First Response Read online

  ‘They’re fighting for what they believe in. That doesn’t make them stupid.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘I don’t, not really, but I’d like to know who I’m handcuffed to.’

  ‘Ismail. My name is Ismail.’

  The woman grinned. ‘Seriously? Ishmael?’

  She spelled it out for him and he shook his head. ‘I-S-M-A-I-L,’ he said. ‘It means “heard by Allah”.’

  ‘It’s also one of the most famous opening lines in literature,’ she said. ‘“Call me Ishmael.” That’s how Moby-Dick starts.’

  ‘Moby-Dick?’

  ‘You’ve heard of Moby-Dick, surely. The novel by Herman Melville. About Captain Ahab, the whaler, and his hunt for the great white whale?’

  Hussain shook his head. ‘I don’t read much,’ he said.

  ‘That’s your loss,’ she said. ‘So tell me, Ismail, do you believe that nonsense about getting seventy-two sloe-eyed virgins in Heaven if you kill us infidels?’

  ‘That’s what it says in the Koran.’

  ‘And you believe that God wants you to grow that ridiculous beard and not eat bacon?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you being so disrespectful?’

  ‘You handcuff yourself to me and threaten to blow yourself up, and I’m the one being disrespectful? You know what, Ismail, you are a fucking idiot.’ Hussain opened his mouth to speak but he jumped when the phone began to ring again. ‘You really should answer that,’ said the woman.

  LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (12.25 p.m.)

  Sergeant Lumley jumped up from his workstation and waved at Kamran. ‘Got it,’ he said excitedly. Kamran hurried across and looked over the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘It’s a white van. It was outside three of the four locations. Haven’t seen it at the Brixton church but there isn’t much in the way of CCTV in that street.’

  ‘Same van? You’re sure?’ asked Kamran.

  Lumley pointed at his left-hand screen. It was divided into four and in three of the four sections there were close-up shots of the number-plate of the white van, two from the front, one from the rear. They matched.

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘According to the DVLA, it belongs to a company up in Birmingham.’

  ‘Get the Birmingham cops around to see the owner,’ said Kamran. ‘And find out where the van is now. Run a search through all the number-recognition databases, but focus on north and north-east London.’

  ‘I’m on it, sir,’ said Lumley.

  BRIXTON (12.28 p.m.)

  Father Morrison reached inside his vestments, pulled out a bright red handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘I’m going to need my medication,’ he said to the man chained to his wrist.

  ‘Medication? For what?’

  The priest chuckled ruefully. ‘Where do I start? High blood pressure, diabetes, gout. The flesh is failing, my son. I’m in my seventh decade, you know.’

  ‘Statins?’

  The priest nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘My doctor put me on them last year. They make my legs ache.’

  ‘Mine too. But at least the blood pressure comes down.’

  ‘They told me to stop smoking.’

  The priest smiled. ‘Me too. Chance’d be a fine thing. It’s one of the few vices that we priests are allowed.’

  ‘And where is your medicine?’

  Father Morrison waved towards the back of the church. ‘In the sacristy.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the room where we change into our vestments. Over there, by the altar.’

  ‘We have to stay here.’

  ‘One of my parishioners can get it.’

  ‘Everyone stays here,’ said the man. ‘I need to be able to see everyone.’

  The priest dabbed his forehead again, then blew his nose before slipping the handkerchief back into his pocket. ‘Why are you doing this, my son?’

  ‘You know why. They want the six ISIS prisoners released.’

  ‘And why are they in prison?’

  ‘Because they are jihadists. They were in Syria, fighting for ISIS.’

  ‘I can never remember what that stands for,’ said the priest. ‘It always sounds like an insurance company. What does it stand for? ISIS?’

  The man shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know? You’re prepared to die for them and you don’t even know the name of their organisation?’

  ‘They are jihadists and they fight in Syria. Now they’re in prison. That’s all I know.’

  ‘And by threatening innocent people you think they’ll be released?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘And you do this in the name of religion? You do this for God? Your God?’

  ‘You need to shut up, priest.’

  Father Morrison took out his handkerchief again and mopped his forehead. ‘What’s your name, my son?’

  ‘I’m not your son. You’re not my father.’

  ‘I’ve already told you my name. It’s Sean. Listen, we’re human beings, aren’t we? Can’t we at least treat each other with some civility?’

  The man sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘If it’ll shut you up. My name is Rabeel.’

  The priest smiled. ‘See? That wasn’t too difficult. Now at least we know who we are.’ He put the handkerchief away. ‘And you are a Muslim?’

  Rabeel sneered at the priest. ‘What sort of question is that? Of course I’m a Muslim. One look at me and you know I am.’

  ‘Because of your beard? I have parishioners with beards. Because of the colour of your skin? Look at my parishioners, Rabeel. Most of them are of colour. This is Brixton, remember. I am the minority here.’

  Rabeel gestured at the explosives and wires in his vest. ‘How many Catholics do you see wearing vests like this?’

  The priest forced a smile. ‘Admittedly not many. But the Catholic Church has had its fair share of martyrs in the past. Do you want to be a martyr? Is that why you’re here?’

  Rabeel shook his head fiercely. ‘I don’t want to die. Not today. Not like this.’

  ‘Then take off the vest. Walk outside with me.’

  Rabeel shook his head again. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You have free will. A man’s life is made up of the decisions he takes.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know that your God wouldn’t want you desecrating a house of worship. Islam and Catholicism are not that far apart.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ snapped Rabeel. ‘Have you forgotten about the Crusades, when you Christians waged war on Islam? Millions died.’

  ‘But we have moved past that, Rabeel. Different religions can live together. We can worship our own gods and respect the right of others to worship theirs.’

  ‘Father Sean, please, just shut the fuck up, you’re doing my head in.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because you’re starting to realise the enormity of what you’re doing,’ said the priest. ‘You know this is wrong. Of course you do. Do you have a wife, Rabeel?’

  ‘Yes. I have a wife.’

  ‘And children?’

  ‘Two daughters.’

  ‘So you’re a family man. Do you want your family to live without you, Rabeel? Do you think it’s fair to them for you to be behaving like this? Is it how you want your family to remember you?’

  ‘You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,’ said Rabeel. He sighed. ‘Okay, fine, you can have your medicine if that’s what it takes to shut you up.’ He gestured at the parishioners in the front rows of the pews. ‘Tell one of the women to go and get it. One of the old women.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Father Morrison. ‘Mrs Brooks,’ he called, to an elderly West Indian lady in a large black hat with a sweeping brim. ‘Mrs Brooks, could you do me a special favour?’

  She stood up.

  ‘Be an angel. Go into the sacristy and get my medicine, will you? It
’s in my bag. The white ones. And the blue and white capsules, bring them too. Actually, bring them all. The more the merrier.’

  LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (12.30 p.m.)

  Lumley put down his phone and waved a hand to attract Kamran’s attention. ‘The Bomb Squad chief is here, sir,’ he said. ‘Tony Drury.’

  The main door to the special operations room opened and a man in a grey suit stood there, looking around uncertainly as if not sure where to go. Lumley went over to him and brought him to Kamran’s workstation. Drury was in his forties, with short grey hair and piercing blue eyes. He walked with his back ramrod straight, the sign of a military background, and he had a firm handshake.

  ‘I’m going to drop you in at the deep end and ask you to give me a view on the vests these guys are wearing,’ said Kamran. One by one he brought up CCTV photographs of the jihadists.

  Drury nodded thoughtfully as he studied the pictures. ‘How many are there?’ he asked.

  ‘Seven so far,’ said Kamran. ‘They’re the same, right? At least, they look the same.’

  ‘They’re the same design and seem to be using the same components,’ agreed Drury. ‘I’d say each has between ten and twenty-five pounds of explosive. The trigger is a push button so I’m assuming a simple circuit. Push the button and the vest explodes. From the look of it something has been wrapped around the explosive. I would guess ball bearings or nails, to create shrapnel.’

  ‘Similar to what was used on the London Tube?’

  Drury shook his head. ‘No, the Tube bombs were in backpacks. I’d say these vests would be more lethal.’

  ‘How lethal?’ asked Kamran. ‘Suppose one went off in a shop.’

  ‘It’s difficult to say,’ said Drury. ‘A lot depends on how many people are nearby, how close they are. Bodies absorb shrapnel so if you have a few people close to the site of the explosion they would take the brunt of the blast.’

  ‘But people further away might survive?’

  ‘Sure. It all depends on the type of shrapnel, the velocity, and what’s there to absorb it. Plenty of people survived the London Tube bombings. There were some people in the carriage where the bombs detonated who were completely unscathed. They were the lucky ones, of course. What locations do we have so far?’

  ‘A coffee shop. A nursery. A post office. A bus. A church. A pub. A shop.’

  ‘So no pattern, then? Not like Seven/Seven when all four bombers went down the Tube.’

  ‘This is a different situation,’ said Kamran. ‘The Tube bombings were about causing maximum casualties and spreading terror. These men want something. The bombs are a negotiating technique.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘Prisoners released from Belmarsh and a plane out of the country.’

  ‘I’m guessing they’re going to be disappointed,’ said Drury.

  ‘Is there any way of neutralising the vests at a distance?’

  Drury shook his head. ‘No, you have to remove the detonators or cut the wiring. They’re actually very simple circuits.’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry not to be more helpful.’

  ‘I just need to know where we stand,’ said Kamran. ‘Now, do you think the trigger is significant?’

  ‘Push to detonate? That’s pretty standard.’

  ‘We were thinking that a dead man’s switch would have made more sense.’

  ‘It depends on the environment,’ said Drury. ‘A dead man’s switch means that you can’t take out the man without the bomb going off. But the downside is that the operator can set it off by mistake.’ He peered at one of the pictures. ‘Looks as if they’re using Velcro strips to keep the triggers in the palm.’

  ‘Have you seen that before?’

  ‘It’s a technique used in Israel, by Palestinian suicide bombers, especially the ones who board buses and coaches. It means if they’re rushed they won’t drop the trigger.’

  ‘If the hand was chopped off? At the wrist or the elbow?’

  ‘You’d be taking a chance,’ said Drury. ‘If the thumb was on the trigger you might get a muscle contraction that would close the circuit.’

  ‘And that would go for a head shot, too?’

  Drury flashed him a tight smile. ‘The SFOs keen to have a go, are they?’

  ‘The SAS raised it as a possibility,’ said Kamran. ‘If they get the chance of a clear head shot, what’s the downside?’

  ‘The downside is that, despite what you see in the movies, death is rarely instantaneous,’ said Drury. ‘You might blow the brain apart but the heart will still pump and muscles can still contract. The headless-chicken thing. I wouldn’t like to bet that a bullet to the brain would stop the trigger being depressed.’

  ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

  ‘If you could cut the wires to the trigger, that might do it. I’m not seeing a secondary circuit. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, of course. And there could be a remote trigger, too.’

  ‘How would that work?’ asked Kamran.

  ‘They use them in Iraq when they’re not sure how committed a jihadist is. They give him a trigger but they have a remote switch as well, triggered by a mobile phone. You make a call, the circuit closes and bang.’

  Kamran sighed. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. ‘So what’s the SOP with a suicide bomber?’ he asked.

  ‘To be honest, most of our procedures are for after the event – dealing with the crime scene, making the area safe, procedures like that. In terms of dealing with bombers in situ, that’s generally left to the negotiators.’

  ‘What about minimising the damage if there is an explosion?’

  ‘We just make sure that everyone is kept well away.’

  ‘What about bomb-disposal officers wearing bomb suits?’

  Drury shrugged. ‘The suits we have provide pretty good protection against a vest bomb,’ he said. ‘The top-of-the-range Kevlar, foam and plastic jobs weigh more than thirty-five kilos and would provide pretty good protection. Except for the hands and forearms, of course. They’re left unprotected so that the officer can use his hands to defuse the device.’

  ‘I was thinking of using them to disarm the men,’ said Kamran.

  ‘I don’t see that being possible,’ said Drury. ‘The suits inhibit movement and they’d be seen coming a mile off.’

  ‘Is there definitely no way that the vests can be disabled at a distance?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Drury. ‘That’s down to whoever’s going to be negotiating with them.’

  Kamran rubbed the back of his neck. He was starting to get a headache. A bad one. ‘The way things are going, that will probably be me,’ he said.

  MARBLE ARCH (12.33 p.m.)

  The man who had handcuffed himself to El-Sayed’s son was watching the television anxiously. A blonde presenter was detailing the latest suicide bomber who had locked himself into a pub in Marylebone, not far from the coffee shop.

  ‘How many is that?’ asked the man, almost as if he were addressing the newsreader. Then he turned and glared at Hassan. ‘How many?’

  ‘S-s-s-seven,’ stammered Hassan. ‘It was five, then you, and then the pub.’

  ‘Can I get you something to drink, brother?’ El-Sayed asked the man. ‘Water, perhaps. Or a fruit juice?’

  ‘No,’ said the man, who was now staring out of the window. There were two armed police, sheltering behind a car, aiming rifles in his direction. He shouted to one of the waitresses, ‘You! Yes, you!’ She looked at him and pointed at her chest. ‘Yes! Stick some newspaper over the window so that they can’t see us.’

  The woman left the counter and picked up a copy of The Times. Another waitress gave her some Sellotape and she went over to the window to begin sticking the sheets onto the glass.

  ‘I’ve got to go home and feed my dog,’ said a woman sitting at the table next to El-Sayed. She was one of the few non-Asian customers in the shop, in her thirties and wearing a green parka with a fur-lined hood over an Adidas tracksuit. Her mousy brown hair
was pulled back in a tight ponytail and she had applied too much blusher. Her lipstick was also a slapdash affair and she had smeared some across her top teeth. ‘I can’t stay here all day.’

  ‘Madam, that is a suicide vest he is wearing,’ said El-Sayed. ‘If he presses that trigger in his right hand, it will detonate and everyone here will die and then there will be no one to feed your dog. Now, please, be quiet.’ He turned to the man again. ‘What about something to eat? You must be hungry.’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘May I know your name, brother?’ asked El-Sayed.

  He shook his head again. ‘My name doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It matters to me, brother. We are both men, are we not? We are in this situation together. My name is Imad El-Sayed. That is my only son, Hassan.’

  ‘You need to stay quiet,’ said the man. ‘If you want to talk, talk on Twitter and Facebook. Tell people that we want the six warriors released from Belmarsh.’ He waved his right arm around. ‘All of you, do it now. Keep sending messages to all your friends. Keep telling them what is happening here. And use hashtag ISIS6 with every message.’

  Customers and staff began taking out their phones.

  El-Sayed smiled. ‘I never use Twitter,’ he said. ‘I never really understood the point of social media. People need to talk to each other. They need to connect, face to face, or at the very least to hear each other’s voices. I call my friends and family, I don’t text them.’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘At least let me get you a drink, brother,’ said El-Sayed. ‘Some water if nothing else. You must be thirsty.’

  The man didn’t look at El-Sayed, but he nodded.

  El-Sayed waved at a barista and clicked his pudgy fingers. ‘You, bring him a water. Quickly.’

  The barista hurried over with a bottle, twisted off the cap, put it down in front of the man, then scurried back behind the counter.

  The man used his left hand to lift the bottle to his lips. El-Sayed smiled and sipped his coffee, then smiled encouragingly at his son. Hassan’s face was bathed in sweat and El-Sayed could smell the boy’s fear. He wanted to tell him that everything was going to be all right, but he had to take it one step at a time.

  LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (12.34 p.m.)

  ‘We’ve identified four of them now,’ said Waterman. She tapped on her keyboard and four pictures flashed up on her screen. All bearded Asian men, all in their twenties or thirties, they could have been cousins, if not brothers. ‘Top left, Mohammed Malik. Top right, Ismail Hussain. We talked about them earlier. Bottom left, Rabeel Bhashir, bottom right, Mohammed Faisal Chaudhry. Rarely uses the Mohammed as a Christian name.’ She pulled a face. ‘Whoops. Can’t say that, obviously. Anyway, we’re reasonably sure that Bhashir is in the church in Brixton. Chaudhry is the bomber in the pub in Marylebone.’