Sixty Minutes

by Tony Salter

  ‘Hi Mum,’ they said together, awkward and shy in the unfamiliar setting.

  ‘Oh, darlings,’ said Shuna. ‘I’m so happy you’re all right.’

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Zoe. She managed a poor smile. ‘You’ve looked better though.’

  ‘Cheeky minx,’ said Shuna. ‘You just wait …’

  ‘Does it hurt?’ said Anna.

  ‘A bit,’ said Shuna. ‘But I’ll be fine …’ A picture of Anna sitting alone on a wooden bench flashed in front of her and she gasped. ‘Oh my God. I’m sorry I didn’t come and get you sweetie. The guard said he would help and …’

  Anna looked so small sandwiched between Simon and Zoe. ‘Don’t be silly, Mummy,’ she said. ‘The policemen told me that, if you hadn’t done what the guard said, you’d both be dead.’ Tears started to flow down both her cheeks and she buried her face into Simon’s jumper.

  ‘… And you sheltered me from the blast,’ said Zoe. ‘There wasn’t anything more you could do.’

  Shuna’s mind was gradually starting to connect thoughts and memories in logical sequences, synapses now firing in co-ordinated salvos rather than the random bursts of drunken revellers at a Mexican wedding.

  ‘But who was the mysterious man?’ Shuna said. ‘The one who crept up on the bomber from behind.’

  Simon moved to one side, and a woman stepped forward. She was late sixties, a little frumpy, but with a generous smile.

  ‘Hi. I’m Rachel,’ she said. ‘He was my husband, Dan. Your little girl was sitting with us when Dan figured out what was happening. The two of them protected us all.’ Her voice was clear, but her eyes were red and filled with pain …

  Nadia

  Nadia felt the bandages being pulled away and opened her eyes. The light was too bright – like staring straight into the sun – and she squeezed her eyes closed immediately.

  ‘Try again,’ came the disembodied voice of Dr Hill. ‘… Slowly.’

  Nadia had known the doctor for five days and was keen to see if his face matched her imagined version. She opened her eyes again, only a fraction this time. Slowly, but surely, the burning sun dimmed until she was able to open them wide. It took even longer for shapes to begin to appear within the white haze.

  The face looming over her wasn’t the mysterious Dr Hill. It was Ed, a semi-bearded Ed.

  ‘Hey Nadia,’ he said. ‘Good to see you back. It’s been weird talking to a lump of bandages.’

  ‘Good to see you too,’ she said. ‘The bearded mountain-man-look works.’

  Ed scratched his beard. ‘It’s been a busy few days,’ he said. ‘You know how it is. Press and politicians running around looking for scapegoats while the rest of us are trying to get stuff done.’ He shrugged. ‘After Karachi, I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. Anyway, we’ve identified the coded call used to set off the bomb and tracked down the phone used to send it. Burner phone, no fingerprints, dumped in a bin outside the tube.’

  ‘Was it Unicorn?’

  ‘Ninety-five per cent,’ said Ed. ‘There’s CCTV footage of a man throwing something in the bin five minutes after the blast. It looks like him, but he was wearing a hat and keeping his head down. He got in a cab which we tracked to White City. The driver confirmed it was probably our man.’

  ‘Do you have eyes on him?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Ed, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was in earshot. ‘This guy’s a ghost. Seems to know exactly where every camera is pointing. He went into the Westfield Centre five days ago and he’s still there as far as any of us can tell. Truth is, he’s probably back in Peshawar by now.’

  Nadia didn’t know what to say. Ed was spitting out the words between clenched teeth and, as her vision improved, she could see that he looked terrible – his whole body sagging with exhaustion and dark rings circling his eyes. Everything was pointing to yet another successful coup for Unicorn and Ed had reason to be taking it personally. All the world’s security services looking for a single man and he was still able to appear and disappear at will.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ed,’ she said, once the silence had grown unbearable. ‘On the positive side, we now have confirmation that Snowflake didn’t actually press the trigger. His conscience did get the better of him.’

  Ed glared at her. ‘I’m going to put that down to the drugs they’re pumping you full of,’ he said. ‘Snowflake did everything Unicorn needed him to do. What difference does it make if he had a crisis of conscience at the last minute? The bomb still went off, didn’t it? …. Maybe the stupid idiot was just afraid to die.’

  Nadia could tell Ed was frustrated, but did he need to be so cruel? ‘It makes a difference to me,’ she snapped back. ‘I’m convinced he wasn’t a bad man and, if we demonise all the weak people as well, where do we stop? And, yes, I’m happy that my judgement wasn’t completely wrong.’

  Ed looked at her and managed a weary smile. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so sarky. I’m just tired.’ He handed a plastic evidence bag to Nadia. ‘What do you think of this? The forensic guys think it was in Snowflake’s back pocket.’

  There was a black-and-white photograph inside the transparent bag, one corner burnt black and torn, but largely intact. From the white creases which quartered it, the photo had been folded and unfolded many times. Nadia could tell from the tight focus that it had been taken with a telephoto lens.

  A black Mercedes was parked outside some metal gates on a dusty street. A well-dressed woman in dark sunglasses was stepping out of the back, a small baby wrapped in her arms. The image was crisp and clear and, even with her sore eyes, Nadia could see the happy smile on the woman’s face. She was gorgeous.

  ‘Beirut?’ she said, looking up at Ed.

  ‘Cairo,’ he said. ‘Maadi district. We haven’t identified her yet, but we will.’

  ‘Why would he have this in his pocket?’ asked Nadia.

  ‘Have a look at the back.’

  The pencil writing was smudged and hard to read. As Nadia pieced together the words, she gasped.

  ‘Always remember! We know where to find her.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Nadia. ‘You don’t think …?’

  ‘… Our working assumption is that the woman is Mona El Masry.’

  ‘… And if it is, Snowflake was blackmailed – coerced rather than convinced?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Ed. ‘It seems that Unicorn threatened to kill Mona and her child unless Hassan carried out the attack … It looks as though you were right about the man, just missing some other key facts.’

  Nadia handed back Mona’s photo and slumped back onto the soft pillow. The poor young man had still been in love with her even after everything that had happened to him. And he’d been prepared to do the unthinkable to protect her and another man’s child.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘Luckily it wouldn’t have made a difference this time, but I should have been professional enough to step back and see the bigger picture, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ed. ‘That’s why it’s good to work in teams. Helps add objectivity.’ He put the photo back in the evidence bag and smiled. ‘Anyway, even though no-one else is aware of this, you’ll be happy to know there’s a lot of sympathy for Snowflake out there.’

  Nadia winced as she tried to raise her eyebrows; she’d forgotten about the stitches. ‘How so?’ she said.

  Ed handed her a small folder. ‘Have a read,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back later.’

  After Ed left, Nadia took a few moments to look around her; she was in a boring white hospital room, screaming functionality and antiseptic cleanliness. That was fine by her. Anything was a bonus after five days in total blackness.

  The doctors had told her that her vision should make a full recovery, although they’d taken great pains to emphasise that she’d been extremely lucky. Apparently one of the ball bearings from the bomb had ricocheted off the pillar next to her and hit her in the cheek. It had been a glancing blow, but enough to send a smal
l shard of bone up into her eyeball. Because of the unusual angle, the surgery had been particularly complex, and they’d been worried she might lose the eye.

  Although Nadia had known for a couple of days that the surgery had gone well, she felt her body sagging into the soft mattress as relief coursed through her. Being told her eyes would recover was one thing but, for once, seeing really was believing.

  She noticed a vase of white roses on the table next to her with a small card leaning against the vase and recognised the writing straight away - Get well soon. Good job. David. Another reason to be relieved; he wouldn’t have written that if he intended to make an issue out of her ignoring his order.

  She was still holding the folder Ed had given her. It was full of newspaper clippings – dozens of them – divided into two sections, Snowflake and Heroes. She decided to leave Snowflake until last and began to flick through the second section.

  Most of the articles were predictably not much more substantial than their blocky, punchy headlines – the typical hand-wringing sensationalism she would have expected. Populist, opinionated and preaching simplistic solutions to horrendously complex problems. All powered by 20:20 hindsight.

  However, almost all of them were proclaiming the two old men as heroes and Nadia had the sense that an entire nation had taken them to its heart. There was one article in a respected weekly magazine which stood out; the journalist had taken the time to research his piece properly.

  Unlikely Heroes.

  The terrorist attack of 10th July 2016 at London’s Natural History Museum was well planned, ruthless and aimed to cause maximum harm to a “soft” civilian target. The Dinosaur Bombing, as it has been labelled, would undoubtedly have resulted in significant loss of life if it hadn’t been for the selfless acts of two brave men.

  Although Jim Pritchard (62) and Dan Bukowski (78) never met, they both made independent decisions to risk their lives in order to protect others. Witnesses have confirmed that both men must have known what might happen to them.

  The men came from totally different backgrounds but, with tragic irony, both had already been linked to terrorism earlier in their lives.

  Jim was an Eastender, born and bred. He served for twenty years in the British Army before retiring at the age of forty, having reached the rank of sergeant. During his service, he experienced three tours of Northern Ireland during the worst of the Troubles and was injured twice in Republican attacks. Although his own injuries were not severe, eight of his friends and colleagues lost their lives in those attacks.

  Having taken early retirement, Jim trained to become a London taxi driver which had been his childhood dream and he worked as a cabbie for the following twenty years. It was only after losing his taxi license in 2014, that he took a job with the Natural History Museum. Jim was one of the two museum guards on duty in the Hinke hall when Hassan Qureishi entered the room.

  As soon as he realised that Hassan was behaving suspiciously, we understand from eye-witnesses that Jim’s army training kicked in and he took charge of the situation, walking towards the suspected bomber, trying to calm the situation and to prevent the attack.

  Nadia had been one of those witnesses and would never forget the way the old man had held himself straight and tall as he’d approached Snowflake, even though he must have known what might happen. Would she have had the courage to do that? Hopefully, she would never be put to the test.

  She’d been told a little about these two men as she’d lain in her enforced darkness over the previous days, but this journalist had dug deeper into their backgrounds and she was almost in tears by the time she finished the article.

  Dan couldn’t have been more different. Born in Toronto to academic parents, he lived and studied at the University of Texas in Austin, where he started his career as a leading expert in the works of Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dan was the author of several acclaimed academic textbooks, notably including “The Devil Inside: Dostoevsky and Modern Terrorism”.

  It was during his time in Austin that Dan became a tragic victim of one of the worst mass shootings in American history. Dan’s young wife, Rosa, and his unborn child were shot dead in the Texas Tower massacre of August 1st 1966.

  Former US Marine, Charles Whitman shot 44 people from the main building tower at the University of Texas in Austin, killing 16 of them. Like so many subsequent US shootings, he wasn’t apparently motivated by religion or by politics, but rather by a frustration with society, fuelled by easy access to high-performance firearms. Many experts would say that killings such as these can’t be classified as terrorist attacks, but this newspaper struggles to see where the difference lies.

  Dan’s book, which explores the origins and motivations behind modern terrorism, is already topping best-seller lists worldwide.

  Even though Nadia had only seen Dan Bukowski from behind, he’d held himself with a similar purpose as Jim Pritchard – or at least as much as a man of nearly eighty could manage. Apparently he’d had terminal cancer, but that didn’t detract in any way from his bravery and the lives he’d saved. From the early forensic results, there was little doubt that the frail old man had saved Nadia’s own life along with many others.

  Ed had made a point of separating out the articles discussing the two heroes from the ones discussing Snowflake. Nadia could remember the sense of relief which had overwhelmed her as she’d seen the young man take his hand out of his pocket and sink to his knees. Ed and David’s warnings were unnecessary and overcautious. It was all going to be all right.

  She’d barely had time to register the – slightly smug – satisfaction of knowing she’d been right all along, before the world had turned white. Inside the memories of burning light, she couldn’t stop seeing Unicorn’s face staring at her out of the flames. His green eyes were filled with triumph and he had one eyebrow arched as if to say, ‘Really? Who do you think you are, little girl?’

  She began to leaf through the Snowflake press cuttings and quickly understood what Ed had meant. Of course there was plenty of criticism of Hassan Qureishi, but the writers were mostly voicing disappointment at his weakness and naivety, and trying to understand how an Oxford-educated Brit could have been brainwashed so completely. Every article made a point of emphasising the fact that Hassan had actually surrendered and much of the anger and vitriol was reserved for Ibrahim and the Pakistani Taliban.

  … Oxford-educated bomber – why did he change his mind?

  … mother says he must have been brainwashed.

  … Tragic love story. Who was the mysterious Egyptian girl who broke Hassan Qureishi’s heart?

  … bomber was victim of class divide and snobbery as much as race. Austerity creates vulnerability!

  … Three witnesses say that the museum bomber had chosen to give himself up. Police have confirmed that the bomb was detonated remotely.

  … Bradford-born multi-millionaire donates £250,000 to anti-radicalisation programmes.

  Nadia had to read the final article twice. The Bradford-born multi-millionaire was, of course, Hassan’s drug dealer uncle. Who would have expected that?

  Although the press coverage was still full of anti-Moslem, anti-immigration sentiment, it was more balanced and more focused than might have been expected. The fact that fatalities had been limited helped, but there was something more; for whatever reason, many people – of all backgrounds – seemed to have identified with Hassan and, like Nadia, to choose to focus on the tragedy of a young life, with so much potential, being wasted.

  If they only knew about the threats to Mona’s life … but they never would …

  One mainstream right-wing tabloid had gone as far to say:

  Let’s make an end to division. People of all faiths must come together to protect our youth from the evil influence of a small group of fanatics. We all let this young man down. Let’s make sure it never happens again.

  Only words, but it was a start. Maybe there was some hope for the future, after all?

  And the
n, as the weeks and months of stress finally began to catch up with her, Nadia slumped back into her pillow, rough cardboard folder clutched to her chest and warm tears running down her cheeks.

  Best Eaten Cold

  by Tony Salter

  The Bestselling Psychological Thriller you can’t put down.

  Imagine that someone wants to do you harm. Someone you once knew, but have almost forgotten.

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  The Old Orchard

  by Tony Salter

  The family thriller that will grip you until the last page.

  Finance Director, Alastair Johnson, is in trouble. He needs a lot of money, and he needs it very soon.

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