First Response (13 page)

The black guy sitting behind the counter took a photograph of Hussain with his iPhone, then tapped away on his screen.

‘You don’t care that they’re taking your picture?’ asked the woman.

‘People need to see what’s happening here,’ said Hussain. ‘The pictures will show that we’re serious.’

‘Make sure you tell them my name,’ she called, to the man who’d taken the picture. ‘Rebecca Nicholls. Nicholls with two
l
s. And his name is Ismail Hussain. Tell them that!’

‘You think this is funny?’ Hussain hissed. ‘You think this is a game?’

‘It is what it is,’ she said. She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at him. ‘Why did you choose me, Ismail?’

‘Choose you?’

‘Why did you handcuff yourself to me?’

‘You were at the end of the queue. The nearest to the door.’

‘And that was the only reason?’

‘Why do you ask?’

She smiled. ‘Because you chose the one person who doesn’t care if she lives or dies.’

Hussain’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know nothing about me, Ismail. You’ve handcuffed yourself to me and threatened to kill me, but you don’t know the first thing about me.’

‘You’re just a hostage. A body.’

‘That’s right. That’s all I am to you. Well, my name’s Rebecca. My friends call me Becky.’

Hussain shrugged.

‘Up until a week ago I was a wife and a mother. My husband’s name was William and my daughter’s name was Ruth.’

‘They died?’

‘Why, thank you for asking, Ismail,’ she said, her voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘Yes. They died.’

‘How?’

‘A stupid, senseless car crash. I wasn’t feeling great so William agreed to do the school run. Took Ruth and one of her classmates to school. Some bastard in a truck didn’t see that they’d stopped at a red light and ploughed into the back of them. The girls died immediately. They spent more than an hour trying to save William but he bled to death in the car. It was a Volvo. They say a Volvo is the safest car in the world but when a truck smashes into the back of you … Anyway, Ismail, every morning I wake up and wonder if today is the day I’m going to join my husband and daughter. I’ve got the tablets saved up. They’ll do the trick, with a couple of glasses of wine.’

‘You want to kill yourself?’

‘What do I have to live for? Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose the two people you love most in the world? I wish I’d died with them. In the car. Instead I was sitting at home watching some crap TV show and drinking coffee.’ She shuddered, then a slow smile spread across her face. ‘Maybe that’s why your God has sent you here today. Maybe this is the sign I’ve been waiting for. This way I don’t have to take the tablets and lie down. Maybe this is a better way to go.’ She nodded at the trigger in his hand. ‘You press that and it’s like flicking a light switch, isn’t it? Press it and the lights go out, just like that. Like the blinking of an eye.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Her smile widened and he saw the craziness in her eyes. ‘I want you to press it, Ismail. If there is a Heaven, then I want to be with William and Ruth. And if there isn’t, if there’s just an empty blackness, then fuck it, I want to be with them there, in the darkness.’ She leant towards him. ‘Press it, Ismail,’ she hissed. ‘Just press it.’

‘You’re fucking mad!’ he said, trying to pull away from her.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’m the sanest person here. And the way it’s going, Ismail, if you don’t press that trigger, I might just do it myself. You think about that. When you’re not looking, when you’re distracted, I might just reach over, grab your hand and squeeze it.’

Hussain backed away from her until the chain tightened.

She laughed at his discomfort. ‘Now who’s scared, Ismail? Now who’s fucking scared?’

Inspector Richard Horton, a twenty-five-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police, had been appointed as Silver Commander at the Marble Arch incident. He was based at Paddington Green station, less than half a mile away down Edgware Road, and had arrived outside the coffee shop within six minutes of getting the call. It wasn’t his first major incident by any means. In 1994 he had been a beat constable when a car bomb had exploded outside the Israeli embassy in London, injuring twenty people. He had been a sergeant in April 1999 when a neo-Nazi with mental problems carried out nail-bomb attacks in Soho, Brixton and Brick Lane. And he was still a sergeant on duty on 7 July 2005 when four suicide bombers had attacked the capital, and two weeks later when four copycats had tried and failed to bring havoc to London’s transport system.

He had been an inspector since 2010 and had taken part in several major incident rehearsals and had hit the ground running at Marble Arch. The role of Silver Commander was basically to take charge of the scene and to implement the strategies of the Gold Commander. It was clear from the speed of events that the Gold Commander had yet to have any strategy in place – everyone was simply reacting to events. Horton’s first tasks had been to manage the scene and establish the necessary cordons. They had to be set up promptly to protect the public, keep onlookers away and to ensure that the emergency services had the access they needed. He already had sixteen constables and had requested more. They had set up inner and outer cordons around the coffee shop, and a traffic cordon to prevent unauthorised vehicle access to the scene. As the coffee shop was close to one of the busiest intersections in London, where Edgware Road met Bayswater Road, the closures had already caused traffic chaos. Two ARVs were on the scene, with two SAS snipers, who were wearing borrowed police clothing. Horton wasn’t happy about having special-forces soldiers mixed in with his armed-response teams, but that had come down from Gold Command so he had no choice in the matter.

A marshalling area had been set up at the junction of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road where most of the emergency vehicles were parked. Horton walked towards a new arrival at the scene – a white DAF truck with only police markings on it. If necessary, magnetic signs could be reversed to reveal the van’s bomb-disposal role but generally it stayed in covert mode so as not to alarm the public and to avoid becoming a target for attack.

A dark-haired woman was getting into an ABS – an advanced bomb suit – assisted by an older man in a fluorescent jacket. He was helping her into the crotchless Kevlar trousers that would protect her legs. Horton greeted her with a smile. ‘Richard Horton,’ he said. ‘I’m Silver here.’

‘Charlie,’ said the woman. ‘Charlie Kawczynski.’ She nodded at her companion. ‘Peter here’s my dresser.’

‘You don’t sound Polish,’ said Horton.

‘Neither does my husband,’ said Kawczynski. ‘But he was born here, too.’

‘Sorry, no offence.’

Kawczynski grinned. ‘None taken.’

Peter helped her on with the Kevlar jacket. It would protect her chest and groin but it left her forearms and hands exposed. She would be free to work on any devices but would lose her hands and arms in the event of an explosion. Horton tried to blot the image out of his mind as he explained what he needed her to do.

‘The problem we have, Charlie, is that we can’t see inside the coffee shop and there’s no CCTV we can access. He’s covered the windows with newspaper so we can’t see what’s going on inside. I need you to go to the window and see if you can spot anything. Ideally get us some pictures we can analyse.’

‘Got you,’ said Kawczynski.

‘No need to make contact,’ said Horton. ‘Just see what you can and pull back.’

‘Not a problem. We’ve got a camera in the truck,’ said Kawczynski.

They finished fastening the jacket and Peter began putting the ballistic panels in place. He worked slowly and methodically, checking and double-checking that everything was as it should be. If anything went wrong and the device exploded, the suit was the only thing that would save her from certain death.

The man was sweating and a vein was pulsing in his forehead. He kept looking at the window. He was in his late twenties, Metcalfe figured, and conformed to the racist stereotype of a suicide bomber, straggly beard and all. He had taken Metcalfe to the outer office and had slipped the bolts on the main door so that no one could enter or leave. The window overlooked the street. They were on the first floor, over the main constituency office.

A dozen people were sitting on hard-backed chairs, most of them elderly. The man stood with his back to the bolted door and told his hostages to stand up and move to the front office where Metcalfe had been taking his meetings. They filed through one by one and stood in the far corner, huddled together and whispering fearfully.

‘Shut up and listen!’ the man shouted. ‘You are all prisoners of ISIS. You are to send text messages to your friends and family to tell them what is happening. Use Twitter and Facebook, if you can, and use hashtag ISIS6. Tell everyone that you are being held hostage and that the government must release the six ISIS fighters who are being held in Belmarsh Prison. Do you understand?’

A stick-thin West Indian woman, wearing a shapeless hat and a herringbone coat, raised a hand. ‘I’m sorry, what is a hashtag?’ she asked, her voice trembling.

‘That thing that looks like a noughts and crosses game,’ said the man.

The woman’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she said to the man next to her.

‘I’ll help you,’ said Molly. She smiled at the bomber. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get them to do it.’

The man pointed at the far corner of the room, away from the window. ‘Everyone sit down there. Just do as you’re told and everyone will go home.’

The hostages obeyed, though several were quite elderly and had to be helped onto the floor. Molly fussed around them, making sure they were comfortable and explaining what they had to do.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Metcalfe. The man frowned at him, as if he hadn’t understood the question. Metcalfe repeated it slowly, enunciating every syllable carefully. He could still smell garlic but it wasn’t as overpowering as when the man had handcuffed him.

‘I’m not fucking retarded,’ snapped the man. ‘What – you think cos I’m Asian I don’t understand English? I was born here, mate. I’m as British as you are.’

‘I’m sorry, I thought you hadn’t heard me,’ said Metcalfe.

‘No, you thought I’d just got off the bloody boat, that’s what you thought. You condescending prick.’

‘Seriously, no. I’m sorry. I just wanted to know your name, that’s all.’

‘Why do you give a toss about who I am?’

‘Because you’re handcuffed to me, that’s why. And if things go wrong and that vest goes off then yours will be the last face I see and that’s about as personal a relationship as you can have, so I just wanted to know who you are.’

‘This isn’t personal,’ said the man.

‘You came here deliberately, though. You chose me. You could have gone anywhere but you came to my surgery and handcuffed yourself to me, so it is personal. It’s very personal. You know I have a lot of Muslim constituents, don’t you? I’ve visited all the mosques here and have always been welcomed.’

‘You talk too much, mate,’ said the man.

‘I’m just saying, you’re attacking the wrong person here. I do a lot of work on behalf of Muslim constituents.’

‘What’s done is done,’ said the man. ‘You’ve got a phone, right?’

Metcalfe nodded.

‘Then start tweeting. Hashtag ISIS6. Tell your government to release the prisoners and you’ll be released too.’

‘The government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,’ said Metcalfe.

‘You’d better pray that they do, because otherwise we’ll all die today.’

Metcalfe rubbed his face with his free hand. He was sweating profusely and his hand came away wet. ‘And what are you? Al-Qaeda? ISIS? Who do you represent?’

‘I don’t represent anyone, mate.’

‘But you want the ISIS prisoners released, right? That’s what you told everyone?’

The man nodded. ‘If the prisoners are released, we all get to go home,’ he said. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his right arm.

‘Do you want some water?’ asked Metcalfe. ‘We’ve got bottled water in the fridge.’

The man nodded again. ‘Yeah. Okay. Thanks.’

Metcalfe gestured at his assistant and she got up off the floor and went over to the fridge. She took out a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and gave it to the man, then sat down again with the rest of the hostages. The man released his grip on the trigger, though the Velcro strap kept it in place in his palm as he drank greedily. He put the bottle down and thanked her again.

‘My name is Roger,’ said Metcalfe.

‘Ali,’ said the man. He forced a smile. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Metcalfe smiled despite himself. ‘I’d say I was pleased to meet you, and under other circumstances that might well be true, but …’ he gestured at the vest ‘… that scares me, you know that?’

‘You and me both, mate.’

‘You know who I am? I’m the local MP.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

‘So the thing is, Ali, I’m a pretty valuable hostage. You’ll get a lot of media attention because of me. I’m in the government.’

‘You’re a very important man, I get it,’ said Ali, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

‘No, I meant that you need to be talking to the police. You need to start negotiating.’

Ali nodded at the dozen or so constituents, who were now sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall, tapping away on their phones. ‘That’s what they’re doing. They’re putting the word out.’

‘You want those men in Belmarsh released?’

‘That’s what this is about. If they’re released, we can all go home.’

Metcalfe frowned. ‘We?’

‘I don’t want to die today.’

‘Then you need to talk. You need to negotiate. You need to show them that you’ve got me as a hostage. I’m an MP. I know the prime minister. They won’t want anything to happen to me.’

Ali said nothing.

‘You heard what I said? They need to know that I’m handcuffed to you.’

Ali gestured at the constituents. ‘They’ll explain what’s happened. I don’t need to talk to anyone.’

Metcalfe winced as his soaked trousers scraped across his flesh. ‘I need to change my trousers,’ he said.