by Andy McNab
When the bus stopped, the blonde woman yanked the toddlers onto their feet and steered them to the exit. Adila followed and, when she got to the door, noticed the hijab woman behind her, one of the men helping her off the bus. Her pregnancy wouldn’t be the cause of her limp: it might well be rickets, Adila diagnosed, common in cultures where women were covered up from childhood, depriving them of vitamin D from sunlight.
After the first gate they moved down a covered walkway to a second door, which had been unlocked. They formed a queue with several other visitors, most of them women, waiting to be searched. Adila wondered how they would deal with the woman in the hijab, who was alone now. Something about her demeanour, the look of studied resignation, suggested that this was not her first visit. Nor was it the blonde woman’s. She was greeted like an old friend by a female guard, who conducted a perfunctory search and ruffled the children’s hair. Adila noticed a second female guard in a headscarf. That was something. The headscarf guard scowled as she beckoned the hijab woman, who scowled back. Certainly no love lost there. She waved Adila forward as well, looking her up and down. Adila was suddenly conscious of how smartly dressed she was compared to the other visitors.
‘First time?’ asked the guard.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Welcome to the monkey house.’
She passed a detector wand over the hijab woman. It made a loud beep. Several people looked round. The woman angrily pulled up the side of her garment to reveal a leg brace so all of them could see. ‘Happy now?’
The guard sighed. ‘Just doin’ my job, darlin’. On you go.’
She beckoned Adila forward. After she had conducted the ‘rub-down’ and waved the wand over her, the guard pointed out the lockers. ‘Bag in there, nothing with you in the hall, just your sweet selves.’
Adila locked up her bag and coat. Through thick wire-mesh glass she could see the visits hall. It reminded her of an exam room with rows of small tables, but with chairs on both sides.
Beyond a set of barred doors with frosted glass she could see blurred figures moving. She was about to see her brother.
56
Jamal waited in the line, his head down, hoping no one would recognize him from his photo in the papers. He felt a small tug on his sleeve and looked round. It was Isham. ‘How are you doing?’
Jamal shrugged. ‘I just want to see my sister. I just hope she’s there.’
‘If she wasn’t you wouldn’t be in this line. Only inmates with a signed-in visitor go through.’
‘Who’s coming to see you?’
Isham grinned. ‘My wife.’
Jamal sank back into his thoughts. He didn’t want to make idle conversation just now. He wanted to go over all the things he had prepared to say to Adila, that he was resigned to imprisonment for going to Syria and would freely admit his membership of what the British government classed a terrorist organization. But he emphatically denied even touching the murdered girls. He would explain to her how the camera worked and how they had also been filmed in training. She would believe him. He had never lied to her and never would. How lucky he was to have just one person left in his life like her.
The door opened and they filed in. Each of them was led to a table. Jamal saw Isham move towards a woman in a headscarf – she didn’t look very pleased to see him. Then there was Adila smiling and waving across the room at a table near the back. He felt his heart almost burst with delight. He waved frantically. She started to rise out of her seat but a guard shouted to her to sit. Even from that distance Jamal could see her eyes were filled with tears of joy. He went towards her, his arms outstretched. He was no more than ten feet from her when he saw Isham’s wife leap up from her seat and run shrieking towards the entrance where the visitors had come in. Two guards rushed towards her as she reached the barred door and grabbed her, just a few feet from Adila.
Before he had even consciously absorbed what he was seeing, Jamal’s brain and muscles engaged. He knew what was about to happen: he had witnessed it many times in Syria. In a reflex action, he threw himself down and hid his face with his hands. He saw the flash between his fingers, felt the blast lift him, then all the sound in the room seemed to fade as everything went dark. His face slammed against the floor as he came to rest several metres away with debris raining down on him. The blast had knocked all the air out of him and when he tried to inhale he choked on dust. That was why, as soon as he saw the woman run, he had dropped down.
But where was Adila? Sounds were reaching him now. Wild, echoing screams. He felt hands on his back, pulling him to his knees and then his feet, a muffled voice in his ear. ‘Come now.’
It was Isham, his arms wrapped round him.
‘Adila. My sister!’
Jamal struggled out of Isham’s grip and staggered in the direction of where Adila had been, but his path was blocked by bodies and debris, and it was impossible to see through the fog of smoke and dust.
‘She’s gone, brother, she’s gone. This is your chance. Don’t waste it.’
57
Jamal’s legs felt like rubber. He couldn’t stand properly, as if his balance had completely deserted him. The horror of his sister’s death would be seared into his memory for ever.
‘See? There’s nothing you can do for her except save yourself.’
Isham was propelling him forward, half carrying him away from his sister’s shattered body. They moved through a thick, choking grey fog, stumbling over soft obstacles that Jamal realized were the dead and wounded. Sounds came to him as if down a long pipe, dulled by a high-pitched ringing in his head and the whoop-whoop of an alarm. All the while Isham held him under the arms, propelling him along.
‘Help me! I can’t see!’ someone screamed, but they sounded a long way off. There was a grey glow where the doorway was, daylight cutting through the choking smoke and dust.
‘Keep moving,’ Isham hissed in his ear. He seemed to know exactly what to do. They were slowed by the press of walking wounded, all trying to get through a narrow exit, the crush behind forcing them through. Then they were out in the open air, a yard. Some of the throng sank to their knees around them; others hovered, zombie-like, coated with grey dust, unable to absorb what had just happened.
Just as Jamal had begun to find some feeling in his legs, without any warning Isham pulled him to the ground.
‘Face down! Now!’
Ahead of them, maybe twenty metres away, two more explosions ripped through the visitors’ entrance gate and shrapnel from the blast hailed down.
Two seconds later he was back on his feet, Isham pulling him in the direction of the two blasts. A man in uniform lumbered towards them, bare-headed, his face a red mess. His arms reached towards them but the sleeves of his tunic were ribbons and he appeared to have no hands. Jamal’s instinct was to stop and help. Still in shock, he turned.
Isham grabbed him. ‘What are you doing? Don’t you understand? Out there is your freedom. They are waiting for us.’
The visitors’ entrance gate was gone, now just a crater a few feet deep. In the roadway beyond were more casualties, some lying down, others crouching or clutching each other. Jamal’s eyes were so full of dust he could barely see. A pair of motorcycles swept towards them. Isham helped Jamal onto one and it immediately sped away. He gripped the waist of the rider, the cold biting into him, and buried his face in the man’s back. The air was full of the sirens of emergency vehicles, a cacophony of distress. The bike snaked through the traffic, swerved left into a narrow street, then bumped down a ramp into darkness where it slewed to a stop.
Two men appeared, lifted Jamal off the saddle and put him beside a people-carrier. He heard the second bike come down the ramp and screech to a halt. Although Jamal’s ears were still ringing he could hear whoops and cheers and ‘Allahu Akhbar’ as Isham greeted his comrades.
‘No time to waste. Let’s get going.’
Isham came up to Jamal and embraced him, his big pink grin beaming through the grey dust
that caked his face. ‘Welcome to freedom!’
Jamal’s arms remained limp at his side. His beloved sister was dead, blown up by Isham’s wife, and he had left her mangled corpse in the wreckage. This didn’t feel like any kind of freedom. He was numb and shaking. He could barely stand. He gave in to Isham’s embrace before being helped into the vehicle.
As they sped over the Dartford bridge, Isham was explaining with great relish that for months his wife had been fooling the guards with her limp, leg brace and bump. ‘She gradually added to it over the weeks. They never suspected! The only time they tried to check, she complained angrily that she had been inappropriately touched. After that they were more careful!’ Isham slapped his knee and laughed. ‘And in the visits hall, when she jumped up and ran, we knew the guards would try to stop her, like moths to the flame. We counted on their foolishness.’
Another cheer went up from Isham’s adoring crew.
‘The explosions at the gate? That was two more martyrs. They waited until thirty seconds from the first blast. And the other two were already there with the bikes, just out of range of the blast. It worked. Man, it was so beautiful. Allah, praise be upon Him, has delivered us a great victory.’
His eyes blazed with fervour. Jamal had heard ranting like this in Syria, terrible atrocities recounted with great excitement. Over there he had come to expect it. But listening to this in the fast lane of the M25, it was almost impossible to believe. As for the idea of Adila being dead, that surely must be a dream, a dreadful nightmare from which he would wake. His mind, numbed by shock and disbelief, was unable to process this reality. He looked out at the green fields and trees sweeping by. The precious English countryside, which he had longed to see all those months, was now tainted for ever.
Jamal couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘My sister is dead. You killed my sister.’
He launched himself out of his seat but two of Isham’s crew pinned him down.
‘Brother, believe me, we feel your pain. But don’t waste your anger on us. Direct it at those who put you behind bars, who caused you and your sister to be there, who are using you for their own ends.’ Isham had swivelled round and held Jamal’s face in his hands. ‘Your sister has gone to the next place. My wife will look after her there. You can be sure of that.’ There was a messianic gleam in his eyes.
‘Brother, we applaud you!’ shouted the driver. Then another cheer went up: ‘The Butcher of Aleppo rides again!’
However repelled Jamal was, he forced himself to conceal his true reaction, just as he had learned to do in Syria. He had to think: was he free or had he just been taken hostage? He had to keep his cool and see how it played out.
Isham was still speaking: ‘You’re our bonus, our reward from Allah, praise be upon Him.’
Jamal managed a smile. The best thing he could do right now was to give Isham no reason to be suspicious of him. If they thought he was the ‘Butcher of Aleppo’, let them. He would try to get a sense of whose hands he had fallen into.
Isham told him he was six months into a seven-year sentence for bomb-making. He had been a TV-repair man, and before that a lab technician in a hospital. ‘Where I learned my trade – chemicals and electricity. It’s all you need. I’ve trained many more. The bombs today, all my design, my babies.’ He said he was looking forward to getting back to work. He gripped Jamal’s knee hard. ‘Together we can plan our spectacular. I already have an idea.’ He was looking eagerly at Jamal for agreement.
Jamal said nothing. He was out of prison, but at what terrible cost. And with a man who was quite happy – happy – that three people, including his own wife, had blown themselves up to facilitate his escape. Above all, Jamal had lost his dearest Adila. He looked intact, but a piece of himself lay in the ruins of Belmarsh. He knew now that there was such a place as Hell, and he was in it.
Up to now all Jamal had wanted was to clear his name. But Adila’s death had changed everything. Now he felt only pure rage, and the desire for revenge.
58
17.00
Whitehall
Farmer was struggling to keep up with the prime minister as he strode down the corridor in the bunker under Whitehall. Geoff had been in overdrive all morning, demanding briefings, calling in advisers, drafting statements, redrafting them, then shelving them when he had second thoughts. Twice he had told Farmer to stay out of a meeting, only to change his mind and call him in. He had sprinted from room to room at Number Ten as if he were on some kind of treasure hunt, only whatever he was looking for, he wasn’t finding it. It looked like activity but in truth it was a kind of frenetic paralysis. Farmer could tell he was at a loss. Already spooked by the reality of having co-opted Rolt into his government, he now had to digest the fact that the bombs at Belmarsh had played straight into Rolt’s hands. The first big crisis of the new administration – and it wasn’t the PM whom the nation was waiting to hear from, but the new home secretary, a complete novice, and an uncontrollable one at that.
‘I can’t let him seize the initiative, Derek. You know that as well as I do.’
Farmer nodded. How right he was – for once. They’d ordered a news blackout on the names of the escapees but Jamal’s had been leaked and every paper in the land had a headline screaming about the jailbreak of the so-called ‘Butcher of Aleppo’. Farmer was in no doubt that the leak had come from Rolt’s office. No one would be interested in questioning the truth of the massacre video now. ‘Find This Barbaric Executioner’ and ‘Nationwide Alert For Schoolgirl Killer’ – all the papers were piling in.
They were a few metres from the entrance to the COBRA briefing room, the hubbub of the assembled company spilling out into the corridor, when the PM stopped abruptly and turned to his director of communications. ‘We can’t let him do this. I simply can’t …’
Farmer couldn’t remember when he had seen the man so far out of his depth: he really was starting to panic – at the very moment when he needed to stamp his authority on his administration and lead the country. ‘If the question of emergency powers comes up, Prime Minister, why don’t you say you’re putting it on the agenda for the summit at Chequers?’
‘How far away is that?’
‘Er, this weekend?’ Surely he remembered.
‘And we’ve got the whole cabinet there?’
‘Naturally, for your summit to agree policy strategy.’
Suddenly the sun came out in his face. ‘Derek, that’s an excellent idea!’
The PM hated to be put on the spot in an open meeting and welcomed any opportunity to postpone a decision. Farmer watched as he slipped into deep thought. For the first time that day he seemed calm, almost serene. The noise coming from the meeting room was getting louder. Farmer took him by the elbow. ‘I think we should—’
‘Of course, of course, but whatever happens in this room, I’m not going to be press-ganged into sanctioning emergency measures. No kneejerk reactions. We’re going to do this in a calm and measured fashion.’
Then he put on his especially grave, prime-ministerly expression. ‘This is not a state of emergency, Derek, it’s a nationwide manhunt. Whatever additional security measures we decide to take in the longer term, I want that on the agenda for Chequers, okay?’
Farmer grinned. ‘Absolutely, Prime Minister.’ He marvelled at the speed with which the PM could hear an idea and make it his own.
As they rounded the corner into the COBRA room, the babble of the attendees showed no sign of dying down. It was packed. All the chairs round the table had been filled, except one for the prime minister, as had the others around the walls. Farmer shooed a junior aide out of the one just behind Geoff’s so he was in whispering distance. He suspected he would be doing even more prompting than usual.
The PM tapped a pencil against his glass. No one heard so Farmer clapped his hands to get their attention. ‘Pray silence for the prime minister!’
Geoff looked briefly startled. ‘Thank you, Derek. Let’s get started.’
Just then the door opened and Alec Clements, the cabinet secretary, came in, plonked himself down on the last remaining seat against the wall and folded his arms. Farmer had not seen him at all in the past twenty-four hours. Normally, in a crisis like this, Clements would be one of the first to be making his mark, pushing forward his advice whether it was asked for or not. It was he who had come up with the idea of recruiting Rolt. No doubt he was here to watch the sparks fly in the first encounter between the prime minister and the new home secretary in an open meeting.
Around the table were some of the most influential yet least known figures from inside the machinery of government. To the prime minister’s right was the acting head of MI6, officials from the MoD and GCHQ, Halford, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, and the chief constable of the Transport Police. Several cabinet ministers were also in attendance, including, of course, the new home secretary, who had an almost childlike gleam of excitement in his eyes.
The prime minister nodded at the commissioner, who cleared his throat and launched into a detailed update of the aftermath of the Belmarsh bombings and ensuing manhunt. Farmer couldn’t help noticing it was very long on detail but devoid of any significant developments.
‘Of the five inmates who took the opportunity to escape, three have been rounded up. As well as Jamal al Masri, also known as al Britani, we are focusing on one Isham al Aziz, formerly Ryan Chalmers, a white British convert from Bolton, who has a conviction for conspiring to make and plant explosive devices and is currently serving a seven-year sentence for doing so. We are following up on leads suggesting that they are at large together.’
‘So the bottom line is you’ve no idea where these terrorists are?’
Rolt’s words cut through the atmosphere like a knife. What a difference a few days made, Farmer mused. Rolt had more than found his feet: he was already going on the offensive. But far from looking stung, Halford nodded eagerly. Had this been rehearsed?