Agent of the State (4 page)

‘They’ve made no threats like that.’

‘But you should be negotiating her release – you know, in exchange for scrambled eggs on toast.’

Number Two paused for a moment to stare up at Kerr. ‘Tell that to the co-ordinator,’ he said, then turned away. ‘You shouldn’t be in the cell.’

Kerr was staring at the wall again, memorising the room plan, calculating distances from the front door. ‘Ground floor, yeah?’

But then the phone rang again and they were making secret signs at each other, John Kerr forgotten.

Four

Thursday, 13 September, 07.47, the stronghold

Through the glass double doors Kerr saw a PC arriving with breakfast on a tray: three Styrofoam takeaway boxes and cups from a local café. From that moment he acted through instinct. ‘Cheers,’ he said, holding the door open to take the tray from him, ‘perfect timing.’ He checked the contents: black coffee, congealed scrambled egg with sausage and bacon.

He exited the school and turned left towards the stronghold three doors away. There was the same unnatural quiet, but the whole street seemed to stiffen around him. Then the air was crackling with urgent walkie-talkie voices and he knew they were all talking about him. Snipers were visible now, a sprinkling of black spikes pointing at him as the uniforms tried to work out what was happening. Shadows were making frantic signs from the undergrowth, but he kept walking.

By the time he reached the stronghold he hadn’t spilt a drop. Pause for a final memory check of the layout. At the communal front door he knocked, stood back a pace and waited, a quartet of rifles sizing up his back. Shouting in English drifted through the front-room bay window to Kerr’s right and he guessed they were giving Number Two a hard time.

Then there was yelling in Turkish. Kerr was expecting an order to leave the tray and retreat, which would make things more difficult, but the door opened. The hallway to the right was narrow and dark, and one of the hostage-takers had the double-barrelled shotgun ready to fire. Perhaps the Turk was seeing a second prisoner, an easy civilian target, a lightweight with breakfast in his hands and ‘HOSTAGE’ stamped across his forehead. He looked comfortable with his weapon, moving it like an extension of his body.

At times of uncontrollable anger or crisis, people talk about a red mist descending. For John Kerr, who had faced more extreme situations than most, it was different. Such scenes were always stark white, a big chill in which every object was frozen.

In a single photograph Kerr saw the finger curled round the trigger. He calculated his odds against the shaven-headed, overweight thug, unprotected in soiled vest and jockey shorts. In a second frame he sensed the half-open door into the front room two paces to his right and tracked the unseen second target’s voice, placing him with the phone by the window. The door opened inwards and he could see Melanie’s combat boots and untied lower legs. They stretched from an armchair in the corner to the left of the doorway, the rest of her body just out of sight. From the hallway he could reach her in three strides. Less than a second. The second thug would be distracted by the phone. ‘Breakfast?’ enquired Kerr, the solicitous waiter. His target jerked the barrel, drawing Kerr forward. ‘Shall I leave it just here?’

‘Inside.’ The guy beckoned.

Kerr stepped over the threshold into the hallway, using his foot to shut the door. The shotgun lowered as his target took a careful step back through the entrance to the stronghold, then leant forward to check the food. He looked at the forbidden meat and swore.

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ Kerr thrust the tray up and over him, three cups of coffee cascading over his shaven head, face, neck and shoulders. He yanked and twisted the shotgun barrel away from him as his victim bellowed in pain and rage, dropping forward to meet Kerr’s knee jerking into his face and snapping his teeth. Then Kerr knocked the shotgun aside, took a step back and kicked him hard in the crotch. In two swift movements Kerr unholstered the Glock and pistol-whipped him. He fell silently.

Through the internal door, Melanie’s legs had disappeared. Stepping over the shooter, Kerr charged into the front room, raising the Glock to fire as he came face to face with his second target. With the phone in one hand the Turk was raising the handgun with the other, but leaning back on a dining chair. Kerr instantly recognised the weapon. It was a long-barrel Smith & Wesson medium-frame .38-calibre revolver, and it was pointing right at him. Kerr’s finger closed on the trigger for a rapid pair of shots. Then, in that split second, he realised why the target was leaning back. Face deathly pale, hair scraped back, Melanie was kneeling behind him. He recognised the faded denim jacket she sometimes used for surveillance, then saw that her wrists were bound with tape but looped tightly around the Turk’s neck, yanking his head back.

Before the thug could break free Kerr launched himself into the air, catching him square in the face with both heels. There was another crack, nose, teeth or cheekbone, as the chair tipped backwards, sending all three of them into a sprawling heap against the wall, Kerr’s Glock spinning away from him. Kerr snatched the Turk’s revolver and grabbed the man by the throat to keep his head still. The Smith & Wesson felt nice and solid, weightier than the Glock, so Kerr used the barrel to stab him in the eye. He screamed as blood spurted through his fingers and Kerr hit him again on the temple. ‘Hold onto him, Mel.’

There was scuffling in the hallway as the first target came round, so Kerr re-holstered the Glock and turned back to batter him with his accomplice’s revolver until he was unconscious again.

The landline was still connected and they could hear an urgent male voice. Kerr picked up the receiver. ‘This is John Kerr. We are safe. We are not under duress. Do not, repeat not, order any action until I give the all-clear.’ The voice at the other end was still going, but Kerr slammed the receiver down.

He checked both men, pulled Melanie clear and sat her on the sofa. ‘You all right?’

‘What kept you?’ She was grinning at him.

The phone was ringing again but he went to the kitchen for a knife and cut her bonds. ‘Where’s the rest of the tape?’

Melanie searched under the sofa cushion for the roll of brown duct tape and bound the wrists and legs of her gently moaning captive while Kerr dragged the other man in from the lobby. ‘Better hurry up,’ said Melanie, taping his mouth to stop him moaning, ‘or this one’s going to bleed to death.’

They trussed up both men and left them at opposite sides of the room. Then Kerr disarmed the shotgun and the handgun and laid them on the kitchen drainer.

‘Ready?’ he said, when they were back in the hallway. ‘Let’s go to work.’

Kerr slowly opened the front door and held out his ID for all to see. As they made their walk down the street he held Melanie’s arm. To the watching cops it could have been for support or restraint, and Kerr made it deliberately ambiguous. A couple of senior uniforms were waiting by the school to receive them. Kerr identified himself and told them where they could find the hostage-takers, weapons and ammunition. He didn’t give Melanie a name, describing her as a source he needed to extricate immediately to avoid the media. Unimpressed, they ordered him to remain in the containment area for a ‘comprehensive debriefing’.

‘Understood. No problem,’ he conceded. Then he spotted an ambulance parked by his car. ‘Just need to get her checked out and make a couple of calls.’

Armed police were swarming into the stronghold now. ‘Five minutes,’ ordered one of the uniforms, distracted. ‘Wait for us at Gold Command.’

‘What?’

‘The caretaker’s office.’

‘Of course.’ Kerr walked Melanie to the ambulance. He told her to look injured but all attention was directed at the stronghold as they walked past the ambulance to the Alfa, where Dodge was waiting.

‘Welcome back,’ he said, giving Melanie a bear hug and winking at his boss as he tossed him the car keys.

Kerr checked his BlackBerry as he and Melanie got into the car. ‘They’re being a bit arsy, Dodge.’

‘So I’m staying here to cover, yeah?’

Kerr pushed the Alfa into ‘Drive’. ‘Say I got called away.’

‘Great,’ said Dodge, deadpan. ‘That should calm them down.’

Kerr turned round and drove slowly until he was clear of the cordon. At the end of the street he swung right into Hackney Road. ‘Thanks, John,’ said Melanie.

He flashed her a smile. ‘What went wrong?’

‘Haven’t the faintest. Nothing unusual, not a sign, until they got pulled. Then they went crazy, as if they’d suspected me of being a cop all along.’

‘Any signs before that?’

‘No. They made a couple of calls on the way to South Mimms. In Turkish. The only English word I heard, kept hearing, was “total”.’

They paused while Kerr wove through the vehicles along Bishopsgate, heading for the City. Traffic was heavy, so he went left at Houndsditch, racing down towards Tower Hill.

‘We’ll get to the bottom of it. Do I get you checked out or is it straight home?’

‘Not a scratch.’

Channel Five erupted while Kerr was speaking. Melanie strained forward, touching his arm for him to pause. ‘That’s my team,’ she said. ‘Something’s up, John. We’re needed in Lambeth.’ She listened intently, quite at ease in her lurching, braking, hyperactive workplace. ‘Bloody hell. It’s Avon.’

Kerr immediately pressed the horn to activate the siren, accelerating hard. ‘Ahmed Jibril. The sleeper,’ he said. Kerr was overseeing seven live surveillance operations, but Avon was always somewhere near the front of his mind.

‘Whatever,’ said Melanie, flicking on the blue light. ‘Sounds like he just woke up.’

They reached the river, the Tower flashing past to their left as they charged into Lower Thames Street. As they raced west beneath the underpass that would bring them onto the Embankment, a motorcycle pulled in behind them. It appeared from nowhere, headlight dead centre in Kerr’s mirror, the growl from its powerful engine bouncing off the tunnel walls.

‘Alpha from Red One.’

Kerr spoke into the visor. ‘Go ahead, Jack.’

‘The Reds are short-handed. Can I have Mel back?’ Despite the wind noise, Jack Langton’s Geordie accent was as rich as if he had just ridden down from Newcastle.

Kerr shot out of the tunnel towards Temple. ‘What’s your location?’

‘Look in the mirror.’

Kerr was doing seventy, but Langton’s overtaking Suzuki GSX R1000 left him standing. Bike, rider and helmet were all black. Langton was Kerr’s deputy and ran the surveillance teams on the ground. Opposite the Inns of Court Langton braked sharply to a stop in front of him, and Melanie already had the door half open. ‘Thanks again, John.’ She leant over to squeeze Kerr’s arm. ‘You’ve got blood on your sleeve, by the way. And a bit of scrambled egg.’

Langton already had the spare crash helmet and jacket ready as Melanie sprinted to him and climbed aboard, then a black-gloved hand lifted in acknowledgement and the radio crackled something as he and his partner roared away.

Part Two

Five

Thursday, 13 September, 08.12, safe-house, Lambeth

Ahmed Jibril was the third terrorist to obtain his UK entry visa with the secret authority of the Home Office minister herself. All were
jihadis
, secret members of Al Qaeda, determined to re-establish itself after the execution of its leader, Osama bin Laden, by the hated Americans in May 2011. These three were dedicated to waging war against the United Kingdom. They were specially selected for this mission because Al Qaeda believed they were ‘clean skins’, unknown to any Western security agency. Once past the immigration desk at Heathrow, they vanished without trace to the target cities of London, Manchester and Leeds, from whose alienated masses they spotted talent for military training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their holy mission was, of course, to prepare Al Qaeda cells for suicide atrocities.

Ahmed Jibril had entered the UK as a student of dentistry, with a perfectly forged offer of a place at Birkbeck College, University of London. His clean skin had become defiled because he had breached Al Qaeda’s strict operational security. An unauthorised, unintelligible coded phone call lasting less than ten seconds to a contact in Lahore had been enough to suck him onto the Allies’ global radar screen. GCHQ had tracked the signal, and MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, had traced the body.

But he had only come to the notice of Kerr’s team because the MI6 head of station in Yemen had owed his friend in London a favour and was a believer in doing the right thing.

On 9 September – a Sunday afternoon when the intelligence world was slumbering in the Home Counties – without getting clearance from Vauxhall Cross, Joe Allenby scanned a photograph with a Yemen Airways flight number to the old Special Branch office at Heathrow, a glorified broom cupboard hidden behind a one-way mirror at the front of Terminal 3’s immigration hall. It gave Jibril’s full name and date of birth, and the header was marked ‘STRICTLY PERSONAL’ for the information of Detective Chief Inspector John Kerr. The picture was a ragged frame taken in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in the middle of the crowded medieval market-place. The image, blurry and skewed, had been snatched on a cheap digital camera by one of Allenby’s secretaries playing tourist.

Late that night, while Jibril was in the air, Kerr’s most trusted friend, Alan Fargo, had unearthed three top-secret ‘UK EYES ONLY’ security traces linking Jibril to Al Qaeda. Fargo ran Room 1830, the Terrorism Research Unit, a square corner office on the Yard’s south side, looking towards Battersea Power Station. Access was by swipe card and PIN, and heavily restricted. Two sides extended six windows along from the corner, but the four highly vetted officers who shared the room with Fargo enjoyed no benefit from the view or natural light because the blinds were always closed.