The Angel (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

I
sabella bought a ticket to Heathrow from the machine, used it to pass through the gate and joined the queue that was
shuffling
toward the escalator. It hummed as it carried her down the long shaft to the vestibule below.

Aamir took the Victoria Line to Green Park station and then changed to the southbound Jubilee Line to Westminster. The carriage was full and he had to stand.

The Jubilee Line was newer, and the trains and the stations were all much sleeker and more modern than the others that they had used when they had scouted the capital last month. Westminster, in particular, was an impressive vaulted space, a cavern that had been carved in the earth at the side of the Thames. It was one of the main stations that served the offices of government around the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall. Many of these men and women waiting patiently for the train to carry them to their destinations were puppets of the state, putting into effect the pernicious policies that had led to decades of misery for their brothers and sisters in the Middle East.

Had they seen the effects of those policies, as Aamir had?

Mohammed had told him to watch the YouTube videos of the atrocities that had been carried out in the name of civilisation and democracy, the bombed schools and hospitals.

The dead children.

The families wiped out by drone strikes and five-hundred-pound bombs dropped by cowards from ten thousand feet.

He looked at the men and women around him as they read their newspapers and listened to their music. They were oblivious. They had no idea what he could do to them with just a simple click of the trigger in his pocket.

And yet, as the train rushed through the dark tunnel, the doubts returned. These people were not soldiers. They did not drop the bombs. They had families. They were mothers and fathers, not so different to the brothers and sisters in Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan and the other Muslim lands.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the imam had said to him. The words of the sacred Qur’an.

Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who
suppress faith
.

He could almost hear the cadence of Alam Hussain’s deep, sonorous voice. He closed his eyes and let the rhythm of the verse play through his head.

Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you.

And slay them wherever ye catch them.

Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

The weight of the rucksack brought him back around. The strap was cutting into his right shoulder, so he carefully transferred it so that it was slung across his left. The bag itself was against his chest. He wrapped his arms around it so that he could cradle it and reduce the downward pressure from the strap. He thought about what was inside the bag and what it would do when he detonated it.

What it would do to him, and all these people.

The train eased into Westminster station. The screen doors on the platform opened first, and then the doors to the train.

This was where he had agreed to detonate the bomb. Right here, in the carriage, catching some as they stepped out and others as they stepped in. His would be the first blow to be struck. The second and third blows would be triggered by his actions, a series of attacks that would amount to a grievous blow against the infidels, deep in the heart of their country, right next to the seat of their democracy.

The scrum of passengers shifted and eddied as people elbowed their way to the carriage’s exit. A man told him to move out of the way, and a woman tutted at him, and as he took a pace to the left to allow them the space to squeeze by, he was pushed towards the exit himself. He disembarked, not really thinking, clutching the heavy rucksack to his chest. The tide of commuters carried him towards the opening that led to the main vestibule and the escalators that would take him to the surface.

He thought he saw Bashir.

The tide shifted, people bustling into his line of sight, and he couldn’t be sure.

He craned his neck.

‘Come on, buddy,’ a man said, nudging him.

‘Sorry.’

Aamir was bustled onto the escalator. He was breathing quickly, and his pulse was racing.

He looked for Bashir and couldn’t see him, even as they ascended. He gazed at the others: the long queue of people going down to the platforms on his left, the others heading up to the surface with him. Men and women and children. A woman staring at the screen of her cell phone. A man reading a book on a Kindle. A couple balancing a child’s stroller between them. A pretty blonde girl, not that much younger than him, a leather satchel hung over her shoulder.

No.

He couldn’t do it.

He turned back, closed his eyes and waited for the escalator to deliver him to the surface.

Hakeem’s train had rolled into the station five minutes before Aamir’s. That was what they had planned. He needed time to get into position. The rush hour was long since ended, but this was a busy station. He had seen Bashir get onto the train, but he had lost sight of Aamir in the scrum at Kings Cross. He was a little concerned about the young brother. It had been harder to persuade him that what they were going to do this morning was necessary. Mohammed had worked on Aamir; Hakeem thought that the young recruit could be relied upon, but he wasn’t as certain about Aamir as he was about Bashir.

Hakeem looked at the oblivious men and women around him. They were like cattle. They had no idea what was about to happen.

It gave him a wild thrill of excitement.

He walked from the platform into the vestibule that accommodated the escalators. He separated himself from the throng and found a place where he could wait without being too obvious about it. The plan called for him to stay here until Aamir had detonated his bomb. The boy would kill and maim dozens of the infidels in the confined space of the train carriage. His bomb would also cause panic and send hundreds of them dashing headlong to where he, Hakeem, would be waiting for them. He would press himself into the middle of the crush and close his eyes. He would pray to Allah that he would kill as many of them as he could.

He looked at his watch just as he heard the sound of the next train easing into the station.

This must be Aamir.

Not long.

Moments.

He knew this was a martyrdom operation and that he wouldn’t live beyond this day. He knew his span on this Earth could be
measured
in minutes now. Seconds. He was content with that. He was clear-headed and calm, prepared to sacrifice himself to the greater good. His blood would serve the caliphate, and the scripture was clear and unequivocal: he would earn a place in Paradise for
his work
.

He heard the sound of the train’s doors closing.

Now?

The train accelerated.

He looked at his watch.

He waited.

Nothing.

No explosion.

He didn’t understand what was happening.

Aamir should have been here by now.

He was trying to think what to do when he saw the boy on the escalator above him. His mouth fell open. Aamir still had his rucksack over his shoulder. He was clutching the bag to his chest as if it was something precious.

He wanted to call out – ‘Aamir!’ – but he knew that he couldn’t draw attention to himself.

Aamir was going to the surface. He had failed. He had lost his nerve and
failed
.

Once again he heard the scripture that Alam Hussain had made him memorise.

O Prophet, rouse the believers to fight. If there are twenty among you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred, then they will slaughter a thousand
unbelievers
, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding.

Aamir might fail.

But
he
would not.

He took a step away from the wall and then another, pushing his way into the crowd of people waiting to get onto the escalator. He remembered everything that the imam had said, and everything that Mohammed had said after that. He closed his eyes, ignoring the angry words as he bumped into men and women. He put his hand into his pocket and felt the trigger. He grasped the switch and felt its sharp edge press into the flesh of his thumb.

‘Allahu akbar,’
he yelled.
‘Allahu akbar. Allahu—’

Chapter Thirteen

A
llahu akbar. Allahu—’

Isabella heard the chant as the doors of the carriage closed behind her. She was adjacent to the passageway that led through to the escalators, and she was looking out into it as the train slowly eased into motion. The angle changed and her attention was snagged by a poster for a new film she had been thinking of seeing.

Then came the explosion.

Isabella saw a bright white light that seemed to go on for
seconds
, and then she heard a dull
crump
. It was loud, but blunt. It was like a thud, a physical sensation that she could feel passing through her body. She saw a gout of smoke punch out of the passageway and onto the platform. At the same time, the glass screen doors shattered and the side of the carriage was peppered with tiny pieces of debris that rang out loudly. A jagged crack appeared in the window, and further down the carriage an entire pane shattered and fell onto the passengers.

The train jerked to a sudden stop.

There was silence for a moment, and then came the sound of screaming from the platform and the vestibule beyond. One of the women in the carriage had been lacerated by the falling glass, and as the other passengers saw the blood that was running down from her scalp, some of them started to scream, too.

The lights on the platform flickered and died.

Smoke drifted in through the smashed window.

The lights in the carriage winked out, too, and in an instant it became completely black.

The smoke was acrid; she heard people retching and coughing.

The carriage lights came on again. A man was stumbling along the platform. Isabella looked at him and saw that he had no face, just a mask of blood and skin that looked like masticated steak.

A male passenger yanked down the handle of the carriage’s intercom and tried to speak to the driver.

Other men and women appeared on the platform. Their faces were blackened with soot and dirt and blood, and their clothes were torn and shredded. The whites of their wide eyes stood out against the muck on their skin.

A man tried to wrestle the doors open. He managed to part them a crack and call for help. Two others pushed through the scrum and tried to force them all the way open. She was buffeted to the side, and as she put her weight on her right foot, she felt the crunching of broken glass beneath it.

The lights flickered and died for a second time. A shower of sparks drifted down from the ceiling to the floor of the platform. It was incongruously beautiful.

The screaming got louder.

‘Allahu Akbar. Allahu—’

Aamir was at the top of the escalator when he heard Hakeem’s strident chant. His call was enveloped by the crashing roar of the bomb as it exploded in the vestibule below him. It was a
loud, sudden
boom, closely followed by a pressure wave that pulsed up the shaft and flattened everyone in its wake. It lifted Aamir up and
tossed him
, dropping him on his front, the rucksack beneath him. The rumble was followed by the sound of shrapnel striking
against the
concrete walls of the shaft and the metal treads of the escalator. The sound was like a whoosh, the noise that a very strong wind might make. It almost felt electrical, and his hair stood up on end.

There came a sudden silence. Aamir heard the sound of his own breathing, in and out, ragged and on the edge of panic, and then came the shrieks and screams. The horror. Smoke coursed out of the mouth of the shaft, black and choking, and Aamir felt it sting his eyes.

Aamir shook the rucksack from his shoulders and left it on the floor as he scrambled to his feet.

He forgot about it and ran.

He crashed into a large man in a London Underground
uniform
.
He was old, his kindly face absorbed with shock and
horror
. The man was trying to forge a path through the on-rushers so that he could get to the escalators.

Aamir looked up and saw the white of daylight from the s
tation exit
s.

He had to get outside.

Aamir ran to the gate line, bumped and baulked by the others around him. The gates were all open, and he squeezed through, climbed the steps and emerged into the bright sunlight. He looked up. Big Ben stretched overhead, and behind it, the towers and crenellations of the Palace of Westminster. A single Union Jack flew from a flagpole atop one of the towers. The pennant hung down, rustling in the negligible wind.

Aamir looked across the road and saw Bashir opposite the exit to the station, crossing the road and heading right at him. Bashir looked back at him for a moment, confusion quickly replaced
by ange
r.

‘Stop!’

Aamir saw the bulk of his rucksack and knew what was about to happen.

He ran.