The Hurryat

By Jonas B

What is freedom? When the President is captured by the world's most wanted man, one of the Terrorist's men, Hassan, little more than a boy, is sure he knows the answer. Holding their hostage in a secret location, the kidnappers have only to wait three days until the President's online execution before the eyes of the world ensures victory and the end of their struggle.

Then a man in black appears from the desert. He carries an antique silver dagger and a rare golden songbird in a cage. He claims to be there to help the kidnappers in their mission. Torture is his trade.

Like the Terrorist and the rest of the men, Hassan is at first suspicious, then quickly amazed by the newcomer's abilities. What he doesn't realise is that this master of his craft has plans for him, too - and that on his seemingly insignificant actions, and the song of a magical bird, could hang the balance of mankind's future.

'The Hurryat' is many things: a thriller, a socio-political commentary, an initiation story and a magical/spiritual tale. It is gripping and fast-paced in the manner of contemporary bestsellers, while its roots are firmly in essence in Eastern fable and folktale tradition. It has been described variously as "a beautiful book with a powerful vision", "a must for those who delight in sound literature and intriguing plots" and "an anthem to life". Unique and challenging, warm and life-affirming and an urgent voice in our times of global conflict and accelerating change, 'The Hurryat' shows how each of us must play a part in finding the freedom we have lost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonas B
• Release date: Jun 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781907248184

Book preview

Light flooded the cave. Dazzling brilliance poured down from all angles and exposed him where he knelt, a man without shadow. Unable to raise a hand against the glare, the man jerked his head from side to side, as though stung. He blinked salt from his eyes. Behind, the sound of heavy boots on stone grew louder. How many, he thought: how many were there? He squinted towards the noise but the world was a blur. Indistinct figures; in combat gear, approaching briskly. They carried something, he could not make out what. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours?

The men busied themselves before him. A broad, flat object was placed on an upturned packing crate. Someone coughed. From nearby came the scratch of a cigarette lighter, then muttering. A sharp slap of plastic rang against the stone floor as cables were run out.

The man’s head throbbed mercilessly. Even now, sand clung to the back of his throat, blocked his nose. As his vision cleared, he saw the busy cavern materialise about him, a mirage become ominously real, and he wondered just where his grim-humoured God had landed him. With a keenness that surprised him he realised that in fact, at that very moment, he knew nothing at all. A moment, like every other since that same disastrous morning, that passed too fast.

Like sand, the man thought, swallowing fire. He slumped in his bonds, a penitent lost at prayer, and listened to the thump of his heart while the world outside him turned. All he knew for certain, as the men in the cave went about their task, low voices uttering words he could not understand, was that soon he was going to die.

‘Untie him.’

It was a new voice that spoke. It came from close-by, in his own language. A second voice barked a command in that alien tongue. The man felt the bonds at his wrists loosen and a rough hand pull the gag from his mouth. The next instant a shock of cold water hit his face. The man rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers, the water’s coolness momentarily relieving the burning at the back of his neck. He tried to turn but a hand forced his head front. The hand’s owner said something he did not understand, eliciting laughter from those around him. Its grip was inhumanly strong. As a body moved from his view, the man saw what had been placed before him.

A laptop computer.

A character with unruly hair and a roll-up planted between his lips cast him a wary glance and hit the Return key. The screen came to life. A woman’s face stared out. After a pause, it said:

The top story again. The newscaster pushed back her hair. Her eyes were stony as she read:

"The President has been kidnapped. He was abducted early this morning while out riding at the country retreat of neighbouring President Ugo Rodriguez. The kidnappers – who claim to be members of the terrorist group Issuq Balik, and organised by the man known only as ‘The Shadow’ – have demanded an immediate and total withdrawal of United Forces from all occupied territories, both in Asia and the Middle East. The President has been given three days to order the withdrawal.

"Threatened response to a failure to signal the pull-out is an immediate increase in terrorist attacks, against targets both military – and civilian. There will be no ransom, and no negotiating. Speaking on a previously recorded message, the kidnappers warned that the President will comply. If he does not, the message continued, in three days at midnight, he will be executed on live television.

One of the kidnappers was wounded and captured in the attack. He is now under questioning. Five Presidential Security Agents and two of President Rodriguez’s bodyguards were killed. Our thoughts are with their families – and especially with the President’s wife and two daughters. The newscaster hesitated before concluding: God bless us all.

A strong, dark-skinned hand closed the laptop lid.

The man watching looked up with red-rimmed eyes. ‘You won’t get away with it.’ The President coughed before continuing: ‘You’re the world’s most wanted man. Do you honestly think they won’t find you?’

The other man turned. He was tall and composed, and his jet-black beard and glittering dark eyes contrasted with his white robes in a way that imbued him with an unsettling, almost regal ferocity. The softness of his voice could not conceal the fire within as he said: ‘Where I come from, you are the world’s most wanted man. And I am getting away with it.’

‘Fine.’ The President stared listlessly about the cave. ‘Kill me. Show everyone, as if they need reminding, what a barbarian you are.’

‘Barbarian?’ The Terrorist took a step forward.

The movement snapped the other man from his trance. Though he wished more than anything to appear defiant, and despite the power associated with his position, the President could not help but flinch. Around him in the cave, the Terrorist’s men held weapons ready.

‘You dare talk to me of barbarianism.’ The Terrorist bit the words. ‘You, who send your armies to our lands unasked and impose your godless ways. You do not understand our religion, our culture – you do not even speak our language. You kill women and children with your so-called guided weapons – and you expect us to embrace this civilised society, this democracy?’

‘You’ve brought this war on yourselves. You, and your deluded bunch of chimpanzees.’ The President nodded at the soldiers surrounding him. ‘It’s the rest of your people I feel sorry for.’

‘My people were free until you came with your meddling ways.’

‘Free?’ The President let out a cackle. ‘What do you call free? Is it free to live in constant fear: fear of tyrants like you, slaves to a false God?’

‘You would know about slavery,’ the Terrorist returned, drawing closer still. ‘If there was ever a country to make people slaves, is it not yours? Slaves to money, to television and fast food; slaves to foolish and selfish dreams. Dreams which never come true or, if they do, are yet empty as the souls who believe them. You tell me about a false God. Here is the real tyranny.’ The two men’s noses almost touched.

The Terrorist straightened. Composed once more, he said: ‘This talk matters little.’ He brushed at a sleeve. ‘You have three days.’ With a wave, the men set about removing the laptop and crates from the cave. The rough, iron fingers that had restrained him now bit into the President’s soft shoulders and hoisted him like a child onto a chair. In seconds, he was tied fast. He caught only a glimpse of the colossus that bound him, but it left him cold: in the glaring white light, half of the man’s face was a jagged terrain of scars. The hatred from his single eye drilled holes in the President’s mind.

‘No doubt you will find it absurd to neither watch nor appear on your holy television for three whole days,’ the Terrorist continued, ‘but that is how it is.’ His job finished, the colossus rose and moved darkly away. The Terrorist leaned in once more. ‘The next transmission will be either you ordering the withdrawal – or me cutting your throat. May Allah help you make the wiser choice.’ With a swirl of robes, he departed.

Save for a solitary, silent gunman, the President was left alone. Moments later, the spotlights mounted high on the cavern’s walls went out. With the gloom came a preternatural stillness. Little natural light filtered into the cave. Past some hulking boulders, a dusty tunnel wove its lengthy way up to the world outside. A couple of bare bulbs hanging from the makeshift scaffold that reinforced the ceiling were now the only comfort. The faint hum of a generator somewhere off in an antechamber was the only sound.

It must be nearly sunset, the President thought gloomily. What a change from sunrise: out cantering across the hillside on horseback, the breeze blowing, long-grass sweeping by beneath his feet. And then that ominous sound: rotor blades, unexpected, over the growl of an engine. They were so busy looking up and shouting instructions, they never saw the ambush on the ground. All he could remember was the blast of gunfire and a body bearing him to the ground. A body that soon went limp beside him; a language he could not understand, but the sound of which filled him with dread. A blindfold. A chaffing gag in his mouth. And then he was being lifted – onto his feet and up, up into a suddenly dark sky.

It could only have been a desert they walked across after touching down, what felt like a lifetime later. Where, though, he mused dejectedly, was beyond his power to ascertain. Had they crossed the border, back into his native country? Surely, even his current captor was not so daring. Then again, the President thought, frowning, wouldn’t that be just the kind of stunt to appeal to his deranged mind? How smug he must be, watching the farce of the civilised nations unfold. Whatever the case, Rodriguez was in for one hell of a battering now. Relations between the neighbours had been lukewarm before at best, and his counterpart was not well-known for tact during inflammatory situations. Well, he was in the glare of the spotlight now. That oily tongue was going to be tripping every diplomatic tripwire in the ensuing press minefield. Though even this seemed to matter little in the present situation. The only thing that mattered was: could anyone do anything to find him?

The President coughed sand. The desert: his thoughts returned to the morning’s fearful journey. Almost nobody had spoken. The heat was relentless. The President was almost relieved when, hours later, they pushed him roughly to his knees in the coolness. The respite was short-lived. Here was the world’s most dangerous man – his sworn enemy – and he was utterly at his mercy. Mercy, it appeared, that was in short supply. He had been given a choice though, in essence, there was none. To save his own life would mean giving up every conviction he had lived for; that had taken him to his position as leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. Even if he did, what was being asked was impossible. It was too late now to turn back the wheel. They could not withdraw. It just couldn’t be done. They would lose all that they’d fought for. Everything.

The President stared at the bare rock where the laptop had been. How much can change in a single day, he thought. The image of his family came to him, and especially that of his youngest daughter. Her pretty, young features formed a plea: Please – come home, they implored. The President’s fists tightened in their bonds. He glanced about his gloomy prison. There was but one way in or out of the cave and he had no idea how many captors were gathered beyond, their minds full of violence as they waited. He figured he’d need a dozen armed men at least to guarantee a safe escape. Yet he was one man, tied to a chair. The President’s shoulders sank. Someone would come and save him, surely? Damn it, he was the leader of the free world; it wasn’t as if his absence would go unnoticed.

‘Someone will find me,’ he breathed into the hunkering silence. The guard did not flinch. Someone would come. Wouldn’t they?

The President drew in a deep sigh. Whatever happened, he had a feeling that the next three days would not be so slow to pass.

Outside the cave where the world’s most valuable hostage was pondering his fate, a boy was making tea.

At seventeen, Hassan was the youngest member of the kidnapping party, but his responsibilities were no less crucial than those of any man there. To him fell the tasks of ordering the provisions and ammunition, cleaning the weapons and the men’s boots and clothes, and taking care of the First Aid. His main duty, however, was to feed and water the men and, to a lesser extent, the hostage. Hassan preferred to boil water over a crackling open fire, as he did when they trained up in the mountains near his homeland. Here, no fire was allowed, lest spotter planes or anyone else for that matter saw the smoke. A bit overly cautious, perhaps, he thought as he poured from the ungainly thermos into plastic cups. I mean, out here – in the middle of the desert. Still, given the situation there was no point taking chances. They were still within the borders of the President’s home country, after all.

The cups all filled and passed around the taciturn handful of men, Hassan went in to refill the thermos. Just inside the cave’s jagged entrance was a natural alcove, where the generator and a bank of backup batteries were installed. Several cables ran like thin, black snakes down the tunnel to the vast main cavern, which from here was barely a faint glow in the darkness. A few of the leads branched off into a smaller recess, and this Hassan now entered.

He paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Around the walls of the antechamber by the bedding were leant guns and combat equipment, some used that very morning in the ambush. Hassan had heard several of the President’s bodyguard had been killed. He knew how to shoot and maintain a weapon himself, of course – that was a given in this business. He had never actually aimed one at another human being. He wondered briefly which of those sinister sentinels between now and sunrise had ended a man’s life.

The sound of his master’s voice in the tunnel drew Hassan away from his thoughts. He hurried over to the electric samovar that kept the water near boiling during the day and filled the thermos. After a couple of minutes, he strained the leaves and quickly replaced the lid. They may have been out in the wilderness, he thought, but the tea can still be good. Stacked up in the corner by the samovar were rations and medical supplies and, in the main cavern, jerry cans with enough fresh water to last the coming three days. Hassan walked out towards the heat once more. A mild breeze stirred the camouflaged awning that blended with the reddish rock overhanging the entrance. A dozen men could sit comfortably behind it without the risk of being seen from either land or air. There were fewer than that now. Of the three helicopters that had left the neighbouring President’s ranch after the ambush, two were decoys. The one carrying the hostage had dropped its team at the outer secure perimeter, ten kilometres from the cave. Hassan did not know whether the news had reported it, but none of the helicopters had since been traced.

He handed tea to his master. The Terrorist received it wordlessly. He sipped slowly and methodically, staring out through the awning over the desert.

‘We have the West on its knees,’ said the Terrorist after a while. He looked at Hassan. ‘In three days, it will crawl home like the scurvy dog it is. If not, we shall give it a blow from which it will never recover.’

Hassan nodded. He smiled nervously.

Whatever had been said of this man, the most wanted human being in the western world, none could deny his imposing presence. Tall, with fine features and ink-black hair and eyes, his proud bearing imparted respect and fear and awe to those who crossed his path. Which these days, in person at least, was very few. The crow’s feet about the Terrorist’s watchful eyes told of long years spent in inhospitable climes far beyond civilisation’s boundaries. The sort of places now rare on Earth, which sheltered only fugitives and madmen.

As always, Hassan stood respectfully a little behind and to one side of his master to await his command. How he had come to be in the Terrorist’s service seemed a blur, like an