First Response (7 page)

S – Start a log and review safety.

‘But there’s only two of us. How do two of us do all that?’

‘We’re just the first. There’ll be more on the way. We just start the ball rolling.’ She patted his knee again. ‘It’ll be fine.’

O’Sullivan reached for his hat and opened the door. He pressed his transmit button and spoke into his radio: ‘Bravo Delta Three responding to the incident at the Grapes.’

‘I’ll clear the area,’ said Wilson, as she got out of the car. She hurried over to the onlookers. ‘Folks, please clear the area, it’s not safe here.’

‘They said there’s a suicide bomber in there,’ said a teenager in baggy sweatpants and Puffa jacket.

‘Which means you all need to move away,’ said Wilson. ‘Now!’

She looked over her shoulder. O’Sullivan was still on the radio, reporting to the control room. To be honest, she felt as out of her depth as he clearly did. They were just PCs and this was a major incident.

‘So it’s true?’ said a young woman with a toddler in a pushchair.

‘Yes, it’s true,’ said Wilson. ‘Now come on, move along.’

‘Let me get a selfie first,’ said the woman, turning so that her back was to the pub. She raised her smartphone and pouted for the camera.

‘Folks, you’re really going to have to move,’ said Wilson. She was close to shouting but no one appeared to be paying her any attention.

O’Sullivan jogged over to join her. ‘Fire and Ambulance are on their way.’

A black BMW SUV screeched to a halt behind their patrol car and three armed officers dressed in black ran over. ‘What the fuck are these civilians doing here?’ shouted a sergeant.

‘I was just moving them along, sir,’ said Wilson.

‘Well, bloody get on with it,’ snapped the sergeant. ‘You need to establish an inner cordon immediately. Where’s the Silver Commander?’

‘There’s no one else here at the moment,’ said O’Sullivan.

‘Well, consider me acting Silver,’ he said. He lifted his chin and glared at the crowd of onlookers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you need to clear the area now!’ he shouted. ‘Anyone still here in ten seconds will be arrested for obstruction. I need you to be at least one hundred yards from here. Move!’

The onlookers scattered like sheep.

‘Thank you,’ said Wilson.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Emma. Emma Wilson.’

‘Well, you’ll be fine, Emma Wilson. Just organise me an inner cordon and find somewhere for the appliance and ambulances when they arrive.’

‘Yes, sir. The JESCC, right?’ The Joint Emergency Services Control Centre was where all the emergency vehicles would gather.

‘That’s it,’ said the sergeant. He looked at O’Sullivan. ‘And you are?’

‘Connor O’Sullivan, sir.’

‘Okay, Connor O’Sullivan, I need you to park your car across the road to block it off until we get more officers here.’ He pointed at a line of houses overlooking the pub. ‘As soon as you’ve done that, work those houses. Anyone inside, tell them to keep well clear of the windows and warn them that we might have to evacuate them. If you come across anyone who seems especially police-friendly then ask if they’d allow a room to be used as a control centre. A little old lady with a big teapot would be favourite.’

‘Yes, sir, th-th-thank you,’ stammered O’Sullivan, but the sergeant was already jogging over to his colleagues who had positioned themselves either side of a parked car, their weapons covering the front door of the pub.

Sergeant Lumley placed a mug of coffee and a couple of plastic-wrapped sandwiches on Kamran’s desk. ‘Cheese salad and tuna mayo – not much of a choice, I’m afraid.’

‘This’ll do fine, Joe, thanks.’

‘If you want something hot bringing down, let me know. The shepherd’s pie is just about okay.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘The mayor should be calling anytime soon. He was cycling to his office and his assistant said you were at the top of his list.’

A phone on Lumley’s desk rang and he rushed over to answer it. He grinned and put his hand over the receiver. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he said. ‘Line three.’

Kamran took the call and the mayor got straight to the point. ‘So, Superintendent, do we shut down the Tube or not?’

‘It’s a tough call, sir.’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that, which is why I’m asking for guidance.’

‘General policy is to close the Tube only if and when there is a direct attack on it.’

‘So I guess my next question has to be, is it likely that they will do that?’

‘They haven’t yet, sir. And I would have thought that if they wanted to do a repeat of Seven/Seven then they would have.’

‘No Tube stations and no mainline stations have been targeted so far?’

‘A church, a shop, a post office, a childcare centre, a coffee shop and a pub.’

‘And there’s no discernible pattern to the attacks?’

‘Not in terms of type of places, no. But there does appear to be a geographical pattern. They started in Brixton and are moving clockwise around the city. We’re checking CCTV at the moment to see if we can spot the vehicle we believe dropped them off.’

The mayor was silent for a few seconds. Kamran said nothing, giving the man time to think.

‘The problem, Superintendent, is that I’m old enough to remember how the IRA operated,’ said the mayor, eventually. ‘They would set off a small bomb so that a panic would start. Then they would detonate a second, bigger, bomb to kill those running away.’

‘You think they could be trying to drive people down into the Tube system?’

‘Multiple bombs above ground causing traffic chaos. They wait until the Tube is packed, then set off multiple devices below ground. Can you think of a more damaging scenario?’

‘I can’t,’ agreed Kamran. ‘But my gut feeling is that this isn’t about causing casualties. If they’d wanted to kill and maim, they could have just detonated the devices. I think they’re serious about wanting these ISIS prisoners freed.’

‘So you think this could actually be resolved without casualties?’

‘I hope so, yes.’

‘Well, we all hope so, Superintendent. I’m asking for your professional opinion.’

Kamran took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to organise this so I do believe that they’re serious about their demands. If those demands are met, there is every possibility they will withdraw their threats.’

‘Well, I hope you’re right. So you’re saying we keep everything moving?’

‘That would be my advice, sir. Obviously at the first sign of trouble on the Tube we would react accordingly, but until then I would suggest business as usual.’

‘And the road closures?’

‘Nothing we can do about that, unfortunately. We have to establish an inner cordon and an outer cordon surrounded by a pedestrian zone, and all non-essential traffic has to be excluded from that.’

‘The problem TfL has is that even a single road closure can cause havoc with the buses. What we have already is approaching chaos and as soon as they work their way around one incident they get hit with another.’

‘I can see if there’s any way of limiting the size of the outer cordon, but most of the time our hands are tied,’ said Kamran. ‘What I can do is allow you to have a couple of TfL people here in the SOR. That way they can see what’s happening in real time but also they could give their input re road closures on the spot. That might smooth things along.’

‘We’ll definitely take you up on that, Superintendent. And as far as the negotiations are going, how likely is it that the ISIS prisoners will be released from Belmarsh?’

‘That’s a decision only the PM can make,’ said Kamran.

The mayor chuckled without warmth. ‘Well good luck with that, Superintendent,’ he said. ‘Without a focus group to guide him, decision-making doesn’t come easy to our beloved prime minister. You’ll need to watch your back because if this ends badly he’ll be looking for someone to blame. Anyway, I’ll be in my office until this is resolved. Call me as and when you think appropriate.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘And good luck. I rather think you’ll need it.’

The line went dead and Kamran put down the receiver.

Waterman looked up from her screens. ‘Mo, we’ve got IDs for two of the men now.’

Kamran hurried over to stand behind the MI5 officer. ‘What’s the story?’ he asked.

On her right screen were two photographs, one taken from the CCTV camera within the Southside centre boutique, featuring a bearded Asian man in a long coat. Next to it was a photograph taken from a passport application. ‘Mohammed Malik,’ she said. ‘We’ve managed to get CCTV from inside the shop via the centre’s security system, so the quality’s good. Facial recognition says it’s a hundred per cent match. He’s a second-generation Pakistani Brit. Parents run a curry house in Southall. He went fundamentalist when he was sixteen, just after Nine/Eleven. Went to Pakistan three years ago for six months. Told his parents he wanted to learn something about his culture but we believe he spent half his trip in a training camp on the Afghan border. Since then he’s been quiet. That happens to a lot of these kids who go over thinking that jihad is action and adventure. They realise that it’s not a game and they come back with their tails between their legs. He works in Halfords, has a clean record and wasn’t regarded as a serious threat.’

‘And the fact that he was at an Al-Qaeda training camp wasn’t considered serious enough to have him watched?’

‘If we watched every British Asian who went to Pakistan we’d be overwhelmed. Close to three hundred thousand British Pakistanis go to Pakistan each year. Border Force doesn’t check passports on the way out and we don’t ask them where they’ve been or what they were doing when they return, unless they’re on a watch list. And Malik wasn’t considered a serious threat. As I said, we have no direct proof that he went to a training camp. He was vocal for a while at his local mosque and used to send letters to his local paper accusing the West of wanting to exterminate Muslims, but he’s stopped all that.’

On her right-hand screen there were two more photographs, one from the CCTV camera within the Fulham post office showing a second bearded Asian handcuffed to a young woman. The man’s suicide vest was clearly visible under his coat, as was the trigger in his right hand. He could have been the twin of the Asian in the shopping centre – dark-skinned, bearded, average height, average build. Nothing out of the ordinary, other than that they were both wearing suicide vests and threatening to blow themselves up. Next to the CCTV picture was another passport photograph. ‘This is another hundred per cent match. We’re getting a direct feed from the post office and the images are first class,’ said Waterman. ‘Ismail Hussain. He’s more an anti-war demonstrator than a fundamentalist. Was photographed on a few poppy-burning demonstrations and is a member of a group called Muslims Against Crusades. He was one of the guys screaming at soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment when they arrived back in Luton after their Iraq tour. He’s got one conviction for assault after he attacked an off-duty soldier with a bottle. That was well before the killing of Lee Rigby in Woolwich so he only got community service.’

Lee Rigby was a British soldier who had been stabbed to death in Woolwich, south London, in May 2013, not far from his barracks. His attackers waited for the police to arrive and said that they had murdered him to avenge the killings of Muslims by British soldiers. Both killers were British-born Nigerians who had been raised as Christians but then converted to Islam.

‘No overseas training?’ asked Kamran.

Waterman shook her head. ‘None that we know of,’ she said. ‘He’s a cleanskin. We’re aware of him but he’s never been on a watch list.’

‘So what’s happened to trigger him?’ asked Kamran. ‘How’s he gone from burning poppies and shouting to threatening to blow himself up? That’s one hell of a jump.’

‘We’re looking into his background now,’ said Waterman. ‘Maybe we missed something.’

Kamran peered at the video of the man in the post office, then turned to Sergeant Lumley, who had the same photographs on his screens. ‘Hey, Joe. Can you get me a close-up of the trigger?’

‘Will do,’ said Lumley. He began tapping on his keyboard.

The SAS captain walked into the suite. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We’ve got IDs on two of the bombers,’ said Kamran. ‘Joe’s just getting me a close-up.’

Murray walked over to watch what Lumley was doing. He bent down and squinted at Lumley’s screen. The image focused on the right hand of the man in the post office. ‘It’s not a dead man’s trigger,’ said Murray.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Kamran. ‘Joe, check the guy in the boutique. Get a shot of his trigger and see if they’re all the same.’

Murray straightened up. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said. ‘I would have expected the trigger to operate when it was released. That depends on active pressing. The way things are, we have a chance of taking them out without the vests going off.’

‘That’s not a risk we can take,’ said Kamran. ‘Not at this stage, anyway.’

‘Sure. I’m not suggesting we go in with guns blazing,’ said Murray. ‘But the lack of a dead man’s switch means a head shot could well neutralise the threat.’

‘Unless there’s another trigger in place,’ said Kamran.

Murray tugged at his ear. ‘True. If there’s some sort of remote trigger, then all bets are off,’ he said. ‘What about jamming mobile-phone cells in the area? We’ve got the gear to do it, and I’m sure Five has, too.’

‘That would kill the texting and social media that’s going on, and that’s obviously a big part of their strategy,’ said Kamran. ‘Blocking all cell phone activity might provoke a negative reaction.’

Murray shrugged. ‘Your call, obviously.’

Kamran nodded. It was his call, and his responsibility, so any decision he made had to be the right one.

‘I’ve got a view of the shop guy’s trigger,’ said Lumley.

The image flashed up on Kamran’s centre screen. The trigger was identical to the first. There was a Velcro strap holding it in the man’s hand. The trigger itself was a simple metal button with a small protective plastic cage over the top. The cage had to be flipped back so that the trigger could be depressed with the thumb.