First Response

by Stephen Leather

  Hassan struggled to understand what the man had said, but everything became clear as the man unbuttoned his coat to reveal a vest covered with packages and wires. ‘Nobody move or we will all go to Heaven together!’ the man shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Allahu Akbar!’

  LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (11.45 a.m.)

  Kamran walked across the special operations room to the SCO19 pod. Marty Windle had a headset on and was talking in a low voice as he stared at a CCTV monitor on his centre screen showing a view of the Kensington childcare centre. A police car had stopped outside, its lights flashing, and two uniformed constables were standing at the door and peering inside.

  Windle finished his conversation and took off his headset. ‘There’s an ARV en route, ETA six minutes. It’s definitely a bomber?’

  ‘Two of the teachers are tweeting,’ said Kamran. ‘Same as at the other locations. If the six ISIS fighters aren’t released from Belmarsh by six p.m., everybody dies.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said Windle. ‘It’s kids in there.’

  ‘Since when have they cared about kids, or women?’ said Kamran. ‘They see all Westerners as valid targets. Now, how are you doing resources-wise?’

  ‘We’re running low on ARVs,’ said Windle. ‘We’ve got all three kit cars tied up already. I’ve put a call out to get any off-duty SFOs to come in, but that’ll take time.’

  The two constables who had been checking the nursery walked back to their car. ‘That’s a good picture. Where’s it coming from?’ asked Kamran.

  ‘Local authority,’ said Windle. ‘The parents were causing problems when they were parking so the council set it up to fine them. It’s not quite a live feed, there’s a delay of about two seconds, but that’s good enough.’

  ‘Can we access the stored video?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘I’ll get Joe on the case, see if he can get us a shot of the bomber arriving.’

  ‘What’s happening on the negotiation front?’ asked Windle.

  ‘Nothing so far,’ said Kamran. ‘To be honest, it’s all happened so quickly we don’t have any negotiating teams in situ yet. All their demands are coming through social media.’

  ‘And what do you think?’ asked Windle. ‘They can’t release the ISIS prisoners, can they?’

  ‘I don’t see how they can, but that decision is going to be taken at a much higher pay grade than mine,’ said Kamran. He raised his coffee cup in salute and headed back to the Gold Command suite.

  Inspector Adams intercepted him. ‘I’m going to need more people,’ he said.

  ‘Specifically?’

  ‘I’ve got two support staff monitoring social media and a third collating and passing positive intel to Sergeant Lumley. But they’re already overwhelmed.’

  ‘Bring in what you need, Ian.’

  ‘I think I’m going to need another three at least. At the moment there are hundreds of tweets a minute using hashtag ISIS6. Unfortunately a lot of it is just noise. Also, I want to get someone identifying the hostages – ideally get names and addresses and contact numbers. That’s going to take manpower.’

  ‘All good, Ian. I don’t think anyone is going to be worrying about the overtime bill on this one.’

  ‘And just to let you know, we’re having problems on the negotiator front. I’m now calling in officers on days off and most of them don’t have their phones on.’

  Kamran smiled ruefully. Even the keenest of police officers didn’t like having to work their days off so preferred to switch off their phones rather than being put on the spot. He had to admit to pulling the same stroke himself from time to time. ‘Put in calls to neighbouring forces, see if we can borrow from them if necessary.’

  The inspector nodded and hurried back to his pod. Kamran managed to get back to the Gold Command suite without further interruption and found Lumley talking to a stocky man in his early thirties, casually dressed in a black North Face fleece and blue jeans. His hair was cut short and he had a tan that was starting to peel around his nose. ‘This is Captain Murray,’ said Lumley. ‘SAS.’

  ‘Welcome aboard, Captain,’ said Kamran.

  ‘Call me Alex,’ said Murray, shaking hands with the superintendent. ‘Anything we can do to help, you just have to ask.’ He had a firm grip and the policeman noticed that his nails were bitten to the quick.

  ‘The SAS has a number of men embedded with the various firearms units, right?’ said the superintendent.

  ‘Across London, yes. A dozen or so at any one time.’

  ‘Can we get them to the various locations, especially any snipers you have? If you liaise with Marty Windle, he’s our tactical firearms commander. And they’re to report to the Silver officer at each scene, answerable to them.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Murray. ‘We’ve also got a Chinook flying in from Hereford as we speak with a counter-terrorism team on board. Eight men in all. They’ll be arriving at the Wellington Barracks in about twenty minutes. I’ve been told to tell you that we have another four teams on standby if you need them.’

  ‘I think you can take it that they will be needed,’ said Kamran. ‘We have four incidents already and if there are four, there could just as easily be five. Or six. Or seven. If that happens we’re going to be running short of ARVs so we’ll need your men.’

  ‘I’ll arrange more choppers,’ said Murray.

  Kamran looked at Sergeant Lumley. ‘Do me a favour. Take the captain down to the SCO19 pod and introduce him to Inspector Windle. He can tell him where his men will be best deployed, then you can keep me in the loop.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Lumley.

  ‘And no offence, Alex, but no ski masks, please. We got quite a bit of flak last time we had plainclothes armed officers covering their faces. If they’re in uniform, masks are allowable, but otherwise let’s make do with dark glasses.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Murray. The sergeant took the SAS captain into the SOR and along to the SCO19 pod.

  Kamran went over to Waterman’s workstation. ‘Still four?’ she asked, without looking up from her screens.

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ said Kamran. ‘But I’ve got a feeling there’ll be more.’

  She sat back in her chair and looked up at him. ‘The thing I don’t get is why they aren’t better coordinated,’ she said. ‘With the Seven/Seven Tube bombers, they all went down at the same time. Why are these attacks spaced out?’

  ‘Good point,’ said Kamran. He frowned. ‘Can you pull up a map, then ID the locations and times they went active?’

  ‘No problem,’ said the MI5 officer. Her hands played across the keyboard and the screen on her left went to black, then was filled with a map of the city. One by one red circles marked the areas where the terrorists had struck. Brixton. Wandsworth. Fulham. Kensington. He stared at the screen. Two south of the river. Two north. All to the west of the city. Times began to appear under the dots. The Brixton siege had started at 10 a.m., on the dot. Wandsworth twenty minutes later.

  Waterman grinned. ‘Do you see what I see?’ she asked, as the final time popped up underneath the dot representing Kensington.

  Kamran checked the four times just to be sure. ‘They’re being dropped, one at a time. They started at Brixton, then drove to Wandsworth, then across the Thames to Fulham and headed east to Kensington. Okay, we need CCTV of the minutes prior to each siege starting. We’re looking for a common vehicle, something large. A van, a coach, a bus, something along those lines.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Waterman.

  Lumley returned from the special operations room and walked over to them. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘It looks as if they’re being dropped off,’ said Kamran.

  ‘So there are going to be more? This is just the start?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s exactly what it looks like,’ said Kamran.

  One of the phones on Lumley’s desk rang and he answered it. ‘It’s the deputy commissioner, line two,’ he sai
d.

  Kamran picked up his phone. ‘So there’s four now?’ said the senior officer.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Kamran. ‘Kensington.’

  ‘How are things in the SOR?’

  ‘All good. A bit frantic, as you can imagine, but we’re staying on top of it.’

  ‘We’re going to have to hand over more of the operational decisions to you at GT Ops,’ said the deputy commissioner. ‘I know that generally the SOR takes more of a support role but things are moving too quickly so we need decisions taken centrally.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘At the moment you’re the only one who can see the big picture, the wood for the trees, if you like.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’ Kamran wasn’t thrilled about being given operational command on a day when a lot of people could die. Generally the special operations room didn’t control incidents: it provided a support structure to Incident Command and helped manage the incident, providing resources, analysing intelligence and coordinating communications. Kamran understood the necessity of taking decisions centrally but he was only a superintendent, and if anything went wrong, shit had a habit of rolling downhill.

  ‘I know it’s a lot of responsibility,’ said the deputy commissioner, as if sensing Kamran’s unease. ‘Just bear with me for an hour or so. I’m going to fix up an SO15 senior officer to take over there.’

  ‘No problem, sir,’ said Kamran. SO15 was Counter-terrorism Command, the anti-terrorism squad formed in 2006 by merging the Anti-terrorist Branch with Special Branch.

  ‘Have the negotiators gone in yet?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. We’ve got four locations and we’re getting phone numbers as we speak. As soon as we’ve established communications we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.’

  ‘Twitter’s on fire, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘We’re monitoring it for intel.’

  ‘Well, it sounds as if you’ve got everything under control,’ said the deputy commissioner.

  Kamran smiled to himself. He might well have given that impression, but it wasn’t exactly how he felt. Things were changing so quickly that he was close to losing any grip that he had on the situation. He felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air and more threatening to join them at any moment. One lapse of concentration and he might end up dropping them all. But that wasn’t something he could ever admit to the deputy commissioner, or to the men and women in the special operations room. ‘Yes, sir, we’re on top of it,’ he said.

  MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET (11.52 a.m.)

  Faisal Chaudhry sat and stared at the card in his hands, reading the typewritten words for the third time, unable to get his head around what he was being asked to do. Each time he thought about the consequences of the suicide vest going off he felt so light-headed he feared he would pass out.

  He jumped as a hand fell on his shoulder. Shahid was behind him. ‘It is time,’ he said.

  ‘Brother, this is a mistake,’ said Chaudhry.

  ‘Just do as you’re told and everything will be all right,’ said Shahid.

  ‘Brother, I am in Al-Qaeda. I am one of the chosen ones. I have been trained in Pakistan. I was trained in explosives and guns and everything. I’m one of you, brother. I want to kill the infidel, too. But not like this, brother. This is not what I was trained for. I’m a jihadist. I’m a fighter. Give me a gun, give me a knife, and I’ll kill with a happy heart. But I can’t blow myself up, brother. I can’t.’

  ‘This is how you will best serve Allah, brother,’ said Shahid, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Follow your instructions and six of our brothers will be released. You will leave the country with them and your actions will be a beacon for jihadists all over the world. Now, go and serve Allah.’

  The fight went out of Chaudhry. He nodded.

  Shahid opened the door. ‘Allahu Akbar.’

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ mumbled Chaudhry, as he shuffled towards the door. He climbed out and the door slammed. He walked away and didn’t look back.

  MARYLEBONE (11.55 a.m.)

  The midday rush wasn’t far away, thought Kenny Watts, as he looked at the wall-mounted clock. Once it started he’d be rushed off his feet so he figured he had better pop out for a cigarette now rather than try to grab a break later. He caught Bonnie’s eye and gestured at the door. ‘Just popping out for a fag,’ he said.

  ‘Have one for me,’ she said, bending down to fill the glass-washer. Two men in suits came up to the bar, one waving a twenty-pound note. ‘Get them first, will you?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Kenny, thrusting his pack of cigarettes back into his back pocket. ‘What can I get you, gents?’

  ‘Two pints of Speckled Hen,’ said the guy with the money. ‘Straight glasses.’

  Kenny was pulling the second pint when another customer came in. He grimaced, wondering if he’d lost the opportunity for a smoke. It was an Asian wearing a long coat. He had a straggly beard and a hooked nose and looked for all the world like the Kalashnikov-toting nutters he kept seeing on the evening news. The man came up to the bar and stared at his reflection in the mirrored gantry.

  Kenny finished pouring the second pint, took the money and gave the man his change. He put his hands on the bar and nodded at the new arrival. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked.

  The man turned slowly to look at him, a slight frown on his face.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Kenny repeated.

  The man’s right hand shot out and grabbed Kenny’s arm. Kenny pulled back but the man’s other hand appeared and clamped a handcuff around his wrist. ‘What are you doing?’ shouted Kenny. He pulled back and the chain linked to the man’s left wrist tightened. The man yanked it and the metal bit into Kenny’s flesh, making him grunt in pain. The two men Kenny had just served were watching what was going on, their pints forgotten. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouted Kenny.

  Bonnie stared in horror at the Asian man as he used his right hand to unbutton his coat and reveal that he was wearing an explosive-packed suicide vest.

  ‘Allahu Akbar!’ shouted the man, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out a metal trigger and held it above his head. ‘Everyone do exactly as I say or we all die!’

  WELLINGTON BARRACKS (12.02 p.m.)

  The Chinook did a slow circle two hundred feet above Wellington Barracks, then slowly descended to make a textbook landing in the centre of the parade ground. The twin rotors continued to whir as the back ramp lowered and eight SAS troopers came out, toting black kitbags.

  Major Haydyn Williams was standing at the edge of Tarmac Square, a line of four black SUVs behind him. The men jogged over and formed a line in front of him, then dropped their bags beside them. All eight were part of the SAS’s special projects team, specialising in anti-hijacking and counter-terrorism.

  ‘For those of you who haven’t been watching the news, there’s been a spate of hostage-taking incidents across London this morning,’ said Williams, who had lost most, but not all, of his Welsh accent during his eight-year stint with the SAS. ‘The hostage-takers appear to be linked to ISIS and are wearing suicide vests. In each case the terrorist has handcuffed himself to a member of the public. It’s a delicate situation, to put it mildly.’

  The Chinook’s engines roared and it lifted off, heading back to Hereford. The men kept their heads turned away from the rotor blast and the major waited until the deafening roar had faded before continuing. ‘This is how it’s going to work,’ he said. ‘You’re to be attached to the various armed police units attending the four incidents around the capital. You will be acting under the orders of the local Silver Commander in each case. For those of you not familiar with the way the cops operate, a Silver Commander is in charge on site. Usually an inspector but not always. He in turn reports to a Gold Commander, who in this case is at the special operations room in Lambeth. The Gold Commander decides overall strategy, the Silver Commander makes decisions on the ground. You do what the Silver Commander says. But I also want y
ou using our own comms to stay in touch with Captain Alex Murray. He’s in the SOR so he’ll always have the big picture.’

  The men nodded. Most of them were chewing gum, the only sign of the building tension.

  ‘Under no circumstances are you even to think of firing your weapon without being ordered to do so by the Silver Commander,’ said the major. ‘At the moment the cops are running the show so we have to play by their rules.’

  ‘What about if we come under attack, boss?’ asked a trooper. Ben Peyton was one of the youngest members of the group, though he had already seen plenty of action in Afghanistan and Syria. He was the linguist specialist in his four-man patrol, fluent in Arabic and French.

  ‘The intel we have is that the targets are only armed with suicide bombs,’ said Major Williams. ‘No guns, no knives, just a vest full of explosives. They won’t be attacking you. The risk is that they self-detonate and take out everyone close by. At the moment the police are containing them and are preparing to negotiate. Our task is to support the armed police units as they are now stretched thin. We’re in a support role in the first instance, but my personal feeling is that will change fairly soon. But until it does, you follow the Silver Commander’s orders to the letter.’

  The men nodded, their faces impassive.

  ‘As soon as you’ve deployed, I suggest you all grab some cop kit so that you blend in. We’re under orders not to cover our faces so no ski masks or balaclavas. Dark glasses are fine, but the best way of staying below the radar is to blend. Understood?’ More nods. ‘So, any questions or are we good to go?’ The major looked down at his clipboard and began reading out their assignments. As soon as their name was called the troopers would pick up their kitbags and jog over to the waiting SUVs. Five minutes later they were all being whisked across the capital.

  LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (12.05 p.m.)

  Joe Lumley twisted in his seat and waved his hand to get Kamran’s attention. ‘Lisa Elphick from the press office wants to know if you can spare her a minute or two.’ He pointed to the large viewing window at the far end of the special operations room. A blonde woman in her mid-thirties in a black blazer and white skirt was standing there. She gave Kamran a small wave when he saw her. He grinned and beckoned her in. She walked quickly over to the Gold Command suite and air-kissed him on both cheeks. Kamran had worked with the chief press officer on several occasions and always admired her professionalism and no-nonsense approach. She was totally trustworthy, which was a breath of fresh air in an organisation where the key to climbing the greasy pole of promotion depended, more often than not, on stabbing someone else in the back. ‘Busy day, I gather,’ she said.