Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda by Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, Tim Lister Read Free Book Online

smugness, ‘you are under arrest in connection with the attempted robbery of a bank.’
    I had nothing to do with the break-in and thought they were just trying to annoy me. Expecting that I would be back at the restaurant in a matter of minutes, I shouted to my friends: ‘Keep the beers cold.’
    I was wrong. I never tasted the beer and never saw Tyson bite off part of Holyfield’s ear.
    Instead I spent the night in a police waiting room, studying the bare walls and reflecting on my situation. Once again, just as I seemed to be getting ahead, sensing progress and even stability, my past and my reputation had pulled me back.
    It’s never going to end, I thought. They’re just going to keep coming after me. So long as I am in Korsør I’ll be a marked man, rotating between life in a gang on the outside to life in a much worse gang inside. I don’t want to spend half my life in prison.
    The next morning, waiting for yet another court appearance, I said to myself, very simply: ‘It’s over.’
    It was time to change my life, not just its trappings, before I was dragged into a never-ending cycle of court appearances, jail sentences and attempts at rehabilitation. I was remanded in custody for ten days. I knew several Bandidos who had been involved in the bank job but refused to give names. Loyalty still mattered. But my brief stay in Køge prison was a landmark because it reinforced the values and self-discipline I was beginning to learn as a new Muslim.
    My first act was symbolic. I declared myself a Muslim to the prison authorities and refused to eat pork. Then I met a fellow convert, Suleiman, who had a profound and immediate impact on me. Suleiman, with his shaven head, looked like Bruce Willis. He was inside onweapons charges, but that did not prevent him from lecturing me about Islam and membership of the Bandidos being irreconcilable.
    ‘You have to choose,’ he said one afternoon as we wandered through the exercise yard. ‘Allah cannot accept you as a true Muslim if you are going to drink and do drugs and go through your life without good intentions. The heart is the sanctuary of Allah; so do not allow anyone to dwell therein except Allah.’
    Suleiman’s words rang true. It was time to put the Bandidos behind me. Islam was already beginning to change me, not as a weekly or even daily rite but as a belief system that would influence and soon dictate my every action.
    A Palestinian friend had given me a key ring with ‘Allah’ inscribed on it; I treasured it. I began keeping the Koran in the highest place in the room, out of respect.
    Another inmate I met in Køge was a Palestinian Dane named Mustapha Darwich Ramadan. His trade was armed robbery in the cause of jihad. He was in solitary confinement and I could hear him praying. I managed to slip him some fruit and we were able to talk briefly. He would later resurface in one of the most brutal videos to emerge in Iraq.
    No charges were brought against me over the robbery and I walked out of Køge determined to leave Denmark as soon as possible – and to avoid Bandidos members. Some could not accept that I had left the gang and even suspected that I was planning to join the Hell’s Angels. I felt like I was on the run; I kept a loaded gun on me at all times, moving from place to place.
    Suleiman was released from jail soon after. His wife’s family were Pakistanis and had settled in central England. He was planning to join them – and his old van represented my escape route to a new life.
    On an overcast early summer day we set off for Calais and then crossed the English Channel. The white cliffs of Dover – more a dirty eggshell – invited me towards a new adventure. I was leaving behind some angry bikers and a chaotic love life. I had discovered that Samar, whose sex drive was apparently insatiable, had been less than angelic while I was behind bars. I had even begun seeing Vibeke again but had soon realized that I wanted Samar back. She had visited me