Free A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

millions of grinning kafirs whose lives were so empty it was fun for them to know that someone had 'jabbed' their photograph. Dear oh dear. It was almost a relief to know that the main practical use of the site was for sex; at least it had some function - for paedophiles to cruise, for teenage boys to rope in likely-looking girls for sex parties or for older kafirs to find 'fuck buddies'. Hassan visited the site daily, but left the room while his Internet record clocked up some plausible hours in this parody of a human world.
    Today, he was going to meet for the first time the people with whom he was to wage jihad. The most famous group at this level of activity, boasting that it had precipitated coups in African states as well as fighting in Bosnia and Kuwait, was Hizb ut-Tahrir; but the alliance to which Hassan now belonged claimed to talk less than Hizb and to bomb more. It was called Husam Nar (which translated roughly, he knew from Arabic studies, as Burning Sword), though it rarely referred to itself by this or any other name; it was an organisation with no headquarters and no records. What it did have was money, and this, Salim told Hassan, came mostly from Saudi Arabia. This news was comforting to Hassan; to know that the money came from the country of Mecca and Medina reassured him in his new identity. Hassan's gradual progress from local mosque through youth organisations of gradually increasing extremism had been typical enough. The distinctive factor had been the single mentor, Salim. Most young men left behind their early guides in the course of their ascent, but Salim had been with Hassan from the beginning, like a wise uncle.
    Having looked up the street name in the A to Z , Hassan memorised the route from the Tube station and ten minutes later found himself turning into a street with rusty Japanese cars along the kerb and a busy outdoor life - children, men and women of all ages talking in their front gardens, despite the cold, or smoking on the pavement. The house he was directed to looked as shabby as the rest, with one windowpane boarded up and thick grey net curtains on the ground floor. There were three bells by the front door, each with its own wire drilled through the jamb. Hassan pressed 'Ashaf', as instructed, and heard heavy footsteps on the uncarpeted hall. It was Salim.
    'Come in, brother. You're the last to arrive.'
    The others were gathered in the back room on the first floor. First, they knelt on the bare floorboards and prayed, facing Walthamstow.
    One of them, Hassan noticed, seemed ill at ease. Although he bent low, he didn't seem to know the words of the prayers.
    'All right, brothers,' said Salim. 'This house is ours for as long as we need it. We will all leave at different times, just as we arrived at twenty-minute intervals today. Don't speak to anyone in the street as you walk away, but don't be unfriendly. If someone asks you for a light or says hello, just smile vaguely. Do nothing anyone might remember. Now, I want you to introduce yourselves to one another and pick a kafir name that will be yours from now on. When you pick a name, it must be something easy to remember, something that's connected with where you come from. For instance, I'm from the East End so I'll call myself Alfie. It's an old cockney name.'
    He nodded at a boy of about Hassan's age with the remains of acne showing through his sparse beard. He cleared his throat, but his voice caught nervously. 'My name is Akbar,' he said. 'As you can probably tell, I'm from Yorkshire.'
    'Aye. 'appen.' This was said, in imitation of the Yorkshire accent, by the man who seemed not to know how to say his prayers properly; he was tall, about twenty-five, with a yellowish skin colour and a gold tooth. ''appen we'll call thee Seth, lad,' he said.
    Salim looked at the youth. 'Is that all right? Seth?'
    The boy nodded, though he didn't look happy about it.
    'Where are you from?' Hassan asked the man with the gold tooth.
    'My name is Ravi.