Marius

by Laurence Todd

  I could, but I believed him. “So, you’re not involved in Red Heaven any more, then.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Red Heaven’s extinct in this country now but, even if it wasn’t, I’ve too much to lose now. As I said, I like being free too much to risk getting involved in that kind of stuff. Anyway, I’ve a family now, or will have soon. My girlfriend’s pregnant and we’re getting married next month.”

  “Congratulations.” I toasted him and drained my beer.

  “So, you people gonna leave me alone now?”

  “When bombs go off, we look at everyone known to have been active in bodies like Red Heaven, but, if what you say’s true . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence.

  “It is. Red Heaven’s nothing over here now.”

  “Some of your other friends don’t seem to share your views, though.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You need to pick your friends more carefully, is what I’m saying.”

  There was no need to elaborate. He’d know what I was alluding to. I stood up.

  “So, we finished?” He also stood up.

  “I think so,” I said lightly.

  He picked up my empty glass and walked away. He was back behind the counter as I was leaving. Five forty-five for a Peroni?

  *

  Walking back to the tube station, passing the corner of Greek Street, I noticed a large group of people sitting at tables outside a Thai restaurant, with ages ranging from seventies down to early teens. From the jocularity and balloons showing an age or an event I couldn’t make out, and from the general level of laughter and excitement, it appeared to be a family celebration of some kind. I couldn’t initially put my finger on why, but something felt wrong with this picture. Then it dawned on me. This place used to be known as Delucca’s, an Italian restaurant owned by Roberto Delucca. But he was now in prison after being found guilty of knowingly allowing his premises to be used for purposes associated with terrorism. In his case, it was allowing his daughter’s boyfriend, Michael Mendoccini, to use the premises to arrange the distribution of funds for the usage of Red Heaven. Mendoccini was back in Italy and I didn’t know whether Angie Delucca was still with him or not.

  Memories of Michael Mendoccini came flooding back to me. At a pub just along the road from here, where we’d spent many an evening when we’d come up to town as adolescents looking for women we’d not the smallest chance with, I’d spent a glorious few hours with him, reliving happy memories of our teenage years, just before he’d fled back to Italy. I really missed him as a friend, but it was more than just that. He was truly the brother I’d never had and, even though we were now two different people, it still saddened me to think about what he’d now become.

  T W O

  Saturday

  AT A FEW MINUTES after two in the morning, again with no warning given, a Mondeo travelling towards the Royal Festival Hall on Belvedere Road, alongside Jubilee Gardens on the South Bank and within shouting distance of the Houses of Parliament, suddenly exploded. Windows in nearby buildings were shattered and the wreckage extended over a hundred yards. The nearby London Eye had shut down for the evening, but there were still people in the vicinity, coming out of late-night pubs nearby, and several suffered minor injuries. Mercifully, though, no one was too near and no civilian fatalities were reported.

  Two eyewitnesses, American tourists who’d happened to be walking back to the nearby Marriott hotel, later said they’d noticed a car travelling slowly and then for a split second there was a vivid flash, followed by a loud bang, which was when they realised the car had blown up. They both described the scene as being like something out of a Jason Bourne film.

  The area was completely sealed off whilst bomb disposal experts went to work, using the latest Dragon Runner, a multi-terrain robot small enough to fit into an army rucksack, which the army used in inhospitable terrain in places like Afghanistan to find and deactivate IEDs. The robots painstakingly went along the road looking under every vehicle, ensuring no suspicious devices had been planted. No other devices were found, and so the laborious but vital process of sorting through the debris in search of clues began.

  One fatality was reported later, though not initially made known to the press. The occupant of the car had been blown to pieces, almost literally. Carefully sweeping up and assembling what was left of this guy, in the hope the bomber could be identified from his remains, was somebody’s thankless task. The report later said both his legs below the knees had been blown off, plus his left arm and most of the left side of his head and body. Not one police officer on the scene had the smallest sympathy for the deceased.

  The initial speculation was that the victim had been on his way to park the car someplace where the bomb was to be primed to detonate at a set time but, for whatever reason, the bomb had prematurely exploded, quite likely saving considerable damage to property and who knew how many innocent lives. If the bomber had been planning to cause an explosion in this area, there were any number of viable targets, ranging from the political to the strategic, or even the symbolic, given the proximity of the Royal Festival Hall and the South Bank complex.

  Following this, top security chiefs again went into session. Later that day, there’d be a meeting of COBRA convened, chaired by the Home Secretary as political head of MI5. Two explosions on London’s streets within twenty-four hours of each other meant there was now the very real likelihood this was the start of a concerted bombing campaign. All police leave was immediately cancelled and London was put on a state of substantial alert, meaning that, until more information was available, the likelihood of another terrorist attack was a strong possibility. Armed police were deployed at several strategic locations across the capital, government buildings went into temporary lockdown and police numbers outside the Palace of Westminster and Downing Street were increased. But again, no one was claiming responsibility for the explosion and there were no leads, which in itself was a cause for concern.

  *

  Smitherman again addressed a group of Special Branch detectives. His talk was not too dissimilar to the one he’d given yesterday afternoon, and we were left in no doubt about how quickly we needed to find these bloody maniacs and stop them. The car used, we were told, had been stolen from a car park in Balham sometime in the last few days. We were then shown the CCTV footage of the incident from the camera behind the Royal Festival Hall. A car could be seen turning into Belvedere Road and then, about fifty yards down the road, the car suddenly exploded. The absence of any sound didn’t mitigate the impact of the explosion. For a couple of seconds the screen was pure white, and it looked chilling, almost like a scene from the silent classic Metropolis. I’d seen explosions before, but the black and white starkness of the footage, added to the sheer silence, made me take a deep breath. It was blind luck no other vehicles were being driven at that time of the morning, and happily no pedestrians were close enough to receive more than minor injuries, though many vehicles nearby were badly damaged.

  “So, that’s what we up against, gentlemen,” Smitherman said. “Let’s go to work.”

  *

  Late morning; I was on my way to Swiss Cottage. I had a contact who’d once been a member of the security services but, fourteen months back, had been retired by the service on medical grounds after he’d suffered a second mild seizure. He’d vigorously disputed the doctor’s findings that stress had been a contributory factor in causing the seizure and the next one would be likely to kill him, and he’d threatened legal action against the security service, but their view finally prevailed after lawyers pointed out the security service wasn’t on a par with ordinary employers and, as such, couldn’t be taken to court under the requisite employment legislation. He had no case for unfair dismissal and he was out. His years of service were recognised with an enhanced gratuity and retirement package, which did little to assuage the bitterness he’d felt at his treatment.

  He wasn’t an informer in the accepted sense of the word. He wa
s a source, an expert on the dark underbelly of terror and terrorists, and he possessed deep knowledge about the subject. I wanted to sound him out because, even though no longer in the security service, he still kept abreast of events, working on a freelance basis for firms like Prevental, which to the outside world was simply a company supplying security personnel like night watchmen, though those of us in the know knew it provided so much more than that.

  To describe his knowledge of terrorism as encyclopaedic would be to do it an injustice. He knew more than that because he didn’t just know the book; he was its author.

  I’d first encountered him on a joint Special Branch/MI5 induction course when I’d transferred across from CID. He’d given one of the indoctrination talks all new recruits needed to hear about the secret world and its role in the new and ever-changing reality of the geopolitical landscape. I remembered his talk about the demise of the old Soviet bloc and the ending of the Cold War, and about how this had led to the old verities changing and the different range of groupings and modi operandi being claimed by the terrorist. I’d been impressed with his grasp of history and his sweep across the geopolitical terrain, as well as his presentation, and I’d thought he’d missed his vocation of being a university don. I’d cornered him afterwards to ask a question, we’d talked for a while and he’d invited me to the pub across the street to continue the discussion over a beer. Since then I’d picked his brain a number of times about various issues, and he was always willing to offer an opinion or advice when needed. Today I wanted both.

  Harry Ferguson had been expecting me and greeted me at the door of his ground-floor flat in Eton Avenue. He was aged somewhere in his late fifties. He was about my height, six foot, but about three to four stone overweight, a heavy drinker and a chain smoker, which, for a diabetic, was not a desirable combination. His clothes, which could best be described as elegantly dishevelled, reeked of tobacco as he ushered me past him and into his flat, which he now occupied alone since his divorce. His front room, however, was spotless. There were shelves overflowing with books, and there were a considerable number of learned tomes on display, which greatly impressed me. Everything was tidied away and pristine-looking, though the overflowing ashtray, and the accompanying aroma of stale cigarette smoke, took the sheen off the room.

  I sat at the table. He went to the kitchen and came back with two mugs of tea. He asked if it wasn’t too early for something stronger than tea.

  “Much too early for me, mate,” I said with a laugh.

  He didn’t think so and, sitting down adjacent to me, poured a large drop of whisky into his tea. Whisky just before midday?

  “Lots of excitement out there on the streets, eh?” He grinned.

  “One way to put it.”

  “Any viable suspects?”

  “Hundreds, take your pick, but no one we can haul in. No one’s claimed responsibility for either of the two bombs, and we’ve picked up no whispers of any likely bombings. These explosions have come out of nowhere and the security service hasn’t come up with anything either, so I’m interested to hear what you think about this situation. You heard anything through your sources?”

  He sat back in his chair. “There’d not been any warnings received, had there?”

  “None the Branch’s been told about. Smitherman talked to us earlier, usual stuff, but I was wondering, why now, why this time? What is it about now that’s got some group of crazies letting off bombs?”

  “There’s nothing significant about now, but that won’t stop any organisation believing it has a just and historic cause for wreaking havoc. You want my opinion, you’ve gotta be looking at organisations that think strategically rather than tactically, people who have a long-term political agenda, and then who act accordingly. From what I understand about the two recent bombings, you can forget groups like Muearada and Red Heaven.”

  “Really?” I was surprised.

  “Yeah. Everything we know about those people suggests they’d be looking for maximum casualties, and they wouldn’t be doing it out of hours, like these jokers have done.”

  The phrase out of hours, in security speak, meant a time when there’d only be property damage and no significant number of fatalities.

  “Also, Muearada and groups like them favour the suicide bomber, the well-coordinated and well-prepared attack, with someone prepared to go into a crowded area where means of escape aren’t always apparent, which ensures they inflict the maximum number of casualties. They favour this because it’s much harder to detect. Terror is necessary for a caliphate. They say it’s in the Koran, but I’ve not seen it there.” He took a sip of his enhanced tea and smiled at the taste. “Remember what happened in Paris, eighty-nine people slaughtered in that music hall, the Bataclan? You’re not dealing with people like that here. Red Heaven isn’t known to use suicide bombers either, not their style. Groups like them, their whole raison d’etre is causing panic, making the indigenous population feel unsafe. They think tactically, looking for the state to react. Also, Red Heaven, unlike Muearada, has no political aspirations or agenda. It simply promotes a terror agenda with no discernible rationale. I mean, Palestinian terrorist groups are looking for the destruction of the state of Israel, wiping it off the face of the earth, and political agendas don’t get much clearer than that.” He grinned. “Which is why Israeli security’s always on top of them, because they’re on a constant state of high alert. But even that doesn’t always stop the attacks or the suicide bombers from getting through.”

  “I’ve heard Red Heaven’s almost extinct in this country.”

  “Probably true. They’ve not done anything since they tried blowing up the Albert Hall,” he said.

  I didn’t tell him I’d been involved in thwarting this attempt. He probably knew anyway.

  “So, who would think strategically, then?”

  “Groups like Hamas or the PLO, for instance. These people are a classic example of the usually close relationship between a group’s political cause and its violent activities. They passionately oppose the state of Israel and want to see it destroyed, as I just mentioned, so their actions are designed not just to bring terror to Israel and inflict casualties on Jews; they’re designed as part of a long-term plan to drive Israel out of what they regard as occupied Palestine. They want Jews everywhere, not just in Israel, to feel uncomfortable. They want Jews here in London to feel unsafe. Bombings for these people are simply a means to an end, a weapon in their struggle against what they perceive as an occupying force, thus the extremity of their actions.”

  “So presumably you think we can rule out some lone whackjob, then.”

  “Oh, yeah, most definitely you can.” He sounded certain. “Someone like that’d simply get a gun and go shoot up a whole load of people, similar to what seems to happen in America every other week. Remember the Dylann Roof incident?”

  I did. He was a twenty-one-year-old American who’d entered a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and shot and killed nine African-Americans. His action constituted a hate crime and had been motivated by white power extremism.

  “People like him are seldom bombers; they just let their sociopathic rage get the better of them. It rarely happens in this country, but that’s only because we don’t have a gun culture here.” He took another sip of tea. “But even suicide bombers have to have people behind them. Disaffected individuals rarely if ever use explosives; they’re too unstable to use them properly, and they’d not know where to get hold of them either, which is probably just as well. But, whatever: groups like Muearada, they never seem to have any problems getting volunteers to become suicide bombers. These young fanatics are queueing up for the doors of eternal paradise to open up for them in whatever heaven they think they go to afterwards. I can never decide if these people are motivated, brainwashed or simply maniacs.” He almost smiled.

  “So, are we looking for a political motive here?”

  “Hard to say.” He finished one cigarette, stubbed it out, lit another o
ne at the same time and put it in his mouth, all in one continuous movement. Impressive. “Not everyone planting a bomb has a political agenda. You’re too young to remember the Angry Brigade in the early seventies, but they didn’t have a political agenda, or seemingly any other kind of agenda. They planted primitive explosive devices just to get some kind of reaction. People like that aren’t always too careful, though, which makes them easier to apprehend. They leave clues everywhere. That’s why the Angry Brigade was piss-easy to round up; they were just bloody amateurs. But Red Heaven and similar bodies, they’re a lot more careful. They don’t make many mistakes, which makes them harder to catch.”

  “Is there any significance to where the two bombs went off?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said after a few seconds’ thought. “The first one was near the Regent’s Park barracks, but there’s no real value in hitting an Army Reserve centre, especially an empty one, and we don’t know where the bomber earlier today was heading, so I can’t speculate on that one. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But there’re plenty of soft targets on the South Bank.”

  “Has Prevental heard about any new kids on the block?” “Not that I’ve heard,” he replied immediately. “I’d say it’s a fair bet the people behind these two bombs are already known to you. So I suspect you’re in a holding pattern at present, hoping a search of the debris turns up a clue as to who or what kind of explosive was used, and then hope these bastards make a mistake.”

  After a few more questions and a brief chat I thanked him for his time and left to return to work. Driving back, I thought about what I’d heard. I always enjoyed my talks with Harry Ferguson. His deep knowledge of terrorism and its causes meant I always came away a little more knowledgeable about the topic than when I’d arrived.

  *

  Back in the office, I was scanning files pertaining to sources I’d cultivated over the past few years and wondering who I should talk to first about the two bombs. I was looking at patterns of known activity and putting together a list of potential candidates when Smitherman summoned me. Entering his office I saw one of the two men he’d been talking to yesterday. He was standing next to Smitherman’s desk and they stopped talking as I entered the room. Smitherman gestured to me to have a seat.