First Response (39 page)

He picked up his mug of coffee and stood up, his back aching from the two hours he’d spent at his desk. He walked over to the whiteboard and sipped his coffee as he studied the top row of photographs. All nine had told the same story, pretty much. Abducted, masked and hooded, a suicide vest put on them, covered with a raincoat. A waistpack with a phone and written instructions as to what they were to do. The men had seemingly been chosen at random, other than that they were all Muslims. Eight of Pakistani origin, one Somalian. Cleanskins, more or less. Not one considered a threat to the state. The picture of Zach Ahmed was the only one not taken as a close-up. Ahmed had refused to co-operate: he hadn’t wanted to be photographed and had refused to give his fingerprints or a DNA sample. The picture on the whiteboard was the one that had been taken by the bomb-disposal officer through the window of the coffee shop.

He lowered his gaze and looked at the hostages. Another nine people, again seemingly chosen at random. Wrong place, wrong time. Except for Roger Metcalfe, the MP. He’d obviously been chosen because of who he was. He peered at the photograph of Mohammed Al-Khalifa, the man taken hostage at the coffee bar in Marble Arch. He frowned as he stared at the photograph. Something wasn’t right but he couldn’t quite place it. He scratched the side of his face as he stared at the photograph, then back at the one of Zach Ahmed. His frown deepened. He called through to his secretary in the outer office. ‘Amy, see if you can track down Kashif Talpur with the National Crime Agency. Ask him to come in as a matter of urgency.’

Two hours later, Amy showed Talpur into Kamran’s office. At first Kamran didn’t recognise the man: he’d shaved off his beard, cut his hair short and was wearing a dark pinstripe suit and a red-and-black-striped tie. ‘You’ve certainly changed your appearance since we last met,’ said Kamran, waving Talpur to a chair.

‘What happened blew my cover on the drugs operation, obviously,’ said Talpur. ‘In fact, it’s pretty much blown me for undercover work ever again. They’re deciding where to use me next as we speak.’ He shrugged. ‘Probably for the best. Undercover work takes it out of you and plays havoc with your private life.’

‘Do you want a coffee, water, anything?’

‘I’m fine, sir. Just a little confused.’ He gestured at the whiteboard. ‘I thought MI5 were handling the case now.’

‘They are. But SO15 is still involved and I had a thought or two that I wanted to run by you before I talk to Chief Superintendent Gillard. The day it all happened. Your instructions were to take a hostage, correct?’

Talpur nodded.

‘Any hostage? Or a particular one?’

‘Shahid said that as soon as I got on the bus I was to grab the nearest person. He said the driver was behind a screen so I should ignore him and just get the closest passenger. I grabbed a woman. With hindsight I should maybe have gone for a male but I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time.’

‘And was there a key? For the handcuffs?’

Talpur shook his head.

‘We didn’t find one in the waistpack he gave you to wear, but I wondered if you had had a key and it was lost or thrown away.’

Talpur shook his head again. ‘There was no key.’

‘So if you’d had a change of heart at the time and wanted to swap the woman hostage for a man, you couldn’t have done?’

‘I’m confused, sir.’

‘I’m sorry, just humour me for a little while longer. You couldn’t have changed your hostage, once you’d made your choice?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

Talpur frowned as the superintendent walked over to the whiteboard and pulled off two photographs. He sat down again and pushed one of the photographs across the desk. It was of the hostage-taking at the coffee shop in Marble Arch, the shot taken by the bomb-disposal officer through the newspaper-covered window. The bearded Asian man in the vest could be seen close up, and behind him was half the face of his hostage. ‘This was the bomber in Marble Arch,’ said Kamran. He smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be calling him a bomber, should I? His name was Zach Ahmed.’ He pushed the second photograph across the desk. ‘This is a photograph of the hostage, taken after you were all off the coach. His name is Mohammed Al-Khalifa, an asylum-seeker from Sudan.’

Talpur stared at the two photographs. He nodded but had absolutely no idea what the superintendent was getting at.

‘If you look at the photograph of Mr Ahmed, standing just behind him is his hostage. And if you look carefully, you’ll see that it is most definitely not Mr Al-Khalifa.’

Talpur picked up the two pictures and looked at them in turn. The superintendent was right. The man in the picture taken through the window was in his early twenties. The head-and-shoulders shot taken afterwards was of a man in his forties. ‘He switched hostages,’ said Talpur.

‘Yes, he did,’ said Kamran. ‘But how could he have done that unless he had a key? And why did he have a key and you didn’t? In fact, keys weren’t discovered on any of the bombers.’ He grimaced. ‘There I go again. I really must stop doing that. But you hear what I’m saying. There were no keys. But clearly Mr Ahmed had access to one.’

Talpur put down the photographs. ‘Why would he change hostages? Like I said, I could imagine swapping a man for a woman, but why swap a younger man for an older one?’

‘How about we go and ask him ourselves?’ said Kamran. ‘Are you free?’

Talpur nodded enthusiastically. ‘Hell, yeah.’ He grinned. ‘Sir,’ he added.

According to the statement taken by Chief Superintendent Gillard, Zach Ahmed was a security guard. He had worked for a north London firm for the past year. Prior to that he’d worked as a security guard in Leicester. He was British born of Pakistani parents. He’d never been in trouble with the police, never even had a speeding or parking ticket. He lived in a block of flats in a road close to Bayswater Tube station in a four-storey terraced house that in the distant past had been home to a single wealthy family and their staff but, decades ago, had been converted into more than a dozen studio flats.

Kamran’s driver dropped them outside the building and went off in search of a place to park. There was an intercom to the left of black doors with fourteen buttons, each with a handwritten number on it. Kamran rang Zach Ahmed’s bell several times but there was no answer. On one of the buttons was the word ‘CARETAKER’. Kamran pressed it and eventually a man growled, ‘Who is it?’

‘Police,’ said Kamran. ‘Can you come to the door, please?’

A minute or so later a black man with greying hair and thick-lensed spectacles was standing in front of them. He was short and squinted up at the two policemen. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

Kamran and Talpur showed him their warrant cards. ‘Do you know the tenant in number six? Zach Ahmed?’

The caretaker shook his head. ‘People come and go. I don’t know all their names.’

‘I’m not getting any answer from his bell.’

‘Maybe he’s not in,’ said the caretaker. Kamran wasn’t sure if the man was being sarcastic or matter-of-fact.

‘When did you last see him?’

The caretaker screwed up his face. ‘I’m not even sure what he looked like, to be honest.’

Kamran took out a photograph of Zach Ahmed and showed it to the caretaker. The man nodded. ‘Ah, Mr Taliban.’

‘Mr Taliban?’

The caretaker handed the photograph back. ‘You know, with that beard. He looks like a terrorist. No offence.’

Kamran frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he’s Asian, right? I didn’t mean to say that all Asians are Al-Qaeda.’

‘Just the ones with beards, right?’ said Talpur.

The caretaker put up his hands. ‘I said, no offence.’

‘None taken,’ said Kamran, putting the photograph back in his jacket. ‘Do you have a spare key?’

The caretaker nodded.

‘So how about you let us have a quick look at Mr Ahmed’s room?’

The caretaker opened the door wide, suddenly eager to please. He took them up to the second floor and pulled a set of keys from a retractable chain on his belt. He unlocked the door and stepped aside.

It took Kamran less than a minute to realise that Ahmed had gone, and that he’d cleaned up before he’d left. ‘The bird has flown.’ He sighed. ‘Fancy a coffee, Kash?’

‘I’d love one, sir.’

They walked to Queensway and Talpur grabbed a table at the rear of a Costa Coffee while the superintendent ordered and paid. As Kamran stirred two sugars into his, he shook his head. ‘I doubt we’ll be seeing Mr Ahmed again. In fact, I doubt that’s his real name.’

‘He might just have moved to escape the press,’ said Talpur. ‘The newspapers and TV people have been all over the hostages and the guys forced to wear the vests. I’m hard to find but a lot of them have had press packs camped outside their houses.’

Kamran sipped his coffee. ‘Let me ask you something, Kash. When they took the hood off your head in the warehouse, what did you see?’

‘Guys like me wearing ski masks and tied to chairs. All with suicide vests on.’

‘Did you see Ahmed, do you think?’

‘Difficult to say. We all had ski masks on. And we were all pretty much the same height and build.’

Kamran nodded thoughtfully. ‘And when they took the hood off, how many of you were sitting there?’

‘Nine,’ said Talpur.

‘Including yourself?’

Talpur nodded. ‘Eight plus me. Nine.’

Kamran sipped his coffee again. ‘You’re absolutely sure, Kash? Think carefully.’

‘I remember counting them. There was no way of telling them apart because they were all wearing masks, but yes, there were eight.’

‘Eight plus you? So nine in total?’

‘Yes. Nine.’

Kamran smiled over the top of his mug. ‘Don’t you see it, Kash? Don’t you see what happened?’

‘What?’ asked Talpur. ‘What’s going on?’

‘There were nine of you tied to the chairs and wearing masks. Shahid took one of the nine and killed him. That left eight. But there were nine incidents. Nine hostages taken. Nine jihadists on the coach.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Talpur. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘One of them was working with Shahid,’ said Kamran. ‘It was all a set-up. They faked the explosion, put the hood back over your head, then the dead jihadist came back to life. That dead jihadist was the man who called himself Zach Ahmed. Which is why I’m sure he’s gone for good.’

‘But why?’ asked Talpur. ‘They didn’t get what they wanted. The prisoners weren’t released. The whole thing was a waste of time.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Kamran, adding more sugar to his coffee. ‘Maybe Shahid got exactly what he wanted.’

Kamran had only just got back to his office when his mobile phone rang. He looked at the screen. The caller was withholding his number. He wondered if someone was trying to sell him something he didn’t want or need. He considered letting it go through to voicemail but then he had a prickling sensation at the back of his neck and pressed the green button to take the call.

‘Superintendent Kamran, how are you this glorious day?’

Kamran recognised the voice immediately. Shahid. ‘You’re the last person I expected to call,’ he said. He considered attempting to trace the call but decided immediately that he would be wasting his time.

‘Did you get my parcel?’

‘Parcel?’

‘A padded envelope. With a thumbdrive inside. Addressed to you and marked private and confidential.’

‘I don’t see it on my desk,’ said Kamran. ‘Give me a minute.’ He got up and went over to his door. ‘Amy, is there a parcel for me, private and confidential?’

His secretary rummaged through his in-basket and pulled out a small padded envelope. She hurried over to him and he took it. He opened it as he went back to his desk. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. He tipped the envelope up and a small grey thumbdrive dropped onto his desk.

‘You’ll be interested to hear what’s on the drive,’ said Shahid. ‘It’s a confession, of sorts.’

‘Yours?’

Shahid chuckled. ‘No, Superintendent. You’ll never be getting that from me. It’s the confession of Imad El-Sayed. He runs a bureau de change on the Edgware Road, near Marble Arch. El-Sayed confesses to funding Al-Qaeda and ISIS. He sends funds raised here to wherever in the world the money is needed. He pays for British jihadists to go to Syria to fight for ISIS. He funded the bombs on the London Tube in 2005.’

‘And how did you get this confession?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it matters,’ said Kamran. ‘This was a recording made during the siege, wasn’t it?’

‘You’ll know that as soon as you listen to it,’ said Shahid.

‘Zach Ahmed, or whatever his name is, was wearing a wire?’

‘And I recorded the calls at my end,’ said Shahid. ‘El-Sayed is an evil man. Responsible for a lot of deaths. A true terrorist.’

‘But you’re not, are you? It was never about terrorism, was it? What you and Zach did? Those nine people. The fake vests. This was all about bringing El-Sayed to justice.’

‘Someone had to, Mo. He never seemed to be on your radar. You need to share that recording with the Americans. I’m happy for you to take the credit but if you don’t I’ll send a thumbdrive to the US Embassy. I have to say I was surprised not to see you on TV after it was all over.’

‘I was busy, obviously.’

‘But that chief superintendent – what was his name?’

‘Gillard.’

‘Yes, Chief Superintendent Gillard. From the number of interviews he gave, you’d have thought it was all his operation from start to finish.’

‘He was Gold Commander.’

‘I think you earned some credit, though, don’t you? Anyway, the thumbdrive should go some way to addressing that.’

‘You’re not trying to buy me off, are you, Shahid?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that this doesn’t change anything. I’ll have to hunt you down. You and Zach broke the law. You put innocent lives at risk and you’ll be punished for that.’

‘No one died, Mo. No one got hurt. And the men I used, they weren’t innocents.’

‘One was,’ said Kamran. ‘The man you used on the bus at Tavistock Square. He was an undercover cop. One of ours. A good man.’

‘So I gather, but I didn’t know that. His cover was good. We thought he was a drug dealer. And he was part of a gang abusing young girls.’