Cyberstrike

by James Barrington

  It was the usual routine. People sympathetic to the cause of radical Islam were asked to keep their eyes and ears open and be on the lookout for young men, and possibly young women as well, who might be aggrieved enough with the way that Muslims were being treated in the Middle East by the various occupying forces and who were sufficiently dissatisfied with their lives in the West that they could be persuaded to exchange their earthly existence for a guaranteed afterlife in paradise through the medium of an explosion or other act of terminal and murderous defiance. By becoming, in other words, a shahid, or a shahida if female, and taking an active part in the jihad, radical Islam’s war against the West. Once a suitable ‘volunteer’ had been identified, he or she would be singled out for special treatment, for their general dissatisfaction to be discussed and escalated and honed and eventually for their hate and resentment to be pointed in whatever very specific direction had been selected by the people who’d recruited them.

  And for all that, for that ability to develop and nurture a home-grown terrorist presence, Sadir knew that the organisation he had to thank was – bizarrely enough – the British government, and two factors that had enabled domestic terrorism to take root and flourish: freedom of movement and political correctness.

  Freedom of movement allowed students from around the world to enrol in courses at schools and universities in the United Kingdom. This was not in itself a bad thing, obviously, but what had worried British intelligence from the start were the students who vanished below the radar at some point after their arrival. The concern was that some of these now invisible students might be following their own agendas and could become either radicalised or function as sleepers. And political correctness and the even more insidious Woke movement made it difficult or impossible to get people in authority to listen to questions or allegations about individuals in case they were perceived as being racist or sexist or some other kind of politically unacceptable -ist.

  The result was probably inevitable and entirely predictable. It has been reliably estimated by the British intelligence services that by 2020 there were at least two hundred sleepers in the United Kingdom and in the United States the situation was even worse. There, it was estimated some four thousand sleepers had taken positions in the core industries driving the American economy, places like MIT and Silicon Valley, and in the organisations supposedly working to keep the country safe, the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, the police and the NSA.

  Many of the sleepers were involved in one way or another with the computer industry because what they and their distant masters directing their operations had realised was that although conventional warfare was still going on in the perennially troubled Middle East and other hotspots around the world, the new battlefield involved mice, keyboards and screens rather than aircraft, armies and naval task forces. It was much easier to destroy an enemy’s capability to wage war by simply denying essential services like electricity or fuel rather than physically planting explosives to try to do the same job.

  And for exactly the same reason, the vast majority of the sleepers had not the slightest intention of becoming shahids themselves – that was reserved for the cannon fodder, the lowest of the low in the struggle against the West – but many of the sleepers were extremely adroit at persuading other people that blowing themselves up or performing some other kind of violent action was the best way forward in their short and bitter lives.

  When Sadir had arrived in the United Kingdom after following a complicated and erratic route from Iraq, a route that had included almost a year on the other side of the Atlantic carrying out the necessary preparations for the principal part of his planned operations, the Islamic recruiter working in the Stratford area already had six potential martyrs largely primed and ready to go. Sadir had sat behind the recruiter as each man’s commitment and motives were discussed and had selected the four men he believed were the most committed for the operation he had come to Britain to implement, the first strike, before continuing his journey to his ultimate destination.

  Sadir had arrived with a fully developed plan to cause massive loss of life and catastrophic destruction to the centre of London, as well as the contacts and sources they needed and effectively unlimited funds to ensure that it would all work. He’d rented the property in Leyton Grange Estate to provide a secure base for his four volunteers. Then he’d briefed them collectively in a secure location and explained exactly what he needed each of them to do and when and how they were to do it.

  He had kept his orders simple, easy to understand, and unambiguous. He had begun by specifying the target – the Houses of Parliament – and the means by which the attack was to be carried out: a powerboat of some description. He had set two of them to work combing the boatyards and looking for a suitable craft to steal, while the other two men sourced enough ammonium nitrate fertiliser to turn whatever boat they chose into a powerful floating bomb. While that was going on, he had taken personal delivery of a metre-long box made of heavy-duty cardboard from a man who had been vouched for by Rashid, the most senior elder back in Iraq, and who had introduced himself simply as a friend and a brother. Inside the box Sadir had found a somewhat battered but still perfectly serviceable Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle with two spare magazines and a box of a hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, a lump of Semtex wrapped in brown paper and, in a separate bag for security, a blasting cap to act as a detonator.

  Sadir had been puzzled by the fact that the two wires on the blasting cap had been twisted together and asked the man who had supplied the equipment the reason for this.

  ‘Surely they need to be separated to allow them to be connected to the battery?’

  ‘They do,’ the ‘brother’ had replied, ‘but only when you assemble the weapon. If you leave the wires separate there is a possibility – very slim but nevertheless real – that they could act as an aerial for some of the radiation that surrounds all of us all of the time from things like digital broadcasts, radios and mobile phones. That could allow a current to flow down the wires and trigger the blasting cap. That’s why we twist the wires together until you mount the detonator in the circuit. Linking the two makes a short circuit and prevents them acting as an aerial.’

  The blasting cap had come with a page of printed instructions that explained it was to be triggered electrically in accordance with the wiring diagram on the page, and that it was a short period delay – SPD – detonator. Despite the name, which to a layman could have implied a wait of seconds or even minutes, the ‘SPD’ meant it would detonate only a few milliseconds after being triggered. The instructions also included directions for safely turning the ammonium nitrate fertiliser into a viable explosive and where the Semtex booster charge should be positioned within the IED for maximum effectiveness.

  And the four men had done well. They’d managed to steal the boat they’d identified without – at least as far as Sadir knew – triggering any alarms at the marina, though undoubtedly the theft would have been detected within a few days, and the combining of the ammonium nitrate with diesel fuel and aluminium powder in a rented garage had been completed without a hitch.

  Sadir had checked everything on the vessel before Hassan had steered it away from the derelict boathouse, including the assault rifle and, most importantly, the commitment of the two men who would be aboard it for its final destructive voyage. He had joined them for the salat al-zuhr, the second mandatory prayer performed daily by devout Muslims.

  Prayers comprise the second Pillar of Islam, one of the five obligatory actions that Muslims are required to perform according to the conditions and teaching of their religion. The pillars are shahadah, the recitation of the Islamic profession of faith; salat, the five daily ritual prayers; zakat, the giving of an alms tax for the benefit of the poor; sawm, the requirement to fast during Ramadan, and finally the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

  All five of the men had already performed the first prayer of the day, the salat al-fajr, which is required to be completed be
fore the sun rises. The second obligatory prayer is the salat al-zuhr, performed after the sun has reached the highest point in the sky at midday, and although when the five of them knelt on their prayer mats it was actually late morning rather than early afternoon they all believed this minor deviation from their daily routine was unimportant to Allah within the scale of the operation they were engaged upon.

  As soon as the purloined cabin cruiser had begun its journey towards the heart of London, Sadir had left the other two members of the group to clear up any last traces of their occupation of the boathouse, while he had climbed back into his hire car and driven to West London and one of the airport hotels near Heathrow where he had already booked a room for the night.

  He would remain there until it was time to report for his flight to America the next morning. He only expected to receive a single call from Hassan shortly before the culmination of the attack, a final confirmation that the mission was proceeding correctly. After that, he knew he would be able to obtain all the information he needed direct from the news media that would swarm all over London as soon as the explosion had taken place.

  He would enjoy a quiet celebration in his hotel room that evening as he watched the events unfold on television. He would also be able to confirm the success of the first part of his mission to the elders in Iraq, though he had no doubt that they would also be watching the news media and expecting to see the results of the detonation and, bearing in mind the proliferation of security cameras throughout the British capital, very probably be able to watch the explosion itself being endlessly replayed and commented on by grim-faced newscasters.

  He was certain it was going to be a particularly good evening.

  Chapter 18

  Metropolitan Police Marine Policing Unit, Wapping High Street, London

  ‘And you are who, exactly?’

  Dave North opened his wallet, extracted his Army ID card, MOD Form 90, and held it up right in front of the police sergeant’s face.

  ‘As it says, David Charles North, Major, British Army,’ he said. ‘And before you ask your next obvious question, I’m here because I’m a part of C-TAC. You have heard of that, I hope.’

  The desk sergeant looked only very slightly less puzzled. And no friendlier or more welcoming.

  ‘I’ve heard the acronym, yes, because C-TAC is on our Tier One contact list in case of a terrorist incident, along with a bunch of other initials of various secret squirrel outfits dotted about the capital and elsewhere. But I have no clue who you are, apart from your name. I still have no idea what C-TAC stands for, or what you’re doing here. As far as I can see, we’ve arrested an alleged terrorist buggering about on the Thames, which makes this a police matter until somebody in my command structure tells me differently.’

  ‘Right. C-TAC is the Counter-Terrorism Advisory Committee, and the reason we’re on your Tier One notification list is because terrorism, or rather stopping it, is our job. And from my point of view this is still a police matter and I’m not here to interfere with what you’re doing. What I am here for is to get answers to a few urgent questions, so I’ll need to talk to the skipper of the launch that stopped these comedians and maybe the other crew members of the boat as well.’

  The sergeant looked doubtful.

  ‘He’s pretty busy right now answering questions from some of our brass.’

  ‘Here’s a news flash,’ North said, leaning forward slightly to emphasise his words. ‘Oddly enough, I’m pretty busy as well, and I’m not going to hang around here like a spare prick at a wedding. I need to speak to this guy right now, and if you don’t want to be on the receiving end of an extremely high-level and potentially career-terminating bollocking I suggest you talk to whoever you need to call and make sure that happens. I’ll give you three minutes. And I like my coffee white with one sugar.’

  It took four minutes, not that North was actually counting.

  When he walked into the interview room, escorted by a somewhat nervous-looking constable, he found another man wearing sergeants’ stripes standing behind the table, clearly waiting for him.

  ‘I’m Paul Carter,’ the sergeant said, extending his right hand. ‘I was the skipper of the Targa.’

  North shook hands and introduced himself, but before he had even sat down there was a knock at the door and another uniformed constable appeared carrying a tray on which were two disposable cardboard cups, both steaming, a couple of plastic spoons and a selection of individual milk cartons and packets of sugar.

  ‘Take your life in your hands drinking this stuff,’ Carter said, picking up one of the cups of coffee.

  North nodded, peered doubtfully at the contents of his cup, and added sugar and a couple of cartons of milk to try and tone it down a bit and help disguise the taste.

  ‘I’m military,’ he replied. ‘We’re used to hot brown stuff in cups. Sometimes it’s so bloody awful you can’t tell whether it’s coffee, tea or soup. Now, tell me what happened on the river.’

  Carter took him through the events of the afternoon, from spotting the apparently overloaded cabin cruiser to capturing and securing the surviving terrorist.

  ‘And you’ve no doubt that the boat was filled with explosive?’ North asked. ‘And that their target was the Palace of Westminster?’

  Carter nodded. ‘The man driving it steered it directly across the river from the east bank towards the Houses of Parliament. That was very clearly a deliberate act and as far as I could see at the time there could only be one reason for him doing so. And after we’d rammed the cabin cruiser I saw him lean forward into the entrance to the saloon and flick a wall-mounted switch that didn’t look to me like it was part of the boat’s original wiring. And then I heard the crack as the blasting cap or whatever it was detonated. So the short answer is I’m certain it was a floating bomb and that the target was Parliament. And we were bloody lucky it didn’t go off. If it had, you’d have needed to find a fucking good medium to be having this conversation.’

  North nodded in his turn. ‘I can’t pick holes in any of that. Where’s the surviving terrorist right now?’

  ‘As far as I know he’s still here. A couple of guys wearing sharp suits and not saying a lot turned up a few minutes before you did and they’ve been having a few quiet words with chummy ever since. I assume they’re from Millbank.’

  ‘The men with the sharpest suits usually seem to me to be from Six rather than Five, but you’re probably right. Okay. No doubt my section will get fed whatever intelligence they managed to extract from him.’

  ‘He might well clam up,’ Carter pointed out. ‘I gather he asked for a solicitor as soon as he arrived here and he said nothing while he was on my launch.’

  ‘One thing he won’t be getting is a solicitor,’ North replied. ‘There are rules governing how suspects are handled, but for suspected terrorists we tend to be flexible, shall I say, and some rules might well get bent or possibly even broken along the way. Right, I’ll get out of your hair. And well done for what you did on the river. I’ll feed a note about your and your crew’s conduct up the line and make sure that the right people hear the right things about you.’

  North was on his way back down the corridor towards the front desk when he was aware of a sudden commotion behind him.

  A door slammed open and a man who from his appearance was one of the ‘sharp suited’ guys Carter had mentioned stepped into the corridor and shouted a single word: ‘Medic!’

  Like many of the soldiers who ended up in the Special Air Service, North had qualified in field medicine. He wasn’t exactly in any kind of a field at that moment, but a medical emergency was a medical emergency and so he pushed past the besuited man and stepped into the room.

  An unmoving figure was lying on the floor, his wrists secured with handcuffs, and another man wearing a suit was crouching over him. As North appeared beside him, he turned, the distress in his face obvious.

  ‘We never touched him,’ he said. ‘He was just sitting there and then h
e kind of fell over sideways.’

  North unceremoniously shoved him out of the way and bent to see what he could do. The man was wearing a lightweight one-piece disposable garment, presumably supplied by the police as his own clothing would have been soaking wet after his immersion in the Thames, and would have been taken from him in any case for forensic examination as part of standard procedure. Carter had told him that the man had been wearing casual Western-style clothing on the cabin cruiser, but his thick black beard and dark complexion suggested a Middle Eastern or Asian origin.

  North manhandled him into the recovery position, lying him on his side to ensure that his airway remained clear and then immediately felt the side of his neck, searching for a pulse in the carotid artery. But he found nothing, and when he placed the back of his hand in front of the man’s mouth he could detect no sign of breathing.

  The next step was obvious: CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

  North laid the man flat on his back, straddled his body, interlocked his hands, positioned them in the centre of the man’s chest and began regular compressions, aiming to depress the chest a couple of inches and then release, and counting to achieve about one hundred compressions a minute. He knew that as long as CPR was started within about five minutes of a person’s heart stopping and them losing consciousness, it was possible to keep the patient alive until proper medical aid arrived, and he guessed he was well within that timescale.

  When he reached thirty compressions he stopped and leaned forward, intending to try rescue breathing, to force air into the man’s lungs before resuming chest compressions. But before he could do so two police officers ran through the doorway and into the interview room, one holding what North recognised immediately as a defibrillator and the other carrying a medical bag. They had the equipment and very probably better knowledge and medical ability than he had and so he stood up, stepped back, and left them to it.