by Conrad Jones
“Roger that.” Griffin replied. He was disappointed, but they hadn’t even had a positive sighting. Better to regroup, and then redeploy a fully equipped response team. It was an odd thing to notice, but he studied a pool of vomit close to the delivery bay, it looked fresh.
Chapter Twenty Two
Nasik/ St. John’s Precinct
Nasik slammed the reinforced fire door closed. He leaned against it and caught his breath. A passive motion sensor reacted to his presence and activated the lights in the narrow stairwell that led down to the subterranean delivery area, which was situated beneath the St. John ’s shopping mall. The stairway stunk of rotten vegetables and garbage. The stink made Nasik wretch again, but this time his stomach was empty of food. He tasted thick bile at the back of his throat, and his stomach constricted again, making it difficult to breathe. Panic set in for a brief moment as he felt like he was choking. Then his jaw reflexively opened to snapping point and his eyes filled with tears, but still nothing came up. He remained still for a short while gasping for air, and his heartbeat slowed down, allowing him to regain his composure.
There were eight steps down to the next landing then they turned back on themselves plunging out of view. He grabbed the handle of the big plastic tough box and picked it up off its wheels, to carry it down the stairs. He turned the corner at the bottom of the first flight and headed down the next set without pausing on the landing. The second landing was wet, there were empty crisp bags, and chip wrappers piled in the corners. The stench of rotting vegetables grew stronger the further he descended. Nasik paused for a few minutes. He was out of breath again. He wiped cold perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his stolen suit, and noticed several strands of hair came away from his scalp. The sight of the tufts of hair spurred him on and he grabbed the toolbox and headed down the steps into the dank cellar area.
At the bottom of the steps was a fire door, which had been wedged open with a red fire extinguisher. Nasik stepped through the doors, relieved to be able to wheel the box again, as it was becoming heavier the further he carried it. He opened the top lid of the tough box, removed a piece of paper, closed the lid again, and then sat on it. Nasik studied the paper and then turned it the opposite way round, so that it related to where he was. It was a photocopy of a hand drawn plan of the basement warehouses, and the maze of access roads that serviced them. He reached into the suit pocket and discovered a half eaten chocolate bar that must have been left by its real owner. Nasik peeled the wrapping from it and bit into it greedily.
The sugar gave him an instant energy rush, which he welcomed. It reminded him of the years he had spent in the West Bank and the Lebanon fighting door-to-door gun battles against Israeli soldiers, eating whatever he could whenever he could, because he never knew when the next meal was coming. He was sat on a wide concrete loading bay that stretched a thousand yards in each direction. The edge of the bay was painted with a thick white line to discourage employees falling off the loading dock onto the service road. The service road was wide enough for two trucks to pass each other on opposite sides of the road. Every hundred yards or so, there was a metal roller shutter which secured the warehouse space behind it. The wide loading bays were built to be the same height as the back of a heavy goods lorry, so that forklift trucks could remove the stock pallets and drive them straight into the relevant storage space. The service road was littered with wastepaper and discarded rotten fruit and vegetables, which had fallen during unloading and had never been picked up. Rainwater from the thunderstorm above had made its way down the access ramps and was pooling in the basement.
Nasik stood up and picked up the handle of his toolbox. He wheeled it right toward roller shutter number thirteen, unlucky for some. He approached the metal roller and located the padlock, which held it in place. The key labelled ‘roller’ opened it at the first time of asking. The roller rattled open noisily. The interior of the storage area was inky black. Nasik couldn’t see a thing. He dragged the tough plastic box inside and closed the roller. It clanged into place. Nasik reached blindly for the top of the toolbox and put his hand into a small compartment. He removed a small penlight torch. He noticed a dull blue luminous glow coming from some powdery spots inside the compartment. Nasik touched the powder with his index finger and looked at it. The powder had turned to a blue smudge on the tip of his finger, but it still glowed. He wiped it on his trousers and was a little irked to see that it still glowed.
He switched on the small torch and shone the thin beam across the warehouse to the far wall. It took just seconds to locate a grey isolator box. He crossed the dark room avoiding discarded wooden pallets, and switched the isolator to the on position. A bank of strip lighting buzzed into life, revealing the interior of an unused storage unit. The walls were made from breezeblocks that had been left bare. At the rear of the unit was a metal concertina shaped door, which hid a small goods lift. It had a notice attached to the door declaring it unsafe, and out of commission. Nasik headed toward it, dragging the big plastic toolbox.
The final key in his bunch was labelled, ‘lift 2’. The door opened with a quick turn of the key. Nasik dragged the safety gate open and wheeled the toolbox inside the goods lift. He closed the safety gate, and then slammed the lift door, glad to be rid of the cumbersome plastic tough box. There were two buttons on the control panel, one was labelled ‘call’ and the other, ‘second floor’. He sent the lift up to the second floor of the precinct, where it would stay at the back of an empty shop unit, and high above the city carrying its deadly cargo.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Holyhead/ the Golan Heights
The Golan was a Syrian mineral tanker. It carried aggregates and minerals mined in the Middle East all over the industrial world. The mining of metal ore and minerals had become a multi-billion dollar business in recent years, due to the incredible surge in demand from India and China. Domestic deposits of metal ore, once deemed unprofitable to mine, were now turning into valuable commodities because of global demand. Holyhead was the site of a massive aluminium foundry, one of the biggest in Europe. The reason was simple. Holyhead has the second deepest harbour in Europe, only Rotterdam, Holland has a deeper port. This allows bigger ships with a larger tonnage on board to dock in the port safely. The economics of scale makes it cheaper to transport larger volumes of the ingredients required in the manufacturing process, than it would be if smaller vessels had to be used. Exporting the finished product is also more profitable because of the foundry’s coastal site, literally a mile from the harbour’s jetty.
Britain, like many Western countries is very reliant on imported goods. Food supplies, clothing, medicines and petroleum products, to mention just a few, are all imported. Policing the infinite number of foreign ships that enter our waters is a virtually impossible task. The Royal Navy and the Coastguard work three hundred and sixty five days a year, round the clock, trying to stop the smuggling of people, drugs and other contraband onto our shores. International ports like Holyhead keep detailed manifests of foreign traffic entering their harbours. Very few countries have permission for their sailors to disembark onto British soil, and for good reason. The opportunity to remain in the country illegally is a very attractive one to some.
The Golan had broken several major naval protocols during its short visit. It appeared that Middle Eastern extremists had either stowed away, or been given passage onboard. When challenged about the issue and asked to cooperate the Captain had refused to yield. The ship had been boarded by the Terrorist Task Force and local law enforcement agencies in a joint operation. The Captain and his crew had been rounded up and were being held on deck, in the pouring rain, and freezing wind. The crew were becoming more and more agitated as their clothing became saturated. Several of them had begun shouting at the Captain, obviously aware that he was responsible for their current uncomfortable position.
One altercation had to be physically halted by the intervention of two local policemen. The local uniformed policemen
were tasked with guarding the sailors, a task that they weren’t too enamoured with, especially as several crew members appeared to be ill. Two of them had vomited on deck and a couple were sitting down, weakened by whatever ailed them. The Captain was refusing to answer any questions at all, which meant that the combined taskforce had to search the tanker from bow to stern. The search was laborious and unpleasant. It did however supply some evidence to support the theory that there were a number of covert passengers stowed away in the bowels of the ship, amongst the ship’s cargo.
Two local Coastguard men were helping to search the ship, along with a customs officer. The customs men stationed at Holyhead were important members of Britain’s security forces. Holyhead was the primary route for transport and tourists, from Europe to Ireland. They had to be experts at spotting smugglers and detecting weapons and explosives. They had found makeshift living quarters deep in the hold. A single ring gas camping stove, and unwashed mess tins, along with thin mattresses, sleeping bags and blankets. The equipment had to be bagged up and taken away as evidence. It was as they were collecting all the items with the Task Force agents, for forensic examination that the customs officer’s handheld gadget beeped. Everyone stopped what they were doing as they were surprised by the unusual noise.
“What’s that for?” asked a coastguard curiously. He was wishing that they were issued with computerised gadgets that beeped or buzzed, it’d be exciting.
The custom’s man knocked the gadget gently with his torch and then placed it close to where it had made the noise. It beeped louder this time. A Task Force agent recognised the gadget as an explosives detector.
“Is it reading positive for explosives?”
“Worse than that, it’s reading positive for radioactive material.”
The Terrorist Task Force agent switched of the electric lights in the hold and it plunged into blackness. There were no portholes in the hull this deep in the ship, so it was completely black, except for an area of the steel deck about three yards square that had a luminous blue glow.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Abdul/ News
Abdul was a young boy when the Second World War ended, and the armies of the Third Reich had been defeated and driven out of the Middle East. Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Iran, all tried to take advantage of the situation by invading the new Jewish state of Israel in an attempt to acquire more land. They suffered a humiliating defeat. Israel, supplied by Western allies literally drove the Palestinians out of their own country. There were many accusations of terrible war crimes being committed by Israeli troops. Arab eyewitnesses recounted dozens of stories of massacres, wiping out whole villages of men, women and children. The news of alleged atrocities spread like wild fire through the Palestinian population, prompting them to leave their homes before Israeli soldiers arrived. The majority of those that fled their homes were never allowed to return. They became refugees.
The future brought more bitter failures in further wars with Israel in, 1948, 1956 and 1967. The war of 1956 angered young Egyptians because Israel was joined by British and French forces, in an alliance to win control of the Suez Canal. It was seen as modern day crusader alliance. The Israeli armed forces became the superpower of the Middle East, but they were hated and despised by their Arab neighbours. Western governments provided them with the ingredients and scientific knowhow to develop nuclear missiles, much to the detriment of their more extreme neighbours, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Abdul financed several extremists groups to carry out a variety of missions against Israel and the West, including the current mission to assassinate senior agents in the UK`s security services.
The Egyptian president Mubarak faced a growing number of Islamic extremist groups from within his own borders, such as those sponsored by Abdul. The indigenous Bedouin tribes that once roamed the Sinai Peninsula freely felt that tourism had robbed them of their traditional grazing and fishing grounds. As a result, Egypt and especially the Sinai has been the site of several recent terrorist attacks, targeted at Israeli, Western and Egyptian tourists. Abdul desperately wanted to return his nation to Islamic rule; his priority was the destruction of the state of Israel.
Abdul’s millions were also being used to monitor the movements of Western prisoners from eastern European countries that participated in extraordinary rendition. He had rogue radar operators in half a dozen countries tracking the movement of aircraft from designated prison facilities. There had been a few false alarms raised, but nothing concrete had ever come to fruition. The chances were that Yasser Ahmed had been tortured and then executed, but Abdul wouldn’t give up on his project to find him. His persistence and faith in Allah was about to pay dividends.
Chapter Twenty-Five
MI5
Donna Bangor-Jones stood at her bedroom window in her fluffy dressing gown, watching as her husband Donald climbed into a black Jaguar. The back door closed and the Jaguar’s wheels span in the gravel as it found purchase and sped away down their long driveway. It was supposed to be his week off work but he’d been called in again. She would have to break the news to her children that their father would not be going into London with them today. They had promised to take them into the city for a trip to the London Eye, a giant Ferris wheel on the banks of the River Thames, and then on for a family meal somewhere. It wasn’t the first time they had been let down and it wouldn’t be the last, either.
They lived in a huge five-bedroom mansion on the outskirts of Brighton, which is situated on the south coast of England. The town was popular with highly paid executives, because of its proximity to the country’s capital city, London. Her husband’s wages supported an extravagant lifestyle, and they wanted for nothing. Donna Bangor-Jones didn’t even know what her credit card limit was she was so well off. She holidayed with the kids three times a year, skiing in the Rockies every March, a week in the Swiss villa every June and a beach holiday in August. Donald never joined them as he was always too busy at work. Although she lived a very privileged life, she was incredibly unhappy. Her life was regimented and organised to run like clockwork. Donald had spent twenty-two years in the army, and he liked things to be just so.
He awoke every morning at six o’clock, drank orange juice and tea with his breakfast of two boiled eggs on sliced toast. He ate in complete silence, which no one dared to breach. Then he read the Times newspaper from cover to cover, before he spoke a word to his family. He expected his shirts to be washed, starched and ironed daily. His bedding needed to be changed every day, and he required sex in the missionary position every Sunday morning, except when it clashed with his wife’s menstrual cycle; in which case oral sex would suffice. Donna had plotted and planned for hours on end, often colluding with her sisters to avoid being at home on a Sunday morning. The ordeal of closing her eyes and thinking of England, while her husband puffed and panted his way to an orgasm had become unbearable.
She had a brief affair once with a horny young builder who had carried out some work on their house. It was partly to break the pampered monotony of her life, and partly to see if she could enjoy sex with someone else. She certainly didn’t enjoy it with her husband. Donna was a very attractive woman despite her age, and the young builder thought all his birthdays had come at once when he turned up at the house to collect his check. Donna had given her cleaner the morning off, and opened the door in a lacy camisole, which she had bought especially for the occasion. The young builder’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he couldn’t stop staring at her firm tanned thighs. Donna enjoyed the look of uncertainty in his eyes. He wasn’t sure if she was just teasing him or not. After a while, she realised that he was too unsure of her to make a move, so she’d let her camisole fall open, accidently on purpose. Exactly ten minutes later, she decided that sex was completely overrated. The young builder had nearly choked her by thrusting his penis too deep into her mouth. It was the first time she’d tried oral sex as foreplay and she certainly wouldn’t be trying it again. They had ended up on the dinin
g room floor, rolling round on a sheepskin rug. The floor was hard and uncomfortable and she’d scraped the skin off her elbows and knees. Despite the young stud’s enthusiasm, she was not impressed. Life returned to its rich, mundane, ordered existence. She put her energy into making her children happy, and shopping. Sunday mornings didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Donna Bangor-Jones turned away from the window and walked into the en-suite bathroom. The cream carpet was one hundred percent wool and felt reassuringly soft beneath her feet. She liked it so much they’d had it fitted all the way through the house. No one dared walk beyond the porch before removing their shoes.
“Mummy, where’s daddy going?” shouted her eldest daughter Catherine, who’d watched her father being chauffeured away. She was fourteen going on thirty, already aware that men were looking at her, incredibly fashion conscious, but still fond of her cuddly toys.
“He’s had to go to work girls, sorry.”
“Oh mummy, he promised to take us to the London Eye, he’s always at work, he’s just so bloody selfish,” said Elizabeth. Elizabeth or Libby, as she was called was twelve, incredibly fashion conscious, but still hated boys.