Intercept

by Patrick Robinson

  “Right. I am briefed that you are no longer a serving officer in the U.S. armed forces?”

  “Correct.”

  “However, your mission is classified to the highest possible degree. Your contacts, through me, are heads of department only—CIA, NSA, Pentagon, Navy, and Scotland Yard antiterror. And that Detective Superintendent West Yorkshire Police. That’s my brief.”

  “And mine.”

  “I understand I may not know the nature of the mission?”

  “Correct.”

  “But I can guess.”

  “Very possibly.”

  “I am also instructed to provide you with any and all assistance you may request. Actually, Mack, they did not use the word ‘request.’ They used ‘demand.’ Whatever it is you’re working on, you’d better not screw it up.”

  “How about rescue? Should I end up in deepest excrement?”

  “I am ordered to activate an entire platoon 22 SAS and get you out at all costs.”

  “Comforting.”

  “You want to tell me what’s happening?”

  “Hell, yes. But I cannot.”

  “Well, you have to tell me where you are going. Or I can’t effect a rescue.”

  “Guess so. But only when I demand it. Right now, I’m Secret Mack.”

  “Okay. You staying for dinner?”

  “If I get invited. No point arriving in Bradford in the middle of the goddamned night.”

  “You going straight to the old Stone Cattle tomorrow, right after you leave here?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll need twenty-four hours to get my bearings. But there’s quite a lot of stuff I’d like to check out with you before I leave. Can I have another cup of that tea?”

  RUSS AND MACK DINED TOGETHER in his private house, away from the other officers. There was a ripple of curiosity throughout the base as to the identity of their guest, but no one could find out who he was.

  Mack had breakfast in his own room and then spent the morning working with Russ on his big computer screen, familiarizing himself with the Yorkshire Moors and the access roads that led to and from one of the loneliest parts.

  Right after lunch, he started his 125-mile journey to Bradford. He headed west, up to the M5 motorway, a very fast stretch of road leading on to the M6, and then the M62, a six-lane highway carving straight through industrial Lancashire to the southern approaches to Bradford.

  He arrived in Bradford at 8 p.m. totally unaware of the chaos his presence in the UK had caused the previous evening. Detective Superintendent Len Martin had considered he might become a laughingstock if he had admitted the four terrorists had slipped clean through his net, probably within hours of landing in Yorkshire. So he ordered Sergeant Thomas literally to ransack Darsfield Street, forcing entry into houses listed as “occupied by known Islamic fanatics,” on the pretence of searching for drugs, weapons, or bombmaking equipment.

  “I don’t care if it takes all night,” Martin told Detective Sergeant Thomas. “Find those four guys who met the mullah up by the rocks this afternoon.”

  “I can’t arrest them, can I?” said Thomas. “They haven’t actually done anything.”

  “I don’t want them arrested yet. I just need to know precisely where they are living in our city, all right?”

  And so Sergeant Thomas and a heavy hit-squad, comprised of twenty-four armed officers, two big police vans, four tracker dogs, three police photographers, and an ambulance (just in case), had swooped down on unsuspecting Darsfield Street just before dark.

  They had kicked down two doors, hit another with a sledgehammer, dragged sleeping Muslims out of bed. They shouted, intimidated, threatened, and generally played hell, for two hours, until they reached the last of the seven houses on their roster.

  Right there the game changed. The entire street by now was aware that something was happening, and there were lights on in number 289, which now had six officers guarding the back door, with another eight at the front, machine guns leveled.

  Sergeant Thomas himself had banged on the door. And it was answered immediately by Ibrahim Sharif. Behind him stood Yousaf Mohammed and Ben al-Turabi. All eight of West Yorkshire’s finest came charging into the house. They lined up the three Islamists at gunpoint against the wall. Then they searched the entire place, finding no explosives but a large bag of chemical fertilizer and several detonators, plus wired batteries. Any experienced policemen, especially in Bradford, knew precisely what this meant. Bombs.

  Then Sergeant Thomas discovered Abu Hassan Akbar locked in the bathroom. He’d found all four of the men he’d photographed; all four at once. Bloody good night’s work that.

  He handcuffed and arrested them immediately on suspicion of attempting to make IEDs (improvised explosive devices). He was taking the law into his own hands, knowing it would be a hard charge to prove, and that he could only detain them in Yorkshire for forty-eight hours. But he also knew someone, somewhere, would be bloody grateful to him. He ordered them to bring their passports, documents, and visas, and to get into the police van, right away.

  With blue lights flashing, the dark blue paddy wagon was flung open to admit the four recently arrived killers, and they stumbled into the wide mobile rear section, uncertain of the fate that awaited them.

  They arrived in the holding cells, just before Mack Bedford touched base by phone with Len Martin. He announced himself as “Black Bear,” as arranged, and informed the detective superintendent he was calling from SAS home base. He also told him he would arrive the following evening, and requested that someone check him into the agreed hotel.

  Martin told him he would provide clear information when he arrived. He and Sergeant Thomas had already issued the legally required warnings to Ibrahim, Yousaf, Ben, and Abu. Photographs confirmed there was no doubt whatsoever about the identification of the four men they were detaining.

  Ibrahim had asked permission to make one call, to Sheikh Abdullah Bazir, since he guessed he needed to speak to a lawyer. Martin denied this permission for a period of twelve hours while they examined the confiscated bombmaking equipment. He made the excuse that he may elect to release them all, subject to this examination.

  He was, of course, breaking the law. In England, even terrorists are permitted immediate access to a lawyer. But Martin reasoned if any trouble ensued, he could always nail them on student visa irregularities.

  BY THE TIME Mack actually checked into the Cow and Calf Hotel, Len Martin had had the Chosen Ones under lock and key for twenty-four hours, and he was beginning to feel a little jumpy, since that was an inordinate amount of time to prevent any suspects, never mind terrorist suspects, from speaking to a lawyer. So Martin was relieved when Mack called in from the hotel, announcing that he would like to meet the four terrorists alone, up near the rocks, the following evening at 9:30 p.m. Mack told Martin to drive them up there, inform them a friend was meeting them at the base of the small stone, and then liberate them.

  “That’s the outside limit of my holding time,” he replied. “Will the result be as we expect?”

  “Yes,” replied Mack. “I’ll call in with details for the clean-up before I leave.”

  “SAS?”

  “Affirmative.”

  AS MILITARY STYLE operations go, this one was proceeding smoothly. Mack called Russ Makin and alerted him to have a Chinook helicopter ready to come in with body bags around 2130 the following evening. The SAS boss placed one on immediate stand-by at the British Army garrison at Catterick on the edge of Hipswell Moor, forty-five miles and fifteen minutes north of Bradford. Martin entered his data on his desktop computer and e-mailed everything to Lt. Colonel Makin in Credenhill, as ordered by Scotland Yard.

  Four hours later, he sent the four prisoners coffee and sandwiches, which he hoped would shut them up. Then he left for the night.

  For the past eight months, the Bradford HQ of West Yorkshire Police, had harbored a “mole”—a twenty-five-year-old Pakistani janitor named Freddie, who worked three nights a week.
He was a cheerful young man, who studied—sometimes—by day, in one of the myriad of “universities” situated in the borough of Manningham. Everyone liked Freddie, but there were two things about him that no one knew. One was that he held a master’s degree in Internet Technology from Cornell University. The other was that he was a skilled bombmaker, who planned to blast the Bradford Police HQ off the map.

  Freddie worked for Sheikh Abdullah. His father had died in the American bombing of Tora Bora, close to where bin Laden lived. Freddie was an Islamic extremist, right on the cusp of pure fanaticism.

  And now he moved stealthily, standing in the shadows as Len Martin and his driver exited the building. With his mop slung over his left shoulder and bucket of hot soapy water in hand, he walked down the long corridor to the superintendent’s office. He took out his key chain and carefully selected a master key from the bundle, letting himself into Len Martin’s office.

  Without turning on a light, he booted up the computer and waited for the screen to light up. He opened the e-mail window, as he’d done just about every night, and scrolled through.

  He stopped at the one tagged “SAS Contact,” which he opened and read:VBB requests Chinook backup with four body bags 2300 tomorrow Ilkley Moor GPS 53.195N 1.450W. VBB rendezvous Chosen Ones Stone Cattle 2130. No reply required.

  Freddie quickly wrote down notes on Len Martin’s pad, then scanned the list again until he found one called “Chosen Ones.” He opened that and found the names identified by U.S. Intelligence, against the photographs—Ibrahim Sharif, Yousaf Mohammed, Ben al-Turabi, and Abu Hassan Akbar. This computer was the only place in the station where their names were written down.

  “By the Prophet! Body bags! SAS! They’re going to murder my brothers,” breathed Freddie. “Tomorrow night at 9:30 up at the two rocks.”

  He ripped out his cell phone and called Sheikh Abdullah Bazir, who answered sleepily, but snapped into high alert quickly. He grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down the details, not understanding for one moment how the Yorkshire Police could possibly know The Chosen Ones were in the country, nor how the police had correctly identified them, with accurate names, in so short a time. He thanked Freddie, who then switched off Len Martin’s computer and carried on mopping the station floor.

  Sheikh Abdullah then proceeded to telephone three of his most ruthless assassins, men who had been fortunate not to have been sentenced to life imprisonment after their suspected involvement with the August 2006 plot to blow up seven passenger jets over the North Atlantic with liquid bombs.

  That was a plot planned in the Swat Valley to be carried out by al-Qaeda associates based in England. Several had subsequently received massive jail sentences, and several had worked directly for Sheikh Abdullah Bazir.

  Britain’s antiterrorist forces had done spectacularly well to foil this outrageous scheme to kill possibly 2,800 trans-Atlantic passengers, a number eerily close to the total death-count at the Twin Towers in 2001.

  Three of the culprits were still free, and now Sheikh Abdullah had them on the line, detailing their next mission. They were told to report to the Cow and Calf Rocks at 8:30 p.m. tonight, and then seek and kill without mercy the man who would try to murder the Chosen Ones at around 9:30 p.m.

  “He is probably very dangerous,” said the Sheikh. “Go well armed and shoot to kill. No need to hide evidence. You will leave for Pakistan before the body is found. Bradford Airport. Iran Air charter jet.”

  “Consider it done, master,” the assassins replied. “We will not fail you.”

  “Go with Allah,” said the Sheikh. “For He will go with you. Allahu Akbar.”

  SHEIKH ABDULLAH SOUNDED CONFIDENT, assured, determined. In truth, he was not. Someone was going to die out there. And the Sheikh wasn’t sure who that someone might be. There would be someone out there, maybe alone, maybe not, but almost certainly a professional killer hired by either the Americans or the Brits—someone who truly knew the track record of the Chosen Ones. He could only hope that his trusted assassins, all from Pakistan, would locate their enemy and put him to the sword. Three against one seemed to favor his men. However, three against two was less appealing, and he hoped the government’s killer would come alone. He resorted to prayer, imploring Allah to grant him justice, and to lead his servants out on the moors tonight along the path of light.

  The second great puzzle that faced him was, why were the Chosen Ones expected up at the rocks at 9:30? He had made no arrangements to rendezvous, and they would have no reason to go there without at least informing him. Which meant the police, or the army, was taking them up there to murder them, to rid the Western world of the problem, and then deny all evidence of wrong-doing. Sheikh Abdullah knew that governments were good at that, especially the Americans, the Great Satan.

  Therefore he had but one task this day: to prevent the Chosen Ones being taken up to Ilkley Moor. But, short of blowing up the police station and probably killing everyone in it, including the Chosen Ones, he had no ideas on how to proceed.

  Except for one.

  ACROSS THE YORKSHIRE BORDER in Lancashire, deep in the northern suburbs of Manchester, lies the heavily Muslim-populated Cheetham Hill. And right there, on Cheetham Hill Road, lived Dr. Ahmed Kamil, a forty-year-old somewhat shadowy figure, known to be involved in a labyrinth of legal actions involving terrorists, but never a man to take center stage in a trial.

  Dr. Kamil had a doctorate in law from the University of Cairo. He practiced in the UK as a consultant and advisor, not an advocate. His business was entirely terrorism, but he had never even taken the final exams that would permit him to speak in even a Crown Court, far less the High Court where terrorists tend to wind up.

  Born in Pakistan and a familiar figure in major police headquarters all over the north of England, Ahmed Kamil operated from an elegant suite of offices in Manchester’s Deansgate—a relatively snazzy address for an unqualified attorney whose clients were apt to be unshaven potential killers and amateur bombmakers. No one really knew who paid him for consulting, but someone valued him highly: Dr. Kamil drove a brand new Rolls Royce.

  And right now, that particular dark red Phantom drop-head coup was making short work of the long escarpment up Lakewood Moor on the western edge of the steep Pennines. At the wheel was Ahmed Kamil, frowning, speeding to do the bidding of Sheikh Abdullah in Bradford. His paymaster.

  He knocked off the forty-two-mile journey in half an hour and pulled into the private parking lot next to the mosque shortly after 11 a.m. Swiftly he made his way down to the Sheikh’s office for his briefing.

  Dr. Kamil made a note of the allegations that would probably be made against the men. And he requested the full names and addresses of the previous residents of 289 Darsfield Road. He also wanted to know the name of the official owners of the property, but Sheikh Abdullah ruled that would not be helpful. After three hours, Dr. Kamil set off to do battle with West Yorkshire Police. In his attaché case he carried copies of law book pages detailing the new Acts of Parliament that specified the precise number of days permitted to hold suspects without trial.

  There had been, quite recently, almost riot conditions in the House of Commons before they arrived at a twenty-eight days maximum. But that required warrants from judges and much other technical data. The golden number was forty-eight—the precise number of hours any suspect could be held without being charged with anything. Thanks to the diligent Freddie, Dr. Kamil knew the record would show the four prisoners had been held since 7 p.m. on the night of their arrest.

  Kamil pulled into the police private parking lot and drove into an empty space, on the basis that no one ever doubted a Rolls Royce’s rights, because the owner was probably extremely important. He walked into the police station, marched straight to the front desk, ignoring a small line of waiting people, and announced himself as the lawyer representing four prisoners who had now been in custody for almost forty hours. “Please take me down to them immediately,” he said, knowing his request would be denied.


  The station sergeant picked up the telephone and informed DS Len Martin there was someone to see him—“Lawyer representing the four Pakistanis downstairs,” he added.

  Len Martin was not pleased. He was already skating on thin ice, and this intruder might make things extremely awkward. He instructed that Dr. Kamil be brought to his office.

  “Sir,” Kamil said, “I have been retained to represent all four of the men, and I understand they have been held, so far without charge, since approximately 6 p.m. the night before last. My question is, do you intend to charge them, and if so with what?”

  Len Martin thought quickly. “I am almost certainly going to charge them this afternoon with attempting to manufacture IEDs with intent to kill or maim citizens of the city of Bradford.”

  “Have they been questioned?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then how can you possibly know what their intent was? Also I need to know whether you have evidence that any of them were making anything that might explode. Was there TNT or dynamite in the house?”

  “There was no actual explosive, but there were several electrical detonators and substantial quantities of industrial fertilizer, which can be quickly turned into high explosive.”

  “My question, superintendent, is, were they in the process of turning it into high explosive?”

  “Well, not precisely at that time.”

  “Did they own the industrial fertilizers, or indeed the electrical detonators?”

  “That we do not know.”

  “Then we are dealing with the purely circumstantial evidence that placed these four men in the same house as certain ingredients of certain types of bomb.”

  “I cannot easily dispute that.”

  “Superintendent, do you know how long my clients had been in residence in number 289 Darsfield Street when your officers swooped on them.”

  “No. I do not know that.”