Three Hours : A Novel (2020)

by Lupton, Rosamund

  ‘And he’s still waiting to build up an audience?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps he’s waiting for the USA to wake up. It’s 6.13 in New York.’

  ‘Do you know why Deakin joined 14 Words?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘I think he wanted to use them to radicalize Jamie Alton, so he’d have an accomplice,’ Rose says.

  ‘And access to weapons,’ Stuart says. ‘He bought the guns himself, but this terrorist organization probably found him a dealer. More than that, like Generation Identity, they send UK recruits to military-style anti-Islam training camps in Europe. Deakin has been out of the country twice in the last six months, but Alton hasn’t. So Deakin, perhaps others, trained Alton.’

  ‘And has Victor Deakin been radicalized too?’ Bronze Commander asks.

  ‘I doubt it; he just found a natural home,’ Rose says. ‘A white supremacist terror organization fits a Caucasian narcissistic psychopath. But this terror group are using him too, to carry out this attack for them.’

  Very useful to have a psychopath, a man utterly devoid of conscience, in your ranks; all the most ruthless paramilitary groups have them; they crawl out of the woodwork whenever a terrorist organization goes recruiting.

  ‘Does it help us negotiate with Deakin?’ Bronze Commander asks.

  ‘I think he has already decided what he wants to do,’ Rose says. ‘If he reads our texts, even if he talks to us, he’s not going to change his plan.’

  While the discovery of 14 Words is relevant, and deeply worrying, for Jamie Alton and for the children held captive by him in the pottery room, it doesn’t tell her more about Victor Deakin.

  Lysander comes back on to the screen.

  ‘We’ve tracked the tweet about Victor Deakin being a psychopath to 14 Words, through a variety of aliases; they used automated high-volume retweeting to get it trending.’

  Rose already thought 14 Words knew Victor was a psychopath, probably top of his desirable qualities, and that Victor himself is proud of who he is.

  ‘But why?’ Bronze Commander asks. ‘To increase the terror?’

  ‘That’s the logical conclusion, yes,’ Rose says.

  ‘And did nobody they know suspect terrorist involvement?’ an officer asks.

  ‘Victor Deakin is a psychopath so a skilful liar,’ Rose says. ‘And Jamie was probably coached on how to stay below everybody’s radar. It’s significant that he used an alias and to begin with, his interface with this organization was done on Deakin’s computer, before he upped the security on his own computer. And with Jamie’s previous personality, by all accounts an unaggressive, thoughtful boy, I doubt people had any reason to suspect, even people close to him.’

  ‘I agree,’ Stuart says. ‘Unfortunately for us, members of 14 Words are not skinheads with white power tattoos or any other obvious signs of their beliefs. They are younger, tech-savvy, and have made themselves deliberately hard to detect.’

  The part of the screen that showed Lysander’s face now only shows the top of his head as he bends to work on Victor’s computer, while he continues the briefing.

  ‘There are levels of encryption we haven’t been able to access on the 14 Words dark website,’ Lysander says. ‘We think they’re hiding posts or messages, and possibly transactions. Instead of using 1024-bit RSA encryption keys they’re using ED-25519 elliptic curve keys.’

  ‘Can you decipher any of it?’ Bronze Commander asks, Rose thinks unnecessarily since Lysander will be doing everything humanly possible; Bronze Commander can’t have worked with him before.

  ‘Everyone’s doing their damnedest,’ Lysander says.

  ‘The significance of belonging to a terrorist organization isn’t only in the way the two gunmen are going to behave and whether or not we can negotiate,’ Stuart Dingwall says. ‘It’s that belonging to this group means they have a terrorist organization behind them, one that we believe is highly efficient and skilled. We’ve just seen that in their sophisticated use of bots on Twitter. It’s likely that if they have a drone, it’s of military grade so can withstand these conditions, and is being operated by someone away from the campus.’

  This makes sense to Rose; they’ve had reports of Victor’s footsteps walking up and down almost continuously, so although Victor would probably enjoy using a surveillance drone, it would be hard to do so at the same time as terrorizing everyone in Old School.

  ‘Belonging to a terror group also makes it more likely that there’s another gunman on the school grounds,’ Stuart says.

  ‘Deakin and Alton are part of the conspiracy to keep him secret?’ Bronze Commander asks.

  ‘If he exists, yes,’ Stuart replies.

  ‘Any sign of a third gunman?’ Bronze Commander asks.

  ‘Surveillance UAVs and helicopters haven’t found anything,’ an officer reports. ‘But in conditions like this, and with a campus this size, that doesn’t mean very much.’

  ‘If there is another gunman,’ Stuart says, ‘he’s likely to be a senior member with paramilitary training; he would know how to keep out of sight.’

  ‘Do we know the whereabouts of Rafi and Basi Bukhari?’ Bronze Commander asks.

  ‘We think Basi is in the Junior School building and I’m pretty sure Rafi went to find him,’ Rose says.

  The briefing ends.

  A few moments of hush in the room and they can hear the storm outside the open door.

  Rose tries to ring Rafi, but he doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  The vicious icy wind whips against Rafi’s face. He’s running through bracken up to his thighs, heavy with snow, but he may be running in the wrong direction. It’s snowing more heavily and he still cannot find the path, cannot orientate himself.

  He remembers clinging on to Basi’s T-shirt on the beach in Egypt so they wouldn’t be separated. Next to them a little girl’s father blew up armbands as if she was going in a swimming pool. Hours later, they’d had to wade through the sea in the dark to get to the boat. Basi was quickly out of his depth. Rafi tried to hold him up above the waves so that they could reach the boat, but he wasn’t strong enough or tall enough, and it was getting too deep to keep Basi’s face above the water.

  * * *

  The door creaks like someone is pushing it, but it’s the wind, Ratty, just the wind, that’s all, and there’s nothing to be frightened of, and when Rafi gets here he’ll make them laugh, really he will.

  When they were near to Italy, men wearing big white hoods got on to their boat with masks over their faces and white suits and gloves, and he thought they were exterminators, and started crying, just like he is now, all crouched down in a boat just like now, but Rafi said: ‘Look, Little Monkey! They’ve sent astronauts from Planet Almiriykh to welcome us!’ And then they really did look like astronauts.

  Creaks are closer to him, but it’s just the canoes on their hooks because the wind has got in through the door and is pushing them, that’s all it is. Not the man in the dark.

  There was this other time, they were all really cold and wet, even colder than he is now, and a man had got on to the boat and given them thin metal crumply blankets and he’d wanted a real blanket, soft and heavy, with Mama tucking it around him, and then Rafi said, ‘Basi, we’re a box of chocolates,’ and that’s what they looked like, all crammed into their boat with the gold wrappers around them.

  16.

  11.16 a.m.

  Rose pulls Thandie’s jacket around her as she walks from the command and control vehicle towards the Portakabin; squalling wind tunnels of snow between the lines of parked emergency vehicles. Now they know that it’s a terrorist attack, the government will be involved and potentially the military. COBRA, a crisis response committee headed by the prime minister, will be convened. This event is again escalating and expanding.

  And she thinks there are others involved too, secret and hidden, because when Bronze Commander asked Lysander if he could access the terrorists’ encrypted material on the dark net, Lysander had said, ‘Everyone’s doing their
damnedest’; she doesn’t think he was only referring to his computer forensics team. There’s a rumour that Lysander used to work for GhostSec, an offshoot of Anonymous, which attacks ISIS websites on the dark net and is believed to have thwarted several potential terrorist attacks; the rumour also goes that Lysander was personally responsible for replacing an ISIS website with an advert for Prozac; she’s never heard him joke so thinks it unlikely. She does believe that he took down close to a hundred child pornography sites. And she’s heard that some people living in totalitarian regimes, who use the dark net to publish and read uncensored news, track child abusers and terrorist organizations. She imagines them all hunting in the dark net to help the children and staff at the school. Victor Deakin won’t have taken into account Lysander and his army of ghosts.

  She opens the door of the Portakabin. There’s a young negotiator sitting with Beth Alton, one of Dannisha’s team who will advise Beth on what to say to Jamie, but Jamie still hasn’t answered Beth’s calls. Rose sits down next to Beth, but Beth looks away from her and presses a number, one button because Jamie is in her favourites, top of the list. Rose wonders how many times she’s tried to phone him now.

  ‘Does Jamie ever go out on his own?’

  To meet terrorists; to be trained.

  ‘Sometimes. A film or shopping. And for long walks, he likes walking.’

  ‘Do you know where he goes on his walks?’

  Beth shakes her head; her call goes through to message.

  ‘It’s Mum again, please call me or Dad, sweetheart, please.’

  ‘Jamie is using a different name on some social media accounts, do you know anything about that?’

  Beth looks at her, with relief she thinks.

  ‘Yes. J-Me. Zac thought of it, capital J and then me. J hyphen me.’

  ‘A different one. For the last five months, he’s called himself Aryan Knight. He has email, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts in the name of Aryan Knight.’

  ‘That can’t be Jamie. I mean, why would he want to call himself something like that?’

  She seems unable to take in this alternative name, this alternative son.

  ‘Have you ever heard him use that name? Or refer to it in any way?’

  ‘No. It’s not Jamie. It’s—’

  ‘What about the number 18 or 100%?’

  Beth turns away from her.

  ‘Have you heard him say either of those numbers to anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you recognize them?’

  ‘He wants to do well in his exams, to get full marks. And he wants an eighteenth-birthday party.’

  ‘Did you ever hear him talking to anyone else about this party?’

  Beth is silent.

  ‘Has he said anything about 14 Words?’

  ‘What do you mean, fourteen words?’

  ‘Maybe you heard him on the phone talk about—’

  ‘No. I don’t understand. What does it even mean?’

  ‘It’s a white supremacist terrorist group. Jamie is a member.’

  Beth shrinks backwards as if Rose has hit her hard across her face.

  ‘No. You’ve got it all wrong. He’d never be a part of something like that. He’s not like that. Jamie’s not racist, doesn’t hate people.’

  The same certainty with which she said he would never be violent.

  ‘Our family aren’t like that, or our friends,’ Beth continues. ‘And he goes to this school, this tolerant, liberal school.’

  ‘I think Jamie’s been depressed and lonely, and I think they preyed on that, Victor and then this group. I think Jamie was groomed first by Victor then by this terrorist organization. They would have made him feel noticed; wanted. And they gave him a cause, made him feel important and valuable. This is how these organizations work. A group like this exploits vulnerable young people.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s been radicalized?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s Muslim teenagers going off to join ISIS or girls going to marry fighters in Syria, it’s not a boy like Jamie.’

  As if she can disprove the fact of it by arguing against its probability.

  ‘He’s pointing a gun at a building full of children,’ Rose says.

  ‘But he won’t hurt them.’

  ‘Can you be sure?’

  ‘Yes. It’s this group and Victor who are making him do it.’

  ‘No one is standing there making him do this, Mrs Alton.’

  ‘But they are, they’ve got inside his head, that’s what you’re saying. That they’ve radicalized him.’

  Beth has understood.

  ‘Yes, and I need to know if any of the old Jamie is there.’

  ‘Of course he’s still there. Of course. I’ve seen that all along, even when he’s been difficult – I’ve seen the old Jamie too. And he’ll want this to be stopped. I just need to talk to him.’

  Rose prays that she’s right, and that if she is, Jamie answers his phone.

  Her beloved boy, a terrorist; a white supremacist. Everything good broken apart.

  You were drowning and I didn’t even see, didn’t rescue you. I let Victor pull you down deeper. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.

  All the things she’d worried about, but then dismissed earlier – not having good friends who care about him, his low self-esteem and being unconfident, having his heart broken – are desperately, vitally important because they made him vulnerable to Victor and this appalling group. Antonella wasn’t even a girlfriend, he made that up because he was so sad and lonely and wanting love, and that made him defenceless too.

  And she didn’t see. Happening to her boy, right there in front of her, and she didn’t see.

  They were trying to brainwash him, strip out who he is, but they haven’t managed it, they haven’t. Because Jamie is still there. Yes, he’s changed in the last few months, beyond recognition from her boy, yes, that’s true. He’s barely spoken to her or Mike. Halloween was the last time he spent an evening with them. He doesn’t want to eat with them, makes himself sandwiches to take to his room, and even his posture’s changed; he’s hunched and stiffer. He doesn’t meet her eye when she talks to him. But then, out of the blue, he’ll make her a cup of tea in her special mug, for no reason, or suddenly smile at her, and the other day, driving to school with Radio 1 on as usual, Wolf Alice came on, a band they both like, and he’d said, ‘Hey, Mum …’ so she’d know to listen.

  These moments are spread out, weeks between them sometimes, not all the time like they were six months ago, and they’re tiny things, but they matter because they’re signs that her son is still there; Jamie, who’d never hurt anyone, doesn’t hate anyone, and he wants this to stop.

  She calls him again and it goes through to his message, the same message he’s had for over a year, and his voice sounds so young and friendly.

  ‘Hey, it’s Jamie, leave me a message.’

  ‘It’s Mum, please ring me, sweetheart, please.’

  She hangs up and waits.

  What did they do to you, Jamie?

  * * *

  1 IN 5 BRIT MUSLIMS’ SYMPATHY FOR JIHADIS – Sun

  MUSLIMS TELL BRITISH: GO TO HELL!! – Daily Express

  MUSLIMS ‘SILENT ON TERROR’ – The Times

  JIHADIST KILLERS ON OUR STREETS – Daily Express

  HUNDREDS MORE UK MUSLIMS CHOOSE JIHAD THAN ARMY – The Times

  MUSLIM SCHOOLS BAN OUR CULTURE – Daily Express

  NOW MUSLIMS GET THEIR OWN LAWS IN BRITAIN – Daily Express

  PM: UK MUSLIMS HELPING JIHADIS – Daily Mail

  BRITAIN GOES HALAL – Sunday Mail

  GIVE US FULL SHARIA LAW – Daily Express

  MUSLIMS TELL US HOW TO RUN OUR SCHOOLS – Daily Express

  SNIFFER DOGS OFFEND MUSLIMS – Daily Express

  RAMADAN A DING-DONG – Sun

  FURY AT POLICE IN BURKAS – Daily Express

  STRANGERS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY – Daily Express

  BOMBERS ARE ALL SPO
NGING ASYLUM SEEKERS – Daily Express

  MUSLIM THUGS AGED JUST 12 IN KNIFE ATTACK ON BRIT SCHOOLBOY – Daily Star

  ASYLUM: YOU’RE RIGHT TO WORRY – Daily Mail

  MUSLIM PLOT TO KILL POPE – Daily Express

  THE SWARM ON OUR STREETS – Daily Mail

  CHRISTMAS IS BANNED IT OFFENDS MUSLIMS – Daily Express

  BBC PUT MUSLIMS BEFORE YOU! – Daily Star

  MUSLIMS FORCE POOL COVER-UP – Daily Express

  CALAIS CRISIS: SEND IN THE DOGS – Daily Mirror

  THEY WANT US TO BE ISLAMISED. THEY DESPISE OUR COUNTRY AND OUR VALUES – Daily Mail

  THOUSANDS OF ISIL FIGHTERS COULD USE MIGRANT CRISIS TO ‘FLOOD’ INTO EUROPE, NIGEL FARAGE WARNS – Daily Telegraph

  CHRISTIANITY UNDER ATTACK – Daily Mail

  JUST WAIT … ISLAMIC STATE REVEALS IT HAS SMUGGLED THOUSANDS OF EXTREMISTS INTO EUROPE – Daily Express

  SHOCK REPORT: ISIS FIGHTERS HAVE ENTERED UK POSING AS MIGRANTS & WILL STRIKE NEXT – Daily Express

  ‘And so on and so on,’ Thandie says to Rose. ‘Victor was emailing Jamie pages of national newspapers in May.’

  It would have been around him for years, Rose thinks, this soft hatred, this precursor to radicalization – Muslim bans in America, Trump all over the news, hate headlines in newspapers – but this boy is from a liberal family, attends a liberal school, doesn’t read those kind of papers, so Victor sent them to him.

  ‘Jamie started using the Aryan Knight identity the last week of June, didn’t he?’ Rose asks and Thandie nods.

  ‘The same week that his diary had “It’s over” about Antonella,’ Rose says. Not that anything had ever happened so presumably the day he realized this make-believe romance wouldn’t ever become real. Victor probably made that crystal clear to him. Rose wonders if Jamie was clinging on to his romantic fantasy as a bulwark against Victor, a bulwark flimsily made of flowers and hearts, two dimensional and beautifully coloured in, that came crashing down. Perhaps at the same time his friend Zac didn’t want him around and Jamie felt abandoned by both him and Antonella. And then Victor chose him. And yes, he did weird shit, had behaved badly, but could convince Jamie that he was his friend.