by Tim Ayliffe
When the momentum stopped, Bailey found himself standing next to the woman doing her makeup, which meant that he was less than a metre from Ayesha Haneef.
The bus started moving again.
The next stop was Monument Station and people were already gunning for the door.
‘Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.’
Somehow, Bailey managed to hold his position over Ayesha’s shoulder. He needed to stay close.
Unlike the image in the photograph in his pocket, Ayesha wasn’t wearing a hijab. She looked like any other young woman on her way to university, her long brown hair tucked under a navy coat. Bailey was staring at the back of her head when it occurred to him that he hadn’t given much thought to what he would do if he found her.
All Bailey knew was that he had to find her.
And he had.
‘I’m the next stop.’
The lady sitting beside Ayesha stood up, offering her seat to Bailey.
‘Thanks.’
Bailey sat down.
Ayesha was still staring out the window. Sitting beside her reminded Bailey that he had a daughter too. Miranda. He should have tried to speak to her before he got on the bloody bus. Suddenly, all he wanted to hear was his daughter’s voice. One last phone call, just in case. He would tell her that he loved her. That he was glad that she was marrying a good guy like Peter Andrews. He would make Miranda put the doc on the phone so that he could tell him to take care of her if anything happened to him. But there was no time. A missed opportunity. Another reason to make it off the bus in one piece. At least Gerald would be there for her if this went bad.
The bus stopped, doors opened. More people got off, more people got on.
The doors closed. Once again, they were moving.
London Bridge was only a few hundred metres away. Bailey looked down and noticed a bag next to Ayesha’s feet. He couldn’t see her hands because she had a scarf resting on her lap.
The bus stopped in the traffic ahead of the bridge and Bailey sat, wondering what to do.
Maybe she didn’t have a bomb at all. Maybe she wasn’t going to go through with it.
‘What’s in the bag, Ayesha?’
Ayesha jolted at the mention of her name and turned to look at him. ‘What?’
‘What’s in the bag?’
She hesitated for a few seconds, like her brain was searching through the faces it had on file.
‘Who’re you?’
The bus stopped suddenly and the driver sounded his horn.
‘John Bailey.’ Their eyes met. ‘I’m here to stop you from doing something stupid.’
‘It’s too late.’
Bailey grabbed the scarf from her lap. Her hands were gripped around a small box, her thumbs pushing down on something. It looked like a remote control from a 1980s computer game, with a wire running into the bag at her feet. Her thumbs were holding down a button. A trigger.
He lunged onto her side of the seat, wrapping his hands around hers, holding them as tightly as his fists could clench. He didn’t know what else to do. If the pressure was pushing down, then she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t detonate the bomb.
‘Let go! Let go of my hand!’ Ayesha was screaming at him, drawing the attention of other passengers. ‘Let me go!’
‘Are you okay, miss?’ A man leaned in. ‘Is this guy bothering you?’
‘Yes, yes he is!’
‘Listen, buddy –’
It was the guy in the baseball cap and he looked like he was about to rip Bailey out of his seat.
‘She’s got a bomb!’ Bailey yelled at the top of his voice. He didn’t have a choice.
The guy caught sight of the wires, the bag, Bailey’s hands wrapped around Ayesha’s, and he stumbled backwards, falling onto the two schoolgirls sitting across the aisle.
‘What’s going on? What is it?’
Different voices were asking the same questions from all around.
‘There’s a bomb!’ The guy with the cap was scrambling to get off the girls. ‘There’s a bomb on the bus! She’s got a bomb!’
Within seconds, people were out of their seats, pushing towards the front of the bus, some of them screaming to get off.
‘There’s a bomb! There’s a bomb!’
Bailey could see out the front window. The bus was moving onto the bridge, the driver oblivious to the chaos behind him. Seconds later there was water to Bailey’s left. Boats moving along the river. Water taxis. A barge. A rowing boat with eight guys pulling on oars and a small guy at the back, giving the orders. An ordinary day on the Thames.
‘Stop the bus! Stop the bus!’
‘Let go of me!’ Ayesha was elbowing Bailey, trying to push him away. ‘Let go!’
Bailey used his bodyweight to pin her up against the glass, while keeping his hands clenched tightly around hers. Ayesha was a slight girl and Bailey was much stronger, with at least one thumb that was in good working order. He had lost partial movement in the other the day it was bashed with a hammer by a madman. That whole incident didn’t seem so bad now that he was sitting on a bus with a wannabe suicide bomber and a backpack that was probably filled with nails, ball bearings and other pieces of metal designed to maim and kill.
‘Move! Move!’
Word had reached the top level of the bus and passengers were piling down the stairs.
‘Smash the window!’ A call came from the back of the bus.
Crack!
The bus suddenly stopped.
The driver was standing at the front, looking down the aisle, trying to decipher what the hell was going on.
‘A bomb! A bomb! Let us off!’
People were screaming at him to open the doors. Seconds later, he did.
‘Let me go!’
Ayesha was still wriggling and trying to push Bailey away. It was no use. He had her pinned against the glass.
Passengers were heaving towards the doors, leaping onto the road and running as fast as they could in all directions away from the bus.
A young girl was on the floor of the bus, trampled by the stampede for the doors. She had blood coming from her cheek and she was being helped to her feet near the back doors by the bus driver, who directed her onto the road and told her to run for it. They were the last people on board, other than Bailey and Ayesha. The driver was about to follow her out the door when he stopped and stepped closer to where Bailey and Ayesha were seated together.
Bailey guessed that this guy was probably thinking that if a bomb was going to go off, it would have done so already. He didn’t know that Bailey’s hands were wrapped around some kind of a trigger until he got closer and looked down.
‘Good god.’
‘Time to go,’ Bailey said.
‘Are you going to be all right, mate?’
‘Who knows?’ Bailey shrugged. ‘No point all of us being here. You should get off.’
The driver stood there, staring at them. Bailey could see that he didn’t want to leave them on the bus – his bus – alone. That he felt some kind of responsibility for his passengers. Bailey could see the torment in his eyes. An ordinary man who wanted to do the right thing.
‘I’ve got three kids and I . . . I –’
‘There’s nothing you can do here, mate.’ Bailey was trying to make the decision easy for him. ‘Seriously, time to go.’
The driver gave Bailey a helpless smile. Like the smile that the priest gave Bailey at his brother’s funeral. A look that said everything would be all right when Bailey knew that it wouldn’t. That from that day onwards, life would never be the same.
‘Good luck.’
The driver jumped out the back door and onto the road. Bailey watched him jog along the bridge, knocking on car windows and gesturing for people to move away from the bus.
Bailey turned to Ayesha. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.’
CHAPTER 47
It didn’t take long for the authorities to clear the bridge. Five minutes. Seven. Eight, tops.
/> Bailey was only guessing, because he wasn’t in any position to turn his wrist and get a look at the face of the old watch that his father had given him back when Bailey was a young reporter chasing stories – and not part of them.
There must have been about fifty metres of clear space in front of the bus before a line of abandoned cars blocked the road. Bailey wondered if he would get an insurance payout for the bomb that had destroyed his Corolla. Cheeky bastards probably wouldn’t cough it up.
Bailey didn’t know the situation at the back of the bus – he wasn’t game to look over his shoulder – but he guessed it was the same. The only people who’d get close to the bus now were the poor bloody cops who were paid to do it. Dorset’s people should be there now. Ronnie too. London’s counter-terrorism police – SO15 – had probably arrived first. Police with training to take down a terrorist, which would have been mildly reassuring for Bailey had he not been sitting beside her.
He could hear a helicopter hovering above. From up there the big red double-decker bus must have been cutting a solitary scene on London Bridge. It wouldn’t be long before London’s loneliest bus would be beamed around the world via smartphones and television cameras. If this thing went bad, Miranda would have a lasting image of her father that no daughter should ever see.
Bailey really should have thought this thing through.
The temperature was cool outside, but Bailey was so hot that he could feel beads of perspiration on his forehead, and sweat building under his armpits. The bandage covering his injured back had split and his salty sweat was stinging his burn. His leather jacket was suffocating him, adding to the obvious discomfort of sitting on a bus beside a girl with a bomb.
‘Are we just going to sit here forever?’
Bailey still had Ayesha pinned up against the window, afraid that if he released any pressure she’d wrestle his hands away from the trigger.
‘Ayesha?’
She stared out the window, ignoring him.
‘Because I can, you know. I’ve sat in shittier places for a lot longer.’
Ayesha turned to him. ‘Who are you and why’re you doing this?’
‘Good question,’ Bailey said. ‘I’m a friend of your uncle’s.’
‘Are you a cop?’
‘I’m a journalist, but I’m not here about that.’
‘You came all the way from Australia?’ She was speaking with a confidence that Bailey found disturbing. ‘To find me?’
‘Yeah.’
And Mustafa.
‘That was pretty stupid, wasn’t it?’
Bailey laughed to himself. Yeah, it was stupid. Cracking the code about a bomb attack on a bus and thinking that he could be the one to stop it. Real stupid.
‘What’s so funny?’
Bailey looked into her eyes, searching for a signal that Ayesha had a sense of humour. That there was just a confused kid in there. A kid who had gotten caught up with some bad people and had been tricked into doing something crazy. But the eyes that met his were as cold as the water of the Thames twenty feet below.
‘Nothing,’ Bailey said. ‘There’s nothing funny about what’s happening here. It’s just sad. A tragedy. A waste.’
‘Then leave.’
Bailey looked down at his hands clasped around her hands. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, for either of us.’
‘I don’t fear death.’
Neither did I – once – thought Bailey. That was until he remembered that he had a daughter who needed him and people who loved him.
‘Well, you should,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t believe in God, your god, or any other god, but I can tell you one thing –’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘It’s some sick joke that your god’s playing on you if you think he’s got something special in store for someone who kills a bunch of innocent people.’
‘Don’t speak about things you know nothing about.’
‘I know the Koran says that suicide’s a sin.’
‘Believe what you like,’ she said, her voice sharpening.
‘I’m not the believer.’
Bailey had given up on religion the day a doctor had told him they were turning off his brother’s life support in hospital. The things he’d seen as a journalist in times of war and peace had only reinforced his feelings. He’d read all the books and concluded that if there really was a God then he was one sick bastard.
‘I also know the Koran forbids the killing of innocent people.’
‘You know nothing.’
‘Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption done in the land, it is as if he has slain mankind entirely . . .’ Bailey paused, trying to remember the rest. ‘And whoever saves one, it is as if he has saved mankind entirely.’
Ayesha turned to him with piercing green eyes. ‘Don’t quote my book.’
‘All the books tell us the same thing, one way or the other,’ Bailey said. ‘They say that killing someone’s a sin.’
‘So why do your politicians claim to be killing for God?’
Bailey stared into her eyes again, wondering how to penetrate the mind of someone who had been reprogrammed – dehumanised – so young. Wondering how to hijack her hate.
‘I don’t think I’ve got all the answers here, Ayesha.’
‘But knowing a few verses from the Koran, you think you can teach me why I’m wrong?’
‘I’m no teacher,’ Bailey said. ‘And I’m not trying to tell you that you’re wrong. I’m trying to tell you that you could be wrong. And that’s a hell of a gamble for a young woman to take.’
She turned away, again.
For the next few minutes they sat in silence, their hands still locked together, clasped around a trigger.
‘And what about all the innocent people you kill, including Muslims?’ Bailey said, eventually. ‘You didn’t answer that question.’
‘They’re not innocent,’ Ayesha said. ‘Only those taking part in the jihad are innocent.’
Through the front windows of the bus, Bailey could see heavily armed police fanning across the road, taking cover behind the parked cars. Ronnie Johnson was further back, chewing on an unlit cigar, talking to Tony Dorset and pointing at the bus. The bus driver was there too, presumably telling them about Bailey, Ayesha and the bomb.
‘Where’d you learn to hate like this,’ Bailey said, ‘if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I’m fighting for a bigger cause. Bigger than all this, something that will right the wrongs . . . for the future.’
‘Violence never solved anything.’
‘Don’t be such a hypocrite. The last century, the one before . . . the only way people get to stand up and be heard is by fighting. If that means people die, so be it.’
‘I don’t think you really believe that.’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know that your parents both died in Iraq and that you were raised by your uncle and aunt in Sydney. People who love you. I know that you’re young enough to still have a life. Sara too.’
‘What about Sara?’ she said, tersely.
‘She’s okay. We caught her before she did something stupid.’ Bailey paused, considering his lie. ‘She turned herself in. She knew it was wrong. She wants a second chance.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Am I?’ Bailey said. ‘And what about Tariq? He was almost killed. Is that okay?’
‘I never meant for Tariq to find out.’ Ayesha turned towards the window. ‘People like us, we’re different. We’ve always been different. We’re told that every day.’
‘What do you mean?’ Bailey noticed a change in her voice, like she wanted to explain herself. He didn’t want to push it.
‘We’re all dumped in the same places, told the same things, pushed into the same jobs.’
‘Your uncle has worked hard to build a life for you all. Aren’t you studying medicine? That speaks of opportunity, surely.’
‘I’m the one in a million. I can’t support a system like this. You think my uncle likes driving a taxi and getting called a “sand nigger”? Do you think he likes getting told to fuck off back to where he came from? Don’t talk to me about my family.’
‘Racism is everywhere.’
‘Yeah, but in places like Australia there’s a special kind of racism. It’s dressed up as something else. Border protection, citizenship tests, what it means to be an Australian citizen. People talk like the Australian way of life is being threatened by hijabs and halal meat.’
‘Nobody likes politicians.’
‘Then why do they keep getting elected?’ Ayesha paused again, shaking her head. ‘There are millions of people like me sick of being persecuted and told they’re different, inferior. In places like Britain and Australia we keep getting told to respect British or Australian society, even prime ministers have said that. Like we don’t understand.
‘It’s time they stopped to understand us, to understand British and Australian Muslims. Countries built on multiculturalism can’t pick and choose.’
‘You’re a smart girl, Ayesha,’ Bailey said. ‘Too smart to do this.’
‘Well . . . there’s no way out, now.’
‘Yes. There is.’
Bailey could see Ronnie Johnson walking towards the bus. He’d taken off his jacket so that all he was wearing was his shirt and a pair of jeans. He was walking with his hands in the air. When he was a few metres from the front of the bus he lifted up his shirt, flashing a gut that was painfully thinner than Bailey’s, while turning on his heels to show Ayesha that he was unarmed.
‘Who’s that?’ Ayesha said.
‘He’s a guy who’s going to help get us out of here.’
‘How’re you doing, bubba?’
Ronnie was standing beside the back door of the bus, poking his head inside with a forced smile on his face.
‘Ronnie Johnson,’ Bailey said. ‘Meet Ayesha Haneef.’