‘It means what I said. Bombs are bombs. They kill people. Do the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine know when the next bombs are going to be dropped?’
‘Maybe not. But we are talking about London – not any of those places. And the bombs in those places are dropped by trained professional military personnel on military targets – not on Tube trains and buses by people wearing backpacks.’
‘I am a soldier of Allah.’
‘Are you? You didn’t act like a soldier when you dressed as a woman and tried to escape on a bus. I’ve never seen any soldier ever do that. Ever. If you’re a soldier, where is the rest of your army now? The other members of your unit that you normally fight with? Have they fled dressed as women too?’
Samir said nothing.
Jake needed to keep up the tempo of the interview. He didn’t want Samir to have too much time to deliberate and start to make up his answers. Keep asking questions quickly, thought Jake. He needed the first thing that came into Samir’s head. That way there was less time for suspects to think up a strategy; less time to evade the questions being asked of them.
‘You’re from Somalia?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you come here to the UK?’
‘When I was nine. I came here with my aunt and uncle. They were given political asylum here.’
‘You grew up here in the UK after that?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was good of us – the UK, I mean. We gave you somewhere to live. Educated you. Did you go to college?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re twenty-one now, right? Are you working?’
‘No – I study Islam.’
‘So, when did you train to be a soldier… of Allah, I mean?’ Jake wondered if Samir could tell he was being sarcastic.
‘Every day I read Quran. This trains me. We don’t always do jihad by going abroad and firing guns and using bombs. Before we do that we must have jihad within ourselves,’ answered Samir calmly.
Most people would have been annoyed at Jake’s dig, yet Samir remained impassive. Maybe Samir was stupid?
‘You live on your own?’ asked Jake.
‘Yes.’
‘At Sullivan House?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what’s your trouble then?’
‘What do you mean?
‘You fled a war-torn country. Asylum means your family must have been persecuted in your own country. You come here. My country allows you in. Feeds you. Gives you somewhere to live. Educates you. Then it sends you to college. Then, even when you’re not working, we give you your own flat, free of charge, for you to read religious books and go down the mosque every day… I don’t get it – what’s your trouble?’
‘This world is like a toilet. Who wants to spend all their life in the toilet, when something better is waiting for them? My people are being bombed every day. Women and children raped and murdered in Afghanistan and Iraq by butchers.’
‘Whose words are they?’
‘What?’
‘You said “raped and murdered by butchers”… You’ve seen this happening or did someone tell you about it?’
‘I have been told by people who have been there.’
‘You believe everything you’re told?’
‘These people speak the truth. I trust them.’
‘What if they were telling lies? Just to make you do what they wanted you to do?’
‘I’ve seen videos and photos of these things.’
‘Given to you by the same people that told you that these things were real?’
Samir was silent again.
‘Samir. How do you think I found you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘These people that you trust… The people that tell you the “truth”. Do you think maybe that they might be messing you about? Telling you lies that you are their friend, when in fact you are not? Telling you that they will protect you, when in fact they are telling us where you are?’
Samir was silent. He stared at Jake.
Jake could see it. In the corner of Samir’s eyes. It was working. A seed of doubt had taken root.
43
Friday
22 July 2005
1910 hours
High-security custody suite, Paddington Green police station, central London
Jake allowed the silence to go on much longer than he would in a normal conversation.
‘Let him fester and think,’ Jake’s inner voice said.
Silence was awful in this environment for a suspect who was now beginning to self-question and reprocess everything that they’d once believed in. They couldn’t run. They couldn’t hide. They couldn’t block out what you were saying. It was even rumoured that some of the walls of the building had been specially designed with white tiles to make the view perfectly symmetrical. This was to help prevent suspects from focussing on an image in their heads that might block out interrogation.
After what seemed like an age, Jake spoke again. ‘We can come back to that later, Samir. Let’s move on. Tell me why you did it, Samir. Let’s talk about that.’
Jake had consciously shied away from asking ‘Did you do it?’
It may have passed Samir by, that Jake had deliberately skipped this, the million-dollar question. Yet, by moving on, Jake inferred he already knew the answer. This was his subtle way of playing mind games.
Samir responded, ‘You will not listen to our words. Only when we show you our blood will you listen to our words.’
Probably the most profound thing he’s said all day, thought Jake. But yet again they sounded like someone else’s words, not Samir’s.
‘So by blowing yourselves up on Tube trains and buses you make us listen to your words?’ Jake asked.
‘We need to make you and your government listen. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what we will do.’
Jake needed more. It wasn’t enough to prove intent. It was close but not perfect.
‘So when you went onto the Tube on 21 July, 2005, you wanted people to listen by seeing your blood?’
‘Yes.’
‘By blowing yourself and others up, you would have made people listen?’
Jake had gone in for the kill quickly. The opening was there.
Samir couldn’t see it, but his next answer would change the course of his life from here on in. If he answered, he was saying he was guilty and had a guilty mind. It was like playing tennis. Jake had served for the match. Would Samir notice that Jake’s next shot had topspin lob on it before he hit it back? Or would he lose everything?
‘Yes – that’s right.’
Samir was stupid. He was fucked. He’d admitted his act, and admitted that he had a guilty mind. Jake could let his guard down a little.
Jake sat back in his chair and took a moment to really look at the human being in front of him. He suddenly saw a boy sitting before him, not a man. The interview had been a walkover. Jake wasn’t even trying. He was like Roger Federer, playing tennis with a kid who didn’t know the rules of the game; a child opponent versus a three-time Wimbledon winner who did this for a living.
He felt a slight pang of remorse. Samir was more immature than he’d realised.
‘Samir – tell me about your life. Tell me about you.’
‘The aunt and uncle I came with left me. I lived with foster parents more or less as soon as I arrived here in Britain. I missed my own parents. They didn’t have enough money to come. They sent me, paid for me to come. Said my life would be better here.’
‘The foster parents – were they Muslim?’
‘No. They were white. English. Christians. They were nice. But I was different. I didn’t fit in. I drank alcohol and took drugs to escape. Chewed khat. I was nobody. When I left school I met some other boys from my part of the
world. East Africa – Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia. They were like me; had no identity, were going nowhere, taking drugs and getting drunk. We started going to a special Thursday-night club at the mosque.’
‘And what happened there?’
‘They made me feel like I was family, part of something; one of them. They kept me in a room, made me stop the drugs and alcohol. It was hard but they didn’t give up on me. To take my mind off the pain they showed me videos of what was happening abroad – all the killings. Then, when I got better, they took me and my friends on trips to the countryside, to the forest. It was cool. We were all brothers together. The feeling I had missed since I left Somalia. They made me feel special – wanted.’
For the first time, Jake felt a twinge of empathy for him. He understood Samir’s desire to feel wanted and needed, to feel part of something. Jake had that desire too. His own neediness and loneliness also drove him into the arms of strangers; women that would boost his self-esteem just like Samir’s friends had done. But Samir’s friends had played on these feelings, had manipulated him and led him to do terrible things.
‘What did they do on the trips?’
‘At first it was just walking. Then we ran. They made us train. Then they taught us to build hideouts. We played war games. I liked it.’
‘War games?’
‘Yes. They made us pretend that we were being hunted; that people were trying to kill us. Then they would leave us in the forest. One night at first. Then two. Then a whole week. No food.’
‘And why did they do that?’
‘They said it was training for when the UK and US began wiping out all Muslims. That if we wanted to stay together as a family we’d have to learn how to hide together.’
‘The photos and videos you mentioned earlier – the ones of women and children being raped and killed…’
Samir interrupted him, ‘They said that it had started – Muslims were being slaughtered. That we had to help before it went too far. That you were not listening to us. That we had to give our blood to make you listen and to stop the killing. The videos, I watched them over and over when they kept me safe. They said watching them would help me to stop the drugs.’
Jake had seen it before – a chance for attention, to feel wanted… He knew those feelings himself.
Samir didn’t like to be alone; he was guileless in many ways. Had that innocent look when you first saw him. He just yearned to be part of something that he’d lacked in childhood. But now here he was, clearly in too deep, not knowing know how to swim. He’d never considered the outcome of being caught, he’d been so focussed on just trying to fit in and be part of the crew. He had no strategy for this eventuality.
Samir had been manipulated and used. He was happy to kill for these people; happy to kill himself. He hadn’t expected to still be alive, sat in a police station, powerless and helpless.
The men who had brought Samir to this point, they were the ones Jake wanted to get hold of. They were the ones who needed to be stopped. Going after Samir was like going after a helpless drug addict, the user. If you wanted to make an impact you needed to get the dealer, thought Jake.
‘Samir – would you have been happy killing those people on the Tube and happy killing yourself on 21 July?’
‘That’s what I wanted. I would have been in Paradise with seventy-two virgins now. Instead I am sitting here with you. This is all wrong. Everything has gone wrong.’
Jake knew that Samir had expected to die, yet here he was in an interrogation room, suddenly having to think about his future, realising he’d failed in his quest.
Jake was positive that at this precise moment, given the chance again, Samir would have taken the option to have been shot by police at the coach station.
‘Who has been telling you this nonsense?’ asked Jake.
Samir looked as though the fight had gone out of him. There was a hollowness there. Jake was used to hardened criminals beginning to negotiate with him by this stage of the interview. Yet Samir was vacant. He was broken. There was no attempt to do a deal.
Jake was reaching a dead end. He could sense that there was no spark left to play off. When you shook up a normal criminal in an interview, they’d react like a carbonated soft drink. But Samir was like an empty bottle. There was no vigour, no animation, no fizz. Nothing remained.
Jake stood up. He looked Samir in the eyes.
‘Can you not see you’ve been used, Samir? You are a dangerous individual. But you’re a small fish in a huge sea. You’re deluded and you can’t or won’t see that.’
There was no point in continuing the interview. Samir had nothing else to give. It was a job for another day and possibly another team member.
Jake concluded the interview and turned off the tapes.
Jake was certain that they’d find no evidence at Sullivan House about who had brainwashed Samir or why he’d been brainwashed.
44
Friday
29 July 2005
1805 hours
The flat above the sari shop, Whitechapel, East End of London
Jake watched the news as he ate his dinner, if he could call it a dinner that was. A meal of two bacon sandwiches.
The headlines were dominated by the arrest of two more of the 21/7 bombers in Operation Vivace.
Jake wondered if the newsreaders seemed to like this new diversion into home-grown terrorism. It gave them plenty to talk about. ‘At around 11 a.m. today, armed police surrounded two houses on a rundown estate in the White City area of London. They fired tear gas and stun grenades into the premises where two of the four suspects were arrested.’
The bacon tasted good after the stint at work he’d just done; meetings for the past twelve hours solid. It seemed that everyone in the world was now a terrorist. The Branch wasn’t going to be able to cope if this was the new reality, thought Jake. He couldn’t believe their current funding and manpower would stretch. The Security Service was growing in number too. It seemed that everyone had been caught on the hop by the global threat that Islamic terrorism now posed.
Jake burped as he finished his last crust. He looked down to see that the ketchup from his sandwich had dripped onto his shirt.
‘For God’s sake!’ he sighed heavily to himself.
He was going to have to change it before he went out with Claire. They’d decided to meet at Tiger Tiger in Haymarket for a drink that evening.
As he stripped off, the phone rang.
‘Jake, it’s Claire – I can’t make tonight.’
‘What? You can’t? Are you sure? Can’t you get out of it? What’s going on?’ Jake knew he sounded needy as soon as the words left his mouth.
‘It’s work – been called in last minute. You must have heard about the arrests today?’
Jake sighed. ‘How come they need you on that now? The Met has split the job in two: 7/7 is Operation Theseus and 21/7 is Operation Vivace. We’ve been told to treat them as totally separate and unrelated. What’s the real story? Tell me what’s going on.’
‘I can’t, Jake… You know what it’s like here… I can’t share it with you at the moment. Just…’
‘OK, another time.’ He hung up the phone without allowing her to say anything more; his way of protesting.
He walked to the fridge in his small flat and opened the door. Beer and the leftovers from yesterday’s meat-feast pizza were the remaining delights that it had on offer.
The news was still on. He shoved a slice of pizza into his mouth as he turned over to the football. ‘Fuck you and your terrorists. Fuck the lot of you!’ he shouted with his mouth full.
He cracked open his first can of lager. His palate watered as the scent hit him; the ritual of the habitual drinker.
Ted the cat was scratching at the cork wallpaper, begging to be let out.
He hated it when she massaged the wall with her
claws, like a cheese grater. It was like she was throwing out a challenge to him. ‘What are you going to do, Jake? Lock me out? Not feed me?’
Jake couldn’t be bothered to move, and growled like a dog at her.
In response, Ted promptly jumped down from the window ledge and coolly wandered over to Jake’s yucca plant, which was sat in the corner of the lounge. She leapt up into the plant pot and relieved herself in disgust. The soil would have to do as her litter tray for now.
That made at least two females in his life that he wasn’t on perfect terms with right now, thought Jake.
45
Monday
1 August 2005
1333 hours
Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire
Back in the office, after a weekend without Claire and a flying visit to see the kids, he realised grimly that it was almost a month since the first bombings. And where were they now? No further on, it seemed.
Jake sighed and went to find a quiet room with a TV and DVD player. He had been tasked by Denswood to undertake a special job. He’d been given some film footage to watch. Jake had not been told how it had been obtained, but he knew it had come from MI6 and that the method by which it had been acquired was top secret.
It was of Wasim and had been filmed in Pakistan at some point during the winter of 2004. Wasim was sat in the corner of a room, in front of a fabric backdrop patterned with red and cream stripes. Jake had researched the material. It was readily available in Pakistan, but you couldn’t purchase it in the UK.
On his head, Wasim wore a red and white chequered scarf. A traditional keffiyeh, it was tied tightly around his forehead with the loose ends left flowing down behind him.
Jake watched him carefully as he spoke.
‘We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation,’ said Wasim chillingly, yet with a familiar Yorkshire brogue.
He had travelled to Pakistan in November 2004, seemingly in good health, but on the TV screen Wasim looked extremely thin. He’d lost a lot of weight compared to the family photos Jake had seen. Maybe it was the stress of saying farewell to his wife and daughter? That couldn’t have been easy. Or maybe he’d picked up a stomach bug like on his previous trip to Pakistan in 2001, when he’d had to return home through ill health?
THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. Page 13