by Mark Dawson
The photographs had been taken with a long lens from positions that would have made it very difficult for the subject to know that she was being observed. Pope recognised the locales from his own visits to Marrakech to see the girl’s mother two years ago. There was a picture of the central square, Jemma el-Fnaa, the girl bartering with a local tradesman for a bag of fresh oranges. There was another as she came out of a grocery store with a bag of supplies. Another showed her disappearing into the mouth of a narrow, darkened alleyway, the sort that made close surveillance almost impossible in the city.
The subject of the series of photographs was Isabella Rose. Pope knew that the girl was fifteen, although, as he had confirmed when he had met her on the South Bank on the day of the attacks, she could easily have passed for much older than that. These photos, though, had captured something in her that he hadn’t noticed when they had met. The girl had always looked like her mother. She had the same blonde hair, the same blue eyes, the same porcelain skin. But she had grown up. She was taller. Her hair was longer. More fundamental than either of those changes was the severe cast that lay behind her beautifully defined features. Her mother had had the same edge to her appearance, an otherworldly bleakness that Pope had always found unnerving. Isabella had it, too. It was chilling in one so young.
Now, the likeness between mother and daughter was truly striking.
The final shot was in profile. The girl was wearing a sleeveless top and was turned so that her right-hand side was presented to the camera. There were tattoos of two roses on her right shoulder and arm. Beatrix had had the same tattoos, adding another each time she eliminated one of the names on her list. She had never had the chance to add the final rose, the one that would denote her murder of Pope’s despicable predecessor as head of Group Fifteen. Her daughter had completed the set for her.
As far as he knew, there were no photographs of Isabella Rose that existed in the information held by Her Majesty’s government. There had been an entire file on the girl, but Pope had arranged for Group Two to have that deleted, together with every official reference that she had ever existed. It was a last favour for Beatrix, the request of a dying woman who had been so badly wronged by her country. He had been unable to refuse it.
Bloom dropped the photographs on the table and looked up with a sceptical expression on his face.
‘You’re serious?’
‘I am.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘You want to send a fifteen-year-old girl to spy on al-Khawari?’
‘I do.’
‘And you know how foolish that sounds, Captain?’
‘She’s not an ordinary girl. Her mother worked for Group Fifteen. She was Number One before John Milton and before me.’
‘What? That’s Beatrix Rose’s girl?’
‘That’s right. Isabella.’
‘I thought we lost her?’
‘No, sir, that’s not strictly true. I gave Beatrix my word that I would hide her. We didn’t think it would be safe for her after what she was planning for Control. Her mother made some very influential enemies.’
Bloom nodded. Beatrix’s quest for revenge had caused ripples around the world. Control and his five rogue agents had been working for Manage Risk, a large and powerful American private military contractor. Beatrix had eliminated them, one after the other, and the fight had concluded on American soil near to The Lodge, Manage Risk’s vast headquarters in North Carolina’s Great Dismal Swamp. Isabella had murdered Control and two guards in a North Carolina hospital. Pope and Milton had arrived in time to get the girl to safety.
‘What are you proposing, Control?’
‘Isabella is an unusually talented girl. Her mother trained her thoroughly in the year they had together before she started to work her way through her list. She’s had weapons training, she’s fit and strong and she’s been given the rudiments of surveillance and counter-surveillance. She has no family and no friends that I can find. She won’t be missed. I am proposing that we give her a new identity and a cover story, and enrol her into that school with the aim of ingratiating herself with Khalil al-Khawari.’
‘The son.’
‘Correct.’
‘What would that achieve?’
‘We’ve investigated his social media accounts. It’s his sixteenth birthday next month, sir. Look at this.’
Pope spread printouts from the boy’s Facebook page over the photographs of Isabella. Bloom looked at them. The printouts contained details of Khalil al-Khawari’s birthday party. It was to be held at his father’s property on the shore of Lake Geneva.
‘We would be there with her. Number Nine and Number Twelve would be her parents. I’d be there, too. There might be another way to get inside, but if there isn’t, we can run this in the background.’
Eventually, a small smile curled the crinkled edges of Bloom’s mouth.
‘You know this is madness?’
‘A little,’ Pope admitted.
‘And you know that there is no way I would be able to get it approved?’
‘That’s an issue for you, sir.’
Bloom steepled his fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘With all respect, does anyone have a better idea?’
‘No,’ Bloom said. ‘They don’t.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
The house was in Leytonstone, in the East End of London. Queen’s Road was a short distance from the Underground station. A Victorian terrace ran along both sides, with gardens between the front of the houses and the road. Most of the gardens had been concreted over to provide parking spaces, and those cars that could not be parked off the road were crammed on both sides, leaving enough room for a single car to pass through. Wheelie bins were left on the pavements, bushes that had never been cut back towered out of overgrown gardens, and Union Jacks and the cross of Saint George were hung against the inside of windows.
Mohammed drove along the terrace, turned and then drove back. He saw nothing to suggest that the house was unsafe, but nevertheless, it paid to be careful. He found a space on the side of the road fifty feet farther along and reversed into it. He waited there for two hours, watching the comings and goings. Elderly women pushed shopping trolleys toward the parade of shops near to the station. Tattooed skinheads walked muscular attack dogs. Kids with nothing better to do smoked cigarettes and drank from bottles wrapped in brown paper bags. It was a poor area, down at heel, with a diverse range of ethnicities and a transient population. The sort of place it was easy to disappear into.
He listened to the radio. There was a discussion about the terrorist atrocity and the steps that needed to be taken to combat it. The usual roll call of suspects was rehashed. Al-Qaeda seemed to be the favourite at this early stage, although there was the suggestion that the Islamic State was a possibility, too. The usual knee-jerk reaction, Mohammed thought. It must be the Islamic bogeyman. How convenient. How easy. They had much to learn. The discussion moved on to what would happen once the investigation had determined who was to blame. The presenter referred to a snap opinion poll, taken that day, which recorded that the percentage of people who would be prepared to back military action had climbed by 10 per cent. The reluctance to commit British troops to foreign wars seemed to be waning. The thirst for revenge was growing stronger.
Mohammed heard the distinctive thwup-thwup-thwup of a Chinook and looked up through the windshield as the big, two-rotored chopper rumbled overhead. There was an airfield at the Honourable Artillery Company in Central London. It must have been headed there. It was an apt underlining of the increasingly martial mood. It wasn’t unusual to see the military in or over London these days. That had been anticipated, and he was glad to see it.
Mohammed kept a careful watch on the property throughout the two hours. Nothing struck him as suspicious. Eventually, he concluded that it was safe enough for him to enter.
He approached the property. Mohammed had seen the place advertised on G
umtree and knew that it would be perfect for his purposes. He had paid for a six-month tenancy in cash, the landlord asking him no awkward questions and the paperwork kept to a minimum. The garden had been paved over, and the husk of an old and broken washing machine stood against the wall. The bins had been covered in graffiti and were filled with fetid black bin liners that had been dumped there by neighbours. The front door opened into a small porch with a screen door behind it.
Mohammed took out his key, unlocked the front door, went inside, unlocked the screen door and then stepped into the quiet house. He was in the small sitting room. He had drawn the floral curtains the first time he had visited, and he had kept them closed since. Grey, insipid light leached through the thin fabric, revealing the moth-eaten sofa, the gas fire and the paint that was peeling in leprous folds from the walls. He paused and listened. He could hear the sound of a muffled argument from the street outside, but there was no sound in here. He breathed in, smelling the faintest tang of cordite. Not too strong, but there, and easily identifiable if you knew what it smelled like.
Mohammed knew.
The front room led to a corridor with stairs going up to the first floor. Mohammed had been sleeping up there, but he had other business to attend to today. The kitchen was at the back of the house next to the downstairs toilet. There was a window to the side that was half covered with a dirty roller blind, with enough space beneath it to give a glimpse into an overgrown garden. There was a door beneath the stairs. He opened it and pulled the drawstring to switch on the light. The sixty-watt bulb glowed brightly, casting its light onto the flight of rough concrete steps that led down into the cellar. He had to duck his head as he descended, reaching the foot and then reaching out for the light switch for the strip light that he had fitted to give himself the illumination to do what he needed to do.
The basement was large, filling the footprint of the reception room and kitchen that were above it. He had bought a large decorator’s trestle table from B&Q and unfolded it so that he had a large enough surface to work on. The three old artillery shells were on the floor next to the table. They were about two feet in length, reaching up to just below his knee. They were cylindrical, with an ogive-shaped nose that made them look like oversized bullets. They were easy enough to find. Eastern Europe was awash with them, and a contact in Chechnya had sourced six for him. They had been smuggled into the country on the same trawler as the gunmen who had stormed the Palace of Westminster, collected in a rented panel van and driven to London. It had been very, very easy. Mohammed had known that it would be.
He took one of the shells and heaved it up, carefully lowering it onto the table so that he could get at the fat rounded end. The shell was equipped with a percussive fuse that detonated the explosive on impact with the ground. Provided he was careful, it was safe to handle. He used an electric saw to cut away the cartridge case that held the propellant charge, so that he could get to the projectile itself. He opened it up and started to scoop out the explosive inside. He made a pile of it on the table. Each shell contained eight kilograms of plastic bonded explosive. The three bombs that he had prepared for the first attack had been created from the explosive that he had accumulated from the first three shells.
He took a plastic Tupperware container and swept the explosive into it. There were already fifteen full containers on the table. He was planning on twenty-five. The rest of his equipment was on the floor. He had bought twenty bags of galvanised 30 mm nails. He had spread those purchases out across several builders’ merchants so as not to arouse suspicion. They would be packed in tight around the explosive to maximise the damage the blast would cause. He had two suitcases; cheap wheeled ones that he had found in a shopping centre near Dalston Kingsland station. And he had two pay-as-you-go mobile phones that he had picked up from the Carphone Warehouse in the same precinct. He’d soldered wires to the speaker output circuits of each phone so that when they rang, current would flow to the trigger of a thyristor that would then send current to the alligator clips that he had fastened to the detonators.
He only had to finish with the explosive, and he would be ready. It was another three or four hours.
He picked up a fresh shell, lowered it to the table and started to work.
PART FOUR
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Isabella slowed at the junction to the road that would approach her new armoury. Her mother had drilled many lessons into her during the year that they had spent together in Morocco, and this exhortation – that she must observe the surroundings before approaching a building containing material that could be compromising – was one that she particularly remembered. She watched the comings and goings – the taxis bearing tourists to the out-of-town shopping mall just off the Route de Safi, the trucks and vans of the local traders – until she was confident that she – and the street – were not observed.
She gunned the engine of the KLX, crossed the road, put down the kickstand and slid off the bike. She stood outside the door to the unit and waited again, listening. She could hear the screech of a buzz saw from one of the other units, but nothing nearer that gave her cause for concern. She took the key from the string she wore around her neck, slid it into the lock and turned it, then heaved the door halfway up.
She took the key for the lockers, pushed it into the lock of the nearest cabinet and opened the door. This one was reserved for her AR-15 semi-automatic. She took the gun, hefted it in her hands and then held the stock against her shoulder. She hadn’t fired it for a while. Too long. She grabbed six hundred rounds of 5.56 ammunition and put the boxes into the bag she had brought with her. She broke the rifle into two parts, separating the receiver from the barrel, and slipped them into the bag, too. She shut and locked the locker, pulled down the main door until it clicked shut, and locked that, too. Then, she put the bag on her shoulders, straddled the bike and gunned the 250 cc engine.
She rode away from the row of units, left the shops and outlets behind her, and headed south, out into the desert.
She passed through Mechouar-Kasbah, past the airport and then down on the R203. She went by the lush green of the Argan Golf Resort and continued for another twenty minutes until she was in the desert. The Moroccan Sahara was nearly two hundred miles away, and the arid landscape was a little too green to be called a real desert, but there were sand dunes and displaced rocks and, most important, isolation.
It was six in the evening, and the sun was falling quickly down into the horizon. It would be cold soon, but for now, the earth pulsed out enough heat for Isabella to sweat beneath her helmet.
She passed a Freightliner heading into the city, rode on for another ten minutes and then cut onto the dirt track that she remembered from her previous trips here. It descended into a wadi, the dried-out riverbed hidden from view by steep walls and a grove of thirsty acacia and yucca. She rested the bike against the wall of the wadi, opened the bag and reassembled the AR-15. She pushed a magazine into the well and walked a few extra steps away from the bike.
She practised for an hour. First, she went through a dry-firing exercise. She picked a rock a hundred feet away, and with the weapon cocked and on safety, she assumed the position of a patrol carry and walked forward. She brought the weapon up, aimed and practised the squeeze of the trigger. Then she dropped to the sandy bed and lay prone. She cradled the weapon, carefully placed a coin on the barrel and then squeezed the trigger so carefully that the coin stayed balanced and in place. Her mother had explained that a good steady squeeze on the trigger was the most important thing, assuming that a weapon’s sights were aligned, to ensure an accurate shot. She clambered up and went through her reloading drills, both with and without retention of the magazine. She shouldered the weapon, pushed in an empty magazine, dry fired, dropped the magazine and, in the same motion, brought a new magazine up. She guided the second magazine home with her index finger pointed straight up its side. She hit the bolt release and went back to dry firing. It was a smooth and well-practised dr
ill, and although it wasn’t easy to time precisely, she felt that she had shaved another fraction of a second from her previous best time.
These exercises took her half an hour. By the time she was done, she was bathed in sweat. The sun was below the level of the horizon now, and she was beginning to get a little cold. She collected a jacket from her bag and then climbed back down to the riverbed again.
Finally, she fired the weapon with live ammunition.
She ended with a misfire routine, and then, two hours after she had arrived and with six hundred rounds down range, she decided that she was done.
She was pleased. Her mother had taught her a saying. Beatrix had said that an amateur practised something until she did it right, but a professional practised until she couldn’t do it wrong. Isabella worked to that standard. She felt that she was making progress.
She dropped to her knees and collected the spent rounds, dropping the brass into her bag so as to leave as little trace as possible. She broke down the rifle, stowed it in her bag and got back onto the bike again. She rode along the desiccated watercourse until she found an easier slope to get up and out of it, and then traversed the desert back to the road. She felt the smoother asphalt beneath her wheels, gunned the engine and headed back to the city.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Isabella decided not to go back to the armoury that evening. It was getting colder, and she was a little clammy from the dried, cold sweat on her skin.
She lit candles as she heard the call to prayer from the nearby mosque. She took the bag through to the storage space that had once been the riad’s tiny hammam. She had fitted a gun safe against the wall, and she stored both pieces of the rifle inside, together with the ammunition that she had not fired. She had just closed the safe when she heard the knocking at the front door.