First Response Read online

  She liked working in Southside. When it had opened in 1971, more than twenty years before Zoe was born, it had been the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe. There were plenty of larger ones now, but it was still among the biggest in London, with more than half a million square feet of retail space taking up much of Wandsworth town centre. Zoe lived half a mile away and ever since she had left school she’d worked at the centre. The boutique was her fifth sales job in the complex and she was starting to think about moving again. She’d already dropped her CV into Gap, Next and River Island.

  The woman was still trying to decide whether or not Zoe had insulted her. Another customer walked in and Zoe used his arrival as an excuse to turn away from the overweight mother. It was a man, an Asian, and he looked lost. He was tall and thin and wearing a raincoat. He looked around as if expecting to see someone. ‘Can I help you?’ asked Zoe.

  The man flinched as if he had been struck.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Zoe. The man’s forehead was bathed in sweat and he was breathing quickly, as if he’d just been running.

  The man nodded and forced a smile. He was in his twenties, with glossy black hair, a close-cropped beard and dark brown eyes that reminded Zoe of a puppy she’d had when she was a kid. It had disappeared when she was ten. Her mother said it had run away but Zoe had always suspected it had been run over and her mother hadn’t wanted to tell her.

  The man walked towards her and she realised something was wrong. She took a step backwards and banged into a rack of jeans. She yelped in surprise and tried to slip to the side but he was already in front of her, blocking her way. His hand clamped around her wrist and she felt something click, then cold metal. She looked down. He’d handcuffed her.

  He grinned in triumph and stepped back, unbuttoning his coat. Zoe’s blood ran cold as she saw what was beneath it. She’d seen enough photographs of bombers to recognise a suicide vest when she saw one – blocks of explosives, detonators and wires all bundled onto a canvas waistcoat. And in the man’s right hand, a trigger that he held high in the air above his head.

  ‘Allahu Akbar!’ the man screamed. ‘Stay where you are or everybody will die!’

  BRIXTON (10.25 a.m.)

  Father Morrison smiled at the man in the suicide vest, the same sort of smile he used at funerals when consoling the recently bereaved and assuring them that their loved one was in a better place, basking in God’s glory. ‘What is your name, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you care?’ snapped the man.

  ‘We are both human beings in a stressful situation,’ said the priest. He raised his right hand and jiggled the chain that connected them to emphasise his point. ‘Surely I should know the name of the man I’ve been chained to.’

  ‘You talk too much.’

  ‘That’s my job,’ said the priest. ‘Anyway, I’m Father Morrison, but you can call me Sean. Or Father Sean.’

  ‘I don’t have to call you anything.’ The man turned to face the parishioners, who had followed his instructions and sat together in the front two rows of pews, close to the altar. ‘How many of you have phones? If you have a phone, hold it up in the air.’

  Several held up their phones immediately. The rest fumbled in their pockets and bags and after a minute or so most of them had their hands in the air.

  ‘Now, listen to me and listen carefully,’ said the man. ‘You are to use your phones to text your friends, and to post on Facebook and Twitter and anywhere else you want. You are to tell the world that you are now prisoners of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. You are to explain that ISIS demands the release of its six warriors who are being held in Belmarsh Prison. You are to say that if the six warriors are not released, you will be executed.’

  A middle-aged woman in the front pew began to weep and her husband put a protective arm around her.

  ‘When the prisoners are released we’ll all be going home. Just spread the word and tell as many people as you can. Nobody has to die here today.’

  Some of the parishioners began to tap away on their phones.

  ‘Is that true, what you just said?’ whispered Father Morrison.

  ‘Inshallah,’ said the man, quietly. ‘If Allah wills.’

  FULHAM (10.45 a.m.)

  Eddie Cotterill sighed as he pushed open the door to the Fulham Road post office and saw there were at least a dozen people queuing, with only one member of staff on duty. He did a quick calculation in his head – twelve people, two minutes a pop, he was going to be there for a good twenty-five minutes. And half the queue were elderly, which meant they’d be moving slowly, and a scruffy student type was holding five boxes, which Eddie figured would each have to be weighed and probably need Customs forms. He looked at his watch. Ten forty-five, and he had to be in the office at eleven because a client wanted to view a two-bedroom flat that had just come on the market. Eddie prided himself on always being punctual, so his godson’s birthday card would just have to wait.

  He turned to go out but his way was blocked by a bearded Asian man wearing a long coat. Eddie held the door open for him. ‘After you, mate,’ he said.

  The Asian didn’t seem to hear him, just pushed his way past. He smelt rancid, as if he hadn’t bathed for several days. ‘You’re welcome,’ muttered Eddie, though, having lived in London for most of his twenty-eight years, he was well used to rudeness in all its forms.

  He kept hold of the door as the man joined the end of the queue. There was something wrong about him and it wasn’t just the smell. He was nervous, and seemed to have a twitch that made him flick his head to the left every few seconds. He had dark circles around his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for days. Eddie frowned but decided he had better things to do than worry about an Asian guy with mental-health issues. He was about to let go of the door when the man shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and grabbed at the arm of the woman in front of him. He fastened something metallic to the woman’s wrist, then stepped back, raising one hand in the air. ‘Stay where you are or you’ll all die!’ the man shouted.

  Eddie was already running down the street, the birthday card fluttering to the pavement.

  BRIXTON (10.47 a.m.)

  ‘Trojan Four Five One, attend Corpus Christi church in Brixton Hill. Reports of a suicide bomber.’

  ‘Say again, Control,’ said Baz Waterford, leaning forward to get his ear closer to the speaker. He was in the passenger seat of a high-powered BMW X5.

  ‘We’re getting nine-nine-nine calls from people saying that parishioners at the Corpus Christi church are being held hostage by a suicide bomber.’

  Waterford looked at Bill Collins, who was driving the armed-response vehicle with the casual professionalism that came from more than a decade in the job.

  ‘On our way, Control,’ said Waterford. He looked at Collins. ‘Blues and twos?’

  Collins grinned. ‘Probably a hoax,’ he said. ‘But if it isn’t, sirens will only spook him. Anyway, we’re five minutes away at most and the traffic’s light.’ He pressed down the accelerator and the car leaped forward.

  ‘A suicide bomber in a church sounds a bit unlikely,’ said Mickey Davies, from the back seat. He was a relative newcomer to the ARV team, but had already proved himself calm under pressure. All his shooting to date had been on the range but he was a first-class shot. Unlike Waterford, who was greying, and Collins, whose hair was receding by the day, Davies had a head of jet-black locks that he held in place with a smattering of gel.

  ‘You never know,’ said Waterford.

  Collins got to the church in a little over four minutes. He brought the car to a halt close to the railings at the entrance. Immediately Davies began unpacking the three SIG Sauer 516 assault rifles. The SIG 516, with its telescoping stock and thirty-round magazine, had replaced the Heckler & Koch G36 as the Met’s assault rifle of choice.

  Davies handed out the weapons and all three officers checked they were locked and loaded.

  ‘Right, in we go,’ said Waterford, looking up at the red-brick
building with its tall spire and vaulted stained-glass windows overlooking the street. ‘Softly softly, a quick recce and that’s all. If we see anything like a suicide bomber we fall back and set up a primary and secondary perimeter.’

  Waterford led the way through a gate in the railings and up the path to the entrance. Davies and Collins were either side but further back. All clicked their safeties off with the thumbs of their left hands but kept their trigger fingers outside the trigger guard.

  The door to the church was closed. Waterford reached out slowly for the handle. It turned but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked at Collins. ‘Do they lock churches?’

  ‘It’s Brixton, they lock everything,’ said Collins. ‘But there should be a mass about this time of the day.’

  Waterford pushed harder but the door wouldn’t budge. He put his ear to it but the wood was thick and he doubted he’d hear anything even if there was a choir in full song on the other side.

  ‘There’ll be a back entrance,’ said Collins, heading to the rear of the church, which butted onto a Catholic school. Waterford and Davies followed him, cradling their SIGs.

  There was another, smaller, door at the back that led to what appeared to be an office. There were a couple of computers, a printer and shelves full of filing cabinets. One door led to a toilet and another opened into a corridor that went into the church. Waterford took the lead, with Davies and Collins spaced out behind him.

  There was another door at the end of the corridor. Waterford turned the handle slowly, then pulled it towards him. He nodded at his companions, then opened the door fully. They stepped into the rear of the church. Ahead of them was the altar, and beyond that the pews. The parishioners were packed into the front two rows and most of them seemed to have their heads down as if they were praying. As Waterford moved towards them, he realised they were all holding phones. He stopped and raised his hand. Davies and Collins froze behind him.

  Waterford frowned. There was no priest at the altar, and the only sound was the faint clicks as the parishioners tapped on their phones. He took a tentative step forward and froze again as he spotted the priest further back in the pews. A middle-aged Asian man was sitting next to him, his beard flecked with grey. The priest saw Waterford and stiffened. The Asian noticed the reaction and leaped to his feet. His coat fell open and Waterford saw a canvas vest with wires connecting various pockets. There was something black in the man’s right hand and the left was connected to a steel chain that snaked towards the priest.

  ‘It’s a suicide vest!’ hissed Davies, stating the obvious.

  ‘Get out!’ screamed the Asian man. ‘Get out or we’ll all die.’

  Waterford couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. ‘No problem,’ said Waterford. ‘We’re leaving. Just stay calm. We’ll get someone to come and talk to you.’ He took a quick look over his shoulder. ‘Back away, lads,’ he said. ‘We need to de-escalate this now.’

  ‘The ISIS prisoners must be released or we will all die here!’ shouted the man.

  ‘I understand,’ said Waterford. ‘Just stay calm. We’re leaving.’

  He stepped back and gently closed the door.

  ‘Did you see that?’ said Davies. ‘That’s a bloody suicide vest he’s got on.’

  Waterford ushered them down the corridor and back into the office. ‘Mickey, you need to evacuate the school now,’ he said. ‘Talk to the head teacher, get everyone out and away from the church. I’ll call it in and get you back-up.’

  As Davies headed towards the school, Waterford took a deep breath as he called up the mental checklist of everything that needed to be done now that he had confirmed there was a suicide bomber on the premises. He reached up to activate the microphone by his neck. ‘Control, this is Trojan Four Five One, receiving?’

  SCOTLAND YARD, VICTORIA EMBANKMENT (10.50 a.m.)

  Superintendent Mo Kamran sighed as he looked at his email inbox. It was the first chance he’d had to check his email that morning and already more than a hundred messages were waiting for his attention. Some were spam, offering him cheap Viagra or a mail-order bride from Russia, but most were nonsense generated by jobsworths in the Met with nothing better to do. While the number of constables walking the beat or manning the capital’s stations had been consistently reduced over the past decades, the ranks of office workers in health and safety, racial awareness, equality and human resources had swelled to the point where the majority of Met staff had never even seen a criminal up close. The rot had set in at about the time that the Metropolitan Police had started to refer to itself as a service, rather than a force, and the public as customers, rather than villains and victims. Kamran had been a police officer for twenty years and a superintendent for two. As part of the promotion he had been moved away from what he saw as real policing – latterly on the Gangs and Organised Crime Unit – to an office job that he frankly hated. He was running Emergency Preparedness within the Special Crime and Operations branch, and most of his time was spent dealing with the London Emergency Services Liaison Panel. LESLP met every three months and consisted of representatives from the Met, the London Fire Brigade, the City of London Police, the British Transport Police, the London Ambulance Service, the Coastguard, the Port of London Authority and representatives from the city’s local authorities.

  The main thrust of the LESLP’s work was to prepare for major emergencies, anything from a terrorist incident to a meteorite strike, and to make sure that when something major did happen, all the different agencies knew what they had to do. Kamran’s two years on the LESLP had been the worst of his professional life. The police representatives were easy enough to deal with, as were the Fire Brigade and the Ambulance Service, who were in the same boat as the police, being asked to do more on operational budgets that were constantly being slashed. But the bureaucrats working for the local authorities were a nightmare. They were all primarily concerned with protecting their own little empires and tended to nitpick and argue over every tiny detail. What made it worse was that the local authority representatives tended to be paid a lot more than the emergency service members, and drove better cars.

  Kamran had asked for a transfer several times but had always been knocked back. He was doing a valuable job, he was told, and the earliest he would be moved would be following the completion of a new version of the LESLP manual, which detailed who should do what in the event of pretty much every conceivable disaster that might befall London. He sipped his coffee and started to go through the emails. Even the most tedious and pedantic required at least an acknowledgement that he had received it and understood the contents. At least half came from the local authority bureaucrats, who seemed to think that the longer the email, the more they were justifying their six-figure salaries.

  He was halfway through the seventh email when his intercom buzzed. ‘It’s the deputy commissioner,’ said his secretary. ‘Urgent.’ She put the call through before he could reply.

  The deputy commissioner got straight to the point. It was clear from his voice that he was under pressure. ‘Mo, we’ve a major terrorist incident on the go and I need you as Gold Commander for the time being. From the look of it, it’s an Operation Plato. Drop everything and get to GT Ops. I’ll call you back on your mobile and brief you en route.’

  ‘On my way, sir,’ said Kamran. The line went dead. Kamran’s heart was pounding. Operation Plato was one of the worst scenarios they trained for: a multi-seated terrorist attack on the city. GT Ops was the call sign for the Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre. There were three command centres in London, in Bow, Lambeth and Hendon. Between them, they handled the city’s daily six thousand emergency and fifteen thousand non-emergency calls. They were also used to provide specialist communications for major incidents, with experts from the police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance and any other of the emergency services that might be needed. Kamran grabbed his jacket and briefcase and rushed to the door. His secretary was standing at her desk, looking worried. He flashed her a confiden
t smile. ‘Have my car downstairs, Amy, I’m going to GT Ops. Take messages for me and I’ll check in with you when I get the time. Clear my diary for the day and tell the Rotary Club that I won’t be able to do that talk this evening.’

  Kamran’s mobile phone buzzed as he headed for the stairs. Reception was patchy at best in the lifts so he took the stairs down to the ground floor. ‘We have three suicide bombers in the city,’ said the deputy commissioner. ‘Brixton, Wandsworth and Fulham. The attacks appear to be coordinated and we fear there could be more coming. I’ve arranged for MI5 and the SAS to be represented at GT Ops but, as Gold Commander, it’s your show, Mo.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Kamran, though he knew his show could well turn out to be a poisoned chalice.

  ‘We have armed-response vehicles at all three locations and hostage negotiation teams on the way. We don’t know what their demands are yet but there’s no need to tell you this is going to be a tough one.’

  ‘I hear you, sir.’

  ‘We’ll try to get a more senior officer over later this morning but at the moment you’re the most qualified. Good luck.’

  Kamran put his phone away as he hurried down the stairs. He was going to need more than luck, he was sure of that. He pushed open the door that led to the reception area and walked outside. His car was already waiting for him, engine running.

  KENSINGTON (11.10 a.m.)

  There were times when Sally Jones would quite happily have given Max Dunbar a smack across the face. He truly was a nasty piece of work, mean-spirited with a foul temper and a tendency to bite. The snag was that Max was four years old and Sally was a twenty-seven-year-old childcare professional, paid to take care of him and another dozen children of the rich and well connected. There was a waiting list to join the Little Kensington Nursery and it was able to pick and choose who it accepted. Sally just wished the owners had been a little more selective when it came to Max. His parents were go-getters in the City, the father a merchant banker, the mother in PR, but the high six-figure salaries meant they had little time for child-rearing and Max was an only child so had few, if any, social skills.