The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

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The assassination of the President of Pakistan was the signal that the offensive for Daulah Islamiah Nusantara should begin.

Ahmed Memed, Professor of history at Zamboanga University in the southern Philippines, locked his study door and logged on to the Internet. He flicked through the BBC News site, visited a couple of Islamic websites, then entered a site bookmarked www.onlylesbian.com where a full picture came up of an Asian girl and a European girl making love in a rock pool underneath a waterfall.

On a message board attached to the site, Memed typed in the simple words, 'We'll do it together, now.' He lingered longer than usual to ensure that it had been accepted, knowing the risk of his Internet surfing patterns being picked up by the US National Security Agency at Fort Meade, near Baltimore. But it would be impossible for the NSA to track the dozens of young men and women flicking through the same site at Internet cafes throughout the Philippines. While just about any other site would profile an Internet user, the surfing of pornography was in high demand from men regardless of age, religion or politics.

Memed used a dated one-use keypad to coordinate his surfing with his allies in Pakistan. Without ever having direct contact, messages were transferred through a different sequence of web pages. A back-up sequence was in place, in case the web server was down. The sequence could only be matched between the sequence on the pads.

Having spent much of his career in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Memed had moved to the southern Philippines after the 2001 War on Terror began. Since the US campaign had then pitted Christians against Muslims, the southern Philippines became fertile ground for Memed. When asked where he came from, Memed said he had no nation except the nation of Islam. In truth, he was the son of a Saudi Arabian diplomat and had been educated in London and Melbourne. He went against his father by leaving Melbourne University in his first year and returning to Saudi Arabia, where he became a disciple of the eighteenth-century preacher Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. He had helped spread Wahhabism through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had now successfully instilled it in the Muslim heartlands of the Philippines.

In his preachings in the historic Talangkusay mosque in Zamboanga, he spoke about the fourth Moro Jihad. The first was against the Spanish invasion lasting from 1521 to 1898, a total of 377 years. The second began immediately against the American colonizers whom the Muslims fought for forty-seven years until 1946. The third phase challenged their new Filipino masters. It saw the great Moro wars of the 1970s, and was peppered with failed peace agreements and treacherous leaders until 2001, when America's War against Terror galvanized them into another, less reckless campaign, which Memed hoped would now be the end game.

Now in his early fifties, Memed's life had been one of extreme luxury and extreme hardship. Yet his hair, which he wore down past his ears, still retained its colour, and only recently had streaks of grey appeared in his beard. Memed himself was not a fighter: he was an academic. Nor was he in any sense a practical politician. His speeches were too ethereal, the vision too loosely defined. His moods were often dark, alienating all but his closest friends. But he did stir the emotions of the poor. Steeped as he was in Islamic history, he became famous for his speeches and was spoken of as their new Ayatollah.

Memed closed down the laptop, stepped briefly out on to the balcony, but heard nothing yet except the normal barking of dogs, shouts between neighbours and impatient traffic horns of a Zamboanga night. He came back in, turned on CNN and waited.

For Memed, Zamboanga was a perfect staging post, a city built as if on the edge of the world, a hot, impatient trading town whose filthy harbour and slums marked the beginning of the great Sulu Archipelago, a scattering of islands stretching down to Malaysia and Indonesia, inhabited by poor, untamed and honourable people who still defied the sovereignty of the Philippine flag. They were violent, proud and brooding with resentment.

First was the island of Basilan. Then came Jolo and Tawitawi, all almost completely under Moro control. The Philippine marine contingents were confined to barracks and could only resupply by helicopter. A short boat ride from the edge of the Tawitawi Islands was the eastern tip of Sabah, governed by Malaysia, but deeply infiltrated by Islamic fighters. If things worked as planned, the insurgency would take hold in Sabah, move across Sarawak, then into the Sultanate of Brunei itself, so that the whole of the north Borneo coastline would have fallen. There was also the oil.

Just as CNN broke into its programming to report an outbreak of Muslim guerrilla attacks against military installations throughout the southern Philippines, Memed heard the distant hum of a helicopter.

'Hassan,' he shouted, although there was no one else in the room. 'Hassan.'

The CNN presenter, reading from copy just dropped on her desk, updated her report with news that guerrillas had destroyed helicopters and attack aircraft at bases in Zamboanga, Cotabato City, Dipolog and Pagadian. Senior military officers had been captured, their bodies booby-trapped with explosives. Radio and television stations had been taken off the air. Highways between major cities had now been cut. Armoured vehicles sent to confront the guerrillas were ambushed, the soldiers killed, with no prisoners being taken. It was impossible for Memed to know how many would die in those first hours. There had never been an offensive like it in modern guerrilla warfare. But Memed had estimated 20 per cent of his 100,000 fighters would not live to see the next dawn.

Outside, a round of automatic gunfire shattered the quiet of Memed's compound. He heard shouts and the heavy boots of Philippine marine commandos stomping through the courtyard outside. Memed's bodyguard burst into the room.

'Quick, Hassan. Quick,' snapped Memed. More gunfire erupted below.

Memed turned over his laptop, clipped off the base and took out the hard disk. Hassan Muda was on the balcony with an M-16 rifle and a flashlight, its beam shutting on and off, pointing towards the helicopter, but hardly visible against the morning sun which blazed into their eyes.

Three armoured vehicles were lined up outside the compound. A dead guard lay in the dust, a pool of blood soaking into the dirt beside his head.

Muda raised his weapon to fire down on the soldiers. Memed knocked the barrel down. The roar of the helicopter engine now drowned out everything. They both looked skywards. A black silhouette came towards them out of the sun. The tops of the palm trees blew backwards and forwards, as if there was a typhoon. The helicopter swooped in low, and Memed saw the dry soil of the compound, kicked up by machine gun fire, spraying around the Philippine troops who were moving in. They scattered and the helicopter turned to come round, its bullets firing in a straight line towards the verandah where chunks of concrete flew out and a window shattered. Then the helicopter was gone over the roof.

It appeared again, its nose lowered. Memed saw leaves flutter down from the trees, and small branches, too, as bullets cut through them. The soldiers below crouched in cover, as the helicopter slowed and hovered. A cable from the winch was lowered.

Muda stepped back to let Memed go first, but the older man pushed his bodyguard forward. 'You are needed more than I,' he shouted. 'Take the cable, and hold me, too.' Muda strapped himself into the harness. He held out his arms and took Memed like a child, his tunic flapping around his legs in the gale created by the rotor blades. The pilot lifted them away, swinging precariously, but Muda held on.

Yes, Memed had been right in his choice of bodyguard. And he had been right in judging the weaknesses of a Philippine army colonel who, faced with a threat and a sum of money, had sent in the helicopter to save Memed's life.