Century of Jihad

by John Mannion

  ‘We’ll just have to keep digging. Doing what we’re paid to do,’ muttered Inspector Ward.

  Fayaz stared blankly but didn’t reply. Ward got up to leave.

  ‘Keep me up-to-date with developments, won’t you?’ Fayaz said, as the DI opened the door to leave his office.

  ‘Of course. Likewise.’ The detective replied.

  While, contrary to popular perception, cooperation between the police and the Security Service was generally very good, the relationship between these two officers was one of mutual dislike. It was essentially intangible but it could, at times, affect communication between them.

  After leaving Fayaz, DI Ward received an urgent call on his mobile phone from Ed Malone requesting that he join him on his return to the Yard.

  ‘I don’t want to discuss the details over the phone, but there have been some interesting developments since we last spoke.’

  As Ward drove back to the Yard, he reflected on his meeting with Fayaz. He disliked the man; his supercilious manner. There was something about him that made Ward uncomfortable. He hoped that Ed’s team had made a significant breakthrough, but determined to keep his cards close to his chest as far as Fayaz was concerned. He was experienced enough to know that Fayaz would play the same game, indeed perhaps had already started. Knowledge is power.

  Back at the Yard, DI Ward joined his team of detectives.

  ‘OK, Ed, what are these interesting developments? I hope it’s something good!’

  Ed responded, ‘Three things. First, Forensics have confirmed that the DNA taken from our man at the morgue and that taken at the apartment match.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ Ward shouted.

  Ed continued. ‘Second, they can confirm from the injuries he sustained in the blast that he was at the seat of the explosion. Third, young Lisa here has spotted our man on CCTV footage, standing at the entrance to the apartment just before his taxi arrives. It shows him taking delivery of a backpack. It was delivered by a man coming from the direction of the alleyway Lisa and Theo were observing from during today’s Op. He is wearing a hood, which covers most of his face. We can’t make any ID from this, so we are trying to back track his movements to see if we get a better view of him. Our suspect bomber disappears back into the entrance to his apartment. He reappears a few minutes later. It may just be my imagination but it looks like he may have put on weight in those intervening minutes. He walks casually to a litter bin and pushes the recently delivered backpack into it.’

  Ward responded to the developments. ‘Excellent! You’ve all done outstandingly since the start of this thing. Keep up the good work. I’ll go pass this up the food chain.’

  CHAPTER 10

  The air was crisp and cold as the shoppers, from far and wide, thronged in the streets of London’s West End in their quest to complete their Christmas lists. The bombing of a few days earlier had done nothing to deter them. After 7pm the crowds of shoppers started to thin out, but were replaced by an influx of revellers heading for the nightlife on offer in Central London and its West End – in the theatres, cinemas and nightclubs.

  Tracy Cameron, a twenty-three-year-old from Rainham in Essex, had arrived at Oxford Circus Underground Station at 8pm with a group of five close friends on her ‘hen night’. Tracy was due to marry Colin, her childhood sweetheart, the following weekend. The six young women visited several of the pubs to the south of Oxford Street, becoming more and more jolly and loud as they made their way towards a nightclub one of the friends had heard about in North Row. At the club entrance the club stewards had appeared friendly and had joked with the girls. On entering the nightclub, the girls’ ears were assailed by the sound of the music as they jostled their way towards the bar. The girls had a few sips from their glasses and then four of them joined the throng on the club’s small dance floor.

  At the entrance to the nightclub, a group of four club stewards stood shivering in the cold, winter night air. They were huddled in their heavy overcoats and gloves in a vain attempt to ward off the bitter cold. It was just after midnight and the club was full at this hour. It was just at the start of the Christmas festivities.

  During the summer nights, scantily-clad young women would come out of the club to get some fresh air, usually accompanied with a cigarette. They would talk to the door staff, entertaining them with their banter and, sometimes, outrageous behaviour. But on these winter nights the men just stood talking amongst themselves, whiling away the hours.

  The black BMW turned the corner at Park Street into North Row. The door staff watched the car drive slowly down North Row and stop, just opposite the nightclub. They could see the silhouettes of two dark figures seated in the front of the car. After a pause, the man in the front passenger seat appeared to lean into the back seat of the vehicle, pulling something bulky from the rear toward him in the front of the car. The interior of the car remained dark as the driver’s door slowly opened. The driver got out of the vehicle and stood looking across at the entrance to the club. Then the passenger door opened, and the other man got out. He was holding a backpack in his right hand, which he promptly threw over his left shoulder. The door staff watched the car and its occupants with a bored fascination. There was no other activity in the vicinity to occupy their attention – North Row being, essentially, a narrow back lane tucked away behind Oxford Street. The street was otherwise deathly silent. The two men slowly moved from the car and steadily walked across the road toward the entrance to the club. The door staff watched in silence. The men from the car simultaneously placed their hands into the right hand pockets of the dark, quilted jackets they were wearing, each pulling out an object which appeared to the now mesmerised door staff like pistols. The four club stewards stood transfixed, as the men raised the handguns, pointing them towards the entrance to the club. All this appeared to the stewards to be happening in slow motion. Then there were flashes coming from the muzzles of the guns carried by the approaching men. Loud cracks echoed around in the quiet setting; the whining and pinging of ricocheting bullets. The stewards were momentarily rooted to the spot, trying to take in what was happening. One of the door staff saw the head of a colleague explode before his eyes. The thudding sound, as the bullets hit the thick outer garments worn by the doormen and then tore into the flesh beneath, ripping asunder their internal organs. The four doormen now lay on the ground. Silence had returned to North Row. Three of the doormen were as still as the night air that surrounded them. The remaining doorman groaned. He was unable to move, the life now draining from his body. Looking up, he could see two dark figures towering over him as he lay helpless. One of the figures slowly raised his pistol and pointed it in the direction of the prone man. Another flash and a loud bang echoed down North Row. Then the silence returned.

  The two men from the car casually walked into the club. The noise from the music was deafening, their ears still ringing from the noise of the gunfire. Multi-coloured strobe lights were flashing. The club was crowded with young revellers. It was hot, a complete contrast to the outside. The two men looked at each other. The man holding the backpack released the trigger in his left hand. There was a flash – a loud bang. A rush of air. Objects and people thrown in every direction. Clothing torn off bodies. Darkness. The smell of smoke. A moment of stunned silence, as people tried to assimilate all that had happened with such suddenness. Then screams.

  A dim light from the emergency lighting cast a haunting glow on the scene. Groans from the injured, lying in pools of blood. Some of the injured had body parts missing, others had foreign objects protruding from their bodies. The dead lay like rag dolls, tossed in a corner by a bored child. Of the living, some pulled themselves out of their state of shock quicker than others. The attack on the Underground train days earlier bringing a realisation of the nature of what had been visited upon them sooner than might otherwise have been the case. Slowly, pulling themselves up from where they had been thrown moments earlier, they started to look for a way out of the bloody shambles that lay all
around. Help was given to the injured. Solace to the dying. Friends, frantically, looked for one another in the chaos. There were flames coming from a corner of the room. More screams of panic. Shouts: ‘Where are the bloody fire extinguishers? Call 999!’

  Some of the dazed and injured clubbers stumbled out of the club into the cold night air. Smoke was billowing from the entrance. Debris from the blast was strewn on the road outside. The sound of the sirens, from the first of the emergency services responding to the incident, could be heard faintly in the distance, gradually becoming louder.

  The emergency vehicles, with their flashing blue lights and piercing sirens, entered North Row within minutes of the explosion. Their crews – fire, ambulance and police – assessed the situation confronting them and immediately contacted their various control centres, updating them on the nature and extent of the emergency, and requesting urgent back-up. The Fire Service put out the small fire, which was just taking hold inside the club, and commenced the rescue effort. Police sealed off the street. Paramedics tended the injured, prioritising the victims for care. Police officers started to take details of persons present and to secure the crime scene.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ed had arrived home at 8pm and had a family dinner. His first since the explosion the previous Monday. He’d then watched TV and chatted with Sue, his wife, about Christmas arrangements. They’d gone to bed around midnight. Ed was tired, but his spirits were heightened by the results from the investigation so far. He was in a kind of half-sleep. He felt they were starting to get somewhere. Sure, there was still a long way to go, and there was still the threat posed by any accomplices the Underground train bomber had in his enterprise. But at least things had started to come together. There had been no further attacks. There were still questions to be answered. Al Qaeda went in for big co-ordinated attacks. This attack did not fit their usual modus operandi. The backpack delivered to the suspect on the Edgware Road must have contained the IED. The cab driver had confirmed that he had not stopped anywhere on the journey between Marble Arch and when he dropped the suspect off outside Regent’s Park Underground. Where then had the bomb been assembled for the attack on the Underground train?

  The unwelcome sound of a phone ringing next to him. It took Ed a few seconds to realise it was his bedside phone. He stretched and grabbed the instrument to his ear, hoping it hadn’t woken Sue. ‘Malone.’

  ‘Sergeant Malone, it’s the Control Room at the Yard,’ the voice announced on the other end. ‘There has been another terrorist attack. This time on a nightclub in North Row, just south of Oxford Street.’

  ‘OK, I’m on my way.’ Ed leapt out of his bed and quickly pulled on the clothes he had just thrown off less than an hour earlier. It was handy that they were still on the floor next to his bed. As he left the house, he was glad he hadn’t been tempted to share that bottle of wine with Sue!

  He arrived outside the nightclub twenty minutes later. DI Ward was already at the scene. He saw Ed, and walked over towards him. ‘Well, it’s happened again. It appears that our bomber, or bombers, entered the club, having put a few bullets in the four door staff. An anti-personnel device was then detonated amongst the people on the dance floor.’

  Ed looked towards the grim scene at the club entrance where the emergency services were still dealing with the aftermath of the attack.

  ‘Inspector,’ Ed paused before continuing, ‘there’s something niggling me.’

  ‘What’s that?’ queried DI Ward.

  ‘Well, Al Qaeda is known for its co-ordinated spectaculars, and these are separate incidents on different kinds of targets, days apart.’

  DI Ward didn’t reply. He had already noted this anomaly.

  Ed continued, ‘I’m getting a really uneasy feeling about all of this. Should we start thinking the unthinkable? Could this be the start of a sustained campaign?’

  DI Ward and Ed made their way through the emergency service workers, busily going about their lifesaving duties with a calm purpose. As the two men reached the door to the nightclub, two paramedics pushed past. Lying on a stretcher, her blonde hair dishevelled and matted in blood, lay young Tracy Cameron. The paramedics had tied a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood from the stub that had once been her right leg.

  On entering the club, Ed and the DI paused briefly to take in the scene of devastation that lay all around. The fire and rescue operation was now nearing completion and the building had been declared safe for the forensics officers, who were now entering, to begin their painstaking and detailed examination of the scene.

  DI Ward approached one of the forensics team. ‘I know you people hear this all the time, but as soon as you have anything let me know. This situation is escalating, and we desperately need as much input as possible to aid the investigation.’

  The forensics officer looked at Ward thoughtfully and replied, ‘I understand. You don’t need to tell us.’ With that, the plump man went about his business.

  The DI and Ed stayed at the scene for some time, talking to emergency service personnel, police officers and survivors.

  The two detectives got back to their respective homes just as dawn was breaking. They had time to wash, change and have breakfast before the start of another hectic day. There was to be a briefing at the Yard at noon.

  The briefing room was loud with chatter amongst the gathered throng of officers; some standing, some leaning against walls, others sitting or perched on the edge of desks. There were officers from all the teams constituting SO15, officers from other units and divisions of the Metropolitan Police and officers from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police. There was rumour and speculation in the air. Those who had attended the scene of the nightclub explosion communicated their experiences and views to others in the crowded room. Ed’s team stood together in one corner. DI Ward came across to join them. A hush descended as DAC Braithwaite entered.

  A sombre DAC announced in a calm and measured tone, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you are all now aware, there has been another attack in Central London. On this occasion, the target was a crowded nightclub, just off Oxford Street. We have been collecting CCTV footage from the surrounding area, and some of you have started going through this already. A vehicle, a black BMW, was used as transport by the two male attackers, who used automatic pistols to shoot and kill the four club door staff, prior to entering the club. Inside the club the men detonated an anti-personnel device, an IED containing ball bearings. The subsequent explosion killed thirty-two people and injured fifty others, some seriously. The IED used in this attack is thought to be of the same type of crude, but very effective, home-made device used in Monday’s attack on the Underground network. As has been observed, these attacks have not taken the form of previous, Al Qaeda-inspired attacks, either in this country or elsewhere. We have not been subjected on this occasion to a series of co-ordinated attacks.

  ‘I can inform you that the attacker in the Underground bombing has now been identified as one Abida Marwat, alias Khanza Mazari. Marwat has not previously appeared on our radar. He has been in and out of mental care institutions for a number of years, and was traced through the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. Our man had not come, or been previously brought, to their attention either. FTAC enquiries revealed that he was delusional, and got very agitated when hearing news reports from Iraq or Afghanistan. Doctors and nursing staff considered Marwat to be too dysfunctional to present a serious threat. We are still in the early stages of identifying the two attackers on the nightclub. However, I can tell you that the car they used was reported by its owner as stolen two days ago in the East End of London, and that the two men who stole the vehicle have been traced back to a row of terraced properties, approximately a quarter of a mile from the scene of the theft. From CCTV footage taken at the entrance to the nightclub, I can confirm that they are not the same two men involved in the club attack. A surveillance operation has just started on the property. We all have our part to play in bringing the people beh
ind these attacks to justice as soon as possible. We don’t know at this stage if further attacks are planned. Let’s get on with the job. Thank you.’

  The DAC left the room, which reverted to a buzz as the officers left to go about their duties.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ahmed had been watching the developments on his TV screen over the past few days, along with the other members of his attack cell. They met in his small, bedsit apartment, situated in a row of terraced houses on Eastcott Hill, in the centre of Swindon, Wiltshire.

  It was now more than a year since they had completed their training at the camp on Pakistan’s North West Frontier with Afghanistan. The six man cell had returned to Britain and, as instructed, had resumed life, blending in with the local community. They occupied separate living accommodation, so as not to attract unwanted attention from neighbours. All six had taken up employment as temporary staff, through various local employment agencies, in order to earn a legitimate income which would stand up to any scrutiny from the security services. It also allowed them the flexibility they needed in respect of their working hours.

  On his return to the UK, Ahmed had told his family that he had been offered a good employment opportunity in Swindon, and would not therefore be coming home to Bradford. He informed them that the new job would keep him extremely busy while he settled into it, and would therefore only be able to visit them occasionally.The members of Ahmed’s team were only known to each other by their first names. Saqib, Hussein, Imran, Mahmood and Rahim. They were all young, British-born men in their twenties, to all intents and purposes coming together every few days for prayers and discussion, alternating their meetings between their different addresses. They found the long wait for their mission stressful and frustrating and Ahmed, as the cell leader, had his job cut out on many occasions, as team members went through their ups and downs. All this time Ahmed, being the good leader he was, had to conceal his own fears and concerns from the group.