The Caliphate, André Gallo [best books to read ever .TXT] 📗

     Steve laughed and said, “I’m certain of it!”

***

Before they left the next morning, Thiyya took Kella to her tent, opened a wooden box and took a bracelet out. Thiyya’s face, always reflecting control over herself and her immediate environment looked solemn. The unusually stern set of her eyes and mouth presaged something important. Kella wondered how she did that without gaining a wrinkle.

     “This bracelet belonged to your mother. It has been passed on from generation to generation since before any of us were born. According to the legend, retold by our tribe’s storytellers over the years, it belonged to an ancient Tuareg queen. Now, it belongs to you.”

     Kella remembered that her mother used to wear a gold bracelet during important occasions but she never knew the story behind it.

     “Thank you, cousin. What else can you tell me?”

     “There is another story that an American ship captain who was shipwrecked off the coast long ago and sold inland into slavery was also one of your ancestors. He was the first outsider to reach Timbuktu and leave alive. He was ransomed by a British official in Morocco and returned to the United States. And when the French soldiers were here a long time ago, one of them stayed and married into the family. You are Tuareg royalty, with an American, and a Frenchman, maybe more, in your family tree.”

     “Not too different from my current life. I have a French mother, an American father. Except, you’re all the royalty I need!”

     She hugged Thiyya.

19. Al Khalil’s Office

A knock on the door interrupted al Khalil’s thoughts. He had been analyzing IMRA finances and found them coming up short. Hussein walked in and he closed the computer.

     Before Hussein could speak, al Khalil said, “We have to find ways to raise more funds. Our donors are going to sleep because they think we’re going to sleep. I have to pay new recruits—fighters, martyrs, politicians, imams. Incoming funds are not sufficient. We have another year at the most.”

     Hussein tried to interrupt, “I understand…”

     Al Khalil put his hand up.

     “All of our income from private and public sources, from secret sources, and so on, is not enough on which to build the renaissance of Islam.”

     His eyes transferred to Hussein the burden of action.

     “I do have good news,” Hussein said. “One of my sources, a Malian who works for a Canadian NGO, told me that the missionaries are having a big party tomorrow. A lot of Western infidels are also going to be there. Is this the opportunity you’ve been looking for? It would be easier to hit them all at once than to kill them one by one. What do you think?”

     “Yes, I’ve been urging you to do just that for some time. We need a highly visible operation, and a successful one, to attract funds. Attacking a few missionaries is thinking small. We need a bigger, much bigger, operation to regain our funding.”

     Hussein and all his other assistants were small people with small ideas. He resigned himself to this incremental action for now. He willed himself to be more positive. Perhaps Allah was smiling.

     “What do you want to do? A bomb in the middle of the party? Who do you plan to use?”

     “A bomb means finding someone with natural access to the location, or a martyr. We don’t have time for a bomb operation. And I have better uses for my fighters than blowing them up. This is a soft target, the softest. I say keep it simple. Two men with AK-47s can walk in and mow them down. Direct and short, with immediate results.”

     He smiled at the picture Hussein was painting.

     “Dahmane is well experienced in this type of work. I trust Dahmane. Although he’s Malian, he’s a Fulani. He claims ancestry from the Quraysh, the Prophet’s tribe. He shares my vision. After this, we’ll give him more responsibility. And give him another fighter.”

     “Yes, I want to give him Karim, the Algerian. It’s time he got more directly involved and I think he’s ready. He’s still young but he has had combat experience in Algeria.”

     Tariq drew himself up and declared, “This will send a message to the infidels that they are not wanted here. They need to go home. They have to get out of Muslim lands. Make sure the operation is clean. We want no repercussions, although our friends in the police won’t investigate very hard. It should be like target practice. AK-47s against unarmed missionaries at a party.”

     He chuckled and Hussein joined in. Then Hussein left and al Khalil went back to his EXCEL sheet.

     The world had to pay attention or he would never replicate the work of the Prophet. People were apathetic, too inured by selfishness and the media’s constant focus on irrelevant problems. Only a major action on the order of Hiroshima would wake them up.

     He’d had several false starts in his efforts to acquire nuclear materials. He’d had lines out in several directions to obtain the means to make the nuclear splash that would bring the apostate rulers to his door. He thought of the underground storage at the training camp. He still didn’t have the right people to help him use the large amount of yellowcake he had hidden. He couldn’t do it all. His focus was in establishing a base in the Sahel states of Africa. Influencing the local authorities through bribes or coercion was working but too slowly. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the posters of Jerusalem and Cairo on his wall.

***

When Steve and Kella arrived at the NGO warehouse where the going away party was planned, tables and chairs had replaced. The cases of