One Way Out

by A. A. Dhand

  ‘What now?’ said Philip.

  Harry put his arms around Aaron, checked the time and said, ‘We wait.’

  13.29.

  One minute to go.

  Harry hugged his family a little tighter, thinking of Saima. She wasn’t far away, at the mosque observing Friday prayers, about a quarter-mile from City Park.

  He watched the tiny hand on his Rolex ticking down the seconds until the time hit 13.30.

  Harry felt the tremors first, then a deafening explosion that shook the ground. The light bulbs surged then popped simultaneously.

  Joyti screamed.

  THREE

  Saima Virdee was almost at the end of her Friday prayers, engaged in the final act of turning her head on to her right shoulder, back to the centre and then on to her left. Her eyes were drawn by the wide windows of the new Mehraj mosque, built on the site of an old wool mill that had been abandoned for decades. She could see much of the city from its elevated position.

  More than just a place of worship, the enormous mosque had become a community hub. It had four levels. The basement, technically not part of the actual mosque, was an organized 6,000-square-metre space accommodating aid purchased from worshippers’ charitable donations, which could be transported around the globe to areas often destroyed by war. On the ground floor was the grand hall, suitable for weddings and other religious gatherings. The first floor was for prayers, with separate male and female areas, and the top floor housed an impressive white dome, modelled on the Taj Mahal.

  Local and national press had described it as the most striking piece of religious architecture in the north, using marble from India, stone from Saudi Arabia and calligraphy artwork from Pakistan. Saima had fallen in love with the place.

  She was whispering ‘Assalamu alaykum wa rahma tullaah’ when something happened. It felt like the foundations of the mosque shook and she heard the windows vibrate.

  Saima hesitated, her head momentarily pausing and her eyes darting back towards the windows. Ahead the elderly lady leading Friday prayers also hesitated. Only a fraction of a pause.

  ‘Assalamu alaykum wa rahma tullaah.’

  The collective voice of the female worshippers had changed – a subtle change but Saima clearly heard it.

  Fear.

  What on earth was that?

  Prayers completed, Saima left her mat on the floor and hurried out towards the doors, other women falling in behind.

  They exited the hall into a wide, marble foyer to find the men already there.

  The air filled with nervous chatter and loud cries for God to help them all as people started to turn away from the windows, rushing downstairs.

  Saima was horrified to see an immense plume of black smoke rising high above City Park, where a fire of herculean proportions was raging. A cloud of ash was beginning to block out the light. She chewed her lip, afraid, thinking of Harry and Aaron, her hand shaking, clawing at her pocket for her phone. For a few seconds, in her mind, the clamour around her faded to silence.

  The ash cloud hit the mosque and everything went dark.

  Screams came from the foyer. Shouts to close any open windows. People were running down the stairs. A fall, a scream, cries for help – other calls for calm.

  Saima retreated into the prayer room.

  Hellfire. It was a common enough word in Saima’s childhood home and one her mother had used to frighten Saima into obeying God.

  She tried to call Harry. No reception.

  Her hands scrabbled to send a text.

  Message failed.

  She rushed to the rack where her shoes were and hurriedly put them on before charging back into the hallway. Saima pushed through the crowd, thinking only one thing.

  Aaron.

  She desperately needed to connect to Harry, her finger continually hitting Redial.

  Just as she reached the ground floor the imam’s voice came over the internal speakers.

  ‘Please everyone return to the grand hall. You must not leave the mosque, it is not safe. The doors are locked. Please make your way to the grand hall immediately.’

  He repeated his request in Urdu. While some followed the order, others, including Saima, headed for the front door. She was dismayed to see people turning away from it, finding it locked.

  With little option but to follow, Saima entered the grand hall but stayed at the back. When the time came to leave, she would be first out.

  She never stopped hitting Redial, praying for mobile reception to return.

  It took an age for everyone to convene inside the hall. Saima thought she heard men grappling with each other outside, several others appealing for calm.

  Saima glanced out of the windows. The smoke was starting to lift. She couldn’t prevent visions of the end of times flitting across her mind.

  Imam Hashim, dressed in his usual Islamic robes, appeared on the raised stage at the front of the hall and the thousand-strong congregation fell quiet. A dozen or so men surrounded the doorway.

  Saima heard her mother’s voice again. Hellfire.

  Imam Hashim stared into the crowd, face serious, arms resting by his side. ‘We have been informed by the police that we cannot leave. The doors, my friends, are locked.’

  FOUR

  Harry placed his son in Joyti’s arms. Aaron tried to resist, afraid, and Harry kissed his forehead. They were OK, but was Saima?

  ‘I’ll swap you a child for your phone, Mum,’ Harry said into the darkness. He checked Philip was OK, relieved to hear he was. The force of the blast could have given the man a heart attack.

  They had all survived. That was something.

  What exactly had happened?

  Harry unlocked Joyti’s phone, his date-of-birth the PIN, and turned on the torch, breathing life into the gloomy cellar. He glanced at Aaron, wounded by the sight of his little boy’s terrified face, tears streaming down his cheeks. He tried to call Saima.

  No reception.

  She was fine. Secure inside the mosque. He had to believe that.

  Harry handed Joyti her phone and made to leave. ‘Wait here for me to come back,’ he said, reaching down to reassure Aaron once more. ‘Don’t worry, little one. I’ll be back very soon.’ Aaron cried harder, alarmed Harry was leaving, but he had no choice.

  Almost ten minutes after the explosion, he stepped outside the Bradford Club. He’d been expecting the July heat to hit him as he left but, even so, the force took him by surprise. The thick smoke made it worse.

  Terrorism.

  The smell made him recoil. Dust and ash coated his clothes immediately. Those famous images of 9/11 flooded his mind.

  What had been hit to produce an ash cloud like this?

  Harry dealt with fear every day but this was unfamiliar territory. A bomb. Had to be.

  Harry hurried down Piece Hall Yard, checking his surroundings constantly for threat. He felt vulnerable and didn’t like it, particularly not with Aaron and Joyti so close by. He needed to get them to safety but he couldn’t do that until he knew what he was up against.

  Harry turned right on to Hustlergate and stopped dead in the street.

  The clear blue skies were no more. An enormous mushroom cloud of black smoke had bloomed over City Park.

  Visibility was poor. He could feel the heat from an angry fire but he couldn’t see it.

  Harry heard sirens in the distance, the sound of helicopter blades too.

  He struggled with who to call first. His instinct was for Saima, not his colleagues at Trafalgar House, but it didn’t matter.

  No reception.

  Harry imagined the cell masts were overloaded, the whole of Bradford calling their loved ones. Surely Saima would have been safe inside the mosque – it was far enough away.

  Dismayed, he put the phone away and hurried into the smoke – towards the heat of a fire.

  ‘Christ,’ he whispered and inhaled a mouthful of smog that made him cough until he retched.

  City Hall was on fire and the clock tower, wh
ich had survived the second world war, had been destroyed.

  City Park was no longer there. The fountains were no more. The entire landscape had sunk several feet below ground level. All the shops around the perimeter had been obliterated.

  The park was a hole in the ground.

  Locals had referred to the centre of town as a hole in the ground for more than a decade while they awaited an expensive regeneration project that had never materialized. Now the phrase took on new meaning.

  He hoped everyone had got out.

  Dust, smoke and heat stung Harry’s eyes and he raised his hands to shield them from an approaching gust of heavy air. The sound of sirens was growing ever louder. He doubled over and coughed a lungful of soot out of his system.

  Forced to retreat, he saw people in doorways venturing to have a look, their faces filled with perplexed disbelief.

  Harry was thinking so many things:

  Was Saima OK?

  How could he get his mother and Aaron to safety?

  Was another blast coming? Again his thoughts went to images of the 9/11 disaster. Nobody had envisaged a second plane until it hit.

  He turned back into Piece Hall Yard, now staggering from the cumulative hurt only smoke could inflict.

  He couldn’t bring Aaron out here yet.

  In the club he locked the doors behind him and turned to see Philip standing unsure in the hallway.

  ‘Detective? What’s happened?’

  Around an angry coughing fit, Harry told him what he had seen, then made for the cellar.

  ‘Hardeep?’ his mother said, voice sharp with concern before he reached the staircase.

  ‘I told you to stay put.’ He tried for stern but the sight of her face softened him. ‘I’m OK, Mum.’

  She threw her arms around him. Harry knew that embrace, a mother’s desperation to keep him safe. It hadn’t diminished with age.

  ‘Seriously, Mum, I’m OK.’

  ‘Daddy, I don’t like it here,’ piped up Aaron with his usual matter-of-fact delivery.

  Harry stepped away from his mother and scooped Aaron into his arms, embracing him tightly.

  Aaron recoiled a little. ‘You smell funny, Daddy.’

  ‘We’re going to leave soon, baby. OK?’

  ‘I want to go now,’ said Aaron, burying his face into Harry’s neck.

  Harry turned to his mother and informed her in Punjabi, a language Aaron didn’t understand, what he had seen. Philip looked confused and Harry simply nodded towards the front door, encouraging him to take a look.

  Joyti’s face mirrored the ones Harry had seen outside.

  ‘I know,’ said Harry.

  ‘What … what are we going to do?’ said Joyti, looking worriedly at Aaron.

  ‘I don’t know but I need to let Saima know we’re OK. She’ll be worried.’

  He checked his phone.

  Still no reception.

  Harry was thinking of his next move. He lived a mile from here but needed to get Aaron further away than that. His mother lived in Thornton, a leafy suburb far enough for Harry to feel they would be safe.

  He could hear Saima’s voice inside his head.

  Get our boy to safety.

  Harry kept tight hold of Aaron. Philip hadn’t ventured outside, looking afraid and unsure of himself. Harry told him of his fears about a secondary device and that he needed to make his own decision on whether to stay. To his mother he said, ‘Come on, Mum, we’re leaving.’

  She stopped him as if reading his mind and said, ‘Saima?’

  Harry rubbed Aaron’s back.

  ‘She’ll be safe at the mosque. Right now, I need to get Aaron and you to safety.’

  FIVE

  Saima stood at the back of the room, watching carefully.

  Imam Hashim, at age forty one of the youngest imams in the city, stood centre stage in the grand hall of the mosque. Behind him was a large screen where a video clip had started to play – a clip also released on social media and, unknown to the worshippers, currently trending on Twitter.

  It showed a dozen men, nothing more than silhouettes, sitting silently while a voiceover relayed their message.

  Today we, the Patriots, unleashed the largest bomb to have been detonated on UK soil since the second world war. We have planted a similar bomb inside one of the hundred and five mosques in Bradford. This bomb will be detonated should any worshippers in any of these mosques attempt to leave.

  A wave of nervous whispers rippled through the crowd. Saima felt her heart racing, her mind a mess with worry for Harry and Aaron.

  Our demands are simple. Bradford is home to a group who call themselves Almukhtaroon – the chosen ones. Their slogan is ‘Death to the West’ and they seek to impose their ways on the UK and its citizens. This group, led by a man called Abu-Nazir, incite religious hatred but they have so far managed to stay on the right side of the law. The UK government has tried and failed to secure prison sentences for leaders of the so-called Almukhtaroon, making a mockery of our justice system.

  Saima knew all about Abu-Nazir. He was a white convert to Islam, born and raised in Newcastle, before moving to London where something had caused him to veer towards extremist ideology. He was considered a disgrace to the Islamic community. She watched the video, her mood souring.

  No more. Today we issue this demand, that the leaders of Almukhtaroon are to be taken into custody and brought to us at the mosque where we have hidden the bomb.

  Once the bomb has been located, if the security services attempt to storm the mosque, we will detonate.

  If worshippers attempt to leave any mosque before we say so, we will detonate.

  If any of our demands are not met, we will detonate.

  The other hundred and four mosques in Bradford will be allowed to evacuate once the bomb’s location has been verified by the police.

  We are testing the Islamic community. Will they come together to ensure the safety of their worshippers? One hundred and five mosques will need to demonstrate that when a threat is brought to their doorstep, their resolve to protect one another is robust.

  The wider community need to ask themselves a vital question: are the lives of four toxic individuals who seek to bring harm and division to the British way of life of equal value to the many lives of innocent Muslim worshippers?

  Sacrifices must be made. Difficult decisions undertaken.

  Our capabilities must not be underestimated.

  This morning we provided a twenty-minute warning to evacuate City Park. We will not do so again.

  We require the leaders of Almukhtaroon by 06.00 tomorrow.

  Non-compliance will result in significant loss of life.

  The transmission ended.

  A stunned silence filled the room.

  In spite of their predicament, Saima seized on the positive news that City Park had been given a twenty-minute warning. Harry would have escaped with Aaron in that time, wouldn’t he?

  She had to believe it.

  Saima had already lost most of her family by marrying Harry. She had a sister, Nadia, with whom she had become reconciled the year before, but they were not close. Truthfully, all she had was Harry and Aaron.

  Saima saw life and death on a daily basis in the A&E department where she worked. She was able to keep her head in difficult situations, but this was on another level.

  She was still clutching her mobile phone to her ear but the networks remained down. In the far window she saw smoke continuing to rise from City Park. Such appalling devastation.

  Who could survive that?

  The dread was twisting her insides, making it hard to breathe.

  Nervous chatter was sweeping the room. A man at the front stood up and shouted, ‘Why should we stay here like caged animals?’ Others joined him.

  Imam Hashim raised his hands and asked for calm. He was starting to lose the hall.

  Saima didn’t know what to think. There was simply no way they could keep thousands of people inside a hundred and five
mosques. How on earth would the terrorists know if people left? The improbability of the Patriots keeping watch on all the mosques seemed clear to Saima.

  Why couldn’t the imam see that?

  His voice boomed from the speakers, the microphone crackling. He ordered everyone to stay where they were and be calm. Saima had never heard him speak with such force. She didn’t think anyone had.

  The crowd fell into stunned silence.

  ‘Let me speak. Listen to me. Then we can discuss our options,’ he said.

  He raised his hands for the dozen or so men who had stood up to sit back down. Hashim told the hall that the Patriots had given the security services advance warning of what was happening in Bradford before their broadcast had gone live on the internet – only a short window. The information had been cascaded to the mosques and an urgent decision taken to seal their doors. Nobody had known exactly what was going to happen and the consensus had been that the worshippers would be safest inside. Hashim was clear about what needed to be done now.

  ‘We speak about solidarity. We hold charitable events for Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and our Rohingya Muslim brothers and sisters. The persecution of our people is everywhere – a continual test. The intelligence is apparently extremely credible that one of our mosques contains an explosive device. Our responsibility is as a collective. If we walk out of our doors and somewhere in Bradford that bomb is detonated – because of our fear and our need to save our own lives – then we, as a community, will have failed. We have limited information on other potential threats. For now, we are safest in our places of worship. The hour is dark, but if we panic it will become darker still. On our own doorstep, will we not save the lives of our neighbours?’

  Hashim moved his head right to left, surveying the crowd, who had become subdued.

  ‘I ask for your restraint. I ask you to trust this great city to defuse this unprecedented situation. Failure today will condemn us – across the world and inside our own minds. We must not act with haste.’

  He paused. The room remained painfully silent, the atmosphere heavy.