‘I realise that, but until we know who these people are we’re powerless,’ the Prime Minister replied.
‘We need strong leadership. You are just not giving it to us.’ Oliver Llewellyn acted in a manner that was out of character. It was the first time that he had openly defied the Prime Minister. It was not to be the last.
‘That is a gross abuse of privilege and goes against the finest traditions of this party,’ the Prime Minister replied.
‘I agree, but if something is not done soon,’ Llewellyn continued, ‘they’ll be no party and no government. This country is being held hostage by a bunch of rabid fundamentalists.’
‘This is England. We’ll never give in, never surrender!’ the Prime Minister shouted.
‘You’re not Winston Churchill, so stop pretending you are.’ Oliver Llewellyn continued to lambast his leader.
‘I am English. I will never give in.’ The Prime Minister, agitated, lost his cool.
‘Then, if you’re English, do something,’ Llewellyn said, receiving the nodding acknowledgement of those seated in the room.
‘Chancellor, give us a breakdown on the economy.’ The Prime Minister attempted to redirect the conversation away from a subject for which he had no answer.
‘It’s clear that the economy has suffered a blow,’ replied Karen Fullerton. Previously the head of finance for a major banking house in London, she had grabbed a safe seat for herself before the bank collapsed in a quagmire of insider trading. She was as sharp as a tack. Twenty-four months as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and within six months of gaining the prestigious ministerial position, she had overseen the transition to a strong pound, a buoyant economy and the introduction of historically low personal taxation rates. The situation was dramatically different now, and she was unable to defend it. ‘The economy is in decline. We are all aware of this fact.’
‘We know that.’ The Prime Minister needed some good news.
‘As I was saying,’ continued Karen Fullerton. ‘The economy is in decline. We’re projecting that the drop in productivity, currently standing at eighteen percent off the highs of six months ago, will accelerate up to thirty-two percent by the end of the year.’
‘Eight months’ time? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘That is correct.’
‘What can we do to stop this occurring?’
‘We need to strengthen the pound, get everyone back to work.’
‘And how do you suggest we do that?’ the PM asked.
‘Stop people being killed every time they walk out the door.’ Sarah Fullerton, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and another previous firm supporter of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was equally as direct as Oliver Llewellyn, the Secretary of State for Defence.
‘And if we can’t?’ the PM asked.
‘It’s either go broke in two years or we introduce severe austerity measures in the next few months,’ the Chancellor stated.
‘What kind of measures?’
‘Cancel the unemployment benefit, start closing schools, reduced staff at hospitals.’
‘Are you stating that we’re becoming a third-world nation?’
‘Prime Minister, that’s precisely what I’m stating unless you have a better solution.’
‘What about the police and the military?’ the Prime Minister asked. ‘Have you made contingency for them?’
‘I’ve left them alone at the present moment. Two years more and we’ll have to start drastically reducing numbers.’
‘Don’t we need more to counteract the current insurgency?’ the Prime Minister said.
‘If you want more, you’ll have to start introducing austerity measures now.’
‘What sort of timescale?’
‘Prime Minister, we’ve got no more than a month, maybe two.’
‘We need to fight! That’s what we need to do,’ Anne Argento shouted from the back of the room.
‘You’re here as the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to talk about how to feed the population, not to intervene in discussions between the senior members of the Government,’ the PM reprimanded her. ‘It is only at my special invite that you are here at all.’ He had reluctantly been forced to include several junior ministers due to the situation. He had not wanted Anne Argento, but his senior adviser, Rohan Jones, had made it clear.
‘If you don’t invite her, it will be all over the front pages of the newspapers within the hour. How you snubbed her because she represents the most serious threat to your leadership.’
The Prime Minister could see that his senior adviser had been wrong in his advice. A few bad headlines were better than being shouted out by her in his cabinet room, in his building.
‘I’m here also as a concerned voter,’ she continued. ‘If the man and the woman on the street cannot express their concerns in this room, then it’s for me to represent them.’ She did not intend to be silenced.
‘I am asking you to leave,’ he said.
‘You’ll need to use the policemen at the door if you want to stop me talking.’
‘You cannot threaten me in this way.’
‘I am not threatening, purely stating the facts. This country is at war. It is time we recognised that fact and declared it in parliament.’
‘And what about the millions of moderate Muslims living in this country? Are we to declare war on them as well?’ The Prime Minister regretted entering into the debate with Anne Argento. It was a debate he knew he could not win.
‘They have to make a decision,’ she replied. ‘They’re either with us, or they’re not.’
‘I declare this meeting closed, abandoned.’ The Prime Minister exited the room. Those remaining looked at Anne Argento with a mixture of contempt and admiration.
Chapter 1 1
Commander Richard Goddard had been the head of Counter Terrorism Command for three years. At the time, it had been seen as a good career move. Terrorism was moderate, the hours not excessive, and the ability to keep his superiors satisfied, not difficult. Now, with the pressure on to give answers, find solutions, stop the bombings, he was not so sure. Isaac Cook was his best man, and Ed Pickles was following up a good second, but neither of them was achieving great results. In fact, the reality was that they had given him nothing but ‘Wait and see’, ‘We’re following up on leads’. He even had to sign expenses for two prostitutes. If the auditors came in, he knew he’d be hauled over the coals.
‘It’s a reward,’ DCI Isaac Cook had said.
‘Paying for hookers? That’s a reward,’ he had shouted when presented with the receipt for Bruno’s hairdressing saloon.
‘It is if you’ve been locked up in Belmarsh for a few years.’
‘What’s this guy done, or going to do, that justifies me paying for a four hundred pound haircut?’ Commander Goddard asked.
‘Just tell them it’s a perm and colour if they ask,’ DI Ed Pickles offered a solution.
‘They may be office-bound bean counters, but they’re not stupid. They’ll know what it is, and that it’s against regulations.’
‘I thought the rules didn’t apply to us?’ Isaac said.
‘We can bend them, but prostitutes?’ Commander Goddard said. ‘Next, you’ll tell me this guy is in for murder.’
‘That’s what I was going to tell you.’
‘Hell, he could have killed one of the women.’
‘He’s not that kind of murderer,’ Isaac said.
‘Are there different types of murderers?’ shouted Commander Goddard. ‘Gentle, easy-going, extremely violent?’
‘He’s somewhere in the middle.’
‘So, he’s a reasonably pleasant murderer?’
‘That’s about it, Sir.’
‘Anything else I should know about him while I’m signing your expenses?’ Commander Goddard asked.
‘I could infer that he garrotted Wali Hasan in the detention cell.’
‘I never heard that,’ the Commander replied. ‘
I only hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘We’ll get there eventually,’ Isaac said, holding his signed expenses.
The Commander walked out of the room smiling. He had neither been shocked nor angry, but explaining that to the stuffed shirts upstairs was another battle, a battle for another day, another year, but they would be in at some stage.
‘Ed, what have we ascertained from the Islamic State’s website?’ Isaac asked when the Commander had left.
‘There’s just so much nonsense on their blog,’ Ed replied. ‘My old grandmother, a stickler for good spelling and grammar, would be turning over in her grave.’
‘Blowing yourself up does not require a good command of English.’
‘You’re right, but even when they write in Arabic, Pashto, Urdu, it’s no better.’
‘How do you follow those languages?’
‘I’ve taken on a few helpers to help me wade through the thousands of comments.’
‘Have they been checked out by security?’ Isaac asked.
‘They’re all members of the Metropolitan Police.’
‘It’s possible that we may have been infiltrated?’
‘It’s always possible.’
‘What’s MI5 doing?’ Isaac asked.
‘They’re following their own lines of enquiry, but they appear to be more confused than us. They’ve become overly bureaucratised, spying by committee. They’re unlikely to come up with a solution.’
‘How do you know so much about them?’
‘I’ve been around a long time, built up contacts,’ said Ed. ‘We’ve helped each other out on occasions.’
‘If we’re the best, God help the country.’ Isaac could only express his frustration.
‘We’ll get there,’ Ed said.
‘That’s what I just told Bob Goddard, but do you believe it?’
‘Of course I do. It’s purely police work. We just keep doing the hours, plodding the footpath, keep diving in where we’re not welcome.’ Ed Pickles knew policing, the old style of policing. To him, a result was guaranteed, no matter how long it took and how many people were seriously inconvenienced in the process.
‘The blog, what do you reckon our chances of anything tangible?’ Isaac asked.
‘I suggest we focus our efforts elsewhere.’
‘That’s what I think. They may come up with something, but you and I need to be out and about.’
‘You do not intend any more haircuts on the department’s expense account?’ Ed asked.
‘I’m not planning any. How about you, Ed? Do you need a haircut?’
‘I could do with a slight trim round the back, little off the sides. Ten pounds, two blocks down from my house. I can afford to pay. No point troubling the Commander, he’s got enough on his plate keeping the bureaucrats off our backs.’
***
It had been a good two weeks for Sub-Lieutenant Ray Styles on the day he passed out of Dartmouth Naval College. Sara had been there to watch, as had his parents, Len and Mavis. His sister, Monique, was up north with a new boyfriend.
In the months since the chance encounter, Sara and Ray had become inseparable. His parents loved her almost as much as Ray, and she had become a regular visitor at their house. His parents had tried with separate bedrooms for the first visit, but after finding them in the one room and the one bed one morning, they gave up trying. From then on, it was one room and no more was said on the matter.
She even went on her own a few times when Ray had been studying all weekend or out on an exercise at sea. Her parents, Vikram and Vinodhini, Hindus originally from Kerala in the South of India, were equally fond of Ray, although in their house it was strictly separate bedrooms.
He had graduated on the Friday. On the Saturday, he was standing in front of the altar at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel waiting for his bride, traditionally late. She claimed it was the traffic, but he knew it had been planned. His boots shone, his uniform complete with the distinctive insignia of one gold band with a curl at the cuff of each sleeve. Sara looked beautiful in a sari of the finest material, predominantly white, and her hands ornately tattooed with traditional henna designs.
Gary Burton, a classmate, sub-lieutenant as well, was the best man. In typical fashion, he fumbled the speech, congratulating the new couple, and had mentioned Ray and Stephanie, before quickly correcting himself.
‘Who’s Stephanie?’ Sara teased her new husband that night as they lay in bed gazing at the stars and each other.
‘That’s Gary, always making a fool of himself. He was the same in class, getting the facts incorrect.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Sara, ‘but I know there’s something or someone you’re not telling me about. Anyway, I’m here, the new Mrs Styles, and no one is taking you from me.’
‘That’s how it will always be.’ He never intended to tell her, but the day she had fallen in the water, he had not been off to see his parents. He had been off to see Stephanie, a hot-blooded blonde-haired local who worked in a doctor’s surgery down the road from the marina. She dumped him the next day when he failed to turn up.
‘Gary didn’t look such a fool around your sister,’ she said.
‘They find his bumbling somehow attractive. Besides, Monique’s broke up with her boyfriend. She was looking for a shoulder to cry on.’
‘She was looking for more than that.’
‘Yes, she’s a bit easy. Gary’s in for a wild night. One day she’ll grow out of it.’
‘Like me, I was a bit easy that first day.’
‘Yes, you were game. Never knew what hit me.’
She hit him over the head with a pillow. ‘Come here, I’m going to deal with you for inferring that I was a trollop.’
‘Trollop? Where did you get that word from?’ Ray asked.
‘My dad always used it when he saw a young woman prancing down the road in a short skirt and a tight top.’
‘What would he have thought of you, if he’d known we’d spent out first night together after only knowing each other for three hours?’ Ray teased her.
‘He would have disowned me.’
‘Come here, you little trollop. Show me what you’re capable of.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Sub Lieutenant Styles.’
‘And mine too, Mrs Styles.’
***
Faisal Aslam was troubled. The campaign progressed well, but the collapse of the government and the economy was too slow. He was also acutely aware that, sooner or later, he would be discovered as the mastermind behind the scenes. His only protection was in accelerating the decay in the country. It had to be achieved in one year or else the impetus would be lost. A bombing campaign was ideal, but there were only so many jihadists and the calibre of those was becoming progressively worse.
He realised that the West, including England, may be flawed, worthy of overthrow, but they did have an educational system par excellence. Why hadn’t these jihadists taken advantage? However, he knew that the majority were inhibited by a lack of innate mental capacity. Even if they had tried, it would have been impossible for them to comprehend. The increase in a person’s intelligence quota was a generational limitation. The son of an illiterate peasant was unlikely to be able to make the quantum leap to a person of moderate, even high intelligence. It required two, maybe three generations before the transformation was complete.
Faisal Aslam could understand the reticence of employees to take such people on, but he could not tell the recruits to martyrdom that what ailed them was not the result of the country, it was a result of themselves and their parents and their culture. Hopefully, he believed that the Islamic State would transform from being belligerent, cruel, and backwards, into an organisation of enlightenment.
It had been his religion that had created the first university, made major discoveries in astronomy, all the sciences. How many of the great mathematicians, the great philosophers, the great people of history had been Muslim? He was sure the age of enlightenment would retu
rn in an Islamic England. He was there to guide and counsel, even lead if that honour was accorded him.
‘Durrani, the plan is in place,’ said Faisal Aslam. ‘What is our preferred method, gas or explosive?’
‘Explosive is the preferred method.’
‘When will it be ready for dispersal?’ Faisal Aslam asked.
‘It is soon. The method of transportation and emplacement I will leave to you.’
‘That will present no problem.’
‘This will be an even more spectacular triumph than my previous successes, and most will not know,’ Durrani said.
‘I will know and so will Allah, peace be upon him,’ Faisal Aslam, the Master, said. ‘The acknowledgement for your achievements will be in Jannah, in Paradise.’
‘I am prepared for more suicide bombers. We maintain the campaign?’
‘Of course we do. How many do you want?’
‘We should focus on at least twenty this time. We could always use explosives. It is not always necessary to use martyrs.’
‘Are martyrs more reliable?’
‘They can always get in closer. The result is enhanced.’
‘And, they are expendable.’ Faisal Aslam cared little for those who chose martyrdom.
‘They will be needed in the new order in this country,’ Durrani said.
‘You mean the Islamic State of England?’ Faisal Aslam corrected him.
‘Yes, the Islamic State of England.’
‘We will lay this country waste with their blood if it ensures our aim. Those that die are invariably stupid and useless. They are assured of our eternal blessings. They are not needed in the Islamic State that I envisage.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Khalid.’ Faisal Aslam focussed his attention on his henchman, the current London heavyweight wrestling champion after a bout the previous weekend. ‘I am concerned that our smuggling friend in Belmarsh has been asking questions of Yasser Lahham.’
Murder Without Reason (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 5) Page 12