‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Ideally we’ll put a tracker on the gun so we’ll always be able to follow it. And we’ll keep the Ealing house under surveillance. Once the sniper turns up, we’ll have him.’
‘You don’t think the men you have under surveillance are the snipers?’
‘There’s no way of knowing for sure but it looked as if they were just delivering it.’
‘That’s a guess.’
‘Agreed. But an educated one. They had Syrian passports so they probably came in with the rest of the refugees who flooded into Europe. There’s no record of them having come by air or rail, which suggests they were smuggled in, possibly through Calais. That’s a haphazard way of getting a sniper into the country. So I’m assuming these two guys are legmen and at some point they’ll deliver the rifle to the sniper. Whoever he is.’
‘And I’m in your van because?’
‘I want you on the ground with the surveillance team to see if you recognise anyone else from the passports you saw. It’ll save time.’
‘What about the O’Neill job?’
‘This takes precedence for now.’
‘Don’t forget I’ve got to be at the boxing tomorrow. The main bout’s at six.’
‘We should be done by then,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘But right now I need you with the surveillance team. There’s a very real danger of a major terrorist incident.’
The bombs had taken weeks to prepare. Work had started even before Mohammed al-Hussain had left Syria and begun his journey to England. They were relatively simple, similar to the ones made by the IRA during their campaign of terror. The main explosive was ANFO – ammonium nitrate, fuel oil. The ammonium nitrate had come from fertiliser; purification had taken time. Each bomb required 200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, which required 600 kilograms of fertiliser. Four bombs meant 2,400 kilograms of fertiliser. Buying that much in one go would attract attention so two jihadists drove around the north of England buying individual 50-kilogram bags, forty-eight bags in total. Their names were Farooqi and Hashmi.
Farooqi was the older of the two. He had recently turned forty and was the father of three young girls to one wife and two sons to another. Hashmi was half Farooqi’s age, and was studying chemistry at Reading University. Farooqi had attended a training camp in Afghanistan six months before the Nine Eleven attacks and had been involved in the preparations for the Seven Seven attacks in London, but had never come to the attention of the UK authorities.
Hashmi’s training had been confined to the internet, and while he had been something of a firebrand in his youth, his local imam had explained that he should start thinking long-term. He needed to stay below the radar, to keep his fundamentalist leanings hidden from outsiders, and it had been the imam who had encouraged him to study chemistry.
Farooqi and Hashmi took the bags to a unit on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Reading, where they purified the ammonium nitrate under the watchful eye of a Pakistani chemist, who had studied at the University of Birmingham and never returned to his homeland. His name was Aleem Sayyid but his friends called him Ali. He was married with two young daughters, lived in Wolverhampton and had told his wife that his company was sending him to do trouble-shooting on a lab they had in Scotland. In fact he slept on a camp bed in the industrial unit, phoning home every evening for a before-bed talk with his children.
Farooqi and Hashmi didn’t know what the bombs would be used for, but they knew they were working on something big, something that would echo around the world. Unlike Sayyid, they went home each evening, returning first thing to continue their work. The task was simple and repetitive but had to be done perfectly. The main problem was to ensure that the ammonium nitrate stayed dry. Any moisture would render it inert so the purification stage was done in small amounts, just one kilogram at a time. It was filtered twice, then dried and placed in Tupperware containers. The work was slow and the men had to wear heavy masks to filter out the fumes and dust. The process reduced a kilo of fertiliser to a third of a kilo of ammonium nitrate. Working from eight o’clock in the morning until six o’clock in the evening, they managed to produce about thirty kilos of ammonium nitrate each day. There were other units on the industrial estate and the men didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by working late at night so the two assistants went home. Sayyid switched off all the lights and stayed there on his camp bed, watching movies on Netflix.
Farooqi and Hashmi brought in food and water each morning, along with clean clothes and anything else that Sayyid required. They worked together, they ate together and they prayed together, united in their common aim to bring death and destruction to London, to show the infidels that nowhere was safe from the wrath of Allah.
The van turned into the driveway of a large detached house. There were two black SUVs parked outside, along with a white van and a people-carrier. The house was shielded from the road by a line of poplars and spreading rhododendrons. ‘We’re using this as a base for the moment,’ said Willoughby-Brown, as he climbed out of the vehicle. ‘The house the jihadists are holed up in is a couple of hundred yards away.’
Shepherd followed him over the gravelled drive to the front door. It was opened before they reached it by a man in bomber jacket, jeans and trainers. He nodded at Willoughby-Brown and held the door open for them.
‘This is Thomas Leigh,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He’s one of three SFOs on standby here. We’ve another three in a car closer to the house.’
Shepherd waved at Leigh and the man flashed him a tight smile, closing the door behind them. SFOs were specialist firearms officers, assigned to SCO19. They were the most highly trained of the Met’s firearms officers, almost to the level of the SAS. The hallway had rooms off to left and right. Two men with short haircuts and casual clothing were sitting on a sofa watching television. Glocks and spare magazines lay on the coffee-table in front of them. Willoughby-Brown tapped on the door to their left and pushed it open. A middle-aged blonde woman, wearing black-framed glasses and a headset, was sitting at a table with three screens in front of her. She waved at Willoughby-Brown as he ushered Shepherd in.
‘This is Wendy Aspden. She’s heading up the surveillance team,’ he told Shepherd.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Aspden, shaking his hand. ‘You’re the man with the magic memory?’
‘I never forget a face,’ he said, and looked at the screens on the table. The one in the centre was divided into four, each showing a different view of the target house, a neat semi-detached with an adjoining garage. To the left, a digital map of the area bore several red dots, presumably marking the positions of her team. To the right a comms screen was filled with emails and instant messages.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Willoughby-Brown, peering over her shoulder.
‘They haven’t moved out of the house all day,’ she said. She clicked her mouse and one of the cameras switched to an infrared view. It showed three figures, two lying down in an upstairs bedroom, one sitting in the front downstairs room. ‘We think the two upstairs are your guys. The man downstairs is, we think, a Johnny Malik. He rented the house two months ago, a year-long lease, paid three months in advance in cash. Malik also has a lease on a car, a white Toyota Prius. It’s parked in the garage.’
‘And the gun? Where is it?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘Jeremy’s probably already told you that we haven’t actually seen the weapon, just the case. The case was in the boot of the car that drove down from Sheffield but we didn’t have eyes on it when it pulled up in front of the house. That car is now
en route
back to Sheffield. We’re assuming the case is now in the house but that’s all it is at present, an assumption. But as the two tangoes are in the house, I think it’s fair to assume that the gun is there with them. As soon as the house is empty we’ll send in an entry team for a look-see. I have one on standby.’
‘Anything known about this Johnny Malik?’
Aspden shook her head. ‘Not much. He’s a cleanskin, British-born Pakistani. His parents came over in the seventies. Dad’s a dentist in Bradford, Mum was a nurse. Johnny is one of eight kids. He’s been to Pakistan several times but always with his parents and never for more than a week or so. Came down to London last year to study and his parents are funding him. We’re assuming he was radicalised in Bradford and sent to London as part of some greater plan.’ She tapped on her screen and a driving licence flashed up. Malik was dark-skinned with piercing brown eyes and glossy black hair spiked with gel. ‘Nice-looking boy,’ said Aspden.
‘I’m going to leave you with Wendy, Dan,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘If they get any visitors, I want you to see them straight away. I’ll be back the moment anything kicks off.’
Willoughby-Brown let himself out. Aspden gestured at a coffee-maker on a small table by the door. ‘Help yourself,’ she said. ‘And there’s plenty of food in the kitchen.’
Faisal looked at his wristwatch, a cheap Casio, and pulled a face. ‘What if they don’t come?’ he said.
‘They’ll come,’ said Omar. ‘It’s early yet.’
‘You said eight.’
‘I said from eight. It’s only quarter past.’
They were standing at the door looking at the gate, now unlocked and open. The vehicles were all fuelled and ready, the freshly printed licence plates in place.
‘What if they don’t come?’
‘They’ll come, brother. A lot of planning has gone into this.’
A blue Honda came down the road on the other side of the chain-link fence, slowed, and turned to drive through the gate. There were two Asian men in the car, both clean-shaven. The car stopped in front of the loading bay. The passenger got out, closed the door, and the car drove away. The man turned to Omar and Faisal. Omar waved him over. He was in his thirties, dark-skinned and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. ‘Welcome, brother,’ said Omar. He embraced the man.
‘
Assalamu alaykum
,’ said Faisal.
The man hugged Faisal. ‘
Assalamu alaykum
.’
‘Come this way,’ said Omar, taking him to a table where there were four sets of green uniforms. He handed one to the man and showed him to the toilets where he could change. When he came out, Omar smiled his approval. He looked the part.
‘Have you driven something like this before?’ asked Omar.
‘I have driven trucks,’ said the man.
Faisal clipped a laminated ID to the man’s breast pocket. ‘It’s the same as a truck,’ he said.
Omar got into the passenger seat as the man sat behind the wheel. He ran through the controls with him, then showed him the sat-nav. ‘Your first destination is near Reading, to the west of London. Then you go to East London to the waiting area. Then you have your final destination.’
‘What do I say if I’m stopped?’ asked the man.
‘You won’t be,’ said Omar. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I am.
Inshallah
.’
Omar climbed out and slammed the door. He gave Faisal a thumbs-up and Faisal raised the shuttered door to allow the man to drive out. The two men watched as the vehicle drove away. ‘It’s begun, brother,’ said Omar, putting his arm around Faisal’s shoulders. ‘It’s finally begun.’
Shepherd went downstairs and into the kitchen. He had slept in one of the bedrooms at the Ealing house. The previous evening he had spent playing cards with the three SFOs between popping into the front room to watch the surveillance screens. The armed cops were all good guys, tough and professional, and all had at some point trained with the SAS in Hereford, on the ranges and also in the famous Killing House. The three tangoes had stayed in the house all night, occasionally moving from room to room. But most of the time one of the men stayed downstairs and two upstairs. They had come together to pray three times – at three o’clock in the afternoon, at five thirty, and finally at just after seven. The infrared cameras had picked up the red and yellow images as they bowed, knelt and placed their foreheads on the floor.
There was a flurry of activity at eight o’clock when a moped had arrived at the house but it had turned out to be a food delivery from a local Lebanese restaurant. Shepherd had thought about going back to his Battersea flat but decided he might as well stay put. The men had travelled to London for a purpose and he figured that purpose would be revealed sooner rather than later.
He made a bacon sandwich and took it through to the room where Aspden was still sitting in front of the screens exactly as she had been seven hours earlier when Shepherd had gone to bed. ‘You don’t sleep?’ he asked.
‘I cat-nap,’ she said, pointing at a sofa under the window. ‘And I drink a lot of coffee.’
‘Shall I make you one?’ he asked.
She grinned. ‘That was what I was hoping,’ she said.
He offered her half of his sandwich but she shook her head. He made two coffees, put them on the table and sat next to her.
‘Tell me about your trick memory,’ she said. ‘Eidetic, right?’
‘Yeah, pretty much. I can remember pages after just looking at them for a few seconds. I never forget a name or a face.’
‘Must have been a help at university.’
‘Not really. Remembering facts isn’t a sign of intelligence. It’s how you use the information. For instance, I can remember foreign words easily but that doesn’t mean I’m particularly good at languages. I can read a book on astronomy and remember it, but that doesn’t mean I understand it.’
‘That Stephen Hawking book about black holes? That was a tough read.’
‘Exactly. I’d be able to recall it word for word, but I wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation about it.’ He took a bite of his sandwich and washed it down with coffee.
‘You’re former SAS, right?’
‘How did you know?’
She smiled knowingly. ‘You have the look. The way you carry yourself.’
‘I was for a while.’
‘And did the memory help with that?’
‘Sure. I only had to look at a map once so navigation was always easy for me. Building layouts, things like that.’
‘But Jeremy’s using you because of your facial-recognition skills?’