CHAPTER 13
Cass had waited two long years for a chance to escape.
After two years as a virtual prisoner in Istanbul and Şirnak and then in the war zone of Northern Syria, he’d made his way not to freedom but back over the border into Turkey.
“After the Battle of Al-Hasakah, I found myself with two other boys who’d survived,” he’d say to himself, as if Kevin or someone was sitting right next to him. “There was Talal from Iraq and Najib from Lebanon. We were in a battered Toyota truck, and I was driving when I realised we had crossed the border and were back in Turkey.
“It was a terrible time, Kevs. The truck was a wreck, and all I could do was follow tyre tacks in the dust. Behind us, back towards the mountains, all we could see was black smoke. Najib was lying at the back seat, crying in pain with my keffiyeh wrapped around his bleeding leg. Talal’s arm was hanging, useless, with another blood-soaked cloth wrapped around his elbow. And then the truck stopped. The fuel had run out, so what could I do but leave them behind to try to find fuel or help. I walked. There was a small village. It was a poor village with goats, and I tried to ask for help in English. An old man told me to wait, so I waited in the shade. I waited until it was dark, but no help came, so I decided to walk back to the truck. When I got there, it was gone, but another one was waiting with three men sitting inside. One of them was a man called Makul, who I knew from the old house in Şirnak. I was back where I’d started.
“Can you imagine the feeling, Kevs? My spirit was broken. I wondered then if I’d ever go home. But never give up, Kevs. It’s perseverance. It’s patience. It’s determination. In my heart, I knew I would never be like them, but you know what I did? I told Makul how glad I was to see him. How hypocritical is that? But it shows how important hypocrisy and lying is to saving your own life.
“These are lessons you never learn in school, Kevs. Perhaps, one day, I will stand before Mr. Khan and point at his face and say, ‘Look at me now, you bastard. Look at what I’ve become. All I ever wanted was a chance to experience new things. You put me through hell, but I’m still here, and I’m a better person. I understand things now.’ And then, because of my lies and hypocrisy, my luck changed.”
***
Cass’s bed inside the old desolate stone building near Şirnak was a thin and dirty straw mattress on a rough wooden platform. Escape was the only thing he dreamed of, but escaping and then finding a way to return home was far easier to dream about than to achieve.
Talal and Najib were also there, recovering from their wounds, and at mealtimes, they would meet and talk outside the front door. But it was a wreck of a building and was guarded, as if it was a military place.
***
One night, he was lying awake, staring into the total darkness, when he saw a torchlight outside. The door was unbolted, and he heard voices—one of them was Makul’s. It had happened before. They often talked in Arabic or Punjabi but too far away to be heard properly.
Suddenly, the voices stopped, the door to his room was pushed open, and the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling came on. Cass sat up as Makul and another man he knew as Manjeet appeared in the doorway.
A small backpack was then thrown towards him. “We are leaving,” he was told. “Put what you need in this bag”.
With no idea where they were going or for how long, Cass pulled on his clothes, old jeans, socks, trainers, and tee shirt and stuffed everything else he had—a pair of shorts, tee shirt, and underpants—into the bag.
Makul took the bag, checked what he’d put inside, and then, without any explanation, led him outside and bundled him into Manjeet’s old Toyota.
They drove all night, stopping only to refuel. By early afternoon the next day, they were on the outskirts of the capital Ankara, but still nothing had been said until they arrived outside the airport. Makul had been driving when they pulled into a car park. “We are early. We must wait.”
Another silent hour past as Cass looked out of the car window at this amazing change of scenery—cars, buses, people, taxi cabs, aircraft taking off and landing, and the long sleek airport terminal building. But still there was no explanation of what was happening until Manjeet suddenly checked his watch, leaned over the front seat, and grinned at him.
“Qasim, my friend. You have earned the right for another special task. Insha’allah. You will fly to Kota Bahru in Malaysia.”
Cass sat up. What was this? Malaysia? Why?
“You will be met by friends,” Manjeet went on, and then from somewhere at his feet, he produced a maroon-coloured Turkish passport with a crescent moon and star on the cover. He held it up. “You see? You are now a Turkish student called Cemil Demir. If asked, you will say you are a student on holiday—how you say?—a backpacker.”
He paused, eyeing Cass, as if tempting him to argue, but Cass said nothing.
“Get out.”
For the first time in eighteen hours, Cass got out of the car. He was tempted to run but stood his ground. They led him inside to the check-in, with Manjeet holding the passport and Makul carrying the backpack. They stopped. Manjeet handed him the passport, and Makul opened the backpack. From inside, Manjeet then withdrew a brown package and a few US dollars tied with elastic. He held it all up. “Do not let anyone find this package until you have handed it over. If you are caught, then it is, what shall I say, your problem.”
Cass nodded, but questions and possible answers were running through his mind. He spoke for the first time. “Will someone meet me?”
Manjeet nodded and gave a toothy grin. “Ah. You are very honoured, Qasim.”
“Who will meet me?”
“Ah,” Manjeet said again, as if he was almost too afraid to say the man’s name. “It is Commander Kett.”
Cass’s dull and uninterested expression did not change, but his mind was racing. Sometimes, during the last two years, as he’d listened and watched, he would hear whispers about someone called the commander. Sometimes he’d hear the name Kett, sometimes Rayeeson, and sometimes Kaheedon. But, right now, Cass only nodded, as if it meant nothing.
Cass knew it was all the same man. Kett was the commander. Kett was Rayeeson and Kaheedon. And Cass—by being patient, by watching, by listening, and by piecing together other snippets of conversations he’d heard in Syria—had a possible explanation for this trip to Kota Bahru in the far north east of Malaysia.
With ISIL and other terrorist-led groups struggling to re-assert themselves, Kett, unwilling to be linked with failure, had moved on. It had been rumoured in Turkey that efforts and resources were now being put into West Africa and Southeast Asia.
In West Africa, trouble had brewed for years in the sub-Saharan region. Al Qaida and its network of Mali-based affiliates were the dominant force, but there were others like Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen who aspired to establish Islamic law in the area.
In Asia, there was a separatist movement in Southern Thailand and networks in Malaysia and the Philippines and in the world’s largest Moslem community in Indonesia. With his fluent English and other skills, Cass suspected he was to join one of these groups.
Kett, though, was unlikely to be the one to meet and greet at an airport, but he said nothing of this.
It was Manjeet, though, who ended with a warning. “We are well organised in Malaysia, Qasim Siddiqui. Allah yusallmak. May Mohammed, peace be upon him, go with you. Someone will be watching and waiting.”
It was late evening when Cass arrived in Kota Bahru. He passed through Malaysian Immigration with no questions asked and deliberately took his time in the baggage hall. From there, he spotted someone waiting by the exit, and so he turned back towards check-in. And there, he stayed all night, lying across two seats with his head on the backpack like the two other dishevelled backpackers in the other corner. Around dawn, one of them with long sun-bleached hair wearing shorts and walking boots sauntered across and tapped his shoulder. “How’re you doing, mate?”
Cass sat up. “OK,” he said.
“Where’re you heading, mate?”
Earlier, Cass had seen a tourist map on the wall and knew the Thai border was close by. “Thailand,” he said.
“You flying or hitching?”
It had been two years since Cass had heard English spoken in anything but an Arab or Turkish accent, and he struggled to place the accent. Was it Australian, New Zealand, South African? “I’m not sure,” he said.
“Christ, man. You need to make your mind up. They won’t like you dossing here all day. Where’re you from, mate?”
Cass was in two minds. “Turkey,” he said.
The blonde one perched on the seat next to him. “Nice,” he said. Perhaps it was Cass’s beard, dirty jeans, and old sneakers that prompted the next question. “Been travelling long?”
“Two years,” Cass said, thinking it was a long time but accurate enough. Perhaps it, too, was impressive to another traveller.
“Christ man. That’s some fucking hike.” A toothy smile broke in the sun-burned face. He laughed. “Still got some money left?”
“A little.”
“Fancy a Coke? There’s a machine.” He nodded to a vending machine close by.
“Thanks,” Cass said and spent the next twenty minutes or so drinking Coca-Cola and chatting to Steve from Perth whose mate, still asleep in the corner, was Hans from Holland.
“Need a map of Thailand, Cemil? We’ve finished with it.”
Cass got a free map.
Steve then took out a phone, checked the screen, shrugged, and put his phone back in his pocket. Cass saw an opportunity. “My phone was stolen,” he said.
“Christ. How the hell do you manage?”
Cass shrugged. “I need to sort something.”
Steve retrieved the phone. “Here,” he said. “On the house. One free call to anywhere. I’ll leave you to it.” And he walked away to wake up Hans.