Soft Target 01 - Soft Target

by Conrad Jones

  Sian and Major Timms finished the initial sweep of the dormitory and then headed down the corridor to the second door. The door opened into a large office space. There were three desks positioned in the room, all of them were crammed with paperwork. Sian walked to the nearest desk and started to sift through a wire letter tray that was filled with unopened envelopes. Major Timms moved across the room from Sian and searched through an untidy pile of papers; he found a receipt for payment that related to the charter of a small aeroplane from a private company in Cheshire, for a flight to County Cork in Southern Ireland. The bill related to a plane, which had not been flown back to England when it was supposed to be.

  This is very interesting. It could explain how the men who died in the explosion in Dublin were planning to get home with their weapons. It certainly links this institution with the events in Ireland.” Stanley Timms stopped reading as Faz came into the room. The pretty black woman looked flustered. “It turns out that Carpenray is a flooded quarry in the Lake District. It’s a busy diving centre about sixty-miles from here. They have apparently put old aeroplanes and cars into the quarry for divers to swim down to. The manager on the phone said that he has hundreds of members from all over the country. Many of them are Asian. He said that he doesn’t remember specifically if any of them were from Warrington, and he can’t check their files until they open tomorrow.” Faz shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the third desk.

  Suddenly the phone on the desk next to Sian rang. She put the envelopes that she had been scanning back down on the desktop, picked up the handset and listened. She didn’t speak, waiting for the caller to announce him or herself. There was nothing, just silence on the other end. She looked at Major Timms and shook her head. Timms rushed over to her and took the phone from her. He put it to his ear quickly and placed his hand over the mouthpiece. “Hello, I am expecting a call from a friend in Egypt.” Timms remembered that Mustapha had told them the calls from satellite links were all coded. The use of the code word, Egypt, might work. The line went completely dead. It had not worked. “Oh bugger me. Well it was probably a sales call anyway. Ask the tech guys to put a trace on it just in case.” He walked back over to the desk he had been searching.

  Sian picked up the bundle of envelopes that she had been studying earlier. She looked thoughtful as she considered the possible connotations. There was no end of disaster that Yasser Ahmed could inflict with Semtex and qualified Scuba divers. The River Mersey flowed by Liverpool on its way to the Irish Sea. The river had a fleet of passenger ferries, oil tankers, cargo ships and naval vessels; every type of sea going craft could be a potential target. Sian’s thoughts were disturbed for a moment as she noticed a thick brown manila envelope with an Irish postmark stamped on it; it had been posted in Dublin.

  Major Timms cell phone rang, the caller ID indicating that it was Tank. He nodded in silence and paced the room, the two female agents looked at him in silence; the look on his face told them that this was bad news. He said a few brief words and arranged to continue the conversation back at headquarters.

  I am afraid that I have to be the bearer of bad news. We have lost a man at the distribution centre raid. It appears two Egyptian men disarmed him and took him as a hostage. They shot him during the getaway. One of the Egyptian men is dead and one of them is missing. Chen shot the dead man after they had cornered him in a car park; however Chen has been injured in the process. His vest took most of the damage, but he has a bullet in his shoulder and he has lost a lot of blood. We will not know if he will pull through for a few hours yet, he is in surgery now.” Timms knew how close his team was. Chen was a valued member of the Terrorist Task Force and a good friend to Sian and Faz. “That has to be the final proof that Yasser Ahmed is here somewhere. Why would two men risk being shot to escape, if they had nothing to hide?” Sian tapped the envelope marked with the Dublin postcode on the desk as she spoke. “The fact that they have shot a police man together with the receipt you found; connects them with the explosives in Ireland. This envelope has a Dublin post mark on it.” She tapped the envelope on the desk again emphasising her point as she spoke.

  Major Stanley Timms was an old school Royal Marine. He had more experience fighting the Irish paramilitaries than any man still alive. He understood how they worked; he knew how they thought. Revenge attacks were swift and brutal. “Put that envelope down, Sian. Put it down on the desk and back toward the door.” Timms never took his eyes from hers. He had seen enough unexploded letter bombs in the army to recognise this as one immediately. Realisation hit Sian in an instant; she knew now that Timms thought the envelope was a bomb sent in retaliation by the IRA, payback for the arrest of Patrick Finnen. She also knew that they had killed for far less. She looked at Faz, she was edging toward the door; her black skin shiny with perspiration. Timms edged slowly toward Sian, she had frozen with fear. He reached his hands out very gently and grasped one edge of the letter bomb. Sian didn’t release her grip on the other side so he guided the letter gently toward the desk. Sian was staring at the letter as they moved it slowly to the desktop; both were holding one side each, as if it were an incredibly heavy object. Faz reached the doorway and grabbed her cell phone as she ran up the corridor.

  Get me the bomb squad quickly. Meet me at the mosque in Appleton.” She was about to speak again when the bomb exploded. Grace Farrington was knocked off her feet by the blast. Her head hit the doorframe of the dormitory as she went down. The breath was punched from her lungs by the shock wave. The corridor in which she was lying was covered in little pieces of confetti-like paper. Larger remnants of paperwork from the office were floating around like little white flying carpets, slowly descending to the floor. Grace briefly glimpsed the still body of her friend, Sian lying across the corridor. She lay still on the office floor. Grace noticed that Sian’s beautiful auburn red hair was matted with blood and dust, before everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 32

  John Tankersley/ Liverpool

  Tank stepped out of the elevator into the top floor office; it looked like a scene from Hill Street Blues. Men were being escorted in handcuffs in all directions, voices were raised and tempers were frayed. The volume was deafening as his officers processed the suspects who had been arrested during the raids in Warrington. Everyone was aware of the possible human loss to the team. One long serving officer had been killed, four others, including their senior officer Major Timms, had gone down. No one knew how badly injured they were.

  Tank crossed the room and headed for the fish bowl shaped office; he stepped into the room, removed his battle vest and placed it on the chair nearest to the desk. The battle vests had saved his team’s lives today, all except one. The body armour battle vests that his taskforce used were made of a material that, ounce for ounce, is stronger than steel, yet it maintains the flexibility of a fabric. The chest and back areas are re-enforced with Kevlar plates to further protect the vital organs. Unfortunately they are not completely indestructible; a high velocity bullet fired from close proximity could penetrate them.

  John Tankersley picked up the phone and dialled the hospital that his friends and colleagues had been taken to. Chen was now out of surgery and was making good progress. The bullet had gone through the meat of the shoulder without smashing any bones. The doctor said that he would be up and about in a week or so. The battle vest that he had been wearing had taken four high velocity rounds and had stopped them all. The impact of the bullets hitting the vest would have felt like he’d been struck with a sledgehammer. Chen would be pretty banged up and bruised when he woke up, but he would live. Grace Farrington needed three stitches to a gash in her forehead and she had suffered a concussion, the blast had thrown her into a doorframe, knocking her unconscious. The doctor said that once she was stitched up she would need to rest under observation overnight. Grace had insisted on being released and had gone to see how Sian and Major Timms were. Major Timms had a small contusion on the back of his head but apart from that, the old Royal M
arine was fine. Once Sian had placed the letter bomb onto the desk, Timms had thrown her toward the doorway onto the floor. When the bomb exploded, the blast radius was focused mainly upwards away from the desk. The vests that they wore had protected the vital internal organs from the blast. Timms managed to throw Sian and himself to the floor out of the main blast area. Sian had been cut on the head by some flying debris and the shock wave had stunned her motionless for several minutes.

  His team was alive and apparently causing the concerned doctors and nurses no end of problems by refusing to stay in hospital for observation; they were three people that you really didn’t want to argue with. Tank leaned against the desk and breathed a sigh of relief. They had been lucky today, they had been very lucky indeed. He signalled through the office window and gestured to the fat controller to come into the office. David Bell was doing his best to co-ordinate the organised chaos in the office. Most of the suspects had been transferred to holding cells and interview rooms; the process of interrogation and verification had already begun. This was not the same as a normal investigation when a suspect can only be held for 24-hours before being either charged, or released. In theory a criminal suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Terror suspects in the UK are guilty until presumed innocent and can be held in custody for twenty-eight days without being charged.

  The fat controller entered the room, he was sweating profusely. He pulled out a chair from beneath the desk and collapsed into it, wiping sweat from his forehead as he sat down. “How are the others, is there any news?” asked Dave Bell.

  They are all a bit battered and bruised, but apart from Chen they are on their way back. They were bloody lucky though.” Tank nodded toward an older man who was being processed in the main office. “Is he the Cleric? Bring him in here, let’s have a quick chat with him,” said Tank, his face reddened. This holy man may not have had any active part in what was going on in the community around him, but his tolerance of it was unacceptable to Tank. He must have known something about what was going on. David Bell removed his round glasses as he spoke, “I have spoken to Mustapha Ahmed at some length and I think he would be willing to help us out if we are careful.” Tank raised his eyebrows in surprise and gestured with his hands for the fat controller to continue. “We need to know where Yasser Ahmed is. He is the brain behind these fanatics, he is their inspiration. The majority of the Muslim community would want him caught as much as we do. We need to identify if any of the suspects that we detained last night would recognise Yasser Ahmed in the flesh.” Dave Bell raised his hands palms up as if he had revealed something invisible. “I think I am getting your drift. If we were to bring Mustapha through the office in handcuffs, the family resemblance is so strong, that to a casual acquaintance he would appear to be Yasser.” Tank stood up, mulling the idea over in his mind. It could certainly give them a good indication as to who had actually met Yasser Ahmed. In reality, it would prove nothing from a legal standpoint, but it could be a start. “I think it would give us a starting place. We could have arrested some of Ahmed’s followers tonight, but he is still out there. We need to try it. Let’s get the cleric in here and then we can walk Mustapha by the window and see what his reaction is,” Tank said.

  The fat controller walked out of the office, hoisting his trousers up over his ample belly as he went. He approached the old man; spoke to him briefly and then escorted him back toward the goldfish bowl. They stepped inside the office and he indicated to the cleric to sit down in the chair opposite Tank. “My name is Tankersley. I am the lead officer for the Terrorist Task Force. You are in serious trouble at the moment. Everything we have to go on is pointing toward your mosque and the people who use it. We have lost an officer tonight and we have four more in hospital so, I suggest you tell us everything you know about Yasser Ahmed.” Tank nodded to the fat controller, who was standing behind the seated cleric. He walked out of the room, following the plan they had devised. “I am a man of God, Officer Tankersley and I have no dealings with men like Yasser Ahmed. I do not teach the radical interpretations of Islam, in fact I am in a constant struggle for the hearts and minds of my people. It is especially difficult with the young ones. Your government invades Islamic countries and occupies its people at will. You give Yasser Ahmed, and men like him, all the ammunition they need. My community is made from good people. We are not terrorists and we will give no support to them.” The cleric finished speaking as Mustapha Ahmed was taken past the window of the office in handcuffs. The cleric looked at him as he went by and then looked back at Tank. There was nothing; not even a flicker of recognition appeared in his eyes. Tank immediately knew that the holy man was telling the truth. He had no knowledge of who Mustapha Ahmed was, of that he was certain.

  A letter bomb exploded in your office earlier, injuring some of my officers. It was sent from Dublin. We discovered a receipt for a payment to a private charter company, relating to a small aircraft that was rented to fly to Southern Ireland. We also have a Usef Mamood in custody. He was arrested crossing from Ireland with a car full of Semtex. He used your mosque regularly. Now I am not Sherlock Holmes, but I suspect that someone from your mosque is involved with Yasser Ahmed and that they are in possession of a large amount of high explosives. I also suspect that they are planning to blow up lots of innocent people.” Tank didn’t think that the old man was involved, but someone at the mosque was. The Muslim cleric seemed to sag in the middle of his body. His eyes looked red and watery; his face had turned an ashen grey colour. “I have an administration assistant called Tariq. He came to us shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was a refugee. He lost his entire family to an American bomb. They were all at a family wedding when the Americans launched an air strike. They said that they believed they had attacked an insurgent hideout; he was the only one to survive the attack. The international Red Cross brought him to Britain and placed him with us. I knew that he was very bitter and I have urged him to seek forgiveness. I realised not long ago, that he had become involved with some of the more radical young men that pray in my mosque.” The old cleric looked tired and saddened as he spoke. Tank stood up and walked to the window. He looked out at the river, which looked black and oily at night. “Where can I find Tariq? I need to speak to him as soon as possible.” The old man shook his head slowly.

  I heard rumours amongst the congregation that something was imminent. I did not suspect that it was the arrival of this man, Yasser Ahmed. Tariq started behaving strangely, he became secretive and distant. Then he became frightened. I think that he had become involved in something that scared him greatly. I challenged him one day to look into his heart, and to see if he could become a part of something that would cause others as much pain as he had suffered. Whatever it was, he said that he was sorry, and that he was going to do the right thing. He left and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. I am beside myself with worry about him. I feel that I have driven him away.”

  Tank thought about what the man was saying. It made sense that the cleric had little to do with the daily administration tasks. The man he had named as Tariq would have had ample opportunity to camouflage his subversive activities. It would also explain why the letter bomb had stayed unopened. “Let’s assume for one minute that I believe what you are telling me is the truth. I will need to know which men Tariq knew, that were causing you concern. Who were the two men asleep in the dormitory at the mosque?” Tank summoned an officer into the room with his hand. He asked for some hot drinks to be brought in. “They are refugees from Darfur. Our Muslim brothers there are being hunted and slaughtered in their thousands by Somalia warlords. They were also brought to us by the International Red Cross. They speak no English at all I am afraid. As for the young men that I was concerned about, they have not been to prayers since Tariq disappeared. They will not be welcome in our mosque any longer.”

  An officer appeared in the doorway with two plastic cups of a coffee-like substance. It was from the vending machine and could pass as tea or cof
fee; only the forensic team could identify which it was through chemical analysis. Suddenly, there was the sound of raised voices and people cheering coming from the far side of the office near to the elevators. Tank looked up and smiled as he saw Major Timms strolling through the office making mock regimental salutes to everyone as he walked. The noise increased and there were wolf whistles made as Faz and Sian followed Timms, sporting head bandages. There were lots of hugs exchanged as they greeted their relieved colleagues.