The Caliphate Page 16

  “They’re supposed to be helping the people in the region with health and social services,” Elise answered, “and they use that as a springboard to urge their audiences toward a pure brand of Islam. Rumors are rampant that they have a dark side, that the Malian authorities don’t dare interfere in their activities, and that they’re forming a secret army.”

  “Are they successful?” Steve asked, looking at John.

  “I’m not sure. The brand of Islam around here is more basically Sufi than strict Wahhabist, so there is natural resistance. The strict Muslims don’t even believe the local Muslims are Muslim at all because their religion has marabouts, saints, and worship images. Some of the rumors about IMRA claim that they are responsible for the deaths of several of these holy men who were not interested in the IMRA version of Islam.”

  The Wests offered to introduce Steve and Kella to their world by inviting them to their going away party the following week in Timbuktu. Many NGO workers would be there as well as Malian employees and friends. They accepted the offer.

  ***

  From Goundam, Atrar left the track and headed straight west in the desert and then found a path on the western side of Lake Kamango that took then north toward Lake Faguibine.

  In mid-afternoon Atrar stopped the car and pointed toward the horizon. Steve took out binoculars and said, “It sure looks like the camp we saw from the air.”

  “Can I have the binoculars?” Kella asked.

  In the far distance she saw dark rock outcroppings above the desert floor. After a few kilometers of rough, off-road driving, she saw a track heading up a long, sloping incline, and at the top, between the two lakes, a number of horizontal slashes in the landscape as the land rose again.

  The Tuareg camp was at the bottom of the outcroppings. Atrar stopped the car beside a steep rock wall. A hundred and fifty feet away a dozen camels looked down at a herd of cattle drinking in clusters from metal drums almost completely buried in the ground.

  A barefoot boy in a loose white garment that covered him to his elbows and knees used a stick with his left hand on a short-horned bull that, with the exception of his black nose, blended with the hard-packed brown sand. In his right hand, the boy held one end of a rope that curled almost down to the ground to a tight noose around the animal’s horns. His long muscular neck held his head low but his eyes looked up to his left and his horns were at an angle that pointed the left horn directly at the boy’s waist. Another rope tied to his horns trailed on the ground behind him toward several branches planted in the ground like tent poles the height of a man. A pulley hung under the apex of the branches over a well. Kella realized that it was the boy’s job to draw water from the well.

  The animal suddenly swung his horns toward the boy who nimbly jumped out of the way. A blue-clad adult shouted at the boy who stepped behind the bull and hit him several times with his stick. The bull’s defiance flagged; he pulled and the rope tightened behind him.

  Kella and Steve followed a path around the rock wall. A young boy about age seven or eight ran up to them and said, “Welcome” in Tamasheq. Kella replied with the normal courtesies of the desert and asked him about Azrur and Thiyya. “This way,” he shouted as his bare feet took him running and bouncing like an élan up the path.

  “Oh it is so familiar,” said Kella as they followed the boy. “I can’t help but remember my own childhood.”

  The boy had run ahead to the camp ground, a wide plateau with perhaps fifty tents made of black animal skins with open sides. As Steve and Kella entered the camp, a couple emerged from their tent. The man was tall and wore a beige robe. His head, his nose, mouth and neck were covered by a long indigo cloth. His eyes inspected them quickly but he did not put down the thin lance one end of which he rested on the ground. The woman wore a black turban and a loose sleeveless indigo overgarment with large openings for the arms.

  Kella yelled, “Thiyya!” and ran toward her. They hugged closely, speaking in rapid and joyous exclamations.

  Azrur was more reserved but his words welcomed Kella. Both were in their early fifties. Thiyya had an air of supreme self-confidence without the sharp edges of the dictator. Kella thought in another age she could have been an ambassador or led a salon in late seventeenth-century France—a Tuareg Germaine de Stael.

  Kella smiled, her eyes moist. Thiyya’s eyes were like dark brush strokes. When not speaking, her lips were pressed softly together. Her skin was the color of cinnamon batter. Kella wondered at the absence of wrinkles. Kella remembered Steve and introduced him as a group gathered around.

  Thiyya announced to all, “Kella is my cousin’s daughter. Her parents were killed by the army during the troubles. She is my blood.”

  Then she took Kella’s right hand and raised it for everyone to see the four black dots arranged in a diamond on the back of her hand. The women called out happily to Kella, while the men crowded closer to have a better look at her hand and throw looks of suspicion in Steve’s direction.

  Thiyya made tea and served biscuits with goat cheese. Later Azrur took Steve and Kella to the well at the edge of camp.

  “Azrur’s great-great grandfather, by the way, led a Tuareg Army that fought the French army at the Battle of Goundam in the 1890s,” Kella said. “I should have told you when we were there.”

  Knowing Kella was saying something about him, Azrur looked in their direction and his eyes were made narrower by what Kella knew to be a smile.

  “Tell him it’s an honor to be his guest,” Steve said. “What about your name, and Thiyya’s. Do they mean something in Tamasheq?”

  “Thiyya means ‘beauty,’ and Kella was the daughter of Tin Hinnan, a Tuareg queen.”

  “I’m impressed. Both of you were well named.”

  Later that night, after small talk, Kella and her cousin drew aside while Azrur and Steve stayed by the fire.

  Kella told her about the horrific scene she’d witnessed in Paris. Thiyya hung her head while the story unfolded. As Kella finished recounting the story and the reason she came to her cousin for comfort, Thiyya opened her arms and held them out to her. The young woman slid over to her and rested against her bosom as Thiyya’s arms folded around her and rocked her gently. Kella cried softly.

  “We Tuareg women have never let ourselves be dominated by the men,” Thiyya said. “When the Arabs came and imposed their religion, the Tuareg tribes fought them but there were too many. But we hang on to our culture. We Tuareg women are the equals of men, in some ways our situation is even better. We can decide whom to marry, and we can manage our own wealth. Our marriages are monogamous, unlike Muslim practice.”

  She guided Kella to a corner of the tent where some blankets were laid out.

  ***

  On the evening of the next day, Kella’s cousins organized a tribal feast in her honor. Goat and camel steaks cooked on a wood and dried dung fire to eat, and for drink, they offered goat and camel milk. Steve had Atrar bring Gazelle beer from the cooler he had left in the Land Cruiser.

  The main event was the camel races. Steve seemed amused when Kella translated the good natured ribbing from her cousins.

  “They recall that I grew up riding camels and have insisted I participate,” she told him with an expression caught between amusement and dread.

  “Well, I’ll be cheering you on!”

  “I’ll wave to you so you can recognize me in my blue robe.”

  Steve pointed to his cameras, “You’ll be the star of my article.”

  Kella watched Steve and Atrar drive their car close to the starting line. Steve opened the sunroof and readied his cameras. There were fifteen contestants. Most riders, men and women alike, had sticks for riding crops, but only the men were veiled. Kella’s mount was easily the largest animal on the starting line. She assumed that her cousins were being the perfect hosts, or perhaps Kella’s noble lineage gave her certain rights.

  Men, women and children had lined up on the side of the ad-hoc racecourse. Kella guessed there must be at l
east a hundred people waiting, talking, with occasional ululations of jubilance from the women. Both men and women were in colorful billowing robes.

  Suddenly, the mounts were off. Both riders and watchers were in the moment. The excitement was palpable. Just about everyone was yelling and the riders encouraged their mounts by slapping their sticks against their sides.

  Kella did not have a good start and she was in the middle of the pack for the first fifty yards. But the long white legs of her camel gobbled up the ground and gained yard after yard on the leaders. Finally, the race was between Kella and another woman on a sandy-brown camel who used her stick with vigor. In a nose-to-nose finish, it seemed to Kella that she finished a close second.

  As the camel folded its ungainly legs and Kella dismounted, Steve hurried over to her.

  “Wow, that was close! This is serious competition. You looked a mile high up there on that beast. The way it was rocking and rolling I don’t know how you stayed on.”

  “This is not as easy as I remembered. Another fifty yards, though, and I would have won. Don’t you think?”

  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 bottled water, blankets, medicine and tents had been restacked in the back. Each group had brought food and drink.

  John and Elise were already there, as was Campbell. An old Charles Aznavour song was playing in the background. Tables along one wall were for the mechoui—lamb slow-cooked over a wood fire—and grilled capitaine, the huge freshwater fish from the Niger River. Along another wall was a table laden with fruit, chicken, dates, teas and soft drinks. Soon the room was full of laughter from several dozen people who were celebrating a job well done and wishing bon voyage to good friends. Each new arrival brought more food and drink. Steve heard at least a dozen languages being spoken, with English dominating.

  “Quite the international group,” he said to Kella.

  Frank Sinatra replaced Aznavour until a live Tuareg musical group, called Tivaren, began to play and sing.

  “My driver’s brother Izem met the members of this band when he was in the Libyan Army,” he said. “Many of the Tuareg rebels went to Libya after the rebellion. As a favor to him, they came to help the international workers celebrate.”

  “I like their music,” she replied. “It’s called ishoumar, a mixture of traditional Tuareg music, John Lee Hooker and reggae.”

  They soon served themselves and went to find seats. But almost as soon as they sat down, Kella said, “Oh, I’m going to go say hello to Elise. I’ll be back.”

  Steve tasted the mechoui and looked around for something to drink. He saw a large
white plastic cooler underneath a food table near the front wall and got up hoping that he would find a beer. The space was alive with music and conversation. He looked back to spot Kella as he walked toward the cooler. She was half kneeling by the Wests who sat at a center table in the back. He bent down to open the cooler and was reaching for a beer when a staccato sound of gunfire suddenly dominated the room. He dove to the floor and shouted, “Get down. Get down.”

  Steve could see that many had not immediately recognized the sound of gunfire. They seemed almost paralyzed. He looked up to see the legs of two men walking down the center of the warehouse. Looking up a bit more, he saw them firing AK-47s, one from the center to the right and the other to the left. The gunfire had plunged the party into total chaos. Most people were now on the floor. Steve could see that a few in the center had been hit by the steel jacketed bullets. A Malian waiter and a Canadian with Medecins-Sans-Frontieres were down and not moving. Few in the middle of the room were not wounded. He couldn’t see Kella.

  The sound of the guns punctuated the screams of pain and terror. Tables, chairs, and other furniture were knocked over. Dishes, glasses and bottles exploded and crashed to the floor, spraying their contents and shards of glass around the room.

  He crawled closer to the entrance and noticed that he still had his bottle of beer in his hand. The gunmen were past him but still firing mostly to their front and side. He was in back of them and to their right. He again looked for Kella near John and Elise with mounting anxiety. He could easily run out the front door and try to get help. The gunfire continued in shorter bursts and he saw one assailant drop an empty magazine clip and reload. Unconsciously, Steve knew the gunman had sixty more shots and there was no time to look for help.

  From the first bursts of AK-47 fire, even as he plunged to the floor, Steve remembered that his explosives and weapons instructor had given him a concealed self-defense weapon on the last night of training. He turned to one side on the floor in order to get his hand in the pocket where he had placed the device when getting dressed for the party. He took out what appeared to be a Mont Blanc pen that actually was a still-experimental, pulsed-energy-projectile gun.