no ramifications. And, believe me, they did. It was as if the Americans stopped treating the Iraqis as human beings. The contractors were getting rich while the Iraqi people were starving, yet they wouldn’t even afford them basic human rights.’

‘And because of that you became a Muslim?’

‘Because of that I started to hate Americans,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I hated them for what they did to Iraq and for what they’re trying to do to the rest of the world. But it was afterwards, after Yusuf was killed, that I began to read the Koran. To really read it, and then to understand. Islam is the true religion, the only religion, and Allah is the only God. And what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is about the West’s determination to crush Islam and its followers.’

‘So why the car bombs in London?’ said the man. ‘Why not turn your anger against the Americans? Why not bomb New York or Los Angeles?’

‘Because it’s not just about the Americans, is it? The British are as much to blame. It’s not about countries fighting each other, it’s about one system of belief trying to crush another. And if we don’t fight back now, we won’t get another chance.’

‘We?’ said the man, with an amused smile.

‘I am a Muslim now,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I have chosen which side I’m standing with. And I will stand with the Muslims so long as Allah permits me to live.’

‘But why attack your own country? That is what I find difficult to understand.’

‘I’m not attacking the country. I’m attacking the system. I love my country but I hate what it has become and I want to do what is necessary to change it. When I got back to England, I started to see Muslims here for what they are, and to see the trials they now face. I started to see how the British hated Muslims and hated Islam. They put brothers and sisters in prison just for visiting Islamic websites. They banned the headscarf – they treated Muslims like they were the enemy. They broke in the doors of good Muslim homes, dragged fathers and sons away from their families and kept them in prison for weeks, then released them without so much as an apology. Mosques were desecrated, girls were spat at in the street because they dressed modestly. I saw the hatred that was directed towards Muslims and I knew I had to do something about it.’

‘So what did you do?’ asked the man.

‘I read,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I read books, and then I went onto the Internet. I’d enrolled on an engineering course in London and I never used my own computer or computers at the university. I went to Internet cafés so I could not be tracked. And I studied the Koran in a way I had never looked at it before. Then I came across Sheik Abdullah Azzam’s
Join the Caravan
. It opened my eyes to
jihad
.’

The man smiled. ‘
Ilhaq bi l-q filah
. It is a work that every Muslim should know by heart. You know the main reasons that Sheik Abdullah gave for
jihad
? There are eight.’

‘I do,’ said Bradshaw, coldly. ‘Am I now to be tested on
Join the Caravan
? I didn’t realise I was coming here to be tested on my memory.’

The man ignored Bradshaw’s sarcasm. ‘Of the eight reasons, which is the one that you most identified with?’

‘There are two that inspired me,’ said Bradshaw. ‘That the disbelievers do not dominate, and establishing a solid foundation as a base for Islam. Both seem to me to be reason enough for
jihad
.’

‘And when was your eureka moment? The moment when you saw that reading was not enough, that you had to take action.’

Bradshaw smiled, but his eyes remained flint-hard. ‘It was Prince Harry, going to Afghanistan.’

‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘That started the fire, did it?’

‘It fanned the flames,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I couldn’t believe that the British Government would allow a member of the Royal Family to prance and preen in the desert, as if Afghanistan was his personal sandpit. Do you remember the pictures? Prince Harry firing a machine-gun, playing around with a motorcycle, kicking a football with his soldier friends? As if he was holiday, while all around him our brothers and sisters were suffering. And do you know what task he was given while he was in Afghanistan? Do you know what his duties were?’