‘And then what?’ Frederick asked.
‘He needs bigger targets, more important targets, as I said before.’
‘Which ones?’
‘Don’t ask me. You’re the geniuses. You’ll need to figure it out.’
‘How do you know this?’ Andrew asked.
‘It’s got nothing to do with my brain, you should know that. Compared to you two, I’m just a moron.’
‘Then how do you know?’ Frederick asked.
‘My heritage, my country, there’s always been someone or another aiming to take over. It’s the tactics they use. Nibble on the edges before going for the big kill.’
‘What we’re seeing now is just the nibbles on the edges?’ Andrew asked.
‘Yes, just nibbles. What did you think it was?’ Shafi realised that, smart as they may be, they still remained naïve, cocooned in the English sense of fair play and decency.
‘It seemed to be more than nibbles. They’ve been taking some mighty big chunks of the country, killed a lot of people,’ Andrew said.
‘What do people matter? Life is cheap where they come from, where I come from. They’d kill a million and lose no sleep. You need to desensitise, look at it from their point of view. And one other thing,’ he added. ‘Is it happening elsewhere?’
‘Most of Europe, but it’s worse in England,’ Frederick admitted.
‘That’s because they’re scared,’ Shafi said.
‘Scared? What do you mean?’ Frederick asked.
‘You’re so smart and still you don’t get it. You need to get out of your stuffy office and breathe the air. They know that England is the one country in Europe that can defeat them.’
‘Why would they think that?’ Andrew asked.
‘England’s an island. It can control the borders, remove the troublemakers and push back. No other country can. It’s either England that fixes it, or we’re all going Muslim. At least you are, I’m already there. But as I’ve told you, I hate them as much as you.’
At that point, the meeting was brought to a close.
‘One other thing before you walk out past those bars and into the fresh air,’ Shafi added as Frederick Vane and Andrew Martin prepared to leave the interview room.
‘What’s that?’ Andrew said.
‘Tell that black man to get me out of here.’
***
The National Security Council of the United Kingdom was supposed to be a dignified meeting of the senior members of Government. The Prime Minister had thought it an opportunity to shore up his leadership, show the party that he was the man to lead.
‘Prime Minister, what are you doing about the current situation?’
‘You’re the Secretary of State for Defence, you tell me,’ Clifford Bell responded. It was not an auspicious start to the meeting.
‘Mr Prime Minister, with all due respect,’ began Oliver Llewellyn. The son of a train driver from Hull, he was a political animal who had clawed his way up through the party by stealth and cunning and an innate ability to be in the right place at the right time. He was the Prime Minister’s firmest supporter in the party, but if there was a leadership spill he intended to put his name forward. ‘We cannot defend what we cannot see. These guys don’t wear a uniform or fly around in planes. We have a military, but it’s useless at this point in time.’
‘I realise that, but until we know who these people are we’re powerless,’ the Prime Minister replied.
‘We need strong leadership here and you’re just not giving it to us.’ Oliver Llewellyn acted in a manner that was out of character. It was the first time that he had openly defied the Prime Minister. It was not to be the last.
‘That is a gross abuse of privilege and goes against the finest traditions of this party,’ the Prime Minister replied.
‘I agree, but if something is not done soon,’ Llewellyn continued, ‘they’ll be no party and no government. This country is being held hostage by a bunch of rabid fundamentalists.’
‘This is England. We’ll never give in, never surrender!’ the Prime Minister shouted.
‘You’re not Winston Churchill, so stop pretending that you are.’ Oliver Llewellyn continued to lambast his leader.
‘I am English and I will never give in.’ The Prime Minister, agitated, lost his cool.
‘Then, if you’re English, do something,’ Llewellyn said, receiving the nodding acknowledgement of those seated in the room.
‘Chancellor, give us a breakdown on the economy.’ The Prime Minister attempted to redirect the conversation away from a subject for which he had no answer.
‘It’s clear that the economy has suffered a blow,’ replied Karen Fullerton. Previously the head of finance for a major banking house in London, she had grabbed a safe seat for herself before the bank collapsed in a quagmire of insider trading. She was as sharp as a tack. Twenty-four months as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and within six months of gaining the prestigious ministerial position, she had overseen the transition to a strong pound, a buoyant economy and the introduction of historically low personal taxation rates. The situation was dramatically different now and she was unable to defend it. ‘The economy is in decline. We are all aware of this fact.’
‘We know that.’ The Prime Minister needed some good news.
‘As I was saying,’ continued Karen Fullerton, ‘the economy is in decline. We’re projecting that the drop in productivity, currently standing at eighteen percent off the highs of six months ago, will accelerate up to thirty-two percent by the end of the year.’
‘Eight months’ time? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘That is correct.’
‘What can we do to stop this occurring?’
‘We need to strengthen the pound, get everyone back to work.’
‘And how do you suggest we do that?’ the PM asked.
‘Stop people being killed every time they walk out the door.’ Sarah Fullerton, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and another previous firm supporter of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was equally as direct as Oliver Llewellyn, the Secretary of State for Defence.
‘And if we can’t?’ the PM asked.
‘It’s either go broke in two years or we introduce severe austerity measures in the next few months,’ the Chancellor stated.
‘What kind of measures?’
‘Cancel the unemployment benefit, start closing schools, reduced staff at hospitals.’
‘Are you stating that we’re becoming a third-world nation?’
‘Prime Minister, that’s precisely what I’m stating, unless you have a better solution.’
‘What about the police and the military?’ the Prime Minister asked. ‘Have you made contingency for them?’
‘I’ve left them alone at the present moment. Two years more and we’ll have to start drastically reducing numbers.’
‘Don’t we need more to counteract the current insurgency?’ the Prime Minister said.
‘If you want more, you’ll have to start introducing austerity measures now.’
‘What sort of timescale?’
‘Prime Minister, we’ve got no more than a month, maybe two.’
‘We need to fight! That’s what we need to do,’ Anne Argento shouted from the back of the room.
‘You’re here as the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to talk about how to feed the population, not to intervene in discussions between the senior members of the Government,’ the PM reprimanded her. ‘It is only at my special invite that you are here at all.’ He had reluctantly been forced to include several junior ministers due to the situation. He had not wanted Anne Argento, but his senior adviser, Rohan Jones, had made it clear.
‘If you don’t invite her,’ he had said, ‘it will be all over the front pages of the newspapers that you snubbed her because she represents the most serious threat to your leadership.’
The Prime Minister could see that his senior adviser had been wrong in his advice. A few bad
headlines were better than being shouted out by her in his cabinet room, in his building.
‘I’m here also as a concerned voter,’ she continued. ‘If the man and the woman on the street cannot express their concerns in this room, then it’s for me to represent them.’ She did not intend to be silenced.
‘I am asking you to leave,’ he said.
‘You’ll need to use the policemen at the door if you want to stop me talking.’
‘You cannot threaten me in this way,’ he said.
‘I am not threatening, purely stating the facts. This country is at war and it’s time we recognised that fact and declared it in parliament.’
‘And what about the millions of moderate Muslims living in this country? Are we to declare war on them as well?’ The Prime Minister regretted entering into the debate with Anne Argento. It was a debate he knew he could not win.
‘They have to make a decision,’ she replied. ‘They’re either with us or they’re not.’
‘I declare this meeting closed, abandoned.’ The Prime Minister exited the room. Those remaining looked at Anne Argento with a mixture of contempt and admiration.
Chapter 13
Commander Richard Goddard had been the head of Counter Terrorism Command for eight years. At the time, it had been seen as a good career move. Terrorism was moderate, the hours not excessive, and the ability to keep his superiors satisfied, not difficult. Now, with the pressure on to give answers, find solutions, stop the bombings, he was not so sure. Isaac Cook was his best man, and Ed Pickles was following up a good second, but neither of them was achieving great results. In fact, the reality was that they had given him nothing but ‘wait and see’, ‘we’re following up on leads’. He even had to sign expenses for two prostitutes. If the auditors came in, he knew he’d be hauled over the coals.
‘It’s a reward,’ DCI Isaac Cook had said.
‘Paying for hookers? That’s a reward,’ he’d shouted when presented with the receipt for Bruno’s hairdressing saloon.
‘It is if you’ve been locked up in Belmarsh for a few years.’
‘What’s this guy done, or going to do, that justifies me paying for a four hundred pound haircut?’ Commander Goddard asked.
‘Just tell them it’s a perm and colour if they ask,’ DI Ed Pickles offered a solution.
‘They may be office-bound bean counters, but they’re not stupid. They’ll know what it is, and that it’s against regulations.’
‘I thought the rules didn’t apply to us?’ Isaac Cook said.
‘We can bend them, but prostitutes?’ Commander Goddard said. ‘Next, you’ll tell me this guy is in for murder.’
‘That’s what I was going to tell you.’
‘Hell, he could have killed one of the women.’
‘He’s not that kind of murderer,’ Isaac Cook said.
‘Are there different types of murderers?’ shouted Commander Goddard. ‘Gentle, easy-going, extremely violent?’
‘He’s somewhere in the middle.’
‘So, he’s a reasonably pleasant murderer?’
‘That’s about it, Sir.’
‘Anything else I should know about him while I’m signing your expenses?’ Commander Goddard asked.
‘I could infer that he garrotted Wali Hasan in the detention cell.’
‘I never heard that,’ the Commander replied. ‘I only hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘We’ll get there eventually,’ Isaac said, holding his signed expenses.
The Commander walked out of the room smiling. He had neither been shocked nor angry, but explaining that to the stuffed shirts upstairs was another battle, a battle for another day, hopefully another year, but they’d be in at some stage. The Prime Minister and the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police had both made it clear: no interference, no accountability and no limitation on budgets and resources as long as there were results.
‘Ed, what have we ascertained from the Islamic State’s website?’ Isaac Cook asked when the Commander had left.
‘There’s just so much nonsense on their blog,’ Ed Pickles replied. ‘My old grandmother, a stickler for good spelling and grammar, would be turning over in her grave.’
‘Blowing yourself up does not require a good command of English.’
‘You’re right, but even when they write in Arabic, Pashto, Urdu, it’s no better.’
‘How do you follow those languages?’
‘I’ve taken on a few helpers to help me wade through the thousands of comments.’
‘Have they been checked out by security?’ Isaac asked.
‘Yes, but we can never know if they’re with us one hundred percent.’
‘It’s possible that we may have been infiltrated?’
‘It’s always possible.’
‘What’s MI5 doing?’ Isaac asked.
‘They’re following their own lines of enquiry, but they appear to be more confused than us. They’ve become overly bureaucratised, spying by committee. They’re unlikely to come up with a solution.’
‘How do you know so much about them?’
‘I’ve been around a long time, built up contacts,’ said Ed. ‘We’ve helped each other out on occasions.’
‘If we’re the best, God help the country.’ Isaac could only express his frustration.
‘We’ll get there,’ Ed said.
‘That’s what I just told Goddard, but do you believe it?’
‘Of course I do. It’s purely police work. We just keep doing the hours, plodding the footpath, keep diving in where we’re not welcome.’ Ed Pickles knew policing, the old style of policing. To him, a result was guaranteed, no matter how long it took and how many people were seriously inconvenienced in the process.
‘The blog, what do you reckon our chances of anything tangible?’ Isaac asked.
‘I suggest we focus our efforts elsewhere.’
‘That’s what I think. Leave your team in place, they may come up with something, but you and I need to be out and about.’
‘You do not intend any more haircuts on the department’s expense account?’ Ed asked.
‘I’m not planning any. How about you, Ed? Do you need a haircut?’
‘I could do with a slight trim round the back, little off the sides,’ said Ed. ‘Ten pounds, two blocks down from my house. I can afford to pay. No point troubling the Commander, he’s got enough on his plate keeping the bureaucrats off our backs.’
***
It had been a good two weeks for Sub-Lieutenant Ray Styles on the day he passed out of Dartmouth Naval College. Sara had been there to watch, as had his parents, Len and Mavis. His sister, Monique, was up north with a new boyfriend.
In the months since the chance encounter, Sara and Ray had become inseparable. His parents loved her almost as much as Ray and she had become a regular visitor at their house. His parents had tried with separate bedrooms for the first visit, but after finding them in the one room and the one bed one morning, they gave up trying. From then on, it was one room and no more was said on the matter.
She even went on her own a few times when Ray had been studying all weekend or out on an exercise at sea. Her parents, Vikram and Vinodhini, were equally fond of Ray. They were Hindu, originally from Kerala in the South of India.
He had graduated on the Friday. On the Saturday, he was standing in front of the altar at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel waiting for his bride, traditionally late. She claimed it was the traffic, but he knew it had been planned. His boots shone, his uniform complete with the distinctive insignia of one gold band with a curl at the cuff of each sleeve. Sara looked beautiful in a sari of the finest material, predominantly white, and her hands ornately tattooed with traditional henna designs.
Gary Burton, a classmate, sub-lieutenant as well, was the best man. In typical fashion he fumbled the speech, congratulating the new couple, and had mentioned Ray and Stephanie, before quickly correcting himself.
‘Who’s Stephanie?’ Sara teased he
r new husband that night as they lay in bed gazing at the stars and each other.
‘That’s Gary, always making a fool of himself. He was the same in class, getting the facts incorrect.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Sara, ‘but I know there’s something or someone you’re not telling me about. Anyway, I’m here, the new Mrs Styles, and no one is taking you from me.’
‘That’s how it will always be.’ He didn’t want to tell her, never intended to tell her, but the day she had fallen in the water, he had not been off to see his parents. He had been off to see Stephanie, a hot-blooded blonde-haired local who worked in a doctor’s surgery down the road from the marina. She dumped him the next day when he failed to turn up.
‘Gary didn’t look such a fool around your sister,’ she said.
‘They find his bumbling somehow attractive. Besides, Monique’s broke up with her boyfriend. She was looking for a shoulder to cry on.’
‘She was looking for more than that.’
‘Yes, she’s a bit easy. Gary’s in for a wild night. One day she’ll grow out of it.’
‘Like me, I was a bit easy that first day.’
‘Yes, you were game. Never knew what hit me.’
She hit him over the head with a pillow. ‘Come here, I’m going to deal with you for inferring that I was a trollop.’
‘Trollop? Where did you get that word from?’ Ray asked.
‘My dad always used it when he saw a young woman prancing down the road in a short skirt and a tight top.’
‘What would he have thought of you, if he’d known we’d spent out first night together after only knowing each other for three hours?’ Ray teased her.
‘He’d have disowned me.’
‘Come here, you little trollop. Show me what you’re capable of.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Sub Lieutenant Styles.’
‘And mine too, Mrs Styles.’
***
Faisal Aslam was troubled. The campaign progressed well, but the collapse of the government and the economy was too slow. He was also acutely aware that, sooner or later, he would be discovered as the mastermind behind the scenes. His only protection was in accelerating the decay in the country. It had to be achieved in one year or else the impetus would be lost. A bombing campaign was ideal, but there were only so many jihadists and the calibre of those was becoming progressively worse.
Terrorist: Three Book Boxed Set Page 48