Authors: James Barrington
‘Couldn’t it just be simple terrorism? I mean,’ Jackson suggested, ‘a bomb positioned just to cause damage and loss of life? Something like the Canary Wharf or Bali
bombings?’
‘I doubt it,’ Richter shook his head. ‘And even those two bombs certainly weren’t random. There was a reason for detonating this device here, and if we can work out what
it was, we’ll be a lot closer to discovering who was responsible.’
At that moment Tariq Mazen emerged from a building further down the road, a plastic bag in his left hand, and headed over to where they were standing. Evans pointed at the bag.
‘The tapes,’ Mazen explained. ‘I’ve obtained all the videos from the surveillance-camera system for the last week. We should at least be able to find out when the vehicle
was positioned, and with luck see whoever drove it here.’
‘What’s the resolution like?’ Evans asked.
‘Reasonable, according to the owner of the property, but it’s only intended for short-range work. How clear the images will be at longer distances I don’t know.’
‘Tariq,’ Evans said, ‘have you any idea why this particular building might have been targeted?’
Mazen glanced up and down Al-Mutanabi Avenue. ‘I’m not aware of anything significant here,’ he said, ‘but obviously I’ll check.’
Barcelona, Spain
Tall, slim and dark-haired, Josep Matero was thirty-eight years old and was completely unaware that he was being followed as he left work that afternoon. He also had no
idea that he’d been followed home the previous day as well.
The first surveillance operation, carried out by a man called Jeffrey Haig, had been intended solely to check the Spaniard’s domestic arrangements – if it turned out he had a wife
and children one of the other three technicians on Haig’s shortlist would have been chosen instead, because they wanted as few complications in Spain as possible.
But Matero’s wife had left him two years earlier, and he lived alone at the edge of the university area on the southern outskirts of Barcelona. Though the apartment was small it was
convenient for his job. The airport lies to the south of the city, and Matero could get there on his small motorcycle in about fifteen minutes.
He was working a split shift that day, which meant he had to get back on site the same evening. He arrived home just after three, after stopping off at a local bar for a light meal of
tapas
and a half-bottle of
rioja
. The prospect of a lazy afternoon stretched pleasantly ahead of him: there might even be some football on TV.
He’d already changed out of his working clothes and was on his way to the kitchen to make coffee when he heard the unexpected knock, and stepped back into the hallway to answer the
door.
He didn’t recognize the man standing in front of him. Matero opened his mouth to ask what he wanted but, before the words could form, the stranger stepped forward and punched him violently
in the chest.
The pain was incredible, like nothing Matero had ever experienced, and he stumbled backwards, falling to the tiled floor. As he tried to get up, there was no strength in his limbs, and the pain
in his chest was even worse. For a few seconds Matero wondered how the stranger had done it. And in the last agonizing moments of his life he wondered
why
.
Roy Sutter closed the door behind him and watched without emotion as his victim died on the tiles right in front of him. Then he went looking for the bathroom. When he found it, he wiped the
blood off the five-inch blade of the push-dagger, threw the toilet paper down the loo and flushed it. He folded the knife and replaced it in a leather belt sheath.
It was an unusual but extremely effective assassination weapon, T-shaped with a slim stiletto blade hinged in the centre of a shaped metal handle. The attacker held the handle firmly in his
palm, the blade projecting between his third and fourth fingers, and simply punched the victim in the chest or back. If the blow was delivered strongly and accurately enough, the blade would
penetrate for its full length, and easily rupture the heart.
Sutter checked that the apartment was empty before he returned to the hall. He seized Matero’s feet and dragged the body into the lounge, dumping it in the centre of the room. He toyed
briefly with the idea of trying to make the scene look like a burglary gone wrong, but then decided he couldn’t be bothered. The body would likely be found soon enough, but within hours he
would be on a different continent.
He only needed two items from the apartment. He found the first in the fitted wardrobe in the bedroom, and the second lying on a small desk in the living room.
Less than ten minutes after he’d entered the building, Sutter walked away from it with a bulging plastic carrier bag in one hand, the gloves he’d worn the entire time already dumped
in a nearby rubbish bin.
Twenty-five minutes later, and half a mile closer to the city centre, Jeffrey Haig emerged from another apartment building, where his actions had almost exactly replicated those of Roy
Sutter.
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Richard Watts waited patiently for a break in the stream of calls, and finally depressed the transmit button. ‘Andrews Ground, Gulfstream November Two Six,
requesting engine start and taxi clearance.’
‘Two Six, engine start approved. Call ready to taxi for runway zero one right.’
‘Roger. Engine start approved, runway zero one right.’
The APU was already running, and Watts had both the Rolls-Royce Tay turbofans started within minutes. The cockpit of the G450 is fully computerized, the four flat-panel LCD screens of the
Gulfstream/Honeywell PlaneView integrated avionics system facing the two pilots providing all the information required. Each pilot sees one screen displaying flight instrumentation – airspeed
indicator, compass heading, horizontal situation indicator and so on – while the two central screens show navigation data and engine status.
Eleven minutes after engine start, the Gulfstream turned on to the end of zero one right, and waited a few moments for another jet to clear the active runway.
‘November Two Six, Andrews Tower. Clear take-off. Wind zero two five at fifteen. When airborne, contact Potomac Departure on one two five six five.’
‘Roger, Tower. Clear take-off and to Potomac on one two five six five when airborne. Good day, sir.’ Watts pushed the throttles smoothly forward, and the G450 began accelerating
rapidly down the runway.
In the beautifully equipped cabin of the Gulfstream, Grant Hutchings and John Baxter sat facing each other in two of the sumptuous leather armchairs. The other members of the investigation team
– Andy Franks and Roger Middleton – sat in matching seats on the other side of the aisle.
As the Gulfstream lifted into the air, Franks looked across at Hutchings and smiled. ‘Sure as hell beats flying commercial, sir.’
‘Just don’t get too used to it,’ Hutchings growled. ‘I’ve been in the Company for over twenty years, and this is exactly the third time I’ve ever flown
private.’
British Embassy, Government Avenue, Manama, Bahrain
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Tariq Mazen decided to break the rules and visit the British Embassy.
Evans met him in the foyer and escorted him to the ‘Holy of Holies’, where Richter and Jackson sat in the small conference room, studying the initial reports about the bombing. Six
people had died in total, five in the road close to the car, and another one in the adjacent building, while about another dozen were seriously injured. The man Richter had tried to help was still
alive, following emergency surgery – one small piece of good news.
‘We’ve had some luck,’ Mazen reported, ‘but we aren’t much closer to finding out who planted the device.’ He passed each of them a set of three photographs.
‘The vehicle appeared on the street just before six o’clock on Monday afternoon, and it was parked there by people who either knew exactly what they were doing or were unbelievably
lucky.
‘The first of those pictures shows Al-Mutanabi at five-fifty on Monday. The second shows the same scene, but now you can see the bomb vehicle parked by the roadside. It was an American
Chevrolet, about ten years old. Now, this surveillance camera sits on a swivel mount and swings through a half-circle once every two minutes, so it only records activity in that section of
Al-Mutanabi for half the time.’
‘Brilliant,’ Jackson hissed. ‘What genius thought that one up?’
‘I asked the owner of the building, and he has no idea either. Now, if you look closely at the second picture you’ll see two figures sitting inside the car. Our analysts think they
were both wearing
gellabbiyas
, but they can’t be certain. In the third photograph, the vehicle is still there, but you can see that the occupants have vanished.
‘Now,’ Mazen glanced round the table, ‘it could just be luck that these two bombers managed to get out of the car while the surveillance camera was pointing in the opposite
direction, but we really don’t think so. We believe they were using the exterior mirrors to watch the camera, then walked away quickly before it swung back in their direction. We think they
crossed over to the building on which the camera is mounted, waited there until it swung back, then continued down to Tujjaar and turned left.’
‘Why left?’ Jackson asked.
‘Because of this.’ Mazen now handed out a fourth photograph. It showed the south-east section of Al-Mutanabi, and at the end of the street two figures in white
gellabbiyas
were visible – one turning left into Tujjaar, the other immediately behind him but staring down Al-Mutanabi.
‘Now this is somewhat tenuous, but because these two men are so close together we believe they must be the perpetrators. The surveillance camera showed no other pair of men together
anywhere in Al-Mutanabi, in either direction. The rest were either in groups of three or more, or individuals.’
‘“Tenuous” is right, Tariq,’ Richter interrupted. ‘There were two men in the car – the photograph makes that clear – but they could have separated as
soon as they got out of the vehicle, and headed in different directions.’
‘I would agree with you,’ Mazen replied, extracting another set of photographs from his briefcase, ‘except for this.’
Richter studied the image carefully. In this one, the first of the two men had already disappeared into Tujjaar, but the second was still staring down Al-Mutanabi and, even though the image was
too low-resolution to show much detail, he appeared to be smiling and waving his arm.
‘We think the bastard was waving at the camera, knowing he couldn’t be identified at that distance.’
‘You may be right, Tariq,’ Evans said, ‘but it doesn’t get us any further forward. You certainly can’t identify the man from this photograph. In fact, you can
barely make out his features.’
‘I agree with Bill,’ Richter remarked. ‘I don’t think we’re going anywhere with this. All it tells us is that the vehicle containing the bomb was delivered to
Al-Mutanabi by two men, who then probably walked into Tujjaar and vanished. I’m more interested in why they decided to position the Chevy just there. Have you found out anything significant
about the location?’
‘We’ve one possible lead,’ Mazen replied, ‘but first there are some things I need to explain to you. The political situation here is fragile, with numerous pressure
groups demanding radical changes. Not including the political parties, we have at least seven active organizations. They all have different agendas, but are united in their opposition to the
present system. They’re also opposed to each other, and we suspect that this car bomb may have been an attack by one group upon another. Investigation shows that three rooms in a building
about seventy yards from the explosion were occupied by a small but aggressive group called Bahraini Jihad. This building was only slightly damaged.’
‘Perhaps they couldn’t park right outside the target,’ Evans suggested, ‘so they got as close as they could, just to send a message.’
‘A hell of a message,’ Richter said sourly, ‘to kill half a dozen people but leave the target virtually unscathed. If hitting Bahraini Jihad was the objective, Tariq, who do
you think was responsible?’
‘It might have been another small militant group here known as Sharaf. That word means honour, Paul, and to an Arab male the most important thing, even more important than his own life, is
his honour. But such honour has to be earned through deeds that will bring him praise and renown.’
‘What do you know about them?’
‘Not a great deal,’ Mazen replied, ‘and a lot of the evidence is circumstantial. Two months ago a terrorist plot was discovered, aimed against the American base at Al-Jufayr.
The plotters had assembled over fifty kilos of high-yield explosive, automatic weapons and plenty of ammunition. We had no idea at all that an assault was being planned, but then we received an
extremely accurate tip-off, purportedly sent by Bahraini Jihad. By working with the local police, and the base’s security force, we succeeded in arresting all those named. Under
interrogation, one of the conspirators admitted to being a member of Sharaf, and that was the first time we’d heard of the group. He further claimed that Sharaf was dedicated to the complete
removal of all American interests from the Gulf.’
‘I would have thought most local terrorist groups would have that on their agendas,’ Richter observed.
‘Not all of them, actually. One peculiarity of Bahraini Jihad is that its principal objective is the permanent removal of the ruling Hamad family, not the Americans; they even believe that
the base could prove a useful bargaining counter in future negotiations with the West.’
‘So,’ Evans interjected, ‘that is presumably why they blew the whistle on Sharaf.’
‘It makes sense,’ Richter admitted.
Carole-Anne Jackson, who’d been sitting silently throughout this discussion, now looked up. ‘There’s something else,’ she said, ‘something we haven’t yet
considered, which is Holden’s premonition. Assuming Tariq’s right about the two men wearing
gellabbiyas
, Holden was correct in every important detail, including the type of car
used. So how the hell could he possibly have known?’