Now his preparation would come in use.
21 June 2012.
Baghdad, Iraq, 2011
Kader al-Zarqawi had been born in Zarqa, Jordan. In fact his name, ‘al-Zarqawi’, literally meant ‘the man from Zarqa’. The man from Zarqa was now the man from Baghdad. He was the most dreaded and feared Islamic terrorist in Iraq and the American government was offering a reward of US$ 50 million for his capture.113
Kader al-Zarqawi had spent his youth as a petty criminal in Jordan. Quick-tempered, and barely literate, al-Zarqawi had been quick to volunteer as an Afghan Arab, to lead fighters against the Soviets in Afganistan in the eighties. The defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan had resulted in Kader returning to Jordan with a radical Islamist agenda. He would spend the next six years in prison there, accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy. He had managed a daring escape and, at Ghalib’s behest, moved to Iraq and established links with Ansar al-Islam—a group of Kurdish Islamists from the north of the country.
Sitting inside a decrepit old house located close to the Al-Noor Hospital in the Al-Sho’la neighbourhood in Baghdad, virtually under the very noses of the American forces, Kader al-Zarqawi calmly read the handwritten note in Arabic that had come directly from Ghalib. Good. He cursed, ‘Ebn el metanaka!’114
‘Those American sons of bitches will now realise what it really means to be blown up,’ he exclaimed.
21 July 2012.
New York, USA, 2011
Shamoon Idris sat inside the Masjid Abu Bakr on Foster Avenue in Brooklyn. Around him were other members of the Islamic Jehad Council.115
Looking at Shamoon, one could not tell that he was a terrorist. His faded jeans, his Hugo Boss sunglasses and the clean-shaven smiling face were not things one associated with a fundamentalist. A hapless Wall Street investment banker would realise that the hard way.
The investment banker had been clicking photos of his girlfriend in front of the Masjid At-Taqwa Mosque in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. She had been ‘inappropriately dressed’ and this had roused the ire of Shamoon. The banker had been huddled off to a basement beneath the mosque, where he had been grilled by Shamoon who had remained surrounded by his ardent fan following. It was only when the banker claimed that he was an admirer of Islam and wanted to learn about this religion of peace and tolerance, that Shamoon’s grimace turned into a smile.
Shamoon was patiently discussing the note he had received from Ghalib. It had a date mentioned.
21 August 2012.
Jakarta, Indonesia, 2011
Jemaah Islamiyah was a militant Islamic terrorist outfit with a one-point agenda: the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic caliphate in Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The Jemaah Islamiyah had carried out the Bali bombing in which suicide squads had murdered 202 people in a busy nightclub.
Yaqub Islamuddin, the intellectual director of the Jemaah Islamiyah, sat inside his jail cell, which he had occupied for the past few months, reading his Qur’an.116 Yaqub had been a techno-nerd running a computer business in Jakarta. It was the two weeks he had spent studying the Qur’an at a pro-Afghan training centre in Peshawar, that had led him to create a small core of young Muslims who wanted the introduction of Islamic law, or Sharia, as the basis of Indonesian law. He had always been more of an intellectual than a muscleman. Unfortunately, his words and thoughts were often more dangerous than the blows of a thug.
Among the correspondence that he had been allowed to receive was a single note from Ghalib. It contained a verse from the holy book. ‘Their Lord gives them good news: mercy and approval from Him, and gardens where they rejoice in everlasting bliss.’ Yaqub Islamuddin knew the verse.
Chapter 9, Verse 21.
9/21.
21 September 2012.
Sydney, Australia, 2011
Muslims in Australia had a long history. Adil Afrose’s ancestors had come to Australia as Afghan camel drivers in the 1800s.117 They had played an important role in the exploration of Australia’s endless dry terrains by carrying people and telegraph poles to points that could only be reached on camelback. But had they been appreciated? The white man didn’t give a camel’s ass about them.
Adil had done quite well for himself in life. He had succeeded in setting up a trading firm that specialised in the export of halaal meat to very discerning customers in the Middle East. In 2005, a delegation of young Muslim leaders from Australia had travelled to Jakarta to explore Islam in Indonesia. The Australian ambassador to Indonesia had said, ‘It’s important for young Australians to gain a better understanding of the role of religion in Indonesia and to share their views on how Islam contributes to diverse, democratic societies like Australia and Indonesia.’ The Ambassador had obviously not known what exactly it was that Adil had learnt during that trip!
Adil surveyed the beautiful Lakemba Mosque where he prayed each day. Today he was praying that Allah would give him strength to do His will as per the note from Ghalib.
21 October 2012.
Grozny, Chechnya, Russia, 2011
Grozny’s four administrative districts included Leninsky, Zavodskoy, Staropromyslovsky and Oktyabrsky. While Staropromyslovsky was the main oil-drilling area, it was Oktyabrsky that housed the industries and the economy, including the mafia. It was here that Dzhokar Raduev sat inside a luxuriously appointed house, blissfully unperturbed by the $10-million reward on his head.118
Dzhokar Raduev was not merely a Chechen warlord. No. He was also a shrewd politician, a dangerous terrorist and, above all, Chechnya’s most adored national hero. In his early youth, Raduev had changed his name; his new name was Yahya Ali, much more in keeping with his Islamic roots.
In 1992, when Boris Yeltsin sent his troops into Chechnya, Yahya had hijacked an Aeroflot aircraft travelling from Mineralnye Vody in Russia to Ankara in Turkey. He had threatened to blow up the flight unless Yeltsin lifted the state of emergency. Yahya had then travelled to Afghanistan, and had developed and strengthened his bonds with Al-Qaeda. Thereafter, he had moved back to Chechnya to carry on the struggle.
He now read the note from Ghalib. A smile of satisfaction spread over his face.
21 November 2012.
Bakhtaran, Iran, 2011
The truck had done its fair share of travel. From the port at Pipavav, it had headed to Jammu, where the consignment marked for the recipient had been ‘officially unloaded’, even though the actual machinery had continued to remain on board.
The truck had then been stripped of all its accessories and had been repainted a dirty military green. The cargo container had been covered with a khaki canvas and the licence plates had been changed to a series used by the Indian Army. A military pass was glued to the top left-hand corner of the windscreen.
The truck had proceeded in its new identity along the inter-state Punjab-Kashmir border westwards and stopped short of the town of Rajouri on the Indian side. From here, Azad Kashmir or POK—Pakistan Occupied Kashmir—was just a stone’s throw away. The truck waited at a quiet point along the Line of Control, the line dividing Kashmir into POK and Indian Kashmir. It was awaiting a signal from across the border.
Even though Indians had constructed over 734 kilometres of fencing along the Line of Control, significant portions of the border remained unfenced. This suited the Pakistan-trained militant outfits perfectly because it enabled them to send armed groups of terrorists across the border at will.
At 11 pm sharp, on observing five quick flashes of light, the truck’s engine was restarted and it began the crossing. The road was non-existent and it required considerable skill to negotiate the dirt track. At 11:27 pm, the truck was firmly in Pakistani territory, and a few hours later it was in Mirpur.
A team of ten truck detailers from Rawalpindi awaited the vehicle in Mirpur. Over the next twenty-four hours, the truck would be repainted with floral designs, bright colours, and Urdu poetry. The canvas top would give way to a hardwood body with carved motifs. This would be
further enhanced by little mirrors, reflectors, ornamental brass fittings and jingling bells and chains.119
Truck art had become a very critical part of Pakistani folk art and this particular team specialised in what was referred to as ‘disco painting’ in which almost every square inch of surface area would be covered with decorations in the form of images or ornaments. Newly embellished, the truck would become part of the Pakistani landscape and would not be noticed. The new licence plates read ‘KAE 5675’. The number was from a Karachi number series.
The truck now moved northwards to Muzaffarabad and from there westwards to Mansehra. From Mansehra it headed in a gentle south-westerly direction towards Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan where it waited to cross the famous Khyber Pass.
The Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province was probably the most evocative border crossing in the world. The border, the Durand Line, had been frozen by the English in 1893 and had ended up dividing the ethnic Pashtuns, resulting in the ongoing Pashtunistan issue, which had pretty much determined relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan throughout history.120
The tribal areas of Pakistan continued to be mostly outside federal control, thus creating an entirely porous Pak–Afghan border, and a smuggler’s delight.
The truck’s papers indicated that it was carrying construction equipment needed for upgrading the Kabul highway. An armed guard from the Khyber Agency had been generously tipped to accompany the truck to Torkham on the border. Stamped out of Pakistan, the truck reached the small border post on the Afghan side and then proceeded to the main immigration post a further 500 metres ahead. The customs officers had already been taken care of. No checks.
The truck proceeded into Afghanistan and into the town of Jalalabad. From Jalalabad it took the road to Kabul and on to Chaghcharan. From Chaghcharan it progressed further towards Herat which, at one point in history, used to be at the crossroads of civilisations. Its north-south axis was part of the old Silk Route, while its east-west axis was the gateway to Europe. Afghanistan’s border with Iran continued to remain mostly on paper and maps—the ground realities being rather different along the 900-kilometre border. The long stretches of desert sand did not lend themselves well to being policed.
At Herat, the truck underwent another cosmetic surgery. The images were removed. The garish colours were painted over with dull shades of grey. The Urdu poems were replaced by Persian proverbs of religious hue. The new licence plates were yellow and read ‘THR 77708’, a Teheran registration number.
No one gave a second glance to the truck as it crossed the border from Afghanistan into Iran. It was simply a truck carrying a miniscule part of the materials needed for a $38-million road construction project. Having reached Iranian territory, the truck headed southwards to Zahedan, from where it started a westward sweep through Kerman, Yazd, Esfahan and Arak till it reached Bakhtaran, which lay just across the Iran–Iraq border from Baghdad.
The driver was tired, but he forced himself to stay alert. He had yet to cross Iraq and Syria before he reached his final destination. Ghalib decided to take a short nap. His friend, El-Azhar, would take up the watch while he slept. He needed to be prepared for the final act on 21 December 2012. Eleven other events would precede it, one each month. And each event would wreak havoc.
The Sheikh’s Master would have the last laugh. The world had been waiting for this day since 500 B.C.
21 December 2012.
Guatemala, 500 B.C.
The royal astrologer was looking up at the heavens from his observatory, which formed part of the temple honouring Kukulcan.
He was looking rather worried. He had determined the exact end of the great cycle of the Long Count Maya calendar, a 26,000-year planetary cycle. The date would have massive repercussions. It would coincide with the geomagnetic reversal of the poles of the earth, having last occurred 780,000 years ago! The date was definite; an extremely close conjunction of the winter solstice sun with the crossing point of the galactic equator and the ecliptic path of the sun. More commonly known to Maya civilisation as the Sacred Tree.121
21 December 2012.
Langley, Virginia, USA, 2011
The compass had sixteen points, and it symbolised the search for information from all over the world. This information had to be brought back and centralised at one place where it would be stored, catalogued and analysed. The compass rested on a shield—a shield that was meant to defend America. This was the familiar crest that welcomed visitors to the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley.
Hidden within the miles of corridors was a small office that housed the SAS, or the Special Activities Staff. A division of the Directorate of Operations, the SAS handled covert paramilitary exercises which the American Government did not wish to be publicly associated with. Members on missions strictly avoided carrying anything on their person that could even remotely link them to the United States Government.
The division had less than a few hundred personnel, most of them former operators of Delta Force and Navy SEAL teams, although, on occasion, they were known to employ civilians for paramilitary activities. The division used RQ-1 Predator Drones equipped with high-resolution cameras and AGM-114 Hellfire antitank missiles as part of their wide arsenal. The division was known to be a major part of the US’s unconventional war in Afghanistan and Iraq.122
The real strategic advantage of the SAS was ADA, or Agility, Deniability and Adaptability. More often than not, SAS agents would operate individually and all alone, undercover, and that too in inhospitable areas behind enemy lines. They would carry out all types of assignments including counter-intelligence, espionage, handling hostage situations, deliberate sabotage, and targeted assassinations.
One of the SAS’s most prized agents was simply known by the agency nickname of ‘CIA Trois’. He was of Arab–Algerian stock and a devout Muslim. His areas of operation were Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir and since he was equally familiar with all three regions, he had the nickname ‘Trois’, or ‘Three’.
Stephen Elliot, head of the SAS, was his controller. Stephen was one of the brightest stars within the agency. He had been recruited into the intelligence service during his final year at Yale, the same year he ‘tapped’ Terry Acton for the Skull & Bones membership.
Elliot was at the SAS headquarters deciphering the encrypted message that had reached him from CIA Trois. It read simply:
N 45:50 E 6:52 S 11:00 W 66:00 N 31:00 E 112:00 N 51:07 E 1:19
N 3:09 E 101:41 N 32:59 E 74:57 N 33:20 E 44:30 N 44:98 W 110:45
S 06:09 E 106.49 S 33:00 E 146:00 N 43.2 E 45.45 N 31:34 E 34:51.
It ended with: Q 17:16.
The N, S, E and W obviously meant North, South, East and West. Trois had provided the locations. The Langley computers quickly looked up the coordinates and spat out the results.
N 45:50 E 6:52 – Rhone Alps, France
S 11:00 W 66:00 – Riberalta, Bolivia
N 31:00 E 112:00 – Hubei, China
N 51:07 E 1:19 – Dover, England
N 3:09 E 101:41 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
N 32:59 E 74:57 – Katra, Jammu & Kashmir, India
N 33:20 E 44:30 – Baghdad, Iraq
N 44:98 W 110:45 – Wyoming, USA
S 06:09 E 106.49 – Jakarta, Indonesia
S 33:00 E 146:00 – New South Wales, Australia
N 43.2 E 45.45 – Grozny, Chechnya, Russia
N 31:34 E 34:51 – Tel Megiddo, Israel.
But Q 17:16? Elliot pulled out of his desk an English pocket Qur’an and looked up Chapter 17, Verse 16. It read:
‘And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.’
Elliot was confused. He knew about the first eleven locations, but how had Megiddo entered this plan? He needed to discuss this one on one, with the Pr
esident.
Megiddo, Israel, 2012
A hill near the modern settlement of Tel Megiddo was made up of twenty-six layers of ruins of ancient cities. Megiddo, however, was famous for another reason. The New Testament’s Book of Revelation had prophesied that the final military showdown of the world would happen in Megiddo. Soon, the word ‘Megiddo’ had become synonymous with the end of the world. In fact, the word ‘Armageddon’ was derived from the name ‘Megiddo’.
Ghalib’s truck was on its way there. Ghalib asked El-Azhar for his Thuraya satellite phone and began dialling a number in Pakistan: +92 51 . . .
Chapter Seventeen
Mumbai, India, 2012
Swakilki had followed Vincent from London to Mumbai via Delhi. Indian Airlines flight IC-887 had ferried her from New Delhi to Mumbai within one hour and fifty-five minutes. The Mercedes-Benz S350L sent by the Taj Mahal Hotel to receive her at the airport quickly wove its way through the notorious traffic snarls and deposited her at the waterfront paradise of the luxury hotel.
George Bernard Shaw had commented that after staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel, he had no longer felt the need to visit the original Taj Mahal in Agra. Swakilki was staying in the Heritage Wing, where individually themed high-ceilinged suites made one imagine an era when personalities like Somerset Maugham and Duke Ellington had rested their heads on soft pillows in the city’s best hotel.
The discovery of the Bom Jesus document given by Terry to Vincent had resulted in endless discussions with Martha. The document seemed to indicate that Jesus had survived the crucifixion and that he had settled in India. Vincent’s own past-life regressions in which he had seen Jesus had seemed to confirm the theory that Jesus had indeed survived the ordeal. They had finally decided that they needed to distinguish fact from fiction. The only way to do this necessitated a visit to India.