The Prism 2049
volunteer, a hero of the anti-fascist resistance, then asked him to describe their objectives.
“Our movement has from five to twenty volunteers awaiting orders to carry out suicide attacks. We have thousands of men ready to take up arms,” said Rachid. He was young, not more than twenty or so thought Ennis. He spoke with the macho accent of the Zonards and it was evident that he had little formal education.
“At our Islamic school in the Zone, we teach our volunteers how to kill what ever the sacrifice. To transform their bodies into bombs that will blast the flesh of Zionists of Boublil, the sons of pigs and monkeys,” Rachid said. “We will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know.”
“Our reward is the virgins awaiting our pleasure in paradise,” he said referring to one of the rewards awaiting martyrs.
Assloum looked at his watch, made a sign, they rose and the two resistance fighters excused themselves, the moment had come, they quietly slipped out of the café nodding discretely to older men who murmured calling on Allah to bless them. Maybe it would be that night, maybe tomorrow; they would fight alongside the Zonards, ready to offer their lives in the coming battle against the fascist Guards of Boublil.
Poiget ordered two more coffees. “You don't start educating a martyr at age twenty-two.” He knew hat he was talking about, he was an expert in a terrorism and ex-officer in Boublil’s secret service who had revolted at the injustice of the system. "You start at kindergarten so by the time he's twenty-two, he's eager for the opportunity to sacrifice his life."
He described how suicide bombers had arrived at their deadly missions by a different route. They turned themselves into human bombs as a consequence of their oppression by the Nation and their hopeless lives in the Zones.
The leaders of the MEF explained Poiget, most of whom could be described as charismatic religious leaders, such as Assloum, looked for several qualification in potential recruits, an intense interest in Islam, a hatred for the Gallos, a clean criminal record and especially a Gallo type appearance so as not to raise the suspicions of Henri Boublil’s Special Intelligence Services.
Rachid Tawil, the perpetrator of the Bastille bombing attack, had been only twenty years old and had all those qualifications. “He had been a devout Muslim who used to pray, observed fasting and performed all his religious obligations to the letter and spirit,” Poiget told Ennis. “He was one of six children, he left Medina Hurriya, for the Capital to earn money to support his family, he worked as a labourer on construction sites.”
In the Zone, he and two other Algharbis attended an illegal mosque where the Imam, a fanatical follower of the Grande Caliph, persuaded them to join a special Islamic study group run by a faction that called itself Islam’s Brothers in Arms. They were to be eventually trained to become freedom fighters and suicide bombers, specialised in attacks in the Capital itself.
At the Brother’s classes, recruits are reminded of how the Nations banished the Faithful with the collaboration of the traitor Hassan bin Ibrani, and the barbaric treatment of Zonards. The Prophet had called for Muslims to wage war against infidels. ‘Kill the idolaters wherever you find them,’ was the slogan of the Imam.
The agents of the SSF had infiltrated the terrorist organisations with orders to arrest or assassinate leaders such as the Imam.
“If someone confiscated your home, deports your family and friends, imprison you in a ghetto wouldn't you want to fight for your rights?” the Poiget asked.
He told Ennis how the families of the suicide bombers were aided, their pictures would be posted in schools and mosques in Algharb and in the Caliphate, and that they were persuaded they would be rewarded with a special place in heaven, seventy-two virgins awaited them, the younger volunteer Rachid had told them. The Koran described them as ‘beautiful like rubies, with complexions like diamonds and pearls’ and the martyrs and virgins shall ‘delight themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful carpets’.
“That fact is however, most of the bombers don’t sign up for martyrdom for the promise of unlimited sex. They join because of their absolute devotion to God and their desire to die with Gallo blood on their hands,” said Poiget. “It’s not simply a heroic thing, it’s their only choice against le Martel’s vision of the future.”
“Why don’t they leave, I mean go to Algharb or the Caliphate.”
“Here they can work, in Algharb there is nothing for them, in the Caliphate they are tainted, they are not pure, they are Franquaois, they are trapped.”
He continued describing the methods used by the terrorists, the bomber was chosen only days, even hours, before the attack took place. The bomber was taken to a cemetery, where he was prepared for death by lying between graves all night praying to Allah. He was covered with a white shroud that covers his whole body, the same used to cover bodies for burial.
He was then taken to a room in the mosque where a video recording was made in which he declared his faith and desire to become a martyr for Islam and his people. The recording was then shown on illegal web sites after his death. His photo was distributed and displayed on the street walls of the Zones, in Algharb and the Caliphate to honour his sacrifice.
The terrorists carefully selected their target, they prepared the bomb attaching it to the suicide bombers body, guiding him to the site. Secrecy was their greatest priority, the attacker could not even say goodbye to his family.
At the pre-selected site, the recruit was been trained to act normally, blend in amongst his potential victims and when there was a sufficient number of Gallos near to him, he pressed the detonator to explode the bomb. If the slightest thing went wrong he detonated the bomb, destroying himself and any possible leads. It was extremely rare for the SSF to capture a bomber alive.
They then turned their attention to the news on the TS with a report on the terrorist attack. They speaker announced twelve dead and over fifty injured. There was silence as those in the café watched the TSF and the images that showed the desolation of the bombing scene. Ambulances and emergency services were everywhere, dominated by the presence of the heavy security forces.
The crowd looked at the scene of the devastation, trying to absorb it, trying to understand what had happened here. Ennis recognised the spot where he had been standing when the bomb had exploded, he realised that he had been extraordinarily lucky, an instant earlier and he would have been dead. It was the eleventh bombing that had taken place since the curfew had been imposed in the Zone had been, since riots had taken place eighteen months ago.
A witness declared to the cameras, “All of a sudden, I was in hell. I was blinded by the flash. Then there was total chaos, people running screaming, people on the ground, blood everywhere.”
The Siege of Avignon
The tanks rumbled into Avignon as dawn broke and thunder rolled on Sunday morning as its population were brutally awakened from their weekly repose. Hassan bin Ibrani's minister and governor of Avignon, Yousef Jebouz, knew why they were there. He closed himself in an office high in the Palais des Papes, a small archers’ window gave him a restricted view on the square below. He had assembled his key staff as soon as he received the alert from the frontier guards and prepared for the siege.
The previous evening Hassan bin Ibrani had called an emergency cabinet meeting. Algharb's intelligence services had been observing the movement of the Nation's forces at the edge of the zones across France. It was clear that le Martel intended to go ahead with his plans to eradicate the zones and deport the Immigrants to Algharb where the economic situation was near to collapse. The country could support no more massive arrivals.
Late that night, with the encouragement of the Caliphate and the opposition parties in the Federal parliament, he declared that the population of the Zones was under the diplomatic protection of Algharb, in the hope of halting their imminent destruction and expulsion of their populations.
However, the declaration had little effect on le Martel, who announced that Bin Ibrani's
declaration was nothing less than seditious, other than to provoke his ire. Le Martel promptly ordered armoured units to cross the border towards Avignon late in the night.
He was confident of his strength, since his arrival to power his government had increased the Nation’s defence spending, so as to be able to pre-empt any threat from the south as well as giving military means to his strategy in Africa. The result is that France's military forces are by far the most powerful in the Federation. The other states of the Federation had seen no menace in le Martel's aggrandisement of the country’s armed forces, in fact it was encouraged as it reduced their own military expenditures not only providing their arms industries with valuable orders but reinforcing the Mediterranean flank of the Federation against adventurism by the Caliphate which was in reality a toothless lion.
The order of top priority military standby was given to the two enclaves of Toulon and Hyères that remained French territory housing the key military bases for the Nation's Mediterranean Fleet and Air Force. The naval base at Toulon gave France control of all naval movements along its southern flank thus protecting the Nation against subversive intervention by the Caliphate. The airbase of Hyères, a dozen kilometres to the east of Toulon