One Way Out

by A. A. Dhand

  ‘This is Tyler’s place, isn’t it?’ said Harry.

  Abu-Nazir smiled.

  ‘When things get hot, this is your safe haven. The last place anyone would look.’

  ‘The thing about a brilliant illusion, Harry, is that you never see it coming or figure out how it happened.’

  ‘I don’t buy it.’

  ‘We don’t need you to. Your belief doesn’t pay the bills.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’

  ‘That’s what everything is about.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Abu-Nazir snapped his gaze up at Harry. ‘Are you really this naive?’ His tone was disdainful. ‘Money makes the world go around. Religion’s a close second. Wars line the coffers of governments and, on the streets, identity politics pay our wages. Tyler fights for the white people of this country, and me’ – he paused – ‘I fight for the persecuted.’

  ‘You don’t talk for the majority. Neither of you do.’

  ‘We don’t need to. He gets money from foreign agencies. Don’t you know? Nationalism is in. Big business. He clears seven figures propelling hate speech. Not a bad way to make a living, opening your mouth.’

  ‘You twisted son-of-a-bitch.’

  ‘Why? Because I make a living out of filling a void?’

  ‘You’re playing with people’s lives.’

  ‘No, governments play with people’s lives. I’ve been there. Iraq. Afghanistan. Syria. Human lives have a value, I’ve seen it. And it’s not as much as you think.’

  Harry was beginning to see just what kind of monster Abu-Nazir truly was.

  Far from stupid.

  Far from textbook.

  Harry found a flaw in the argument and told Abu-Nazir what he had stopped Azeez from doing at the care home. ‘What about that? Azeez’s hatred seemed pure. Didn’t seem at all like he was playing a part to me.’

  ‘Oh, he isn’t,’ said Abu-Nazir, getting off this chair and walking around the room. ‘The man is angry, always has been. Combine that with his confusion about his sexuality—’

  ‘—you knew about that?’

  ‘—of course. It fuelled his anger. I knew he’d come in handy when the time arrived. Today was that moment. He was a pawn protecting the king. He had no idea what we truly stand for.’

  ‘You’re some piece of work. How does killing a care home full of pensioners serve any purpose?’

  ‘It would have strengthened Tyler. In turn, that strengthens me, because the backlash against all Muslims would have been profound, not just the extremists. Those disillusioned turn to me. Between us we talk to millions of people—’

  ‘Millions? You arrogant prick.’

  Abu-Nazir waved away Harry’s remark. ‘Social media, the news and our hallowed freedom-of-speech laws take care of it. This, Detective Virdee, is how you play the game these days.’

  ‘What about the innocent people inside the mosque in Bradford?’

  ‘A thousand Muslims die every day in other parts of the world, usually fighting each other. If that happens in Bradford in a few hours’ time, I’ll view it as a good day for this city.’

  ‘You twisted fuck!’ Harry lunged forward, straining at the chains of his handcuffs.

  Abu-Nazir retook his seat and removed the stun gun from his pocket. ‘I wonder how many times I’ll need to knock you out with this before it’s all over.’

  ‘This is over for you. Now that I know, soon everyone will.’

  Abu-Nazir leaned a little closer and changed the tone of his voice to mimic a news headline. ‘Abu-Nazir and Tyler in secret pact!’ He chuckled. ‘Your claims would disappear into the bottomless news canyon. Do you have proof of these wild allegations? Because one million YouTube subscribers say I’m right and you’re wrong. Fake news is everywhere, don’t you know? No proof. No credibility.’

  Abu-Nazir had him.

  ‘You need to let me bring you in,’ said Harry. He saw no other way out of this. ‘Like you said, you’ll be safe there.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Nazir pointed the stun gun at Harry. ‘Time to go to sleep, there’s work to be done.’

  Harry could do nothing except brace himself.

  ‘Wait,’ said Isaac, entering the room and joining Abu-Nazir. ‘Let me do it. I owe him a lot more than just one shot.’

  Abu-Nazir handed him the gun, beaming. ‘Boy’s a chip off the old block.’

  ‘Isaac, think about what you’re doing,’ said Harry, desperate.

  Isaac smiled, crossing the room to bend low over Harry.

  ‘You read my sketches but you didn’t understand them, did you?’ he whispered.

  His brow was furrowed in anger. Harry recoiled.

  ‘Isiah, my hero, you think he’s me?’

  Harry nodded, confused.

  ‘His nemesis – what is he called?’

  Harry thought back to the sketches. ‘The Undertaker.’

  Isaac dropped his voice a little more, leaned closer. ‘And what was Abu-Nazir’s name before he converted to Islam?’

  Harry thought back to the police database, the news reports, anything.

  Kade Turner.

  An anagram for ‘Undertaker’.

  ‘And what’s the Undertaker’s weakness? His Kryptonite?’

  Electricity.

  Harry finally understood. He thought of Isaac’s bedroom – the posters of superheroes, the detailed sketches of ‘Isiah’ saving the world. Of his wardrobe, with Isaac’s Western clothing safely tucked away – not discarded but something to come back to at some point. Harry saw who the kid really was.

  Isaac smiled, winked at Harry and got to his feet. He turned around, raised the stun gun and, this time, sent 50,000 volts into Abu-Nazir.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  This is Dominic Bell, reporting live for Sky News from Bradford, where thousands of Muslims have amassed in Forster Square retail park, holding candles and chanting prayers for their fellow worshippers inside the Mehraj mosque. We are in the twelfth hour of this hostage situation, with no obvious breakthrough to report. We cannot show you live footage of the mosque but I can tell you that the police presence here continues to grow and I’ve seen at least four military vehicles in the area. I can tell our viewers that while skirmishes have been reported and arrests made, the feared large-scale disturbances between the Far Right and the approximately ten-thousand-strong crowd of peaceful Muslim worshippers have not, as yet, materialized. As this siege looks to enter its final few hours, we can only hope that a peaceful resolution awaits us all.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Harry stared at the body of Abu-Nazir, unconscious on the floor, Isaac standing over him.

  He was no stranger to fraught relationships between a father and a son but there was nothing Harry could say here.

  Isaac pulled a set of keys from his father’s pocket, set the stun gun on the floor and came to Harry, unable to make eye contact. He simply unlocked the cuffs and stood.

  Harry scrambled to his feet as Isaac hammered several brutal kicks into Abu-Nazir’s side. After the third strike, Harry made to intervene but Isaac pushed him away.

  Another kick.

  This time, Harry wrapped his arms around the boy and pulled him back, hard enough to lift him clean off the floor.

  Isaac was crying.

  Harry sat him on the chair and went across to Nazir. Satisfied he was still alive, Harry handcuffed him to the radiator where he had been, then quickly searched the rest of the house.

  The first bedroom told him everything.

  Earlier it had been empty but now he found an unconscious blonde woman in jeans and T-shirt on the bed, hands and feet bound with tape. She must have entered the place after they did. Perhaps a lookout, outside the flat. Harry checked her pulse. She looked a lot like the images of Amelia Rose he’d seen online. He returned to the living room, where Isaac was once again kicking the hell out of Abu-Nazir.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Harry, pulling the kid away. ‘I get it, you want him dead, but that’
s not how this is going to go.’

  Isaac didn’t resist Harry’s intervention and went thundering into a chair next to a table on the other side of the room.

  ‘I got the headlines. You want to give me some of the fine print?’ said Harry.

  Isaac’s eyes didn’t leave Abu-Nazir. Whatever this was, it ran deep.

  Harry thought back to Isaac’s file and to what Abu-Nazir had told him.

  ‘Let me have a stab at this. Your father fucked off as soon as your mother got pregnant. He had no contact with you until recently. What I need are the details that connect what just happened here.’

  Isaac’s body suddenly relaxed. He leaned forward, put his hands on the table, head on top of them. ‘I don’t know what happens now. I never thought about that part.’

  Harry went to the window, peered outside. Even though the hour was late, Saville Tower was still alive.

  Isaac started talking behind him. ‘He’s an awful human being. My mother said he always was, that’s why she lied and told me he was dead. I didn’t know his identity until she got cancer. Then she told me everything: how she’d moved to Bradford to get away from her community and the sense of shame, but also to escape him. He was a shit.’

  Harry turned to face the boy. Isaac lifted his head from the table.

  ‘He told me he stayed in London. Joined the army but was dishonourably discharged after a few years. The rest, well – it is what it is.’

  Harry sat beside the boy. He spoke softly. ‘Do you know what he was discharged for?’

  ‘Being a coward.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Didn’t tell me. Gave me some bullshit about being wounded in battle. Not a chance – there’s more to it than that. And that bitch in there, Amelia, she knows. She’s just like him. The fucking Rose and Fred West of identity politics.’ Isaac smiled ruefully. ‘You know, he told me I’d got my artistic streak from him. Said he used to sketch. I started the Kade Turner / Undertaker thing soon after realizing exactly what he was. Showed him my drawings. He was too stupid to figure it out.’

  He hadn’t been the only one. Admittedly, it had been well hidden, but now all the drawings Harry had seen made perfect sense.

  ‘When did you realize he was working with Tyler Sudworth?’

  ‘Six, maybe seven months ago. He told me to sell my mum’s house and give him the money so we could grow Almukhtaroon, and I agreed. I put it on the market. All he wanted was the money. I fooled him. I devoted myself to his every word, gained his trust. I always knew there would come an opportunity. You gave me that tonight.’

  There was so much Harry felt he needed to say to the boy, so much Isaac probably needed to work out. That was a problem for another time. Four and a half hours until the Patriots’ deadline. Time to see this out.

  ‘What now?’ said Isaac, going to the window, parting the curtains slightly and staring out over the feral estate.

  Harry joined him. Five hundred yards to freedom.

  ‘Now, Isaac Wolfe, we get the fuck off this estate,’ he said.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Harry had put Abu-Nazir and Amelia on the couch in the living room. They had both come around now, their mouths gagged to stop them from screaming, hands tied in front of them. Isaac was in the kitchen. Harry needed to keep father and son apart. The less conflicted Isaac was, the better.

  What mattered now was getting the hell out of Saville Tower. Harry was conscious that Tyler Sudworth might return at any point. He also wanted to call Saima and give her some hope that things might be changing, but the best thing he could do for her was to get Abu-Nazir and Amelia Rose to Tariq Islam – from there, he didn’t know what would happen.

  Harry had to get Abu-Nazir and Amelia to walk out of the tower without drawing attention to themselves, and to do that he needed to put one of their lives on the line.

  Which one?

  Harry went to the kitchen, closed the door behind him.

  ‘How long have Nazir and Amelia been together?’ he asked.

  ‘Why?’ Isaac was clearly surprised at the question.

  ‘Do they love each other? Or are they just fucking?’

  ‘He told me they’ve been together for years.’ Isaac shrugged.

  ‘So, they’re solid?’

  ‘Pretty much. Why?’

  ‘We need to get out of here but they obviously won’t come willingly. This estate will tear us to pieces if we’re seen. If we put our heads down, walk hard, we are five hundred yards from freedom. At this hour, we’ll pass maybe a handful of kids, all probably pissed or high.’

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  Harry shook his head and nodded back towards the living room. ‘I need to … encourage them.’ He grimaced.

  ‘Tell me, Harry.’

  He told him.

  ‘Jesus,’ Isaac said, shaking his head. ‘That’s … I don’t even know the right word.’

  Harry nodded. He simply didn’t have any other choice. Had there been only one of them, he could have thrown them over his shoulder and made a run for it – five hundred agonizing yards. But with two people and time desperately short, this was crisis mode.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Isaac.

  Harry grimaced again. ‘Can’t do that to a woman. Does she care enough about him to put his life first?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She loves him. No question.’ Isaac stopped talking but Harry could tell he had something else to say. ‘What if … you go too far? We need them … in one piece for later.’

  It was a possibility. ‘I’ll play it as safe as I can.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Harry paused. ‘He’s your father. You sure … about this?’

  Isaac opened a kitchen drawer, rummaged through it and handed Harry a large kitchen knife. He said nothing. Didn’t need to. His face said it all.

  Back in the living room, Harry crouched in front of Abu-Nazir and Amelia. He was focused, building his rage, and his courage.

  Saima inside the mosque.

  His son alone.

  City Park reduced to ruins.

  One thousand innocent lives.

  The couple stared at him, clearly unsure what was happening. It wasn’t just the knife Harry was twisting in his hand but the blood that rushed to his head and his short and heavy breathing, as if his chest were on fire. Harry Virdee was angry.

  These two were afraid of him. Exactly what he needed.

  ‘You guys love each other?’ he asked, mood souring.

  Amelia made to speak, the gag muting her. Nazir too. Harry wasn’t interested in conversation. The longer he knew as little as possible about them, the better. Hard decisions were coming his way. He didn’t want to see the human side of either of them if he could help it.

  ‘We’re going for a walk. Out of here, down the fire escape, then across the yard to my car. Quickly and orderly. I don’t intend to fail, not when I’m so close, but logic dictates you’ll both try and stop me. Create a commotion. Try to run.’

  Harry focused on Amelia.

  ‘Do you love him?’ he said, pointing the knife at Nazir.

  She nodded. Tears streaming down her face.

  Harry believed her.

  ‘Only way I guarantee neither of you try to fuck with me is to put a clock on one of your lives. I’ll give you the choice, Nazir.’

  Harry brought the blade to his own face, stroking his stubble with it, eyes burning with anger.

  ‘You want to take this for team Almukhtaroon or should she?’

  His muted response sounded like he was offering himself up.

  ‘Just a nod or a shake of the head.’

  Abu-Nazir nodded.

  ‘I’m going to cut you, Nazir. Badly. It’ll need attention and if we don’t reach my car quickly, you’ll die.’

  Harry held up a cloth and waved it at him. ‘I’ll wrap a tourniquet around the wound; give you a borrowed lease of life. It’s a few hours until the Patriots’ deadline expires. You wo
n’t die in that timeframe. If you fuck me around and we don’t get off this estate, the last thing I’ll do is rip that tourniquet off you so you don’t make it either.’

  Harry turned to Amelia. ‘You best follow my orders. Don’t think I’m not capable of doing the same to you. My wife’s inside the Mehraj mosque. I’ll be damned if my kid’s growing up without his mother.’

  Harry grabbed Abu-Nazir, who started to struggle.

  Harry flashed the blade towards Amelia. ‘Should I pick her instead?’ he snapped.

  Abu-Nazir stopped fighting it.

  Then, to the sound of Amelia’s muted screams, Harry raised the knife, took aim and plunged it hard into Nazir’s flesh.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Saima was fighting off sleep.

  Like so many of the congregation around her, she was determined to see this through.

  Maria was still by her side. Saima had watched as she typed out a message and pressed Send.

  ‘I check in every thirty minutes, Saima. Do. Not. Test. Me.’

  Saima had no way of overpowering her without the people Maria was working with finding out. Who knew what might happen then?

  Saima needed to get her identity to Frost or, at least, inform Imam Hashim. She could not let the identity of the sleeper go unknown.

  But she had no phone. And she couldn’t get anything out of Maria. She was guarded, controlled and focused.

  Her head hurt. Every idea she conjured turned out to be a dead end.

  ‘I need the loo,’ said Saima, unable to sit still any longer. Maria pocketed her phone and got to her feet.

  The washrooms were generously proportioned to allow for worshippers to wash before prayer. There were four rows of toilets, each a dozen long. The doors were all closed. Maria nodded Saima towards the row nearest the sinks.

  ‘Keep the door open,’ she whispered.

  ‘I can’t pee with you watching me,’ replied Saima.

  ‘Door open,’ repeated Maria and shoved Saima towards a cubicle.

  Saima didn’t really need to pee. She entered the cubicle and turned to face Maria, who had both hands in her pockets, no doubt one on her mobile, the other on the device which would remote-detonate the bomb. Saima couldn’t read her face, it was blank.