11:59

by David Williams

  “Like a coffee, Amina?”

  “No thank you.”

  Suit yourself. I move to the talkback button – I’ll get Sam to send one of the coppers out to make it, give them something to do – but I have to wait; she’s chatting to another caller. As I watch she straightens up and raises one hand in the air as though she’s asking to leave the room. Every pair of eyes behind the glass turns to her, then switches to me as she brings her hand down on to the desk and leans into her talkback mike.

  “Hassan on line 1. Cell phone – I think he’s on the move.”

  She points at Peter, the agreed signal when she’s closed her voice channel, so he can safely speak. He’s immediately on his line, face taut, giving instructions to the teams on the streets. They’ll move in on Scrivener’s Row now, towards Sam’s cell phone location, leaving the technical guys to try to get a fix on Hassan. Now it’s me, dexterity called for. While I’m opening the channel to line 1 I deliberately cut the last commercial short as I switch the station to the dummy output – that will help make sense of the pratfall intro...

  ‘Oops, what happened there?’ my recorded voice is saying. ‘Came off in me hand, mister. Never mind, let’s see who’s waiting on....’ Switch monitor and, while the region listens to the one we made earlier, I can hear myself live on the closed circuit, saying, “Line 1, we have Hassan. Good evening, Hassan, how’s tricks?” Out of the corner of my eye I can see Amina, startled, come to attention on the edge of her seat.

  “You know me, I think.” Same steady voice.

  “Sorry Hassan, interference, can’t hear a thing. If you’ve a radio there could you switch it off, please?” Not getting howl-round in reality, so we’re probably safe, but no harm in belt and braces. We don’t want him cottoning on.

  I’ve managed to confuse Hassan, throw him off his stride a bit. He comes back almost apologetic. “No radio, no. Can you hear me now? I’m travelling. Is that better?”

  “Driving, pal? Can’t talk to you while you’re driving – you’ll have to stop.”

  He chuckles, a little embarrassed, having to deal with this jobsworth. Elements of farce, not what he expected on his mission of death. “Don’t worry, my friend is driving.”

  “Still dangerous, though. It’s a distraction. You’ll need to pull over, or we can’t carry on. Seriously.” This is a high risk strategy. I hadn’t planned this, just riding my luck.

  “Slow down,” he says to somebody. My eyes seek out Liam’s and I give him the thumbs through the glass. Two Asian men (I assume the driver is a man) in a vehicle. Moving slowly, passenger on the phone. Something to go on. “We’re fine now, Marc,” Hassan assures. I consider pushing it further, but it’s not in our interests to lose him now.

  “OK, Hassan. What’s your point tonight?”

  “Don’t you know me, Marc?” he says, recovering some composure. “I caused you trouble before.”

  “You’re not a swearer, are you, mate?” Playing daft laddie. “I don’t want to have to dump you now.”

  “Not swearing, no. You remember Valentine’s Day? Some of your listeners thought I was dead.”

  Amina’s fingers are steepled at her lips, concentrating, looking past me. I let Hassan know I’ve caught on. “Right, that Hassan. You caused quite a stir there. What was that all about?”

  “I’m going to die, Marc. I want to tell you that. I need your help.”

  OK. He’s playing suicide caller, like the man on the bridge, so I’ll keep him talking, give him a platform. Suits us, pal, just don’t push any fucking buttons. “I’m here for you, Hassan, I’m with you. We all are, all the listeners.”

  There’s a pause. I can hear road noise in the background, no obvious traffic. Hassan speaks again. “It’s an evil world, Marc.”

  “It’s not perfect, of course not. But there are so many good people, we have to remember that, don’t we, hold on to that. You’re a good person, aren’t you, Hassan?”

  I look across at Amina as I wait for his answer, intending to encourage her with a smile, but her eyes are closed, palms still together, fingers poised. She could be praying.

  “I live simply, Marc,” Hassan replies, “By the word of Allah, and by the grace of Allah. I try to live without greed. Hasbi Allah. Greed is our enemy, Marc. Greed and corruption, and sin.”

  There’s a stationery pot at the far end of the shelf that curves round with the contour of Amina’s desk. Maybe it always sits there - I’ve never noticed it before. Maybe Simon or Marni brought it in for some reason while they were occupying my space. What has caught my eye is the red handle of a large pair of office scissors sticking out from the pot.

  “To live simply is to live without greed, Marc. But this part of the world has not learnt that lesson. Greed is good in the west.”

  I look through the glass at the team. Most are listening intently to Hassan, eyes shaded. One is staring at a computer screen. Liam is talking on his mobile. If Amina chose to lunge at me across the desk with those scissors... but why would she do that?

  Hassan is warming to his subject. “Who stokes the fires of greed, Marc? Big business, the firms that buy ads on your station and on TV to paint fools’ paradises for the gullible. And big governments, who feast on greed, and get drunk on power. These are the forces of international evil, chief among these the Americans and the British.”

  “But are you not British yourself, Hassan?”

  Amina’s attack on me would be her statement, her act of accord with her husband, her personal bid for salvation through violence. Or maybe she’s there in case I’m too successful in talking down Hassan. Maybe she’s the reserve force. The second wave. For Hassan? For Ahmed? An image of my blood-soaked body, slumped across the console, leaps across synapses.

  “I am a Muslim,” says Hassan. “At one with my people, who are being wiped out for the offence of being Muslims.” The VU meter in front of me bobs with the rise and fall of his voice as he becomes more animated. Next to it another meter tracks the levels of the dummy programme, innocently transmitting. I take Hassan’s voice down a touch, then move my left hand to the channel offering monitor audio for the pre-recorded programme, should I need it. I slide the monitor volume to maximum. If Amina makes a move my plan is to switch her headphones to that feed – she’ll be tazered by sound.

  “Hassan, I know there is prejudice, and there’s no excuse for it, but surely most...”

  Hassan cuts in. “This is not merely about prejudice. I am not speaking only about the humiliation that is our daily experience. I am speaking about real blood spilt, lives lost in their thousands by my brothers and sisters internationally. I’m speaking about the crimes committed by the forces of evil in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya...”

  A message flashes up on my screen through Hassan’s tirade. Sam returns a tense smile as I glance at her momentarily before reading it. Baby’s cot found with phone in lining. Store-room. No Tarik. No people. And no booby-trap. Through the glass Sam has her head turned towards Peter, taking some instruction. She nods and leans forward to speak to me on talkback, over-riding Hassan for my ears only. “We can use Amina,” is what she says. She releases the button and I tune back in to Hassan’s speech.

  “...Women raped and violated by the kuffar oppression. Families torn apart. Entire states of the Muslim faithful kept poor and desperate by the terrorism of the west. Our people do not own aeroplanes and tanks, but we have one glorious combat technique, our heroic stratagem for fighting enemy occupation and tyranny. Do you know what I am talking about, Marc Niven?”

  “I’m listening, Hassan.” Damp sweat is collecting under my headphone band. Amina has her eyes fixed on me now. At the very moment Peter has chosen to trust her, my faith is slipping. I’m afraid to let her speak. Sam has turned once again to Peter. Look at me, Sam. I need to see what you’re thinking.

  “Human bombs, do you hear?”

  “We hear you, Hassan.”

  “I am a blazing torch for Allah. Yes.” Someone in the backgroun
d, male, says something – a prayer. Hassan repeats it. “La Wajhillah.”

  Sam seems about to open the talkback channel again, changes her mind, taps at her keyboard instead. I come in at the beat after Hassan’s invocation. “This isn’t a war zone, Hassan. Lots of people in this country want out of Afghanistan, Iraq, you know that.” Sam’s message is on the screen. East of city. Keep going. “There’s sympathy here for your cause, but not the means. I’ve heard that many times sitting in this chair, from non-Muslims and Muslims...”

  “To be Muslim is to challenge the enemy of Islam,” says Hassan. “That is our obligation. That is our finest act of worship.”

  Amina is still focused intently on me. I raise my eyebrows, enquiring, and she nods. I push the guest mike a little closer to her and get ready to open her line, more nervous than before, fearful of an endgame I can’t control.

  “Hassan.” I have to clear my throat and try again. “Hassan, I have someone here with me. Please listen to what she has to say.” Hassan seems to make some reply I can’t catch, then I realise he’s speaking away from the phone, probably to the driver. “Please listen, Hassan,” I say again, and nod at Amina as I bring up her mike.

  “Hassan, it’s me,” she says, simply, and waits. I can hear some traffic noise behind the silence, a heavy gear shift, then the other man’s voice, more clearly than before, speaking sharply to Hassan, ‘No more time - who is it?’

  “Amina? What’s going on?” says Hassan down the line at last. Amina withdraws a hand from the desk to rest where her heart must be beating. Behind her, through the glass, I can see Peter standing next to Sam’s chair, both arms ramrod tense at his sides.

  “You can’t do this, Hassan. The imam is wrong. Ahmed Aziz is wrong. Listen to me, Hassan. You cannot kill innocent people.”

  “Amina, you know. I have told you. Jihad is my obligation. It is Fardh-e-Ain for me and every man.”

  “Your obligation is to your family, Hassan. To me and especially to your son. Did you not tell me you loved me, the night you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Tarik?”

  “Yes. The glory is his also.” There is a long pause before Hassan speaks again. “Allah demands my love, Amina. You must know that. My love and my duty are owing to him.”

  Amina’s eyes are stone. “You owe him nothing,” she says. “Your prayers, if you must.”

  “The imam told me that one day of jihad is better than eighty days of praying.”

  “I say the imam is a liar. Much more than a liar. Bin Ali is an evil man. He imprisoned me. Hassan...” She hesitates, presses her fingers to her temples and moves so near to the mike she almost pushes it aside. “Hassan...” Close, confessional. She shuts her eyes. “He raped me.”

  Behind the glass is a tableau of shocked faces. I’m paralysed in my seat, unable even to breathe. Amina is expended, limp. The only sense of motion comes from the road noise at the other end of the line as Hassan’s vehicle accelerates through the darkness. Hassan himself makes no sound. Twenty, thirty seconds passes before anything happens. Amina lifts her head painfully, eyes shadowed, and speaks into the microphone. “He has Tarik.” Still nothing from Hassan. Amina waits, then tries again, enunciating every word. “The imam has stolen our son.”

  Hassan’s voice is like the moan of an injured animal. “No,” he says. “Tarik is here with me.”

  I watch, dumbstruck, as the fever surges, licks fatigue from Amina’s face and ignites the terror in her eyes. The VU meter leaps to red as she screams “Hassan, please, no!” into the microphone. Sam lifts from her seat and I can see her striking her desk with her fist. Peter is animated, and Liam springs towards the glass, helplessly ready for action. Hassan reacts to his wife’s cry. He shouts, “Stop!” then again, “Stop! We’ll lose the signal.”

  Lose the signal. Lose the signal. East of the city. First plan aborted. The royal opening, two weeks ago. They’re trying for the same target. Close enough to lose the signal. I wipe out both mikes and jab at the talkback switch, frantically yelling, “The tunnel! They’re heading for the tunnel!”

  There’s movement next door. Amina is wailing into her dead microphone. The sound of a furious row in my cans. A child cries, shaken out of sleep. A horn blares in the distance. A thud. The line goes down.

  XVII

  I can hear the music playing from downstairs. If I concentrated I’d probably be able to work out exactly what it is, but Chrissie’s collection doesn’t interest me enough to bother, so I just lie there, vaguely following the bass line as it pulses through the floorboards. Besides, I have all sorts of stuff in my head already. Like remembering that tonight will be the first time we’ve slept in this bed since New Year, and thinking, really, that was the start of it all, rather than Valentine’s Day. Well, that’s seeing it from my usual egocentric point of view. It started months earlier for Hassan and Amina. And Edona? How long it is since she left her home I’m not absolutely sure – I wonder whether she knows herself.

  When I was a kid, getting into one kind of scrape or another, my dad always used to warn me that actions have consequences. If it wasn’t for my fling with Anji, Sam wouldn’t have left me, and I wouldn’t have ended up in Tesco’s car park at three o’ clock in the morning on my way back from my unsuccessful hit on Marni. Consequently I wouldn’t have seen Edona trying to run away and would never have become involved in her predicament. In fact, the incident with Anji subtly influenced my behaviour towards Edona, though I didn’t recognise it at the time. Where might Edona be now, but for the original action?

  Where was the original action that locked me into the destiny of Hassan and Amina? Not, come to think of it, from taking the call on Valentine’s Day, but before that – accepting the job of hosting the awards evening where Sam and I met the two of them for the first time. The consequences of that action were the events of February 14th and the exchange of cell phone between Sam and Amina, which ultimately saved her.

  Which ultimately saved a disaster. How else could Hassan, in thrall as he was to Ahmed Aziz and Zaid bin Ali, have been prevented from carrying out his act of destruction in the tunnel? The truck itself seemed innocent enough, and could easily have passed an inspection since it contained no explosive material at all – it was simply packed with flour and butter. Add a full tank of petrol and a spare can to set the blaze off, and all the ingredients were there for a massive tunnel fire. The plotters could be sure of it; they were replicating the 1999 accident at Mont Blanc. Forty lives were lost then. The fire took nearly three days to put out, and kept the tunnel out of action for the best part of three years with two hundred million Euros’ worth of damage. A deliberately engineered British version would have left quite a monument for our little local cell. Of course there would have been no chance of survival for Hassan or Imran Khalid, the driver, or little Tarik – all three would have been burnt or asphyxiated long before they were able to escape the tunnel. For the glory of Allah. Instead, by the grace of whoever, they all got away with a bruise or two from the collision at the entrance.

  Actions lead to consequences. Would Amina’s pleas, on their own, have been enough to break Hassan’s resolve, trigger his fight for the wheel? He had ignored them before. Was it the revelation of the rape that lifted the spell bin Ali had over him? I doubt the trial will throw any light in that direction – I gather on the QT from Liam that Amina has refused point blank to add rape to the charges the imam is facing. The code of dishonour is as strong in Pakistani culture as it is in Albania, it seems. Still, there’s enough on bin Ali to keep him in prison a long time. Ahmed as well - the evidence from his store-room means he’ll be charged with abduction and dissemination as well as conspiracy. My view is they both deserve a longer sentence than Hassan, whatever that turns out to be.

  The music seems suddenly louder, but only because someone’s opened the bedroom door. Sam, in her sleek crimson dress, slips through, closing the door behind her before she comes to sit on the bed next to where I’m lying.


  “I wondered where you’d disappeared to. Got a headache?”

  “No, no. Just chilling. Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything. Everybody.”

  Sam glances a tad ironically at the near-empty glass on the bedside table. “I see you’ve started on the malt. That always makes you... whatsit.”

  “Introspective. See, I can say it, so I’ve not had that much.”

  “Budge up.” Sam eases out of her heels and slithers across the duvet to lie with me, smoothing down the satin of her dress before she snuggles in. She kisses me lightly under the chin, nibbles at my ear, and whispers, “Who you thinking about now?”

  “Amina.”

  Sam digs me playfully under the ribs. I catch her hand and bring it up to kiss, then lay it on my breast while I stroke the back of her arm. “No, I don’t mean like that. I was thinking about her though, just then. Being without Hassan. Wondering what she’s going to do.”

  “Leave the area, I should imagine. If I was her I’d want to get well away from here. Change my name. There might be people after her, you know, for what she did.”

  “What about Hassan? Will she stick with him, d’you think, after all this? Wait for him?”

  I can feel Sam’s warm breath on my neck as she contemplates. “I don’t really know,” she says at last. “I would have said yes, but... look what he was prepared to do to their own little boy. And the fact that he had Tarik with him means he must have known what was happening with Amina, and he let that go. Until she told him about the rape. Supposing there was a rape...”