by Mark Dawson
‘Hurt?’
‘Scratches. Nothing. We were lucky.’
Pope looked around, trying to focus. There were dozens of bodies on the ground. Many of them had been torn apart. The bomb had been laced with shrapnel, and the metal debris would have lacerated the flesh of anyone who was within twenty yards. He took in the bloody devastation with as clinical an eye as he could: dismembered limbs, a torso impaled on the railings, the disembodied head of a man, his expression of open-mouthed surprise starting to set as the muscles stiffened.
There were moans and cries for help.
In the distance, there came the sound of sirens.
And then, closer to hand, a sound he recognised immediately.
Gunfire.
It was coming from his four o’clock. Pope spun.
The Palace.
Chapter Sixteen
The man they called Mohammed was waiting inside the empty warehouse. His name was not really Mohammed. He had been given many names, and it had been so long since he had been referred to by the one his mother had given him that he had almost forgotten it. His earliest years had been lived on the streets of the Gaza Strip. He had been wild and unruly then, and the Israeli soldiers had called him ‘Arabush’, or rat. When he arrived in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, aged just seventeen, the mujahideen had called him ‘Kid’. The jihadists in the Sudanese al-Qaeda cell had called him the ‘Engineer’, because his bombs and martyrdom vests were the most effective that they had ever seen. Now, his brothers in the caliphate called him ‘Iblis’. In Islam, Iblis is a jinn born from fire who refused to bow for Adam. The literal translation was ‘Devil’.
He had been given the name of Mohammed Shalmalak when he arrived in the United Kingdom. His false passport and driver’s licence bore that name, and it was the one he used as he set up a home for himself in the north of the country. It was the name he had used when speaking to the young suicide bombers that the imam, Alam Hussain, had provided. For a man who did not care for names, it was as good as any.
Weeks ago, Mohammed had been provided with the address of this warehouse and a key to open the padlocked front door. He had not questioned its provision, but he had been scrupulous in ensuring that it was vacant. The warehouse had seemed derelict and had obviously been empty for months. There were two offices and a bathroom on the first floor. All had borne the evidence of squatters. There was graffiti on the walls, the radiators had been removed for scrap and what little furniture had been left behind was broken and useless. It had been the same downstairs, too. The small kitchen had been filthy and the large warehouse space was a wreck, with clinker from an unswept chimney gathered in a dirty grate. The only piece of furniture had been a two-seater sofa, the fabric covering ripped so that the yellowed stuffing was poking out.
Mohammed had not concerned himself with the state of the property. It was empty, it could be secured and the windows had been covered by metal sheeting that meant that it was impossible to see inside. It had been the perfect spot to build his bombs.
He was wearing a pair of latex gloves and overshoes and a hairnet. He had dropped his bag on the sofa. He opened it, took out a silenced 9mm Berretta and placed it on the floor. He went back to the bag, took out an iPad, saw that he had a strong 4G signal and opened the BBC’s iPlayer app. He navigated to BBC Parliament.
Prime Minister’s Questions was held in the main chamber of the House of Commons every Wednesday at midday. It was an unruly bear pit, and tickets in the public gallery were sought after by foreign visitors, who found the occasion both fascinating and appalling. The baying, rude loutishness of it all was so different from proceedings in their own countries. Mohammed found it distasteful, although he admired the adroitness of the combatants. Not many political leaders could cope with quick-fire exchanges that required detailed knowledge of a Barnsley bypass one minute and the finer points of a UN resolution the next.
Attendance was strongly encouraged for MPs of all persuasions, and that usually meant that both the government and opposition benches were full. Most debates in the Commons were dry and dull affairs, with the green benches mostly empty, but Mohammed knew that this would be different. He had watched it on television, and of course he had secured one of those public gallery seats for himself when he conducted his reconnaissance. It was, to borrow a term that the Americans used, ‘target rich’. And security, although improved since the day when two protestors had lobbed condoms stuffed with purple flour at Tony Blair, was still unimpressive.
He was confident that they would be able to surmount it.
The ticker along the bottom of the screen announced an item of breaking news.
‘REPORTS OF EXPLOSION AT WESTMINSTER UNDERGROUND STATION’
A moment later, Mohammed saw a man in a traditional black suit with knee-length britches and a sword at his side approach the Speaker’s Chair and speak quietly into the occupant’s ear. The Speaker asked a question, received the answer and then gave a nod that he understood. He called for order.
‘Honourable Friends, I have just been informed that there has been an explosion at Westminster Underground station. I’m afraid I have no further details, but the police are requesting that we remain in the chamber until they can confirm that there is no threat to us.’
The camera jerked to the familiar view over the dispatch box, then to the prime minister and the front bench of the government. Another man in a dark suit was leaning over the seated prime minister. The politician rose and followed the man out of shot. Others followed: the leader of the opposition, the front bench.
Mohammed grimaced. They were being taken somewhere else. That was annoying, but it was not unexpected. He had assumed that standard procedure would be to remove the leaders to a panic room, and that appeared to be what was happening. No matter.
The camera pulled back to a wide shot. The parliamentarians were conferring anxiously, a hubbub of noise that provided a backdrop for the sombre tones of the presenter as she explained that sources were now confirming that the explosion had been caused by a bomb.
Mohammed was expecting what would come next, but when it happened, the payoff was better than he could possibly have imagined. The detonation of what he took to be the third bomb was only five hundred feet from the House of Commons. The blast, separated from the House only by the open space of New Palace Yard, was close enough to be audible as a loud detonation, easily picked up by the microphones in the chamber. There were six windows on the east and west sides of the House, each filled with rich stained glass. The pressure wave shattered the westward-facing windows, casting fragments of glass down onto the benches below. The presenter swore, and screams went up from the chamber.
The feed remained live for a moment, men and women standing and hurrying to the aisles, and then it cut to black. When the picture resumed, the feed had been switched to the BBC News Channel. The presenter looked flustered and panicked.
‘You join me now as we hear the breaking news that there has been a series of explosions near the Houses of Parliament. Police sources are reporting that an explosion at Westminster Underground station was most likely a bomb. We can only assume that what you are about to see, filmed from inside the House of Commons, is the moment a second bomb exploded . . .’
Chapter Seventeen
Ibrahim Yusof was in the back of the Sprinter. He knew the plan called for three separate blasts. The first was to detonate on the train, and he doubted that he would have heard it occurring one hundred feet below the surface. The muffled crack was the second, in the station. The third, just now, was outside. It was deafening.
It was also their signal to move.
He opened one of the bags of vegetables and took out the small Uzi submachine gun that was hidden inside. He took one of the magazines, pressed it into the pistol grip and switched the three-position selector behind the trigger group to automatic fire. The irony that this was a Jewish weapon was not lost on him. The open-bolt design meant that contamination was more likely than w
ith other weapons he could have chosen, but he had packed the gun carefully, and its compact design meant that it was worth the risk. He took two additional fifty-round magazines and stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket. He wore the machine gun on a bungee cord around his neck and hid it beneath his jacket. Then, he tore back the hinged lid on the empty tin of peas and pulled out two Swiss HG M1985 fragmentation grenades. He put one in his pocket and held the other in his hand. Finally, he opened an empty can of carrots and took out a small bag that could be worn around the waist. He passed the belt around and snapped the clips together.
‘Wait here,’ he said to Abdul.
‘Yes.’
‘Get the vests ready. If anyone comes, shoot them.’
He jumped down and hurried out of the loading area. He jogged up the ramp and out into the sunshine. An inky mushroom cloud was unfolding into the blue, already cloaking the walls of the clock tower above him. The sound of sirens was audible, still distant but drawing nearer. He needed to be quick. He ran, knowing that that would not be out of the ordinary given the panic that was erupting around him, sprinting hard along the side of the building until he got to the security booth that served the main exit onto Bridge Street.
The two policemen were out of the booth, standing at the fence and looking east to the seat of the blast. He drew a little closer and saw Faik walking to the gate, fifty feet away. Behind him he saw Nazir, Mo, Bilal and Aneel. The men were in position, just as they were supposed to be.
He slowed to a fast walk.
One of the policemen turned to him. ‘Stay back, sir. There’s been a bomb.’
‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘Where?’
‘Underground station. Two, I think – one inside and one out. Best stay here. It’s not safe out there.’
The policeman turned back to the fence.
Ibrahim pulled the pin of the grenade and rolled it, underarm, into the space between the booth and the fence where the two men were standing.
He pressed himself behind a brick wall strut and held his breath.
Neither policeman saw the grenade. Their attention was distracted. It was equipped with a pre-segmented shell filled with 155 grams of high explosive. The blast turned the steel casing into a storm of razored shrapnel, and it blazed out in all directions. The men were peppered with shards, their backs absorbing most of the damage. They slumped against the fence and then slid down it to the ground, blood pooling on the concrete beneath them.
The door to the booth was ajar. There was a button on the wall that released the lock on the turnstiles, and he pressed it, hearing a satisfying click from outside. The men ran for the gate. Faik pushed through the gate first. He was grinning.
‘The weapons are in place,’ Ibrahim said as Nazir and Mo followed Faik through the turnstiles.
‘Where?’
‘Follow the road to the loading area. Abdul is waiting for you.’
He was still inside the booth when he saw the man with the gun.
He was covered in ash and soot, and his clothes were torn, but he did not appear to have been injured. He was walking to the gate, a pistol held out before him in a steady two-handed grip. Ibrahim shouted a warning, but it was too late. Bilal was negotiating the turnstile, his range of movement severely curtailed. The man with the gun adjusted his aim and fired two shots from twenty feet away. They both found their target. Bilal was struck in the leg and the back and fell forward, jamming the gate with his body. Aneel was behind him, and now the turnstile was blocked. Ibrahim watched, helplessly, as the man changed his aim and shot him, too.
Ibrahim tensed, expecting one or both of them to trigger their suicide vests, but they did not. They must have died before they could reach for the triggers. He shouldered his way out of the booth, raised the Uzi and fired a long burst through the railings. The man dropped to the ground and rolled behind the cover of a bus.
He ran. Faik, Nazir and Mo were ahead of him.
‘Bilal?’ Faik called back to him. He hadn’t seen what had happened.
‘Shot by the police. And Aneel. Put them out of your mind. There are five of us. That is enough.’
They ran down the ramp back into the building.
‘We must be quick. They will start to move the targets.’
Ibrahim took off his jacket and dropped it as he ran, freeing the Uzi. He led the way back to the loading dock, the other men following behind him. As he turned onto the ramp, he saw two members of the resident catering staff coming towards them. He raised the submachine gun and sprayed them with automatic fire. The man and the woman were close, and it would have been difficult to miss them. They were stitched with several rounds each, both of them stumbling, halting and falling to their knees.
Ibrahim ran by them to the van. Abdul was in the back. He opened the door and handed out the hidden weapons. Each man had a submachine gun, a handgun, multiple magazines and three grenades.
Ibrahim turned to the newcomers. ‘Do you have your vests?’
He could tell from the bulk that was evident beneath their jackets that they did. Faik unzipped his coat. He was wearing an armless gilet with stitched-on loops into which six pipe bombs had been fitted. Each explosive was surrounded by a fragmentation jacket that was stuffed with nails, screws, nuts, and ball bearings. It was the shrapnel that effectively turned each jacket into a crude, body-worn claymore mine. Mohammed had made them in his workshop and delivered them yesterday.
‘Take off your jackets. Let the infidels see them.’
They did.
They had smuggled their own vests into the building inside two paper sacks of potatoes. Abdul had put on one of the vests. He handed Ibrahim the remaining one.
Ibrahim put it on. It was heavy, around forty pounds. But it felt good. It made him feel potent.
He would have liked to pray, but there was no time.
‘You know what to do?’
Each man nodded that he did.
There was nothing else to say. Ibrahim took a breath to ready himself and then led the way into the heart of the building.
Pope, Snow and McNair approached the gate, weapons drawn. The first man had fallen onto his face. The second man had tried to force the gate, but it had been blocked by the first man’s body. He had taken a step back and had looked as if he was about to run when Pope shot him, too. Snow approached the second man.
‘Be careful,’ Pope called. ‘He could have a vest on.’
Snow fired a shot into his leg from twenty feet away. The limb jerked, but the man did not move. He was dead.
The man lying inside the turnstile was motionless, but Pope was not prepared to take chances with him either. He stayed out of range, aimed and fired a round into his thigh. No movement. He was dead, too. Pope hurried ahead, took the man by the ankles and hauled him out of the way.
‘What do we do?’ Snow said.
‘I’m going in. Paddy – you’re with me.’
‘And me?’ Snow asked.
‘Find a policeman, tell him what’s happened, then come after us.’
‘You see how he fired?’ McNair said. ‘Close bursts, targeted. He’s been trained.’
Pope nodded. He had noticed that, too.
‘This is bad.’
McNair dropped to his haunches next to the man beside the gate. He unzipped the man’s jacket and swore colourfully. Pope turned to look.
The man was wearing a gilet fitted with pipe bombs.
‘It’s worse than that,’ Pope said. ‘Hurry, Snow. Tell the police we’ve got multiple suicide bombers inside. We’re going to need backup.’
Snow sprinted away.
He turned to McNair. ‘Ready?’
McNair nodded.
‘Come on.’
Pope pushed through the turnstile and ran in the same direction as the attackers.
Chapter Eighteen
Ibrahim led the way. He knew the layout of this part of the building from visiting it every day for the last few weeks. They climbed a flight of stairs out of
the basement and emerged in the kitchens. There was a series of dining rooms set out along the oak-panelled corridor that began at the entrance to the kitchen. The staff of the refreshments department were responsible for the food and drink that was served. There were four chefs in the kitchen this afternoon – three men and one woman. They had switched on a radio and were gathered around it as the presenter breathlessly relayed the developing news of the bombing at the Underground station.
Ibrahim raised his Uzi and sprayed them with bullets. Stray rounds sparked off the pots and pans on the metal shelving, but most of them found their marks. The chefs dropped to the floor, one of them sliding off the shining stainless steel counter and bringing a pot of peeled carrots down atop him.
‘Eyes open,’ Ibrahim called out.
His men advanced in stooped crouches, fanning out, each of them with his weapon drawn and ready to fire. They were well trained and experienced soldiers. Death was not a stranger to them; they had walked with Him for months. Ibrahim knew that they would be ready to kill when the moment presented itself.
He knew that they were ready to die, too.
Ibrahim led the way through the kitchen. There was a window in each of the double doors at the far end, and he glanced through into the corridor beyond. An alarm was sounding. Ibrahim didn’t know what it signified, but he guessed that it had been triggered following the blasts outside. He hoped, and suspected, that it would mean that the people inside the building would be held in place until the outside was secured.
Abdul, Faik, Nazir and Mo waited for his instructions.
‘You remember the plan?’ They nodded, but he repeated it anyway. ‘We take the steps to the level up from here. Then we split. Faik – you are with me. We go left and take the long route to the lobby. Abdul, Nazir, Mo – you go right. We meet there. Shoot anyone you see.’
Mohammed had laid out their tactics. They knew that they would, in all likelihood, come across stiff resistance as they headed to the chamber of the Commons. Splitting into two separate teams would increase the odds of at least one of them making it. After all, they only needed one man to get inside.