First Response (3 page)

Waterford looked at Bill Collins, who was driving the armed-response vehicle with the casual professionalism that came from more than a decade in the job.

‘On our way, Control,’ said Waterford. He looked at Collins. ‘Blues and twos?’

Collins grinned. ‘Probably a hoax,’ he said. ‘But if it isn’t, sirens will only spook him. Anyway, we’re five minutes away at most and the traffic’s light.’ He pressed down the accelerator and the car leaped forward.

‘A suicide bomber in a church sounds a bit unlikely,’ said Mickey Davies, from the back seat. He was a relative newcomer to the ARV team, but had already proved himself calm under pressure. All his shooting to date had been on the range but he was a first-class shot. Unlike Waterford, who was greying, and Collins, whose hair was receding by the day, Davies had a head of jet-black locks that he held in place with a smattering of gel.

‘You never know,’ said Waterford.

Collins got to the church in a little over four minutes. He brought the car to a halt close to the railings at the entrance. Immediately Davies began unpacking the three SIG Sauer 516 assault rifles. The SIG 516, with its telescoping stock and thirty-round magazine, had replaced the Heckler & Koch G36 as the Met’s assault rifle of choice.

Davies handed out the weapons and all three officers checked they were locked and loaded.

‘Right, in we go,’ said Waterford, looking up at the red-brick building with its tall spire and vaulted stained-glass windows overlooking the street. ‘Softly softly, a quick recce and that’s all. If we see anything like a suicide bomber we fall back and set up a primary and secondary perimeter.’

Waterford led the way through a gate in the railings and up the path to the entrance. Davies and Collins were either side but further back. All clicked their safeties off with the thumbs of their left hands but kept their trigger fingers outside the trigger guard.

The door to the church was closed. Waterford reached out slowly for the handle. It turned but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked at Collins. ‘Do they lock churches?’

‘It’s Brixton, they lock everything,’ said Collins. ‘But there should be a mass about this time of the day.’

Waterford pushed harder but the door wouldn’t budge. He put his ear to it but the wood was thick and he doubted he’d hear anything even if there was a choir in full song on the other side.

‘There’ll be a back entrance,’ said Collins, heading to the rear of the church, which butted onto a Catholic school. Waterford and Davies followed him, cradling their SIGs.

There was another, smaller, door at the back that led to what appeared to be an office. There were a couple of computers, a printer and shelves full of filing cabinets. One door led to a toilet and another opened into a corridor that went into the church. Waterford took the lead, with Davies and Collins spaced out behind him.

There was another door at the end of the corridor. Waterford turned the handle slowly, then pulled it towards him. He nodded at his companions, then opened the door fully. They stepped into the rear of the church. Ahead of them was the altar, and beyond that the pews. The parishioners were packed into the front two rows and most of them seemed to have their heads down as if they were praying. As Waterford moved towards them, he realised they were all holding phones. He stopped and raised his hand. Davies and Collins froze behind him.

Waterford frowned. There was no priest at the altar, and the only sound was the faint clicks as the parishioners tapped on their phones. He took a tentative step forward and froze again as he spotted the priest further back in the pews. A middle-aged Asian man was sitting next to him, his beard flecked with grey. The priest saw Waterford and stiffened. The Asian noticed the reaction and leaped to his feet. His coat fell open and Waterford saw a canvas vest with wires connecting various pockets. There was something black in the man’s right hand and the left was connected to a steel chain that snaked towards the priest.

‘It’s a suicide vest!’ hissed Davies, stating the obvious.

‘Get out!’ screamed the Asian man. ‘Get out or we’ll all die.’

Waterford couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. ‘No problem,’ said Waterford. ‘We’re leaving. Just stay calm. We’ll get someone to come and talk to you.’ He took a quick look over his shoulder. ‘Back away, lads,’ he said. ‘We need to de-escalate this now.’

‘The ISIS prisoners must be released or we will all die here!’ shouted the man.

‘I understand,’ said Waterford. ‘Just stay calm. We’re leaving.’

He stepped back and gently closed the door.

‘Did you see that?’ said Davies. ‘That’s a bloody suicide vest he’s got on.’

Waterford ushered them down the corridor and back into the office. ‘Mickey, you need to evacuate the school now,’ he said. ‘Talk to the head teacher, get everyone out and away from the church. I’ll call it in and get you back-up.’

As Davies headed towards the school, Waterford took a deep breath as he called up the mental checklist of everything that needed to be done now that he had confirmed there was a suicide bomber on the premises. He reached up to activate the microphone by his neck. ‘Control, this is Trojan Four Five One, receiving?’

Superintendent Mo Kamran sighed as he looked at his email inbox. It was the first chance he’d had to check his email that morning and already more than a hundred messages were waiting for his attention. Some were spam, offering him cheap Viagra or a mail-order bride from Russia, but most were nonsense generated by jobsworths in the Met with nothing better to do. While the number of constables walking the beat or manning the capital’s stations had been consistently reduced over the past decades, the ranks of office workers in health and safety, racial awareness, equality and human resources had swelled to the point where the majority of Met staff had never even seen a criminal up close. The rot had set in at about the time that the Metropolitan Police had started to refer to itself as a service, rather than a force, and the public as customers, rather than villains and victims. Kamran had been a police officer for twenty years and a superintendent for two. As part of the promotion he had been moved away from what he saw as real policing – latterly on the Gangs and Organised Crime Unit – to an office job that he frankly hated. He was running Emergency Preparedness within the Special Crime and Operations branch, and most of his time was spent dealing with the London Emergency Services Liaison Panel. LESLP met every three months and consisted of representatives from the Met, the London Fire Brigade, the City of London Police, the British Transport Police, the London Ambulance Service, the Coastguard, the Port of London Authority and representatives from the city’s local authorities.

The main thrust of the LESLP’s work was to prepare for major emergencies, anything from a terrorist incident to a meteorite strike, and to make sure that when something major did happen, all the different agencies knew what they had to do. Kamran’s two years on the LESLP had been the worst of his professional life. The police representatives were easy enough to deal with, as were the Fire Brigade and the Ambulance Service, who were in the same boat as the police, being asked to do more on operational budgets that were constantly being slashed. But the bureaucrats working for the local authorities were a nightmare. They were all primarily concerned with protecting their own little empires and tended to nitpick and argue over every tiny detail. What made it worse was that the local authority representatives tended to be paid a lot more than the emergency service members, and drove better cars.

Kamran had asked for a transfer several times but had always been knocked back. He was doing a valuable job, he was told, and the earliest he would be moved would be following the completion of a new version of the LESLP manual, which detailed who should do what in the event of pretty much every conceivable disaster that might befall London. He sipped his coffee and started to go through the emails. Even the most tedious and pedantic required at least an acknowledgement that he had received it and understood the contents. At least half came from the local authority bureaucrats, who seemed to think that the longer the email, the more they were justifying their six-figure salaries.

He was halfway through the seventh email when his intercom buzzed. ‘It’s the deputy commissioner,’ said his secretary. ‘Urgent.’ She put the call through before he could reply.

The deputy commissioner got straight to the point. It was clear from his voice that he was under pressure. ‘Mo, we’ve a major terrorist incident on the go and I need you as Gold Commander for the time being. From the look of it, it’s an Operation Plato. Drop everything and get to GT Ops. I’ll call you back on your mobile and brief you en route.’

‘On my way, sir,’ said Kamran. The line went dead. Kamran’s heart was pounding. Operation Plato was one of the worst scenarios they trained for: a multi-seated terrorist attack on the city. GT Ops was the call sign for the Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre. There were three command centres in London, in Bow, Lambeth and Hendon. Between them, they handled the city’s daily six thousand emergency and fifteen thousand non-emergency calls. They were also used to provide specialist communications for major incidents, with experts from the police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance and any other of the emergency services that might be needed. Kamran grabbed his jacket and briefcase and rushed to the door. His secretary was standing at her desk, looking worried. He flashed her a confident smile. ‘Have my car downstairs, Amy, I’m going to GT Ops. Take messages for me and I’ll check in with you when I get the time. Clear my diary for the day and tell the Rotary Club that I won’t be able to do that talk this evening.’

Kamran’s mobile phone buzzed as he headed for the stairs. Reception was patchy at best in the lifts so he took the stairs down to the ground floor. ‘We have three suicide bombers in the city,’ said the deputy commissioner. ‘Brixton, Wandsworth and Fulham. The attacks appear to be coordinated and we fear there could be more coming. I’ve arranged for MI5 and the SAS to be represented at GT Ops but, as Gold Commander, it’s your show, Mo.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Kamran, though he knew his show could well turn out to be a poisoned chalice.

‘We have armed-response vehicles at all three locations and hostage negotiation teams on the way. We don’t know what their demands are yet but there’s no need to tell you this is going to be a tough one.’

‘I hear you, sir.’

‘We’ll try to get a more senior officer over later this morning but at the moment you’re the most qualified. Good luck.’

Kamran put his phone away as he hurried down the stairs. He was going to need more than luck, he was sure of that. He pushed open the door that led to the reception area and walked outside. His car was already waiting for him, engine running.

There were times when Sally Jones would quite happily have given Max Dunbar a smack across the face. He truly was a nasty piece of work, mean-spirited with a foul temper and a tendency to bite. The snag was that Max was four years old and Sally was a twenty-seven-year-old childcare professional, paid to take care of him and another dozen children of the rich and well connected. There was a waiting list to join the Little Kensington Nursery and it was able to pick and choose who it accepted. Sally just wished the owners had been a little more selective when it came to Max. His parents were go-getters in the City, the father a merchant banker, the mother in PR, but the high six-figure salaries meant they had little time for child-rearing and Max was an only child so had few, if any, social skills.

Max had been biting for the past month, and they weren’t playful nips, either. He thought it was funny to fasten his teeth onto a girl’s arm and bite until he drew blood. Sally figured he’d either grow up to be a vampire or a serial killer. He had taken a particular liking to a sweet little girl called Henrietta, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. He had already tried to bite her twice that morning and Sally was at her wits’ end. If Henrietta ended up with a bite mark, Sally would get the blame and she really didn’t need the grief. There were sixteen children in the class and two teachers. Sally and Laura had split the class into two and unfortunately she’d been stuck with Max. Punishing the child was out of the question, but there was no way of reasoning with him. His parents never said no to him, and at home he spent most of the time with his two Scandinavian au pairs, who catered to his every whim.

‘Right, let’s have story time,’ she said, clapping her hands. ‘Max, why don’t you choose the book?’ She pointed at the bookcase and nodded encouragingly. ‘Something with ponies, perhaps?’ Hopefully if she got him to participate, he’d forget about sinking his teeth into Henrietta’s arm.

The door to the classroom opened and Sally frowned as she saw a tall, thin black man walk in. His head was shaved and he had sunken cheeks, one of which had a curved scar across it. Sally knew immediately he wasn’t a parent. London might have been one of the most ethnically mixed cities in the world, but the nursery wasn’t and the man certainly wasn’t related to the Chan boy or the Indian twins, who were the only non-white children on the premises. Sally’s first thought was that he was a beggar. His long coat looked cheap and he didn’t appear to have washed in a while. But it was his eyes that worried her most – they were wide and staring, almost fearful.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked. She looked at Laura, but Laura was busy organising a painting exercise and hadn’t noticed him.

The man tried to smile but it was more like the grimace of an animal in pain. ‘I am sorry, madam,’ he mumbled. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and Sally realised he was sweating. Maybe he was sick. He certainly appeared disoriented.

‘I think you might be in the wrong place,’ she said, pointing at the door. ‘This is a nursery school.’

‘I am sorry,’ he said again, but louder this time. He took two steps towards her and grabbed her hand. She yelped. Before she could say anything he had clamped something metallic around her wrist. She stared at it in horror, trying to comprehend why he had handcuffed himself to her.