The Angel (8 page)

Chapter Seventeen

I
brahim Yusof was in the back of the Sprinter. He knew the plan called for three separate blasts. The first was to detonate on the train, and he doubted that he would have heard it occurring one hundred feet below the surface. The muffled crack was the second, in the station. The third, just now, was outside.
It w
as deafening.

It was also their signal to move.

He opened one of the bags of vegetables and took out the small Uzi submachine gun that was hidden inside. He took one of the magazines, pressed it into the pistol grip and switched the three-position selector behind the trigger group to automatic fire. The irony that this was a Jewish weapon was not lost on him. The open-bolt design meant that contamination was more likely than with other weapons he could have chosen, but he had packed the gun carefully, and its compact design meant that it was worth the risk. He took two additional fifty-round magazines and stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket. He wore the machine gun on a bungee cord around his neck and hid it beneath his jacket. Then, he tore back the hinged lid on the empty tin of peas and pulled out two Swiss HG M1985 fragmentation grenades. He put one in his pocket and held the other in his hand. Finally, he opened an empty can of carrots and took out a small bag that could be worn around the waist. He passed the belt around and snapped the clips together.

‘Wait here,’ he said to Abdul.

‘Yes.’

‘Get the vests ready. If anyone comes, shoot them.’

He jumped down and hurried out of the loading area. He jogged up the ramp and out into the sunshine. An inky mushroom cloud was unfolding into the blue, already cloaking the walls of the clock tower above him. The sound of sirens was audible, still distant but drawing nearer. He needed to be quick. He ran, knowing that that would not be out of the ordinary given the panic that was erupting around him, sprinting hard along the side of the building until he got to the security booth that served the main exit onto Bridge Street.

The two policemen were out of the booth, standing at the fence and looking east to the seat of the blast. He drew a little closer and saw Faik walking to the gate, fifty feet away. Behind him he saw Nazir, Mo, Bilal and Aneel. The men were in position, just as they were supposed to be.

He slowed to a fast walk.

One of the policemen turned to him. ‘Stay back, sir. There’s been a bomb.’

‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘Where?’

‘Underground station. Two, I think – one inside and one out. Best stay here. It’s not safe out there.’

The policeman turned back to the fence.

Ibrahim pulled the pin of the grenade and rolled it, underarm, into the space between the booth and the fence where the two men were standing.

He pressed himself behind a brick wall strut and held
his breath
.

Neither policeman saw the grenade. Their attention was distracted. It was equipped with a pre-segmented shell filled with 155 grams of high explosive. The blast turned the steel casing into a storm of razored shrapnel, and it blazed out in all directions. The men were peppered with shards, their backs absorbing most of
the dam
age. They slumped against the fence and then slid down it to the ground, blood pooling on the concrete beneath them.

The door to the booth was ajar. There was a button on the wall that released the lock on the turnstiles, and he pressed it, hearing a satisfying click from outside. The men ran for the gate. Faik pushed through the gate first. He was grinning.

‘The weapons are in place,’ Ibrahim said as Nazir and Mo
followed
Faik through the turnstiles.

‘Where?’

‘Follow the road to the loading area. Abdul is waiting for you.’

He was still inside the booth when he saw the man with
the gu
n.

He was covered in ash and soot, and his clothes were torn, but he did not appear to have been injured. He was walking to the gate, a pistol held out before him in a steady two-handed grip. Ibrahim shouted a warning, but it was too late. Bilal was negotiating the turnstile, his range of movement severely curtailed. The man with the gun adjusted his aim and fired two shots from twenty feet
away. The
y both found their target. Bilal was struck in the leg and the back and fell forward, jamming the gate with his body. Aneel was behind him, and now the turnstile was blocked. Ibrahim watched, helplessly, as the man changed his aim and shot him, too.

Ibrahim tensed, expecting one or both of them to trigger their suicide vests, but they did not. They must have died before they could reach for the triggers. He shouldered his way out of the booth, raised the Uzi and fired a long burst through the railings. The man dropped to the ground and rolled behind the cover of a bus.

He ran. Faik, Nazir and Mo were ahead of him.

‘Bilal?’ Faik called back to him. He hadn’t seen what had
happened
.

‘Shot by the police. And Aneel. Put them out of your mind. There are five of us. That is enough.’

They ran down the ramp back into the building.

‘We must be quick. They will start to move the targets.’

Ibrahim took off his jacket and dropped it as he ran,
freeing
the Uzi. He led the way back to the loading dock, the other men
following
behind him. As he turned onto the ramp, he saw two members of the resident catering staff coming towards them. He raised the submachine gun and sprayed them with automatic fire. The man and the woman were close, and it would have been
difficult
to miss them. They were stitched with several rounds each, both of them stumbling, halting and falling to their knees.

Ibrahim ran by them to the van. Abdul was in the back. He opened the door and handed out the hidden weapons. Each man had a submachine gun, a handgun, multiple magazines and three grenades.

Ibrahim turned to the newcomers. ‘Do you have your vests?’

He could tell from the bulk that was evident beneath their
jackets
that they did. Faik unzipped his coat. He was wearing an armless gilet with stitched-on loops into which six pipe bombs had been fitted. Each explosive was surrounded by a fragmentation jacket that was stuffed with nails, screws, nuts, and ball
bearings
. It was the shrapnel that effectively turned each jacket into a crude, body-worn claymore mine. Mohammed had made them in his workshop and delivered them yesterday.

‘Take off your jackets. Let the infidels see them.’

They did.

They had smuggled their own vests into the building inside two paper sacks of potatoes. Abdul had put on one of the vests. He handed Ibrahim the remaining one.

Ibrahim put it on. It was heavy, around forty pounds. But it felt good. It made him feel potent.

He would have liked to pray, but there was no time.

‘You know what to do?’

Each man nodded that he did.

There was nothing else to say. Ibrahim took a breath to ready himself and then led the way into the heart of the building.

Pope, Snow and McNair approached the gate, weapons drawn. The first man had fallen onto his face. The second man had tried to force the gate, but it had been blocked by the first man’s body. He had taken a step back and had looked as if he was about to run when Pope shot him, too. Snow approached the second man.

‘Be careful,’ Pope called. ‘He could have a vest on.’

Snow fired a shot into his leg from twenty feet away. The limb jerked, but the man did not move. He was dead.

The man lying inside the turnstile was motionless, but Pope was not prepared to take chances with him either. He stayed out of range, aimed and fired a round into his thigh. No movement. He was dead, too. Pope hurried ahead, took the man by the ankles and hauled him out of the way.

‘What do we do?’ Snow said.

‘I’m going in. Paddy – you’re with me.’

‘And me?’ Snow asked.

‘Find a policeman, tell him what’s happened, then come
after us.’

‘You see how he fired?’ McNair said. ‘Close bursts, targeted. He’s been trained.’

Pope nodded. He had noticed that, too.

‘This is bad.’

McNair dropped to his haunches next to the man beside the gate. He unzipped the man’s jacket and swore colourfully. Pope turned to look.

The man was wearing a gilet fitted with pipe bombs.

‘It’s worse than that,’ Pope said. ‘Hurry, Snow. Tell the police we’ve got multiple suicide bombers inside. We’re going to need backup.’

Snow sprinted away.

He turned to McNair. ‘Ready?’

McNair nodded.

‘Come on.’

Pope pushed through the turnstile and ran in the same direction as the attackers.

Chapter Eighteen

I
brahim led the way. He knew the layout of this part of the building from visiting it every day for the last few weeks. They climbed a flight of stairs out of the basement and emerged in the kitchens. There w
as
a series of dining rooms set out along the oak-panelled corridor that began at the entrance to the kitchen. The staff of the refreshments department were responsible
for th
e food and drink that was served. There were four chefs in
the k
itchen this afternoon – three men and one woman. They had switched on a radio and were gathered around it as the presenter breathlessly relayed the developing news of the bombing at the Und
erground station
.

Ibrahim raised his Uzi and sprayed them with bullets. Stray rounds sparked off the pots and pans on the metal shelving, but most of them found their marks. The chefs dropped to the floor, one of them sliding off the shining stainless steel counter and bringing a pot of peeled carrots down atop him.

‘Eyes open,’ Ibrahim called out.

His men advanced in stooped crouches, fanning out, each of them with his weapon drawn and ready to fire. They were well trained and experienced soldiers. Death was not a stranger to them; they had walked with Him for months. Ibrahim knew that they would be ready to kill when the moment presented itself.

He knew that they were ready to die, too.

Ibrahim led the way through the kitchen. There was a window in each of the double doors at the far end, and he glanced through into the corridor beyond. An alarm was sounding. Ibrahim didn’t know what it signified, but he guessed that it had been triggered following the blasts outside. He hoped, and suspected, that it would mean that the people inside the building would be held in place until the outside was secured.

Abdul, Faik, Nazir and Mo waited for his instructions.

‘You remember the plan?’ They nodded, but he repeated it
anyway
. ‘We take the steps to the level up from here. Then we split. Faik – you are with me. We go left and take the long route to the lobby. Abdul, Nazir, Mo – you go right. We meet there. Shoot
anyone
you see.’

Mohammed had laid out their tactics. They knew that they would, in all likelihood, come across stiff resistance as they headed to the chamber of the Commons. Splitting into two separate teams would increase the odds of at least one of them making it. After all, they only needed one man to get inside.

He checked through the window again. A policeman had entered the corridor. He was walking away from them.

‘Ready?’

They nodded.

‘Now!’

He eased the door open and stepped through. The policeman turned just as he raised the Uzi and squeezed off a quick fusillade. The man was struck several times, stumbling back until he tripped and fell onto his side. He had collapsed next to the stairs. Ibrahim rushed ahead, put a final round into the man’s head and led the way up the flight of stone steps.

Pope saw the Sprinter and the discarded jackets and coats that had been scattered on the ground next to it. There were five of them. He paused quickly and saw the mess of opened tins and packets of produce that had been strewn around. It was easy enough to put together what had happened. The van had brought one or two men inside. Most likely it was two. The weapons for the attack had been hidden inside the opened tins and packets. The bombs were a distraction. One of the men from the van had killed the police guarding the entrance so that he could let the other men inside. The five jackets left on the ground suggested that the plan called for seven men. He had counted four and killed two. The spare jacket must have belonged to the man who had been left to guard the van.

‘There’s five of them, not four. And they’re all armed. Our friend had an Uzi. We better assume they all do.’

They climbed the winding corkscrew stone staircase and emerged on the ground floor, close to the Commons Library, where they split into their separate teams. They split up. Abdul, Nazir and Mo went one way, and Ibrahim and Faik went another. Their paths would converge on the lobby that preceded the entrance to the Commons.

Ibrahim ran, the extra weight of the explosives slowing him down. They passed through the Peers’ Lobby and the corridor beyond and reached the Central Lobby. It was a grand octagonal hall that was one of the central hubs of the building. He glanced up at the vaulted tower above them, a full sixty feet in diameter. The stone roof was supported without a central pillar and contained a long series of elaborately carved bosses. It was austere and impressive, obviously designed to cow those who visited. It did not have that effect on Ibrahim.

There were twenty or thirty people there. He saw old men in suits, a few women, and a policeman with his back turned to them. The atmosphere was fraught with tension. They must have heard what was happening outside by now. Ibrahim had trained for precisely this situation and his reaction was instant and ruthless. He released his hold on the Uzi, letting it fall free on the bungee cord, his right hand stabbing down into one of the pouches on his vest and removing one of the grenades.

He pulled the pin, tossed it into the middle of the crowd and slipped behind the cover of a pillar.

The grenade burst apart with a sharp crack. Hundreds of pieces of sharp-edged shrapnel were propelled in all directions. Those near the seat of the explosion were torn to shreds. It exploded on the floor, so those who might otherwise have survived were struck below the waist. They fell to the floor, their hands reaching for the wounds to their buttocks and legs.

Ibrahim and Faik stepped out of cover and fired at the
survivors
. They both emptied their magazines, then ejected and loaded fresh ones. They fired for ten seconds and then stopped.

Ibrahim paused to get his breath.

He smelled cordite.

Gunpowder.

He heard soft moans.

Faik shouted out.

Ibrahim spun. Another two policemen ran up the steps from
St Step
hen’s Hall. Faik fired first. The policemen hadn’t seen them and stood no chance. Ibrahim fired. The policemen collapsed to their knees, clutching their stomachs. Faik approached cautiously and shot both of them again.

‘Well done, brother.’

‘Allah smiles on us.’

‘We’re nearly there. We must hurry.’

They left the carnage in the lobby and headed north. The walls of the corridor were covered with grand frescoes. The ostentatiousness was distasteful. He thought of the austerity of the caliph’s
quarters
in Raqqa. The comparison was instructive: the worldly against the spiritual. He knew which he preferred.

He was at the entrance to the Commons Lobby when he heard more gunfire from behind him. He spun around and saw a man crouched low, aiming a pistol. He realised dimly that it was the man who had shot Bilal and Aneel as they had tried to pass through the turnstile outside. There was a second man a few steps behind him. Ibrahim tripped over his feet, just managing to launch himself into a deep recess as the pistol barked again and bullets winged out toward him.

He crashed against the wall.

No hits. Lucky.

‘Faik?’

Nothing.

‘Faik?’

‘He’s dead,’ a man’s voice called out. ‘You’re next.’

He risked a quick glance back. Faik was laid out on the floor. He had been shot as he had left the Central Lobby. He was on his belly, unmoving, a pool of blood inching out from an open wound in his temple.

A gun fired again. He pressed himself deeper into the recess as a cloud of dust and stone fragments exploded just overhead.

The firing stopped.

‘Do not come any closer,’ Ibrahim yelled.

‘Throw out your weapon.’

‘No.’

‘You’re trapped. Throw it out.’

‘I have a suicide vest. My finger is on the trigger. If I see you,
I w
ill detonate it. We will both die.’

Ibrahim heard the sudden clatter of gunfire from the other direction. Screams. He turned his head. He was almost at the end of the corridor, ten feet from the entrance to the Commons Lobby. He could see into most of it from where he was. Abdul, Nazir and Mo had entered the lobby from the east. A policeman had been guarding the doors to the Commons, but now he was on his back.

‘Abdul!’ Ibrahim yelled. ‘Help!’

Besides Ibrahim, Abdul had the most battlefield experience of any of them. He knew what to do.

They could see each other, but the angle meant that the men who had shot Faik could not see them. Ibrahim pointed back to the south to Faik’s body.

Abdul crept ahead, lowered himself to a crouch and pressed himself against the doorway.

He fastened his eyes on Ibrahim’s and counted down on his fingers.

Three.

‘Throw out—’

Two.

‘—your weapons!’

One.

They both span out of cover, their submachine guns up and firing. He saw a flash of colour against the dun stone and focused his aim on it, fully automatic. Bullets crashed against the wall
and a
storm of chips was cast out, but the men who had shot Faik were in cover.

Mo and Nazir joined Abdul at the doorway and opened fire.

‘Keep firing!’ Ibrahim yelled over the sound of the fusillade.

He took one of his grenades, pulled the pin and rolled it
underarm
toward where he thought the men were sheltering. The fuse was set for five seconds. The grenade detonated with a crash that was amplified by the natural acoustics of the corridor. Shrapnel clanged against the walls, and a cloud of black smoke billowed out.

He took the chance to sprint out from cover, throwing himself into the lobby with the others.