First Response (26 page)

The massive gate that guarded the entrance to Belmarsh Prison rattled back and the prisoner transport vehicle pulled out. Virtually everyone in the special operations room was watching the screen on the wall showing the feed from Sky News. One of the shots was from a helicopter and the news team had been given permission to fly over the prison so they could film the six prisoners being loaded onto the van, each handcuffed to a burly prison officer.

There were two ARVs escorting the van, one in front and one behind, along with half a dozen police motorcyclists.

‘I have two cars en route,’ said Murray. ‘Make sure the ARVs are expecting them. We don’t want a friendly fire incident.’

Kamran glanced at Lumley, who nodded. ‘They’ve been briefed,’ he said.

‘How long to drive from Belmarsh to Biggin Hill?’ asked Gillard.

‘With no traffic should be forty-five minutes, but we’ve told them to take it slowly,’ said Kamran. ‘It should take them an hour with an ETA of seventeen forty. We’re using motorcycle police to keep the roads clear.’ He turned to Lumley. ‘Joe, can you call up the route for me?’

Lumley clicked his mouse and a map filled his left screen, showing the route the police van would take from the prison, down the A206, A205, A208 and B263 to Bromley, then south to the airport on the A21 and A233.

‘As soon as they get to the airport they’ll drive to RAF Biggin Hill and park by the main block there,’ said Kamran.

Kamran’s mobile rang. It was Shahid. ‘It is time to take my people to the airport,’ he said. ‘You have the coach?’

‘It’s ready when you are,’ said Kamran.

‘I need the windows to be blacked out.’

‘Blacked out? We never discussed that.’

‘I’m discussing it now. I need the windows blacked out.’

‘Why?’

‘So that no one can see inside. I don’t want one of your armed cops shooting one of my people.’

‘They won’t do that, Shahid. I swear,’ said Kamran. ‘We don’t want anyone getting hurt. We just want this to be over.’

‘It will be,’ said Shahid. ‘Soon. Is the coach ready?’

Kamran looked at Drury, who nodded.

‘It’s ready,’ said Kamran.

‘Then start to pick up the warriors,’ said Shahid. ‘Pick them up in the order they went out. Brixton. Wandsworth. Fulham. Kensington. Marble Arch. Marylebone. Tavistock Square. Camberwell. Southwark. Then drive south to the airport.’

‘It will be quicker if we collect the warriors individually and take them to the coach,’ said Kamran.

‘You will do as you are told, Mo. Do you understand me? If you deviate one iota from your instructions, everyone will die.’

‘I understand,’ said Kamran, quickly. ‘I just wanted to make things easier.’

‘All the warriors will be taken in the same coach, along with their hostages. The windows will be blacked out. I will be watching, and if at any point during the journey to the airport you try to gain access to the coach or hinder its progress in any way, it will be destroyed. Are we clear?’

‘Yes, Shahid. We are clear.’

‘Then send the coach to Brixton. The clock is ticking, Mo. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.’ The line went dead.

Pete Hawkins’s mobile buzzed and he took it out of his pocket. It was Alex Murray. ‘How’s it going, Jim?’ asked Murray. Hawkins had been given the nickname ‘Jim’ on his first day at SAS Selection by a grizzled sergeant major who had recently reread
Treasure Island
.

‘The coach is here and we’re running through as many scenarios as we can. Is there any way we can make that emergency door at the back easier to open?’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Murray. ‘What about a video feed?’

‘A couple of the airport’s technical guys are rigging something up as we speak. They’ve already spoken to a guy called Lumley in the SOR.’

‘Excellent,’ said Murray. ‘In the meantime, here’s another wrinkle for you. They’re insisting on the windows being blacked out. On the positive side, that means they won’t know they’re in the hangar until it’s too late.’

‘And on the downside, we’ll be shooting blind,’ said Hawkins. ‘Shit.’

‘I know. The thing to remember is that in all cases the hostage is on the left side of the bomber. So on the port side the hostage will be next to the window. On the starboard side, the hostage will be on the inside.’

‘I’m not sure that helps if the windows are blacked out,’ said Hawkins. ‘I was never happy at shooting through the windows anyway.’

‘How are you getting on there?’ asked Murray.

‘The bottleneck is the door, obviously,’ said Hawkins. ‘If the door is open we can get a man in straight away but he then blocks the men behind him. He can take out the first two targets immediately but it’s at least a second before he can get to the next row. Flash-bangs might slow things down but that slows us getting in, too. If we can get in through the back emergency exit, we can have a man there take out the rear two. But we haven’t been able to get through that door in less than three seconds. Best will in the world, at the moment we’re looking at four seconds to neutralise all nine targets and we both know that’s not good enough.’

‘Keep at it, Jim. See if you can shave off a second or two. At the moment the hope here is that, once they see there’s no way out, they’ll surrender.’

‘They’re fucking jihadists, Captain. It doesn’t work like that. These idiots want to die. And the more they take with them, the more credit they get.’

‘I hear you, Jim. But let’s stay optimistic, shall we?’

‘The lads had a couple of thoughts, boss. Any way we could rig up some knock-out gas, pump it into the coach and put everyone to sleep?’

‘It was discussed but there isn’t enough time and even if there was we’d be putting the driver to sleep, too.’

‘It could be activated once they’d parked in the hangar,’ said Hawkins.

‘But nothing works instantaneously and if they realised what was happening they’d probably detonate.’

‘Okay. What about arming the driver? We’re using one of our guys, right? Give him a gun, he could take out the bad guys on the starboard side as we move down the aisle shooting port. It might shave some time off.’

‘My worry would be that if one of the bombers searched the driver and found a gun that could create its own set of problems.’

‘To be honest, without that extra gun I think we’re screwed.’

‘Okay, I’ll get that sorted,’ said the captain. ‘Start rehearsing with an armed driver and see how it works out.’

Hawkins put the phone away. Arming the driver would give them an edge, but he knew that, no matter how often they rehearsed the scenario, there was no way they could take out all the suicide bombers before at least one would have the opportunity to press the trigger. And if that happened, everyone on the bus would die, including the SAS troopers. All the men in the hangar knew the risks, but if they were given the order to storm the coach with guns blazing, that was what they would do.

Alistair McNeil, Silver Commander at Tavistock Square, agreed to allow Biddulph to sit in while he interviewed the three hostages who had been released from the bus. They were being kept in rooms on the second floor of the British Medical Association building. The woman, Christine Melby, was feeding her baby with a bottle while a female officer looked on. The two schoolboys were being cared for in an adjoining room.

McNeil went to see the woman first. He introduced himself and told her that Biddulph was a sergeant with the National Crime Squad.

‘Why can’t I go home?’ she asked.

‘You can, absolutely you can,’ said Inspector McNeil. ‘We’d just like to ask you a few questions first, if that’s okay?’

‘I’ve had one hell of a day,’ she said. ‘And my husband’s going to be wanting his tea.’

‘I’ve asked for a car to run you home,’ said McNeil. ‘In the meantime, how did he seem, the man with the bomb?’

She frowned, not understanding the question.

‘Was he tense?’ asked McNeil. ‘Did he seem preoccupied? Focused?’

‘He was angry. He kept shouting at us. Why don’t you just shoot him? He’s going to kill all the people on the bus if you don’t.’

‘We’re trying to resolve this so no one gets hurts, Mrs Melby.’

‘He’s a nutter,’ said the woman. ‘Threatening innocent people like that. You need to throw away the key.’

‘I’m sure they will do,’ said McNeil. ‘Did he say anything about ISIS?’

‘ISIS?’ she repeated.

‘The group the terrorists belong to. Did he talk about them? What they wanted? What they planned to do?’

‘He didn’t say much. Just kept saying that so long as we all did as we were told, no one would get hurt.’

‘Did he sound scared?’ asked Biddulph. ‘Or scary?’

The woman tilted her head to one side as she studied his face. ‘He was scared,’ she said eventually. ‘I think he was more scared than the woman he was handcuffed to.’

McNeil and Biddulph moved to the room next door where the two schoolboys were being given soft drinks and crisps by a female officer. The two boys seemed nervous and uncomfortable, which wasn’t surprising under the circumstances. Their names were Luke Young and Peter Okonkwo. Their parents had already been contacted and were on their way.

‘Are you two lads okay?’ asked McNeil.

‘I just want to go home,’ said Luke. ‘I’ve got five-a-side tonight.’

‘Your mum’s coming to pick you up,’ said McNeil.

‘I don’t need my mum,’ said the boy. ‘I’m twelve.’

‘We’d just be happier if she was here to take care of you,’ said McNeil. ‘You’ve both been through a very trying experience.’

‘Do you think he’s going to blow up the bus?’ asked Luke.

‘We hope not,’ said McNeil. ‘Now, the man, did he say anything to you, anything at all?’

Luke shook his head. ‘He just said we were to do as we were told. We were on the top deck so we didn’t see much. He’s a Muslim, right? He wants to kill anyone who isn’t. That’s what this is about, right?’

‘It might be,’ said McNeil. ‘Did he say anything about that? Did he talk about Islam?’

‘He didn’t say anything, really. Not to us, anyway. Like I said, we were upstairs.’

‘What about when he let you off?’ asked McNeil. ‘Did he say anything then?’

Luke shook his head again.

Biddulph noticed that the other boy seemed uncomfortable, staring at the floor and fidgeting. ‘What about you, Peter?’ asked Biddulph. ‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘Not really,’ said the boy.

‘Are you sure? Nothing at all?’

‘I don’t want to say.’

Biddulph frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

The boy shrugged. ‘He’s a pervert,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper.

‘A pervert?’

‘He was asking me about condoms.’

Biddulph and McNeil stared at each other in astonishment.

The police sergeant put his phone away and went over to the man who was going to be driving the coach. ‘Gold Command says it’s time to go,’ said the sergeant.

The SAS man had given his name only as Terry. He was in his thirties and, to the sergeant, he didn’t look much. He was about five-eight with close-cropped greying hair, wiry rather than muscled, and had a chewing-gum habit that saw him popping a fresh piece between his lips every ten minutes or so. He wore a light brown leather jacket over brown cargo pants and a handgun in a nylon holster under his right arm. The sergeant had seen much tougher men in his twenty years in the police but there was a quiet confidence to Terry that he had rarely come across.

Terry nodded. There was a group of technicians in the coach inserting Kevlar plates in the driver’s seat and in the backs of the first few rows of the passenger seats. Two more had just finished putting black film over the side windows.

‘Guys, you’re going to have to stop now,’ shouted the sergeant. ‘We need to get this show on the road.’

The technicians filed off the coach. The senior man, a former army bomb-disposal officer, went up to Terry. ‘I’m not sure how much good it’ll do if nine bombs go off in a confined space,’ he said. ‘There’ll be some protection for your back but your neck and your head are going to be exposed.’

‘Hopefully it won’t come to that,’ said Terry. ‘Anyway, I brought a protective helmet with me.’ He pulled a flat cap from his pocket and placed it on his head. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’ve got one hell of a set of balls on you, lad,’ said the technician. ‘Good luck.’

As he walked away, Terry climbed into the driving seat, took a quick look at the controls and turned on the engine.

‘Just follow the bikes,’ said the sergeant.

‘How far is it to Brixton?’ asked Terry.

‘Six miles, give or take. Normally it would take half an hour to drive but the roads have been cleared so you’ll be able to keep your foot down. Should be there in less than ten minutes. The bikes know the route so just follow them.’

Terry nodded. ‘Thanks for your help, Sergeant. Now please get the fuck off my coach.’

The pack around Bhashir’s waist vibrated and Father Morrison gasped. ‘It’s a phone,’ Bhashir said to the priest. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Did I look worried?’ said the priest. He took out his handkerchief, mopped his brow, then put it away.

Bhashir used his left hand to unzip the waistpack and take out the phone. ‘It is time to go, brother,’ said Shahid. ‘The brothers have been released from Belmarsh. In five minutes there will be a coach outside to take you to the airport. You are to take only the hostage you are handcuffed to. The rest can stay behind.’

‘It’s over?’ asked Bhashir.

‘It soon will be,’ said Shahid. ‘They have agreed to our demands. There is a plane waiting at Biggin Hill airport.’

‘To take us where?’ asked Bhashir.

‘Away from this country. To a place of safety.’

‘But this is my country,’ said Bhashir.

‘Then you can stay. But first you must go to the airport. The coach will be outside in five minutes. In five minutes’ time you are to open the main door and walk out of the church with your hostage. You are to get into the coach. But be vigilant. I will be watching. If I think that the police are up to anything, all the vests will detonate.’