‘He who is all powerful, the Lion Sheik. The infidels tremble at his name.’
‘Your Lion Sheik became a lamb to the slaughter. Bin Laden was captured by the Americans on the 2nd of May 2011. They executed him and tossed his body into the sea.’
Kishiev felt his jaw slacken and his mouth drop open. He had spent more than a decade training in Afghanistan, meeting and conversing with Bin Laden freely on several occasions. As a highly placed commander of an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, he was one of the few who had been privy to discussions on planning. ‘You are lying. The Americans will never find the Sheik. He is a great warrior and moves as the wind.’
‘He was living in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He was not living like a warrior, but like an old woman.’
There was a silence. Kishiev tried to read Strelkov’s face. He could see that the intelligence officer was too conceited to hide the satisfaction he was getting from informing Kishiev of the news. He was too smug to be telling lies. Kishiev let himself smile and then laugh. He laughed hard until it turned into an uncontrollable cough. Strelkov did not understand. Kishiev recovered and spoke. ‘If that is the case you have truly lost. The Hand of Allah shall be released and your capital cities shall burn to the ground!’
Strelkov shook his head dismissively. ‘Enough of your religious rhetoric. Bin Laden is dead and so is your cause.’
‘You speak of rhetoric; I speak of a real weapon.’ Kishiev saw little point in keeping it a secret any longer. ‘The Hand of Allah is a nuclear device. The Lion Sheik ordered it be deployed after his death.’ His laugh returned, only this time harder than ever.
The man from the FSB was stunned. Had Al-Qaeda finally got its hands on nuclear material? Was the Chechen lying? ‘What do you know of this device?’
‘I know that it is a suitcase bomb, and I know its designation. I am extremely surprised that it has not already been detonated, but then perhaps the timing is the surprise?’
‘Where is it?’ Strelkov replied too quickly.
‘What will you give me?’
Strelkov scrutinised the terrorist’s face. This was a ploy, he was sure, a ploy to gain his freedom. It had to be a fabrication. But what if he were telling the truth? What if one of the world’s deadliest weapons had fallen into the hands of Islamic terrorists? Strelkov had led raids against the terrorists in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, and in Dagestan. Rooting out and apprehending Muslim extremists had been the focus of his career, and he had won. But had they now achieved the impossible? Strelkov started to feel his heart beat faster and had to breathe deeper to control his rising fear. All the while the Chechen laughed at him like a circus clown, yet he had to take the statement seriously. ‘What is the designation of the weapon?’
Kishiev became serious. He had a memory for numbers and specifications and had wanted to be an engineer before becoming a Mujahideen, before discovering a love for weaponry and the technology of weaponry. He knew how to dismantle, clean and repair any number of firearms and had created very effective IEDs. ‘The designation of the device that I know of is RA-115A.’
Strelkov felt his blood chill and for a moment could not speak. What felt like a lifetime ago, when his employer had been known as the KGB, he had been assigned to a guard unit protecting the perimeter of a military base. Within the base had been a weapons-testing facility. He had never actually seen the device, or known where or if it had been developed, but talk among his unit, who met with other guard units at sporting events, was that a new type of atomic weapon called the RA had been created that was both deadly and portable.
‘Where is it?’ Strelkov demanded.
Kishiev remained silent.
Enraged, Strelkov leapt from the table and backhanded the Chechen across the face.
Kishiev slipped sideways and fell onto the floor. In his weakened state, after three plus years in prison, the once fearsome warrior could not fight back. He tasted blood in his mouth as he spoke. ‘I know of the plans, the route it may take. I will tell you in return for my freedom.’
Strelkov rushed out of the door. He already had his phone to his ear as two of Zontov’s men entered to secure the prisoner. Strelkov speed-dialled the FSB number, but it would not connect. He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it before yelling at Zontov. ‘Why is there no signal?’
‘There is no signal for security reasons, Comrade.’ It humoured Lieutenant Guard Zontov to see the self-important FSB agent lose control.
‘What? Where can I get a signal?’
Zontov inclined his head. ‘Two kilometres in that direction, I believe.’
Strelkov balled his fists, his knuckles turning white. ‘Where is the nearest landline?’
‘Back there, in my office.’
‘Is it secure?’
‘It is a telephone in my secure office.’
‘That is not what I meant!’ Strelkov snapped, turned on his heels, and went back inside. He picked up the desk phone and was about to make a call when he noticed that Kishiev was still in the room, standing between the two guards. ‘Take that outside and wait.’
The room empty, Strelkov lifted the handset to make a call to Moscow but then hesitated. Moscow was almost sixteen hundred kilometres away and two hours behind Sol-Iletsk. He checked his wristwatch; it was almost a quarter to seven, which meant it would be a quarter to five in the morning in his Director’s Moscow mansion. Strelkov sighed, shook his head, and called his chief, Director Nevsky, on his mobile phone. It rang out to voicemail. Strelkov ended the call and immediately redialled. This time it was answered on the fourth ring by a slumber-thickened voice. Strelkov took a breath and explained what he had been told by the Chechen.
Several more time zones away at the headquarters of the NSA in Fort Meade, an analyst grabbed hold of his desk to stop himself falling from his chair. The Echelon system had picked up a phone call to a flagged and secure number, but, unusually, the caller was using an unsecured landline. This was surprising, but what was explosive were the keywords it had picked up on: Al-Qaeda… nuclear device… detonate… Western city… Hand of Allah…
Mashhad, Iran
At the town of Herat, the group of six Holy Warriors were met without incident by their Iranian smuggler. A man well known to the guards on both sides of the border, he received his orders from an Egyptian, who since October 2001 had lived in Iran, immune to US attacks, and continued to serve as head of Al-Qaeda’s security committee. The truck was used officially for cross-border trade, and unofficially to funnel foreign fighters through Iran. The relationship between Al-Qaeda and Iran was a complicated one, but one that for the moment favoured Mohammed Tariq and his team. At the Iranian border they were waved through after a perfunctory check while other potential Afghani migrants were hauled from trucks and beaten. Those who attempted to make a run for it were shot. Unlike the ‘soft’ borders of the EU, the Iranian guards were authorised to use lethal force to protect their beloved country from any undesirable visitors.
Tariq tried to settle his mind. In the semi-darkness of the truck he peered at his five men, all of whom had taken his advice and succumbed to sleep. He, however, could not. Although their route into, through, and out of Iran had been specifically selected by the late Sheik and the management council, Tariq couldn’t get rid of the feeling that at any moment they might be ambushed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. However, he didn’t let his fears show when his men were conscious; he was the leader of a holy mission and, as such, had to remain resolute about their chances of success. He stroked the case as though it were a pet, oblivious to the potential oblivion its contents could bring. Eventually, fatigue triumphed over fear and he fell into a fitful sleep only to be awoken