First Response (16 page)

There were no pedestrians in the vicinity and any traffic would be held up by the police SUVs parked across the road.

Peyton peered at the offside mirror. He couldn’t see anyone in the front. He was about to tell Hall but then he flinched as something went bang, but it was a reflex and his trigger finger stayed where it was. The bang hadn’t sounded like a shot, more like a car backfiring. But one of the armed cops from the other vehicle didn’t agree and yelled, ‘We’re under fire!’ He immediately fired a shot at the van and the windscreen exploded in a shower of glass cubes. His two companions also started firing and within seconds dozens of rounds were slamming into the vehicle.

‘Hold your fire!’ shouted Peyton, but the armed cops couldn’t hear him.

Rounds continued to slam into the white van. One by one the tyres burst and the van lurched from side to side as it settled. Eventually the three officers stopped firing.

The stench of cordite drifted over and Peyton’s eyes watered. Hall motioned for them to move forward and McGuirk and Peyton followed him to the rear of the van. The only sound now was the barking of a dog in the distance and the trickling of water from the ruptured radiator. People were starting to emerge from their homes and most of them were taking video with their smartphones.

Hall reached the rear of the van and stepped to the side as he pulled open the door on the right. McGuirk and Peyton rushed forward, their guns covering the van’s interior. It was empty, except for a mobile phone lying on the floor along with several number-plates.

The three cops from the other van ran to the side doors and pulled them open, then stepped back. ‘Shit,’ said one.

‘I heard a shot,’ said another. ‘I swear to God, I heard a shot.’

‘It was a car backfiring,’ said Peyton, as he holstered his Glock. ‘Easy mistake to make.’

Lumley took the call, then relayed the message to Kamran. ‘The van was empty. Abandoned. The phone was in the back.’

‘It would have been too easy for Shahid to still be there,’ said Kamran. ‘Get Forensics all over the van and the phone.’

‘The kids are coming out,’ said Waterman. The MI5 officer was standing at the door, looking at one of the big screens on the wall in the special operations room. The feed was coming from one of the police cameras, a close-up of the main door to the childcare centre. A blonde woman was holding the door open and ushering the children out. They filed out in a long snake, all holding hands, as if they were playing a game.

‘There’s Osman. Can you see him?’ said Kamran. The suicide bomber was standing behind the woman. ‘They’re handcuffed, right?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Murray, coming up behind him.

‘Joe, get a close-up of her and see if we can ID her. How many kids are out so far?’

‘Twelve,’ said Waterman. ‘Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. That’s the lot.’

Police were breaking up the snake and taking the children away in twos. The worried parents were being kept back by officers in fluorescent jackets but at the sight of their children they forced their way through. The police resisted at first but then stood back and let the parents scoop up their kids.

‘Get them away from there!’ shouted Kamran. ‘That’s still a live bomb inside. Get everyone away.’

Lumley relayed Kamran’s instructions over the phone.

‘So who’s still inside?’ asked Kamran.

‘Two teachers, two office staff. Everyone else got out.’

‘So four hostages. That’s an improvement anyway.’ Kamran’s mobile rang. He rushed over to his desk. The caller was withholding his number but he answered. ‘So you have your children, Mo.’ It was Shahid. Kamran waved at Lumley and mimed for the sergeant to trace the call. On the screen the police were ushering the parents and their children away from the building. Armed police were still covering the main entrance.

‘Do you know what Shahid means, Mo?’

‘“Martyr”, I think.’

‘It’s more complicated than that. It’s an Arabic word that means “witness”. But you are correct. In recent times it has become the word that describes someone who dies for their faith. So today I am Shahid and my nine fellow warriors are also Shahids. But whether or not they become martyrs depends on you. You have seen our demands.’

‘We need to talk to you, Shahid. We need to discuss this.’

‘There is to be no discussion. You have the names of the six warriors we want released. They are to be taken to Biggin Hill airport. There is to be a jet there, fuelled and waiting. The warrior brothers will leave the country with the nine Shahids. And then it will be over.’

‘It’s not as simple as that, Shahid.’

‘It is very simple, Mo. It is either-or. Either the warriors are released or the suicide bombers become martyrs. It is now ten past two. You have less than four hours to release the warriors and get them to the airport. The plane must leave at six o’clock this evening.’

‘There isn’t enough time,’ said Kamran.

‘There is all the time you need,’ said Shahid. ‘You call the prime minister. You tell him that, if he does not agree to our terms, the bombers and their hostages will meet their maker in four hours. It will be on his head. Call him now, and I will call you back.’

The line went dead. Kamran looked at Lumley. He could see from the sergeant’s face that he’d had no luck in tracing the call.

‘Nowhere near enough time,’ said Lumley. ‘Sorry.’

‘Looks like he’s serious about using me as the sole point of contact,’ said Kamran. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Thing is, I’m not trained for negotiation.’

‘You’re doing fine, so far as I can see,’ said Waterman. ‘But I might know someone who can help.’

‘Any assistance gratefully received,’ said Kamran.

‘We have a guy over at Thames House at the moment. He’s running a few training courses for us. Former cop but for the last ten years he’s been working as a private-sector hostage negotiator. He did a lot of work in the Horn of Africa when the Somalian pirates were at their peak. Chris Thatcher. He’s one of the best negotiators around.’

‘Get him here as soon as you can,’ said Kamran. ‘I’m starting to feel out of my depth.’

‘Something else I might be able to help you with,’ said the MI5 officer. ‘Twitter has gone into overdrive on this, as you know. Sergeant Lumley’s got a team combing through social media for intel, but I think it’s fair to say they’re overwhelmed at the moment. Hundreds of ISIS, Al-Qaeda and assorted jihadist accounts are retweeting everything and a big chunk of them are claiming responsibility for what’s happening. On the other side of the fence we have hundreds of anti-Islamic sites pouring out their bile, all with the hashtag ISIS6. We’ve got to the stage where we can’t see the wood for the trees.’

‘So how can you help?’

‘What I’d like to suggest is that we handle all social media through Thames House. We’ve got the manpower and the technology.’

‘Sounds good, and can someone there liaise with Sergeant Lumley? Make sure that I’m kept in the loop?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Waterman. ‘And if it’s all right with you, I think we should go more pro-active.’

‘In what way?’ asked Kamran.

‘We can make direct contact with the hostages who are online,’ she said. ‘We can talk to them directly and ask them for intel and photographs. It would help us immensely.’

‘I wouldn’t want the hostages put at risk,’ said Kamran.

‘To be frank, they’re already at risk,’ said the MI5 officer. ‘And they have been encouraged to use social media. This would be an extension of that.’

‘I worry that if they got caught talking directly to MI5 or the police there might be repercussions.’

‘Not a problem. We’ll use dummy accounts. We have people who are experts at this sort of thing.’

Kamran nodded. ‘Okay, run with it. But at the first sign of trouble, shut it down.’

Mark Biddulph patted the ballistic panel that would protect his chest and groin from any explosion – hopefully. ‘It’s bloody heavy,’ he said.

Robin Greene grinned over at him. ‘I’d like to say you get used to it, but that’d be a lie. It’s almost forty kilos and the longer you wear it the heavier it gets.’

Biddulph held up his hands. ‘It seems so wrong that the hands aren’t protected,’ he said.

‘We need the flexibility,’ Greene said. ‘But it’s not like the movies. We’re not in there deciding which wire to cut while the clock ticks away.’

Biddulph had arrived with a Bomb Squad team at just before two o’clock. The van had POLICE on the side but there was no indication that it was involved in bomb disposal. Inspector McNeil had given Greene a briefing in the Silver Command office, which was when Biddulph had asked if he could go on the recce. McNeil hadn’t been happy but Greene had said that, providing Biddulph wore a suit and didn’t get any closer than twenty feet to the bus, the risk of injury was minimal.

The recce was to establish contact with the bomber and to get a close-up view of the inside of the bus, and after confirming with Gold Command at Lambeth that the risk was acceptable, Inspector McNeil reluctantly gave the go-ahead.

Two other members of the Bomb Squad helped Greene and Biddulph suit up while another technician prepared a field phone that they would try to persuade the bomber to use.

‘So this guy, he’s been working undercover?’

Biddulph nodded. ‘For the NCA. It started as a sexual-predator case with Asians grooming underage white girls, then it became obvious they were big-time drug importers.’

‘But there was no terrorism involvement?’

‘None that Kash reported.’

‘Kash?’

‘That’s his name. Kash, with a K. Well, his nickname, I guess. Kashif Talpur. He joined three years ago, did a couple of years pounding a beat in Wandsworth, and then we co-opted him into the NCA. Bright lad.’

‘Lad?’

‘He’s only twenty-three but looks younger.’

‘And no one suspected he’d turned fundamentalist?’

‘I still can’t believe it’s him,’ said Biddulph. ‘I’m hoping that when I get up close I’ll realise that it just looks like him and that the facial-recognition system has screwed up.’

‘People change.’

‘Yeah, but not that quickly. I saw him just three days ago and he was as right as rain. Had a couple of pints and a curry, chatted about the football more than the case.’

‘Pints? He drinks?’

‘Likes his beer. Was going out with a very pretty blonde girl before she got fed up with his hours. I’ve even seen him buy pork scratchings in the pub.’

‘But he’s a Muslim, right?’

‘Same way that I’m a Christian. I’m in church for funerals and weddings and I’ve broken most of the Ten Commandments. Kash is third-generation British. He can speak Urdu but that’s because his mum and dad insist on it at home. But Kash is …’ He shrugged, lost for words.

‘Well, let’s see what he has to say for himself,’ said Greene. He indicated a metal box with a phone handset on the top and a coil of wire clipped to the side. ‘You’ll be carrying the field phone. We’ll try to persuade him to take it onto the bus so that we can get negotiations started.’ He gestured at a small video camera that had been clipped to his protective jacket, just under his chin. ‘I’ll be recording everything and the video will be uploaded to Gold Commander in GT Ops so if there’s anything you’d rather keep private …’ He tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

‘Thanks for the heads-up,’ said Biddulph. The man who was helping him dress began adjusting the collar that would protect his neck. ‘You do this a lot?’

‘Suicide bombers? Nope, this is a first for me. To be honest, most of what we do involves old war munitions. Unexploded bombs and the like. And meth labs, we do a lot of them. But since the IRA went quiet we don’t have many terrorist-related bombs. We were there on Seven/Seven, but after the event, obviously.’

‘And these suits will protect us, one hundred per cent?’

‘There’s always a chance that a piece of shrapnel might hit you, but it won’t be anywhere vital. You’d be bloody unlucky to get a scratch.’

Biddulph grinned. ‘Good to know.’

‘It’d be a different story for anyone on the lower level of the bus, though,’ said Greene. ‘What they usually do with those suicide vests is wrap wire and nails and bolts around the explosive. The actual bang isn’t what does the damage, it’s the shrapnel. Now you and me, outside the bus, wearing these suits, we’ll be fine and dandy. And the passengers on the upper level, they’ll mostly be okay. But everyone else – they’ll be ripped to shreds.’

Biddulph nodded. ‘Got it,’ he said.

‘So we go in slowly, try to keep him calm. If there’s any sense that we’re making him agitated, we back away. We don’t want to be the trigger for anything happening. If he wants to talk, we tell him to use the phone. We give him the phone, gather intel, then leave.’

‘All good,’ said Biddulph.

‘We won’t be using the radios in the suits to talk until we’re sure what detonating system he’s using, but providing we’re close together we should be able to hear each other.’

Biddulph’s heart was racing and he took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

Greene grinned and patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘That Kevlar will stop most things.’

‘It’s not me I’m worried about,’ said Biddulph. ‘It’s Kash.’

The waitress who had been sticking more sheets of newspaper over the window looked at the man in the suicide vest. ‘Is that enough?’ she asked. ‘I can’t see any gaps.’

The man peered at the sheets and nodded. ‘Get back behind the counter,’ he said. ‘And, everyone, you need to keep texting. Hashtag ISIS6.’

‘Do you want me to text, too?’ asked Hassan.

‘Sure,’ said the man. ‘The more the merrier.’

‘And what do you expect this texting to do?’ asked El-Sayed. ‘You think the government cares about texts?’

The man glared at him. ‘If there are enough of them, yes.’

‘So why do you cover the windows? Isn’t it better publicity for the outside world to see what’s going on here?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ snarled the man.