The Walking Dead

Thursday, Day 8

He left his room, checked that the door's lock had fastened, and slipped soft-footed down the corridor. In his recent life, that of the Scorpion, Muhammad Ajaq had slept some nights in the homes of wealthy merchants or professional men, some nights in the compounds of the leaders of minor tribes, some nights in the sheds used by herdsmen under the palms by the banks of the Euphrates river, some nights in the cover of dried-out irrigation ditches, some nights on the sand with a blanket round him and the stars for company. But, he had never slept in a hotel.

Ajaq knew nothing of hotels.

Going down the corridor, he was refreshed by sleep. It was his ability to rest where he could find it, and dreams did not disturb him. He had not used the bed in the room — in compound guest wings, in a shed, a ditch or in the open air he lay on the floor or on a carpet or on fodder or in the dirt. It was his belief that on a floor or on the ground his reactions would be faster: he would wake more quickly if a threat gathered round him. The room was on the first floor of the building, at the back and overlooking a walled yard, and he had kept the window up, and would have gone out through it if danger had come close. From his sleep, he felt strong, alert.

His tread was light, but the boards under the carpet squealed as he went.

He paused at the door, stiffened, as if he had no taste for what he must now do…Then he tapped on the wood panel where paint had flaked off.

'It is your friend. Please, let me inside.'

A footfall came to the door, then stopped. He imagined the boy's fear, but did not know for how many hours he had been in the room without contact. He watched the door's edge, heard the click of the lock and saw the door open, but a chain held it. The room was darkened, no light on. Then the boy was staring back at him. Relief flooded the face. The chain was unhooked.

The bed was rumpled where the boy had lain on it and a copy of the Koran was on the pillow. The leather jacket was discarded on the thin, shoe-worn carpet. Ajaq could smell the fast food, and could make out the stains at the boy's mouth. He went inside and closed the door behind him, threaded his steps over the carpet and round the bed, then drew back the curtains. Light from a street-lamp beyond the yard wall seeped inside.

Ajaq sat on the floor. Its hardness, through the carpet, pinched his buttocks, and he waved for the boy to come and take a place beside him. He pushed aside the little tray in which the food sauces still lay, the paper bag and some clothing. The boy lowered himself, nervously, and their bodies were close.

'You travelled well?'

'I did, my leader, and always there were people who helped me.'

'You remember when we met?'

'I remember.'

'What did I say to you?'

'You asked me who I was and where I was from and what I did — was I strong?'

'And you told me?'

'I hoped to be strong. You said I was chosen. You said that you looked for a man who walked well and that I did.'

'And before you left me, to begin your journey, I said?'

'You told me that I was chosen for a mission of exceptional value, for which I would be honoured and respected. Without my dedication and obedience the mission would fail and that would make a great victory for our enemies…I told you of the martyrdom of my brothers, and I said that I would seek to 'equal their dedication and be worthy…'

'You remember it well.'

Ajaq knew that it was necessary to keep those in love with death, the volunteers, in the company of others who shared their certainty so that the will for martyrdom was not permitted to dribble away. With others around him, it was harder for a man to trip away from the boasts he had made, or the promises…But the boy, Ibrahim, had seen eleven others bounce away in the back of two pickups and had now been effectively alone for seven full days, seven nights. Did the strength to continue still exist? He had to know. Perhaps his own life, certainly his freedom, depended on the answer. In Iraq, where he had fought and where a price of many thousands of American dollars rested on his head, others would have decided whether strength had gone. Himself, he cared as little for the individuality of a martyr as for a shell loaded into a breach or a mortar missile into a tube or a bullets' belt into a machine-gun…but here there was no other man to make that decision for him. Ajaq was not in Iraq but in a first-floor room of a cheap, rundown hotel to be found in a network of side-streets close to the Paddington terminus in London. He forced himself, and it was an effort, to play-act sincerity.

'Are you strong, Ibrahim?'

'I promise it.'

He took the hands of the boy, his long, sensitive fingers, and held them locked in his own fists, which were calloused and rough, those of a fighting man.

'You know of the haughtiness of Britons?'

'I do.'

'And you know of the aggression of the Crusaders, who are British?'

'I do. I have been told it by the imam at our mosque in Jizan.'