by Andy McNab
Dave was still talking.
‘Yes, religion has rules – and where you have rules, because human beings are awkward sods who just love to be contrary, you get loopholes. Once someone is committed to jihad, they’re exposed to a whole framework of religious argument that can tie knots in any holy book you care to name. For instance, many radicals today follow the concept of “defensive jihad” – which basically lets them off the normal rules so that they can do things that might seem profoundly unIslamic with a clear conscience. Radicalization is not the same as finding religion – that’s just a convenient shortcut for the headline writers. It’s a perversion of what the religion has to offer – structure, stability, empowerment.
‘And that’s probably where we are now. Gentlemen, whatever the full story behind it all, those girls came in as they did for a purpose that involves them, and their target. The most obvious candidate for a target is the Commonwealth Summit starting in London the day after tomorrow. Naturally all the obvious parts of London have been swept to within an inch of their lives with all the resources we can throw at them. And then this happens. But did anyone ever sneak a peek at Littern Mills? I’ll give you a clue. No, of course not. Why should they?
‘And so suddenly the Security Service is scrabbling around for the most basic int – which, when you work for an organization that’s meant to know what you had for dinner or when you last had sex, is kind of embarrassing. If we suddenly spray personnel at the estate, having previously left it alone until now, the terrorists will know that we suspect something and they might slip through the net again. Whereas all we know for sure so far is that Zara and Emma, who is possibly Girl X, live in Wolsey Tower on Littern Mills.’
He instantly clocked Sean’s surprised reaction. ‘Correct, Sean. Right opposite Gladstone Tower, where your mother lives. Zara lives with dad Jamie and brother Ste. Emma lives on her own, though officially it’s her mum’s place. So Littern Mills is where we begin. It may be where whatever they’re planning goes down; it may just be their base for an operation elsewhere – but we have to start somewhere, so it starts there. Yes, Sean?’
Sean had no fondness for Littern Mills, but fuck that, it was home. The thought that it might also be base camp for a terrorist operation severely pissed him off.
‘You said an operation elsewhere, si— Dave … What kind of operation?’
Dave sighed. ‘So many possibilities. There could be a weapons cache on the estate. A bomb-making factory for suicide vests or backpack IEDs. It could be a command location that is sending information to other cells on where, when and how to attack.’
‘So …’ Sean frowned. ‘How does that tie in with the girls being in Nigeria?’
‘Exactly! We need to know. The command location is actually the easiest option for us to explore. We have an army of smart bots and humans analysing every phone call made on the estate, and every byte of data passing in and out. But for the rest we need covert eyes on the ground. And therefore, under the MACP, we are sending in an undercover unit. The unit will be based in an OP on the estate and its prime objective will be to identify the nature of the threat, especially if it is to the Summit. Secondary objectives are: to establish the whereabouts of Girl X and Zara; to establish Girl X’s identity; to identify any other cell members; and to identify whatever might have been trafficked between Nigeria and here. And – although I cannot order; I can only ask for volunteers – it is my very strong desire that the unit will consist of’ – he flashed the three of them a dour smile – ‘you.’
Sean, Mitra and Wolston stared at him, and then at each other.
Dave waved with a broad palm at Sean. ‘Sean – born and bred on the estate. You will have an instinctive knowledge of the place that even the best-trained undercover operator could never match. Ravi – you will be pleased to know that there will be an element of housebreaking involved, which will also be signed off by the Home Secretary. This supersedes your undertaking to the judge not to indulge in that particular habit again.’
Now it was Mitra’s turn to come under the very interested stare of his two mates. Sean had had no idea that Mitra had previous. Usually unflappable, Mitra looked like he might actually blush.
‘And, Joe, Colonel Levene quite rightly insists on using the existing military chain of command where possible, and your accent will not be out of place on Littern Mills.’
‘I’m from Dartford,’ Wolston said.
‘Close enough.’ The smile switched off and Dave was suddenly serious. ‘So. Volunteers. Can I count on you?’
Sean’s heart thudded.
Whenever he thought he was putting Littern Mills behind him, it had a habit of reappearing. The last time that happened, it had almost dragged him back down again, and his mum’s life had been in more danger than she would ever know. Two good reasons to stay well away this time.
But it was a chance to get back at Bright’s killers. Just the thought of his mate on the carousel, choking on his own blood, was enough to make him want to take on the world.
So he nodded.
On either side of him, Wolston and Mitra nodded as well.
‘Only,’ Wolston added, ‘you do know we have zero training in undercover work …’
‘I know. And that is why the fourth member of the team will be – me. I know my accent will make me as out of place as a condom salesman in the Vatican, but I have done this kind of thing before. I’ll spend my time in the OP. But I’ll be there to support you … And Sean has another question.’
Adams always said you couldn’t ask too many questions, even if you felt like the class moron for not getting it. It was better to be clear than to make assumptions. So Sean pressed on with yet another.
‘One thing I’ll tell you about the estate straight off,’ he said, ‘is we notice outsiders pretty darn quick. Where’s this OP going to be based so no one notices?’
Dave’s sudden grin wasn’t amused. ‘Well done, Sean. I am so pleased you asked that question.’
And Sean knew the answer before the words were even out of his mouth.
Chapter 13
Wednesday 2 August, 22:00 BST
Simmering with anger, Sean hesitated in front of the scuffed wooden door. He shot a final, resentful look at Wolston, Mitra and Dave, queuing behind him. He got three tense, nervous stares back at him. Dave nodded in a way that said, Get on with it.
So Sean rapped out his accustomed one-two, three, four knock on the door of flat 403, Gladstone Tower, West Square, Littern Mills, and stood back.
The door opened and he put on his biggest, cheesiest grin.
‘Hi, Mum!’
Janice Harker squealed. ‘Sean!’
The lads had asked Sean to describe his mother; he had said, ‘Short and fat.’ He assumed he got his tall, muscular build from his father. Judging by her boyfriends, it did seem to be her preferred male body type.
He hadn’t been completely fair. A year ago, what with bad boyfriend trouble and no money to spend on food, she had been down to skin and bone. But if she hadn’t quite replaced all the lost pounds, she had made a serious effort – enough to knock him back a step when she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
‘Oh, Sean! It’s so good to see you! Weren’t you off to Tenerife?’
The sheer delight on her face made him feel a bastard. Not just for letting her down, like he was about to, but for putting her in danger again. Last summer she hadn’t known that she was being used as leverage to get him to perform an act of treason. And now her home was going to be used as the base for an anti-terrorist operation that could bring down all kinds of retaliation on her if it ever got out.
Though Sean did feel pleased with himself in one way: she could now be truly glad to see him. She was coming back from rock bottom. When he came home a year ago, she had been clinging to the hope that her son wouldn’t notice the missing furniture, and that he and the loan shark who was stiffing her for every penny wouldn’t cross paths. She had lost out on both counts.
Now she noticed that behind Sean were three more young men, all in jeans and leather jackets like her son (on Sean’s advice), and all with duffel bags slung over their shoulders.
‘Oh.’ She let go of Sean, and unconsciously dusted her dress down while she tried a nervous, hopeful, welcoming smile. ‘Hello.’
Then it was back to Sean. She tugged him to lower his head, speaking quickly and urgently. ‘Sean, you were coming back today, and they said a Fusilier was killed at the airport, and you’re a Fusilier …’
He had expected her to put two and two together and he had to hit that one right on the head. They didn’t want his mum telling her friends about her son’s airport-hostage nightmare.
‘Nah. Completely different unit, Mum.’ Denying Bright like that, he felt a little bit of him die inside, but it had to be done. ‘We were in the plane behind. Can we …?’
She stepped back, and the others followed Sean into the flat, nodding to Janice as they trooped into the living room. There was the sofa and a table and a couple of chairs that Sean had bought for her off Gumtree. They slung their bags on the floor, and stretched and flopped down like they had already moved in.
Mitra pulled a four-pack out of his bag and passed around the cans. ‘Want a beer, Mrs Harker?’
She silently shook her head while her puzzled expression begged an answer from Sean. OK, here it came. Time to lie out of his arse with a smile on his face.
‘Tenerife’s off, Mum. You heard about the airport thing? Well’ – he shrugged – ‘they’re not letting us out of the country. So we’re kind of having a … What’s that word, Joe?’
‘Staycation,’ Wolston called as he cracked open his can.
‘That’s it. So we’re staycating. Catering. Cationing. Whatever.’
He pretended not to notice her slight look of horror as he put his arm through hers and turned to the others. ‘This is Dave … Joe … Ravi. We were all going to hit the nightclubs together in Tenerife, but now that’s off, so instead we thought we’d come up to town – and, guess what? I said I knew this little place we could all stay rent free …’
As Sean had predicted, they had been pinged the moment they set foot on the estate. He had seen the glances – sideways looks from the older locals and full-on curiosity from the groups of teenagers who hung around doing nothing except look hard. Sean had paid the closest attention to the second group because he knew from experience that if they were going to have a problem, it would be from them. They would have given themselves a hard-sounding name (Killaz, as far as he could tell from the graffiti), they would have their own obscure rules for who was in and who was out, and their primary objective would be to claim their territory as their own. So any incursion from outside could be viewed as enemy action.
But either the Killaz didn’t view the unit as a threat – or, Sean liked to think, they recognized that a superior predator was on the scene, and decided that mutual non-aggression was the best course for everyone. Whichever it was, they didn’t interfere.
Since everyone knew they were here, they had taken care to hide in plain sight. Before heading up to the flat they had grabbed a KFC, then stopped off at the pub and bought a round, with one for the bargirl, all the time bitching loudly about cancelled plans and reduced pulling possibilities. Mitra had showed signs of submerging himself in the role – he’d had to be dragged away before he made body-language promises to the bargirl that he couldn’t keep. Sean had clocked some familiar faces, even nodded at a few of them.
Then Wolston had produced his Game of Thrones boxset, saying that he had been waiting ages to have a really good catch-up session, and the others had split between sharing his enthusiasm and groaning loudly.
So by now the word would be well out that Sean Harker and three soldiers were here on leave. If any of them were seen out on the estate, then it wouldn’t raise eyebrows – and thanks to Game of Thrones, no one would be surprised if some of them spent all their time together back in his mum’s flat.
Nowhere on the estate was exactly safe – nothing you’d give a good rating on TripAdvisor – but their cover story made them about as secure as they were going to get.
Janice’s smile at the lads was distinctly forced. ‘Oh, Sean, it’s so nice to meet your friends, but’ – she seemed torn between the pleasure of their company and the practicalities of the arrangement – ‘I’ve got nothing in for four hungry lads, and there’s only the two beds …’ She looked at their bulging bags.
Sean swooped in before she made the mental calculation of how much each of them was bringing in for ‘just a day or two’.
‘Thought of that, Mum. We had a whip-round.’
Her eyes went saucer-round as he pulled a wad out of his jacket. He pressed it into her hand and folded her fingers over it.
‘You deserve a treat, Mum. There’s over a grand there.’ Dave had made sure it was a non-round figure, in mixed notes, as it would be if they really had dug into their own wallets to pile the money together. Though in that case it would have been a lot less than a grand. The plan was to keep her off balance enough to get her out of the door before she thought too deeply about anything and spotted the bits that didn’t fit. For example, that they wanted somewhere to stay rent free, and were paying her over a grand to provide it.
‘And …’ With a flourish, Sean produced a folded sheet of A4. She opened it up cautiously and frowned her incomprehension up at him.
‘That is only confirmation of your paid-up booking for one room, two nights starting tonight, at the London Marriott, Marble Arch!’
The Commonwealth Summit began the day after tomorrow. If they didn’t find anything within the next twenty-four hours, they would be redundant and withdrawn, and Janice could safely come home. Two nights was all they needed.
Her jaw dropped. ‘Oh, Sean, sweetheart! I’ – her eyes darted from the booking slip to the wad of cash – ‘can’t …’
‘Oh, g’wan! You’re always talking about the friends up west that you never see. This is your chance. Invite them up to the hotel! Treat them to a spa session. It’s all paid for.’
Sean had always suspected that at least some of the up-west friends were imaginary, but hopefully there was someone she could meet.
She gave it one last try. ‘I … I suppose I could pull a sickie with Lakhani, but you know he’d dock me a day’s pay …’
The money that didn’t come from Sean, Janice earned by stacking shelves at the mini supermarket on the ground level. Sean simply squeezed her fingers more tightly around the cash. They both knew it would cover a lot of docked days from Lakhani. It was one of those rare occasions when mother and son were on the same wavelength.
‘I’ll have a word with him, Mum. I’ll make sure you have a good cover story.’
Though now he saw a different kind of doubt flickering in her eyes, and he didn’t have an answer for it. She was so happy to have him drop in without warning, but she was confused and hurt that he was in such a hurry to get rid of her. He wished he didn’t have to lie. He wished he didn’t have to be such a shit. And why did he always have to feel guilty when he was with her?
He hugged her and gave her a big kiss on both cheeks. ‘Just treat yourself, Mum, because you’re the best mum in the world and you deserve it.’
A grand in the hand and two nights at the London Marriott made up for a lot of lying …
‘Fucking hell, Sean,’ Mitra said as Sean let himself back into the flat. He had escorted his mum off the estate, carrying her bag for her, and put her into a taxi, and slipped the cabbie the fare in advance. She hadn’t stopped looking confused, but at least she had started to look like she was going to enjoy her treat. ‘Are you that convincing when you want to get them into bed?’
‘So this is Harker Towers.’ Wolston paused for a moment from setting up the tripod on the kitchen draining board and looked around admiringly. ‘How many centuries has it been in the family?’
‘Ever since Mum got knocked up with me and
went on the council waiting list,’ Sean said dourly. He knew the joking was just a way of releasing the tension, now that the operation was officially go. But he didn’t feel like joining in.
‘Shit. Just one thing after another for her, then, wasn’t it?’
Sean scowled. ‘I still say this is out of order.’
‘Noted.’ Dave pulled a long, thin box out of his bag and opened it to show a gleaming black telescope that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi thriller. ‘Now give us a hand.’
Slowly but surely, the flat was transformed into the OP. Anger still smouldered in Sean’s heart as he helped out. It had been burning there ever since the briefing in Tidworth.
He accepted the danger for himself. He had very quickly clocked that he could be a security risk on this mission. Supposing one of their targets pinged him? Remembered him from the airport? They could be blown the moment it happened. He got the feeling that Dave was kind of hoping it would happen. He could be bait to lure them out. And Sean would be more than happy to take on Bright’s killers in the open.
But involving his mum was out of order. He’d been doing everything he could to keep his army and his home life separate, and then the bastards went and chained them together. There were people out there prepared to bring the UK air traffic system to a halt, hold hostages at gunpoint, use lethal force. Bright’s killer was still at liberty – and Sean could be bringing him into his mum’s life.
But Dave had spoken, Levene had backed him up: this was how it was.
And it cut both ways. Those people wouldn’t have done all that if they weren’t planning a lot of hurt and harm. Sean already lived with enough regret in his life. He wasn’t going to risk knowing that he could have helped save tens, hundreds, thousands of lives – and hadn’t.
Sean and Dave set the telescope on top of the tripod on the draining board, next to the other telescope that was already there. They cut small holes in the kitchen blind and covered them with a fabric that the telescopes could see through from this side, but which from the other side would just look like patches. The telescopes focused on the front doors of the flats of Zara Mann and Emma Booth, possibly Girl X, both in Wolsey Tower on the other side of the square.