“Can someone tell me why this is so difficult? We don’t even know how many suicide bombers there were in Bradford yet. The bloody press is having a field day.”
“The truth Prime Minister is that all we have so far is the car. I spoke to the DNA people just before I came here. They are totally confused by the samples they have. They say they have just found some human placenta in the car. To be honest we seem to be operating blind.”
The prime minister shook his head in disbelief. And then he came to the most crucial question of all: “How long will it take to start the power again?”
“We can have power from France straight away. The problem is distributing it. National Grid will have teams out today to assess the scale of the problem.”
“So when can we have our own system up and running?”
“That needs a blackstart.”
“Blackstart?”
“Restart really. Reboot. But the grid needs to be ready to accept the new power. And there is also the question of how we can do the blackstart.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well the designated blackstart power station is Dinorwig.”
A number of the officials and ministers exhaled in unison making the already muggy atmosphere just a bit more rancid. Even the prime minister seemed to have run out of questions.
The cabinet secretary filled the silence.
“You might like to know what powers you have.”
Like a heavily punched boxer the prime minister struggled to look alert.
“Under the Energy Act 1976 you can control the production, distribution and use of energy in the UK. In other words you can order rolling blackouts and decide whether industry or households has power first. And under the Electricity Act 1989 you can direct power station operators.”
“But if we don’t have a grid what good is that?”
“Well there is also the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. That gives you wide ranging emergency powers to call in the army and so on.”
“Martial law?”
“Not quite. But I imagine that is what the press would call it, yes.”
The prime minister looked at the lieutenant general.
“After yesterday’s COBRA,” the General said, “we already have men on standby outside Bradford. Also we have people near Hemel Hempstead. I can’t tell you yet how much the power cuts are disrupting us but for the most part we should be able to operate independently of the grid. But I do want to add one thing.”
He paused to make sure everyone was listening.
“Before I came here the chief of the defence staff asked me to make this point. With so many troops abroad there is a limit to what we can do. We can’t move every patient, evacuate every hotel and distribute food to every home. And if it comes to widespread civil disorder, food riots and so on, we can’t patrol every street. The chief thought you should know that.”
The prime minister, for the first time, let the despair sound in his voice.
“What are these bastards trying to achieve?”
No one answered him. Until the governor of the Bank of England coughed. “At the risk of stating the obvious and of paraphrasing the general, I thought we just heard that if you want order at home you can’t have so many troops fighting wars abroad.”
“And?” the prime minister said.
“Maybe that was the point? That you receive precisely that advice.”
The prime minister didn’t even look at him. “Right,” he said “Messages for the press...”
*****
The sheikh called for chairs and, as he sat down in the courtyard, ordered tea. “For three,” he said.
He looked left and right to see that it was all in hand. A workman on the watchtower on which Mahmud had sat before he was killed was holding a board in his right hand on which where was a pile of light, pink plaster. Catching the sheikh’s eye he averted his gaze and went back to work making good the walls. Beneath him, in the courtyard, bearded men with flecks of white paint on their hands and clothes were repainting the high walls. And from within the house came the sounds of sawing wood and hammering.
“Good morning!”
The sheikh saw the colonel walking through the gateway with the major following him in.
“This all looks very splendid.”
“Take a seat,” the sheikh said, “tea’s on the way.”
“And biscuits?”
The sheikh regarded the colonel with a benevolent air. “McVitie’s?”
The major was approaching now, a spring in his step.
“I was just looking at the internet. It’s big, you know. Really big.”
“Bigger than anything you did when you were in the ISI?”
The major looked surprised at the thought, shaking his head slowly. “Yes. I suppose so.”
“What’s the latest?”
“Power cuts throughout the country. And rioting in Bradford. It’s incredible.”
“And nothing on Jaz?”
“Not a word. The authorities must be knowing more than they are telling the journalists. But no, nothing. Which should at least mean he has not been arrested. They couldn’t resist boasting about that.”
“So he may be on his way back?”
“Insha’Allah.”
The seats arrived and, as a servant poured the tea, one of the rooms inside the house light up with a blue flickering light. Ravi put his head through the window.
“Come and look. I’ve got the TV working.”
They walked into a room, the interior design of which the sheikh had personally overseen. He had, in fact, expanded the whole house in which Mahmud had lived and they were now standing in a reception room, not much smaller than a tennis court, with wall-to-wall white carpet. In the middle of the room on a circular plinth stood a slightly mangy, stuffed lion. Its two front paws were in the air. One of them, claws extended, nearly touched the ceiling.
Around the edge of the room there were 50 or so ornate wooden dining chairs painted gold and with red upholstery on the seats. In one corner there was a two-metre-high model of a ballistic missile. Three of the walls were decorated with swords and rifles and on the fourth there was a giant flat screen TV with various DVD machines and satellite boxes on shelves underneath it. Two tall upright speakers, slightly taller than Ravi, stood on each side. He was kneeling on the floor pressing buttons on an array of remote controls.
“Around the world in 60 minutes, this is CNN.”
The three men each took a chair and sat to watch.
“The headlines. Britain plunged into darkness by terror attack.”
Jaunty, rhythmic music interspersed the newsreader’s sentences.
“Rioting in Bradford as suicide attackers kill at least five including a 10-year-old girl.”
As he spoke the pictures showed a black and white photograph of Becky Cowling; an ambulance driving down a dark street and then the bomb scene at the church in Bradford, now covered in flowers. The scene changed to the city centre where a policeman waded into a crowd, cracking his truncheon on a woman’s back and finally there were pictures of men in suits arrive in Whitehall.
“The government meets in emergency session.”
“Good God!” said the colonel with a tone that suggested he was more amazed than pleased.
A huddle of servants came in carrying some small tables and laid out the tea and plates of small sandwiches in front of the three men.
The TV was showing the report from Bradford with a woman’s voice over pictures of flames and fighting. “... you can see them behind me now, still confronting the forces of law and order. Joan Williams, BBC News, Bradford.”
The sheikh looked at the major.
“What chance do you give him?”
“Insha’Allah he will make it. The power is down. They will be distracted. I think he’ll be coming home.”
“The sheikh looked at the room and his eyes rested on the lion. “A home fit for a hero.”
*****
They had been driving in silence for nearly two hours, following the signs for Birmingham and Jaz thought he must be close. Grimacing he extracted his sat nav from his pocket and pulled it out, realising as he did so that it was bound to have stopped working when it was soaked. He saw the woman had one to the right of her steering wheel.
He pointed at it. “Pass me that.”
She was slightly more composed now and briefly looked at him.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Just do as I say. Pass it over.”
Abruptly she turned her eyes back the road and with her right hand felt for the sat nav, removing its power cable and slipping it off its cradle. Switching it to her left hand she passed it over revealing as she did so a cheap gold bracelet hanging down from her wrist.
“Here.”
Jaz took it and turning his shoulder so that she couldn’t see the screen, he punched in the postcode for the location north of Birmingham he had visited on his first day back in the UK. It seemed like a month ago.
An arrow came up on the screen pointing forwards. Beneath the graphic of the road it said: “Distance. 12 miles. Time to destination 14 minutes. But that was at 50 miles an hour. And he’d be on foot.
They came to a village. There were no streetlights and the houses were dark. Jaz looked at the sat nav. Six miles to destination. And then he saw exactly what he needed.
A boy was cycling on the side of the road with newspapers sticking out of a basket in front of his handlebars.
“Overtake him and stop.”
The woman, relieved that there were in a relatively public place, did so.
“Give me the keys!”
She turned off the engine and complied.
Jaz opened the door and, moving onto the pavement, shouted to the boy.
“Come here! We need help!” The boy slowed, his bike wobbling under the weight of the newspapers. “Over here!” Jaz said.
As he came closer the boy looked confused. Jaz grabbed the frame of his bike. “In the car.”
The boy got in and Jaz shut the door saying: “put your seatbelt on.” There wasn’t much point but it added to the sense that he was in control. “Now lock the door.” Wheeling the bike Jaz walked around the car, the two prisoners watching his every step.
Satisfied, Jaz let go of the bike so the newspapers fell out. Picking it up again he gave the car one last glance and then cycled to a T-junction 300 yards ahead of them. Ostentatiously he took out the sat nav and examined it. It pointed left.
Jaz turned right. Then as soon as he was out of view of the car he doubled back to the junction waiting for the woman and the boy to leave. They did so just after a few seconds and he saw the boy beckoning to the woman - presumably leading her to his family’s house. They had their backs to him now and Jaz took his chance. He started cycling in the direction the sat nav had initially indicated.
He wanted to leave the road but first he had to find his bearings. He pedalled until his legs felt like iron and, exhausted, stopped at a gate, pulled the bike over and concealing it behind the hedge, sat on the grass. The icy ground, shaded by the hedge crunched under his weight. He looked up and saw the first rays of light reflected in the fog patches which hung above the ground
He tried to access the sat nav menu but his hands were so numb he found it difficult to manipulate the controls and he had to blow on his fingers to put feeling back into them. Eventually he managed to adjust the screen to a wider view until he recognised the pattern of the roads around the wood.
He was just a mile away now and, aware that he needed to pace himself, he set off at a steady jog. He could see only one problem ahead on the sat nav. Just before the wood there was a blue line. A river. He approached it from the fields, moving parallel to the road. As a car drove by he hid behind the hedge, resisting the desire to see if it was a police vehicle. Because if he could see them, they could see him.
Once it had gone Jaz dashed onto the bridge and as he crossed it threw the sat nav into the water. He wasn’t sure if the police could trace a sat nav but figured if it knew where it was then anyone who got hold of its serial number could know too. Better safe than sorry. He made for the hedge on the other side. And there, ahead of him, was the wood. Avoiding the centre of the field where his footprints would leave a visible trail in the frosty grass, he took the longer route around the hedges. He reached the place where he had crossed into the wood when he left the rucksack. Jaz climbed over and started looking for the conifer.
When he and the major had planned it out they had imagined he would spend a night in the wood taking stock. But he was too afraid now that the police would be searching. He had to move on.
But first he needed to eat and drink. It was darker in the wood and Jaz found himself disorientated. With increasingly frustrated, jerky movements he clawed at one conifer after another looking up at the height he had left the rucksack. Nothing. Having searched over a dozen trees he stopped, breathed in deeply and decided he need to head back the wall at the edge of the wood so he could retrace his steps. In fact he didn’t need to go all the way back because over to his left, he caught a glimpse of something shiny in the ground. It was the meat packaging left behind by the dog. He went to it and immediately managed to orientate himself. Moving a few yards deeper in the wood he saw the conifer, moved the branches aside, saw the rucksack and reached up for it.
The search had made him more nervous and he decided against stopping for a break. There would be plenty of time to eat and drink soon enough. They had selected the wood because of its view and heaving the rucksack onto his back Jaz looked down on his final objective: the container park. There were thousands of the red and yellow metal boxes loaded with Birmingham’s industrial output. Starting at the extreme left, he scanned the park from left to right. About a third of the way along he saw what he was looking for. On tarmac, in front of a row of containers, were around a dozen Land Rover Defenders.
He ran towards the fence around the container park. It was eight feet high and topped with razor wire. He delved into his rucksack and took out a pair of pliers. Lying down on the straggly grass at the base of the fence he started to cut his way through.
The work was tiring him and as he paused for breath Jaz once again looked into the rucksack taking out the can of white spray paint and putting it in his pocket. His breathing even again he returned to the task until there was a hole big enough, first for his rucksack, and them for himself. As he crawled through the jagged edges of wire ripped into his chest drawing blood in long straight lines
Once through, he skirted his way round to the Land Rovers.
The containers were sitting on huge road trailers and some already had vehicles loaded in them and Jaz could see each one had a blue sheet of paper roughly glued to the outside. He moved towards them.
But then he heard a movement close to his right and darted back.
A man in forklift truck drove past him. Jaz lay down on the cold ground between two stacks of containers. The man stopped and for a moment Jaz thought he was going to walk down his aisle. In fact he started talking to someone Jaz could not see.
“Whole bloody country is down. Gods knows what’s happening.”
“And God knows why we’re still here - I thought we’d be off with all this.”
“No. He said get everything out before the ports seize up. In fact he’s ringing round to get more people in.”
“Miserable sod.”
Their voices were trailing away and Jaz stood up edging his face towards the end of the row of containers.
He saw the two men go round a corner and walk out of view.
As he moved closer he could see some Land Rovers already in containers secured by heavy straps attached to the floor. Jaz dashed from one container to the next looking at the blue sheets. RIYADH. BEIRUT. DUBAI. And then he saw what he was after. KARACHI. Inside were two short wheelbase Defenders with soft tops and painted in desert camouflage. Jaz took the spray paint o
ut of his pocket and painted a square block of white on the bottom left hand corner of the container’s side. The job done, he clambered inside, nearly tripping over the webbing that had been used to secure the vehicles, and made his way to the back. He lifted his rucksack into the Land Rover’s rear compartment, rolled over the tailgate and lay down beside it. Slowly rising again he looked above the dashboard and through the windscreen into the container park. No one came into view.
He’d done it. He was home free.
But he was too tired to celebrate. He curled into a ball to warm himself up noticing his wrists were smeared in blood. The cuffs. He reached into his rucksack for food.
Chapter Twenty
“As long as the number on the seal matches the cargo manifest and there are no obvious signs of tampering, the container’s contents are assumed to be undisturbed.” -- Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Testimony to the US Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, 2003
09:00 26th December, Container Park, Birmingham
Still lying down Jaz felt inside the rucksack for a bottle of water. Having hardly moved for three hours, his muscles ached and his body heat was not enough to dry his clothes which hung around him like heavy wet towels. He had no idea how long he would have to sit like this, out of view, when he heard someone just a few metres away from the container.
“Got the seal?”
“Give us a chance.”
The hinges on the door of the container squealed as someone closed them. As the second clunked shut, Jaz found himself in total darkness. Then he could hear the bolt being rammed into place and the scratchy noise of a thin plastic tag wire being fed though the mechanism that kept the doors locked. The voices were muffled now.
“We don’t have all day, you know. He wants the bloody lot out.”
“Where’s the trucks then?”
“Look. They’re coming.”
Jaz could hear a helicopter flying overhead but then there was the noise that he’d been waiting for: the click of the device that punched a pattern on the plastic tag that would indicate to Customs and Excise that the container did not have to be opened until it reached its destination. Karachi. Where the sheikh would be waiting looking for a container with a white mark on it. And as the major had said; with the UK searching containers for things being smuggled into the country, they weren’t going to be too bothered about containers going out.
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 36